Blood Relations Read online

  “Thank you,” she said, forcing a smile. “Now excuse us? We’re in a discussion here.”

  He touched her shoulder and she barely kept herself from recoiling. “May I have a moment to speak to Ms. Dorn privately?”

  “Sure.” The artist gave a confused smile and backed up a step.

  She grabbed his arm, holding on to him. “No. People can’t just come up and intrude like this.”

  “Really, it’s okay, I don’t mind—”

  “You have to excuse Caitlin,” said Frank with a wan smile. “We’ve been involved for eight years. Last week we had an argument—”

  Caitlin spun toward Frank. “How could you come here?”

  “You know why. I had to see you. You won’t return my calls, you won’t talk to me.” Then he said to the other man, “I’m sorry. I’m going to pieces over this woman.”

  “Hey, it’s okay.”

  Her voice hissed between her teeth. “Leave me the fuck alone. Okay? Can I possibly make that plainer?”

  Frank pulled back as if she’d spit at him.

  Confused, the artist said, “Caitlin, take it easy.”

  “You stay out of this. You have no idea.”

  He and Frank exchanged a glance. Sympathy, man to man. The artist blew a little puff of air through pursed lips and walked away.

  Frank grasped her arm above the elbow. “What do you want from me? Tell me what to do, I’ll do it. Words may mean nothing to you, but right now they’re all I have. To the depths of my soul I love you. Catie, I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I try to work and the only thing on my mind is you. Please. The lesson has been learned. I haven’t had a drink since you left. No drugs, nothing. I’m clean, I swear. Don’t you believe in redemption? People change. Now that we’ve learned so much, why throw it all away?”

  “Bullshit. You’re such a manipulator.” She laughed. “Clients. Witnesses. The jury. Me. Not anymore. Now you talk and all I see is your mouth moving.”

  “Oh, look at you, baby. You sell a few photos, get your name in the paper, you forget what it was like on your own. You’ll come back.” His fingers tightened. “You always have.”

  His head swiveled to look at Tommy Chang, who had come up beside them, uncertain of what was going on.

  “Caitlin, are you okay?”

  “No.”

  Frank released her arm, making a production out it, opening his hand wide, stepping back a little, smiling, lines in his face like slashes, deep and sharp. “I apologize once again.” He buttoned his jacket as if for something to do. Then he smiled at Tommy. “I’ll give you some advice, young man. Be careful with Caitlin. The last one your age didn’t make it out alive.”

  Turning abruptly, Frank left the gallery, clutching the bag of photographs under one arm. He zigzagged through the dwindling crowd.

  Tommy asked, “That thing he said. What was that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. He’s an asshole.”

  “I came over to see if you want to go out with Ali and me. We’ve got a group together. Rafael’s coming.” Tommy patted her back. “It’s your night. Celebrate. And forget him, okay?”

  Tommy’s face was guileless and open.

  She smiled. “Sure. I’d like to come along.”

  On legs that still trembled, she went to thank the gallery owner for the show. She knew now that beneath her rage had yawned the queasy depths of panic. Maybe she was wrong. It could be different betweeen them. She had changed for the better, why couldn’t he? But she’d just sent him away. The man who had saved her from self-destruction then put up with her for eight years. This show had been a joke. A dozen photos sold, and six of those to Frank.

  Caitlin glanced toward the door. She could see his dim figure through the glass, walking away on Lincoln Road.

  Detective Eugene Ryabin, arm in arm with his wife, slowed as they passed the DeMarco Gallery on the other side of the street.

  Anna asked, “Is this where they’re showing Miss Dorn’s photographs?”

  He moved to see around a street vendor selling African jewelry. “I believe so. Yes.”

  “We’ll go in if you want,” Anna said.

  “No. Let’s keep walking.” Ryabin’s stomach was full from a dinner at an Italian restaurant three blocks west, and his head pleasantly fuzzy from the excellent chianti he and his wife had shared. He put his hand over hers, which rested lightly on his arm. “A perfect evening for walking, Anna. Another two or three blocks. But we’ll go back if you’re tired.”

  “Not at all.” She patted his arm. “Don’t fuss so, Zhenya.”

  Anna was fifty-three, with not such a perfect heart, and he feared that he would outlive her.

  Melodies curled and ebbed on the faint breeze. Musicians were spaced along the mall. He and Anna were now passing a Spanish guitarist on a stool outside a natural foods restaurant, and at the end of the block a woman violinist in black concert attire played Beethoven. Still farther along, steel drums serenaded diners at candlelit outdoor tables.

  Ryabin breathed deeply the humid, salt-scented air. What a wonderful place. He had seen Miami Beach change from depressed and shabby to sparkling and alive in the span of time they’d lived here, eons from Odessa. This was a shallow, emotional place, to be sure, but it was young, and one had to forgive much in the young.

  One had also to be prepared against criminals and opportunists, who lurked everywhere, even on this pleasant street. Ryabin wore his pistol under his jacket. He would no more leave it at home than go without his trousers. This pistol, a 17-shot Glock, lightweight and deadly, had been a birthday present from Anna several years ago. So you can have many more of them, she had said, and kissed him. There was only a husband to dote on now. Their two sons had moved away—one to Israel, the other to California. Grandchildren were far away. Her own mother and sister were dead. After her mother’s murder, Anna had asked no questions of the police. Having been a Jew in the Soviet Union, she had expected nothing. When the killer was found dead, she had only nodded. The death of her sister, Rivka, still weighed on her mind, but she assumed that this, too, would someday be made right. Ryabin wasn’t certain anymore. He had wanted to bring in the drunks and vagrants who could have set the fire, but his lieutenant warned him about due process.

  It had always mystified Ryabin, the reluctance of the Americans to take decisive action against criminals. Such a naive and optimistic people, believing that human nature was basically good. Consequently, they were always surprised when one of their number exhibited cruelty. What is this world coming to? they would ask, bewildered at the news of another bombing, multiple murder, or looting. As if the world had ever been otherwise. That reasonable, intelligent people could so allow themselves to be tied in knots by rules and procedure staggered him. Trials that went on for months. The law turned inside out by sophistry and guile. The guilty set free by confused and divided juries. He and Sam Hagen had argued about this many times. They had never come to an agreement. Sam was much too quick to believe in institutions, as it they had an intelligence beyond that of the fallible men and women who ran them. Ryabin had countered with an appeal to common sense. Are we more civilized for all the rules of law? No. Less so. With each new rule we become weaker.

  “Ah.” Ryabin stopped walking.

  “What is it, Zhenya?”

  He led Anna toward a storefront under a black canvas awning. “We’ve never been in this one, have we? Let’s take a look.”

  Puzzled, she read the name written in jagged gold letters on the glass. “Otero? I don’t think it’s my style.” Anna had a neat, plump figure, like a dove. In the window, stick-thin mannequins in leather glared arrogantly back at her. She began to laugh. “Oh, definitely not my style.”

  He said, “Anna, I have to speak with the manager. She’s usually here on Friday evenings.”

  “Zhenya, are you on duty?”

  With a guilty smile, he said, “For a few minutes. You don’t mind, do you?”

  Anna rolled her eyes. He held the
door and they went inside.

  It was nearly two in the morning when Tommy Chang dropped Caitlin outside her building. She got out of the Jeep, then leaned back through the open window to grasp both his and Ali’s hands. She was clumsy from too much wine and the lateness of the hour.

  “You babies be careful,” she said. But they weren’t going far. Tommy knew a friend with enough room in his apartment for two extra people.

  Tommy said for her to go inside; they’d wait till she had unlocked the downstairs entry door. The engine throbbed softly on the quiet street, and the headlights pressed into the darkness. It had rained earlier, and the humidity was so thick any exertion would raise a sweat. Caitlin stumbled into one of the aluminum porch chairs, righted it, then unlocked the door. She waved good-bye as she opened it, and the Jeep turned the corner.

  A row of overhead lights, each in a frosted tulip shade, extended down the hallway, which was painted pale yellow and floored in terrazzo. There was a staircase at each end, and through the jalousie windows on the landings, left open for the cross breeze, came the faint rush of traffic on Washington Avenue, two blocks away.

  She closed the front door quietly. It would automatically lock. Harold Perlstein slept at odd hours. If he were awake he would open his apartment door a crack to see who was coming in at this time of the night. In the momentary silence she heard a noise from upstairs. A shifting, a footfall. But not in one of the apartments. Caitlin looked up at the ceiling. There was a staircase to her right.

  Nothing had ever happened in this building, she reminded herself. A few thefts, but only among people who knew each other or had a key. There had been no muggings, rapes, or murders. But her nerves were as tense as electric wires, her ears alert to the slightest sounds.

  She slipped out of her shoes and moved noiselessly along the hall to the back door, intending to go out that way. Before she could reach it, she heard footsteps on the front stairs. She hurried up the rear staircase and stopped on the landing. Pressing close to the wall, she peered along the upper hall at floor level. Frank Tolin was rounding the landing on the other stairs, going down. She pulled her head back, her heart jumping wildly in her chest. She went up two more steps to stay out of his line of vision. He knew she was here. He must have seen Tommy dropping her off. He had a key to the building, but not to her apartment; she had changed it.

  She forced her breathing to slow down. There were people here. If she screamed someone would come out to see what was the matter.

  Bending to look into the lower hallway, she saw a pair of cowboy boots coming down the stairs on the other side. She went farther up the back stairs. The upper hall was empty. If he came back up, he would see her clearly, exposed in the line of upstairs lights. She heard footsteps, then the front door opening. Closing. Then nothing. She waited for several minutes. Finally she fled toward her apartment at the front of the building, fumbling in her purse for her keys.

  The key was turning in the deadbolt before she noticed what lay on her door mat. A pile of paper, tiny bits. It took her a few seconds to see what it was. Her photographs. Over four hundred dollars’ worth of paper, ripped into confetti.

  When she opened the door her tabby cat poked his face through. She scooted him back inside and locked the door. “Hello, you sweet old thing. Are you glad to see me?” Suddenly in tears, Caitlin dropped her purse and shoes, picked up the cat, and hugged him till he squirmed out of her arms.

  The phone rang on her desk. The voice mail would pick up after the second ring, but Caitlin grabbed the receiver. “You think it’s funny, what you did?”

  “Are you alone?” Frank was probably sitting in his car, watching her windows.

  “No. I have four Miami Beach cops with me. Listen to me, Frank. Stop calling. I’m not going to talk to you. It’s over. For God’s sake, let it go with a little dignity. You’re being ridiculous.”

  “I saw you come home with that Chinese boy. You left the gallery at eight forty-five. What have you been doing for over five hours?”

  “None of your goddamn business. Okay? Don’t call me again. Don’t come by, don’t write, don’t—”

  “Did you fuck the Chinese boy tonight, Catie?”

  “Don’t speak to me again. If I get phone calls or see your face or see any evidence that you were near my apartment, I’m going to the police for a restraining order. I’ll mail a copy to your partners, the Florida Bar, every business in your building and every client of yours whose name I can possibly remember!”

  For a second or two the phone was silent, then came Frank’s soft voice. “Be advised, Ms. Dorn. Find other accommodations. Monday at eight A.M., a crew will arrive to clean and paint that apartment. Anything left on the premises will be disposed of.”

  “Oh, go to hell. That’s not even legal!”

  “Sue me.” He laughed. “You’re hot shit now. Sell a few photos to some faggots on South Beach, you don’t need Sugar Daddy anymore do you, bitch?”

  She slammed down the receiver.

  Shaking, she unhooked the telephone, then went into the kitchen and did the same with the extension even as it started to ring.

  It was dawn before she fell asleep, fully dressed and curled up on the sofa with the cat. Heavy boxes were stacked in front of the locked door, with a pan of silverware balanced to fall crashing, at the slightest jostle.

  chapter twenty-five

  The arraignment of Klaus Ruffini and Marquis Lamont was set for Tuesday at 8:30 A.M. in courtroom 4-3, half an hour before Sam Hagen was due to begin jury selection in a murder trial in another division. Sam had told his co-counsel to stall till he could get there. The owner of a small auto repair shop in Hialeah had been killed and a worker critically wounded by a gunman who had already taken the cash. Shot as an afterthought, like turning off the lights when he left the room.

  The media, however, were more interested in a celebrity rape case. The unsolved murders of a drug-dealing defendant and a male-model witness had fueled the hype. A TV camera was set up on the front row to feed three local and two network stations, and reporters clogged the spectator seats, waiting for the judge to enter the courtroom.

  Sam could have come through the back, but he took the main corridor. As he’d expected, he was immediately surrounded by reporters. He made a statement, something about the state not being intimidated by defense references to selective prosecution. It’s ludicrous to imply an anti-immigrant, anti-minority plot. These men committed a crime, and they’ll be tried like anyone else. There was a question about the murders: Was either of the remaining defendants a suspect? We’re not ruling anybody out. Was it true that Fonseca had requested immunity to testify for the state? I’m not going to comment on that.

  Now Sam stood waiting for court to begin, talking to Juan Casares, deputy chief of the felony division. Casares was Cuban, but no fan of Eddie Mora. Sam had invited him to be present, get his face on the national news. The members of the prosecution team were already at the state’s counsel table: Lydia Hernandez and Joe McGee. A female presence was wanted to stand in for the victim, and McGee would counterbalance the African-American defendant.

  Directly across the courtroom, Norman Singletary and Gerald Fine were conferring with their respective clients. Marquis Lamont and Klaus Ruffini were here for show, not because their presence was required. Lamont stared down at his clasped hands or exchanged looks with his wife, seated in the first row. Klaus Ruffini leaned back in the wooden armchair with one foot propped on his knee, whispering into Fine’s ear. Someone had persuaded Ruffini to wear a conservative blue suit. Both lawyers had co-counsel, who sat behind them. As there were no more seats at the table, the assistant public defenders had taken chairs near the court clerk’s table. The dozen private lawyers whose cases were also scheduled for the 8:30 arraignment calendar stood along the walls. The jury box was filled with defendants who hadn’t made bond, an assembly of mostly young, mostly black or Hispanic men, some wearing shapeless blue shirts supplied by the county jail. One man k
ept waving at the camera, which as yet had not been turned on.

  The bailiff was telling the spectators to leave if they didn’t have a seat. An argument broke out in the last row. Sam pulled back his cuff. 8:40. The judge was late. Generally the arraignment calendar was called in numerical order, but State vs. Ruffini and Lamont would be called first.

  Juan Casares turned his back on the reporters to speak to Sam in a low voice. “Did you read the local section this morning?”

  Sam nodded.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Not a damn thing. What can I do?”

  Victoria Duran, deputy chief of administration, had been asked for a reaction to news that Eddie Mora would resign to run for national office. After the usual brown-nosing reference to his accomplishments as Dade state attorney, she had expressed hope that Mora’s successor, whoever it might be, would put more importance on fighting street crime than turning trials into media events. The allusion to the head of Major Crimes was obvious. Speaking to Juan Casares, Sam had kept his reaction neutral. An hour ago, reading the article in his office, Sam had hurled the paper into his trash can. He would return Beekie’s dig, but in his own time.

  “All rise.” Everyone stood while the judge entered. The videocamera panned across the courtroom.

  The judge read the charges. Ruffini, then Lamont, entered a plea of not guilty. Their lawyers asked for a reduction in bond, which was denied. Gerald Fine made a pitch for getting Klaus Ruffini’s passport back, which was also denied. Singletary complained that the state was refusing access to evidence held at the Metro-Dade police lab. The judge granted the state’s motion to supervise defense examination of evidence taken at the scene. The clerk announced the trial date: Monday, August 6, at 9:00 A.M.

  The arraignment was over, ten minutes after it had begun.

  As the clerk called the next case, Ruffini and Lamont, surrounded by lawyers and reporters, pushed toward the exit. Sam talked to the other prosecutors for a moment, then went out the back way. He had already said what he wanted to say. He was expected upstairs for a murder trial.