The Dark of Day (38 page)

“You've met him?”

“When he first got to Miami, we were introduced at a club. He wanted to buy the right property and meet the right people. I offered my guidance. I drove him around, showed him what was what and who was who. I took him and a bunch of his snotty friends to dinner at Joe's for stone crab, cost me over two grand, and you know what? He never reciprocated. Never returned a phone call. He bought a house but I never saw the inside of it. That's some kind of gratitude, isn't it?”

“What a jerk,” said Judy.

“I don't give a damn. I don't. This place is full of phonies, Miami, everybody on the make. Except for New York and Vegas, the rest of the country has gotten so uptight it makes you want to cry. I have very few friends here anymore, Judy. I fly up four, five times a year to play some golf, keep my stockbroker honest, and visit my grandkids. If it wasn't for them, I'd never come back, I swear to God. You'd like my place on Aruba. Anytime you want to visit, the door is open.”

“I might do that.” Judy held up the bottle to the light, then poured the last of it for Harold. “So, do you think Milo Cahill wanted something from Alana?”

“Of course. Milo never gives something for nothing.” Harold finished his champagne and set the glass on the table. “How about if I put some more of this on ice? It's not the Dom, but it's good stuff.”

“I'd better not, Hal. I'll be too drunk to drive home.”

“Drive home? No, you gotta stay a while. We have some catching up to do.”

“I need to ask you one more thing. The night Alana disappeared, she was at a party on Star Island, hosted by Billy Medina. You know him, don't you?”

“I've met him a few times. He has a hotel and casino on Antigua, but I hear it's not doing so well. He's another jerk.”

“Why do you say that?”

“A couple of weeks ago he comes down to Aruba with his partners, and they wine and dine me. They rent a boat, they buy me a new fishing reel, they take me to every club on the island. Billy invites me to their suite, I bring some girls, and we have a nice time. He says he's interested in online
gaming, so what do I do, schmuck that I am? I spend two days showing him my operation, telling him everything I know, like a father to a son almost, thinking we could work out a deal, but he's gone the next morning, checked out of his hotel, and never so much as a thank-you. You know what? I don't care. Life is too short.”

“Did Billy ever get into it? Online gaming?”

“He's trying, but I predict he'll fail. I don't think he's got the capital to make a go of it. The man's all show. Anyway, it's getting restricted more and more, the goddamn government trying to control everything we do, their noses up everybody's skirt. Now you make your money in porn. That's where the action is, till they take that away too.”

“It's a different world,” she agreed.

Harold set his empty glass on the table. “You're not gonna stay, are you?”

“I really can't. I'm sorry.” Judy took his hand, entwining their fingers. She gave it a squeeze. “I should be going.”

“I'd like to call you sometime,” Harold said. “We'll get together.”

“That would be nice.”

“We always had fun, didn't we?”

“We sure did.”

He pushed himself from his chair, shook out his leg, straightened the waist of his trousers, and passed a hand over his head. Judy took his arm as they walked back through the living room. She could feel the bones through his skin, cool and slack. Their reflections moved in the long, mirrored wall, but she didn't look. Twenty-five or thirty years ago she would have seen a man in a shiny silk suit passing out hundreds as tips, and a woman with long black hair, over six feet tall in her platform shoes. He'd have his friends with him, and they'd be going to a table right up front, and after the show Frank Sinatra or Flip Wilson or whoever would come over to say hello, and he'd pull his chair close and whisper in her ear, would she like to come up to his suite later? Sometimes yes, but more often, she would give him a look through her lashes and say thanks, but I'm already occupied.

“It's true, Hal. We did have us some fun,” she said.

“Wait, sweetheart. I should tell you this. A reporter, a woman from Channel Eight, some Spanish chick, I forget her name, she came by here
and wanted to talk to me. She started asking questions about you. She wanted to confirm that you worked for me in Nevada. I showed her the door. I didn't tell her anything, but I thought you should know.”

Judy sighed.

Harold put an arm over her shoulder. “You're so beautiful. Why don't you stay for a while? Old times.”

She held his face and kissed him. “Take care of yourself, Hal.”

barefoot, sitting in her desk chair at home, C.J. spent the evening reading depositions on her computer. As she scrolled through, making notes, she listened with one ear to an argument on television about Jason Wright's motive for suicide. The psychologist was sure that Jason had been unable to accept his homosexuality. The spokesman from a gay-rights group took offense. “His sexuality has nothing to do with it. He was clinically depressed. His friend was murdered, he was viciously attacked in the tabloid media, and, on top of that, he was fired from his job.”

The host asked them to listen to a comment from a friend of Alana Martin. “We all went out, and it was like really late, so we stayed at Jason's apartment. I slept on the sofa, but they were in the bedroom together. Yeah, I think they had a relationship.”

The telephone rang, drowning out the rest of it. Dylan was asleep out on that end of the desk, a mound of gray fur. C.J. had to reach around him to get to the phone. She checked the caller ID before picking up. “Hi, Judy.”

“I hope it's not too late to call.”

“No, no, I was working. Wait, let me turn down the background noise. I keep the TV on in case they say something I need to respond to. They're talking about Jason at the moment. Alana's parents were on earlier. They've given up on recovering her entire body. Her funeral will be on Sunday. The city expects so many people, they're going to close off the street, and
Entertainment Tonight
will broadcast it live. It's insane.” C.J. aimed the remote. “I'm going to turn this off. You called me. I should let you talk.”

Judy said, “I just left Harold Vincent's apartment.”

“No.”

“I told you I knew him. It cost me a bottle of Dom Perignon to find out that Harold has Alana's audition tapes. He said he wouldn't give them to her because she was rude, the way she demanded them.”

“My God. What else did he say? Was she causing problems for him?”

“Hal didn't kill her. I'd bet my last dollar on that.”

“Damn,” C.J. said. “That would have been so nice, if he had. You know what I mean. I was sure when I talked to Billy that Harold Vincent had something to do with it.”

She had reported her conversation with Billy Medina to Judy. Most of it. She hadn't told Judy that Billy was being a pain, because she didn't want to hear an I-told-you-so, not even from her friend.

Judy said, “C.J., you want to make me some coffee? I need to come over and talk to you. It really can't wait till tomorrow.”

“What's wrong?”

“I'd rather not discuss it on the phone.”

C.J. told her to come ahead, and after saving her notes on her computer, she went downstairs to the kitchen. The coffee was hours old, so she poured it out and started a fresh pot. Passing by the kitchen window, she saw that the lights were on in the cottage. Earlier, Edgar had run around the backyard with the hose, dribbling water from C.J.'s shower onto the plants. She could see him now through the open curtains, notebook on his lap, squinting at a photograph. He had asked when Kylie might be over again. C.J. had told him she didn't know. She couldn't bear to tell him the truth: Kylie wouldn't be back at all.

Judy had offered to find her. It would be good to know where she lived, in case . . . in case what? Fran had been clear:
Stay away from her. Kylie is my daughter, not yours.
Since that conversation, C.J. had felt a slow burn. It was unfair. Fran had asked for help with expenses but had never sent a photo, had never put Kylie on the phone to say thank you. Fran had asked C.J. to look after Kylie in Miami, which she had done, and now she was blamed because Kylie had chosen to stay.

Smiling, C.J. realized she was glad Kylie hadn't caved in. She deserved to live in a place where her ambition and intelligence might be rewarded. For all her naïveté, the girl had brains. C.J. had noticed this at her own father's funeral. Fran and C.J.'s mother had been friends, so the Willises had driven from Pensacola to Mayo to attend the services in the town's only funeral home. Kylie was already wearing glasses. She had brought a book, the first Harry Potter. C.J. asked if she could read something so big, and Kylie had looked up at her with steady gray eyes. “Of course. I'm seven.”

The telephone rang, breaking into the past. C.J. crossed the kitchen, hesitating only briefly before picking it up.

Rick Slater apologized for calling her at home. He had just dropped off the Shelbys after driving them and some friends to dinner at the Ocean Reef Yacht Club. He said, “I heard about Jason Wright. They said you called nine-one-one when Jason didn't answer the door. It must've been pretty grim for you.”

“Yes. It was.”

“Shelby told some reporters it was a tragedy for the family, et cetera, but then I hear him tell his mother and Don Finch it was the best thing that could have happened.”

“Hypocritical bastard.”

Rick asked, “Why were you at Jason's apartment?”

“He wanted me to recommend a lawyer, and I was bringing him a list of names. It's not something I'd ordinarily do, but. . . .”

“But what?”

“I had mentioned to Paul Shelby that Jason had no alibi, and at the time I thought Jason was Alana's lover. I never expected that Shelby or somebody on his staff would leak it to the media.” C.J. leaned against the
counter. “My screwup of the week. I schedule them frequently enough to keep myself humble.”

“It's a bitch to have a conscience, isn't it?” Slater said. “I called to ask if I'm still your client.”

“Why wouldn't you be?”

“Last night you were ready to turn me over to somebody else, depending on how it went with the police today. So how did it go? Did the witnesses' statements get me off the hook?”

C.J. crossed the kitchen to turn on the coffeemaker. “They might have, except for something else that's come up. They've been showing your photo around at the marinas, and someone at Redfish Point said he saw you getting into a boat the morning after Alana disappeared. You want to tell me about it?”

She had time to take two mugs from the dish drainer before Slater said, “I had that Sunday off, and I went fishing. I didn't have a dead body with me. Did the guy notice that?”

“He said you had a large cooler.”

“Sure, big enough for lunch, a six-pack, and Alana Martin.”

The doorbell rang. C.J. walked toward the living room. Her white cat dived under the sofa. “Whose boat was it?”

“It belongs to a friend of mine, the one I met in the Army.”

“I need his name in order to establish that this wasn't unusual for you, going fishing on a Sunday morning.” C.J. pulled the curtain aside far enough to see Judy's Toyota in the driveway.

Slater said, “I'd rather not involve him unless Fuentes makes an issue of it.”

“He will. We can stonewall, but a simple explanation would be better.”

The bell rang again.

“I'm sorry, Rick, I need to go. Call me tomorrow and we'll set up a time to talk about this. You're going to have to tell me what's going on so I can properly advise you. Do you understand?”

Slater told her he would probably be free to see her in the afternoon.

It was C.J.'s habit lately to keep the porch light off to discourage any reporters who might wander by, so the entrance was dark. When she opened the front door, the light falling from the foyer revealed her tall, black-haired
friend. Judy looked stunning in tight jeans, a low-cut white top, and flashy gold earrings. But her mood didn't match.

C.J. pulled her inside. “Coffee's in the kitchen. I'll fix you a cup while you tell me what's wrong.”

“If you weren't on the wagon, I would ask for a drink.”

“I can get you a glass of wine.”

Judy waved the idea away. In the fluorescent lights of the kitchen, the tension on her face became apparent. She set her purse on the counter.