Lassiter 08 - Lassiter (21 page)

“Hey, Max. Got something for you.”

He stepped on Perlow’s rib cage. Careful not to leave bruises. He heard a blast of air, like a farting balloon. Or … a punctured lung.

Perlow cried in pain. “Charlie. Whaaaa …?”

“That’s for Krista, Max. Remember her?”

“Char …”

“You didn’t call the paramedics for Krista, did you, Max?”

Ziegler adjusted his foot and pressed harder. Blood exploded from Perlow’s chest like a whale spouting.

Perlow didn’t say another word.

“And that lifetime deal of ours, Max,” Ziegler said. “It just expired.”

“Sorry, Uncle Jake. I should have gotten a license plate.”

“No problem, Kip. Your description was great. I’ve seen the guy.”

“Really?” The boy’s spirits were picking up.

“The tattoos nailed it.”

We sat at the kitchen table, Kip sipping a mango shake. His mood had roller-coastered ever since he had pedaled home in record time. Hyper-excitement, then a spiral downward, and now he was rallying. The boy didn’t realize just how shell-shocked he was at nearly being kidnapped. For her part, Granny was baking maple bacon brittle, her salty-sweet antidote to any childhood ailment.

“I kicked the poop out of the guy,” Kip said.

“He underestimated you. Happens to me in court sometimes.” I tousled the boy’s hair and said, “Proud of you, kiddo.”

“I wasn’t scared, Uncle Jake.”

Right
.

“It’s okay to be scared, as long as you still do the right thing.”

“Are you gonna whomp the guy?” Kip asked.

That had been my first inclination. But Nestor was Perlow’s bodyguard and would have been following his boss’s orders. Raising lots of questions. Did Perlow intend to snatch Kip or just show me he could get to someone
I loved? Did Ziegler know what was going on? What about Castiel? Was there a larger game plan?

Something else had just become apparent. It must have been Nestor in the Hummer, following Ziegler to Lighthouse Point. Meaning there was a rift between Perlow and Ziegler. But why? And, more important, how could I take advantage of it?

Too many questions needed answering before I punched anyone out.

Perlow didn’t have a listed phone number, so I asked Kip to use his computer skills to find out where the old hood lived. Two minutes later, my nephew showed me an aerial shot of a 1930s Spanish-style house just off Andalusia in Coral Gables. A ficus hedge shielded an alley behind the place. It would be a good way to get onto the porch undetected.

“I’m gonna go talk to Nestor and the guy he works for,” I told Kip.

“Talk, Uncle Jake?”

“Yeah. But if either of them gives me any shit, I’ll go biblical on their asses.”

Kip looked at me, waiting for an explanation.

“I’ll bring the walls down on their heads like Samson at the Temple of Dagon.”

A circus, Ziegler thought, watching from the pool deck.

His house, the big tent.

Uniformed cops, plainclothes detectives, crime scene investigators, medical examiners, techs in plastic gloves with tweezers and flashlights. Cameras popping off photos in the solarium, on the deck, up against the windows, and deep in the bayonet bushes.

A moment before he was to give his statement to homicide detectives, Ziegler caught sight of a distraught Alex Castiel jogging toward him. Ziegler tried to arrange his features into a reasonable facsimile of grief. “Alex, it was awful. I know how much you loved the old guy.”

Castiel pulled him aside, out of earshot of the cops. “Was it her, Charlie? Was it the Larkin woman?”

“Couldn’t really tell. Too dark. And I was scared shitless.”

“Who else could it be?”

“Shit, I don’t know, Alex. Wish we could ask Max.”

They were quiet a moment as a police helicopter flew overhead, its searchlight sweeping across the seawall.

“What do you mean?” Castiel asked.

“Max saw the shooter.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he said something.”

“What, exactly?”

“He said, ‘You?’ ”

Castiel ran a hand through his dark hair. “That’s all, Charlie? ‘You?’ ”

“Like he recognized the shooter. But Max never saw Amy Larkin, so I’m thinking maybe it was someone else.”

“You’re reading a helluva lot into one word, Charlie.”

“I don’t know what you expect me to say.”

Police radios squawked. A tech walked by carrying several plastic evidence bags.

Castiel lowered his voice. “Step up to the plate. I need an eyeball witness.”

“C’mon, Alex. You asked if I saw her, and I’m saying I can’t swear to it.”

Eyes wild, Castiel jammed a finger into his chest. “Didn’t you ever learn anything from Max? Do what’s gotta be done!”

“What the hell does that mean?”

With a plainclothes cop approaching, Castiel hissed in his ear, “There are only two people who could have killed Max. Amy Larkin and you, Charlie. It’s up to you who goes down for it.”

Drained from his near-kidnapping and stuffed with maple bacon brittle, Kip had conked out on the sofa. I carried him into his bedroom and tucked him into bed. Then I went through his backpack and found a note from Commodore Perkins at Tuttle-Biscayne.

Would I please select which date was convenient for Kip’s disciplinary hearing?

The Commodore thoughtfully provided nine different days. I decided to choose the last one, then, at the last moment, ask for a continuance. If I did this often enough, maybe Kip could graduate before he was expelled.

An hour later, I was lying in bed watching television. Csonka was sleeping in the corner of the room, snoring and farting. I flipped through the channels, found an old
L.A. Law
episode just starting. The opening credits rolled, soaring horns and banging drums inviting me to spend time with some lawyers who had a helluva lot more time for bed-hopping than I did.

My phone rang. Too late for good news. Caller I.D. told me it was our esteemed State Attorney.

“What’s up, Alex? One of my clients steal your purse?”

“What are you doing right now, Jake?” Castiel said.

“Whatever I want. I’m in the privacy of my own bedroom.”

“Let me speak to Amy Larkin.”

“Why would she be in my bedroom?”

“I thought maybe you were nailing her. What time did she leave?”

“What are you talking about? She wasn’t here tonight.”

Castiel sounded brusque, but smug. “Thanks, Jake. You haven’t been this much help since you wore the wire.”

Damn. I’d let my guard down. It happens sometimes after three fingers of Jack Daniel’s. “Wanna tell me what just happened?”

“You just ruled yourself out as an alibi.”

Oh, shit
.

“What is it you think Amy did?” I asked.

“She killed Max Perlow. One bullet to the chest.”

I bolted up. “No way. Why would she?”

“Shot at Charlie Ziegler and missed. Charlie I.D.’d her.”

I could hear my own heart sledge-hammering. Had she really done it?

“They pulled a .38 slug out of Perlow,” Castiel continued. “If it matches the bullets she fired into your tires …”

“Wait a second. How’d you get those?”

“You forgetting I sent a county truck to tow your pimpmobile?”

“You had the slugs pulled from my tires?”

“I planned to prosecute your client for firearms violations. Who knew?”

“Someone stole Amy’s gun two days ago.”

If it’s possible to hear a man shaking his head, I heard Castiel’s spinning. “You make this shit up as you go along, Jake?”

“Amy told me. Someone ransacked her motel room and stole the gun. She was all freaked out about it.” Even as I said it, I hated the story. How damn convenient.

“Just tell her to turn herself in, Jake. I don’t want anything messy.”

I told him I would if I could find her. It’s one of the ethical rules I happen to believe in. You don’t tell a client to run away. You bring her in to face the music and do your best to keep it from being a funeral march.

“I loved Max like my own father,” Castiel said, somberly. “This is personal, Jake.”

“Don’t handle the case yourself, Alex.”

“You’re the one who better get out. I don’t give a shit about collateral damage.”

“I don’t abandon clients, you know that.”

“Up to you. But from here on out, our friendship is meaningless, Jake. I’m taking her down, and I don’t give a shit if I take you down with her.”

The next morning, I was having my healthy breakfast of sugary Cuban coffee and guava flan at Versailles in Little Havana when Amy called.

From the jail.

She said she’d seen the story of the shooting on television in a restaurant bar. She’d been shocked—yes, shocked—to see her driver’s license photo on the screen. She called the police and turned herself in.

“I didn’t do it, Jake,” she said.

“Not another word on the phone,” I ordered. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

I knew what was coming. An indictment for First Degree Murder. Meaning the state had evidence of premeditation. Boy, did they. Surveillance and stalking. Threats. Target practice. And shooting the wrong guy is no defense.

I carried my coffee to the car and headed east on Calle Ocho, passing Woodlawn Park Cemetery. It’s filled with statues of angels, elaborate crypts, and mausoleums. Woodlawn is where Latin-American rulers go to their eternal rest in marble mausoleums and, this being Miami, it’s a hot tourist attraction.

When I got to the Women’s Annex, I presented my Bar card at the security window and sat in the visitors’ room on a metal bench that seemed specially designed to put me into traction. I stood and studied the frescoes,
which adorned the plaster walls. Mothers and children in splashy Caribbean colors. Shining suns and towering palms. Painted by the inmates, the frescoes seemed to reflect the repressed desires and unobtainable goals of these sorrowful, maladjusted women.

In a few minutes, a female guard brought Amy into a lawyer’s room with a large glass window, a table, and two chairs. My first question to a jailed client is never
“Did you do it?”
It’s always
“How much money do you have?”

Amy gave me a number, a few thousand dollars in a savings account. I would run through that for expenses and expert witnesses, so she retained me for her usual fee. Zero.

“I didn’t kill him, Jake,” Amy blurted out. “Honest, I didn’t.”

I still hadn’t asked.

“Hold that thought,” I said.

“Why would I shoot that old man?”

“Castiel says you were trying to kill Ziegler and missed. Either way, it’s First Degree Murder.” I recited the murder statute from memory. “That’s the ‘unlawful killing of a human being perpetrated from a premeditated design to effect the death of the person killed or any human being.’ It’s the ‘any human being’ part that does you in.”

“But I didn’t shoot anyone!”

“Just speaking hypothetically. If you aim at Peter and hit Paul, it’s what the law calls ‘transferred intent.’ ”

As they say, a good lawyer knows the law. But as they also say, a
great
lawyer knows the judge.

“You believe me, don’t you, Jake?”

“When you lie in wait to kill someone, that’s the premeditated part of the crime.” I wasn’t done with my Crim Law 101 lecture. “Your hatred of Charlie Ziegler for your sister’s disappearance is the motive.”

“It wasn’t me! Jake, are you listening?”

“The penalty is life without parole.”

I let that sink in a moment.

Life. Without. Parole
.

It’s forever and ever and ever, and the thought of it is nearly incomprehensible. Day after day of endless sameness. The same starchy, tasteless food. The thin, lumpy mattresses. Incompetent medical care. Lethal cellmates
and pissed-off guards. The smells of sweat and disinfectant and the numbing noise, the clanging of steel doors, desperate voices echoing off concrete floors.

Amy’s face had lost its color.

I wondered if I’d forgotten anything. Oh, yeah. “There’ll be no bail pending trial, so try to get used to your surroundings. Don’t make friends with any of the other inmates. By that, I mean don’t talk to them about your case. If you do, you’ll have someone claim you made a jailhouse confession.”

I had one more item to bring up before talking about the evidence. “I need to ask you about that night when I called Castiel to ask him to dredge the canal.”

“Yeah?”

“You got mad at me and left.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Question is, did you come back later? Like in the middle of the night.”

“Why would I do that?”

“You tell me.”

“Okay, yes. I was going to apologize to you for the way I’d acted. Blaming you because Castiel was being a jerk.”

“So you pushed the front door open?” She’d seen me whack it with my shoulder and I recalled telling her that it was never locked.

“I’d had a couple drinks, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. But then your dog started barking. I panicked and left.”

I wasn’t sure about her story. Had she really been there to apologize? It was just as likely that she’d wanted to berate me some more. Or possibly even shoot me. With Amy, every turn in the road seemed to lead deeper into a maze.

“Two days ago, you told me someone broke into your motel room and stole your gun.”

“What about it?”

“Did you file a police report?”

“No. Why?”

“C’mon, Amy. You’re smarter than that.”

“Someone took the gun.”

“If the ballistics tie your Sig Sauer to the shooting, Castiel will send in a marching band and break out the champagne.”

“If my gun was used, someone else fired it.”

“Where were you last night?” I fired the question quickly, wanting to see if she blinked, reddened, or turned away.

“Nowhere near Ziegler’s,” she fired right back. A touch of anger, which was okay. “I was with a man.”

That surprised me. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

“Can’t tell you.”

“Why the hell not?”