Suspicion of Innocence (32 page)

Father Donnelly had held his fraying prayer book in his hands.
In the end, we are all forgiven.

Gail gradually became aware that the court clerk had called the case twice. "Is someone here from Atlantic Financial?"

She picked up her briefcase, walked down the aisle, and pushed through the swinging door. Simon Yancey was already in front. The clerk handed the file to the judge and sat back down. The clerk was a middle-aged woman with a sweater thrown over her shoulders. Gail opened her own file on the counsel table to her left. "Your honor, I'm Gail Connor of Hartwell Black and Robineau, for the plaintiff. This is a motion for final judgment of foreclosure in
Atlantic Financial Services v. Yancey."
 

The judge looked up from the file. "Mr. Yancey?"

"Yes, sir." Yancey set his folder on the other table, pulled out some papers. "I realize that we're behind on the mortgage, your honor. We owe about three thousand dollars, but we can bring it up to date."

"Let the plaintiff's attorney speak first, all right? Then you can have your turn. That's how we do it." Judge Cooper went back to reviewing the file.

"Okay." Yancey held the papers in one hand and cracked the knuckles of the other with his thumb.

Gail gave the affidavits to the clerk, who passed them up to the judge. A neat stack of documents. She explained each one. When she was finished, the judge nodded toward Yancey.

He took a couple steps forward. ' i called this lady three or four times and she never called me back. She had her secretary talk to me. Her secretary said if I didn't pay the money they were going to put me out. I told her I can bring the payments up to date. I got laid off last summer but my wife and me are both working now."

Yancey glanced down at his papers, gave one to Gail, another to the clerk, who handed it to the judge. "I've taken the liberty of making up a payment schedule. It shows if we pay an extra two seventy-six fifty a month we'll back on track by the end of the year."

The judge looked at Gail. "What can you do for these folks?"

Gail had already discussed the case with someone at Atlantic, the sound of a keyboard tapping as they talked. He had pulled up the account on a computer screen and told Gail that the company didn't want to fool around with the Yanceys anymore.

Feeling rotten, she didn't look at Yancey. "My client is not willing to allow reinstatement, judge. The defendants have been consistently delinquent and this is the second time a foreclosure action has been filed against them. A default has already been entered."

"Yeah, but I'm working now. We can pay it."

"Mr. Yancey—" Judge Cooper seemed sorry he had to say this. ''After default the plaintiff has a right to proceed with foreclosure if it so chooses."

"But I called her." The judge was shaking his head. "I've got a wife and two kids at home. Is that fair? Where are we going to live? I thought America was supposed to be a free country. What kind of freedom is it—"

"Did you receive a copy of the summons and complaint, sir?"

"What kind of freedom is it when a man is put out of his own home?"

"Sir—" The judge waited until Yancey was quiet. He tapped a page in the file. "Sir, you were served with a copy of the complaint and there is no timely response from you in the file. It says right here on the summons that if you fail to respond in twenty days, judgment may be entered against you."

Yancey's voice was shaking with tension. "I know what this lady wants. She wants to stick me with a thousand dollars in attorney's fees. For what? And five hundred bucks in costs. She ought to be investigated."

The court clerk sympathetically rolled her eyes at Gail. Another nut. What can you do?

Judge Cooper reached for his pen. "I understand how you feel, Mr. Yancey, but the plain fact of the matter is, you have to pay attention to legal documents. You ignore them at your peril. Now you have twenty days to redeem the property, or it will be sold at public auction. I'm sorry, but that's the law." Judge Cooper lifted papers until he found the order of foreclosure.

Yancey turned around, breathing sharply. He kicked the chair at the end of the counsel table nearer him. It spun, tipped, and thudded to the floor. Yancey's eyes narrowed into slits. He headed toward Gail, his voice trembling.

"Bitch. You better watch yourself, you cunt."

Gail stumbled backward. The judge leaped out of his chair, poised as if he might vault over his desk. He yelled, "Bailiff!"

Yancey grabbed his papers off the table, pushed past the swinging door and up the aisle. The door clattered on its hinges. Two attorneys by the courtroom entrance moved out of his way.

After a few seconds, Judge Cooper sat back down, smoothing his mustache. "I wouldn't worry about it, Ms. Connor. People get upset. They calm down."

Gail dropped her hand from her heart. "Any other line of work wouldn't be half as exciting."

There was nervous laughter among the other attorneys in the courtroom.

The bailiff appeared at the door. "Judge? Everything okay?" The court clerk put the overturned chair back beside the table.

Judge Cooper picked up his pen. "Please make sure Ms. Connor isn't disturbed on her way out of the courtroom." He finished signing the order.

Gail found Edith Newell in the reading room of the museum, yellowed newspaper clippings spread out around her at one of the long tables. Edith looked up, her gray eyes huge behind her glasses.

"Hello, dear. My, you look exhausted. Sit down here, just move that stuff over a bit. I'm finding out oodles of things about Dan Hardie. Our Prohibition sheriff, don't you know?" She smiled. "Well, never mind that. You came for another reason, didn't you?"

Except for the two of them, the reading room was deserted, the air chilly and dry, suited to old books and crumbling papers. Gail shivered. "Is the professor sure it's genuine?"

"Oh my, yes. No doubt at all. Tequesta, about twenty-five hundred years old." Edith laughed. "He begged me for it. Begged me. But he was a good boy, sent it right back, not a scratch."

"And no idea where it came from?"

"No, I'm sorry to say." Edith pushed her sweater sleeve up her arm. Its cuff was loose, the fuzz turned to little balls. "You didn't get any information out of Jimmy Panther?"

"He says his grandmother kept it in a wooden box under her bed. A family heirloom, was the impression I got."

Edith hooted. "For two thousand years?"

"Her name was Annie Osceola," Gail said. "Does that sound familiar?"

"Well, not precisely, but Osceola is a common name among both the Seminoles and Miccosukees."

"He also said the Tequestas migrated to Cuba."

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Some of them. They went with the Spanish. About 1720. We could look it up, you want to?"

Gail studied the rows of shelves. "I wish I had the afternoon free. Edith, do you think one of the volunteers would like to earn a little extra money?"

"Oh, don't ask them." Edith began to stack the newspaper clippings. "I'll do it for free, if you promise to give the museum a shot at that clay deer mask."

"It isn't mine, Miss Newell."

"Maybe not. But if we prove it isn't his, either—" She dropped the clippings into a box and closed the lid. "There's something fishy going on, don't think there isn't. What do you want me to find out?"

Gail squeezed Edith's hand, then took a legal pad out of her briefcase. "Anything on Jimmy Panther. Check the public records. Birth certificate, school records, military, employment. . ." Gail's pen flew over the paper. "And general information on the Miccosukees and Tequestas would be helpful." She looked at Edith. "Did you ever see him with Renee, when she worked here?"

"Oh, yes." Edith thought for a minute. "They were quite friendly." She caught Gail's expression. "Not like that, dear. You know.
Friends.
The way men and women used to be friends, before sex got so prevalent. Although I can't imagine what they saw in each other." She smiled. "Nothing against Renee, of course. She was a charming girl, in her way."

Gail sat quietly for a moment. "When did Renee begin working at the museum?"

"Well, Renee was hired about a year and a half ago, I believe. Part-time." Edith lowered her voice, although there was still no one else in the room. "It doesn't matter if I tell you this now. Your mother made a contribution to cover her wages. Renee was having problems finding a job, apparently. At first she was utterly unreliable. I had to speak to her. I said, Renee, this will not do. She began to come around." Edith was silent for a moment, her eyes on the ceiling. "Starting early last year—February, March—Renee worked part-time here at the museum and part-time for some kind of insurance company."

"Vista Title Insurance," Gail said.

"Yes. By last fall, I believe, she was working full-time for them, although she would still come see us now and then."

"When was Jimmy Panther hired?"
 

"He was never an employee. Jimmy only came in to use the reading room. He would do a lecture whenever he wanted to. He became quite a hit. Upped our contributions considerably. One has to give him credit for that."

"So they met about eighteen months ago?"

"More like a year ago, perhaps less." Edith nodded toward the next table. "It was right over there. Renee and I were indexing catalogs and in he walked, with his beads and long black hair over his shoulders. He looked straight at Renee. Oh, the expression on her face. She whispered, 'Edith, look at that Indian coming in the door.' Well, he walked right over and I introduced them. I'd met him at a Miccosukee festival, so I knew who he was."

Through the glass door Gail could see the lobby and the stairs leading to the second floor. "You said he came to the museum to use the reading room. Do you know what for? I mean, if he wanted to sit and read he could use the library across the plaza."

Edith gave a wide smile. She had teeth too perfect to be anything but purchased. "Aren't you clever. Let me think." She turned around in her chair. "Jimmy would use the card catalog, then he'd go to the shelves and get whatever it was. Then he'd sit down at the last table. He had a zippered briefcase, I remember that now, with a notebook in it."

"Was he reading about Indian artifacts? Tequesta history?"

Tiny lines appeared around Edith's mouth as she pursed her lips. "I don't know. He sat with his back to the wall and wouldn't say a word about it. If he went to the men's room he'd reshelve the books and take all his papers with him." She lightly touched Gail's wrist. "And sometimes Renee would sit with him, but that was more recently."

"More recently when?"

"A few months ago? After the first of the year?" The last table was bare, three chairs on either side, neatly aligned. Gail got up, looked at the chair where Jimmy Panther had probably sat. "He never checked anything out?"

"Oh, no. We don't allow that."

"But they do at the library," Gail said.

"Indeed," Edith said. "And the records are on computer. I have a friend over there. Shall we ask her to look him up?"

Gail nodded. "Let's say running back at least a year." "Maybe some of the staff at the museum know what he was working on."

"Try not to be obvious."

"Oooh, isn't this fun?" Edith unfolded her long legs from under the table and picked up Gail's legal pad, tearing off the list of things to do. She hesitated. "What are we looking for?"

Gail shrugged, smiling a little. "I suppose we'll know when we find it."

Sixteen

It was nearly six o'clock when Gail pulled into the parking lot at Metro-Dade Police Headquarters. The ultramodern building, curves and glass and bright color, sat on several acres of landscaped lawn. Keys in her hand, and caught between dread and curiosity, she stared through the windshield of her car. If Frank Britton had any evidence to arrest her, he would have done it already.

In the lobby she told the duty officer—a woman in a tan uniform—why she had come: to pick up papers belonging to Renee Connor. The woman looked over her shoulder at another officer writing on a clipboard. A row of black-and-white TV monitors flickered behind him. She asked, "Britton. That's Homicide, right?" He nodded.

Gail said, "When I called, he told me he might be working late. If not, he said I could pick them up from anyone."

"Okay, let's see." The woman dialed a number on the phone. "You can sit down if you want to."

She didn't, only wandered from the reception counter to the middle of the lobby. Glass walls on either side, a profusion of philodendrons hanging from second-floor planters. Along the wall, trophies from the last Pig Bowl. A memorial to policemen killed in the line of duty. T-shirts for sale. Say No to Drugs. The place was as upbeat as a high school guidance office.
 

Gail rubbed the taut muscles in the back of her neck. Her head ached deep behind her eye sockets. Irene had said she would pick Karen up from dance class and make dinner, not to worry. Gail would go home—assuming they didn't drag her off in leg irons—as soon as she pushed her notes through the slot at Ferrer & Quintana.