Suspicion of Malice (18 page)

He and Gail headed toward the end of the block.
She gave him the receipt. He held it with both hands, and his eyes moved across the page. "Shit! They took
my clothes? My
money?
I was going to pay you
with that!"

"They'll give it back. Where'd you get it?"

"I borrowed it from Sean Cresswell."

"Okay. Did you notice the .22 semiautomatic on
the list?"

"Yeah. It's Jason's." Bobby seemed surprised she would ask. "That's not the gun that shot Roger. No
way. Twenty-twos are everywhere. My uncle has
one."

"Please don't say that to the police. All right?" Gail
said, "Tell me. Why did you keep a bloodstained
T-shirt for more than a week, then throw it out after
the murder?"

Bobby shoved his thick black hair off his forehead.
"I didn't notice! There wasn't that much on it, and
the shirt's so dark. Last week I was getting some
clothes together to wash, and I saw these, like, stains,
and I go, whoa, that's blood. So I threw it away."

His explanations made sense. Gail realized that
she'd been afraid he had lied to her. Or worse.

At the corner they turned back, walking in silence.
No cars passed. The only movement was the sway
of branches overhead. Dappled light played on the street. A shiny yellow Volkswagen was parked along
the curb. Its bumper sticker read: Ballerinas Do It
On Pointe. Angela's car.

"The T-shirt. You obviously didn't wear that same
shirt to the party at Jack Pascoe's, did you?"

"No, I had on this funky old Hawaiian shirt and
some shorts."

"Good. He has to remember that," Gail said. "It
isn't as bad as I'd thought."

They had reached the walkway leading to Bobby's apartment. Gail stopped him with a hand on his arm.
"On Tuesday I called Judge Harris's chambers and
left a message for him to call me. Supposedly he's in trial. He didn't call yesterday, so as soon as I leave
here, I'm going to track him down."

"He'll say he never saw me."

"No, I don't think so. I've met him a couple of
times. Some people just strike you as decent. I hope
I'm right."

"Yeah, if we get Alan, I'll be okay." Bobby nodded,
then broke into a smile. "Stay and have breakfast
with us. Angie brought some bagels."

"Maybe some other time. You aren't telling her about any of this, are you? About Judge Harris?"

"I just said we found who it is, but not his name."

"Well, don't tell her anything. What's she doing
here?"

"We're going to go to the studio for a couple of hours and work. The ballet's auditioning next week
for
Nutcracker.
I'm helping her practice." A smile turned up the corners of his wide mouth. "You have
to see her dance. She's so beautiful. There are some things to work on, but she's got a lot of talent. Her
father doesn't know how much. He's an idiot."

"Does he know she's trying out?"

"No way. If he knew I was helping her, he'd prob
ably break my legs."

Gail's mind spun on visions of what Anthony
would do, finding his
ninita
in this rundown apart
ment, which a gay couple shared with a boy from
East Harlem who might be arrested for murder—if
Gail didn't persuade a circuit court judge to risk his
career by telling the truth.

"I want to give you a check," Bobby said. "You
came all the way over here, and now you're going
to see Judge Harris—"

"Forget it. I agreed not to charge."

"No, really. I'd feel better. How about I give you
a hundred now, and more when I get paid? Is it okay
if I post-date the check?"

She sighed. "Sure." A man had his pride.

He opened the door to his apartment. The living room was a mess—sofa and chair cushions tossed aside, books removed from shelves, desk drawers
pulled open. A poster of Rudolph Nureyev in a turban gazed back at Gail from above a TV resting on concrete blocks. No sign of the roommates. She as
sumed they had gone back to sleep.

Bobby fixed the sofa cushions. "Here, sit down.
I'm going to get dressed."

Looking out from the kitchen, Angela said, "Is every
thing okay?"

Gail went to speak to her. "Angie, listen. Bobby and I can't talk about the case. I'll do what I can for him, I promise."

Angela gave her a quick hug. "Thanks, Gail. It
means a lot."

The kitchen was no more than a narrow corridor leading to an exit door, and the sun streamed in
through glass jalousies. Yellow daisies lay in their wrapper of paper on the worn countertop. The dish
drainer was crammed with mismatched plates and
cups. Apparently Angela had just washed them. A
small coffeemaker hissed on the stove. She stirred the
milk that steamed in a bent saucepan. With her small breasts and long, slender limbs, she looked about fourteen. Pink butterfly clips held back her hair. The
gold chain of her crucifix made a thin line of light
on pale skin.

"You like
cafe con leche,
don't you?"

Gail took a moment to assess the state of her stom
ach. "Sure. Is there a soda? A Coke or something?"

"Look in the fridge." She moved aside so Gail
could open the door.

The refrigerator was nearly empty. A carton from
a Chinese restaurant. A bag of limp carrots. Nonfat
milk. A mango. Gail shifted some beer cans and
found a Sprite. "Bobby told me you're trying out for
The Nutcracker."

"Next week, and I am so nervous."

"He says you have a lot of talent."

A smile brightened her face. "Oh, I hope so. I've
studied for ten years. The last two summers, I've
taken classes at the American Ballet Theater, but I
never believed, till now, that I could have a career
in dance. The problem is, I can't do that and go to
college at the same time. A dancer's life is very de
manding, you know." The coffeemaker was bubbling, sucking the water through the grounds, and Angela turned off the heat.

Gail reached into her pocket for her roll of Turns and peeled back the paper. "You should probably
mention this to your father."

"I
can't."

"Well, you'll have to at some point."

Angela thought about that. "I'll tell him after try-outs." She poured the thick, dark coffee into an old glass measuring cup and added sugar, stirring vigor
ously. "I'm supposed to be moving into the dorms this weekend. He says if I drop out of school, he
won't support me. I don't care. Look at Bobby, He doesn't have a lot of money, but he's happy. That's
what matters in life, isn't it? If a person is happy or
not? Well, I want to dance, and I'm going to, no
matter what
anybody
says."

Angela's chin went up, and she looked at Gail
through her lashes. The full lips, pressed tightly together, turned down at the corners. Gail felt a jolt of recognition: Anthony's expression exactly. But while
he might accompany that look with an order, his
daughter wanted approval. If not from her father,
then from a reasonable substitute.

Nibbling her Turns, Gail nodded. "Then do it. I
believe that a woman should always do what she
wants as long as she has no encumbrances. Opportu
nities might not come around a second time."

"Exactly." Vindicated, Angela accented her words by thumping three mugs onto the counter. She filled
them with hot milk.

"Where would you live?"

"Well
..."
Her brown eyes shifted to Gail.
"They're about to promote Bobby to soloist. He'd
be making more money, so he could afford his own apartment. We could share. That's not wrong, is it?"

Gail laughed. "Who am I to judge? Just be careful.
I hope you are."

Angela's cheeks colored. "I
am.
Bobby is so respect
ful, you wouldn't believe. Oh, my God, if I moved
in with Bobby, my father would kill me."

"No, he wouldn't."

"I know, but
...
he always has these perfect re
sponses to whatever I say, and it makes me feel like
I don't know
anything.
Like if I make my own decisions, they've got to be wrong, and if he doesn't keep
me under surveillance twenty-four hours a day, I might get pregnant or end up on drugs, and totally ruin my life."

Gail nodded.

"He's so
Cuban,
and I can say that because I'm one, too." Angela sighed. "I just have to think of how to tell him so he doesn't freak out."

She set the bagels and coffee on a tray and Gail carried it to the table. Angela followed with cream cheese and napkins, then went back to arrange the
daisies in a wine carafe. Just then Bobby came out of
his room. He'd put on a clean T-shirt and sandals
and combed his hair. He gave Gail a check for one hundred dollars and apologized that it wasn't more. Angela told them to sit down and eat before everything got cold.

Bobby came around to pull out Angela's chair and
kiss her cheek. Smiling at him, she topped the hot milk with espresso. Bobby told Gail to help herself to the bagels. Angela asked Bobby what kind he
wanted. Onion, please,
mamita.
She put it on a plate
and spread it with cream cheese.

Gail couldn't look at them anymore. They were too beautiful. She wanted to cry.

The criminal courts were housed in a gray building with a view of the expressway that arched over the
Miami River. Gail could count on one hand the times
she'd gone up the wide, pink-marble steps, passed through the X-ray machines, then taken the narrow escalators packed with lawyers, police officers, court personnel, witnesses, the accused, and extended families of the accused.

Voices echoed on tile floors in long, poorly lit corri
dors. Judge Nathan Alan Harris presided in a court
room on the fourth floor. Gail went inside the
glassed-in anteroom and looked through a narrow
window. The courtroom was full, and she could hear
the buzz of conversations, but the judge was not on
the bench.

She went down the hall a bit, finding a plain oak
door. It was locked. She stood back and waited,
glancing around to see if anyone was watching.
When a man in a suit came out carrying a stack of
files, Gail went through before the door could close behind him. He barely glanced at her, this tall blond
woman in a slim skirt and fitted navy jacket, a row
of gold buttons down the front. She was obviously
someone with business here.

She found Judge Harris's office, marked by a
nameplate affixed to the wall. Flexing her fingers on the strap of her shoulder bag, Gail took a breath and went in. The assistant's desk was straight ahead, but male voices came from the judge's chambers. Someone laughed. Gail wandered closer. The judge came
into view—a lanky, gray-haired man in a long-
sleeved striped shirt. He was taking a black robe off
a hanger.

Gail realized that the judicial assistant was speaking to her.

She went back to the desk and stated her name, and that she was a lawyer. "It's urgent that I speak to Judge Harris." When the woman asked her what it was about, Gail shook her head. "I'm sorry, but
the matter is confidential."

"And I'm sorry, but the judge is about to go on
the bench. I don't see you down for an appointment.
How did you get in here?"

He came out of his office buttoning the top of his robe, continuing his conversation with the other man, a lawyer whom Gail recognized from Florida Bar meetings. She placed herself in their path. "Judge Harris, I'm Gail Connor. I tried to reach you earlier this week—"

"Gail. This is a pleasant surprise." He held out his hand, shaking hers with a warm, firm grip. "Yes, you
did call me, and I'm sorry for not calling you back.
I was swamped. Don't go away." He turned to speak to the other lawyer, arranging a meeting next week.
Input from the commission . . . Third DCA . . . jurisdic-
Honal issues.
Their voices intruded into Gail's head,
threatening to turn what she'd planned to say into
incoherent mush.