The Deep Blue Alibi

thank you, kindly. Thank you for leaving your jobs and your homes, your friends and your families, putting your lives on hold to see that justice is done.'

Trying to be folksy. Next he'll chew on a piece of straw.

'To make certain that no crime goes unchecked, no murder-'

'Objection!' Victoria was on her feet. 'That's not the purpose of the jury system.'

'Sustained.' Judge Clyde Feathers didn't look up from his crossword puzzle. On the bench for thirty-two years, he had mastered the art of half listening. 'I don't mind your speechifying, Mr. Waddle, but save your arguments for closing.'

'Thank you, Your Honor.' Waddle bowed slightly, as if the judge had just complimented him on the cut of his suit. Courtroom protocol required thanking the judge, even if His Honor had just chastised you, threatened you with contempt, and called you the anti-Christ.

'You good folks are the judges without robes,' Waddle rambled on, oozing his charm over the jurors like syrup on waffles.

Victoria concentrated on memorizing the names of the panel so she wouldn't have to look down at her pad when questioning them. Steve again.

'Let them know you care enough to learn their names and where they live. 'Morning, Mr. Anderson. They fix the road on Stock Island, yet?' '

'What is your occupation, Ms. Hendricks?' Waddle asked.

Helene Hendricks, the heavyset woman sitting in seat number four, smiled back. 'Dick, you see me driving the skeeter truck out of the county garage every day. You know darn well what I do.'

Small towns, Victoria thought.

'It's for the record, Helene.'

'I spray mosquitoes for the county. Been doing it twenty-two years.'

'Ever been in trouble with the law?'

'Willis busted me for DUI a couple times.' She looked into the gallery where Sheriff Rask was sitting. He gave her a little wave. 'I told him any alcohol I drink is purely medicinal. When I sweat, it cleans out the pores of that damn insecticide.'

An hour earlier, the sheriff had greeted Victoria warmly in the courthouse lobby. 'Tell Steve I said howdy. Doesn't seem like Margaritaville without him.'

Victoria said she hadn't seen Steve in several days, though he had called to tell her about the search for Conchy Conklin. She thanked him for the two deputies who'd been hanging around the Pier House, keeping an eye on her room. Then Rask scratched his mustache with a knuckle, lowered his voice, and allowed as how he was sorry if there were problems between Steve and her. 'You two go together like whiskey and soda.'

Or a fish and a bicycle, she thought. Remembering her American Feminism course at Princeton and the essays of Gloria Steinem.

'You tell Steve that Jimmy's been asking about him, too,' Rask said. 'Wants to chase some bonefish soon.'

Rask walked away humming 'Come Monday,' the old Buffett song about missing your lover, then getting back together. Lobbying for his pal.

Now Victoria studied Helene Hendrick's body language. Something else she learned from Steve. Answering Waddle's questions, the woman appeared comfortable, slouching a bit, arms relaxed. If she folded into a protective ball when Victoria stepped up, she'd be spraying mosquitoes by the afternoon.

'The fact you work for the county,' Waddle asked, 'would that make you more inclined to favor the government?'

'They don't pay me that much,' Ms. Hendricks said.

Victoria looked at Hal Griffin's notepad. He'd written a large 'NO!' across Helene Hendricks' name. Wrong end of the socio-economic scale for his tastes. Problem was, it's hard to find a jury of peers for a multimillionaire.

The first people who filed into the box were typical Key West. A retired naval officer, a time-share saleswoman, a cigar roller, a shrimper, a tattoo parlor owner, a pole dance instructor, and someone who called himself a 'pharmaceutical tester.'

'That's a new one on me,' Waddle said to the young man. 'Didn't know there were any pharmaceutical companies in the Keys.'

'There aren't,' the man replied. 'I just test the stuff my buds make in their garage.'

Then there'd been a 'wingwoman,' who earned commissions accompanying men to bars and introducing them to women. Or in Key West bars, to other men.

There was the city rooster wrangler, a man hired to keep the free-ranging chickens to a manageable level. Like Ms. Hendricks, he was a government employee. Then there were two failed businessmen, one who went bankrupt with a shoeshine parlor at the beach and another who lost everything with an ill-conceived fast-food restaurant called 'Escargot-to-Go.'

Waddle addressed the entire panel. 'This case involves circumstantial evidence. That means there's no eyewitness to the crime. No one's coming into court to say, 'I saw the defendant shoot poor Benjamin Stubbs with a speargun.' Now, you may not know this, but eyewitness testimony is notoriously flawed. In fact, circumstantial evidence is the higher-grade testimony. Yes, indeed, circumstantial evidence is sirloin and eyewitness testimony is chuck meat.'

'Objection!' Victoria figured Waddle was testing her. Either that, or he thought she'd fallen asleep. 'Misstatement of the law.'

Judge Feathers nodded his agreement. 'Sustained. Misstating the law is my job.'

That evening, Victoria was alone in her hotel room, nibbling a Cobb salad and working on her opening statement. Judge Feathers had told everybody to be back at eight a.m. to resume jury selection. Junior had cheek- kissed her good night, saying he'd be at the bar at the Casa Marina if she changed her mind and wanted to join him. Uncle Grif and The Queen were enjoying his-and-her massages at the hotel spa.

Victoria believed The Queen had lied about her past relationship with Uncle Grif, but what could she do about it? If she fretted over that-or pestered them with more questions-she'd do a lousy job in court.

She forced herself to focus on the case and turned to Willis Rask's police report. But that only brought Jimmy Buffett into her head, and soon she was humming 'Come Monday,' which led to thoughts of Steve. What was he doing? Hitting the South Beach nightspots? What songs were playing in his head?

Standing at the kitchen counter in the little house on Kumquat Avenue with Bobby at his side, Steve wondered where Victoria was having dinner. Louie's Backyard? World's most romantic restaurant, waves lapping the shoreline just yards from the table? With Junior Big-Dick Griffin?

Drinking champagne and exchanging tender whispers? Steve briefly considered driving to Key West and crashing their party, again. This time without Lexy and Rexy. They wouldn't fit in the Smart, anyway.

No. Victoria wouldn't be doing that. With her work ethic, she'd be slogging away tonight, preparing for court. He wondered how jury selection was going. He'd taught Victoria a lot about voir dire, but she had one quality that didn't need any instruction. Likeability. Jurors responded to her. More than to him. Still, he felt he could spot a devious juror better than she could.

Dammit, I should be there.

He was Victoria's biggest fan, and part of him wanted her to win the Griffin trial. But another part wanted her to get in trouble and call him for help. Until she did, he would stay in Miami working on his father's case.

Another nagging thought. Their personal relationship.

Where the hell are we? Did she break up with me and I don't even know it?

'What are you thinking about, Uncle Steve?'

'Work.'

'Uh-huh.' Bobby peeked under the lid of the panini grill, where a grilled-cheese sandwich sizzled. 'I miss her, too.'

'Who?'

'Victoria. You're thinking about her, aren't you?'

'Sometimes you scare me, kiddo.' Steve rotated the sandwich 180 degrees to crosshatch the ciabatta roll.