The Deep Blue Alibi

just toss glop on his windshield. And whoever was in your room tonight could surely have killed you if they wanted.'

'They want to mess with our heads,' Steve said. He walked to the mini-bar and tried to open it, but Victoria had hidden the key to keep her mother from charging booze to her room. 'They want to foul up Griffin's defense.'

'Which means,' Victoria broke in, 'that whoever's doing it is also trying to frame Uncle Grif.'

'And is probably the real killer,' Steve said.

'Can't comment on that,' Rask said. 'My position's gotta be that your guy's the one.'

'Vic, you're not spending any more nights alone,' Steve advised her.

'The houseboat's too small,' she replied. 'I need room to work.'

'Then I'll move in here.'

She didn't immediately reply.

How to say it?

'I need my space, Steve.'

'Nice try, tiger,' Rask needled him.

'Then give her official protection, Willis. Two deputies here all night. One in the corridor, one under the balcony.'

'I dunno, Stevie. We got a budget crisis down here. . '

'Willis. This is important to me, okay?'

'Jeez, Stevie.'

'My dad would want you to.'

Playing that card, Victoria thought. Did Willis Rask owe his career to Herbert Solomon, getting him out of trouble all those years ago?

Rask sighed. 'Okay, you got it.'

'I don't want it,' Victoria said.

'I don't care,' Steve said.

'Are you listening? I don't want police protection.'

'Not your call, cupcake.'

'What did you call me?'

'Keep your cops here, Willis,' Steve instructed. 'Send in the National Guard, too, while you're at it.'

'You can be so damn controlling.' Pretending to be annoyed, but deep down, appreciating the way Steve stepped up to the plate for her. The concern in his voice. With all the doubts she had about their relationship, there was something about which she was always certain: Steve truly, deeply cared for her.

The sheriff crouched down and straightened the snake to its full length. 'Think there's enough skin for a pair of boots, Stevie?'

'I was thinking more of a briefcase,' Steve replied, crouching down beside him.

'Forget it, both of you,' Victoria ordered. 'Someone else already has dibs.'

Twenty-nine

V FOR VICTORY

An hour later, Sheriff Rask carted off the dead snake in an Igloo cooler, promising to FedEx it to Irene's leather craftsman as soon as it was measured, photographed, and analyzed for evidentiary purposes. By nine a.m., Victoria and Steve were driving north toward Paradise Key.

Steve felt a stew of conflicting emotions. Relief that Victoria was okay. Guilt that he hadn't been there to protect her. Guilt over something else, too. His deception.

He hadn't told her about rooting around in his father's trash. He knew she would disapprove; the phrase 'invasion of privacy' came instantly to mind. So, not a word about uncovering his father's mysterious phone calls to Reginald Jones, Chief Clerk of the Circuit Court. That was something he would have to investigate by himself.

Jones to Luber to Solomon.

Sounded like a double-play combination, with his old man the first baseman. But what the hell really went on two decades ago in all those capital cases? Back then, the courthouse was a beehive of little fiefdoms, with sleazy lawyers, greedy bail bondsmen, and corrupt cops buzzing in the corridors. Presiding over the messy business, perched on a higher plane in each courtroom, were the robed lords of the manor, some decent, some incompetent, and some nakedly opportunistic.

'A den of treachery and mendacity that ah'll clean up,' Herbert Solomon announced when his fellow jurists named him Chief Judge of the Circuit.

But what had happened? What did Herbert do then that made him fear Luber now? Reginald Jones was the link between the two men, literally sitting between them in the courtroom. But what did Jones-a baby deputy clerk at the time-have to do with it?

Today, Steve had intended to find out. He had planned to rent a car, drive to Miami, and drop by Jones' office. Pound the table and get some answers. Or not. But after the episode in the hotel room, Steve was not about to leave Victoria alone. And she insisted on interviewing Clive Fowles. Jones would have to wait.

Steve figured that Fowles was a man with conflicts of his own. Torn between his love for Delia Bustamante and a coral reef on one hand and his duty to Hal Griffin on the other. Just who won that tug-of-war, Steve couldn't be sure.

Victoria turned off her cell phone as they approached the causeway to Paradise Key in her metallic silver Mini Cooper. Reporters had been calling since dawn with questions about the snake attack. The car radio was tuned to a talk show hosted by Billy Wahoo, the self-proclaimed 'prime minister of the Conch Republic.'

'These two Mia-muh lawyers seem mighty accident prone. First Solomon drives off a bridge, then Lord nearly gets bitten by a snake. Those two are the mouthpieces for that carpetbagger Hal Griffin, and trouble follows him like skeeters on a sweathog. You ask me, Solomon and Lord are gonna be up the creek when they get to court.'

'This bastard's polluting the jury pool,' Steve complained.

'Don't worry. I'll weed out the bad ones on voir dire.'

Steve looked over and laughed.

'What?' she asked, without taking her eyes off the road.

'That was terrific. Your confidence. If there's a problem with the venire, you'll fix it. I love that.'

'I learned that from you. Don't you know that?'

'Sure I do. I just like to hear you say it.'

At mid-morning on this breezy, sunny day, Fowles droned on about his courageous grandfather and Steve pretended he gave a damn. It was a classic lawyer's trick. You don't just come out and ask: 'Did you see my client holding a smoking gun over the victim's body?' You buttered up the witness like a toasted bagel until he was convinced the guy with the gun didn't look anything like your client, and even if he did, he was acting in self-defense, and even if he wasn't, the victim was a son-of-a-bitch who deserved to be killed.

You accomplished this by putting on your sincere listener's face and trying not to doze off while the witness rambled from one inane subject to another. His prize-winning butterfly collection. Her mouthwatering s'mores recipe. Or in this case, the heroic exploits of Horace Fowles, Royal Navy submariner in World War II.

Victoria was terrific at the game. Probably because she actually cared about people and didn't have to feign interest in their banal lives. In the car, she had announced she'd take the lead in questioning Fowles, Steve still seeming a bit woozy and all. Her roundabout way of saying she was better at getting people to talk. Steve didn't disagree. They needed to learn just why Fowles, Griffin's trusted boat captain, was conveniently absent when the boss took Stubbs on the fatal cruise. How solid was the Englishman's alibi? Was he really delving into Delia's oysters-garlic and otherwise-when a spear impaled Ben Stubbs?

They had found Fowles in the boathouse on the far side of the island. An open-sided garagelike building that straddled a narrow inlet, the boathouse caught the easterly breeze and was filled with light. In stained coveralls,