to the wall, out of camera range.”
“You're nuts,” Katrina said.
Manko shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “You can't pin this on me.”
“Of course I can't, Einstein.” Steve clenched a handful of Manko's mesh shirt and shoved him backwards. “Naming you only implicates my client in a murder conspiracy. But Pincher can nail you, even if I can't.”
“The fuck he can,” Manko snorted.
“Wanna bet? There's a person's shadow on the security video. Pincher's already told me he's sent the tape to his high-tech forensics guys.”
No he hasn't, Victoria thought, but kept quiet.
“They'll be able to tell the height and weight of whoever's there,” Steve continued. “What do you want to bet it's a guy about six-three and two hundred pounds with a pea-size brain?”
“Fuck you,” Manko said.
“Katrina's glance is the signal to the guy. Now he slithers along the wall because he knows just what the camera sees and what it doesn't. He goes over to the bed, tightens Charles' collar, and strangles him.”
“This what you lawyers get paid for, making shit up?” Manko said.
“Just out of curiosity, Manko,” Steve said, “do you have a record? 'Cause I'm laying odds you've done time.”
“A couple of bullshit A-and-Bs,” Manko said. “Bar fights, is all.”
“So, welcome to the big time.”
Victoria drove and Steve leaned back in the passenger seat, one foot propped on the dashboard. They were headed north on Old Cutler Road under the banyan trees. Without asking for permission, Steve fiddled with the buttons on her radio. He stopped at a station where Loudon Wainwright III was proclaiming himself the last man on earth.
“Was that an act back there?” she asked. “When you looked like you might have a stroke.”
“I thought I'd get straighter answers if they were afraid I was going to break some glassware, so yeah, it was mostly Drama 101. But a part of me was really pissed.”
“Why'd you lie about Pincher?”
“I needed to gauge Manko's reaction. Katrina's, too.”
“And…?”
“Katrina's telling the truth. She didn't kill Charlie. Neither did Manko.”
“And you base this on what?” Victoria was astounded.
“They passed my human polygraph test.”
“Oh, please.”
“That first day, I thought she was lying when she denied killing Charles,” he said.
“What? You told me you believed her.”
“I fudged a little. I was afraid your heart wouldn't be in it if you thought she was a killer.”
“That's so insulting. I'm a professional.”
Steve leaned back, his eyes closed. On the radio, Pat Benatar was singing about crimes of passion. “Anyway, back then, she was lying, but only about being faithful. That's what screwed up my polygraph, made me think she was lying about the murder.”
“But like you said in the house, if she lied about one thing.. .”
“You gotta trust me on this. She didn't do it.”
“There's no such thing as a human polygraph.”
“Okay,” he said. “Call it a gut instinct. My gut tells me she doesn't have it in her.”
“You can't make decisions like this based on your gut.”
“That's how I make all the big ones,” Steve said. “You ought to try it sometime.”
Twenty-eight
A DEEP, DARK SEA
“Bigby doesn't mind us going out?” Steve asked.
“You think this was a date?” Victoria said.
“We had dinner.”
“A working dinner.”
“Some guys wouldn't want their fiancees even doing that.”
“Bruce isn't the jealous type. And he knows I'd never do anything stupid.”
Steve didn't like the way that sounded. Like the dumbest thing in the world would be falling for him. He pulled the old Eldo into his driveway, next to Victoria's car. “You want to come in for a drink?”
She shook her head. “I'm bushed.”
As they got out of the Eldo, he said: “With Bobby at Teresa's, we've got the place to ourselves.”
She flashed her prosecutorial look. “Are you putting the moves on me, Solomon?”
“Me? No. Absolutely not. I just thought…”
In a neighbor's tree, a mockingbird was singing an aria. What was it Bobby had told him about the mockers? Oh, yeah, only the bachelors sing at night. Looking for a mate from sundown until dawn. A song came into Steve's head: Jimmy Buffet's “Why Don't We Get Drunk and Screw.”
“Just what did you think, Solomon?”
He wasn't sure. He knew she wasn't going to jump into his arms. In the office, she'd told him with finality, “Chapter closed.” The first kiss was a last kiss. So what the hell was he doing? In the tree, the mockingbird began trilling an octave higher. Was the bachelor bird laughing?
“What's that?” she said, looking past him toward the house.
“What?”
“Did you leave your door open?”
He walked along the chipped flagstones toward the house. The top hinge was smashed; the door was open and cockeyed.
“Oh, shit.” He gingerly pulled at the door, but the bottom scraped the flagstone step and stuck.
“Don't go in.” Victoria was reaching into her purse for a cell phone. “I'll call the police.”
“Whoever did this is long gone. I just hope they didn't get my autographed Barry Bonds ball.”
He jiggled the door. The bottom screeched and moved an inch. He thought he heard something-the squeak of rubber soles on tile-and a second later, the door flew off the remaining hinge, striking him across his forehead and the bridge of his nose. A searing pain flashed behind his eyes. As the door fell on top of him, he was vaguely aware of a figure running out of the house, past him.
He heard Victoria yell: “Hey!”
He heard the pounding of shoes on pavement.
He heard boulders bouncing off each other inside his skull.
A moment later, he was on his feet, wobbling in the direction of an invisible man. In the darkness, all Steve could see were the fluorescent stripes of the man's running shoes. The shoes turned the corner at Solana Road and headed south toward Poinciana. Steve followed.
“Steve! No, don't!” Victoria was shouting at him. The sounds echoed: he heard every word twice.
Steve was aware that he was not running in a straight line. He thought he was seeing bright flashes, realized they were thin beams of moonlight speckling the street through a canopy of willow trees. The air smelled of jasmine, and in a few moments, Steve began feeling stronger. The guy was not a great runner, or he would have pulled away by now. By the time Steve reached Malaga, he could see the guy was wearing a dark warm-up suit, and there was something covering his head. What the hell was it?
Somewhere in the distance, a police siren wailed. Steve was thirty yards behind when they crossed LeJeune, dodging between cars. Horns blared. His head throbbed, but his legs had regained their balance, and his lungs felt
