"Ms. Connor!" Britton had come through a side door, tie loosened, ID badge clipped to his shirt pocket. He smiled at her, shook her hand. "Nice to see you." He lightly rapped on the counter. "Betty, give me a second-floor badge."
Gail said, "You want me to go upstairs with you?" She could see a long, carpeted hallway through the glass.
"Sure, I'll give you the twenty-five-cent tour."
"Thanks, but I have to get home. My daughter's waiting for me."
"Some other time, then. Come on up and get the papers." He handed Gail the plastic-coated badge. She clipped it to her lapel. "You ever bring your little girl to an open house?'' They went down the hall, around a partition of glass bricks, then to the elevator. "Kids like the weapons collection. We've got everything from an antitank gun to a pistol made to look like a ballpoint pen, all seized right here in Dade County."
As Britton described the technological wonders of the toxicology lab, Gail wondered if Anthony Quintana had heard correctly from his friend at the State Attorney's Office. A suspect didn't mean a prosecutable case. Or maybe Ben had worked some magic with the State Attorney since Saturday.
Britton finally led her through a door marked Homicide Bureau, then past gray upholstered dividers. She heard laughter over one of them, someone telling a joke. A man walked past wearing a black T-shirt. On the front:
Metro-Dade Homicide.
On the back, a skull and the words:
When your day ends, ours begins.
Britton stopped to speak to a young woman behind a desk. "Hey, hon. Where'd the Connor file go?"
She barely glanced up from the computer screen. "Still in room two, unless somebody moved it."
When Britton closed the door, background noises disappeared. Gail looked around. It was a small room, perhaps eight by eight. Off-white walls. Light gray table, molded chairs on tubular chrome legs. A fat accordion file lay on its side on the table.
Britton unwound the cord that held it shut. "Have a seat for a minute. I want to make sure it's all here." He sat in one of the chairs. After a few seconds, Gail took the other.
She said, "What's this, an interrogation room?"
"It's where we bring anybody when we need a quiet place to talk. I ought to put in a couch and a TV." He walked his fingers through the folders inside the file. "I haven't spoken to your mother in a while. Next time you see her, give her my regards."
Gail put her purse on the table and crossed her arms.
Britton said, "Are you okay? You look a little tense."
"I'm fine."
"I could get you some coffee. A cup of tea?" She gave him a smile. "No, thanks." He went back to the file. "How long have you been a lawyer?' '
"Seven years."
"I went to law school, lasted a whole semester." He smiled at her, pulled a folder out, pushed the accordion file to one side. "I'm sorry all this happened to you, Ms. Connor. I spoke to your husband at the marina not long ago. I gather you two have split up."
Gail nodded. "It's an amicable separation."
"Well, that's good." Britton lay his hands flat on the folder. "I'm going to show you a letter. We didn't find this among your sister's papers. We got it from Barnett Bank last week. But before I talk about that, let me tell you what I think happened to Renee.
"We found her at Ibis Park about ten-thirty in the morning, Monday, March 8. She had been floating in a foot of water off the end of the nature walk since about midnight Saturday night, give or take. Her wrists had been cut. She bled out before she hit the water. We didn't find any traces of fabric in her lungs or nose to indicate suffocation. We also didn't find any bruises on her neck to show she'd been choked unconscious, but light bruises could have disappeared, given the length of time she was in the water and the damage done by the animals out there. They go after soft tissue. A test of the vitreous humor—the fluid in her eyeball—showed an alcohol content of point one-six. Alcohol in vitreous humor doesn't dissipate after death. Before she died, Renee was drunk enough to have passed out, given her size. If that's what happened, she wouldn't have felt a thing.
"We went back and found marks on the nature walk that match scuff marks on her Reeboks. She was a little woman, five-one, a hundred and five pounds. It wouldn't have been hard to put her in the car unconscious, drive her to the park, then get her to the end of the nature walk. We didn't find any fingerprints on the door handles, steering wheel, gearshift, or rearview mirror. None, not even hers. Somebody wiped off the prints, locked her purse in her car, walked to the main road, hitchhiked back to town.
"We found the razor blade about eight feet away in the water. We found a pack of the same kind of razor blades in her kitchen drawer, two missing. Whoever did this had been in her house. And that person knew she had attempted suicide with a razor blade once before."
The room seemed to shift, grow smaller. Britton continued to speak, that soft cracker drawl, his blue eyes showing a kind of regret behind the glasses.
"Ms. Connor, what I've found—and I've been in homicide about as long as you've been a lawyer, if that means anything—I've found that most people don't mean this to happen. They get mad, they lose their temper, then they're afraid to admit it. But it's a human weakness. We all have a dark side, I really believe that. Push anybody too far and it comes out."
His eyes were fixed on her—gentle, concerned. "Dave and Renee were pretty close. He gave her money. He sent her cards. And she was pregnant. Could have been his baby. If they weren't having an affair, it sure looked that way, didn't it? And your mother was giving her money, too. Mrs. Connor told me about that, said you didn't like it."
Gail pulled herself to her feet as if her body were weighted, catching her heel on the leg of the chair, stumbling. "I would like to have my sister's papers, Sergeant. And then I would like to leave."
He remained seated. "You're not a bad person, Gail. You had a little too much on your mind. Money problems, marriage problems. You thought about Renee's trust fund. Dave's business was in trouble, the money would help."
"I didn't even know about that until after she was dead! I didn't kill her. How could you think that?" Gail grabbed her purse off the table and turned the doorknob. The door was locked. She whirled around. "Let me out."
Britton stood up. "Gail, I wish to hell I could stick this on somebody else, but I can't. We thought of Dave because he took her home, but he went to a bar afterwards. We found his charge card records. Everybody who could possibly have had a reason to kill Renee can explain where they were. Can you?"
"Open this door."
He picked up the file, came around the table. "Renee's neighbor saw your car in her driveway about eleven. You went by to see if your husband was with her, I can understand that."
"I didn't go in!"
"We found your fingerprints on the kitchen counter over the drawer we took the razor blades out of."
"You never took my fingerprints."
"They're on file with your bar application, Gail."
"This is bullshit! The only time I was in her apartment was to get a dress for her to wear in her casket. I told you that!"
"Yes, but you also told me you went straight upstairs. And a couple other odd things. Your mother was going to handle the estate, but you talked her into letting you take over. When she wanted us to investigate Renee's death, you asked Ben Strickland, the former judge, to get us to leave it alone."
"That's a lie."
Britton waited, then said, "Gail? It's better if we get this straightened out now. You've got a daughter. A good job. What if we have to come pick you up at work, all those people around, do you want that to happen?"
Gail spoke through a wave of dizziness. "I'm not going to talk to you."
"Why not?" he asked softly. "There's nothing wrong with the truth, is there? Don't make it worse on yourself."
"My attorney told me not to talk to the police."
He shifted the file in his arms, frowning a little. "An attorney already? That's kind of a surprise."
"His name is Anthony Quintana."
Britton nodded. "I know him. You've got yourself mighty high-powered counsel for someone who says she didn't do anything."
"Open this door or I will sue you for false imprisonment."
He looked at her for a long moment, then held out the file. "You want to take this with you? I'm keeping the cards from Dave. Plus her financial records and a few other things, but we've made you copies."
Gail hugged the heavy file to her chest.
Britton turned the knob with one hand, pressing a button underneath with the other. Then he glanced back at the table. "I almost forgot. There's a letter you ought to have." He went back to pull it out of the folder, then held it so she could see it.
"This is a copy of the letter Barnett Bank sent you on your thirtieth birthday. Says here they enclosed a check for $200,000 and a copy of the trust papers." Britton folded the letter into thirds, lifted the flap on the file she held, slid the letter inside. He said quietly, "Gail, you said you didn't know about the money. You've known for over three years. But I'd rather believe this happened because you argued with her and got mad. Tell me that's how it was."
Britton was standing closer now and she could feel the warmth in his hand when he laid it on her shoulder. "Gail, tell me this wasn't premeditated. I wouldn't want to see you up for first-degree murder. Come on, talk to me. Help me out."
Gail was shaking so violently the flap on the file wobbled up "and down. "My attorney's name is Anthony Quintana. If you wish to discuss the case, call him. Now open this door."
Half a mile down the street, Gail found a telephone outside an Exxon station. She dropped the quarter to the pavement twice before she got it into the slot. She pressed the buttons. Her fingers were colder than the metal.
''Esta es la oficina de Ferrer
y
Quintana. Deje su mensaje al sonido
—" She hung up, found another quarter, turned the card over.
It rang six times before he answered.
"Anthony? This is Gail." She waited until a diesel truck roared away from the pumps. She cleared her throat. "Would it be convenient for me to bring my notes by your house instead of your office? I need to talk to you as soon as possible."
He sounded far away. "Is there a problem?"
She watched the traffic on the road. "Yes. You could say that."
Seventeen
Anthony Quintana's townhouse on Key Biscayne was one in a U-shaped arrangement of them, half-hidden behind banyan trees, the driveway stopping at a seawall. Gail drove slowly, looking for the right number, squinting into the sun. The Miami skyline stretched out on the other side of the bay.
She parked in front of his garage, then got out, juggling a large manila envelope and the heavy accordion file with Renee's papers in it. Now she wished she had accepted his offer to come pick her up, to hell with being stoic. Her hands ached from clenching the steering wheel. She took a deep breath and locked her car.
The front door was set back in a tiled entranceway, an ironwork security door barring access. It was cracked open. She slipped through. Involuntarily looking around to see if she had been followed, Gail hurried to the front door and pressed the buzzer. Bahama shutters covered the windows.
After a few seconds, Anthony opened the door and pulled her inside. "What have you done, Gail?"
If her arms had been empty, she might have thrown them around his neck in relief. She laughed instead. "Don't tell me that you told me so. I know you told me, and I talked to him anyway. Just tell me I haven't screwed up too badly."
He led her through the small foyer.
"Britton was good," she said. "I should be so good cross-examining opposing witnesses. He made me want to confess everything I ever did, including the time I stole a tube of Maybelline lipstick from the drugstore when I was eight years old." She handed him the mailing envelope. "Here. The notes you asked for."
He frowned, looked inside, pulled them out. "Ah. Yes."
"And Renee's papers are in this file. I'll need them back."
Gail set the accordion file and her purse on a long table behind the sofa. A dark green leather sofa, pouffy pillows. Her eyes traveled around the room: thick rugs on a polished tile floor; shelves crammed with books. French doors led to a terrace. Beyond the terrace, a narrow inlet, its surface bright with sunlight, boats on the other side.
Gail glanced back at Anthony. "I thought you'd live in a penthouse with black lacquered furniture and a wet bar."
He was watching her. "What did you tell Britton?"
"Nothing directly."
"What indirectly, then?"
"I confirmed that I went to Renee's house the night she died."
"Dios mío,”
he muttered. "Even I did not know that. What were you doing at Renee's house?"
''Nothing. I was going to go in and apologize for yelling at her. I sat in my car for a while, then left." Gail studied Anthony's tightly set expression. "There's something else. My fingerprints."