Mystery Writers of America Presents the Prosecution Rests (25 page)

The shelf that held the Yerba Maté was empty. What the crap was going on?

I looked through the rest of the house. Everything seemed normal, except for the yellow sticky note on Dad’s pillow, next
to a key.

I can’t take these disputes no more. Good-bye.
Nice welcome-home present; Dad was going to love this—if he ever came home.

There was pounding on the door. “Police,” someone shouted. “Open up.”

I put the note in my pocket and opened the door. A uniformed officer stood beside some bozo in a wrinkled suit, who handed
me something blue and folded with his right hand and flashed a badge with his left. “Search warrant,” Wrinkled Suit said.
“We’re looking for a specific file that was in your father’s possession. It’s evidence in a homicide investigation.”

“What file?”

Another officer came out of my old bedroom waving the Mega file. “In her suitcase.” He handed it to Wrinkled Suit.

“What have we got here?” Wrinkled Suit said.

“No way,” I said. “The suitcase is my property. This warrant doesn’t cover my property.”

“Tell it to the judge.” Wrinkled Suit pointed to the door. “Come on.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“Not yet.”

“Then I’ll pass.”

“We’ll be back,” he said. He and his boys filed out of the apartment, leaving the door open.

“I can hardly wait,” I shouted, and slammed the door shut. What the brimstone crap was going on?

Maria. It had to be Maria. For whatever reason, she’d taken the file last night and put it in the suitcase this morning when
she came to collect her Yerba Maté. Why?

And then I thought of the yellow sticky notes, on the pillow and on the buzzer box. I had a bad feeling. Panic would be more
like it. I had to get out of the apartment before they came back with a warrant and I found myself sitting in the cell next
to Dad.

I was down one flight of stairs before it occurred to me that Wrinkled Suit may have left someone in front of the apartment
to make sure I didn’t leave. I went back inside. Jaws looked perplexed as I climbed out the kitchen window onto the fire escape.

“Eat your eggs,” I said. I climbed down the ladder like I’d done a hundred times before, sneaking out to see a boyfriend Dad
didn’t like. I hot-footed it through the backyard, through to Sterling. I walked to Flatbush, ducked into RastaMan, bought
a Jamaican patty, and ate it while I called Benny.

“Benny? Exactly what do you know about Maria López?”

“Bossy.” He paused. “Come to think of it, I don’t know much about her, except that your dad liked her.”

“Can you run a background check on her?” I told him about the file, Wrinkled Suit, the sticky note.

There was a long silence. Then he whistled. “Come to the office.”

I didn’t know how smart or motivated Wrinkled Suit was. “Make it Dixon’s.”

____

I
HOPPED A
bus down Flatbush, got out at the Fulton Mall, and headed toward the court complex. I passed a Conway display of hoodies
for $5. I bought a navy blue and a pair of baggy matching sweatpants. I paid, had the clerk cut the tags, and pulled them
on over my own jeans and sweatshirt in the store.

Benny didn’t comment on the hoodie. He had a big crap-eating grin on his face when he handed me two folded papers.

I looked at Maria’s sheet. Bad credit, some unpaid credit cards. Married and divorced from Raymond López. Maiden name: Raposa.

“Raposa,” I said out loud. I handed Fratelli’s rap sheet to Benny and tapped the name of his common-law wife: Arlene Raposa.

“Bingo,” Benny said. “I’ll track down Maria’s and Arlene’s current addresses.”

“Call me when you find them,” I said.

“Better yet, I’ll bring them to the Blue Fin,” he said nonchalantly. “At six.”

____

I
TEXTED
J
ESSICA
and asked her to meet me at the Blue Fin at 5:30. She was late. We ordered apple martinis. I barely had time to fill her
in before Benny arrived. The hostess led him right to our table. He immediately looked at the drink menu.

“Well, I’ll be,” he said. “They start at fifteen dollars.” He ordered a thirty-dollar imported beer from Bavaria, brewed by
monks, and then set out a photocopy of two DMV licenses. Maria Raposa. Arlene Raposa. “Maria never changed her name on her
license.” He tapped the papers. “Take a look at the address.”

Both of them lived at 314 Carroll Street, apartment B, one door down from apartment A, where my dad had been bonked on his
head.

The waitress set down Benny’s beer. I tossed a hundred on the table. “We have to go,” I told her.

“But he just got his beer,” she said.

“We’ll be back later.”

____

W
E FLAGGED DOWN
a surly taxi driver who cursed when we said we needed to go to Brooklyn. But Benny had his butt in the backseat and he couldn’t
speed away. Traffic on the Manhattan Bridge was a nightmare. It took over an hour to get to the 87th.

Benny, Jessica, and I walked in. Paco was off duty, but talking story out in front with his buddies.

“Hey, Paco,” I said. I waved the two DMV printouts at him. “Want a promotion?”

____

T
HE DEAL WAS
, I wanted to be the one to knock on the door and confront Maria. I wanted to know why, so I could tell Dad.

“You think she’s going to tell you why?” Paco said. “Ha.”

Paco and his crew broke the crime scene seal on Fratelli’s apartment A and hid inside. “Two minutes,” he said, motioning down
the hall, which smelled of burned empanadas.

I knocked on B. A younger, shorter version of Maria opened the door. “Yes?”

“Hello, Arlene,” I said. “Maria here?”

“She’s in the bathroom,” Arlene said.

I pushed past her. Suitcases were open on the couch, half-full of Yerba Maté bags.

Maria came out of the bathroom in her towel, saw me, and bolted for the door.

“Why? Why?” I yelled, following her out into the hallway, where Paco stepped out of A and grabbed her arm.

“Hey, Maria,” he said. “What say we put on some clothes?”

____

T
HE 87TH WAS
hopping. Paco was the hero of the day, two collars for the Fratelli murder, plus springing the old guy.

Wrinkled Suit saw me and started yelling. “You have some explaining to do!” he said. “Plus there was a picture of a corpse
in that file.” He pulled out his handcuffs.

Jessica stepped in front of me. “Touch her and I’ll sue your sorry ass for sexual assault.”

____

P
ACO BROUGHT
D
AD
out into the lobby. He was still in his orange jumpsuit.

“Dad,” I said, “I’m getting you out of here.”

“I’m not going,” he said. “I’m innocent.”

“Yes,” I said. “We know.”

He demanded the return of his Hawaiian shorts. They refused, citing them as evidence.

“Then I’ll have to leave naked,” he said. He started to unzip his jumpsuit.

“Keep the jumpsuit overnight,” Paco said.

“You can change at home,” I said.

“Home?” Benny snorted. “Oh no. We’re all going to the Blue Fin.”

“The Blue Fin, huh?” Paco’s face lit up. “I heard their beers are fifteen bucks a pop.”

“No, they start at fifteen bucks and go up,” Benny, the world-wise sophisticate, said. “Two pages of them. You’re going to
flip a switch.”

“I got Maria’s paperwork to do,” Paco said.

“We’ll be there awhile,” Benny said.

Just then, Dad saw Maria being led from the fingerprint room. She was wearing an orange jumpsuit.

Dad called to her: “Maria? Maria?”

She refused to look at him or answer before she disappeared through the doors that led to the holding cells.

____

W
E ALL SAT
around a table at the Blue Fin. Dad, Benny, and Paco were working a flight of exotic beer, Jessica and I were nursing apple
martinis. The waitress popped by, and Benny ordered one each of their thirty-dollar appetizers.

“I’m not hungry,” Dad said.

“You’ve got to eat something,” I said. He shook his head. I turned to the waitress. “Bring him two orders of your seared ahi,
stuffed with caviar.” I turned to Jessica. “I’m paying,” I said, thinking of my clerk’s salary. I’d put it on Visa. Paco arrived,
and Benny ordered.

Jessica saw my face. She also saw Benny order another flight, plus three bottles of assorted German imports. “Not a chance,”
she said. “I have an expense account.”

“And an order of fries,” Paco said.

“I may have to go across the street for those.” The waitress looked out the window at McDonald’s.

Dad looked at the golden arches, frowned, and started to open his mouth. I shook my head. “Speaking of disputes,” I said,
“what’s with Dixon’s?”

“I was helping Ed Dixon with his dispute against Visa.”

“Oh,” I said, wondering how I was going to tell Dad about all his files I’d tossed.

____

W
AITING FOR OUR
food, Paco spilled the beans, so to speak.

“Maria spilled her guts,” he said. Fratelli was abusive. A jerk. A lowlife. Violent, probably a murderer, a dog who deserved
to die. Fresh out of jail, he’d moved into the apartment down the hall from Maria and Arlene, whom he beat if she didn’t spend
the night with him and beat if she did.

The last straw was when she took a plate of empanadas to his apartment, as requested, empanadas she had accidentally scorched
on account of she was looking up the address of a women’s shelter in the Brooklyn yellow pages and forgot about them on the
stove.

Maria knew about Dad’s Mega dispute and cooked up a quick plan. Arlene called Dad and got him to come over. Maria posted the
yellow sticky note on the buzzer box to make it easy for him to come straight to the apartment door. Arlene opened it while
Maria popped him gently on the head with a rubber baton from the stash of weapons under Fratelli’s bed, then left to phone
in the tip from the corner booth.

“Why?” Dad said.

I tried to be gentle. “She was getting tired of your disputes,” I said.

“Aw shucks,” Dad said. “Aw shucks.”

Paco downed a whole bottle in one breath. Wiped his mouth. Continued. “She came to your apartment looking for the Mega file
to see if there was anything in there that could tie Fratelli to Arlene,” Paco said. “She found you there and hung around,
trying to get information. When you cut her out of the loop, she thought you knew she was involved, so she planted the Mega
file in your suitcase and called in another tip, figuring it would keep you tied up for a few days while she and Arlene split.”

“I didn’t offer to put up bail,” Benny said.

“They’ll get a deal,” Jessica said. “Domestic defenses are guaranteed acquittals these days.”

“Especially when we ID that corpse picture that Fratelli had,” Paco said.

The waitress brought food. I wrapped up one order of seared ahi, with caviar, in a napkin.

“I thought we were in love,” Dad said. “Now I’ve lost my appetite.” I wrapped his ahi in another napkin and put both bundles
in my purse.

“You may have been in love, old man,” Paco said. “But Maria’s a piece of work, and in her case, family trumps love.”

His words gave me an idea. I would invite Dad to visit me. Introduce him to the judge, a novice dispute collector. Then I’d
treat them to dinner at an overpriced restaurant that had bad service, dishonest waiters, thieving coatroom attendants, slovenly
kitchen help, and a menu known as Salmonella Special. I knew about it because my co-clerk’s boyfriend took her there to propose
and she became deathly ill after consuming the shrimp bisque.

It was a dispute made in heaven.

“Gotta go,” I said. “I’m dead, and I gotta be on the first flight out. Oral arguments. Come on, Dad.”

____

D
AD NOTICED HIS
missing file cabinet the minute he walked in the door. He opened his mouth. I held up my hand.

“Say nothing,” I said. “This is a new beginning.”

He was silent for a full thirty seconds. I could see him reviewing his files with his steel trap of a mind. Perfect memory.
It was only a matter of days before he was back in the saddle.

“Kitty, kitty.” I unwrapped the bundles of ahi and caviar and put them in Jaws’s dish. Jaws came running. Dad saw him, and
his whole face lit up. He rummaged in a desk drawer for a well-worn flashlight, switched it on, and started twirling the beam.

Jaws hesitated. Fish or flashlight?

He snatched a mouthful of caviar and then dove into the game, speeding in an incredibly fast circle. Dad, the flashlight king,
really knew how to get him going. Jaws had been mine until I went away to law school, whereupon Dad had spent three years
ruining him with the flashlight.

Jaws staggered. “I’m leaving Jaws with you,” I said. “He’ll keep you company.”

Jaws barfed. Caviar. Tough to clean up with Dad’s environmental crap cleaning products.

“You can’t leave him here,” Dad said, ignoring the barf. He changed directions. Jaws fell over. “You won’t have anyone to
play the flashlight game with.”

I looked long and hard at Dad, the flash-card lawyer. “I’ll always have someone to play the flashlight game with.”

“Who’s that?” Dad said.

“You, Dad. You.”

And I went into the kitchen to get a roll of recycled paper towels.

BY PAUL LEVINE

L
adies and gentlemen, the state will prove that Dr. Philip Macklin intentionally drove his Mercedes sedan into the Santa Ynez
canal. Why? To kill his wife and make a premeditated murder look like an accident.”

Scott Gardner pasted on his solemn face and paused. Keeping quiet was the trial lawyer’s most difficult task, but he wanted
his words to sink in.

Premeditated murder.

“A homicide both heinous and cruel,” he continued. “Dr. Macklin swims to safety as his wife gasps for air, black water engulfing
her like a shroud of death.”

A tad melodramatic, but Nancy Grace will love the sound bite, and the jurors will be moved by my passion.