Legally Dead (11 page)

“I'll never get used to it, or get it right. Civilian life is a goddamn challenge, bro.”

“Tell me about it. It's the hardest thing I've ever tried to do.”

The three women were drinking decaf in the kitchen. Keri looked fetching in white shorts and a halter top, her clothes in the dryer.

“Don't forget to take your blood-pressure pill,” she told Luz before changing back into her dry scrubs. “And get some rest. I want you to come in no later than Wednesday for those tests.”

Danny was cleaning the grill, so Venturi walked Keri out to her car.

She gently touched his arm before sliding into the driver's seat. “I didn't know about your wife,” she said softly. “I had no idea. I am so sorry.”

“Thank you,” he said, and watched her drive off into the night.

“Damn,” Danny said. “We've got plans.”

Venturi had called to invite them to dinner with him and his mother-in-law.

“Why don't you two come with us?” Danny suggested.

He consulted Luz. “She says it's a great idea!”

He sounded almost too happy.

“Sure, but where we going?”

Danny sighed. “They call it a gallery walk. I call it the Miami Death March through hell. We walk in groups between several Design District art galleries, drink wine, eat cheese, and eyeball what passes for art these days. I'm so thrilled I can hardly spit. First chance we get we bail and find a decent restaurant.”

The babysitter answered the door—it was Keri, in blue jeans and a T-shirt, her hair pulled back.

She and Vicki greeted each other like long-lost relatives. Danny had been preoccupied all day by a mysterious plane crash off Venezuela.

“Why don't
I
babysit while you four take the gallery walk?” Vicki suggested, as they were about to leave.

Bait and switch, cooked up by whom? Venturi studied the suspects.

“I'm not dressed.” Keri's cheeks reddened.

“You look fine, dear,” Vicki insisted. “Miami casual. Throw a jacket over your jeans, put on some heels. Borrow something from Luz.”

Venturi protested. “But you'll be going home soon, Vicki, and you haven't seen much of Miami.”

“Nonsense. I may never go home.” She winked.

“Is that a promise?”

“No, a threat.”

“But I invited you tonight.”

“I'm not up to a lot of walking.” She patted her right leg, the artificial one.

“There really isn't much walking,” Luz said quickly. “The galleries are all within a block or two.”

“Is there a problem?” Venturi leaned close to his mother-in-law. She never played the invalid card. Ever.

“Can't I be in the mood to read bedtime stories to little people?”

“What's wrong?” he persisted.

“As much as I love you, sweetheart,” she muttered in his ear, drawing him aside, “I am
not
about to double-date with my son-in-law.”

He looked startled.

“Plus,” she hissed, “the woman is a doctor.”

He saw she was determined.

“Okay,” he said aloud, surprising himself. “Good idea. But you haven't eaten.”

“I left some salmon, rice, and vegetables for Keri.” Luz sounded resigned.

“Sounds wonderful, though much too healthy,” Vicki said. “At my age I need preservatives, lots of them…”

The local elite greeted Danny and Luz with hugs, high fives, and handshakes. Photographers snapped pictures as he and Venturi discreetly dodged the cameras.

When it became unbearably noisy, they stepped outside. The hot Miami night was sultry and sticky. Neither normally smoked, but Danny pulled out a pack of Camels. “Wish I was back in boots,” he said, lighting up. “See some of the guys in there? They're carrying purses, for Christ's sake. The men we were never would have wound up here,” he said wistfully.

“This was your idea,” Venturi said, accepting a proffered cigarette.

“Hell, no, it wasn't.”

“Don't knock it,” Venturi said. “The men we were are lucky to be anywhere. Was it Luz's idea to bring Keri?”

“Hell, no. She's pissed. She loves Keri, and she loves you, but not necessarily in the same room. Beats me. I think she's jealous. Scared that you might monopolize her doctor's time and attention. Being pregnant, she wants it all for herself.”

“Makes sense,” Venturi said. “Can't blame her for that.”

Keri took his arm as they strolled to the next gallery. She was chatting about an upcoming expedition into the Everglades hoping to find and photograph the rare and elusive ghost orchid.

“Is its name Casper?” Danny asked.

She laughed, a nice sound. “Most people never see one. It's on my list of things to see before I die. If none of my patients go into labor I'll try this weekend. But with the full moon on Saturday, it probably won't happen.”

“What does the moon have to do with it?” Venturi asked.

“Everything,” she said. “I'm sure you've heard that emergency rooms, psychiatrists, and the police are busier then. Same for maternity wards. We set up extra beds forty-eight hours before the full moon rises.”

“It's true,” Luz said. “Remember? I went into labor with Javi and the baby just before full moons.”

“Has to do with gravity and the high tides,” Danny said.

“The human body
is
seventy-two percent water,” Keri pointed out.

“And the rest is contamination.” Danny laughed. “Seriously, when you see that moon hang over Miami, so low in the sky you can almost touch it, you know all hell's about to break loose.”

Artists were competing for a major prize at the next gallery. One had spread sand and seashells across the floor.

Mike and Danny explored a curtained cubicle in which the recorded voices of fifty terminally ill AIDS patients simultaneously discussed their symptoms.

“Oh, this is uplifting,” Danny said.

“Look at this,” Venturi said, as they emerged near
Two Couches Creating Closeness.
The artist had pushed two battered brown sofas together.

“What the…?” Danny said aloud.

“The artist,” a young gallery spokesperson chirped brightly, “is noted for his exploration of the commonality of working-class life through the use of everyday objects.”

Danny was becoming increasingly restless.

“Javi's fingerpaintings show more talent,” he muttered, regarding a collage of baseball cards, beer ads, snapshots, duct tape, and balloons. “Only five, and he can draw a tree that looks like a tree. What the hell is that?” He stared at another display, bags of dust its creator had collected from various places.

Luz elbowed him in the ribs and said she was hungry.

“Hallelujah!” Danny said. “Let's go. I have to feed this woman or she gets cranky.”

He and Venturi went for the car, in a parking garage several blocks away.

“Let's cut down Second Avenue,” Danny said. “It's quicker.”

The sidewalks were dark and nearly deserted, with most of the street lights burned out.

“Nine o'clock,” Danny muttered, as they became aware that they had company.

“I see 'im. Two more behind us.”

A tall black man planted himself in their path, then brandished a wicked-looking carving knife at Venturi's midsection.

“I'd just as soon cut you,” he said, spitting out a stream of curses.

Two shorter Hispanics came up behind them and swiftly sliced off their trouser pockets with box cutters.

Danny and Venturi exchanged “Do you believe this?” looks.

“Sorry, man. The money's gone.” Danny slurred his words. “Got paid today, hit that little club down the street. The girls were all over us. We bought 'em drinks all night. But when the money and the whiskey ran out, so did they. Left us broke.”

“Those bitches!” snarled the knife-wielding man. “Those goddamn whores! They do it every time!”

Danny swayed, continuing to act drunk. He was playing with them.

Venturi didn't want to play. He objected when strangers waved sharp blades so close to his crotch.

He and Danny acted simultaneously.

Venturi gripped a hand clutching a box cutter, spun it around, and slammed his fist into the back of the man's forearm, snapping the elbow. The bone broke with a loud crack.

Danny dropped the second man with a straight kick that split his right kneecap backward. The man writhed on the pavement.

Both dropped their box cutters. Their screams echoed down the dark street.

The man with the knife lunged forward. Danny caught his arm, twisted it behind him, and slammed the back of his shoulder, dislocating it.

He went down screaming.

All three struggled to their feet and fled whimpering, limping, and stumbling. One dragged a leg that no longer worked. The man with the dislocated shoulder howled as he loped away, listing to one side like the Hunchback of Notre Dame in an old black-and-white movie.

“Let's go before somebody calls the cops,” Danny said.

“They should thank us.” Venturi scooped up the belongings from their slashed pockets.

“Maybe. But there's all that paperwork and Luz is hungry.”

“Look what he did to my pants.” Venturi squinted in the poor light. “Sliced the pockets off clean. Didn't even damage the fabric.”

“Mine, too,” Danny said. “Those guys were good.”

“Maybe there is something to that full-moon stuff,” Venturi said, as they reached the parking garage.

“Could be,” Danny agreed. “The emergency room is about to get busier, just as Keri predicted.”

“It's always amazing, how training kicks in.”

Venturi was referring to MCMAP, the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program, which teaches how to disarm and disable the enemy.

“Can't tell you how happy I am you're in town, buddy,” Danny said. “I'm finally having fun.”

“What took you so long?” Luz asked, as Danny helped her into the back seat.

“We ran into some guys.”

Keri, already in the car, blinked as Venturi slid behind the wheel. “What happened to your trousers, Michael? Where is the pocket?”

“Right here.” He handed it to her.

“Where do we eat?” Danny asked.

Two Miami fire rescue units raced by in the opposite direction, lights flashing, sirens wailing.

Luz made the sign of the cross. “I hope no one was killed,” she whispered.

“See, I told you about the full moon,” Keri said. She studied Venturi's profile thoughtfully.

Focused on traffic, he didn't seem to notice.

Victoria was oddly quiet after they left Danny's.

Venturi hoped she was just tired. But the next morning, she clearly hadn't slept well. “We need to talk,” she said.

He saw the look in her eyes and his heart sank.
She's leaving,
he thought. She'd already stayed longer than anticipated. He'd grown accustomed to her company, her warmth and humor. She and Danny were his only family.

But she had friends, a business, a life in New York. When she left he didn't know when he would see her again.

“Shoot.” He braced for the bullet.

“Something's been on my mind.” Her brow furrowed. “It kept me awake last night. I can't stop thinking about it.”

“You're the one who insisted that Keri take your place. It wasn't my idea,” he protested.

She laughed out loud. “I wasn't referring to that, but since you brought it up, did you two hit it off?”

“I don't know her.” He shrugged. “I met her when you did.”

“I think she's exactly your type, Mikey. Smart, talented, in love with life and what she does. Reminds me of Madison.”

He disagreed. “They're nothing alike.”

“I'm not saying they look alike, sweetheart. I'm talking about women of character. I'm glad you might be seeing her. You know what they say—it's not good for a man to be alone.”

“You're about to bail out on me, aren't you?” He pushed his coffee cup away and leaned back in his chair, his expression disconsolate.

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“You're not leaving?”

“Only if I've overstayed my welcome. What is this, Mikey? We usually communicate so well.”

“Okay, let's start again. What's troubling you, bunky?”

“Remember the Barretts?”

He frowned. “Should I?”

“Laura and Casey Barrett were the young couple at the center of the Devonbrook Day Care scandal in New England some years ago.”

Venturi vaguely remembered. They'd gone to prison. He'd been a Marine at the time.

Victoria refreshed his memory. Day care was among the amenities offered to buyers at Devonbrook, a sprawling single-family housing development in a Boston suburb.

After eleven months, a police detective noticed that her little girl's panties were inside out after picking her up from day care. The child, age two and a half, couldn't tell her about anything unusual that had occurred. But after being questioned over several days, the little girl began to talk about bad things that had happened at day care. The story grew and grew as other parents panicked and began to question their own children.

After the initial accusation, police and prosecutors brought in psychologists, psychiatrists, and pediatricians to interview and examine the children.

All denied that anything improper had happened, but after repeated interrogating by persuasive adults, terrible stories began to emerge.

First one accusation, then several, then a flood. Horrific child-sex-abuse charges were filed against the Barretts, who operated the center. The couple was arrested and jailed without bond until trial.

By the time it ended, nearly two dozen children, age five and under, told tales of grotesque sex rituals, adults and children naked, group sex, small animals slaughtered, and threats of physical violence.

It was one of the nation's first high-profile, nationally televised child-molestation trials. A jury convicted Laura and Casey Barrett on multiple counts. They were sentenced to life terms.

“I watched the entire trial,” Vicki said. “The psychologists used anatomically correct dolls so the children could demonstrate where and how they were touched. They played taped interviews between them and those little children.

“I always had doubts. Children that age are always so eager to please. They want to help. And how many places can you point to on an anatomically correct doll before you satisfy the adult you're trying to please?

“The questions were leading, the questioners so persuasive, the children so young.

“To me it seemed like the mass hysteria that led to the Salem witchcraft trials centuries earlier. The only difference was that Laura and Casey Barrett weren't burned at the stake, though they might as well have been.” Vicki hugged her thin cotton housecoat around her as though cold, despite the Florida heat.

“From the beginning,” she said, “I wondered how all that perversion and naked dancing, those sex games and the animal slaughter went on without ever being interrupted, or even suspected by parents and all the other adults who constantly came and went, picking up children, dropping them off. No one ever saw a thing.

“The doctors who examined those poor little children found no evidence of penetration. All they said was that one or two of them had a rash. And some began wetting their pants after being hysterically questioned by panicky parents.

“What child doesn't have a rash somewhere, sometime, or wet their pants when scared? They were kids.

“The Barretts had no prior record of any sort. Yet outrage against them spread like wildfire. I always suspected some of it might have been fueled by the deep pockets of the developers who were now targets for civil suits.

“And were there ever civil suits!

“The news stories never stopped. Even after the criminal convictions, the civil cases proceeded. The developers' insurance company eventually settled. Hundreds of thousands of dollars went to the parents of each victim.

“And of course,” she said sadly, “none of it ever really happened. The Barretts, the most hated people in New England or perhaps the entire country at the time, were innocent.”

“Ugly,” Venturi said, “but I remember reading something about a happy ending not long ago. Weren't they released?”

“Yes. Their verdicts were reversed,” Victoria said indignantly, “but not until after they'd spent eight years in prison! Where…where…” She grew red in the face.

“…child molesters are targeted by other inmates and corrections officers.” He finished her sentence.

“So what's the bottom line?” he asked.

“The bottom line is that they walked out of prison with two hundred dollars and the clothes on their backs. A judge ruled that there was probable cause for their arrests, so no one is held liable.

“There's still so much anger and outrage against them that they couldn't stay in New England. So they tried to resettle in Florida, near Orlando. They found menial, low-level jobs and tried to start over. Then somebody recognized them.

“They lost the jobs. He was badly beaten by a gang of thugs, with the promise of worse if they didn't leave town. Their apartment was vandalized, their few belongings stolen.

“The story was reported on the TV news at the beauty salon the other day. Everybody talked about it, Mikey.” She leaned forward, a look of disbelief in her soft eyes. “They supported the thugs! Those women, having their fingernails and toenails painted, all said: ‘I'd do the same thing.' ‘I wouldn't want them living next door to me, in my neighborhood, or my town.' ‘Guilty people get out of jail all the time.' ‘Where there's smoke, there's fire.' ‘They weren't sent to prison for no reason.'

“Of course I had to put my two cents in, told them they should be ashamed and show some compassion. Unfortunately, the only result of my efforts is this haircut,” she said ruefully.

“I wondered about that but didn't want to say anything.”

She slapped his hand. “I'm serious.”

“We'll find you a new hairdresser,” he promised. “But try to keep your mouth shut. Although I know from experience that's impossible.”

She slapped his hand again.

“You know where I'm headed with this,” she said meaningfully.

He knew, but asked anyway. “Where?”

“When you helped ‘he who shall go nameless' solve his problem, you were happier and more involved than I've seen you for a long time. Why not do it again?”

His pulse quickened, but he resisted. “That was a onetime experiment. I wanted to see if it was possible, if it could work. And I felt responsible for the man. You know when I stumbled upon him he was trying to commit suicide.”

“I thought it was something like that,” she said. “I wonder how it ends for this couple? How can they live down their notoriety, the pain and trauma of their trial, the prison time they served? They lost everything.”

“It's risky.” He kneaded the back of his neck as though it felt stiff.

“Since when did that ever stop you?”

He didn't respond, just sat there, thinking.

“You did it for criminals, bad people. I know how much you regret that.”

“We don't even know if they'd want to do it.”

“Why on earth would they refuse?”

“You'd have to stay, to help transform them into other people.”

“Certainly. I never thought otherwise.”

“First we have to find them, see if they're still together, and if they're willing.”

Forty-eight hours later, they were driving the two hundred miles north to Orlando to find the low-income neighborhood and two-story rooming house where the Barretts shared a bathroom with seven other tenants.

Vicki, who looked less threatening, knocked at their door. Laura Barrett had been twenty-one and her husband twenty-five when they went to prison. She'd be twenty-nine now.

The face that peered furtively from behind a chain on the door appeared older.

“I'd like to talk to you, dear,” Vicki said warmly. “My son is here with me. We may be able to help you.”

“Are you lawyers?” The woman's voice sounded flat and emotionless. “I'm sorry. We can't afford a lawyer.”

“We're not lawyers. May we come in?” Vicki turned as a door opened at the other end of the cluttered, foul-smelling hallway. A bearded man, shirtless and unkempt, leered out at her. Venturi stepped out of the shadow of the landing and stared back. The man shut his door.

Another door opened and a wild-haired obese woman in a shapeless nightgown stepped out.

“Are you the social worker?” she bellowed.

“No, dear,” Vicki answered. “We're not social workers.”

Her friendly tone apparently encouraged the woman, who began to pad barefoot down the hall toward them, mumbling to herself as she came.

Venturi stepped out again, made eye contact, and without a word, pointed back toward her room. She wilted for a moment, then turned, plodded back inside, and closed her door.

“Mrs. Barrett, we'd like to talk to you privately, for just a moment. Please?” Vicki said.

Alone and apprehensive, Laura Barrett took the risk.

She shut the door, removed the chain, and let Vicki in.

“This is Michael,” Vicki said. “We're here to help you.”

Laura's sidelong glance was edgy and narrow-eyed, but she admitted him as well, locked the door behind them, then kept her distance.

Her husband was out looking for work, she told Vicki. They were trying to raise enough money to leave town and find another place.

“This is all wrong,” Venturi said, taking in the sad, shabby, grim room.

Embarrassed, Laura Barrett avoided his eyes but held her head high. “It's not so bad,” she said, “compared to our next address, which will be a homeless shelter, if they accept us. People don't—they won't forget,” she explained.

Thin and angular, about five feet six inches tall, with brown eyes and hair, she looked a good ten years older than her age. She was not sure when Casey would be back.

Venturi had hoped to talk to them both.

“Do you two plan to stay together?” Vicki asked sympathetically.

Laura nearly laughed. “Because I was young and female they promised I'd get off lightly if I confessed and testified against my husband.” Her voice grew brittle. “There was
nothing
to confess to or testify about. Nothing happened. They wanted me to lie. They said if I didn't cooperate I'd be in prison until I was an old lady. We loved that day-care center. We loved the children. We'd only been married a year. We were planning our own family. How could I lie and testify against him?”

She perched tentatively on the edge of the bed, like a wary bird poised to take flight. Victoria sat in the only chair. Venturi stood near a window where he could watch the street.

“We didn't see each other for eight years. We weren't allowed to write or call each other. So if none of that drove us apart, nothing, not even this”—Laura glanced bleakly around her—“will now. For better or for worse…” Her smile was sardonic.

“We're here to talk about better,” Venturi said briskly. “Here's what I propose.”

Casey Barrett came home ninety minutes later. Laura rushed to unlock the door. Victoria gasped. Barrett's black eye was much more than a black eye—it covered the entire left side of his face, in shades ranging from black, to purple, to green. The cuts on his forehead had just begun to heal. He wore a cast on his right hand.