Solomon vs. Lord (15 page)

“He loves me, too. Depends on me. He's made tremendous progress.”

She clicked on a cruel smile. “How? By sharing your bed?”

“For two weeks, when he first got here. He was too scared to sleep alone.”

“Still,” she said. “It looks like one of those Michael Jackson situations.”

Is she fucking serious?

“You have a dirty mind, Dr. Kranchick.”

“It's my job to turn over every rock, see what's crawling underneath. Frankly, even if Robert had no problems, I'd question your fitness as a custodian. Face it, Mr. Solomon, you're undomesticated.”

“Whatever that means, it's just temporary. Just a phase.”

“Fine. When you've grown up, petition the court under the change-of-circumstances statute.”

“But I'm changing right now.” An idea was forming, a way to sway her.

“How so?”

“Getting married's a change, isn't it?”

“It can be, depending . . .”

“Well, I'm engaged. Getting married in a month. To a wonderful woman. She's smart and loving and—”

“An optimist,” Dr. Kranchick suggested snidely.

“Stable. A real stabilizer. My fiancée is a stabilizing influence.”

“Stable” seeming to be the only characteristic he could latch on to. Winging it now, just like in court. “When I'm with her, I feel more mature. More . . . domesticated.”

“Really?” The doctor did not sound convinced.

“Your report isn't complete if you haven't interviewed my fiancée.”

“Technically, that's true,” she conceded, with reluctance. “Who is she?”

Steve's mind raced. There was Sofia Hernandez, the court reporter. She was fine at reading back testimony, but ad-libbing wasn't her strong suit. There was Gina the model, who already had an engagement ring, but she was likely to steal the silverware. There were the twins, Lexy and Rexy, but neither one's IQ matched the temperature on a warm day. And there was Cece, but her tattoos and piercings might be off-putting, to say nothing of her rap sheet.

“I'll want to meet her as soon as possible.” Kranchick was pulling out her daily calendar. “How's the day after tomorrow?”

“Perfect! Let's make it dinner.”

“So what's the woman's name? This stabilizing influence?”

There was only one choice. “Victoria Lord,” he said. “You'll just love her.”

Nineteen

PROVING LOVE

Heading into Les Mannequins the next morning, Steve vowed to be on his best behavior with Victoria. After all, he had a huge favor to ask.

“Will you marry me? Or at least pretend to?”

Steve knew he desperately needed her help. A lousy report from Kranchick combined with Zinkavich's vicious attacks, and he'd have no chance in court. He'd promised Kranchick that she'd meet his fiancée tomorrow night. So he had to pop the question—on bent knee, if necessary—and teach Victoria the one lawyer skill she so clearly lacked: lying with a straight face.

He left Bobby in the waiting room, where he could spot for Cece on the bench press, the only way to keep her from disappearing for an afternoon at the gym. Opening the door to his office, he instantly sensed that something was wrong.

It was too bright, for one thing, sunlight blasting through the windows. Then there was the smell of ammonia. And all the papers on his desk were stacked in neat piles next to a vase of fresh violets.

Violets?

He shot a look at Victoria, who was sitting at her desk, reading a stack of appellate cases. “What the hell happened in here?”

“I tidied up,” Victoria said.

“Like Sherman tidied up Georgia. Why's it so bright?”

“I cleaned the windows.”

“Big mistake. Dirty windows are nature's way of keeping us cool.”

She continued reading, using a yellow marker to highlight the key points of an appellate opinion. As if the law ever won a case.

He went to his lobster tank, crumbled a stale bagel, and began tossing pieces into the water. He was stalling, trying to figure just how to ask Victoria to be his fiancée-for-a-day. He could predict her first reaction.

“I won't do that. It's unethical.”

Despite his best efforts at corrupting her, Victoria stubbornly clung to her rigid standards. Just yesterday, he'd been interviewing a potential client, a guy who wanted to sue Budweiser for false advertising. The guy drank the beer but still couldn't pick up women in bars. Steve thought the case had potential, but Victoria vetoed it.

“You ready to prep for the bail hearing?” she asked, without looking up from her photocopies.

“Sure, sure, we'll prep all you want.”

He knew that Katrina Barksdale was sitting unhappily in the Women's Detention Center, which lacked the basics of her Gables Estates home. No Jacuzzi, no pool deck, no monthly pest control. They needed to convince Judge Alvin Schwartz, an eighty-one-year-old misanthrope, to allow her to return home, pending trial. Not an easy task in a capital case, but possible.

“Under
State v. Arthur,
we have a chance,” Victoria said.

“Yeah.”

“It's the state's burden to deny bail.”

“I know.”

She glanced up at him. “How do you get along with Judge Schwartz?”

“He hates me.”

“Oh.”

“But he's senile and sometimes forgets.”

“Great.”

“He's fond of young women lawyers in miniskirts.”

“Forget it.”

Steve walked to the window and stared across the alley, squinting against the glare.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “You seem a little distant.”

“There's something I need to ask you.”

C'mon, say it. Tell her you need her help. Tell her that losing Bobby would be worse than losing one of your limbs.

“Did you Shepardize
Arthur
?” he asked, meekly.

“Of course. It's still the law.”

He looked at her as she continued thumbing through her appellate cases. With no court appearances today, she was dressed down. Black capri pants, a man's white shirt—Bigby's, Steve figured—tied at the waist, scuffed flats. No makeup, and it looked as if she hadn't bothered to run a brush through her hair. To Steve, she was sexy in a natural and wholly unintentional way. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe if he didn't have these feelings for her, it would be easier to ask for her help. He could wheedle, plead, beg, grovel. But now he just couldn't. Groveling would have to wait.

“How do you want to handle the hearing?” she asked.

“You take the law, I'll take the facts.”

“The facts being that Charles was kinky, Katrina went along for the sake of the marriage, and the death was an unfortunate accident?”

“Yeah.” Through the open window, he watched a garbage truck hoisting the Dumpster. “We also stress the theme of our case.”

“Which is . . . ?”

“I have no idea. But whatever it is, we need to pound the theme into the public consciousness starting at the bail hearing. We need to write the headline in the
Herald
with it.”

She wrinkled her forehead. “The headline's ‘Widow Freed on Bail.' Or not.”

“Only if some assistant city editor writes it,” Steve said. “Our job's to write it for them. With our theme. So what's the thematic content of the Barksdale marriage? What's the glue that held those two together?”

“The state will say it's money.”

“Exactly. But what do we say?”

“Love.”

“Love,” Steve avowed, “is a many-splendored defense. What is love? And how do we prove it?”

“Love is a rational, synergistic coupling of two people with mutual interests and similar values.”

“A little clinical for my tastes.” Was that how it was with Bigby and her?
A rational, synergistic coupling?
That sounded like fun.

“So what's your definition?”

“Two people who just have to be together,” he replied without hesitation. “Two people who are not complete when they're apart. They're lovers and best friends, too. There's lust and laughter, and they can't imagine being with anyone else.”

“So Steve Solomon believes in romantic love?”

“In theory. I've never really had anything like that.”

“And you think Katrina and Charles did?”

“I doubt it, but I'm a lawyer. Give me a thread and I'll tie you a rope.”

“Then let me show you something.” She bounded from her chair, crouched down, and opened one of the cardboard boxes under her desk. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, looking like a college coed studying for finals, she pulled out a handful of eight-by-ten glossies. “The Barksdales at play.”

Steve settled into a catcher's position next to her and started going through the photos. Hand in hand at charity events, Charles in a tux, Katrina in a designer dress, dripping with jewels. Society page shots from various galas. Smiling faces, Charles with his arm around Katrina, what appeared to be genuine warmth in their eyes.

Victoria grabbed more photos from the box. They must have been in love with their own images. St. Tropez, Monaco, waterfront restaurants, boat decks. Charles was still a handsome man with a head of gray hair, and Katrina a born model, doing the toe-point to flatter her legs, a Paris Hilton tilt of the head to accentuate her jawline.

“These are fine, but they're all posed,” Steve said. “I could show you some smiling photos of O. J. and Nicole Simpson. Or Scott and Laci Peterson. Or Hillary and Bill Clinton.”

“Hillary hasn't killed Bill.”

“Yet,” Steve said.

“Look at this.” She pulled a greeting card out of the box and handed it to him. On the cover was a Winslow Homer print of a Caribbean beach. “It's dated the day before Charlie died.”

He opened the card and read the handwritten note:

Dearest Katrina,

No one could have been so good as you have been, from the very first day till now.

Your Charlie

“I like the ‘Dearest,'” Victoria said. “Kind of quaint and Victorian.”

“Okay, he still loved her. How do we prove she loved him?”

“When I saw them, Kat always seemed very affectionate toward Charlie. Very caring.”

“What else? Give me examples.”

“She was always buying him gifts. Watches, cuff links, clothing.”

“Keep going. I like it.”

Victoria thought it over a moment. “Maybe three months ago, we went to a surprise birthday party Kat threw for Charlie.”

“We,” he thought. Meaning Bigby and her. Another reminder she was about to marry the stiff, about to make third-person plural a permanent part of her life.

“The cake was shaped like one of his office towers,” she continued.

“Cute. Unless the candles were sticks of dynamite.”

“At sunset, we all went out on their boat. Music's playing, we're having drinks, eating stone crabs.”

“Even Bigby the Vegan?”

“Bruce only ate the salad. That guy we met, Manko, anchored the boat in Hurricane Harbor off Key Biscayne. And just before the sun went down, the clouds were streaked with crimson, the bay's smooth as silk. I mean, how romantic can you get?”

Steve knew she was talking about Katrina and Charles, but his mind worked up the unfortunate image of Bigby and Victoria on deck. Haloed by the setting sun, serenaded by the band, Bigby kissing her. A slug slithering across a rose.

“Then this little plane flies over with one of those advertising banners behind it, like at the beach.”

“‘Use Coppertone,'” Steve said.

“This one said, ‘Katrina Loves Charles.' She had it made just for the party. It was really touching. Some people even had tears in their eyes.”

“We'll make the jury cry, too. And the media will eat it up.”

“So you like it?”

“You nailed it. Our theme. ‘Katrina loves Charles.'”

“Isn't that a little simplistic?”

“Themes have to be simplistic. Otherwise, the morons don't get it.”

“Jurors aren't morons.”

“I'm talking about the judges.”

Still sitting on the floor, she pulled out her index cards and started scribbling notes. Steve gazed down at her. Without makeup, there was a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Every new discovery seemed to fascinate him.

“What?” she asked, catching him staring.

His addled brain immediately told him he had three choices. He could say,
“Just thinking about the rules of evidence.”
He could say,
“You're incredibly beautiful and wonderfully talented, so don't be a fool and marry Bigby.”
But he said: “Victoria, I have a really big favor to ask.”

Twenty

A PURPOSE FOR RUNNING

The setting had to be right. The mood had to be right. The moment had to be right. After all, he was going to ask Victoria to marry him.

Rather than do it in the office, with its eye-stinging smell of ammonia and the clamor of the steel band, Steve suggested they take a ride. Now, top down on the old Caddy, crossing the causeway, he considered just what to say. On the radio, Gloria Estefan was promising that the rhythm was gonna get them. He took it as a good sign that, a moment later, they passed the white and pink mansions of Star Island, where Gloria lived.

“How about a pineapple smoothie?” Steve said.

“What's the big favor you want?” Sounding suspicious.

“I'll tell you all about it when we get there.”

“Where?”

“You'll see.”

“Why so mysterious? Usually, you just plow ahead, go after whatever you want.”

“It's about Bobby.”

“So tell me.”

“Soon.”

He pulled the car into the parking lot on Watson Island, and Victoria said: “Parrot Jungle? Why here?”

He parked in the shade beneath a sign that pointed different directions to the Parrot Bowl, Serpentarium, Flamingo Lake, and Everglades Habitat. “There's something I want you to see.”

They got out of the car and headed into the park, wending their way through a throng of Japanese tourists. Steve bought two pineapple smoothies at a refreshment stand and led her past a lagoon dappled with white water lilies. He pointed out the herons with S-shaped necks and showed her the pink flamingos and the ruby-eyed roseate spoonbills that are sometimes mistaken for them. They passed snowy white egrets and long-legged storks. Walking through the make-believe rain forest, they were enveloped by a cacophony of birds, a philharmonic orchestra of
caws
and
coos.

“Okay, what about Bobby?” she asked.

“Bear with me.” He was still working up his courage, formulating his plan.

Staying in the shade of the banyan trees, they took a path bordered by blooming birds of paradise, passed an alligator pond and an outdoor theater where a parrot show was under way, a bird grabbing dollar bills from a performer's pocket to polite applause.

“Here we are.” Steve nodded toward a sausage tree. Its cylindrical fruit hung down like Hebrew National salamis in a deli.

Perched on a branch, a citron-crested cockatoo eyed them warily.

“Is that who I think it is?” Victoria asked.

“Hello, hot stuff,” Mr. Ruffles said.

“Hello, birdbrain.” She turned to Steve. “You still gloating over the Pedrosa trial?”

“Absolutely not. You're missing the point.”

“Crime pays?”

“Justice was served. My client's not taking up a jail cell. Mr. Ruffles has a good home. And everybody's happy.”

“Everybody's happy,” Mr. Ruffles said.

“You can rationalize anything.”

“The point I'm making, sometimes the ends do justify the means.”

“Okay, I get it. This favor you want is illegal, but in your tortuous reasoning, somehow just.”

“Do you know how much I love Bobby?”

She stirred her smoothie with the straw. “It's your one redeeming quality.”

“I'd do anything for him, the law be damned.”

“So where do I fit in?”

“There's this battle-axe named Doris Kranchick, a doctor who says I'm not fit to care for him. She's Zinkavich's star witness.”

“I'll testify for you if that's what you want.”

“It is, sort of.”

“What's the problem, then?”

“I told Kranchick I'm engaged, and she wants to meet my fiancée.”

“Why would you say something like that?”

“I was winging it.”

“Winging it,” Mr. Ruffles said.

“So who's the lucky . . .” Victoria's face paled. “No. You
didn't. . . .”

“Just pretend for a couple hours. Drinks, dinner, and dessert, that's it.”

“That's unethical. . . .”

Of course that's her first reaction.

“Blatantly illegal . . .”

Second reaction, too.

“A fraud on the court . . .”

Okay, already.

“Maybe grounds for disbarment.”

“So you'll do it?” he asked.

“No!” She stomped away from him, heading down a shaded path.

He took off after her. “Victoria, you're my only hope.”

“Why me?”

“Catherine Zeta-Jones is taken.”

“So am I.” She waved her engagement ring in his face. “Anyway, nobody would believe we're engaged.”

“I'm not sure, but I think you just insulted me.”

“I'm a terrible liar.”

“Don't you ever fake orgasms?”

“Maybe the women in your life do.”

“They fake it when they're alone. Please, Victoria. I really need you on this.”

She wrinkled her forehead the same way she did in court when puzzling through a problem. “Even if I could convince this doctor that I'm your fiancée, I wouldn't do it.”

Above them, birds circled the trees and cried to one another in a babel of cheeps and peeps, titters and trills.

“Do you know the main difference between us?” he asked.

“I'm going to end up a judge, and you're going to end up in jail.”

“You refuse to question authority.”

“I question plenty. I just don't flout.”

“Do you think the state should take Bobby from me?”

“Of course not.”

“Then help me.”

“I cannot and will not break the law.”

“Haven't I taught you anything? The law doesn't work. That's why you have to work the law.”

“Sorry. Can't do it.”

His frustration turned to anger. “I can't fucking believe it. You're still a robot, still an automaton. By now you gotta know Lady Justice takes it doggy style. The law gets bent over a chair like a girl in Kobe Bryant's hotel room.”

“And they say you're not a charmer.”

They emerged from the path, silence engulfing the space between them, driving them apart. Alongside a pond, a mother was snapping photos of her two little girls, scarlet macaws perched on their shoulders.

They neared the edge of the bay. Crabs no larger than a fingernail scuttled along the wet sand. Feathery terns scoured the beach for snacks. Just across the water, a bell was ringing, and a barrier arm came down. Traffic stopped on the Venetian Causeway drawbridge.

“I need to tell you something about Bobby,” he said.

“Nothing you can say will change my mind.”

They stopped beneath a gumbo-limbo tree, its small red fruits bunched in clusters. Victoria's face was half in the sun, half in the shade.

“When Bobby was nine,” Steve said, “his mother, Janice, moved to this commune up in the Panhandle. The Universal Friends of something-or-other. Freaks and druggies. When Janice was straight, she'd slap Bobby around and scream biblical quotations at him. When she was stoned, she'd lock him in a dog cage. Then she'd go into town for a few hours or a few days.”

“Bobby told me about the dog cage. It sounded terrible. Honestly, Steve, I'd love to help, but—”

“He's making progress every day. And once I get him some specialized treatment, he'll do even better. But this creepy doctor wants to take him away and put him in a hospital.”

“How can they do that if you're his guardian?”

The drawbridge was up now, and a sloop with its sails furled putt-putted through, cars backing up on the mainland to the west and on Biscayne Island to the east.

“Janice never exactly consented to my taking Bobby, so he's in sort of a legal limbo.”

She thought about it for a moment. “You kidnapped him?”

“Rescued him,” he corrected. “But I've never told anyone how. Until now.”

He told her then. Told her about the night of freezing rain, about Janice delivering cold soup to Bobby in the shed, about his breaking in and finding the boy in the cage. Told her, too, about the mangy man with the heavy stick and how they fought, the crack of the man's skull, his blood pooling on the floor. Told her about the gunshots and how he ran through the woods, carrying Bobby, chased by barking dogs and men with guns.

When he was finished, Victoria studied him, her lips slightly parted, words trying to form. She felt fragile enough to shatter like white china. “I never could have imagined any of this.”

“When I was running, Bobby's arms around my neck, I knew they'd never catch me as long as I didn't fall. All my life, I could run. Really run. But it had no purpose. Then it came to me. Like it was all meant to be. I could run like this so that someday, that day, I could carry this poor kid out of hell and give him a life.

“Sometimes, when I'm drifting off to sleep, I hear the floorboards squeak, and I think they're here. Men with torches and sticks, and they're going to kill me and snatch Bobby. Then I wake up and think, if those are my nightmares, what must Bobby's be?”

Eyes welling, he turned away. “So you think I'm gonna let some fat-assed bureaucrats take him away?”

“Look at me,” she commanded.

He turned back. With a fingertip, she caught a tear just as it neared the corner of his mouth, then let her finger track across his lips, as if gently shushing him.

Across the bay, the bell rang again, and the causeway bridge jerked down in fits and starts like an old man dropping into his chair.

“Who knew?” she said, removing the finger from his lips.

“Knew what?”

“That you were capable of such love.”

He shrugged. “That other stuff. The courtroom. Just a game. This is life.”

Her eyes were soft and watery. “So where are we going?”

“Going?”

“On our honeymoon.”

It took a second to register. Then Steve smiled broadly. “You're gonna do it? You're gonna be my fiancée?”

“One night only.”

“Ye-s-s-s!”
Tomorrow night. He laughed, a big pealing laugh like rolling thunder. “You're terrific. If there's ever anything you need. Anything.”

“If I'm arrested, get me a good lawyer.” She pulled out her cell phone. “I was supposed to play tennis with Jackie at Grove Isle tomorrow, have dinner with Bruce at his club. I'll cancel.”

“No. Bring them along. In fact, we'll go to Bruce's club.”

“Are you serious?”

“I'll ask Bruce to be my best man.”

“You really want him there?”

“He'll make a great impression on Kranchick, maybe even pick up the tab. And Jackie can be your bridesmaid or whatever.”

“She's my maid of honor.”

“Perfect. Is she like you?”

Her tone was playful. “You mean a robot and automaton?”

“That stuff, I take back. I mean, proper, dignified, principled.” He swallowed hard and his voice went soft. “And beautiful and smart and sexy and—”

She put her finger back to his lips. “Don't, Solomon.”

“But there are things I want to say.”

“Please, don't.” Her smile was soft and sweet. “But we'll always have Parrot Jungle.”