but the blackness of the yard. He went into the kitchen, took a flashlight from a drawer, and unlocked the door. Walking barefoot into the yard, the flashlight in one hand, the bat in the other, he looked around. Still nothing.
From a neighbor's yard, he heard the clack-clack of a woodpecker hammering a bottlebrush tree. He inhaled the smells of moist earth and jasmine. And something else…
Cigarette smoke. Or was it? The smell came and left.
He looked under Bobby's window. No footprints, no cigarette butts.
The poor kid. Bobby couldn't separate reality from his nightmares. But then, Steve wondered, could he?
Two hours later, the sun was just coming up; Bobby was sleeping soundly; and Steve was in the kitchen, slicing a juicy papaya, scooping out the seeds. He left it on the counter with two slices of lime, went into the yard, and checked everything again. No sign of intruders, not even the neighborhood raccoon that turned over garbage cans. Just another nightmare, he thought. If only he could expel the demons from the boy's mind.
Wearing shorts, running shoes, and a Bar Association T-shirt, “Lawyers Do It in Their Briefs,” Steve left by the front door and locked up the house. Slipping his Walkman onto his head, he would jog to Tahiti Beach and be back in time to share breakfast with Bobby.
It was a glorious morning of dazzling blue skies and low humidity, the wind gusting from the northwest, signaling an advancing cold front. Steve had already crossed the bridge at the Gables Waterway and hadn't even broken a sweat. On the Walkman, Bob Marley was telling his little darlin' to stir it up. Different music was playing in Steve's mind, Victoria's words from his dream: “That's what I love about you.”
Now that he thought about it, hadn't she been nicer to him lately? Yesterday, when Cadillac brought lunch, hadn't there been a softer look in her eyes?
So what? She's engaged, fool.
Sure, he could pursue her, but what lay at the end of that road? Heartbreak City. Just what he needed with the Barksdale trial and Bobby's case coming up. He had no time for emotional messiness. Hell, he didn't even have time for a one-night stand.
A solid line of whitecaps broke on the reef offshore. The wind grew stronger; a change in the weather was brewing. Picking up his pace, Steve jogged alongside a county bus that was stopped along Cocoplum Circle, disgorging its cargo of uniformed maids, on their way to the ritzy waterfront homes where they toiled. A Mercedes convertible sat at the berm, a young man and woman in the bucket seats, Natalie Cole crooning “Opposites Attract” on the radio, which made him think of Victoria once again. She'd been staring at him when he was talking to Cadillac. Was there some interest there? Didn't lots of women back out of their engagements?
Dammit. She's here for one case. Then she's gone. Live with it.
The sweat was flowing now, his breaths coming hard and fast, his shoes smacking the asphalt with a rhythmic slapitty-slap. Then he hit the zone, and he was floating. Running effortlessly, feeling strong, able to leap piles of palm fronds in a single bound. His mind drifted back to the early morning and to Bobby. Had someone been at the bedroom window? No way to tell. But he would take precautions. The burglar alarm had been on the fritz for years. He would get it fixed. He would…
What the hell!
Pulling out of Mire Flores Avenue, he saw the muddy green pickup truck. Burning rubber, screeching around the corner, headed toward LeJeune Road.
Steve strained to see which way the truck would turn when it reached the intersection. He was running faster than he ever had, faster than he ever thought possible. Thoughts of Bobby, alone in his bed, streaked across his mind. When the truck turned right, Steve was close enough to watch it approach the Circle.
Please, God, let it go halfway around, straight out Sunset, or farther, straight down Old Cutler.
But it turned right.
And headed across the bridge.
Toward his home.
Eighteen
DORIS FROM INTERCOURSE
When he turned the corner onto Kumquat Avenue, Steve was running out of gas. Drained of adrenaline, feet like slabs of concrete. Winded and scared. Nearing his house, he saw two cars parked in the gravel driveway.
Neither was a muddy green pickup.
One was his old Caddy. The other was a shark-gray, four-door Chrysler with blackwall tires. The bumper sticker read: “Go ahead and Honk. I'm Reloading.”
Steve walked in a circle around the Chrysler, bent forward, sucking air. His fear was subsiding. He thought he knew who owned the car, and one look through the windows confirmed it. A pair of women's spikes-size ten, he guessed-sat on the front seat, along with gloves and rib pads. In the backseat, several lacrosse sticks, various Ace wraps, adhesive tape, and a jar of a high-protein powder.
Yeah, he knew who was inside, and he was not happy about it. Tucking away thoughts of the green pickup, he sidestepped the overhanging Spanish bayonet leaves on the stone path and stormed into his house.
Dr. Doris Kranchick stood in the middle of his living room, hands on her wide, sturdy hips. The doc wore sensible pumps and a drab gray business suit. Her hair was pulled back so severely, it seemed to tighten her scalp. She was bulky without being fat. Her legs were two stout tree trunks descending to thick ankles. She had a broad, bland face that disguised both her limitless tenacity and a deep reservoir of fury. The white-rimmed remnant of a scythe-shaped scar ran across one cheekbone, a memento of a slashing in a college lacrosse game twenty years earlier.
Despite his best efforts, Steve Solomon had failed to make a dent in Dr. Doris Kranchick. When she was first assigned as Family Services' consultant on Bobby's case, Steve had tried the friendly approach, pitching their common background.
“Hey, we were both athletes in college.”
In truth, she'd been far more accomplished, an All-American at Penn State. He knew little about lacrosse but learned that her position, point on defense, was similar to middle linebacker in football, where it helped to be both agile and hostile.
Steve had done his homework. At their first meeting, he had asked Dr. Kranchick about her studies of savant syndrome and frontotemporal dementia, compulsive learning and photographic memory, eidetic imagery and echolalia. He'd even read her article in Psychology Today: “Unlocking Your Inner Rain Man.” He'd used the lawyer's trick-you're fascinating; tell me about yourself-of getting a witness to open up.
Nothing had worked. Doris Kranchick regarded him as she would an opponent advancing on the goal. If she couldn't steal the ball, she'd level him with a cross-body check or an elbow to the spleen.
Now, in the living room, Bobby was huddled in a corner of the sofa. Barefoot and wearing only underpants and a T-shirt, he hugged his knees and rocked silently, his head cocked, his eyes unfocused. Back in his shell. The same look as when Steve had rescued him ten months earlier.
Damn her. Bobby will be a mess for days.
“Everything's okay, kiddo,” Steve said, going over to him.
“She's not taking me away?” His voice barely a whimper.
“Of course not. We're just going to talk a bit.” Trying not to let his anger show. “Doctor, you should have called.”
“Home visits are permitted to be unscheduled,” she said.
“This is an invasion of my privacy as guaranteed by Article something-or-other of the Florida Constitution.”
“Article One, Section Twenty-three,” Bobby whispered.
“How about that? My nephew knows more law than I do.”
“I'm sure that's true,” the doctor shot back dryly, “but I have other concerns. Just look at the poor child.”
