Blood Relations Page 35

  A smile was playing at the corners of her mouth. “Only a lawyer could invent such a creative excuse for adultery.”

  He felt a prickling of anger. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Do? I think that’s your decision.”

  “No, it’s ours. Do you want me to move out?”

  “I want you to die of a heart attack.” She zipped her skirt.

  “Great.” He raised his hands and moved toward the bathroom. “You think about it over the weekend. We’ll talk when you get back.”

  “I have thought about it,” she said. Her voice was trembling. “That’s why I’m going to Tarpon Springs, to see if we could live there again. Is there work for me? A good school for Melanie? We have to get out of here. Sam, come with me.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Does being the next state attorney mean more to you than your family?”

  He said, “Dina, going to another place won’t fix what’s wrong with us.”

  She looked at him for a moment longer, then turned her back to fasten her earrings and necklace at the mirror. Gold glittered against her skin. “Do what you like. I despise this city. Human beings weren’t meant to live here. It’s only rock dredged up out of the swamps, with a thin layer of sod so we’ll forget what’s underneath. There’s going to be another hurricane sooner or later. It’s all going to go.”

  She turned away and her hands fell to rest on the edge of the dresser. “No loss. Let it go. We could have had a good life together. But we wanted too much. Such pride. We’ve been undone.”

  “I am sorry,” he said.

  “Yes, I suppose you are.” Dina put her feet into her high heels, standing regally now. She picked up her jacket. “I honestly don’t know what to tell Melanie.” Dina’s eyes met his again, burning with dark intensity. “What you’ve done is sinful. Nobody uses that word anymore, do they? Sin. Wickedness. There’s no eternity anymore and no punishment, and therefore everything is permitted.”

  “That isn’t how I feel,” Sam said. “I’ve got responsibilities and I won’t walk out on you or Melanie. Hire a lawyer if you want to. I won’t argue.”

  “Oh, yes.” She laughed. “You’d better hire one of your own, because I’m going to make you pay for this.”

  The anger was building, but Sam held it back. “There’s one thing I insist on. We need to let Frank Tolin go. The lawsuit isn’t getting anywhere.”

  “Is that the reason? Call him, then. I’d love to hear what you say.” She took the suitcase off the bed. “You’re such a romantic. It’s your power she’s attracted to, darling. Women like that always are. Why, Sam Hagen is the deputy chief of Major Crimes. And soon to be state attorney. But do you really think you’ll be elected, with her around your neck? And then what will you have?” Dina’s smile faded. “I’m sorry, too, Sam. Sorry for us all.”

  The girl in the pink plaid dress looked lovely in the viewfinder, Caitlin thought. The light filtering through the pine trees gave her smooth skin a lustrous glow and put some nice highlights in her brown hair. She pressed the shutter, advanced the film, then took a few more shots. The telephoto and tripod were borrowed. The old Nikon was the only camera Caitlin had left, but it was still good enough to take photos of a beginning model.

  She was about twenty years old, tall and big-framed. She’d be doing the plus sizes, if she could get some bookings. She would pay Caitlin a hundred dollars and costs for some color pictures to show the agencies.

  In a small park near the bay side of Miami Beach, Caitlin had found the perfect spot for some candid photos. There was a rundown mansion across the street, which would look good out of focus in the background. They weren’t so far from Paula DeMarco’s house. Caitlin felt safe. So far, Frank Tolin hadn’t found where she was living, or else he had grown tired of harassing her.

  “What a mooooo,” Ali Duncan said under her breath.

  “Shhhh,” said Caitlin, looking through the viewfinder again. Ali had asked if she could come watch the shoot. Caitlin had said yes, but only if Ali helped out. Caitlin was short one assistant, with Tommy Chang taking final exams, and no money to pay him anyway.

  She stepped away from the camera and called out, “Jennifer! Your bra strap is showing, honey.” Jennifer’s mother, who had come along to do hair and makeup, rushed forward with some pins.

  “Caitlin?” Ali was winding a pine needle around her forefinger. Her hair was stuffed inside a ball cap, and she had her sunglasses on, still incognito.

  “What?”

  “I think I’m going to France.”

  Caitlin was aware of her mouth falling open.

  “I mean, I want to go to France, but I have to explain it to Mr. Hagen?” The statement curled up into a question. “And I don’t know what to tell him and everything. How about like if my dad in California got sick. Or I died. Could you talk to him? You’re friends and everything.”

  “Wait. What are you saying? France?”

  “Well, I sort of … got a job. It’s for Marie Claire magazine. For August, I think.”

  “That’s wonderful! Of course you have to go. Just give Sam a way to contact you for trial.”

  “No, I don’t think I can come back, not for like a year or something, because I’ll be totally busy.”

  Caitlin stared at her. “Who arranged this, Ali?”

  Ali kicked at a rock. Her shoes were neon-green plastic. She said, “Tereza Ruffini.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “I have to, Caitlin. It’s my chance.”

  “My God! You believe them? They’ll take you over there and dump you. You’re being used. Don’t you see that?” Her anger was out of proportion, and not only for Ali.

  “I can handle it! You couldn’t when you were young, but I can! What have I got here? Nothing. Nobody will hire me on South Beach, I can’t stand living with my mom, I don’t have any money—” She made a little scream of exasperation, then said, “Caitlin, please. Can you talk to him? Tell him I had to leave.”

  A voice came from under the trees. “Yoo-hoo! I fixed her bra.” Jennifer’s mother was waving. “I think we ought to take some pictures sitting down. What do you think?”

  Caitlin muttered, then called back, “Sure. Give her the chair.” While Jennifer arranged herself on a folding chair, Caitlin stared at the rocky ground, carpeted thickly with pine needles. “I can’t lie for you, Ali.”

  “It’s not like it matters. I’m the one this happened to, and it ought to be my choice what to do about it, okay?”

  “Okay. Then you explain it to Sam Hagen.”

  “He said he’d have me arrested for perjury if I changed my mind!”

  “He ought to, after what you’ve put everyone through. Ali, would you please think? Tereza Ruffini does not want to help you. Two people are dead. Does that register at all?”

  “They didn’t kill Sullivan, or George either! Caitlin, she was really nice to me. She apologized for Klaus and everything. She said he was drunk and he didn’t mean to, and they’re so sorry—”

  “What the hell else is she going to say?”

  “God!” Ali spun around, then came back again, speaking quietly. “Are you going to tell Mr. Hagen about this?”

  Jennifer’s mother called, “Yoo-hoo! Miss Dorn?”

  Caitlin tiredly shook her head. “No. It’s your decision.” She framed the next shot through the viewfinder, motioning with one hand which way the girl should move. “Here’s some advice. Ask for more than you’ll settle for, get it up front, get it in cash, and don’t blow it. If I’d done that, I wouldn’t be thirty-five years old living on the charity of my friends.” She glanced at Ali.

  Ali nodded. “Okay.”

  Looking through the lens, Caitlin said, “Be careful, baby.”

  When the session was over, Ali hugged her, then rode away on a borrowed bicycle.

  Jennifer’s mother took out her checkbook. Caitlin reminded her they’d agreed on cash, and the woman gave her fifty dollars as a deposit. Caitlin said t
he pictures would be ready by tomorrow. They would meet at the lab and choose the ones they wanted. And please bring the rest of her fee, plus ten dollars for each enlargement.

  Caitlin tucked the money into a pocket and began to pack her things away. When had it happened, she wondered, that she had become so distrustful? She couldn’t remember any particular event. More likely she had formed her cynicism as an oyster forms a pearl, one layer at a time.

  It was almost funny now, the agony she’d gone through, finding the guts to stand up for Ali Duncan as a witness to a rape. Sticking around to testify, even though her first instinct had been to forget she’d ever been at the Apocalypse that night. In the end, it hadn’t mattered. Ali would be flying off to Paris while Caitlin Dorn headed for a third-floor walkup in Greenwich Village.

  Ali hadn’t mentioned Tommy Chang in her plans. Poor Tommy, who was nuts about her. Meaning every word, Ali would probably tell him she’d write, she’d call. That she’d be back. But she wouldn’t. Tommy would mourn for a while; then he’d find another girl. One truer than Ali, if he was lucky. But he didn’t need luck. He was young.

  Maybe Ali Duncan had planned this from the start, waiting till Klaus Ruffini was arraigned on felony charges before she said yes to a deal. Or maybe it had occurred to her somewhere along the way. Caitlin had learned that people lived from moment to moment and that the most sincerely spoken promises would be put aside when something more pressing came along.

  Maybe people like Ali Duncan were the ones who survived. Caitlin had never quite learned how.

  Walking across the park with her bag and tripod, Caitlin thought that her grumpy mood might be an aftershock from Tuesday. Making love with Sam. Thinking about it now, she felt her insides clench. She didn’t want to think about it. She was trying not to be stupid about this.

  She’d left her Toyota in the small lot near a children’s play area. Coming closer, she noticed the paper under the windshield wiper. An envelope. No name on it.

  Tensing, she looked around. There were only children and their mothers in view, the nearest boy riding a horse on a spring. A lithe male jogger ran along the bike path. A car went by. Farther along the street were a traffic light and shops on the other side.

  Caitlin sat in the front seat with the doors locked and read the note, which was written with black ink on heavy white paper.

  My darling, darling love, sweetest Catie. I would give up everything I own to have you back in my arms. Please give me one more chance to show you—

  As if it were toxic she thrust the paper away from her.

  “Damn it, leave me alone!” Her fists hit the steering wheel.

  She grabbed the note and envelope off the passenger’s seat, got out of her car, and ran to the children’s play yard.

  There was a trash can chained to a pine tree. Caitlin held the note over the trash, ripped it into pieces, and threw the envelope after. She looked down the street. She couldn’t see him, but she knew he was there.

  chapter twenty-eight

  By three o’clock on Fridays, the courts and the offices around them would begin to clear out, anticipating the weekend. The phones would stop ringing, and the horrible crush of work would become at least bearable.

  Sam Hagen was finishing an extradition request that had to be taken to the federal courthouse by four-thirty today, without exception, when Joe McGee dropped by to talk about State vs. Ruffini and Lamont. Joe had been sweet-talking Norman Singletary, Marquis Lamont’s lawyer, offering probation for Lamont in exchange for his testimony, but so far, no deal.

  Juan Casares, the felony division chief, saw McGee standing in the doorway and came just inside to sit on the arm of the battered sofa, which was stacked with files. Sam listened with one ear while he dictated directions to his secretary for the extradition.

  Sam’s telephone buzzed, and he reached to answer it.

  His secretary said, “Caitlin Dorn’s calling. I know you’re busy, but she says she has information on the Ruffini case.”

  He let his chair come back up. “Sure. Put her on.” He swiveled toward the windows, wanting to throw his visitors out and close the door.

  She had called to say hello. “Sorry for the little fib.”

  “No, it’s all right. What’s up?”

  “Nothing. Just thinking about you.”

  “Really.” He smiled. “I’ve been doing that all day.”

  “Liar, liar, pants on fire. You were supposed to call me.”

  “It’s been beyond belief around here. Listen, I’ve got some people with me at the moment. Can I call back, say in half an hour?”

  “Promise?”

  “Sure.”

  “No, promise. And tell me what you want to do to me.”

  “Hey. You’re a troublemaker, you know that? Talk to you later, okay?”

  She told him to wait. There was a silence, then she said, “I love you, Sam.”

  “You sure about that?”

  She laughed softly. “I think so.”

  “Okay. Good. I’ll call you in a little while. Take care.”

  He hung up thinking that he’d royally fucked up that conversation. He stared out the window for a minute, then swiveled back around to finish dictating notes to Gloria, his secretary.

  Over by the door, Lydia Hernandez had come in. Joe McGee was explaining the significance of George Fonseca’s cellular phone.

  “It was right there on the seat beside him, but he never called 911. Dr. Corso said the wounds weren’t instantly fatal, so he had some time. Fonseca’s hands were covered in blood. So why wasn’t there blood on the phone?”

  The Miami Beach police had checked phone company records. There had been no phone calls from Fonseca’s telephone after four in the afternoon. The last had been to a video store to argue about an overdue rental. The police were interviewing everyone else Fonseca had called that day, but they had come up with nothing.

  Juan Casares shrugged. “I’d say he was grabbing his thigh. Maybe the killer held the gun on Fonseca and waited for him to bleed out.”

  “No way. You going to wait around in broad daylight after you fire three rounds from a forty-five? Not even if the gun was silenced. All that blood on the windshield? No, Fonseca was unconscious. Or poisoned.”

  Lydia Hernandez laughed. “Poisoned and shot?”

  “Corso said it looked like he was having a toxic reaction. Say the killer gives him adulterated coke or smack. Okay? Then Fonseca feels nauseated. He starts vomiting. He has to get medical attention, so he tries to drive away. Or he tries to get to the phone to call 911. What does the killer do then?”

  “Shoots him,” Casares concluded.

  The telephone buzzed again. Exhaling tiredly, Sam swung around in his chair to answer it.

  “Gloria, I have work to do.”

  “I know, but you won’t believe who’s calling,” she said. “Klaus Ruffini.”

  “I can’t talk to a defendant.”

  “I told him that. This is his third call in five minutes.”

  “Christ.” He exhaled, then said, “All right, I’ll tell him myself.” He told Gloria to put Ruffini on hold. “Heads up, everybody, you’re going to be my witnesses on this.”

  The three other lawyers stopped talking.

  Sam punched a button on the desk set and replaced the receiver. “This is Sam Hagen.”

  The voice boomed through the speaker. “Hello. This is Klaus. I’m speaking to you in my car. I want to meet with you in person as soon as possible.”

  “Not going to happen,” Sam said. “Where’s your attorney?”

  “In the restaurant finishing his drink. You know my car? The Cadillac? I decide I won’t sue you for the damage. I told Jerry to do it, but now I change my mind.”

  Joe McGee was grinning, shaking his head. Juan Casares quietly closed the door.

  Sam said, “I want you to listen carefully. I’m turning on a tape recorder, so I advise you to hang up.” He hit another button. “This is Samuel Hagen. It is three
-seventeen P.M., June tenth. Mr. Ruffini, your call is being taped. If you wish to communicate with the prosecution, tell your attorney—”

  “No! I need my passport, for a small trip only, for business. Tereza went to Paris, and Miami is no good in the summer. I can’t believe you would make such a big deal from this. I know why. You think I killed George Fonseca and the other guy, the model, because George wanted money. Did he call you? He said he called you. He said to me, ‘Pay me or I’ll testify against you.’ Blackmail. You think I hired somebody to kill him, don’t you?”

  “Whatever you say can be used against you in court,” Sam said.

  “I didn’t do anything!” Ruffini was screaming into the telephone. “Two men are murdered and now I have Franco with me, my bodyguard, to go even to the bathroom. Am I the next? They tell me before I came to Miami this is a dangerous place, like the Wild West cowboy days, but I said no, forget it, but it’s true. You’re going to make me stay in Miami, for what? To get killed?”

  “Mr. Ruffini, I’m hanging up now.” Sam reached toward the desk set.

  “Wait! This is a mistake. You aren’t supposed to do this! Talk to Edward Mora. Does he know what you’re doing behind his back?”

  Sam froze.

  “He’s going to Washington, I hear on television, and now you want to take over his job. My attorney tells me this.”

  Sam said quietly, “The tape is running, Mr. Ruffini.”

  “I don’t care. Tape what I say, I don’t care. You are all liars, all of you. I want my passport. I want to get out of here. This is a terrible city, no culture, the worst. You don’t appreciate anything. Maybe I change my mind, I sue you for the car and when the jury sees that I’m innocent, I sue you for false arrest—”

  Then Sam heard a man’s agitated voice in the background asking Klaus who he was talking to. Klaus saying never mind, go have another drink. The man yelling now. Franco, who the hell is he talking to?… For the love of God, hang up the fucking phone.