Drained from his near-kidnapping and stuffed with maple bacon brittle, Kip had conked out on the sofa. I carried him into his bedroom and tucked him into bed. Then I went through his backpack and found a note from Commodore Perkins at Tuttle-Biscayne.
Would I please select which date was convenient for Kip’s disciplinary hearing?
The Commodore thoughtfully provided nine different days. I decided to choose the last one, then, at the last moment, ask for a continuance. If I did this often enough, maybe Kip could graduate before he was expelled.
An hour later, I was lying in bed watching television. Csonka was sleeping in the corner of the room, snoring and farting. I flipped through the channels, found an old
My phone rang. Too late for good news. Caller I.D. told me it was our esteemed State Attorney.
“What’s up, Alex? One of my clients steal your purse?”
“What are you doing right now, Jake?” Castiel said.
“Whatever I want. I’m in the privacy of my own bedroom.”
“Let me speak to Amy Larkin.”
“Why would she be in my bedroom?”
“I thought maybe you were nailing her. What time did she leave?”
“What are you talking about? She wasn’t here tonight.”
Castiel sounded brusque, but smug. “Thanks, Jake. You haven’t been this much help since you wore the wire.”
Damn. I’d let my guard down. It happens sometimes after three fingers of Jack Daniel’s. “Wanna tell me what just happened?”
“You just ruled yourself out as an alibi.”
“What is it you think Amy did?” I asked.
“She killed Max Perlow. One bullet to the chest.”
I bolted up. “No way. Why would she?”
“Shot at Charlie Ziegler and missed. Charlie I.D.’d her.”
I could hear my own heart sledge-hammering. Had she really done it?
“They pulled a.38 slug out of Perlow,” Castiel continued. “If it matches the bullets she fired into your tires …”
“Wait a second. How’d you get those?”
“You forgetting I sent a county truck to tow your pimpmobile?”
“You had the slugs pulled from my tires?”
“I planned to prosecute your client for firearms violations. Who knew?”
“Someone stole Amy’s gun two days ago.”
If it’s possible to hear a man shaking his head, I heard Castiel’s spinning. “You make this shit up as you go along, Jake?”
“Amy told me. Someone ransacked her motel room and stole the gun. She was all freaked out about it.” Even as I said it, I hated the story. How damn convenient.
“Just tell her to turn herself in, Jake. I don’t want anything messy.”
I told him I would if I could find her. It’s one of the ethical rules I happen to believe in. You don’t tell a client to run away. You bring her in to face the music and do your best to keep it from being a funeral march.
“I loved Max like my own father,” Castiel said, somberly. “This is personal, Jake.”
“Don’t handle the case yourself, Alex.”
“You’re the one who better get out. I don’t give a shit about collateral damage.”
“I don’t abandon clients, you know that.”
“Up to you. But from here on out, our friendship is meaningless, Jake. I’m taking her down, and I don’t give a shit if I take you down with her.”
46 Innocence Is Irrelevant
The next morning, I was having my healthy breakfast of sugary Cuban coffee and guava flan at Versailles in Little Havana when Amy called.
From the jail.
She said she’d seen the story of the shooting on television in a restaurant bar. She’d been shocked-yes, shocked-to see her driver’s license photo on the screen. She called the police and turned herself in.
“I didn’t do it, Jake,” she said.
“Not another word on the phone,” I ordered. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
I knew what was coming. An indictment for First Degree Murder. Meaning the state had evidence of premeditation. Boy, did they. Surveillance and stalking. Threats. Target practice. And shooting the wrong guy is no defense.
I carried my coffee to the car and headed east on Calle Ocho, passing Woodlawn Park Cemetery. It’s filled with statues of angels, elaborate crypts, and mausoleums. Woodlawn is where Latin-American rulers go to their eternal rest in marble mausoleums and, this being Miami, it’s a hot tourist attraction.
When I got to the Women’s Annex, I presented my Bar card at the security window and sat in the visitors’ room on a metal bench that seemed specially designed to put me into traction. I stood and studied the frescoes, which adorned the plaster walls. Mothers and children in splashy Caribbean colors. Shining suns and towering palms. Painted by the inmates, the frescoes seemed to reflect the repressed desires and unobtainable goals of these sorrowful, maladjusted women.
In a few minutes, a female guard brought Amy into a lawyer’s room with a large glass window, a table, and two chairs. My first question to a jailed client is never
Amy gave me a number, a few thousand dollars in a savings account. I would run through that for expenses and expert witnesses, so she retained me for her usual fee. Zero.
“I didn’t kill him, Jake,” Amy blurted out. “Honest, I didn’t.”
I still hadn’t asked.
“Hold that thought,” I said.
“Why would I shoot that old man?”
“Castiel says you were trying to kill Ziegler and missed. Either way, it’s First Degree Murder.” I recited the murder statute from memory. “That’s the ‘unlawful killing of a human being perpetrated from a premeditated design to effect the death of the person killed or any human being.’ It’s the ‘any human being’ part that does you in.”
“But I didn’t shoot anyone!”
“Just speaking hypothetically. If you aim at Peter and hit Paul, it’s what the law calls ‘transferred intent.’ ”
As they say, a good lawyer knows the law. But as they also say, a
“You believe me, don’t you, Jake?”
“When you lie in wait to kill someone, that’s the premeditated part of the crime.” I wasn’t done with my Crim Law 101 lecture. “Your hatred of Charlie Ziegler for your sister’s disappearance is the motive.”
“It wasn’t me! Jake, are you listening?”
“The penalty is life without parole.”
I let that sink in a moment.
It’s forever and ever and ever, and the thought of it is nearly incomprehensible. Day after day of endless sameness. The same starchy, tasteless food. The thin, lumpy mattresses. Incompetent medical care. Lethal
