Suspicion of Innocence (37 page)

"Oh, God. I don't believe this." Dave had stopped walking. His face was ashen under the tan. "Oh, Gail."

"We need to put the divorce on hold. Is that all right for now?"

"Jesus." He leaned against her, fumbling for her hand. "Whatever you want. I don't believe this."

She said, "I have an attorney. He's going to talk to Britton today and see what's going on."

They moved out of the path of a pickup truck hauling a skiff on a trailer. Dave said, "Listen, I told the police I went to a bar after I dropped Renee off. I could have made a mistake with the time. If you need me to cover for you I will."

"You mean, offer me an alibi?"

"Sure. Screw Britton."

"I don't know. The jury might see through it. For now, just answer me some questions, okay?" Dave nodded. "When did you get to Renee's house that night?"

"Nearly ten, I'm pretty sure."

"Did she seem eager for you to go? As if someone might have been upstairs?"

"Not that I remember. She didn't rush me off."

Gail thought about that. "If no one else was there, then the person who did it came by unexpectedly. Or she might have called him after you left. Was she sober enough to use a telephone?"

"Yeah, I'd say so. She didn't talk much in the car on the way, sort of lay there with the seat back and her eyes closed. She made it into the house on her own."

"How long did you stay?"

"Ten minutes?" Dave's eyes seemed to focus on the mangroves on the other side of the channel. "I wanted to stick around and make sure she was all right, but she told me to go on home. She said, 'Go on home and make up with Gail, she's pissed off at me enough as it is.' "

''Did she talk about anybody she was having problems with?" Gail watched Karen climb the ladder from below, run across the cabin to the prow, and lean out over the water, her ponytails dangling.

He said, "That trouble Renee got into last summer. Maybe she was still involved. I got the impression, before she died, that she had something going on she didn't want me to know about. Maybe it was drug dealers that did it."

Gail had told Dave about Renee's arrest but couldn't remember how much. She had learned from Anthony only last Friday that Renee had known what was on board the boat. Gail hadn't talked to Dave since then. She asked, "Did Renee tell you about this?"

"Yeah. She did."

"And?"

He took off his cap again, straightened it on his head. "Okay. This is what happened. Last summer she asked me to help out a friend of hers. He needed some work done pronto on a sportfisher and he'd pay cash. I said fine. A couple days later two guys pull up in a forty-four-foot Striker, running pretty ragged. Wayne and I were supposed to overhaul the engines, two Detroit dieseis. So we pull it into the shop. And there's a quick-release port in the hull."

Gail frowned. "What's that?"

"It's a smuggler's trick. We see them in boats we get in here from time to time. They put drugs in it, and if the police board, you can push a lever and it lets the stuff go down. You lose a few kilos of coke but you save your ass."

"You knew they were drug smugglers and you did this?"

"No, not really certain. Not—" His hands fell to his sides.

"What were their names?"

"I only heard one. José. José García."

"Like John Doe."

"I didn't ask for ID, Gail."

"What did they look like?"

"Both Spanish. José was muscular, mid-thirties. A mustache. The other guy was skinny, a little younger. I asked where they were from, didn't get any answers. José wanted the work done within two days. I said no way, not for twelve cylinders, unless you go two thousand per cylinder. He gave me five thousand down, said I'd get the rest later. I'd have told him to take a hike if Renee hadn't said they were okay. Wayne and I busted our asses but we did it. Damn good job, too."

"Did Renee come along with him?"

"No. We were supposed to have lunch the next week, but she didn't show up. Come to find out, she was in jail at the time. One night after closing José shows up with his friend. They said they were out on bond. They had to drop the drugs but the police found cocaine in one of their duffel bags. They were pissed that someone set them up and thought of me because I hadn't gotten paid. They slammed me up against the wall in my office. Wayne heard what was going on and came in with the gun we keep behind the counter. I thought they were going to kill me. Hell, I don't know who set them up. Could have been nobody. A fluke. The Marine Patrol cruises by, the guy tries to avoid them. Bingo. José, his friend, and Renee were nailed coming around Bill Baggs State Park about two in the afternoon.

"Renee called and said she was sorry for getting me into it. She went along with them to Freeport because she thought it would be exciting. Jesus. Exciting. She said it was stupid, what she did, and she was tired of doing stupid things. She promised to pay me what they owed. I told her never mind, it was my own fault. Her case was dropped, so I guess it didn't turn out too bad. I hear José and his buddy skipped the country."

"Did Renee tell you why her case was dropped?"

"No. She just said it was."

"Ben talked to the right people."

"Yeah? I guess it pays to be a judge."

"Who was the friend she was doing this for? One of those two men?"

"She wouldn't say, but I can guess. Carlos Pedrosa."

"What?"

"She was dating him, if you want to call it that."

Gail nodded at this confirmation. "Yes. But that doesn't mean he got her involved in drug smuggling."

The engines on the sloop quieted. Wayne appeared on deck, coming up out of the companionway. He made an okay sign with his fingers.

"Be there in a second," Dave yelled. He looked back at Gail. "Carlos Pedrosa wasn't exactly a member of the Jaycees, you know what I'm saying? They used to get together and do cocaine, before she got off it. Plus I got the feeling he was hurting for money. A big score like that would help. I'd like to know where he was the night she died."

"With another woman," Gail said. "So I heard. Not that Carlos was entirely without sentiment. He came to the funeral. You were on your way out and nearly hit his car. A silver Mercedes coupe."

"I don't. . . Oh, yeah. Vaguely. Sorry I missed."

"And I'm sorry it took you this long to tell me what happened last summer."

"Come on, Gail. How was I going to do that?" He reached out and took her hand. "Look, I meant it, what I said before about an alibi."

"Thanks."

He held on to her. "You want me to move back in? I will, if it would help."

"Thank you, but it's not necessary." She laughed a little. "Unless I'm in the Women's Detention Center, then somebody has to water the yard."

He put his arms around her and she closed her eyes and hugged him back, feeling the familiar weight and scent of his body.

Then she kissed him lightly on the mouth and let him go. She studied her car keys. "Have a good time today. Make sure Karen wears her life vest."

As Gail drove out of the parking lot she could see Dave in her rearview mirror, looking after her.

It took her until nearly nine-thirty to locate Carlos Pedrosa. His gold-trimmed Mercedes was parked in front of a house under construction, on a turnaround at the end of a bare new street in a subdivision way out on Coral Way called Versailles. Carlos's attempt at international flavor, she supposed.

Gail had passed herself off as a realtor to the girl behind the desk at Pedrosa Development Company—a suite in a corporate plaza on West Kendall Drive, its walls decorated with artists' drawings of houses in Pedrosa subdivisions.

Versailles had a naked look to it. Spindly trees. Concrete foundations poured, not much going up. The models were done, three of them, painted in pastel, flags flapping outside, signs in Spanish and English. Gail hadn't spotted any customers. The subdivision was on a dead-end road, saw grass on the other side of the wall encircling the property. Across the street, another tract was up for sale. Getting out of her car, she could hear the pop-pop-pop of a nail gun. Three men were laying shingles. They stopped what they were doing and looked at her.

Gail picked her way carefully across the rocky front yard. Two pitted two-by-twelve planks lay as a ramp to the door. The interior smelled of joint compound and dust. She walked through to the back, past two workers hanging drywall. Carlos was on the patio with a roll of blueprints in his hand. The man he was talking to—big arms, a leather tool belt—saw her first. Then Carlos turned around. He had his dark glasses on. His shirt was open at the collar.

"Gail Connor, how you doing? You came all the way out here?"

"How's business?"

"Business is great. Everything is great." He smiled at her, teeth white against his short black beard. "So, did you bring me the option from the judge?"

"No, I wanted to talk to you about something else."

"No option? Man, I left . . . must have been six messages at your office."

"I haven't seen Ben in the last few days."

Carlos spoke to the carpenter.
"Momento,
okay?" He stepped over an aluminum wall stud. "See, Gail, the thing is, I have to figure out what I'm going to do with that property. And I can't do that until I get the survey. And I can't survey it until I get the option. You want to see if he'll get going on this?"

They stood in the shade at the edge of the patio. Gail said, "Actually, I came about something else entirely. I'll get to the point. The police think my sister was murdered."

"I'm not surprised. They asked me some questions." Carlos looked at her through his sunglasses. "This is a terrible thing that happened."

"The police aren't having much luck, so I've decided to see what I can find out. I didn't know her friends. We weren't close the last few years. Did she ever mention that?"

"She might have."

"I understand you were with another woman the night Renee died."

After a hesitation, Carlos said, "Yeah. Which I am not going to get into because I don't want the young lady bothered."

"Of course." Gail wished she were as good at this as Frank Britton. Lawsuits were easier: in a courtroom she usually knew the answers to the questions. "I've heard rumors my sister may have been involved in cocaine trafficking. The police drop hints, but they won't tell me anything."

Carlos's mouth dropped open. "Renee?"

"You knew she had been arrested, didn't you?"

He was tapping the blueprints against his leg. "Wow. So maybe one of these people—" Carlos glanced away when a sheet of plywood landed with a bang across two sawhorses. The carpenter pulled a tape measure off his tool belt, running out the end of it. He marked a line. Carlos looked back at Gail. "So when was this?"

"Last summer, but the case against her was dismissed. She never told you?"

"No. But if the case was dismissed, then I doubt she was majorly involved. Rest your mind on that, Gail."

"You never knew her to take drugs?"

"Well, she might have smoked grass now and then."

"With you?"

Gail could see her reflection in Carlos's sunglasses, two tiny, dark faces. He said, "Now and then. It's no big deal."

"When did you meet her?"

"I don't know. When did she start working at the title company? Whenever that was."

The scream of a power saw shattered the silence. His face turned toward the carpenter, who was lopping a few inches off the plywood. Gail wished she could hold the saw at Carlos's throat, her finger on the button.

When the saw whined to a stop, she said, "Was it your child she was pregnant with?"

The sunglasses swung back in her direction. "Renee was pregnant?"

"Stop pretending you don't know anything," she said sharply, and knew the moment the words were out of her mouth how desperate they sounded.
 

His eyes were fixed on her. In the bright sun she could see dimly beyond the gray lenses. Dark eyes under thick, straight brows. Like Anthony's, she thought suddenly. But this face was more blatantly sensual. Fuller, redder lips. The kind of face Renee might have seen over her as she lay tied to her bed with that black silk cord the police found in the nightstand.

He finally said, "And don't you pretend you didn't come all the way out here to see if I killed her. The answer is no. Renee and me had something special going and it tore me up when she died. You find out who did this to her, I'll personally take care of him for you." Carlos held up the blueprints. "If that's all, I got work to do."

Gail found a pay phone inside a Denny's restaurant up the street.

"Hartwell Black and Robineau."

"Gwen, this is Gail Connor. Let me have Miriam, please."

She dropped the phone to her shoulder, not wanting to hear the on-hold music. Carlos Pedrosa hadn't been as stupid as she had thought. But he had been more frightening. Yes, that would have appealed to Renee as well. Sexuality and danger. Living on the edge. Going on a drug-smuggling trip because she thought it would be exciting.