Suspicion of Innocence (16 page)

When she had called he had told her it would be no trouble to send the corrected probate papers by courier for her signature. Gail had said she didn't mind getting out of the office for a few minutes. Besides, there was something she wanted to talk to him about.

They sat on opposite sides of his desk, she in a heavy oak chair that had once been in a turn-of-the-century jury box, Ben in his black leather armchair. He had brought his own furniture from the courthouse when he left—dark, masculine pieces scuffed from years of use.

Over the desk he had hung his favorite Florida landscape paintings, a square arrangement of four heavy gold frames that used to grace the waiting room outside his chambers. Sunset and endless sky over the saw grass prairie. Turkey gobblers in the Central Florida woods. A white heron rising out of a cypress swamp. And Ben's own property in Southwest Dade—rustic cabin, pines, and palmetto scrub.

He opened the file and slid some documents across the desk. They were the same forms she had read at Irene's, retyped with her own name. He gave her a pen.

"I spoke to Irene," he said. "She told me about the police searching Renee's apartment. Said she asked them to. I swear, that woman worries me."

Without looking up, Gail signed the Petition for Administration, then the Oath of Personal Representative. “I think she's beginning to realize how irrational it was. She didn't want me to mention it to you, because you'd think the same thing." When Gail came to the inventory—still to be filled out—she said, "Oh, I forgot to tell you. They're keeping Renee's records for a few days."

"What for?"

"Procedure, I don't know. Frank Britton—he's the sergeant in charge—said he'd send you a preliminary death certificate. Did he?"

"Nothing's come in," Ben said, then added, "Britton. That could be the guy who went out to see Irene a couple of nights ago."

"What did he want?" Gail asked.

"She said they talked about Renee."

"I wish he'd quit bothering her."

Ben smiled. "Oh, I think Irene likes the attention. She said Britton was a nice man. She fixed him some tea."

"This is getting ridiculous. I wonder if you could find out what he thinks he's doing?"

"I could try. I know some people who could ask."

"Ben." Gail hesitated, then said, "Do you think there's anything to it?"

"Oh, I wouldn't worry. Irene overreacted a little is all."

"Be honest."

His face grew serious, deep lines appearing in his forehead. "I don't know, Gail. I've thought long and hard about it. Girl like Renee, she could have been into any number of things. Drugs, sickos of some kind. Kinky sex." He glanced at her. "Sorry if that shocks you."

Gail shrugged a little, aware she found it strange to hear Ben talk about sex, kinky or not. "No, it's all right," she said. "I wanted your opinion."

"I wouldn't say this to Irene, you understand. She's pretty old-fashioned. She thought Renee was just a fun-loving girl who hadn't grown up yet." Ben ran his thumb along the carved edge of his desk. "I think there was more wrong with her. The night of the party. She was acting crazy. I don't know how else to say it."

His eyes rested on Gail for a moment. He swiveled his chair toward the window. "Lord, this is hard to— I took Renee out on the back porch—I mean, I pulled her by the arm and told her to straighten up, she was making a damn fool of herself. There was this—" he paused "—wild look about her. We were out there in the dark and she laughed and— She—"

Gail didn't move.

"She . . . put her hands on me. She said—" Ben shook his head and blinked. "Doesn't matter what she said. Doesn't matter. She was not right in the head. I was thirty years older. And her cousin. Maybe she realized what she was doing and felt embarrassed, I don't know. I'm not going to remember her like that, though. I try to think of her the way she was, when she was a kid. But I figured you ought to know, honey. You asked me if I thought Frank Britton was barking up the wrong tree and I think he is. I think he's wrong as can be."

Ben gripped the arms of the chair, slapping them for emphasis. "Enough of that. Did you sign everything?"

Gail was still reeling. It took her a few seconds. "No. There's one left." She signed the last paper, then passed them all back.

Ben looked at Gail over the file as he dropped the papers back inside. "You said you had something to talk to me about?"

For a moment, she could not think of what it was. "Yes. Carlos Pedrosa."

There was a clock on Ben's credenza, an antique bronze horse rearing on its hind legs, with a white dial in the pedestal it stood on. The clock said one forty-two.

"I'll have to make this fast," Gail said. "Remember I told you I have a case against the same Carlos Pedrosa you want to sell your property to?"

Ben reached for his cigarettes and lighter. "I remember. You represent Doug Hartwell's girl." He drew a cigarette out of the pack, then held it up between two fingers to see if she minded. Gail shook her head.

"Ben, this is between you and me, all right?"

"Sure. What's going on?"

"Carlos is stonewalling on discovery. He won't agree to a reasonable settlement—neither will my clients, to tell the truth." She hesitated, then said, "Larry Black suggested I use your property as bait."

"What did you say?"

"I thought it was a bad idea. Now I'm not sure."

Ben flipped his lighter open with one hand and hit the wheel with his thumb. He inhaled, then tossed the lighter back onto his desk. "Who's the judge on this case?"

"Arlen Coakley."

"I'll talk to him for you."

"Ben—"

"Come on. Arlen and I go way back. We went to grade school together."

"Absolutely not. I didn't come to you for that."

Ben extended his arm to flick his ashes into a heavy pewter ashtray. "You wouldn't accept help out of a pool of quicksand."

She said, "I only wanted to know if I was doing the right thing."

He smiled with one corner of his mouth. "Yes, honey. It's the right thing. I'm proud of you."

Gail felt a rush of emotion so sharp it stung her eyes. She glanced at the bronze horse clock again and stood up. "I have to go. Pedrosa's attorney is coming at two to talk about settlement."

Ben looked at her. "If you need help with Pedrosa, say so." He got up and walked with her to the door. "I'm of two minds with that sale anyway. I don't even like the guy. I wouldn't have talked to him if Renee hadn't introduced us. And what's the matter with his credit that he can't arrange a bank loan and pay me cash? Last weekend I was out there fixing up the cabin, and happened to drive by the construction site. Not a lot of activity going on. Makes me think I might have to foreclose to collect my money."

Gail turned to him. "Carlos Pedrosa is having problems?"

Ben laughed at the look on her face. "I don't know. I'm just telling you what to say to him. Make him sweat a little."

"How do you know he wants the property bad enough to sweat for it?' '

Ben smiled, deep creases in his cheeks. He looked vital again, the years lifting off. He said, "Carlos Pedrosa would make a lousy poker player."

Running back across the street through slow, heavy traffic, the stench of exhaust in her nose, Gail remembered the ranch—scent of pine, clouds reflecting in blue pools of rainwater, wind sighing through the trees.

The painting in Ben's office looked like her memory, but she knew reality was something else. The artist hadn't shown the air conditioner hanging out the back window of the cabin, or the mosquitoes, or the weeds that choked the yard. And there were no people in the painting.

Every winter, before they lost interest, the Strickland descendants had converged on the ranch, clearing the underbrush and fixing whatever was broken, with beer and barbecue to follow. The last cookout Gail attended took place around Christmas before she was due to graduate from the university. Hardly anyone had shown up—a cousin and his wife and kids; Irene and Renee; herself and Dave, engaged to be married in the spring. Ben was there, of course, with his wife, Shirley, who would die of cancer within the year, though no one knew it then. Their two sons had already moved north. Ben wore old jeans and cowboy boots. His hair was still dark brown, just beginning to go gray.

Renee told Gail she wouldn't have come at all, except that Irene wanted to show her off a little, now that Renee had made it through two semesters at Miami-Dade Community College. Renee laughed.
Big deal. Not like Miss Perfect with a three-point-eight at the U of fucking Florida.
She tugged the beer out of Dave's hand when no one else was watching and tilted it back, hanging onto his shoulder. She wiped her mouth.
Guess what? Ben's getting me a car. I'm not supposed to know.

After lunch Irene brought out a chocolate cake with "Congratulations" on it and Ben and Shirley gave Renee a set of car keys. Six months later, the car—a used Plymouth sedan Renee had hated at first sight—would spin out on 1-75 and slam into a retaining wall at three in the morning. The highway patrol would say it was a miracle Renee walked away from it.

But on that afternoon at the ranch, Renee squealed and jumped up and down like a little girl. As the paper plates of cake were being passed around the long wooden table, Gail casually made her announcement. Rather than accept a position in management training at Southeast Bank, she would go to law school. Follow in Ben's footsteps and eventually make as much of a contribution to the community as he had made.

Ben nodded, evidently pleased. The cousins said how brave she was. Dave stared. Renee hardly spoke to her the rest of the afternoon.

For years Gail had remembered the last cookout at the ranch with a pleasantly fuzzy sense of nostalgia. Now the scene replayed itself more clearly. She had chosen her path that day, pushed along by the worst of motives.

Eight

As soon as she sat down at her desk, Gail buzzed Miriam.
 

"Has Anthony Quintana shown up yet?"
 

"Where did you come from?" Miriam asked.
 

"The back way. Is he here?"

"Yes, they called me from the lobby a couple minutes ago. I'll go get him."

"No, wait." Gail pulled the Darden file to the center of her desk. "I want to make a phone call first."

Gail hit the button for an outside line and dialed Charlene Marks's number. If kisses on the cheek and flirtatious repartee in the courthouse corridor had meant anything, Charlene knew Anthony Quintana well enough to give Gail some answers.

To her relief, Charlene was actually in her office.

"No, dear, I do not have a cot at the courthouse," Charlene said with a deep chuckle. "What's doing?"

"Anthony Quintana," Gail said. "I have a question."

"Yes, he's single."

Gail laughed. "Not that question. I wonder if you could tell me what he does besides practice law. Is he connected to any businesses owned by Ernesto Pedrosa? That's his grandfather."

When she had first taken on
Darden
v.
Pedrosa,
Gail had made a few inquiries to find out who the players were. Ernesto Pedrosa was eighty-two years old, a refugee from the Cuban revolution, and about as rich as anyone could reasonably get in Miami. Along with his wife, Digna, and a few other Pedrosas who held minor shares, Ernesto owned not only Pedrosa Development but a Chevrolet dealership, a McDonald's on Calle Ocho, a strip shopping center in Hialeah, two office buildings, several hundred acres of land, and a good chunk of four banks, which he himself—a former banker in Havana—had founded. Carlos Pedrosa's name appeared on the list as manager of Pedrosa Development. Gail hadn't seen the name Anthony Luis Quintana Pedrosa anywhere. But if he had a stake in the company, she wanted to find out.

There was a long silence over the phone, then Charlene said, "I know who Ernesto Pedrosa is, sure."

"Well?" There was something Charlene wasn't saying. "Come on, Charlene. What?"

"I can't get into it. I handled Tony's divorce."

"Really," Gail said. She knew Charlene couldn't ethically talk about a client's liabilities and assets. "When was that?"

"Oh . . . about three years ago, I guess. Why do you want to know all this, anyway?"

"I have a case with him—Nancy Darden is suing Pedrosa Development, remember?"

Charlene took a moment, then said, "Oh, yeah. Our esteemed Senator Hartwell's own little princess." Gail heard a sigh over the line. She could imagine Charlene pacing back and forth with the phone clamped under her square jaw. "Well, I can tell you that Anthony Quintana is not connected to any of Ernesto's operations, including the development company. His ex-wife didn't want to believe it, but there it is."

Gail thought about that. "Why? Anthony's his grandson."

"They had some kind of falling out years ago. Ernesto is supposedly grooming his other grandson to take over. I forget his name." "Carlos Pedrosa?"