Due Justice (5 page)

“Have you had any problems?” Worried.

Perkier. “I love ‘em! After my third baby, I had no substance. Dr. Morgan did them right in his office.”

“I've only had mine three years. No problems, but the bad news has me scared to death.” She didn't sound scared, let alone near death. Drama.

“I know what you mean. My husband is freaked.” Both sets of double-tap soles headed my way. “I'm thinking about having them removed. You know, just to be safe. Christian Grover's my lawyer. He said these things are leaking and are poisoning my body every day. Every time I get a little bit tired, I'm scared I'm getting sick, you know?”

They passed me without so much as a nod in my direction on the way out. I confess. I looked at their chests and they, indeed, had lovely breasts. Dr. Morgan was an artist.

When I'd stayed in the ladies' room as long as I could hide out before becoming an official missing person, I went back to the party. Everyone who is anyone or wanted to become someone was there. Attempting to sort them out was exhausting. Confusing, too.

Focused instead on the ones I'd been assigned to watch.

CJ and wife huddled in obvious camaraderie with the Worthingtons. Cilla and CJ's wife posed like wives do when husbands talk shop. CJ and O'Connell Worthington had been law partners for 20 years until CJ was appointed to the federal bench years ago.

No family resemblance between Cilla and the CJ that I could find. Except maybe in their coloring. If George hadn't told me they were brother and sister, I'd never have believed it. A proper lady like Cilla from the same gene pool as the sarcastically dubbed “great and powerful Oz?” No doubt about it, I'd have to reassess my judgments about one of them.

While I'd been hiding, Kate arrived. Thank God.

She looked perfect in the royal blue beaded gown she's worn to every formal event she's attended for at least the past ten years. I smiled when I saw it. Kate is so reliably normal. One of the many reasons I love her.

I walked up and kissed her cheek. “Thank you for coming. You look lovely in that gown, as always. Your eyes sparkle as much as the dress.”

“Why should I buy a new gown? This one looks good on me and its perfectly acceptable. I'm long past the point of trying to impress ‘society.'” She eyed my dress pointedly. Sometimes I think she and George were separated at birth.

Kate asked, “Where is Victoria? Has she been here long enough to get into trouble yet?”

Kate behaved normally, I thought, meaning Carly had not dumped her troubles on her mother. For that, I was grateful. Kate should have only happiness in her life. Maybe I cherished her more than Carly because she was not my real mother.

We looked around for the senator's wife. There were small conversation pods here and there, but I noticed a particularly large group under the stairs near the entrance to the dining room gathered like flies at a picnic.

“Why don't we try over there,” I pointed my head. “Likely our guests of honor, right?”

We moved toward the swarm. Forward progress was glacial. Elbows and pointed toes blocked our passage. Sometimes painfully.

Eventually, we were close enough to see Senator Warwick, his wife standing next to him.

“Kate, look at that dress. She looks fabulous.” I whispered close to Kate's ear, but needn't have worried about being overheard. The din was as loud as a rock concert.

Victoria, a woman of some years as they say, displayed herself in a full-length emerald lamé gown bearing a “V” neckline that plunged almost to her waist, exhibiting way more than a bit of cleavage.

“I heard she'd had surgery. I thought they said facelift. Apparently, it's something lower she had lifted.” Kate whispered back with extraordinary cattiness.

“Christian Grover said breast implants stuffed this room,” I replied, grinning.

“Christian's a pig, but he's usually right,” Kate responded. “Have you ever noticed how humans are creatures of selective attention?”

When Kate gets into her Zen, or whatever it is, she's a little too Eastern for me to take her seriously. “What?”

“Attention focused on any thing creates that thing, Wilhelmina.”

“So, I've created these implants through my imagination? They're not really here? We're not being invaded by an alien species of amazons?” I teased her.

“Don't mock me. You know what I mean. You're so often in your own world that you don't see what's plainly visible.” Sometimes she still acts like my mother. I like it.

The crowd stepped back a little and we could now observe its nucleus.

Senator Warwick, speaking loudly enough to be overheard, holding forth on what he proposed to do if the good voters returned him to the Senate in the fall elections. He was talking to O'Connell Worthington and other members of the party who had gathered around him closest. The liberals were adoring fans—conservatives resembled sharks to chub.

“Something has got to be done about the product liability crisis in this country. A number of our best corporate citizens have been put out of business by these frivolous product liability suits. When I return to the Senate, I'll make sure America can compete in the global economy without fear of bankrupting its businesses.”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Kate said.

Preaching to the choir, though this wasn't a political rally.

His wife looked glassy-eyed. She might have been drinking before she arrived; George's staff would not have served her.

Kate noticed Victoria's condition, too.

“Duty calls,” she said, squeezed my arm briefly, approached Victoria and led her away.

I turned to thread my way out when Christian Grover's voice rose to challenge.

“Come on, Senator. That's a lie.”

The collective gasped.

Warwick replied, “So you claim, Grover. You're not exactly objective.”

Grover pressed on. “Maybe. But you are wrong. Statistics repeatedly show very few successful product liability awards to victims in this country. Corporations make billions of dollars selling defective products knowingly, intending to injure consumers. Big business owns you, Warwick. Don't dress this up like an altruistic crusade.”

Polite cheers greeted Grover's comments, too.

An uncomfortable battle was joined. The atmosphere hung now with hostility. I searched for George and spied him across the wide ballroom, willing him to look my way until he did.

Warwick punched below the belt in reply. “I suppose you're handling those seven-hundred lawsuits pro bono?”

George assessed the situation at once; reached us in half a second; spirited Grover and his date away.

Crisis averted.

Red meat off the table; the swarm dispersed like magic.

Now what?

What I wanted to do was find Carly. Not an option. George would kill me if I left now. The second best option could be here in the room if Dr. Morgan had checked in. How to find out without making a fool of myself was the next issue. Maybe the solution was to ask a fool?

Tampa's not Savannah, but it's a southern town and we have our share of eccentric characters, many of whom were present and accounted for.

The medical community was prominently represented tonight. AIDS was their issue, after all. Several Tampa physicians and their spouses were in attendance. I saw Dr. Marilee Aymes, for many years the area's leading cardiologist and still the only woman cardiologist in town, standing alone near the entrance. A few moments later, her most recent escort approached her with a champagne glass in each hand. Marilee qualifies as eccentric, but she's certainly no fool.

Speculation around town is that Dr. Aymes is a lesbian and she brings virile young male escorts to all the social events to convince people otherwise. The evidence typically cited in support of this theory includes her extremely short haircut and brassy manner.

Tampa women are not abrasive, at least the socially successful ones aren't.

Dr. Aymes's graduation from medical school in 1960, when she was the only woman in her class, must have meant she was a little odd. That she wears a tuxedo to black tie affairs fuels the rumors.

Besides that, everyone will tell you, she smokes cigars, as if that clinches it. Tampa has never been on the crest of the fashion wave. Smoking cigars here is still something the men retire to after dinner with their port, while the ladies socialize. Oh, the tourists smoke cigars, and you can find trendy cigar bars in Ybor City open until the wee hours. But ladies? My dear, it just isn't done.

I saw Grover and Fred Johnson, Grover's partner, himself another prominent plaintiff's attorney here in town, deep in conversation with Dr. Carolyn Young. I certainly didn't want to get involved there, so I joined Dr. Aymes.

She ignored her escort; he looked like he'd stepped into the room from a Chippendales calendar.

“I wonder how much of her body is real?” Marilee said, pointing her unlit cigar toward Dr. Young. “I've heard she's actually sixty-five years old.”

Dr. Young looked thirty-five, if that.

“You laugh. From here, I can tell those breast implants are at least five years old, the nose has been done more than once, and there've been some collagen injections around the mouth recently. Botox too, probably. Just think what I'd discover if I had my glasses on and was close enough to actually see her.” She puffed on her stogie like George Burns while she talked.

“Marilee, you can't possibly tell all that from thirty feet away, can you?” I asked her, wiping mirthful tears from my eyes.

“Those breasts look like cereal bowls sitting on a flat board. That's what happens when implants get hard. As for the nose, you can see how small it is compared to the rest of her face. There's no way she was born with that nose. In fact, if you give me a minute, I can probably name the surgeon. It looks like a signature nose to me.”

Covered my mouth, trying not to make a spectacle of myself by guffawing. But I couldn't help it. I could barely get the words out, but had to ask. “The collagen injections?”

“She probably had them done last week. Look how plump the lines are between her nose and her mouth. And when she's laughing, there's not a sign of crows' feet. Probably injected there, too.”

She was precious. Tears streamed down my cheeks now, my carefully applied makeup a thing of the past. “Couldn't she be young? A natural beauty?”

Dr. Aymes snorted. “She could be. But she's not. How old do you think she is?”

My voice squeaked. “Thirty-five?”

“Try fifty-seven. Look it up. Date of med school graduation is a matter of public record.”

Dr. Aymes took another glass of champagne from a passing waiter. At this rate, she'd be more drunk than Victoria Warwick, but I was pretty sure she'd be more fun, too, if we could change the subject.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Tampa, Florida

Wednesday 9:15 p.m.

January 6, 1999

MARILEE PUFFED ON THE unlit cigar. Asked, “And why do you think she's talking to those two sharks?”

“Grover and Johnson?”

“She does explant surgeries for their clients. Breast implant ‘victims,' they claim. About $5,000 a pop. Then she talks the women into reconstruction surgery for another $5,000.”

“How many of those can she do?” I asked, not laughing now.

“I can't get an operating room for my cardiac surgeries two days a week because she's doing explants. And that's just at my hospital. I know she's on staff at three others where she does the same thing. I'd say she does 25 a week. Add it up. Those two guys are going to make her a wealthy woman, and they're just a couple of her sources.”

I'd been seeking an opening to ask her about Dr. Michael Morgan. Tampa is a very small town in many ways. Marilee practiced medicine here for years. I was sure she'd know him; might know who'd want to kill him, too. How to bring it up?

Before I could ask, George joined the conversation. He heard the tail end of Dr. Aymes' comments about Dr. Young.

“You mean to say that Dr. Young is charging $200,000 to $250,000 a week to do reconstructive surgery on breast implant patients? What insurance company would ever pay for that?”

George doesn't particularly care for Dr. Aymes; says I shouldn't be seen with her. After all, what would people think?

Marilee was too involved in her subject to notice. “That's just it. The insurance companies won't pay for it. There's no scientific evidence linking breast implants to
any
health problem. The lawyers pay for it.”

“But where do they get the money?” He said, disbelieving. “I know those guys have made a lot of money in their lifetimes, but come on.”

“I don't know, George.” Dr. Aymes snapped. Annoyed. George questioned what she told him as absolute fact. She wouldn't be interrogated. Or disbelieved. “You're the banker. How do people normally finance a business deal?”