False Convictions (15 page)

The sun had already nestled itself into the puffy clouds on the horizon, and still the brilliance of the blue water shone
like a gem beyond the white beach. Casey let out a breath and felt her body relax.

“This way,” Graham said, leading her out onto the terrace and across the pool area to a smaller building.

He swung open the door and led her through the open main room with its light-colored wood and festive island colors to a master
bedroom where several sets of clothes had been laid out on the huge four-poster bed: swimsuits, capris, summer dresses, shorts,
and T-shirts. On the floor were sandals and shoes that went with the clothes.

“I told them size two, but Laura insisted on buying everything in a four as well,” Graham said. “I guessed seven for your
feet, so she got eights and sixes, too. I know you said you’d make do with the clothes you had, but I wanted you to be comfortable.”

“These are very nice,” Casey said, lifting a cotton dress from the bed. “I don’t know what to say. Who’s Laura?”

“She’s a sort of concierge,” he said. “Whenever I come to this island, or anyplace else for that matter, I have someone who
takes care of things.”

“How much do you come here?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes once or twice a year. I like Barbados, too, and St. John’s.”

Charles appeared, silently deposited her bag, and left just as quietly as he’d come. Casey stared at Graham.

“What?”

“Kind of a strange coincidence,” she said, “you being a regular visitor at the place Nelson Rivers is hiding out at.”

Graham stepped toward her and rested his hands lightly on her shoulders. Softly, he said, “Will you please stop? Do you think
I’ve visited this island for years because Nelson Rivers is here? It doesn’t even make sense. Why? What’s the connection?
Tell me if you can even think one up and I’ll fly you straight to Dallas. I told you, I visit other islands, too. It’s a coincidence.
That’s it. Now please, can we enjoy this just a little bit?”

Casey sighed and shook her head. “You’re right. Forgive me?”

“Of course,” he said. “I’ll even let you make it up to me. Take some time and get your things unpacked if you want and let’s
take a swim, then dinner on the beach. What do you think?”

“I think that water looks delicious.”

Casey put some of her things away in the bathroom, then changed into a one-piece suit and found a light cotton robe in the
closet. She slipped her feet into a pair of the sandals and wandered through the pool house, touching the shells in a bowl
on the glass coffee table at the center of a curved sectional couch and opening the refrigerator to see fresh staples along
with bottles of beer, seltzer water, and juice. She slid the glass door open and circled the pool before wandering down the
curved staircase leading to the beach.

Two red-and-white-striped lounge chairs lay facing the water with a small table between them on which rested an ice bucket
containing a bottle of champagne as well as two more Pyramid Hefeweizens that appeared to be an afterthought. Casey laughed
to herself and walked down to where the small waves lapped the shore. Between her toes, the white sand felt fine as flour,
and when she stepped into the water it gave way beneath her feet like clean mud. In front of her, the setting sun left the
sky in a wash of orange, red, and violet.

“You beat me.”

She jumped and turned to see Graham standing in his suit.

“Ready?” he asked.

She followed him in, diving when he dove and swimming in slow easy strokes toward the horizon. About two hundred yards out,
he stopped and treaded water. Around them, the sky had faded to twilight and a star or two winked down.

J
AKE FUMBLED with his cell phone to make a 911 call.

The man rapped the barrel of his gun on the window and shouted, “Put it down!”

The man flung open the door and grabbed Jake by the collar, yanking him out of the seat and throwing him to the street. The
cell phone clattered across the pavement. Jake’s hands went in the air instinctively, his eyes searching for help, maybe from
the driver in the cab of the cement truck.

The truck sat empty.

“Get up,” the man shouted, hauling Jake to his feet with the gun pointed in his face.

He spun Jake around and pounded him down into the hood of the Cadillac. Jake saw stars, the impact sending fresh pain through
his head. He heard the rattle of handcuffs as the second man rifled through the car. Jake’s mind whirred in confusion.

“You guys are cops?” Jake said.

“No shit,” the cop said, clipping one of the bracelets on his left wrist. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m a reporter,” Jake said, his eyes still frantic for help from someone, any kind of passerby, but the industrial street
remained empty. “Ever hear of the First Amendment?”

The cop, whose crooked teeth now shone in the smile of his closely shaven head, brought his face close to Jake’s and asked,
“A fucking reporter? From fucking where?”

“Fucking
American Sunday
. I’m Jake
Fucking
Carlson.”

The second cop rounded the car and peered at Jake’s face. “Shit, yeah. Hey, you used to be on the show about Hollywood. Did
you really meet those people?”

The first cop unsnapped the metal bracelet and let Jake up off the hood. Jake turned around, rubbing his wrist.

“
American Outrage
,” Jake said, “that was the show.”

“That’s not what you just said,” the first cop said, playing detective.

“That show got canceled,” Jake said. “I’m with a new show now. It sounds similar, but it’s totally different,
American
Sunday.”

“So what the fuck’s that to do with Mr. Napoli?”

“Mr. Napoli?” Jake said.

“We picked you up outside his house, starfucker,” the first cop said, “so cut the shit. It makes your eyes twitch.”

Jake looked from one cop to the other. He’d done a story a few months back about dirty cops in New Orleans—cops on the payroll
of gangsters running drugs, gambling, and girls—and he knew crooked cops were always subtle about shaking someone down.

“It’s not about him,” Jake said. “You know Robert Graham?”

The cop snorted and said, “Of course. Guy’s got the city’s pants down around its knees. He’s got a boat anchored out there
full of machines that equal about five thousand factory jobs if we bend over far enough. So, you’re saying that you’re following
Mr. Napoli because of their deal?”

“What’s the deal got to do with John Napoli?”

“Some reporter,” the bald cop said. “Napoli is represnting the city’s development board. He’s working the deal. That’s the
place right up there.”

The bald cop nodded toward the factory Jake had been in the day before.

“Graham wants the city to clean that shit hole and give him about a zillion dollars in tax breaks,” he said. “Some people
are pretty hot about the deal not going through by now. Napoli’s had some death threats. We think from the union rank and
file, and then you show up tailing him in a rented Cadillac.”

“You have something against renting?” Jake asked, smiling despite the pain in his head. “I was thinking Napoli and a guy I
saw him meet with the other day, a guy named Massimo, the Italian connection. That kind of mob thing.”

“The
Italian
thing? You’re thinking twenty years ago,” the bald cop said, shaking his head and attaching the cuffs to his belt, “the old
Buffalo. The Todora family owns a pizza and wings empire and everyone knows Massimo D’Costa’s a doughnut man. Used to be a
cop till he got smart. He’s a big player now. Runs an environmental company. He’s in line to clean up all the toxic shit at
that place if it ever goes through. You got the wrong bunch of wops.”

“Hey, what happened to your head?” the shaggy cop asked. “We didn’t do that.”

Jake reached up and gently felt the contours on the back of his skull. “I got sucked down a big drainpipe.”

The two cops looked at each other. The shaggy one said, “Sounds like somebody got it right.”

The bald one bent down for Jake’s cell phone. He dusted it on his sleeve and handed it back. The two cops holstered their
guns and stalked off as if they had had nothing to do with yanking Jake from his car.

Before he climbed in behind the wheel, the bald cop said, “I’m not big on Westerns, so I’m not going to give you any bullshit
about getting out of town, but the people you’re following around are legit, and they’ve got plenty of friends. So, I got
to figure there’s a lot better stories in a lot friendlier places for you than this.”

W
HEN SHE WOKE, Casey pulled the cotton sheet up around her neck against the ocean breeze spilling in through the open windows.
The surf heaved itself against the beach outside, sighing with the effort. She blinked at the bright sunlight and the spinning
paddle fan above her bed, reconstructing the night before. A half-empty decanter of port and the service staff melting for
good into the darkness beyond the torchlight. A kiss under the moon.

She rose and showered and followed the scent of fresh coffee to the veranda outside the kitchen of the main house. Graham
sat in a cotton robe with a glass of carrot juice, reading the
New York Times.

“Sleep well?” he asked.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Only ten,” he said. “Run on the beach?”

“Coffee first,” she said, pouring herself a cup from the silver urn and sitting so she could face the ocean.

“Good news and bad news,” he said, lowering the paper.

“Bad news first.”

“I got a text from our Captain Rivers. His engine blew a valve so he had to cancel our dive.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Good news is that he assures me we’re on for tomorrow and I was able to get Fifi Kunz to take us out for a half day to see
a wreck I know you’ll love. Fish everywhere, like a galaxy of color.”

“Fifi Kunz?”

“Fifi.”

“And a real wreck?”

“Which is why it’s going to be so incredible,” Graham said. “I love an adventurous woman.”

“You’re just trying to get in my pants.”

Graham leaned toward her, eyes glittering, and said, “Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without
fighting.”

“I’m your enemy now?”

“No, your morals are.”

After lunch Fifi pulled his charter boat
Hercules
up to the beach and took them to a wrecked eighteenth-century English warship called the
Endymion
. Only thirty feet down, Casey was comfortable enough to lose herself in the ancient cannons, coral, and sea life. Before
she knew it, Graham was tapping the gauge of his air supply and pointing toward the surface.

That night, Casey took the lime-colored Catherine Malandrino sundress from the closet and pulled her hair up, clipping it
with a spray of purple orchids. When she met him on the terrace for a drink, his jaw fell and she blushed. They had the grilled
lobsters he’d promised and they were as good as he said they would be. After a barefoot walk on the beach, they kissed again
and she let his hands have their way until his fingers crept up her thigh from beneath the hem of the dress and she whispered
good night.

“I knew it,” she said.

“What is it you want?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll let you know. I’m not shy.”

A
T BREAKFAST in the morning an island cop with a stiff back and a British accent sat in the chair with the view. A small breeze
pushed feathers of light brown hair from his forehead, revealing a bronzed landscape of leathery crevices. He introduced himself
as Major Appleton from the nearby island of Grand Turk, and Casey didn’t know if the title referred to his current position
or something from his past. He looked like a man who’d seen more than he cared to tell. Graham’s levity had disappeared and
they talked seriously about getting saliva from Nelson Rivers without him knowing.

Casey finally excused herself and changed before meeting them on the beach. Graham pointed out to sea and Casey followed the
trail of black diesel smoke as an old wooden fishing trawler chugged toward the beach. Faded and leprous, the dilapidated
boat wore an old coat of baby blue paint with a single grease-smeared white stripe. The boat pulled to a stop just outside
the waves and a dinghy dropped down off the stern, rowed to shore by a thin black boy who looked to be no older than twelve.

“You come boat,” the boy said in clipped English, wagging his head and steadying the dinghy at the edge of the surf.

The three of them looked at one another and climbed aboard. As the stern came into view, Casey read the boat’s name.

“
Come Crazy
?” she said. “What the hell kind of name is that for a boat?”

Graham’s face colored and he shook his head in disgust.

When they embarked on Rivers’s boat, the captain sat hunched over the wooden-spoke wheel, paying them no mind at all. The
fat hung from his sides and back in slabs that stretched the rayon material of a double X Tampa Bay Buccaneers golf shirt.
Faded blond locks spilled from a moldy Greek fisherman’s cap. Uneven gray and blond stubble covered much of his face and he
kept his eyes hidden behind a pair of Panama Jack sunglasses. His hands, though, moved with expert dexterity, working the
throttle levers to spin the boat around and ease them out beyond the reef.

The boat’s tanks stood in a cobbled-together bin constructed from two-by-fours and chicken wire. They sat along a wooden bench
beneath the gunwale and the kid offered them scratched bottles of orange Fanta from a battered cooler. For Rivers, the kid
delivered a frosty can of Bud Light that the captain upended and finished in a series of quick doglike gulps before wiping
his mustache and setting the can daintily into a cup holder. He then removed a tin of tobacco from the back pocket of his
khakis and added a pinch to his lower lip.

“Does he speak?” Casey said under her breath, leaning toward Graham.