Criminal Justice Page 15

  Elaine followed him back down the hall. She said, “Tell me about Barrios. I read the reports. You never wanted to talk about it.”

  Vincent sat on the edge of the sofa to put his shoes on. He looked up at Elaine, then asked, “Did Dan Galindo come over here with that on his mind?”

  The surprise on Elaine’s face looked real. “I told you why he came.”

  “Oh, right. He brought you some bagels. I thought you hadn’t seen this joker in months. What did you talk about?”

  “Nothing. He asked me how I was. He told me he split up with Kelly, and he’s going back to his wife—”

  “What did you tell him about Kelly?”

  “Nothing! Dammit, Vince. Stop this.”

  If he had not known her, if he had not been trained to observe such things, he might have missed it. She wasn’t leveling with him. That was more true than not, the people he dealt with, but with Elaine he had counted on some basic honesty. Or maybe he was the one not thinking straight, after thirty hours without sleep. He couldn’t go like he used to.

  Elaine went to the back door and shut it, then turned around. “What about Luis Barrios? Could anyone interpret the events to say that you were too quick to do what you did? Could your credibility as a witness be attacked in the Salazar case? I want to be certain that we’re not vulnerable.”

  “Is that really what you want to know, Elaine?”

  She said quietly, “Maybe I want some reassurance. And maybe it’s personal. There is so much of you that’s hidden from me. Our lives only meet in court, or at the U.S. attorney’s office. Or here, in my apartment.”

  “Is this a complaint?”

  “No. Just tell me about Barrios. Was he armed? Kelly says he wasn’t.”

  “Yes, Elaine. He was armed. He was most certainly armed. He had a Tec-9 converted to automatic fire. Kelly wasn’t in the fucking room, so how the hell can she open her mouth? They started shooting at us. A Miami cop was hit in the throat. He died, and two of our guys were shot up pretty bad. We got three of them, including Barrios, and I haven’t lost one second of sleep over it. Jesus, why do I feel like I’m on trial here? There was a DEA inquiry. A Metro-Dade police inquiry. I was put on an automatic suspension with pay till the special agent-in-charge got the ruling: justifiable self-defense. We had a warrant. We were going to bust a drug buy. Two hundred kilos of cocaine, a house on the water in Coconut Grove. They were having some kind of party that we didn’t know about beforehand. Kelly Dorff’s band was there, and I think the owner of the house—he played guitar in a rock band in Mexico—fancied himself a musician, so they were letting him sit in. We couldn’t cancel the raid. It had been planned for days. Our agent was inside, and he was wired. If we didn’t get him out, he would be killed. But those other people were there too. Luis Barrios was among them. A surprise to me. I heard he’d flown to Quito after his case was dismissed. Maybe he did, but he was sure as hell back in town. We got the signal and came in. We screamed for everybody to get down, but the damned music was so loud. The place went nuts. Gunfire and smoke everywhere. Barrios ran for the back door with his weapon. I went after him. I told him to freeze. He didn’t, and I shot him. End of story. If Danny boy had done his job, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?”

  Elaine was looking at him strangely, and he couldn’t read it.

  He looked back at her, not able to tell—and maybe it was his fatigue—if she was hiding something. He didn’t want to think that. She had never lied to him that he knew of. He was with her because they had some honesty going on. Some loyalty. To imagine it any different had some consequences he didn’t care to think about.

  She asked, “What are you going to do about Kelly?”

  “I don’t know yet. Give her the studio tapes for Mayhem, probably. It’s no big deal. I’ve been using them to get Rick Robbins in the right frame of mind, and it looks like we’re okay there, so maybe I’ll let them have the tapes. I am mightily pissed off, however. I hate it when a C.I. threatens me. I get truly perturbed.”

  “Why does she say she has a tape of the Barrios raid? Where would it come from?”

  “They were recording that night. That’s right. Had their little reel-to-reels going.” Vincent made circles with his extended forefingers. “As I say, the target thought he was some kind of musician, and he wanted a recording of himself. Yes, there was a tape. We listened to it. There was nothing on it. Well, gunfire and a lot of yelling.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “In a property room somewhere. Destroyed, lost, I don’t know. All the targets of the raid pleaded guilty—we got them with their pants down—so the tape wasn’t an issue. If Kelly Dorff says she has it, she’s lying. But it is still a bother.”

  “Because this might get back to Salazar and scare him off?”

  “No, Jesus, I hadn’t even thought of that.” Vincent sat down heavily in her armchair. “No, because it would give the boys in D.C. a reason to ship me off to Kansas or some damn place. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, it’s bad publicity. People believe what the media tells them. Never mind that I was cleared. Here we go again. The suits getting tired of Vincent Hooper’s big mouth, so they find him a nice desk job. You don’t like it, retire. Yeah, why not? I’m forty-four years old. I’ve put in my time. I could collect a pension. I’m not a rich man, Elaine. What have I got? A pension. A pension and my reputation. I’m not going out like this. I will not do it.”

  She came over and sat on the arm of the chair, put her arms around him. “You could resign. You could do something else.”

  “What?” He stood up and smoothed his hair back into place. “What would I do?”

  “You’ve mentioned jobs with security companies.” She looked up at him.

  “I’ve got to go. I need to get to the office before I go home.”

  “Stay awhile.” She held onto his hand.

  “No, I’ve got some reports to finish.” Laughing, he headed toward the kitchen. “God, I love this job.”

  She followed. “I wish you would quit. What I said to you before, Vince—You’re right. It was a complaint. You come when you like, you leave when you like—”

  He picked up his holster off the table. “You never bring me flowers. What’s a girl to think?”

  “Dammit, don’t trivialize this!” she shouted.

  Weariness pressed down on him. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want to be able to walk into a restaurant with you. To take your hand in public. Something that simple. That’s what I want.”

  He noticed the pattern in her wallpaper. Little tulips. He ran his belt through his holster, then rebuckled it. He dropped his pistol in and pressed down the safety strap. “We’ll talk about it.”

  “You bet.”

  “We will.” He looked at her, then cupped her cheek with his palm. “We will.” She held his hand tightly and kissed it. Curled his fingers around hers and pressed them to her face. Her skin felt feverish and damp, and her eyes were closed. After a while, he said, “Elaine, I have to go.”

  CHAPTER 20

  At the security gate outside Heron Hills the guard was standing by his shack. Dan Galindo showed him his driver’s license.

  “I’m here to pick up my son at Lisa Galindo’s house. She said she’d call and let you know.”

  The guard checked off his name, then told him to wait a moment. He went inside and came back with a camera. “We’re starting a new procedure with our frequent visitors, such as yourself. This is digital. We scan the photo into our computer, then we can bring it up on the monitor. You want to look this way, please?”

  “Hold it.” Dan held up a hand, fingers spread. “I don’t want my picture in your computer.”

  The guard looked back at the other cars in line. The brim of his hat cast a shadow over his gold-framed glasses. He said to Dan, “Sir, we’re trying to save everyone some time here.”

  “I said no.”

  “Suit yourself.” He went over to his computer
and tapped on the keyboard.

  Dan said, “Tell me something. Do these crime-fighting efforts pay off?”

  “Well, it makes the residents feel more secure. People can’t just come up here and drive around looking for a house to burglarize.”

  “Right. Let them stay in Miami. Do it in their own neighborhoods.”

  The guard shifted his eyes toward Dan, then ripped the entry pass out of the printer and handed it through the window. “Have a pleasant day.”

  The gate arm went up, and Dan went through it.

  Two minutes later, he was parking behind Lisa’s minivan. A neighbor smiled brightly from the adjoining yard. He couldn’t remember her name, but he waved back. She was weeding a bed of caladiums. He spotted Josh shooting hoops in the woman’s driveway with two other boys. They had one of those bright plastic, kid-sized basketball goals on wheels to roll back into the garage at night. Dan cupped his hands at his mouth. “Hey, Shaquille O’Neal!”

  Josh stopped running so suddenly he staggered in his big shoes. “Dad! I gotta finish this game.”

  Dan pointed at the house. “I’m talking to your mom.”

  He rang the doorbell, then went inside. The sliding glass doors beyond the dining area were open, and he could see straight through to the small backyard, the wood fence around it, and swing set under the shade tree. The roof overhang kept the barbecue grill out of the weather. Music came from farther back in the house. Hootie and the Blowfish. He walked down the hall leading to the bedrooms.

  Lisa’s cocker spaniel came out of the master bedroom to see who was there. The dog yipped once, ran back in, then out again.

  “Lisa, it’s me.” Dan could smell paint. The furniture in the master bedroom was shoved to one side, plastic drop cloths thrown over it, and Lisa, in jeans and long-sleeved shirt, was pushing a paint roller up the wall, changing pale blue to creamy white. Strands of blond hair had fallen from her ponytail.

  Lisa turned to dip the roller into the pan and noticed him standing at the door. “Early again. Gee. You used to run half an hour late. I’m amazed.” Her voice echoed on the bare walls. Even the curtains were gone, and the carpet had been torn out.

  “What’s all this for?” he asked.

  “I’m redecorating. I’d have someone come in and do it, but I don’t have money to spend like that.” She lifted the roller and resumed her path up the wall, around the window that faced the street. “Josh is next door, I think. I put his bag by the front door. Be sure he uses his sunscreen.” The dog sniffed at the paint. “Poppy, out. Go on.”

  The cocker spaniel flopped down in a corner with its chin on its paws, ears to either side, its eyes rolling from Lisa, then to Dan, and back again.

  Dan lifted a corner of the tarp covering the bed. She hadn’t changed the mattress. He said, “How would you like to go out with Josh and me in the boat? We could dock it over on Key Biscayne and have lunch at the Rusty Pelican.” Two days ago, arranging to pick up Josh, Dan had described Miguel Salazar’s boat to her in detail—the engines, the electronics, the galley and staterooms. He had not mentioned that Martha Cruz had been aboard, an irrelevancy that would only be misconstrued.

  Lisa’s roller made a sticky, crackling noise in the wet paint. “I’m a little busy right now.”

  “Do it later. I’ll help you clean up,” Dan said. “Josh would like to have you along. So would I.”

  “You?”

  “Sure.”

  She looked at him steadily. “Why?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve missed you.”

  “Really.” She lowered the roller to the pan. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I think I’m asking you for a date.”

  Her mouth opened slightly, then her eyes went to the ceiling. “Oh, my God.”

  “Come on. It would be fun.”

  “I’m sure it would.” Putting some energy into it, she pressed out the extra paint, and the pan screeched on the bare concrete. “Are you still dating that lovely girl with the nose ring?”

  “No. That’s over. Lisa, it was nothing.”

  “A tattooed rock singer. My God. I would love to know what you saw in her.”

  “She was there. It’s not worth talking about. Come with Josh and me. It’s a beautiful day, too good to waste inside.”

  Lisa glanced at him. “I’m meeting someone at the club at two o’clock. We’re playing tennis.”

  Dan felt a little twist in the pit of his stomach. “Who? Am I allowed to ask?”

  “You don’t know him.” She erased another section of blue. “He’s a lawyer. You’d think I’d learn, wouldn’t you? He’s a senior partner in a firm in Boca Raton. I met him when I went up to visit Mom and Dad.”

  “Is it serious?”

  “What, as if I were ill?” She laughed and submerged the roller in the pan again. “I do date. I lead a normal life. But I think this guy just wants to get into my knickers.”

  “Who could blame him?” Dan picked a smudge of dried paint off the marble windowsill. “Right after we bought this place, we christened it by making love in every room—even the closets, remember?”

  Lisa stared at the opposite wall. “Don’t do this. Please.”

  “I think of you with somebody else—Josh coming home to some creep sitting on my sofa, watching my TV, sleeping with my wife—”

  “I’m not—”

  “I know,” he said sharply. “I know you’re not. But you were my wife for nine years, and it’s a habit, thinking of you that way. Ever since I left, something’s been missing. A chunk right out of my middle.” He drew a circle. “Right here. That’s what it feels like.”

  “Sentimental you.” She smiled a little, her profile to him. Her skin was still perfect and a dimple played at the corner of her mouth.

  He said, “A friend of mine in Fort Lauderdale says there’s an opening for a criminal lawyer in his firm. I’m going to redo my résumé and take it up there. What do you think?”

  “Why ask me?”

  “Because I want your opinion.”

  “Fine. Do what you want. It’s your life.”

  “Busting my chops, Lisa?”

  “You deserve it.”

  He took the handle of the paint roller and leaned it against the wall. “We could do things differently this time,” he said.

  “We? Excuse me? Look, Dan. I’m getting along just fine. I forced myself not to think about you, or our marriage, or what you did, and I’m over it.”

  “Are you really?” He bent his head to kiss her. She let him do it, opening her mouth to him. Then he murmured into her ear, “Lisa, I want to come back.”

  “Oh, you do.” She pulled away, resting her hands on his chest. “You should hear yourself. I want. It’s always about what Dan wants. Like that damned boat. It doesn’t matter what I say, you’re going to make the decisions.”

  He nearly laughed. “Is this starting to be an issue with you?”

  She made a small noise of impatience with her tongue. “No. It illustrates what I’m trying to tell you, which is: Nothing has changed. When you were doing that trafficking case two years ago, I said, Dan, please let it go. It doesn’t matter. The man is a criminal. But you said, Oh, no, Lisa. I have a duty as a lawyer to seek justice. Well, fine, if you were trying to save some innocent person from death row, but you turned a guilty man free. Tell me where the justice is. You didn’t do it for justice. You did it for pride, like a medal to wear on your chest. Look how noble Daniel Galindo is. You wanted that more than anything.”

  He took a breath. “I didn’t know you saw it that way.”

  “It’s taken me a long time to sort out my feelings.” Lisa slid her hand up his cheek. “I’m not angry.”

  “Oh, honey.” Dan closed his eyes and held onto her hand, not letting go. “Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night wondering how I managed to screw things up so badly.”

  “Well. At least you finally sound sorry.”

  “Of course I am.”

  She p
ulled her fingers out of his grasp. “Go on. Go for a ride in that million-dollar boat and have yourself a good time. Take Josh to the Bahamas for a week in it, you and Josh and your macho speargun, pretending you aren’t thirty-five, and when you figure out there’s a little more to life than that, then you come tell me how much you’ve missed me.”

  Her blue eyes glistened with sudden tears, and she laughed self-consciously. “I’ve missed you too. Wild, huh? I have an investment in this relationship, and I don’t want to lose it all. So yes, send out your résumé. Get a job you can be proud of. Do something with your life.”

  She picked up the paint roller and attacked the pan, and ivory paint sloshed onto the floor.

  From the passenger seat Josh said, “Are you mad?” After a second, he said, “Dad?”

  “What?” Dan loosened his grip on the steering wheel and looked back at his son. “No, buddy, I’m not mad.” He ruffled Josh’s hair. “You ready to go on that boat?”

  “Maximum. I told Evan next door about it. He wanted to go, but his mom said no.”

  “Is it okay, just the two of us?”

  “Yeah. It’s fun.” Josh smiled. The glasses made him look wise. “I’m making a card for you on my computer, but you can’t see it till your birthday. Can you come get it?”

  “Sure I will.”

  At the guard shack at the entrance to the Isles of Lakewood, Miguel Salazar’s subdivision of the Village, Dan gave his name and ID, tapped idly on the steering wheel while they took down his license tag number and made a phone call.

  Josh was peeling the wrapper off a low-fat granola bar. Lisa had packed two of them in his bag, along with an apple, some carrots, and a bottle of filtered water. He rose up in the seat to see out the window. “This is the way to Anita’s house.”

  Dan said, “We’re going by for just a minute. I have to drop some things off.”

  After Kelly Dorff left her message on his answering machine, he had packed her things for her, the clothes she had left at his house, along with some CD’s and stray earrings, a comb, a bottle of shampoo. At least he could do that much for her. He had put a note inside the box. Regrets, no hard feelings. Good luck with the band.