Blood Relations (34 page)

Sam was looking at her. “Yes, I think so.”

“Well, after the lecture was over, people gathered around to speak to her. I couldn’t move out of my chair, I was so stunned. That isn’t too strong a word for what I felt. Stunned. I knew that my life would change. But it didn’t. And it hasn’t. And here I am, thirty-five years old, still taking pictures that have no past and no future, and therefore, as far as I’m concerned, not much of a present.”

With a hand on her elbow he guided her out of the way of two teenage boys on skates, their open shirts flapping behind them. The surface of the road was smooth, painted in wide, diagonal stripes of black and white. The paint had begun to fade.

Sam said, “New York. Well, you’ve got enough talent.

I wish you the best, Caitlin.”

The words were right, but she had no idea what Sam Hagen really thought. He could have been sorry to see her go. Or relieved. Or he didn’t give a damn. She let out a breath. “What do you want to talk to me about? I don’t have much time.”

“Ali Duncan’s case,” he said.

“You mean what happens now, after Sullivan?”

Sam nodded. “I want to know why he died. If the other witnesses think he was killed to keep him quiet, they’ll start losing their memories of what happened at the Apocalypse, and then I have no case.”

She raised her hands, then let them fall. “I have no idea who shot Sullivan.”

“But you know the people involved with him. Martin Cassie’s wife, Uta Ernst. She was one of Sullivan’s sexual partners. Cassie refuses to be questioned about the night of the murder. What do you think? A viable suspect?”

Caitlin took a while to frame an answer. She knew Marty Cassie was a blackmailer. He had arranged an arson accidentally resulting in the death of Rivka Levitsky,,the sisterin-law of a Miami Beach homicide detective. Say so, and Marty would implicate Frank. And Frank had his own stories to tell.

Finally, Caidin said, “Marty Cassie is basically a whiner.

He might want Sullivan dead, but I don’t think he’s got the nerve to shoot anybody.” That much was true.

They walked, passing under the shade of a live oak growing in a patch of grass edged by a low pink wall.

Sam said, “When you came to my office two weeks ago, you said something that stuck in my mind. Cassie told you the Miami Beach city manager was going to ask the state attorney not to prosecute. Do you recall that?”

She hesitated. “It wasn’t Marty Cassie who told me. It was Frank, who got it from Marty. Frank said Marty told him the Beach didn’t want the case prosecuted because it would create a bad image. The state attorney would investigate for the sake of appearances, then drop it.”

Sam’s expression was impenetrable.

Caitlin went on, “Of course you wouldn’t prosecute.

Nobody would believe a girl like Ali Duncan. In fact, everyone wanted her to be quiet and go away. Like Dale Finley from your office. The creepy man with the scar across his chin. After he got through with Ali, she wanted to run out of there. But how is this connected to Sullivan’s death?”

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “Maybe it isn’t.”

And if there were a connection, Caitlin thought, Sam wouldn’t tell her. She glanced at him as they walked. His face was shadowed with fatigue, as if he hadn’t slept in days. The lines in his brow had deepened.

She stopped. “We passed Lyon Fr6res half a block ago.”

Sam’s gray eyes were fixed on her. He said, “Sullivan was sleeping with a rival of Klaus Ruffini in the fashion industry, Claudia Otero. What do you know about that?”

“It’s true. Sullivan and Claudia were lovers for a long time. She’s been married twice that I know of, and never gave up her affair with Sullivan. But do you think Klaus would have Sullivan killed because his wife and Claudia hated each other? That’s a stretch.”

“Last Sunday,” Sam said, “on my way from the crime scene, I ran into Ruffini. He stopped his car and spoke to me. There were four people with him. Three girls and a muscled, black-haired guy who looked like a bouncer.”

Caitlin said, “Franco. His bodyguard.”

“Ruffini seemed … unconcerned that he might go to prison.”

“Cocky?”

“That’s a mild word for it.”

“Obnoxious? Flaming asshole?”

“Close,” Sam said. “He acted as if he couldn’t be touched.”

“Well, that’s Klaus.”

The water in the fountain nearby sprayed upward from a circle of copper and splashed merrily into a shallow basin painted the turquoise of a swimming pool. Caitlin waited for Sam to speak.

“What can you tell me about Claudia Otero?” he said.

Caidin thought for a while, then said, “She’s damned good at what she does. Very tough businesswoman, too.

She’s in her forties, but you’d never guess.” Caidin held her hand level with her forehead. “About this tall, fivefive or so. Black hair, brown eyes, skin like milk. I’ve taken her picture a few times, freelancing for local magazines. She wouldn’t remember me.”

“Is she Spanish?”

“Originally Cuban, I think. She has friends in Miami, but most of the time she’s either in New York or traveling in Europe. She runs with a very fast crowd. Lots of money and influence in the fashion industry. Everyone knows her.” ,,I: d never heard of her,” Sam said.

“That’s because you’re not in the fashion industry. It’s another world, Sam. Very insular and selfreferential.

People amusing themselves with dressing well and eating well and gossiping about the celebrities they know.

You’ve never heard of Claudia Otero, and I’d be willing to bet she can’t name the vice president or tell you how much a gallon of milk costs, or even gives a damn.”

Stepping around Sam to see up the street, Caidin said, “Her store is on the next block. You want to take a look?”

They crossed the mall and headed west again, staying under the awnings and flat roof extensions that shaded the storefronts. The sun wouldn’t set till around eight o’clock.

The boutique was called Otero, decorated in black and gold. The mannequins in the window had dark, chopped hair and impossibly long, slender legs. They wore capes and micro shorts, or four-inch heels and dresses that clung and shimmered.

“She likes to use Spanish themes in her designs,” Caidin said. “That silver outfit with the matador cape is eighteen hundred dollars.”

“Jesus. No thanks.” There was a list of cities in a corner of the window. Sam was reading it. “Is this a chain store?”

She laughed. “Not at these prices, but essentially, yes.

Claudia has them scattered throughout the U.S. and Europe. One just opened in Tokyo. Most of her business is in a less expensive line for department stores. Bloomingdale’s, Saks, Lord & Taylor.”

Caitlin could see Sam’s reflection in the store window, hers next to it, half a foot shorter, a thin blonde in big sunglasses and a skirt to mid-thigh, a canvas bag on her shoulder. He had his arms crossed over his chest, one hand at his chin. He wore a watch with a brown leather strap and a plain wedding band. She let herself look at him. The height and size and angles. The curve of bicep under his sleeve. He could lift her easily. He had done that. Had swept her up and over his shoulder, carried her into her bedroom, and tossed her on the bed. She bounced, giggling, then watched while he unbuttoned his shirt, undid the cuffs, and unbuckled his belt. Starting with the arches of her feet and ending when he smoothed back her hair and kissed her forehead, Sam had touched her till she was dizzy from desire, and words spilled from her lips.

Please please Sam now oh God yes do it please. He had entered her slowly, an agony, his solid weight pressing her into the mattress as if keeping her from flying into space, His breath on her face, mouth poised over hers. She had tightened around him and cried out. If a hurricane had brought the ceiling down, she wouldn’t have known it.

Caitlin realized Sam was looking at her, and she was glad for the sunglasses. A few seconds went by before he asked, “Where is Claudia Otero at present?”

“Gone. She had a show this week, but she didn’t attend.

I think she went to London for Sullivan’s funeral. I don’t know when she’ll be in Miami again. They say she’s heartbroken.”

Caitlin moved from under the awning. “I don’t have time for a beer, Sam. I really have to go.”

Sam stayed where he was. He asked, “Who are her friends in Miami?”

“Friends?”

“Claudia Otero’s. You said she had friends here.”

“I don’t know who they are. Every Cuban alive must have friends in Miami.” Caitlin came back a few steps.

“There was a lot of Spanish spoken at her grand opening party.”

“For this store?”

“Yes, by invitation only. The area was marked off with potted plants and barricades. There was a Cuban salsa band. Models and agents and celebrities all over the place.

Gloria Estefan showed up, but she didn’t sing. My God, there must have been three hundred people here.”

“When was this?”

“I don’t remember. It’s been a few years. I was here taking pictures for Beach Life magazine.”

“Could I see them?”

“What does this have to do with Ali’s case?”

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “How about it? Your studio’s just down the street. I remember you keep copies of photos you take.”

“Well, the studio is closed. I moved everything to my apartment, and it’s a total jumble. Besides, I don’t keep prints that old.”

“What about the negatives? Contact sheets? Or that issue of the magazine?”

“I doubt I still have them.”

Sam continued to look at her, his eyes giving nothing away. Finally he said. “That’s all I want, Caitlin. To see the photographs.”

Smiling a little, she put a hand on her hip and walked back to him, then turned her head, gazing along the sidewalk through her sunglasses. “I don’t really believe that,” she said, “but it’s all you’re going to get.”

He laughed. “Three years and you’d still like to slap my face, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, Sam, it was rather shallow, what you did, but then, affairs with married men are usually shallow and pointless, so I shouldn’t complain.” As she pivoted she said over her shoulder, “You can wait for me downstairs on the porch.”

Caitlin Dorn lived off Meridian a few blocks south of Lincoln Road, in a pale yellow art-deco building with C a blue stripe at the top. Over the door a semicircle of has-relief letters read ENGLANDER APTS. Shade trees grew in the yard, and a low white wall ran around the property. Beyond the wall was a sidewalk, a narrow street with cars parked at the curbs, and more apartments on the other side.

Sam sat in a folding aluminum chair on the porch watching the street. A car would go by. Then a bicycle.

Less often somebody would walk along the sidewalk. One of the tenants of the building would come through the gate occasionally, home from work. There was a line of about a dozen chairs, all of them facing outward so people could do what Sam was doing, sit in the shade and look at this small patch of the world. He stretched out his legs and the chair creaked a little. He thought about finding a deli on Alton Road for a beer, then decided he was too tired to move.

The old man three chairs down was throwing bits of bread into the yard for the birds. Nobody else was on the porch, just the two of them. Occasionally the muffled clang of a pan or rush of water in a sink would come through the open windows of the corner apartment. Somebody was cooking dinner.

Caitlin had gone upstairs about fifteen minutes ago to look through boxes of photos and negatives. She’d said it would take her a while. Sam was trying to get clear what exactly he hoped she would find. Photographs of a party three or four years ago at an overpriced dress shop owned by a cubana fashion designer who used to sleep with a man whose brains had spilled out through his handsome face last Saturday night. Charlie Sullivan, the main witness on a rape case that Eddie Mora, the cubano state attorney, had wanted to ignore. Other facts shifted through Sam’s mind. Beekie Duran, Eddie’s deputy chief of administration, hadn’t wanted Sam involved. Dale Finley, ex-CIA spook, had threatened to expose Sam’s affair with Caitlin Dorn if Sam made trouble for Eddie. None of these facts hung together, but Sam continued to play with them as he sat looking out at the street.

A flutter of wings and a piercing squawk made him glance to his right. A mockingbird was hopping around near the old man’s bony feet. He wore frayed corduroy slippers. Death not too far off, the old man frail as a bird himself Sam looked back at the street. In the gaps between the overhanging trees, the sky was still bright blue. He shifted in the flimsy chair. There was a legal pad in Sam’s briefcase on the front seat of his car. He thought about getting up. He could make some notes, see the details on paper.

He had saved some cases by picking at details. Going after faint threads of possibility. Answers wouldn’t come easily or fast, but they would come.

“Arthritis?”

Sam glanced around.

The old man gestured toward Sam’s hand, which now Sam realized he had been massaging. “I said have you got arthritis?”

“No. The joints ache sometimes, that’s all.”

“My wife has it in her hip. The doctor says she needs a replacement, but she won’t do it. My knees are bad, but I don’t have it in my hands, thank God. I’m a scribe at Temple Bet Aviv.”

Making a noncommittal response, Sam shifted again in the chair. His backside was getting numb. He wondered how these people could sit here like this all day, doing nothing. The old man had a plastic bag on his lap with slices of bread in it. He reached in, pinched off some bread, deftly rolled it into a ball, and flicked it into the yard. A bluejay screamed and went for it. The mockingbirds rose up in a flurry of wings.

Forcing his thoughts back on track, Sam went over the manner of Charlie Sullivan’s death. The shooter had known what he was doing. He’d been methodical, exact.

Maybe a paid hit. Or maybe Sullivan had known the shooter well enough to walk onto a deserted beach at midnight with him, expecting some fast sex. Didn’t want to bring the guy up to his apartment for some reason.

The M.E., had retrieved fragments of a .45 hollow-point from Sullivan’s chest. Sullivan had been dead, or dying, when he hit the ground. Then the shooter had fired into the base of the skull. Charlie Sullivan’s casket in some London funeral chapel would be closed. Nobody would see that face again. It wasn’t there anymore.