Blood Relations (46 page)

They went into the conference room to wait. Sam told Garcia to extend his arms. He patted him down for weapons, found nothing, then told him to have a seat at the table. Garcia sat. He was trembling slightly, and kept clearing his throat. He said, ” ‘Ojo por ojo, diente por diente. ‘Do you know what that is?”

The lawyers stood on either side of him. Casares said, “It means ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

“Mr. Hagen, I want to tell you what I did.”

“No. I’m not your attorney,” Sam said. “I can’t help you.

“But I came to talk to you, to explain.”

Casares said quietly, “Advise him of his rights, Sam.”

“Mr. Garcia, listen to me. You will be taken into custody. You don’t have to talk to us, you don’t have to talk to the police, and if you-”

“I have to explain.” Garcia turned in his chair.

Sam held up a hand. “If you do say anything, whatever you say could be used against you as evidence. If you want an attorney, one will be provided. These are your rights. Do you understand them?”

“Yes.” He laughed. “I have a lot of rights. That’s good.”

Sam exchanged a look with Juan Casares. The man could be out of his mind. He could be telling the truth. Or Balmaseda might be injured but still alive.

Casares asked, “What happened, Mr. Garcia?”

He had thrown Luis Balmaseda out an eighth-floor window. Two floors higher than Carlito Ramos had dropped, but Garcia said it was the only place he could find for his purposes. He had tied Balmaseda’s hands and forced him up the stairs at knifepoint. Didn’t want to kill him. Didn’t want to knock him out. Wanted him to know what was coming for him, and why.

“It’s not your fault, Mr. Hagen, that the jury let him go.

I was so angry because nothing, nothing happened to Luis, but it wasn’t your fault. They couldn’t hear the confession, I understand this. And I understand the rule about only one trial. You told me about the law, but I said to myself, where’s the law for Adela? For Carlito?”

delfonso Garcia held up his hands, the skin leathery and dark. He had held Balmaseda over the window edge and told’him, just before he let him go, to pray to God for mercy.

Looking down on the twisted body in the alley, Garcia thought for a while about throwing himself over, too, but that was cowardly. Besides, he didn’t want his blood mixed with the blood of a murderer. He knew that sooner or later the police would come for him. And so here he was, to give himself up. To explain. And to absolve Samuel Hagen, for truly, Luis Balmaseda had brought this on himself.

It was past six o’clock when Sam remembered Caitlin.

Cursing under his breath, he pulled into his driveway and hit the button for the garage door. As it rolled up, he dialed her number on his car phone. No answer.

He fixed himself a drink and went upstairs to change clothes. Passing Melanie’s door he heard the thud of music. He knocked.

When her face appeared at the crack, he said, “You want some dinner? How about we order some pizza?”

“I already ate.” Her hair was uncombed, falling into her eyes, and her body was lost in a pair of overalls and a baggy shirt.

He said, “Can I come in for a minute?”

After a second or two, she nodded. He had to step over a pile of clothes to get to the chair. A small room, made more so by things strewn, dropped, stacked, or pinned to walls. One wall was painted pungent green. He didn’t know when that had happened. A month ago, or less, her room had been reasonably neat.

“You mind turning the music down?”

Melanie lowered the volume, then stood in the middle of her room with her arms crossed. Sam felt like he was about to be interrogated. He moved some magazines and set his drink on a corner of her desk. “This was your last week of school. How’d the exams go?”

She shrugged. “I passed everything.”

“That’s good.” Leaning his forearms on his thighs, he looked around the room. “What are your plans for this summer?” he asked.

“Hang out. I don’t know.”

“Maybe you’d like to go somewhere. A vacation. The two of us.”

“Where?”

“Well … we could go fishing.”

She stared at him.

“How about Disney World?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No.” He took a sip of his drink. “What would you like to do?”

“I don’t know.” Tossing her hair back, she sat on the edge of her waterbed and bobbed up and down before settling. They looked at each other a minute.

Sam said, “We haven’t seen much of each other lately.

I’m sorry about that.” He put his glass on the desk. He turned back to her and said, “Melanie, I love you. If I haven’t told you that in a while, I should have.”

She looked at him steadily. “Are you and mom getting a divorce?”

He took a while to answer. “Probably.”

Her expression told him this news came as no surprise.

“Because you had an affair?”

“Did she tell you that?”

“No. I heard you and her fighting about it.”

After a moment, he said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen. Your mother and I will figure it out. I don’t want you to worry, okay? You won’t have to leave your school, anything like that.”

“She talked about moving to Tarpon Springs. I don’t want to.”

“You don’t have to,” he said. “Whatever you want, I promise.”

Melanie started to cry.

Sam got up and stood beside her and awkwardly patted her back, then bent to kiss her cheek. She leaned against him and sobbed. He kissed her again, then said, “Come on, now. Where’s my big girl?”

“Why is Mom the only one who gets to cry?” she wailed.

“Oh, honey. You can, too.” He sat down on the edge of the waterbed and hugged her tightly.

She wiped her eyes on a corner of the sheet and said she was okay. Music was still playing on the stereo, something else now. Sam asked, “Since when do you like Led Zeppelin?”

Her voice was thick. “It’s the Rolling Stones.”

“Uh-uh. That’s definitely Led Zeppelin. ‘You Shook Me.” I used to know every cut on this album.”

She got up to check. “You’re right. This was Matthew’s CD. I borrow them when Mom’s not here. She doesn’t like me to touch his stuff.”

“Want me to talk to her?”

“She’ll just say no.”

“Buy your own, then,” he said.

“I don’t have any money.”

“What do they cost?”

Melanie gave him a disbelieving look. “You don’t even know? About fifteen dollars.”

He leaned back a little to reach his wallet. He found three twenties in it. “Here. If you go to the mall this weekend you can buy four of them.”

Melanie put her arm over his shoulder. “Dad. It’s okay.”

He nodded, then put the money back. “All right. So. No pizza, huh?”

“I’m on a diet,” she said.

“Well, maybe I won’t have any, either,” he said.

She sat beside him again. “We could get a movie.”

He looked at her. “You want a movie?”

“Sure.”

“All right. We could do that.”

Sam tried to call Caitlin again about ten-thirty, but her friend, the gallery owner, said she was out. He had to stop himself from asking where. He might have gone to find her.

Downstairs in the silent kitchen he fixed another drink, took a couple of aspirins, then topped off his glass with more bourbon. If he went to bed now, he wouldn’t sleep.

In the family room he watched the last of a police drama on television. Music was coming faintly from upstairs.

Melanie working her way through her brother’s CD collection.

A wrong thing to do, giving a kid money out of the blue. Sam didn’t know what Melanie needed. If his ability as a lawyer were measured by his parenting skills, he would have been disbarred a long time ago. But he loved her. She had to know that. He’d just told her, and he’d tell her every damned day if that’s what it took to keep her safe. To make her care if she lived or died.

Sipping his drink on the sofa, where he lay prone, Sam didn’t know what he’d tell her if she asked him. What’s the point? Would somebody please just tell me what the fucking point is? Matthew’s question. He’d asked it as if he’d just figured out the entire world was crazy. Sam remembered giving him some inane response. Well, when you grow up, you’ll find out the fucking point is not to ride around with your friends till three in the morning Sam wondered what he would do if someone murdered Melanie, and then a jackass prosecutor made a bad call and the guy was out walking the street. He might use his own hands to even up the score, as delfonso Garcfa had done. If Garcfa didn’t wind up in the state hospital, he might get twenty years, be out in ten to twelve. Maybe he had saved Adela’s life. Listening to Garcfa talk, Sam had wanted to pat the man on the back, not send him up to Raiford. What Garcfa should have done was push Balmaseda over the edge, but keep his mouth shut. Better still, choose some other method. Giving Balmaseda what he’d given Carlito was too obvious. Shoot the son of a bitch with a silenced .45. That had done the job with Charlie Sullivan.

In fact, Sullivan’s death had been as fitting as Luis Balmaseda’s. One bullet in his heart, another to take his pretty face off. Payback for what he’d done to Matthew.

For putting his hands on him. For using him.

Sam was holding his drink on his stomach. He relaxed his grip on the glass, then took another sip.

Fitting that George Fonseca had thrown up blood and shit his pants before he died. Maybe he’d been the one to show Matthew how to cook smack in a spoon before injecting it. No big deal. Just a fad, all the models are into it.

Laughing a little, Sam lifted his glass. “Here’s to you, Detective. You were right, by God. Everything balances.

George earned what he got. So did Charlie Sullivan. The accounts are always balanced in the end.”

Sam finished his drink, then suddenly clutched at the sofa as the room began to swing around. “Oh, Jesus.” He sat up, staring blankly ahead of him.

Then he groaned aloud and thrust his glass toward the end table. It hit the edge and overturned. Taking several deep breaths, Sam walked into the kitchen and picked up the telephone, dialed a number. Hit the wrong button.

Tried again.

Nicholas Pondakos answered on the sixth ring.

“Nick, it’s Sam. I thought you might still be up.”

“I am now. What do you want?”

From the icy tone, Sam knew that Dina had already told her family what he had done. He said, “I assume Dina’s staying at her father’s house?”

“Yeah. She always stays over there.”

Sam closed his eyes and straight-armed the wall by the telephone. “Nick, I want to ask you something.”

“No, don’t get me involved between the two of you.

I’m going to hang up before I say something rude.”

“Wait. She’s your sister, but I’ve got no quarrel with you, Nick. All right?” He could imagine Nick Pondakos, big arms and beer gut, trying to decide whether to slam the phone down or tell Sam Hagen to go screw himself.

“All right, but make it fast. I have to get up in the morning.”

“Last time Dina flew up there-you remember? The third weekend of May. She caught a flight back from Tampa to Miami. What day was that?” For a minute Sam thought the connection had been broken. “Nick?”

“What day? Sunday. Right?”

Sam nodded, breathing again. “Did you take her to the airport on Sunday?”

“Yeah. After church we had lunch someplace, then I drove her to Tampa. What are you asking me this for?”

“It’s-just something I was wondering about.”

“You checking up on her? Let me tell you something, pal. She’s not the one that needs checking up on.”

“Okay. Good night, Nick.”

“You guys have been married a long time. I can understand a little … you know, now and then, but that doesn’t mean it’s over. I like you a lot, Sam, but if you walk out on my sister, you can rot in hell, as far as I’m concerned.”

There was a sharp click in his ear. Sam hung up the telephone, then let himself down carefully onto a stool at the kitchen counter, sucking in breath till his heart went back to a normal speed.

He felt as if he himself had been acquitted. But not innocent. And not falsely accused.

It was the smell that tenants of the Delancy Apartments first noticed, the vaguely sweet, heavy smell that by Sunday morning, when they went into the hall to pick up their newspapers, could not be dismissed as someone’s garbage or a dead mouse in the fuse box.

Detective Gene Ryabin, roused from a pleasant sleep with his wife, had gone to bed expecting French toast and freshly ground Jamaican coffee. Instead, he drank from a Dunkin’ Donuts carryout cup while Miami Beach officers roped off the crime scene with yellow tape, and the technicians began the gruesome task of collecting evidence and photographing Martin Cassie’s bloated body. The air conditioning was on, which had slowed decomposition a little; Ryabin’s partner, arriving first, had turned the fan to exhaust.

Now, Lopez had his fingers clamped on his nose. “Forget about replacing the carpet. They’re gonna have to replace the fuckin’ floor. He’s soakin’ into the wood.”

While officers searched the three-room apartment, Gene Ryabin walked around, then stood quietly looking at the body. The medical examiner had been called; he would arrive shortly.

The paramedics, who had known when they entered the building that it was much too late, had found the door unlocked. Martin Cassie lay sprawled fully dressed on his back beside the dining table.

The table apparently doubled as a desk, and there were two glasses on it, one containing a dark liquid, lighter and more diluted at the top. Ryabin guessed CocaCola, as there was an opened half-empty liter in the refrigerator.

The other glass had tipped over, wetting papers and splashing onto the typewriter. Cassie had probably sipped it as he referred to a list of apartment buildings on a computer printout, which now lay askew on the table. A calculator was upside down on the carpet near Cassie’s left leg, and the chair was overturned.

Looking at all this, Ryabin thought that perhaps the visitor had been a potential buyer or seller of real estate, or an existing client of Cassie’s. He remembered the business card taped to the front door: Martin Cassie, Tropic Realty and Investments. He and his visitor had sat at the table discussing investments and drinking a Coke, but the visitor hadn’t touched his glass. Then Marty Cassie had died.