Suspicion of Innocence (12 page)

Dave swung the stringer around, continuing the cross strings. "I'd be glad. I am glad, in fact. Two hundred thousand dollars' worth of glad."

Gail rested her elbows on her knees. "We didn't need this to come between us. We already had Renee to argue about. Now this. I had hoped we could finally establish some kind of normal mother-daughter relationship, if that isn't too much to ask."

Dave looked across the machine at Gail. "Don't feel so guilty about your mother. I'll bet she's got all kinds of money tucked away, with those investments your dad made. She hasn't worked in thirty years."

"She works very hard, and you know it."

"What, that charity stuff?" Dave wove the string in and out across the throat of the racquet. "So when is all this going to happen?" He pulled back on the tension lever and the machine creaked.

"Ben says I need to give the bank a certified copy of the death certificate. That's another thing that happened today. I found out the police won't release the death certificate until they do another search of Renee's apartment. I'm supposed to meet them there on Friday."

"What are they going to do that for?"

"It's so useless. Mother asked them to. She's a wreck, more than I imagined. I don't know what she's thinking. Anyway, they'll go in and poke around. The paperwork on the trust could be done within a week or so after that."

Dave ran the end of the string back and forth through his fingers. "Look, Gail, I'm sorry we're getting the money this way. But it happened. If Irene doesn't want to take it—I mean, what can we do? We need it worse than she does."

Gail looked at him for a while, then said, "I thought about this on the way home. Renee owed her money. Irene ought to get that back, no matter what. I have no idea how much Renee wheedled out of her. Thousands. Tens of thousands."

"Wheedled?"

"Exactly. All that money she got, it wasn't a gift. Renee would say, 'Oh, Mom, I'll pay you back in a few weeks, I swear.' And in a few weeks maybe she would, maybe not. But sooner or later she'd be back for more. Where do you think she got the down payment for that condo? Not from her earnings. She could hardly hold a job."

"Come on, Gail. The girl had problems."

"Oh, poor Renee." Gail stood up abruptly, dusting off the seat of her pants. "That's one reason Renee came to Irene's birthday party, in case you didn't know—to borrow more money."

"Is that why you and Renee were screaming at each other in the back bedroom?"

"We weren't screaming," Gail said. "I told her it was time she grew up and tried to solve her own problems for a change."

"I'm sure she appreciated the advice." Dave undamped his tennis racquet from the machine and bounced the heel of his hand on the restrung head, not looking at her.

Gail watched him zip the racquet into a cover, then pick up another one, sleek black graphite, its strings slashed in an X, ready to be removed. She said, "The other thing I've decided. I'll pay off our charge card debts and the second mortgage, but I don't want to put any more money into the business the way it is."

Dave turned around. "Excuse me?"

"I said the way it is. I've put in nearly a hundred thousand dollars already, and where is it? We're up to our necks in debt."

"Whoa. Whoa." Dave held up his hand. "You and I talked about this already. We said we needed somebody to invest in the marina. Okay, now we can do it ourselves. Atlantic Marine has a high-lift truck they want to get rid of. We could go vertical, rent space to the smaller boats."

"Really. How simple. What do we use for a storage shed?"

"We build one. There's not a decent dry storage marina within two miles of there." "Dave—"

"No, listen. I've been thinking this out—"

"You listen." She faced him across the stringing machine. "No more. We don't need to buy a high-lift truck, we need to do better at what we've already got. The accounts receivable are a joke."

His face was turning red. "I just love it when you play corporate lawyer with me. I beat my brains out down there, and you know all about it."

Gail said coolly, "I'm not going to throw my money down a hole."

"Your money."

"Yes, it is."

Dave rummaged through his tool tray. "As long as you're going to pay Irene back, why don't you pay me back, too? I lent Renee some money."

There was a long silence. Then Gail said, "When?"

"Last winter. She didn't want to ask Irene again. She sure as hell couldn't ask you."

"How much?"

He shrugged. "Five thousand." "Five thousand
dollars?"

"About that. I've got it written down somewhere."
 

"For
what?"

Dave studied the blades of his wire cutters, then wiped them on a towel. "Stuff for her house. Furniture. Whatever."

"You were in Renee's house." It wasn't a question but a blank statement of surprise.

"Sure." He began cutting the slashed strings out of the tennis racquet. "Was I supposed to ask permission?" The cutters made a steady clipping sound.

Gail stared at him, remembering how Renee had fallen into his lap at Irene's party; how he had kissed her, laughing. How he had wept at her funeral.

"Were you sleeping with my sister?"

Dave looked up from the racquet.

"Were you?" Gail's voice was rising.

His mouth worked into a little smile. He went back to the strings. "I knew you were jealous, but really, sweetheart. This is ridiculous."

She snatched the tennis racquet out of his hands. "Tell me the truth."

"Give me that, dammit."

"I want the truth."

"I should have fucked her. I don't get much from you."

Gail slung the racquet across the garage. It skidded on the hood of her car, then ricocheted off the wall with a sharp snap.

"Goddamn you!" Dave spun her around, grabbed her upper arms, and pushed her into the stringing machine. She cried out as the hard edge of it dug into her back. They stood motionless, breathing hard. Then the fury on his face dissolved.

"Oh, Gail. I'm sorry." He dropped his forehead to her shoulder. "Christ, I'm sorry."

She put her arms around his waist, felt the hard muscle in his back. "I didn't sleep with her," he said. "I wouldn't do that." His ragged breath came through the fabric of her shirt. He said, "I'm sorry about the money, but she needed it. I was family. Who else was she going to go to?"

"You could have told me."

"No. You would have flipped out," he said. "For nothing, like you just did. I never cheated on you. Not once. And Renee—I liked Renee. When is it a crime to like somebody? I felt sorry for her."

"She used you, Dave. Can't you see that?"

He pulled back. "Okay. She made mistakes. You've never made a wrong step in your life, have you? I didn't sleep with her. We had lunch a few times. That's all."

"Lunch?" This was like opening a familiar door and seeing a room she had never known existed. "Where?"

"Restaurants. Where do you think, a hotel? It wasn't like that. We had lunch. Usually on Monday, unless one of us was busy. Nothing fancy, no roses and violins. I went to her house a couple times, maybe with some deli sandwiches. Sometimes we'd just sit at a table at Peacock Park. It wasn't a
date,
for God's sake."

"When was the first time?"

"I don't know. We ran into each other at the boat show at Dinner Key Marina, when I had that customized Excalibur on display."

"Almost two years ago."

Dave didn't speak for a while. Finally he said, "Yeah. She was a mess back then. On cocaine, drinking pretty heavy. I talked to her about it. Came down really hard. Maybe it did some good. I don't know anymore, with what happened."

"What did you talk about?"

"Nothing in particular. I'd tell her about the business. What I wanted to do, that kind of thing. We'd kid around, tell each other jokes we'd picked up lately. I sent her a birthday card once. And I said if she needed anything, ask."

"Did she tell you she was pregnant?" "Oh, no." He shook his head. "Was she? I didn't know."

Gail heard a car in the neighbor's driveway, heard doors slam, a teenager's laughter.

Dave said, "It wasn't mine, if that's what you're thinking. We had this agreement. No sex. I mean it. I suppose that sounds weird to you, but that's how it was. Sex would have ruined it."

Gail stood silently, then let out her breath, a long sigh that ended in a weary laugh. She folded her arms across her chest, studied the concrete floor.

"What?" he asked. "Don't you believe me?"

"Yes. I think I do."

"So what's the matter?" He reached out to touch her shoulder and she shrugged off his hand. "Gail?" "Leave me alone. Please."

"What are you going to do, stay out here all night?" She turned away, watched the box fan whirring at the window. After a while she heard the kitchen door close.

Fourteen years ago Gail had brought Dave home for spring break. She was nineteen, a sophomore. He was about to graduate, thinking of going on for his M.B.A., not putting much faith in the market for tennis jocks. Irene didn't mind having him as a houseguest—she knew his parents—but of course he and Gail would have separate bedrooms. Gail was just as glad. She wasn't sure if she wanted to marry Dave or not. He hadn't asked her yet, but she knew he was going to.
 

Renee was fifteen, Renee with her blonde hair pinned up on one side of her head in a pink butterfly clip, her faded jeans so soft and tight they showed her crotch. Renee said Dave was a riot, and laughed at his jokes, and told him she wanted to learn how to play tennis. She made sly remarks about balls and holding the handle of a racquet. Over dinner in the formal dining room on Sunday, Gail saw how his eyes kept going to Renee.

That night Gail sneaked into his room and by morning they were engaged.

Six

Renee had lived in Coconut Grove on a narrow street canopied with banyan trees. Gail didn't much like the Grove anymore, except as a place to take out-of-town visitors, who always asked to see it. It had become trendy and self-conscious, a singles street party with too many rich drunks and too many sports cars with the top down, everybody trolling for instant thrills. The tops went up if the cars wandered into the black Grove, with its rundown beer parlors, laundromats with wire mesh over the windows, and swaybacked wooden houses.

On a Friday afternoon shortly past five o'clock Gail zoomed down Bayshore Drive, then north at the Grand Bay Hotel. A few more turns this way and that, and she braked hard at Cocobay Condominium. It was easy to miss behind the bougainvillaea-draped wall. Before she could pull into the driveway, two skaters glided past on the edge of the street, a young man and woman, both in lime-green skates and kneepads, moving at the same pace on long, tanned legs. A flock of parrots whirred overhead, screeching.

Renee's townhouse was in a Mediterranean-style building with decorative awnings. At the end of the parking lot Gail saw a white and green van: Metro-Dade Crime Scene Investigation. A sedan with a blue light on the dash was in Renee's space. Gail parked beside it and got out.

On the front patio Frank Britton and two other men— one black with a mustache, the other ruddy and blond— watched her come up the walkway. Britton was in a brown jacket. The others wore open-collared sport shirts and badges clipped to their belts.

"I'm a little late," she said, glancing at her watch.

"That's okay. Friday traffic's a bear." Britton gestured toward the other men. "Officers Thomas and Wooten with the investigation unit."

"How do you do." Gail smiled automatically, then put down her briefcase so she could reach inside her purse. She withdrew Renee's key ring: five keys and a gold "R."

"Hang on a second," Britton said. "Let me show you something." He pointed to a strip of red tape about eight inches long and two inches wide running diagonally at eye level from the door to the jamb. It was ripped at the crack.

He said, "I put this here the day your sister was found. Somebody's been inside."

Gail walked closer to the tape. There was a date on it —March 8—and what could have been a case number, then the initials FJB scrawled in pen. She remembered. "Yes, I came by a couple days before the funeral to get a dress for her to wear. I'm sure it's all right. The keys haven't been out of my possession since then."

"Ms. Connor, you should have called us." Britton's tone was gently chastising. "The tape is right there on the door. It says, 'Evidence. Do Not Open.' "

Gail looked at him. "Well, I didn't see it. I came at night and frankly all I wanted to do was go in and out as quickly as possible. I went straight upstairs. I doubt if I spent more than five minutes."

"You haven't been in here since then?"

"No."

"And you only took a dress."

"Yes, Sergeant. A dress. Pale blue linen, to be precise. And shoes to match."