door. “Te estan esperando, senorita.”
They're waiting for you. Victoria's Spanish was passable. In Miami, it had to be. But is that what the housekeeper had said? They?
Her pumps clicking on the mosaic terrazzo of the foyer, Victoria followed the woman. They passed a library with thousands of books, many rare first editions. Charles Barksdale had been both a serious collector and a serious reader and often quoted the classics. Next came the billiard room, and the living room, with its huge Italian stone fireplace. Then out through double doors and into a landscaped courtyard with a covered loggia. She heard the soft gurgle of water from a fountain of spitting cherubs. But another sound, too. A man's laugh. The robust, jovial laugh of a car salesman who's just talked you into that options package you didn't really need. The laugh sounded just like…
No, it couldn't be.
They rounded the fountain, and there he was, sitting at a redwood table. Steve Solomon, the sleazy, conniving son-of-a-bitch. He wore a blue sport coat with gold buttons over a pink polo shirt and white slacks.
Gold buttons, pink shirt, white slacks!
Like some banker from Greenwich at the yacht club. Sitting next to him was Katrina Barksdale, laughing with the trill of a mockingbird. Having too damn much fun for a woman about to be indicted. And check out the lipstick- red, low-cut, one-shoulder spandex halter. The slit skirt was white and low on the hips, exposing her bare, tanned midriff at the top and a lot of thigh below. The shoes were strappy slingbacks, and the toenails were the same color as the halter. No, this would not do for booking.
“Vic-tor-ia,” Katrina sang out. “Join us!”
Katrina's makeup was a little heavy for a Monday morning. Her raven hair cascaded over her shoulders and stopped at the top of her creamy white breasts. It gave her the overall look of a hot fudge sundae.
As Victoria approached, Katrina crossed her long legs, and the slit slid higher up her thigh. “Victoria, we were just talking about you.”
“Oh, really?” Victoria forced a smile that stopped before it got to her eyes.
She knew that Katrina had started life as Margaret Katherine Gustafson in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. Not that she hid her background. On the contrary, Katrina bragged about each step up. She had twirled flaming batons at halftime at St. Cloud State football games, then took a snow princess act onto skates in a traveling Ice Capades show. According to the bitchy set at La Gorce Country Club, Katrina had supplemented her wages by twirling other batons at night in various hotel rooms along the tour. Then a feathers-and-boobs skating show in Las Vegas, where she met the newly widowed Charles Barksdale, and it was love at first double axel. For him, at least. Victoria preferred to believe that Katrina loved Charles, too, but when a hardscrabble young woman marries an older, wealthier man, questions are raised. Pincher would certainly raise them.
“How clever of you to team up with Stephen,” Katrina said. “He was just telling me about all his exciting trials.”
This couldn't be happening, Victoria thought. She half expected a low-flying gull to drop another load of shit on her.
“Hello, partner.” Steve popped up and pulled out a chair. The perfect gentleman. The perfect, bird-dogging, client-rustling, case-poaching gentleman. Just when she was starting to feel all warm and fuzzy, he had sandbagged her.
Dammit, how could I have been so stupid!
“Iced tea?” Steve asked, reaching for the pitcher even as he slid the chair beneath her. “If my taste buds are in tune, it's passion fruit.”
“Passion fruit it is,” Katrina said. “You have a good tongue, Stephen.”
Good tongue? Did she really say that?
“But perhaps you both want something stronger,” Katrina said.
Even on the precipice of jail, she hadn't forgotten her Gables Estates etiquette. Victoria forced herself to remain calm. “Iced tea's fine.”
“Stephen?” Katrina asked.
“I usually don't imbibe until sundown,” he said. Putting on airs.
“Somewhere in the world, it's got to be dark.” Katrina's voice swirled like wine in crystal.
“In that case, a single-malt Scotch, if you've got it.”
“How's a twenty-year-old Glenmorangie?”
“Like a Sunday stroll through the heather,” he purred. “Three fingers neat ought to do me.”
Katrina smiled coquettishly and called for the housekeeper. Victoria gave Steve a look that could leave second-degree burns, then asked: “So what have I missed?”
“Stephen was telling me about your new partnership,” Katrina said.
“Was he now?”
“Solomon and Lord,” Katrina said. “It has cachet, no?”
“Cachet, yes,” Steve said, and Katrina giggled like a schoolgirl.
“And what have you told Stephen?” Victoria asked her, trying not to exhale the steam she felt rising from deep inside.
“Everything. What happened that night. And other nights. He'll fill you in.”
“I can hardly wait.”
“Believe me,” Katrina said, “some of the details make me blush.”
How could we tell through all that Deep Cover Number Nine?
“For a guy his age, Charlie had some appetite.” Katrina's laugh jangled like a pocketful of coins.
The widow Barksdale seemed to be handling her bereavement quite well, Victoria thought.
“The night it happened,” Katrina continued, “Charlie had this stomach virus, and I thought no way he'd want to fool around. But he hauled out the latex and leather and popped a hundred milligrams of Viagra. I mean, there was no stopping the guy.”
“I wonder if I could talk to my partner for a moment,” Victoria said, resting her hand on Steve's, then digging her fingernails deep into the underside of his wrist.
“Don't be long,” Katrina said, winking at Steve.
Victoria dragged Steve to his feet and led him to the dock. They stopped in the shadow cast by the flying bridge of the Kat's Meow.
“What do you think you're doing?” Victoria meant to whisper but it came out like a hiss from a punctured tire.
“Interviewing our client.”
“My client.”
“I think she likes me.”
“She'd like a Great Dane if it had balls.”
“This is for your own good, Victoria. You need me on this.”
“You lied to me! Last night you said, ‘It's all yours.'”
“I semi-lied. It's half yours.”
“Just when I was starting to think you were almost human.”
“Really? Thanks.”
He seemed genuinely moved, like the nicest thing anyone ever said to him was that he wasn't just a lump of useless protoplasm.
“I'm sure we'll work great together,” he said.
“Forget it. I'm reporting you to the Bar.”
“Be sure to tell them you misled Katrina about your trial experience. Naughty. Very naughty.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I'm trying to get you to redirect your anger. Think how good it would feel to beat Pincher in court.”
“Almost as good as it would feel to see you disbarred.”
“When I said you had the makings of a great lawyer-”
“It was a con, a pickup line.”
“It was the truth.”
“Forget it. I can't work with you.”
