Blood Relations Read online

  Sam asked the other man his opinion.

  “I regret to say it’s the same. The defendant can’t be brought to trial twice for the same offense.”

  “What does this mean?” demanded García.

  Sam said, “It’s our system of criminal procedure, Mr. García. Once the jury has spoken, we can’t ask them to reconsider, no matter what new evidence we find. We have only one chance to put a man on trial.”

  He was outraged. “This makes no sense! Luis Balmaseda is guilty.”

  “We know that, but there’s nothing we can do about it now except prosecute him for stalking Adela. This is a different offense. I’m sorry.”

  “But I have proof!” García looked around the table. “He murdered Carlito. He said this.”

  “Tell Adela to come see me,” Sam said. “I’ll talk to her. And meanwhile, don’t you do anything we’re all going to regret. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  García’s face darkened. “You don’t care to do nothing. What kind of place is this? You let murderers go free.”

  “It isn’t us, Mr. García. I wish I could do what you ask, but I can’t. It’s the law.”

  As if the words he wanted to say were bile in his throat, Idelfonso García swallowed several times. Abruptly he picked up the tape recorder from the table and walked out of the room.

  For a long moment no one spoke.

  Finally, Sam stood up and gave the two younger lawyers a weary smile. “There it is, gentlemen. We can get a conviction for a botched penile enlargement and we let murderers go. What do you think about that?”

  The two young assistants rose silently and gathered the manslaughter files they had laid down on the way in.

  Sam had arranged to meet Eugene Ryabin at the downtown campus of Miami-Dade Community College. Ryabin had located Tommy Chang, who had agreed to talk to him. In four days the police had no real leads in the murder of Charlie Sullivan, only a list of people who might have wanted him dead. One of them was George Fonseca. A restaurant manager on Ocean Drive had contacted the police to report that two weeks ago Fonseca had to be restrained from attacking Sullivan. He didn’t know what the dispute was about, but did recall that a young Asian man had been sitting at the table. The manager described him, and Ryabin thought it might be Tommy Chang, whom he had met at the murder scene on Sunday.

  Tommy Chang might give Ryabin something to work with this afternoon, when George Fonseca would appear at police headquarters. Fonseca’s attorney had agreed to routine questioning—in a spirit of cooperation, he had said. This would be touchy, as the murder victim had been a witness against Fonseca in another crime. The attorney would call foul if questions veered too close to the sexual battery case. Sam had cautioned Ryabin that inquiries would have to relate only to the murder of Charlie Sullivan.

  Sam arrived at the college just as classes changed, and the wide plaza outside the main building teemed with students. They dressed in the ubiquitous uniform of the young: shorts, jeans, T-shirts, sneakers. Their voices were loud and cheerful, their faces a variety of ethnic types.

  He stood in the plaza in his dark suit, and the students flowed around him as if he were a rock in a babbling stream. He thought of Matthew, who had promised, finally, to enroll for a semester. Sam was going to pay his books and tuition, even his rent. Whatever he needed. But Matthew let the deadline for registration pass, and Sam told him he could earn his own damned tuition if he wanted to go to college.

  Among the bobbing heads, Sam noticed a white one. Gene Ryabin was coming through the atrium, smiling as if buoyed by so much vitality and youth. He spotted Sam and pointed toward the fountain. Water poured down a low, slanting wall of roughly made concrete bricks, then filled a shallow, nearly flat basin, lapping at the opposite end. They met under the shade of a tree growing from a circle of ironwork.

  Ryabin reported on his progress in questioning Martin Cass, whose wife had been one of Charlie Sullivan’s conquests.

  “None, I’m afraid. Mr. Cass is avoiding me.” Ryabin sighed. “I’ll have to find something to arrest him for. Maybe traffic tickets, does that sound good?” He touched Sam’s arm. “Here’s Tommy coming.”

  Sam recognized him, the boy with Chinese eyes. His long black hair was tied back in a cord, and he had a book bag slung over one shoulder.

  Ryabin introduced himself, then said, “This is Sam Hagen from the state attorney’s office, the prosecutor on Miss Duncan’s case.”

  Tommy Chang extended a hand. “Yeah, we met. Hi, how’re you doin’?”

  They found seats at a red-painted metal umbrella table. The rush of students had let up. Ryabin asked Tommy about himself, his classes, his interest in photography, and his work with Caitlin Dorn. Then Ryabin asked how he had happened to meet Charlie Sullivan. On a photo shoot with Caitlin, Tommy replied.

  “You went with Sullivan to a restaurant on Ocean Drive,” Ryabin said.

  “Right. He said he’d tell me about fashion photography and modeling. I mean, that was the only reason I went. He tried to come on to me, but I told him I was straight, so he left me alone. We talked for a while, but then he, like, flipped out and told me to leave. It was weird.”

  “The manager says George Fonseca caused some trouble?”

  Tommy nodded. “He was driving by and saw Sullivan, and he jumped out of his car and started screaming at him because Sullivan was going to be a witness for Ali. Then they got into an argument about Claudia Otero. She’s a fashion designer from New York, and Sullivan was, like, I guess her boyfriend.”

  Sam remembered the name Claudia Otero. Rafael Soto had mentioned her, one of Charlie Sullivan’s many sexual partners. He said, “Why did they argue about Claudia Otero?”

  Tommy said, “George said the reason Sullivan was going to testify was because Claudia Otero put him up to it. She supposedly hates Tereza Ruffini, Klaus Ruffini’s wife. Tereza’s a designer too. George thought that Sullivan was trying to help her. I guess his theory was that if Klaus is convicted of rape, it would hurt Tereza’s business.”

  Ryabin asked, “What did Sullivan say about Klaus Ruffini?”

  “Nothing much. He didn’t like him, I know that.”

  “He didn’t give the reason?”

  “No. He just got into it with George. George said he would bust him in the teeth. Then Sullivan told George he’d kick his ass. They weren’t just talking. They were going to fight. Then the manager came out and told George to leave.”

  “What happened after that?” Ryabin asked.

  “We talked some more. Sullivan invited me to a party his agency was giving, then he became very insulting and told me to get lost.”

  “Why did he do that?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Is there anything else you can remember about the conversation?” Ryabin asked.

  Tommy didn’t say anything for a while. He brushed a leaf into one of the holes in the red wire mesh the tabletop was made of. “Yeah.” He looked over at Sam. “George also accused Sullivan of trying to get back at him because of your son.”

  “My son? Matthew?” Sam exchanged a glance with Ryabin, whose brows had risen a fraction of an inch.

  “They didn’t, like, mention you. They said Stavros. Ali says that’s your son, right? He was a model?”

  “Yes. Stavros was his middle name. What did they say?”

  “Well, George said Sullivan was still pissed off about Stavros, that’s why he was going to testify against him. And Sullivan said no, that wasn’t it, but I asked him after George left. He told me that Stavros died in a motorcycle accident, and the way he talked, it sounded like he blamed George for it.” Tommy shrugged, then said, “According to Sullivan, George got Stavros hooked on drugs. Heroin.”

  The sounds of the plaza seemed to recede into nothing. Sam stared at Tommy.

  “I guess you didn’t know.”

  “What else did he say?” Sam asked.

  “That Stavros was doing coke and meth also. This was in the context of Sul
livan warning me to stay away from drugs, which I don’t do. Sullivan didn’t either. He was angry at George for getting your son into it. He said to talk to Caitlin Dorn. I asked her. She said the same thing. That he—your son—was doing heroin.”

  When Sam said nothing more, Tommy looked back at Ryabin. “That’s all I can remember.”

  Ryabin thanked him, gave him his card, and instructed him to call if he thought of anything else. Tommy Chang shook their hands, then walked away, going through the wide opening that led to the inner courtyard of the main building.

  Sam turned around and stared at the traffic that passed without letup between the plaza and the old tile-roofed post office across the street. Matthew had lied to him, lied to Dina. Had promised her that he didn’t do this, had never, would never.

  Charlie Sullivan had spent nearly two hours in Sam’s office telling him about the attack on Ali Duncan. In an offhand way he had mentioned Matthew. But he had said nothing about heroin. Sam had known about the heavy drinking. He assumed grass and cocaine, the drugs of choice on South Beach. He had not suspected needles and searching for veins.

  Maybe it wasn’t true. There had been no signs of this. Nothing. Not this. Or maybe Matthew had tried it a couple of times, and Tommy Chang had assumed too much.

  “Sam—” Ryabin patted his coat pocket for his cigarettes, but didn’t take them out. He said, “Forgive me if I’m asking you a difficult question. What do you think was going on between Matthew and Charlie Sullivan?”

  Sam looked at him, then made a short laugh. “Going on? Nothing. They knew each other. They were in the same business. Maybe they were friends, but that’s the extent of it. I have no doubts about my son in that way, Gene.”

  Ryabin shrugged. His attention seemed to be on a group of girls in shorts walking by, laughing and talking in Spanish. Their dark hair gleamed in the bright sunlight. Ryabin watched them, the morose expression on his face not changing. He said, “Tommy Chang said Sullivan blamed George for Matthew’s death. Why would there be blame unless he cared for him in some way?”

  “All right, maybe Sullivan was interested. Matthew was a handsome kid, but he wouldn’t have responded, any more than Tommy did. He would have seen what Charlie Sullivan was like.”

  “Even so,” Ryabin said, “Sullivan hated George Fonseca. And so I ask, why? If it was a mutual hatred, we might have something. A motive. Not only that, but now that Sullivan’s dead, he can’t testify against Fonseca. So. Two motives.”

  “I think there’s more in this connection to Claudia Otero,” Sam said. “We know Sullivan was involved with her. Rafael Soto confirmed it. And that angle leads us to Klaus Ruffini.”

  “True.” Ryabin gave in and tapped a cigarette out of his pack. “We’ll pursue it with George Fonseca this afternoon, if his lawyer allows us.” He clicked his gold lighter. His fingers were stained brown with nicotine. “And as for Matthew, I’ll have to bring that up as well.” With an eye on Sam, Ryabin slid the lighter back into his pants pocket. “You understand,” he said.

  “Sure.”

  “You’re the lead prosecutor, but may I suggest that you not be in the same room?” Ryabin said. “If Fonseca knows who Matthew was, we might not get straight answers.”

  “So I’ll sit behind the mirror again.”

  Sometime during the year before Matthew died, Sam had come to the apartment he rented with two of his friends, half of a duplex south of Fifth Street in a shabby neighborhood. The grass in the yard was dead, and there were rusting security bars on the windows.

  Eleven o’clock in the morning, Matthew came to the door barefoot, squinting and unshaven. Sam wanted to take him to lunch. To talk. To find out what was going on with him, since it had been weeks since they had seen each other. The apartment, predictably, was a shambles. Beer cans on every horizontal surface. Open pizza boxes. A girl asleep on the sofa in her underwear.

  Matthew came along reluctantly. They went to the News Café and sat indoors, where it wasn’t as crowded. Matthew refused to take off his sunglasses. He crossed his arms over his lean stomach and barely touched his food. He said they’d had a party last night, the apartment wasn’t usually so messy. Yes, he had work. He was a waiter in between bookings. Yes, he was paying his bills. No, he wasn’t on coke. Yes, he was using condoms. Jesus, Dad, get off it. When Sam said he’d arranged a job for him as assistant manager of a music store downtown, Matthew was insulted. No, he said. He liked modeling. He was doing what he wanted for the first time in his life. Sam filled the ensuing silence by talking about his own work. But they couldn’t connect. Eventually they argued. Sam told him he was a disappointment to him and to his mother. That as soon as he got himself straightened out, they would have something to talk about, but until then, they had nothing to say to each other.

  Matthew looked across the table through his sunglasses, then smiled. You’re such a hypocrite, telling me how fucked up my life is. Why don’t you take a good look at your own, you phony?

  It was three months before they spoke to each other again. Matthew would come home occasionally, but at times when Sam was likely not to be there. Dina held Sam responsible for the rift and begged him to relent. Finally he told Matthew he was sorry they had argued, he’d been out of line. Both of them came close to tears. Sam embraced him. But gradually the old resentments rose again to the surface, and relations between them remained cool.

  He was aware now, too late, that Matthew had known the truth about him, had seen clearly his failings, his infidelity. Sam would never know if Matthew had forgiven him for that or had ever seen him as more than a pompous, judgmental fake.

  It seemed now to Sam that Matthew’s death might not have been an accident but a choice. From his boyhood he had tended toward gloomy introspection. Dina had once found a book of poetry on his desk, a bookmark at a page, and a certain passage underlined. I am half in love with easeful death.…

  Matthew had not found joy in family, in school, in work, in love, or even in what George Fonseca had offered: the hazy oblivion of narcotics. He had been looking for meaning on South Beach, with its shoddy values and pitiless judgments. Blue sky and sunshine, then the long, dark night. One more drink. Another half-turn of the accelerator on the handlebar. Easier that way.

  Thinking of this brought Sam to the point of utter despair and sent a wave of black depression washing over him, threatening to pull him under. If Matthew had lived, would he have been happy? He might have suspected sooner or later in his adulthood, as Sam did now, that he had been wise at nineteen to send his motorcycle hurtling into the darkness.

  The lawyer was a heavy, obnoxious man named Don Gessing. Sam had seen him around the courthouse on drug cases. He seemed to have a steady South American clientele.

  Joe McGee, assigned to the prosecution team on the Duncan sexual battery case, sat opposite Gessing at the interview table. McGee had a pen and a legal pad with notes on what to ask about. It had been decided that he would go first, then Detective Ryabin would follow up.

  Ryabin sat at the end of the table, opposite George Fonseca.

  Gessing, facing McGee, knitted his fingers in front of him, He had a ring on each hand and a diamond Rolex on his wrist. “My client is here voluntarily in the spirit of cooperation to help you with a murder investigation. No inquiries on any other matter. Mr. Fonseca will answer about fifteen minutes’ worth of questions, then we’re done.”

  McGee got right to it. “Mr. Fonseca, where were you between about eight P.M. and three A.M. last Saturday night, Sunday morning?”

  In his tight T-shirt, George Fonseca looked like he had overpumped at the gym. His thick forearms were covered with dark hair. He said, “I was out with friends. We went to dinner at Lario’s, then to the clubs. Chili Pepper, Club One, Amnesia.”

  “Could you give me the names of your friends?” There was a tape recorder on the table.

  Fonseca gave the names and addresses of three people.

  “And they were with you the entire time?”


  “That’s correct.”

  “We have a report from the manager of the Seahorse Grill that you and Charlie Sullivan got into an altercation a couple of weeks ago.”

  “A discussion. I wouldn’t call it an altercation.”

  “The young man with Sullivan called it a fight.”

  “Call it what you want,” Fonseca said.

  “Do you know Tommy Chang?”

  “No.”

  “He was the young man at the table,” McGee said. “Had you ever seen him before?”

  “No.”

  “You know a woman named Claudia Otero?”

  “I heard of her.”

  “Who is she?”

  “A fashion designer from New York.”

  “Have you met her personally?”

  “I might have. Probably.”

  “She was intimate with Charlie Sullivan?”

  “Correct.”

  “Did you ever see them together?”

  “Yeah, I probably did, at the clubs and whatnot.”

  “And in the conversation with Sullivan at the Seahorse Grill you mentioned her as a rival to Tereza Ruffini. Tell me about that, Mr. Fonseca.”

  The lawyer put a hand on George’s arm. “No. You don’t mention the name Ruffini to my client, Mr. McGee.”

  Joe McGee said, “This isn’t about the sexual battery charges, Mr. Gessing. It’s to elicit what Mr. Fonseca might know about a rivalry between Tereza Ruffini and Claudia Otero, as a possible source of information about Klaus Ruffini and Charlie Sullivan.”

  Gessing said, “You don’t hear? I said no questions on that topic.”

  McGee lifted a sheet on his legal pad to see what was written underneath, then said, “What is your personal relation to Claudia Otero?”

  “I don’t have one. I know her. That’s it.”

  “What do you think of her? Do you like her? Dislike her?”

  “I don’t have any feelings one way or the other.”

  “Did you and Charlie Sullivan ever discuss Ms. Otero or his relationship to her?”