Wildcat Wine (14 page)

Cristal pursed her lips and stood her ground. She wore a red blouse and was really very striking, and I thought blondes should always wear red, and then I wondered if her hair was naturally that shade of blond.

Putting aside hair comparison, I reiterated, “Cristal, I need to go through Kenneth's office. Now.” I put effort into sounding like a Boss Person.

“Look, I gave my word to that officer.”

“All right, so you told me to stay out,” I said and pushed her aside. Cristal scrambled to regain her balance and stop me, but I was determined. We more or less tumbled into Kenneth's office together, with her grabbing at my arms to pull me back and me yelling at her to leave me alone, that I was a partner and a boss and she'd better do what I asked and to take her damned hands off me. She had a darn good grip on my left arm and was tugging at me with surprising strength.

As we spun closer to a fight, I heard rustling papers and turned toward Kenneth's desk, with Cristal still pulling on me. To my amazement, Jackson was crouched behind Kenneth's desk, ransacking his way through his dead partner's credenza. Jackson, having no doubt overheard Cristal and me jousting, thundered at me, “Leave Cristal alone. Don't you practice law anymore, or do you just push people around?”

Oh, like there's a huge difference. And why exactly was he defending Cristal when she was the one who was assaulting me?

Cristal, to her credit, sized it up quickly and disappeared out the door, back to her cubbyhole.

“What are you doing here?” I blurted out, realizing just a half second too late that I had the wrong tone for addressing Jackson, especially when he was wearing his mad-grizzly expression.

“What are you doing here?” he thundered back.

Okay, he asked loudest. “I need to find some papers that Kenneth and I were working on and I—”

“You and Kenneth never worked on anything together once I pulled you away from his workers' comp crap. Now, what are you doing in here?”

“He, ah, he was going to file this suit against Bonita on behalf of that bottling company, a relief-from-judgment complaint, trying to get her wrongful-death award reversed. He might have some evidence that would support this. I wanted to find it if he does.”

Jackson looked at me like I had said that Kenneth was really the Evil Witch or the Evil Snow Queen, or whatever the hell she was, and I was looking for the ruby slippers.

“Evidence of what? On what grounds?” His voice echoed against the aqua silk wallpaper of Kenneth's office.

“Just totally bogus stuff.”

“Such as?”

“He was claiming Bonita deliberately lied and defrauded the court and that those kids weren't really Felipe's.”

“Felipe was her husband?”

“Yes.”

“Even if he could prove that, which I doubt, he wouldn't be likely to overturn the whole judgment.”

“But he could make her life hell trying.”

“Litigation as extortion,” Jackson said, catching on right away. “So what did he really want?”

Okay, in for a dime, in for a dollar. Ignoring timeline confusions, I simplified down to the known tangible. “A sack of cash.”

Jackson stared at me long enough that I started to sweat.

“You're not dealing drugs, are you?”

Oh, like that's the only way to get a paper sack full of cash. “No, I am neither a fool nor a criminal.” I hoped that was true on both counts, but in any event, it drew another long stare from Jackson.

During the pause, while Jackson studied my expression and I sweated more, I blurted out, “What are you looking for?”

“His billing sheets. You know that man was billing thirty-hour days, divided up between different clients so none of them would catch the overbilling. I don't know how smart that sheriff's investigator guy is, or if he'd understand about billing fraud, but I'm not taking any chances.”

“So that's what Cristal's shredding, his bills?”

Jackson barely nodded.

“We need to get into his computer,” I said. “But he's got his files passworded.”

“How do you know his files are password protected?”

“Look, Jackson, let's get Cristal in here to help us bust into his files and erase everything. Better yet, let's take Kenneth's computer outside and run his Hummer over it.”

“You're forgetting, we're on a network, we'd have to trash every computer in the place.”

“Then we erase Kenneth's files from the hard drive now and hope for the best,” I said, wondering how far Tired would go with Kenneth's computer.

“Cristal, get in here,” Jackson bellowed, and she came running back in.

Though I thought Cristal was hesitant about giving up Kenneth's password, which was
lepidoptera,
whatever the hell that was, she told us, and Jackson and I had Kenneth's computer on and were pulling up his files before you could look up lepidoptera in the dictionary.

Once Cristal understood we were mostly interested in erasing stuff, she was suddenly Miss Helpful, and began to explain how she could pull up all of Kenneth's files at once and show us how to erase them in one zap, instead of a file-by-file, take-all-day sort of delete.

But before she started the process, Edith, our officer-manager jackal, came barging in without knocking or without greeting Cristal or me. She waved papers at Jackson. “Kenneth never signed that personal guarantee on the firm's bank loan like he was supposed to. Every partner was obliged to sign it. That was the bank's agreement.”

“Son of a bitch refused to sign until I promised him I'd back his demand for a special performance, midyear bonus,” Jackson said huffily.

So this was important how, now that he was dead?

“Well, the banker I spoke with was adamant—all the partners had to sign the guarantee,” Edith said.

“No problem,” Cristal said, and took the papers, put them flat on the edge of Kenneth's desk, and picked up a pen. While I peered over her shoulder, Cristal signed Kenneth's name, backdated the form to two weeks ago, and handed it to Edith.

Edith stared at the signature a moment. “That should shut the bank up,” she said. And she stomped out.

As most of the secretaries could do passable forgeries of their attorney's signatures, I wasn't surprised by her talent. However, I was amazed that Edith and Jackson were willing to let Cristal sign Kenneth's name to a bank document. Bonita limits her uses of forging my name to correspondences and the occasional firm-reimbursement form.

But then Jackson said, “Let's get on with it,” and we all leaned over Kenneth's computer screen.

Cristal pulled up a list of all of Kenneth's files and vacated the computer chair for Jackson, who had his finger on the key to delete the whole collection when I noticed that one of the recent files was labeled EStall.

“Whoa,” I shouted, causing Cristal to flinch and Jackson to glower.

EStall could be short for Earl Stallings. And if Kenneth had something to do with the dead vintner, then I damn sure wanted to know what.

“Let me pull this one up, real quick,” I said. After I made Jackson get out of Kenneth's chair, I sat down and opened the EStall file.

Despite my anticipation, there was nothing but general information on rudimentary patent law. Essentially boring and nothing that Kenneth should be messing around with, as he was not a licensed patent attorney. Certainly nothing about Earl Stallings there. To be sure I hadn't overlooked anything about Earl, I did a “find” search for every variation of Earl and Stallings and wine and vineyard I could think of while Jackson made huffy, hurry-up noises over my shoulder.

Though neither Earl nor Stallings showed up as search terms, I couldn't figure what else EStall could stand for. But nothing in the file suggested any connection between poor dead Earl, mauled by his own grape picker, and dead Kenneth, shot six times by someone driving my car or its twin.

While I pondered what else to do, Jackson reached over my shoulder, clicked the EStall file closed, then deleted every one of Kenneth's files into never-never land. Jackson was not one to be indecisive.

But I wasn't so sure that deleting all of Kenneth's files was such a great idea. Of course, Cristal would have copies of all the legitimate pleadings on her hard drive, and there were paper copies of anything we would need to continue in the finest representation of Kenneth's clients, clients who, thanks to the Cristal and Jackson covert operation, would probably never know Kenneth had been fraudulently augmenting their bills.

Cristal and Jackson, no doubt, thought we were fine, just erasing any evidence of wrongdoing.

Tampering with the evidence didn't bother us, we were trial attorneys.

Cristal wiped our fingerprints off Kenneth's computer, the credenza, the desk, the filing cabinet, and the door.

“That way,” she said, and smiled one of those sweet Girl Scout Angel smiles that was wholly at odds with her Victoria's Secret body, “I can assure that cop guy that no one was in Kenneth's office today, just like he asked me, and he can't prove who erased Kenneth's computer. We'll just say Kenneth must've.”

Smart for a blonde, I thought, and swallowed my misgivings. Whatever qualms I had didn't matter anyway, this was Jackson's show, and he grumped a thank-you to Cristal.

I apologized to Cristal for my earlier impudence and she assured me it was all right, saying, “I'm never surprised anymore by what you attorneys do.”

Jackson escorted me back to my office, while explaining that he was personally calling all of Kenneth's clients to reassure them that the firm would continue to provide quality representation for them.

“Please send some of the noncomp files my way,” I said.

Jackson nodded. Then, as if he'd already forgotten my request, he said, “Guess we don't have to give him that midyear bonus and pay off his damn Hummer after all,” and turned and marched down the hallway.

Precisely at 1:45
P.M
., and armed with nothing except generalized anxiety, I drove my suspect car to the sheriff's department parking lot.

Philip was already there waiting for me, standing outside by his own car. In the parking lot, blue Hondas were collected in a straight line. I had to admire Tired's efforts in rounding up four other late-model blue Hondas, one an obvious repaint job, plus a newer Honda, and even a green one.

Philip led me inside with a minimum of pleasantries on both sides.

A dumpy woman in an expensive dress, and a really very sharp haircut, was standing around with Tired and that Stan man. Tired nodded at me and then he and Stan led the woman out of my sight, into an office.

When Tired came back, we shook hands, and Tired took my keys and we all went outside and watched him line up my car, third from the left, with the rest of the suspects.

Philip and I backed off to join a small circle of other curious onlookers, and the well-coiffed woman came outside.

It took her all of a minute to pick out my car.

“That's such an intense blue,” she said. “You can't help but remember that. And those windows. Can't see through them.”

Philip immediately began protesting the admissibility of such a lineup. As he and Tired and Stan began to argue, I realized my head really hurt and I was standing in a parking lot in the glare of the midafternoon sun with nothing but two granola bars to fuel my blood sugar. A bit dizzy, I walked off toward shade.

Philip followed, took me inside, brought me a Coke from a machine, didn't laugh at me when I had to wash the top with soap and water from the bathroom, and we sat for a bit in the relative cool of the entranceway to the sheriff's office and I gathered he was over being mad.

Neither of us gave it much thought at the time that we'd left Tired and Stan with my car and my keys perfectly unattended for a good half hour or so.

Chapter 23

By the time I got back
to my office after the car lineup, my first priority was to find Bonita and Benny. No one answered at their house. I tried Henry's number. No answer. Finally I thought to call Benny's aunt, Gracie, who was Bonita's older sister and had once been a nun in one of those Central American counties where life was often violent and usually short. As a result, or at least this was my suspicion, Gracie was a solitary woman who spent some serious time with her wine. Despite some chilliness on her part toward me, Gracie was a rock for Bonita, the first person Bonita called upon, and hence, I knew, she was the first hit on Bonita's speed dial.

Gracie took a few minutes either to decide whether to tell me or to figure out exactly who I was. “She and the children and that pink-faced man all went to Busch Gardens. You know, that fancy zoo and theme park. Up in Tampa.”

Yes, thank you, in all my years in Sarasota, a mere fifty miles south of Tampa, I'd managed never to have heard of Busch Gardens.

“Thank you. If you see Bonita, that is, when you see her, tell her it is terribly important that she find me. Immediately. And not to talk to any law-enforcement officers.”

“What's this about?”

“Just office stuff, don't worry.”

After hanging up, I thought, Okay, Busch Gardens. Not where a family of murderers would go on a fine spring Saturday, but exactly where nice, normal people—people who don't plug other people with six bullets—would go. I felt marginally better.

Now, I needed to find Dave. Dave who was staying at Waylon's duplex. Waylon whose last name I had never once heard anybody say. I called Philip to see if he had a number or address for Waylon or Dave, but got no answer. Then I had the vaguely brilliant notion that if Dave had worked for Earl Stallings before Earl got killed, that maybe the widow had hired Dave back. I mean, she did drop the charges against him. Or maybe she would have an address for Waylon's duplex on file, as Waylon had worked there too. Or she might explain something to me that would make sense.

Instead of going home and making myself gorgeous for my late date with Philip, I jumped into my Honda, released as it was from police custody, and I drove out to Earl's vineyard.

Driving past the closed Gift and Wine Shoppe and the barn with the weird little
Star Wars
toys, I followed the dirt road.

At its end was a most peculiar house, like a large, geometrical tent, shrouded in drooping fuchsia bougainvillea, elephant-ear philodendrons, and shaggy banana trees.

I knocked on the door, and to both my relief and surprise, Farmer Dave answered.

“Great, Dave. I've been looking for you.”

“Hey, sweetheart, you found me.” Dave bear-hugged me and kissed me on the mouth.

I struggled free, too anxious and curious for snuggling. “We've got to talk. You need to tell me—”

Dave did the dance of the frantic and shushed me with his hands and his mouth.

Just as I got the message, I saw the paunch of Investigator Tired Rufus Johnson belly up to the door. Why was he here? And how'd he get here? I hadn't seen any big-ass, black Chevy with its collection of antennae and a state license plate that was supposed to fool people as an unmarked car.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

A very good question. I wasn't even sure I knew.

“So what is this?” I asked. “The house, I mean. It's most unusual.”

“It's a yurt,” Dave said.

“What's a yurt?”

“A house like this.”

Oh, well, talking with Dave and Delvon was sometimes like that.

“It's an octagonally shaped house, designed to . . . expand . . . ,” Tired said. “It has something to do with . . . spirits or something.”

Obviously, Tired had received an explanation that didn't quite stick.

“Come in,” Tired said, in a tone redolent with the essence of an official order.

Uh-oh, I didn't like the sound of that, but to rudely refuse seemed the greater of two evils. Besides, I was curious as all hell.

As I walked in, I looked around me. The yurt looked pretty high tech to me, though inside it still felt like a really big tent. Covered in a dense, coated fabric, the yurt had a high dome with a skylight. Inside was essentially one big room, with a futon folded into a couch in one end, a smaller futon couch in front of it, and an opened futon bed in the other end of the room, Indian cotton throws and pillows scattered about, and a long, wood table in the center. On the table sat a bowl of strawberries and a carton of vanilla ice cream.

Though essentially an oddly shaped room, the inside of the yurt seemed to offer the normal equipment of a house: gas stove, a small refrigerator and a sink in a corner, and one area with a wooden screen around it, which, I suspected, might serve as a bathroom. I had noticed a pump house and a generator when I'd come up through the dense philodendron-shrouded pathway.

Dave tried to put on his social personality and said, “Lilly, I'd like to introduce you to Catherine Susan Stallings. And, Cat Sue, I'd like to introduce you to one of my best and oldest friends, Lilly Belle Cleary.”

The dark-haired hippie woman stood before me. We studied each other, Cat Sue and I. Both of us, no doubt for the same reason, that being the watchful eyes of Tired, refrained from mentioning that we had met before, though not formally, the night she had dropped off a paper sack of cash at my door.

In the light of the day and the yurt, I could get a better look at her. Cat Sue was one of those middle-aged throwbacks to the sixties and she wore a long, loose, batik-printed cotton dress that looked like either a museum piece or a nightgown. So, okay, I thought, you went to Woodstock. You have to keep wearing the same dress?

Wardrobe aside, I saw that Cat Sue had been crying and that her hair was a mess of long, gray-tinged strands, some of it hanging in her eyes, and she smelled just a bit like garlic. But under all that, I could see she'd been a beauty, maybe still was when she wasn't so crumpled.

Cat Sue, a name a bit too close to catsup for my own traditional tastes, hugged Dave and burst into tears. Toward the end of her crying, she pulled herself away from Dave, and offered us all chamomile tea, and before we answered, she said her doctor had just diagnosed a heart murmur.

“Told me not to worry, not ten minutes after he said I was suffering from generalized anxiety disorder and grief over Earl, and he gave me some Xanax to calm me down. I mean, wasn't the man listening to himself? Don't worry! A heart murmur on top of Earl getting killed.” She started crying again.

So spank me for not being more sympathetic, but I kept thinking she was overplaying the scene a bit. I studied Dave and Tired and saw that Dave was totally roped in, but if I read Tired's face right, he wasn't. No doubt, Tired suffered from the prevailing prejudice of homicide detectives that the first suspect in the murder of a husband is his wife. As if reading my thoughts about Cat Sue as a possible suspect, and apparently not the least disturbed about doing an interview in front of Dave and me, Tired nudged closer to Cat Sue.

“How'd you and Earl get on?” Tired asked.

Cat Sue pushed some hair out of her face and looked right at T. R. Johnson. “Why, that man was so crazy about me I had to hide my underwear from him.”

Tired immediately turned beet red.

“But how'd you feel about him?” Tired persisted.

Cat Sue looked puzzled, and then as we all studied her face she seemed to be digesting the question. She frowned, then hung her head. Then she pulled away from Dave and collapsed on the futon, crashed into the pillow, and started crying again. When I looked over to Dave and saw the way he was looking at her, I thought, Oh, hell, he's in love with her.

Tired caught my eye and said, “Come on, Lilly, let's you and me step outside a minute.”

Outside, we ambled through the ferns and philodendron until Tired stopped, glared at me, and said, “I've about come to the end of my rope with you people. Now, what is going on?”

Damned if I knew. “Tired, honest, I don't know. Really. I'm trying to find out myself.”

“That's my job, okay, you stay out of official sheriff's department business.”

I nodded, registering the fact that Tired was actually pretty mad after all.

“Now, tell me why you're here.”

“To see Dave.”

“Why?”

“We're old friends.”

“Cut the crap. You're smack-dab in the middle of all this, and if I have to arrest you as a material witness, by damn, you're gonna tell me what you know.”

Mad begets mad, and I eyed Tired with my best Hard Look and said, “Look, bud, you arrest me for anything and Philip Cohen will have me out of jail and you suspended before that ice cream melts.”

“Like hell. You been hiding stuff from me from the get-go, and now you're fixing to tell me everything.” Tired grabbed my arm, and held on.

“You let go of me,” I said, and let my tone of voice be my threat.

Tired dropped my arm. “Sorry, ma'am,” he said.

Taking that as a good moment for an exit, I pushed past him and back into the house. As soon as I was back inside the yurt, I blurted out, “Listen, Dave, you get shed of Tired and come see me. I'm going home.” Close at my heels, Tired had followed me. I could hear him huffing behind me.

Neither Dave nor Cat Sue seemed to notice Tired or me. Dave had cradled one arm around Cat Sue and was taking a bottle of pills away from her with his other hand. “Kitty, you got to stop taking these tranquilizer pills. You gotta face up to it all on your own. Drugs ain't gonna help.”

Tender as the scene was, and as good as Dave's advice might be, coming from a man who had spent most of his last thirty-five years stoned except during periods of incarceration, Dave's words struck me as a tad hypocritical. But I wasn't interrupting them to point this out.

Cat Sue cried and reached for the bottle as Dave tried to keep it from her. Suddenly weary beyond belief, I eased myself back out of the yurt. Tired pushed past me without saying a word. I followed him around to the back, where his car was hidden from the front by pines, ferns and philodendron, and the yurt itself.

Standing in the cleared spot near his car, Tired inhaled and exhaled with some force.

Cautiously, I walked over to him, stood and inhaled too, and smelled the rich, dark loam under our feet. I looked around me as the late-afternoon sun was shifting through the foliage, giving the philodendrons a variegated look. Earl had had himself a pretty piece of property. For no reason that was readily apparent, I felt homesick for the red hills of my own Georgia.

“Damn,” Tired said. “I sure am tired of being smack in the middle of other people's messy lives.”

“Me too.”

Well, we'd both picked just about the perfect careers then, hadn't we? It was clear to me that Tired was over his mad, but still in over his head.