Suspicion of Betrayal (26 page)

When they arrived at the house on Clematis Street, Anthony took the mail out of the box and found another plain white envelope with Gail's name on it.

He held it out of her reach and opened it, and his expression turned icy.

Gail demanded to see it, and he showed her.

As if at a long distance, she saw herself sinking to the floor, Anthony catching her. In the bathroom in the downstairs hall, she threw up until her throat was raw. He helped her to the bedroom. When she wanted to call Dave to tell him about it, Anthony brought her the telephone. She made Dave promise to keep Karen inside and to tell her nothing, not until they had decided what to say.

Around two o'clock in the morning, she woke up, trembling violently. A small lamp was on. Anthony had dressed her in her nightgown.

"Come here." He pulled her into his arms.

She had dreamed of the knife in the photograph. Someone cutting Karen into pieces, flesh from bone, such honey soft flesh. The knife enters, severing muscles and arteries, slashing open the breasts still unbudded. A gush of blood soaking her long hair, filling her mouth, bubbling in the severed throat. It's too quick for pain, but there is terror more hideous than pain, seeing the body sundered, the inner parts spilling out, the knife flashing upward, then down, again and again.

He held her tightly. "Gail, you're all right. Karen is all right. I sent someone to make sure. Nothing will happen to her. I swear it." He kissed her forehead and told her again that Karen was safe.

Finally she slept.

FOURTEEN

Flowers were delivered to Gail's office on Wednesday morning, an arrangement of six red roses with green fern and sprigs of baby's breath. Miriam, thinking that perhaps Anthony had sent them, carried the flowers back to Gail's office and waited, smiling expectantly, for Gail to open the card. Lynn peered in from the hall.

Gail, who was eating lunch at her desk, put aside her sandwich. Anthony had not sent them, she knew that immediately. His would have been deep pink roses, not red ones. This was a cheap arrangement in a plain glass vase.

"Those are nice," Lynn said, coming in a little farther. "Tom bought me red roses for our anniversary last week."

A small envelope was held aloft by a plastic holder stuck through the foliage. Her name had been printed by a computer, GAIL CONNOR. Underneath that, the office address.

Another envelope—the third one—had appeared in her mailbox on Monday. The police had told her not to open any more of them, so she had taken it still sealed to the detectives working the case. They had hoped for fingerprints but found nothing. It had been another photograph of Karen at play, but Gail had not wanted to see it. Her dreams had been bad enough.

"Tell us who. We're dying to know." Miriam crossed her arms and rotated her foot on the heel of her pump.

Gail took the envelope out of the holder and slipped out the small, flat florist's card. When her vision came back into focus, she cleared her throat and said, "Miriam, who brought these?"

"Someone from Exotic Gardens." Picking up something in Gail's tone, Miriam looked at Lynn.

"Right." Lynn's blond hair fell to one side as she tilted her head. She frowned at the roses as if they might be a toxic species someone had sulipped
past her. "What's the matter?"

Gail's hands trembled as she lifted the vase, took it to the bathroom in the hall, poured out the water, then dropped the flowers into the trash and tied up the bag. The women stared at her.

"I need to talk to both of you. Come back to my office, please."

They mutely followed, sitting side by side on the sofa under the window, Miriam in her red miniskirt, Lynn as plain as a potato. Gail showed them the message.

With sympathy on the loss of your daughter. From Renee.

"Oh, my God," Miriam whispered. Her brown eyes widened. "Oh, Gail."

"But Karen's not—" Lynn looked again at the card. "Who is Renee?"

Gail took the card from her. "My sister. She died over a year ago."

Lynn's mouth fell open. "Why is her name here?"

"Because someone is using her death as a sick joke." Gail pulled a chair closer and sat down, crossing her legs. She refused to allow emotion into her voice. "You know that someone has been harassing me. The phone calls, the paint on my car? That isn't all. There have been three photographs. Now these flowers. They were sent here, to the office, so I think you need to know the rest of it. This person—whoever he is—has decided that I wouldn't scare easily. So now he's using Karen."

She described the pictures—not in detail, but it was enough to make Miriam press her fingertips to her mouth and stifle a cry. Lynn sat silently staring.

"We're working with the police, naturally. I spoke to them last on Monday. Looks like I'll be going again this afternoon."

On Monday she and Anthony had taken the second photograph to the Miami Police Department headquarters downtown, a modern red-brick building a few blocks from the courthouse. Dave had met them there. The men had minded their manners, knowing what was important—this vile thing that depicted the butchery of a young girl. Toward the police Anthony had maintained icy control; Dave had demanded that they do something, find the bastard, call in the FBI.

Gail said, "They told me not to open any mail that looks suspicious, but take it directly to them so they can examine it for fingerprints. If we get anything like that here, don't open it, just bring it to me. All right?"

Lynn and Miriam nodded.

"I don't expect you to have any problems, but you should be aware, in case you see something unusual. I'm being very cautious, especially with Karen."

Miriam scooted forward to grab Gail's hand. "Why would anybody
do
this?"

"Because they're crazy. Who knows why?"

Lynn's voice shook. "I wouldn't have signed for them if I'd known."

"No, it's better you took them. The police told me that every time he makes contact he leaves a clue. Maybe the florist will remember who placed the order, or trace the charge." Gail stood up. "Okay, back to work. God only knows how many potential clients were clamoring at the door while we talked."

She called out to Lynn to wait a moment.

"Yes?"

"I wonder if you could call Charlie Jenkins for me. You remember him. He worked on my wiring. Now the air conditioner is about to die." She flipped through her Rolodex. "I shouldn't have let it go for so long. We woke up last night sweating."

She was copying Charlie's number when the phone rang. She punched the intercom. Miriam told her that Theresa Zimmerman was on the line. Could Gail take it?

"Oh, God." The client with the bad knee, whom Gail had meant to call back on Friday. "All right, I'll take it." Gail doodled dollar signs on her legal pad, then 28,000. "Hello, Theresa. I'm sorry I didn't get right back to you. It's been so hectic." Ms. Zimmerman wanted to know when she could collect her money from the insurance settlement. "Probably on Friday," Gail told her. "It was an out-of-state check, and they always take longer. . . . Yes, call me Friday, and I'll make sure the funds are available."

She hung up, then stared at the telephone. "Believe me, I'll be as happy as you to see that check clear."

Lynn said, "The check is good, isn't it? Couldn't you just give her the money?"

"No, because if, by some remote chance, the check bounced, I wouldn't have money for the next client, and he'd tell the Florida Bar. Lawyers get in trouble screwing around with their trust accounts."

"Oh."

"Here's Charlie Jenkins's number. See if he can come around five o'clock."

When Lynn was gone, Gail stood by the window, noticing how normal the world seemed on the other side of the glass. Traffic flowed on the expressway, and the mall had its usual crowds of South American shoppers. He could be driving through the parking lot. Or standing outside one of the stores, staring back at the window that marked her office. Thinking of what else he could do. What cleverness next? How long could he play with her before he closed in? And meanwhile people were walking around him left or right, unaware.

When Gail turned away from the window, she noticed the box on her credenza. Miriam had spent Monday and half of Tuesday going through old cases at the law firm downtown. She had come back and flopped into Gail's chair, curls bouncing, bringing gossip about all the people they knew. Gossip and a banker's box full of photocopies organized into labeled folders. Overkill, Gail had told her, but the efficient Ms. Ruiz had not missed a case in which anyone—client, opponent, witness, or lawyer—had squabbled about tactics or outcome. She had gone back no more than two years, since they decided that nobody was likely to hold a grudge without acting on it longer than that.

Gail walked her fingers through the files, certain that there had been a couple of cases having to do with trust accounts. Real estate deals that had fallen through. Or someone laying claim to an escrow account. Gail recognized the names of her clients, surprising given the staggering number of cases she had worked on at any one time. Hartwell Black had offered her a partnership, but she'd been sick of the bureaucracy, the tyranny of time sheets, the monotony of commercial litigation. Six months later, working just as hard for less money, she was beginning to wonder what she'd been thinking.

Too wound up to eat, Gail dropped the rest of her sandwich back into the deli bag and tossed it into her trash basket. She pulled one folder from the box, then another. Miriam had not copied the entire file, only the client information sheet, the complaint, the answer, the final judgment, and any pertinent letters or records of phone calls. Most were of no interest. Petty complaints. Misunderstandings. She skipped over cases in which the dispute had been with a corporation. Corporations did not send flowers from a dead woman or draw bloody knives on a picture of a ten-year-old girl.

She went more slowly through cases where she had filed suit against an individual, not a company. There were three residential-foreclosure cases, and Gail sat down in her chair with the folders on her lap. She sipped her iced tea and set it back on the napkin.
Atlantic Financial Savings
v.
Yancey.
The homeowners, Simon Yancey and his wife, Rita Yancey, had not filed an answer, so Gail had asked for a judgment in her client's favor. Yancey had appeared at the hearing. When Gail won her motion, he had cursed and kicked the furniture, then turned on Gail like a maddened bull. The judge had screamed for the bailiff. Yancey had crashed through the swinging gate, then pushed the exit door so hard it slammed into the wall. Nervous laughter rose among the lawyers waiting for their own cases to be called. Gail had been shaken, but with so many other things on her mind, Yancey became only an anecdote to relate in the coffee room. A week or so later a typed letter arrived in the mail:

Dear Ms. Gail Connor:

I hope you can live with yourself. You have succeeded in taking away the house which my wife and I made faithful payments on for five years. We had some bad luck, but you would not give us a chance to bring the loan current. Does it make you happy to see a decent, hardworking American family out on the street? My wife is on medication from the stress. You are a sorry excuse for a human being who wants to do high-fives with the mortgage company over the house you stole from us.

Sincerely,

Simon T. Yancey

That was the last she had heard from Yancey. He'd been angry—the letter pulsed with anger—but there was also a curious politeness and adherence to form.
Dear Ms. Gail Connor. Sincerely, Simon T. Yancey.

Gail tossed the file onto her desk, remembering that at the time she had felt bad about the Yancey foreclosure—but not bad enough to tell the company to give the man an extension. She recalled billing about a thousand dollars in fees on the case. Her client hadn't cared about the fees, which were tacked onto the judgment and collected on resale. Atlantic Financial had wanted the loan called. Maybe the interest rate had been too low. Or they wanted to get out of that area of town. Gail had not questioned their motives, and could not have done so without risking her chances for a partnership. Hartwell Black had not become one of Miami's most powerful law firms by being squeamish about pulling the trigger.

She opened the second folder—another homeowner angry about losing his property, blaming the court this time, and blaming Gail for being a pawn of the system.

When the intercom buzzed, Gail picked it up.

Charlene Marks told her that she had just received a copy of a report filed by Dr. Fischman in the custody case.

Gail closed the folder. "What does he say?"

"Come on up," Charlene said. "We'll chat."

When a drink was offered, Gail did not turn it down. Charlene came back with two vodka martinis over crushed ice in heavy glasses, adorned with twists of lime.

The report was on Charlene's desk where Gail had tossed it, upside down.
The mother's controlling personality . . . signs of instability bordering on pathological. . . unsuitable living arrangement with the mother's lover . . . risk of emotional damage to the child. . . leaving her frequently in the care of others .. . A recommendation that sole custody of said minor child be granted to the father.

Gail took one of the glasses. "I wonder. Even if I'd known he would write something like that, could I have restrained myself from screaming at him?"

"You should have, of course."

"Maybe I'd have drowned him in his aquarium. He'd be hanging over the edge with his goldfish swimming around his head." Gail closed her eyes. "What am I going to do?"

Charlene sat down in the adjacent chair and crossed her legs. "You are not going to panic. We'll hire another psychologist. Fischman's report is so far off, he looks rabid."

"I'm running out of money."

"Then ask Anthony to help you. He will, you know. Gladly."

"I don't like asking him for money. He just paid for my wedding dress. I could become used to it, and then what?"