with the beanbag chair and lava lamp.”
The muscular young detective looked up. “He said that?”
The major rubbed his forehead as if he had a migraine, and Abe stopped pacing and squarely faced me. “Jake, don’t fuck with me, okay?”
“ Yeah,” Kip said in his tough-guy voice, or at least as tough as his eleven-year-old tenor could make it. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, it’s up to you, pal.”
“ What is it with you two?” Socolow demanded, scowling.
Just then, Kip leaned over and whispered something to me. I patted him on his goose-bumped arm, held his hand, and whispered something back. Abe Socolow’s dark eyes shot me a question, so I answered. “He said you remind him of Frank Sinatra in The First Deadly Sin.”
“ Yeah?”
“ And I told him Sinatra wore a better toupee.”
“ I don’t wear a toupee.”
“ Really? No one can tell.”
The major cleared his throat and said, “Mr. Lassiter, were you expecting any visitors here tonight?”
“ No,” I said, softly.
“ Why did you leave the house?”
“ Like I said before, I had to meet someone.” When possible, I like telling cops the truth.
“ Someone?”
“ Call it a date if you like.” Okay, okay, so it wasn’t the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
“ What was the lady’s name?”
“ I didn’t say she was a lady.” True enough. I also didn’t say she was a she.
Socolow couldn’t stand it. “Jake, what’s her name, for chrissakes. We gotta establish your whereabouts, you know that.”
“ That could be embarrassing,” I said. Still true. I should get a Boy Scout badge for this.
“ Why? She married?”
I gave my best bashful grin. “You said it, Abe, not me.”
I felt Kip’s hand squeeze mine, but he didn’t flinch, didn’t say a word. What a trooper the kid was, and what a role model his old uncle Jake. In just a few hours, the kid learned how to drive recklessly, witnessed a grisly murder scene, drank his first beer, and watched his blood kin mislead the cops. And poor Granny was worried about a little spray-paint graffiti. If the kid hung out with me much longer, he’d be knocking off Wells Fargo trucks before he hit puberty.
Abe Socolow was prowling again. “When Baroso was in your office on Thursday…”
Socolow let it hang there, but if he thought I’d start a narrative like some motor-mouth witness, he had a long wait. After a moment, he continued, “…what did you talk about?”
“ C’mon, Abe. That’s privileged, and you know it.”
“ Not if Baroso disclosed a plan to kill Kyle Hornback, it isn’t.
“ Hey, Abe. We’ve known each other a long time. If that had happened, don’t you know I would have stopped him one way or another?”
“ Yeah, I like to think so.”
“ Besides, Blinky Baroso isn’t a killer. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t have the physical ability to…” I gestured to a corner of the room, where the crime lab cops were taking the body temperature of the corpse. “Hornback must go about one eighty, one eighty-five,” I continued. “Blinky couldn’t benchpress a breadstick, much less strangle the guy and hoist him to the ceiling. You’re looking for someone bigger and stronger, someone who’s good with his hands.”
“ You’re right,” Socolow said, softly, “someone like you.”
I made coffee for my guests while they waited for the assistant medical examiner, who either was lost or had other customers.
Take a number, there were three other homicide scenes ahead of ours, according to the younger detective.
While we waited, the female crime scene cops were smoking cigarettes, talking to each other about overtime and the supervisor who calls them babes. The detectives were scribbling in their little notebooks and whispering. Abe Socolow’s face was set into its usual frown with an occasional glare thrown in for variety. “I suppose you know Hornback wanted to cut a deal before sentencing,” he said.
“ I figured.”
“ He was supposed to come in tomorrow with his lawyer. He had something to trade about your client, something that could make a bigger case, maybe involve the feds.”
“ Uh-huh.”
“ What do you know about it, Jake?”
“ Nothing,” I answered, which for once was entirely accurate. “I heard Hornback and Baroso exchange words in the courtroom at the end of the trial, and that’s all I know. Blinky has another deal going out west, but I don’t know the details, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did. Besides, he assured me it’s legitimate.”
“ And you believed him?”
“ I’ve been trying to get him into something straight for years.”
“ I know that, Jake. You see the glimmer of good that’s in all these jerkoffs. It’s your flaw, your weakness. Can’t you get it through your head that you can’t make a citizen out of a wise guy? You can’t change a lifetime of habits. Jeez, you’d think your days as a public defender would have taught you some cynicism.’’
“ They did. They made me cynical about cops, judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and defendants. They made me distrust the system and everyone in it. But I’m a cynic with hope.”
“ Me, too,” he said, after a moment. “My hope is bigger prisons, longer sentences, fewer paroles.”
I was willing to spar a couple more rounds with Abe, but my attention was distracted. Someone was pounding at the front door. It groaned, shuddered, and opened with a thud. The cops looked up excitedly, as if their suspect would walk into the room and surrender.
“ Deus miseratur!” Charlie Riggs proclaimed. “Now where’s the corpus delicti?”
Chapter 7
The State of Florida versus Sylvester Houston Conklin,” the bailiff announced. “Adjudicatory hearing.”
“ C’mon,” Kip said, nudging me. “That’s us.”
I gave him a look.
“ My mom loves Sly Stallone,” he explained. “I was born in Houston, and best she knows, my dad’s name was Conklin.”
The bailiff called out the case again, louder this time, and we hustled from the small gallery toward the bench. Earlier that morning, I had told Kip, or Sylvester Houston, to put on his Sunday best, which he interpreted to mean his Reebok high tops without socks, jeans with holes in the knees, and a T-shirt that celebrated “The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh.” I wore a seersucker suit in a half-successful effort to look like a Southern gentleman.
We were in the courtroom of the Honorable T. Bone Coleridge, longtime Dade County Juvenile Court judge and Bull Gator in the University of Florida Alumni Society. He was, as far as I knew, the only judge in the state to wear orange and blue robes. His chambers were festooned with autographed footballs, photos of His Honor with various coaches and athletes, and memorabilia ranging from shoulder pads and helmets to the jockstrap Steve Spurrier wore the day he clinched the Heisman Trophy.
The Juvenile Courthouse, a concrete block affair with open walkways surrounding a cheerless concrete
