Sanders was armed, a military.45, a big-ass handgun, but it was mainly for show. But when Sanders got there, there was no old guy with a can of Mace. There was Grisby. With a shotgun.
“I don’t understand Sanders getting shot,” Nash said. “We’d already gotten the dolphins out of the channel. Passion was in the Bay. I was almost there, too, when you jumped me. I mean, the whole thing was
“Grisby claims he had Sanders covered with a shotgun and they were just waiting for the police, when Sanders suddenly went for his gun.”
“Doesn’t make sense,” Nash said.
“Neither does Grisby shooting him twice. Sort of like bombing Nagasaki after hitting Hiroshima.”
The pieces weren’t fitting together. The key to the case was finding out what actually happened between Sanders and Grisby just before the shooting. But Nash couldn’t have seen anything from the channel. Neither could Bobby from the seawall. So far, it was Grisby’s word against a dead man’s.
“Anything else, Gerald? Anything else I need to know?”
Nash glanced around uneasily, as if someone might be eavesdropping. “There’s one thing I haven’t told you. It wasn’t just the three of us. We had a boat, a big-ass Bertram with a saltwater tank. It was anchored a half mile outside the gate. A two-man crew. They were supposed to bring the dolphins on board in canvas nets.”
Steve didn’t get it. “Once the dolphins were through the gate, why not just let them swim free in the Bay?”
“Because they might go back up the channel to the park.”
Meaning the dolphins liked it there, Steve thought. Spunky and Misty probably figured they’d been comped at the Four Seasons, and then along come these yahoos who want to force them to work for their supper. “Who the hell are the two guys? And where are they now?”
Nash shrugged. “Sanders hired them. I never knew their names.”
Nash finished his sorry story. When the cop cars came screaming from Virginia Key toward the park, the two guys panicked and took off in the Bertram. The dolphins swam God knows where. Passion must have headed to Crandon Park Marina, where she ditched her Jet Ski. And no word from her since.
Steve mulled it over.
Steve didn’t know if his client was guilty of murder, but he surely could cop a plea to stupidity in the first degree.
Ten
Driving south on Dixie Highway, Victoria couldn’t wait to tell Steve the news.
She’d been deputized and had a badge and gun to prove it.
There’d be a story in tomorrow’s paper. With more to come.
It was just what Solomon amp; Lord needed. A high-profile trial. And a winner. Felony murder was a piece of cake for the prosecution. In most murder trials, the state must prove the defendant intended the harm. Not so in felony murder, where “strict liability” was the rule. If Gerald Nash committed a felony and Sanders died as a result, Nash is guilty even if he didn’t intend to cause an injury, much less death, and even if he did not, as a matter of fact, cause the death.
They’d have new cases rolling in. Big cases. They could drop some of Steve’s old clients. When Steve had first told her he defended personal injury cases, he never mentioned the lap dancers at The Beav. His arguments on motion calendars could be so embarrassing.
No more wayward breasts, she decided.
Now Victoria cruised south past Coral Gables and headed toward Kendall. Her destination was Sunniland Park, where Steve had taken Bobby for baseball practice. She felt the buzz that comes with good news and high expectations.
She’d moved in with Steve six months earlier, not without some doubts and fears. Her mother, Irene Lord, known as The Queen to friends, family, and Neiman-Marcus salesclerks, hadn’t approved of Steve on many grounds. The Queen’s multicount indictment was divided evenly between finances and status. Steve didn’t make enough money. He didn’t belong to the Opera Guild. He had a habit of being thrown in jail for contempt. And you’d have to mug Steve to get him to the Sunday night seafood buffet at the country club.
At first, her mother tried to persuade Victoria not to live with Steve. Her advice had a quaint feel to it.
The Queen’s attitude changed once Steve helped her when a con man fleeced her out of a bundle.
There’d been the problems of their different professional styles, of course. But living with Steve had been easier than Victoria expected. She had no real complaints, though she wondered why it was necessary for the TV to be tuned to ESPN twenty-four hours a day.
Steve had been caring and considerate. Bobby was positively loveable. Victoria spent as much time with the boy as possible and had clearly become a welcome substitute for his abusive mother.
So with the car radio tuned to the all-news station, and the lead story about the shooting at Cetacean Park, Victoria smiled to herself as she pulled into the parking lot of the baseball field.
Yes, these were good times. And Steve was going to be so proud of her.
SOLOMON’S LAWS
3. When arguing with a woman who is strong, intelligent, and forthright, consider using trickery, artifice, and deceit.
Eleven
Steve wanted to punch out the fat guy in the yarmulke but figured that wouldn’t help Bobby make the team.
“We don’t steal bases,” Yarmulke Guy said.
“What do you mean, ‘we,’ Rabbi?” Steve replied.
“I’m not a rabbi, Mr. Solomon, and you know that. Are you ridiculing my spirituality?”
