Suspicion of Innocence (19 page)

"I'll let you know after I talk to them."
 

"Yes. Call me."

"Tell me something," she said. "What would you have done with that letter?"

He took a few seconds, then shrugged. "Probably nothing."

They stood looking at each other. Gail said, "We never made it to the restaurant."

"This was better. Don't you think?"

She returned his smile. "Except for the mamey."

With a hand briefly on her elbow Anthony turned Gail in the other direction, facing south again, and they began to walk.

She said, "Assuming our clients agree to all this, how soon can I have copies of the invoices? I'll rely on you to make sure Carlos sends me everything." When she didn't hear Anthony reply, she glanced at him.

His eyes were on her face. "Come to my office next week. I'll ask Carlos to bring the records and the three of us can go over them together."

"All right. We have the depositions scheduled for Monday anyway. We may as well use the time." She pushed her hair behind her ear.

He was still looking at her. "Come early. We'll discuss details over lunch."

"Yes," she said. "Good idea. We can draft the final settlement—assuming we really have one."

"I think by then we will have."

That afternoon, Gail listened to the soft purr of the telephone at the Dardens' apartment. Nancy was usually there by four o'clock. She taught kindergarten at a Montessori school.

"Hello?"

"Nancy? This is Gail Connor. I spoke to the other attorney today and we've worked out a tentative settlement."

Gail explained that the case could drag on for months if litigated. That no one could tell what would happen in court. That the settlement was not perfect but acceptable. That Gail was confident it would be approved by Lawrence Black and even by Douglas Hartwell. And she explained—with just the right touch of regret, she thought—about the letter, its implications.

During this, there was dead silence on the line, followed by several interjected
uh-huh's
and finally a series of impatient humming noises.

And then, as Gail had expected, Nancy broke in.

"They're trying to twist everything I said in that letter. I'd like to know whatever happened to free speech in this country."

Gail sighed audibly into the phone. "I know what you mean, but we do the best we can."

"Well, I don't like the way you handled this. I'm sorry, but I don't. I think you should have spoken to us both first and gotten our approval. Bill might have told you to go ahead and talk to this other attorney, but you never checked with me. I didn't know what you were doing."

"Nancy, let me remind you that we have litigated this case for nearly five months now, and it's time to lay it to rest." Gail listened to a little tapping noise over the fine. Nancy's long, French-manicured nails, perhaps.

"I think they should pay us all the interest on the loan. If you get that for us—"

Gail stood up, stretching out the phone cord. "It's not a good idea to start nickel-and-diming Carlos Pedrosa. He's not keen on a settlement either."

"Well, excuse me. Since when is over ten thousand dollars in interest a nickel and a dime?"

"Five thousand. That's half."

"I'll get back to you," Nancy said. "After I discuss this with a few people. If you don't mind. I mean, if that is all right."

"Certainly," Gail said. "But I advise you to do it quickly."

Nancy made a little noise of exasperation and hung up.

Standing by her desk, Gail smoothed the creases out of the letter and put it into the
Darden
v.
Pedrosa
correspondence folder. Even if the letter had not backed Gail into a corner, it had done some good with Nancy Darden. The case hadn't been settled, but it would be, and by Monday, if her luck held.

She put the folder into a brown accordion file with the other Darden papers and dropped the file on the second shelf of her bookcase by the door. She wanted to review it all, but not tonight. On top of the bookcase were three other cases she would take home tonight.

Gail checked her watch. Four fifty-two. A client would be coming in a few minutes. Then, if traffic were not too heavy, she could make it to the marina to pick up Karen by seven. Dave could do what he wanted.

At her window, Gail looked out at the buildings and trees to the north and thought of Monday.

She knew that Anthony Quintana did not intend for Carlos to have lunch with them. That the restaurant would be small and quiet. And that details about the case could be discussed over the telephone in advance, and that Anthony knew all this as well as she did. But she also knew that what is not stated between men and women is politely presumed not to exist.

Gail leaned forward until her head bumped against the glass and glanced down to the street, a sheer drop. The palm trees, foreshortened at this height, moved briskly in the wind. In the intersection she saw an umbrella cart and a black man pushing it. He could have been the Jamaican meat pie vendor, heading home. From overhead, the yellow and orange stripes looked like an exotic flower.

Nine

When Gail opened her eyes on Saturday, it was past eight-thirty. She jerked herself upright and grabbed the clock.

"Damn." Someone had pushed in the alarm button. She got out of bed and dressed quickly in slacks and a cotton shirt.

Dave and Karen were in the kitchen, breakfast on the table. He glanced at her over the top of the sports section.

Gail said, "You let me oversleep."

"Hi, Mom," Karen said. "Daddy fixed me French toast." Her mouth glistened with syrup.

"So I see." She remembered this was what had awakened her, the smells of bacon and French toast and coffee drifting through the air-conditioning vent. "What's the occasion?"

"Since when can't I fix my own daughter breakfast?" Dave folded the paper into quarters and laid it on the neat stack already beside his empty plate.

"I didn't say you couldn't. It's just that you usually hand her a bowl and a box of cereal."

There was only half a cup of coffee left in the pot. Gail poured it into a mug, then moved Karen's beach bag out of the chair opposite Dave and sat down. She stole a piece of French toast off Karen's plate and kissed her cheek.
 

"It's sunny outside. I'm afraid you'll fry like an egg. Is there any sunscreen in your bag?" Karen was going to the beach with some girls from her Brownie troop.

"I don't know. Daddy packed it for me."

Dave began to stack the dishes. "Yes, Gail. Sunscreen and a change of clothes and two towels. I've got everything under control. Marilyn's coming by to pick her up in ten minutes."

"I'm impressed," Gail said. She poured a little milk into her coffee, then noticed Dave had on his Metzger Marine pullover. "You're going to the marina this morning?"

"Yeah, I've got a few things to do."

Dave dropped his silverware on his plate and lay his and Karen's juice glasses on top. The muscles in his arms were taut, the skin burned a ruddy tan. He had been outside with the men this week, he had told Gail, replacing the teak decking on a sailboat, stripped to the waist, sawdust on his hands instead of ink.

She said, "I hope you plan to be here by the time Karen gets back."

"I'm not sure."

Gail looked at him. "Remember I told you I'm going to work today? That's why I needed to get up early."

He took the dishes to the sink. "I might not be back until later. Why don't you pick her up at Marilyn's?"

"Because Marilyn isn't a baby-sitter." Gail glanced at Karen, who was dredging her last bite of French toast through a puddle of syrup. "All right. I'll be home by three. Marilyn wouldn't bring the girls back before that."

The phone rang on the wall beside the refrigerator. Dave picked it up.

Gail daubed at a spot of syrup on Karen's pink T-shirt. "We could rent a video tonight.
The Little Mermaid.”

"Mom." Karen gave a little sigh. "That is such a stupid movie."

Dave held the phone out. "Gail. For you."
 

"Who is it?"

"Says his name's Jimmy Panther."

Wincing a little, Gail got up. She had thought about calling him during the week but had never managed to do it.

"Good morning, Jimmy."

"Hi, how are you?" His voice was deep and resonant even over the telephone. "Your mother gave me the number. I was wondering if you found that clay deer mask at Renee's place."

Her eyes automatically went toward the counter separating the kitchen from the family room. She had taken the mask out of the cardboard box to show Karen and had left it there all week.

"Yes, I did find it. I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to you."

"I'd like to come pick it up. It would take me an hour or so to get there, though."

"We're just going out. I could leave it on the porch. It's a safe neighborhood."

"No, don't do that." There was a silence, then Jimmy Panther spoke as if thinking aloud. "I can't make it later today. Or Sunday. Maybe Sunday night."

Gail said, "This might be better: I could bring it to you tomorrow afternoon. Sell us a couple tickets on your airboat. My daughter has never ridden on one, and it's been years since I have."

"I'd be glad to. Look for Everglades Adventure, about four miles past Krome Avenue on the Trail. However, you don't pay. This will be my favor. Your daughter's name is . . . Karen?"

"Yes. How did you know that?"

"Renee told me."

When she hung up, Dave turned around from the sink. "What did the Indian want, his deer mask back?" Gail had told him about her conversation with Jimmy Panther.

"Yes, I'll take it out to him tomorrow. I didn't ask if you wanted to go along because I thought you'd be playing tennis."

"Correct. I am."

Just as well, she thought to herself.

She picked up the mask from the counter. Someone had dropped Oreo crumbs on it. She brushed them off, then sat back down at the table. The deer's long face was delicately formed, its round eyes slanting upward.

"It looks real old," Karen said.

"It probably is." Gail slid a forefinger around the crescent on its forehead. "An old Indian woman made it, maybe when she was just a girl."

Dave came to get Karen's plate. "I wouldn't be surprised if he bought it at a souvenir shop. Turn it over, see if it says 'Taiwan' on the bottom."

Karen looked. "It doesn't say that. Is Jimmy Panther his real name?"

"I don't know," Gail said. "I don't know much about him at all, except that he was Renee's friend." Dave was rinsing off the dishes with the sprayer. Gail asked, "Have you ever seen this mask before?"

"Not before you brought it home." Dave spoke over his shoulder. "She did tell me a story about him, though. She said they were walking downtown by the river, going across a parking lot, and Panther stops right in the middle of all that asphalt and kneels down and listens. He says he can hear his people weeping. Says that's where a bunch of them were murdered by the Spanish three hundred years ago."

Gail said, "You never told me this."

"No. Renee said to keep it to myself. I guess it doesn't matter now."

Their gaze held for a moment before he turned back to the sink to load the dishwasher.

What else had Renee told Dave during all those Monday lunches? How much woe had he poured out to her? Or had they only laughed? Dave might have told Renee his favorite jokes before Gail heard them. They would have sat in the back of whatever restaurant they'd gone to, whispering, the waiter pretending not to notice only one of them wore a wedding ring. Dave would have paid the check in cash and put his sunglasses on as he left. Whether or not they had slept together was beside the point: there could be more intimacy in words than sex.

And knowing this, she had thought of Anthony Quintana more than once, not meaning to. He had called her on Friday. They agreed to meet on Monday to sign the stipulation of settlement in the Darden case. They could look at the draft over lunch, Anthony had said. And then he said he would take her to a Cuban restaurant. Cuban but as far from rice and beans as Paris from French tries. Had she ever been to Yuca in Coral Gables? No? But surely she knew it had been recommended by the
New York Times'?
No? He explained how the name, which meant cassava, was also an acronym—young urban Cuban-American. Not that he himself was so young anymore, at forty-one, but the food— And here he sighed. Then said she really ought to know these things. She lived in Miami, after all.

Gail jumped a little when someone knocked loudly at the kitchen door. Karen whirled around in her chair. Her elbow grazed the mask, which slid toward the edge of the table. Gail barely caught it. "Karen!"

"Polly's here!" Karen flew to the door.

Polly's mother, Marilyn, wearing a long beach shirt and sandals, pushed her sunglasses up into her frosted hair.