Suspicion of Innocence (18 page)

"I suppose not, if he and Renee knew each other. You were there." She walked for a while, remembering Carlos Pedrosa swinging his keys around his forefinger in the parking lot, grinning at her. She wondered how well he had known Renee.

"How did they meet, through your law firm's title company?" That was what Ben had told her, but she wanted to hear what Anthony had to say.

"Yes. My partner Raul Ferrer hired her. Raul runs the title company." Gail's next question must have been apparent in her face. He added, "Renee and Carlos were friends."

She continued to look at him.

He shrugged. "Forgive me if I leave it at that. Carlos is my cousin."

"Renee was my sister." "Even so."

The wind had calmed beside the buildings on Biscayne, though the big multicolored flags at Bayside Marketplace three blocks north were still snapping westward from their double row of flagpoles.

Gail said, "I've tried to imagine Renee sitting behind a desk with a calculator, going over figures for a real estate closing, and I just can't do it. It's so unlike her."

"I never heard complaints about her work."

"How long had she been there?"

"A year or so. Beginning part-time, then working to a full-time position. She did some of the closings for Carlos if the other closers were busy. Many of the buyers couldn't speak English."

"Renee spoke
Spanish!"

"Not fluently, but well enough. You didn't know this?"
 

Gail shook her head.

Anthony said, "Do you remember the photograph I brought your mother?"

"Of course. What about it?"

"I once asked Renee who the other little girl was. She told me about you."
 

"I'm afraid to ask."

" 'My beautiful, brilliant bitch of a sister. She can do anything.' " Anthony smiled. "Renee meant it as a compliment."

Gail laughed. "I doubt it, but thank you."

"No, I think Renee meant everything she said. She was one of the most forthright people I have ever met." He stopped walking, his brows lifting. "Is this the place you wanted to bring me?"

Further along the sidewalk a Cuban restaurant faced the street. A ledge at the open window held a five-gallon insulated water cooler and a glass box of pastries. A man stood outside the window sipping thick black coffee from a tiny cup. Through the door Gail could see a few tables, most of them unoccupied.

"This place? Actually, I never noticed it before." She looked back at him. "But if you prefer—"

"Because I'm Cuban?" He shook his head. "I had enough Cuban food as a kid. That's all I had until I was eighteen. I eat what my aunts cook when I go to their houses, but other than that, I never touch it."

"How odd," she said, following when he began to walk again. "Isn't it?"

Anthony shrugged, palms moving outward and up.

Gail was still curious. "You lived with your grandfather when you came to Miami?"

"Yes. And with my grandmother, my mother, a younger sister, two aunts, an uncle, and three or four cousins. Including Carlos."

"What is Ernesto Pedrosa like? If you don't mind my asking."

"Well, don't think he is uneducated because he has
arroz y frijoles negros
on his plate every day. He studied in New York and traveled around the world. He attended the ballet and the opera in Havana. My mother told me they had a French cook. This was before, of course."

"Before the revolution?"

"Yes. Ever since he got here he won't eat anything but Cuban food at home."

Anthony stopped at a fruit stand and flashed Gail a smile. "All this talk of food." He said something in Spanish to the vendor too fast for her to understand any of it except the word
dos.
He pulled out his wallet.

The vendor—a buxom, red-haired Hispanic woman in tight pants—handed him two cups of chunked tropical fruit with plastic forks inside and rattled something back at him.

Gail asked, "One of those isn't mine, is it?"

"Hold it for me, if you don't want it." Anthony speared a piece of pineapple. She watched him chew. He was wearing yet a different ring, she noticed, a gold band with a brown striped cat's-eye. He had graceful hands. Gail imagined the women on the
Darden
v.
Pedrosa
jury watching Anthony Quintana instead of listening to her final argument.

But the case would be settled first. They were all reasonable people. Even Nancy Darden would be happy. Gail inhaled deeply, tilting her head back to let the sun pour over her face.

Anthony was concentrating on his fruit cup. Then he said, "I'll tell you about my grandfather, since you seem to be curious. My grandfather's house in Coral Gables faces south. In his office he has a big desk—over which hangs a flag of Cuba with bullet holes in it."

He poked through the fruit until he found a more or less square piece of mango. He held it up on the end of the fork. "This desk is turned toward the southwest—" He rotated the mango. "—so that when Ernesto José Pedrosa Masvidal sits in his chair he is looking at Havana. So he says.
Veo mi Habana querida."

Anthony ate the mango, then laughed and gestured with his fork toward the other cup. "I should have bought three of them."

Gail looked down, swallowing a piece of cantaloupe. "Oh, I'm sorry."
 

"No, I bought it for you."

"Well, then." She took another piece, eyeing it carefully. "What is this?"
 

"Mamey."

She put it into her mouth and grimaced.

He grinned at her. "You've never tasted mamey?"

"No. Bizarre." She let it slide down her throat.

"You stay in your office too much."

"How true." Laughing a little, Gail brushed back the hair that had blown over her forehead. "What a gorgeous day. I was outside earlier and didn't even notice."

"We must have all our talks in the street, then."

His eyes were so dark, and the eyelashes so thick, she could barely distinguish pupil from iris. What a fascinating face, she thought, wanting to decide objectively why she thought so. The angles. Or textures. Or because it was Hispanic and therefore different, although she could not tell in what way. Perhaps the contrast between dark and light. Rich brown hair, white shirt collar. Dark eyes, pale skin. More golden than pale, but lighter than Dave's, anyway, with a darker beard below the surface.

It took no more than a second or two for all this to flash through her mind, then Gail turned her attention back to the sidewalk ahead of them. She wished she could discreetly drop the half-full cup of fruit into a trash can. The sweet juice had run backwards off the fork and made her fingers sticky.

"I think we've gotten a little off the subject," she said.

"Yes. You were threatening to go ahead with the depositions on Monday."

"No, I was making a point. If we can't at least agree on a tentative settlement, we'll end up in trial, and neither of us really wants that."

They walked around a cabbie loading a pile of luggage into the back of a taxi. A family of sunburned tourists— British from the sound of them—stood to one side waiting.

Anthony speared the last piece of fruit in his cup. "Well, tell me what you do want."

She said, "Pedrosa Development repays the Dardens what they have in it and they deed the property back."

"We don't want the property back," Anthony said. "However, some adjustments might be made in the purchase price. For example, the pool could be included at no charge."

She shook her head. "This is an emotional thing for them, you have to realize that. Bill and Nancy are newly weds, planning a family. They wanted a nice home and wound up with a construction nightmare."

"I think you are talking to the judge, not to me."

"Carlos can sell the house to someone else."

Anthony's smile had gone. "You're asking too much, Gail."

"I'm willing to give up the loan interest. Maybe."

"No. Take the property, Pedrosa will come down ort the price. Get another contractor to do the work."

"This isn't much different from what you were saying nearly two weeks ago."

"Neither is what you are telling me."

Gail stopped walking. "Then go to trial."

Anthony looked at her steadily for a few moments, then gestured toward the fruit cup she held. "Are you finished with that?"

She glanced at it. "Yes."

He took both cups and dropped them into a trash can. "I have something I want to show you." He opened his jacket and reached into the breast pocket. "A letter. The original is in my file." He handed it to her, folded crisply into thirds.

There were four pages. It took Gail only a moment to recognize the loopy handwriting, and she turned to the last page to confirm it. A letter from Nancy Darden to Carlos Pedrosa, dated six months ago, when the conflict between them had blown out of control.

After beginning with a general expression of outrage, which was sprinkled liberally with exclamation points and capitalized words, Nancy Darden had suggested that Carlos Pedrosa was a lying thief who hired illegal aliens. That this was still America and they should all go back where they came from, including Carlos. That Cubans were known as the Jews of the Caribbean, which she guessed explained just about everything. That her father was a member of the United States Senate who was going to take care of this—

Silently cursing Nancy Darden, Gail folded the letter. Stupid, bigoted little bitch. She held the letter out to Anthony Quintana.

"Keep it," he said. "Perhaps Mrs. Darden would like to reread it." His easy manner was gone, something steely-edged moving into its place.

Gail put the letter into the pocket of her dress, speaking coldly, masking her uncertainty with indignation. "What do you intend to do with this? It has no relation to the issues in the case. It isn't admissible as evidence, not in a civil trial."

"I think you should discuss it with your clients before it becomes a problem for them."

Of course, Gail thought. The letter could turn up in
El Herald.
The Cuban talk stations in South Florida, always hot to jump on politicians, would be sizzling. They had never liked Douglas Hartwell, even if he was a Republican. Oh, and the Jewish voters didn't like him either. And who else had Nancy insulted? Hartwell would be facing a contested reelection in the fall, and even a petty issue like this could make a difference.

Obviously Anthony Quintana had figured all this out. And now he was still waiting for her response. He would, she decided, make an excellent poker player.

"What do you expect me to do, Mr. Quintana?"

He spoke in a flat tone. "As I said, I don't have the time or patience for civil jury trials. I want this settled."

"On whose terms?"

"Make an offer."

Gail felt vulnerable, dismayed by what she could now see only as her own carelessness. Nancy had told her she had written to Carlos Pedrosa but Gail had never asked for a copy of the letter. It was small comfort to know that most other attorneys wouldn't have asked either. There would be no excuses for losing this case.

She knew what Larry Black would do. If she took his advice, whom would she be trying to save, the Dardens or herself?

Everyone, Anthony had said, is guilty of something.

But Gail could only laugh, and she saw the surprise on his face. She looked across the wide boulevard, to the grassy, manmade hill on the other side.

"Since you appreciate forthrightness—" She turned back to him. "I assume you do. You said as much, talking about my sister." She waited, then went on. "I don't like threats. Do what you want with that letter. I'm going to pretend I never saw it. I'm also going to pretend we don't have clients from hell and that maybe we can work this out
.
And if not—" Gail lifted her hands. "If not, thanks for the fruit and I'll see you in court."

Anthony looked at her for a moment longer. "Clients from hell?" She said nothing. "The house is more than halfway finished, Gail. You know the court will not cancel the contract."

Her hands were wet with perspiration. She clasped them behind her back. "Yes, I know. We’ll pay the contract price, but only labor and materials, no overhead, no profit."

"And this is reasonable?" He gave her a look. "What about the extras they ordered? The Jacuzzi. The oak floors. All of that."

"All right. But only cost, no profit."

"Agreed. Only cost."

"We need to see your invoices."

"Of course."

"And the company pays loan interest."
 

"Half. Both sides caused the delay."
 

"Fine. Half."

"And the Dardens can find another contractor to finish the house." There was a vague smile. "Perhaps an American company, where everyone speaks English."

"Anything else?"

He made a dismissive gesture. "Small details. Will your clients agree?"