The Deep Blue Alibi

love you.' '

Irene reached out and gripped her arm. 'He did love you, dear. He loved you very much.'

'A little note. Is that too goddamn much to ask?'

Irene's voice was little more than a whisper. 'He wrote a note.'

'What?'

'He said he loved you very much.'

'You're making this up. Lying to make me feel better.'

'Nonsense. I only lie to make myself feel better.' She sipped the Cabernet, made a face. 'Your taste in wine is really abysmal.'

'Jesus, Mother. Was there really a note?'

'Your father wrote that he loved you more than he could express and his biggest regret was that he'd never know the woman you would become.'

Suddenly, her mother was right: The room had gotten very warm. 'All these years! Why didn't you tell me?'

'I had my reasons.' For the first time Victoria could remember, The Queen almost looked her age.

'Why? What else did it say? Did Dad accuse you of having an affair with Uncle Grif? Why not just admit it, after all this time?'

'There was no affair.'

'Then why did you destroy the note?'

'Who said I destroyed it? It's in my safe-deposit box. I thought someday you'd be old enough-mature enough-to read it. Apparently, that day has not yet come.'

Irene stood, smoothed her dress, and glided to her room, carrying her shoes. Without looking back or saying good night, she closed the door between the suites and slid the bolt shut.

Two hours later, Victoria lay in bed, listening to the palm fronds slap against the balcony wall. She longed to talk to Steve, but it was too late to call him. No matter the problems between them, he was the closest person in the world to her. At this moment, at this awful, heart-aching moment, she had never felt so alone.

She heard the buzzing again, the damned mosquito. Now where was it?

Ouch. She felt the sting on the side of her neck.

Forty-one

A SOLOMON SHLIMAZEL

Suicidal lovebugs-coupling in the air-smacked the windshield, dying instantly in one last orgasmic splat. So many peppered the Smart that Steve swore the miniature car swerved with each machine-gun burst of pulverized bugs.

Just after two a.m. they approached Sugarloaf Key, Bobby asleep in the passenger seat, a good trick in the tiny cockpit. On the way south, Steve rehearsed what he would say to his father, but he still didn't know quite how to do it.

Just how do you say to your old man: 'Gotcha'?

It had taken several hours and three run-throughs of voir dire to tie Herbert Solomon to the conspiracy. At first, Steve had made a mistake focusing solely on his father when watching the video. As with a football game, you can't just keep your eye on the quarterback.

His father's role in the scheme was subtle. It did not require him to speak a word. After questioning each prospective juror, Pinky Luber had paused and scribbled a note to himself. Nothing unusual there. Most lawyers jot down their impressions before being called on to accept or challenge. Studying Luber, Steve discovered a 'tell.' Like the poker player who fingers his chips or stares down his opponent before bluffing, Pinky had a tic, too. Just before writing his note, Pinky always shot a look at the bench. Herbert Solomon never returned the look. Invariably, at this moment, the judge poured himself a glass of water. His old man must have had an iron bladder, because he took a drink each time Pinky finished with a prospective juror.

It wasn't until the third viewing that Steve saw the signal.

The lid of the pewter water pitcher.

When Herbert left the lid up, Pinky kept the juror on the panel. When Herbert closed the lid, off went the juror. Each and every time.

Steve remembered that pitcher. It sat on his father's bench for years. There was a matching tray with an inscription from the Florida Judicial Conference. Distinguished Circuit Judge of the Year. Maybe there was still time for a recount.

Herbert Solomon was hip-deep in the conspiracy. Pinky Luber had won seventeen straight murder trials with help from a clerk who stacked the panel and a judge who pruned an already bloodthirsty group into a lynch mob.

It was a brilliant, if blatantly illegal scheme. Herbert Solomon had presided over hundreds of capital cases. He could read jurors better than any prosecutor, and his help would be invaluable to Luber. The poor defense lawyer, meanwhile, was outgunned, three to one.

There was little chance the conspiracy could be discovered. As long as there were some African-Americans on the juries, who would notice that the larger panels themselves were skewed? Not the ever-changing cast of defense lawyers. Only the judge, the prosecutor, and the clerk who hatched the scheme. But why did they do it? And why, years later, did Pinky Luber implicate Herbert in a zoning scandal? There seemed to be no connection between the rigged murder trials in which Herbert was a player and the zoning bribes where he wasn't. And just what was the link between those two events and the suit to get back Herbert's Bar license?

When Steve was a rookie lawyer and was stumped by a case, his father told him: 'Whenever you find a loose thread, pull it to see where it leads.' Steve had done that. It all led back to the stacked juries and his father's startling willingness to break the law. Still, Steve had more questions than answers. Turning the little car onto the gravel road that led to his father's houseboat, his mood plunged. There would be no joy in proclaiming 'gotcha.' Herbert was already a broken man. But what took him down that path? Why did he violate his oath? Why did he risk everything?

'Jesus, Dad. Why?'

'Why!' Herbert Solomon fumbled with the drawstring of his ratty old terry-cloth bathrobe. 'You drive all the way down here and wake me up to ask why'd ah do it? What kind of a shlimazel are you?'

'A Solomon shlimazel.'

'Go home! Don't bother me.'

'Quiet. You'll wake Bobby.'

Steve had carried the boy to the hammock, where he was purring contentedly.

'Ah know what you're doing,' Herbert fumed. 'You want to show how smart you are. Well, congratulations. Top of the class.'

'I'm not so smart. I still can't figure out why you rigged those juries. And years later, why did Luber say you took bribes in those zoning cases?'

They were in the galley of the houseboat. Herbert poured some rum over ice but didn't offer any to his son. 'His son, Barry, that's why Pinky lied.'

'I didn't know Luber had a son.'

'Barry's dead of an overdose. Back then, he was a punk, in and out of trouble. The state had him on drug charges at the same time the corruption task force was all hot and bothered about Pinky. If he didn't cooperate, they'd come down hard on his boy. Pinky flipped on some small fry in the zoning department, but the government wanted more. Problem was, Pinky didn't have more.'

'So he gave them the Chief Judge of the Circuit,' Steve said, figuring it out. 'Pinky nailed you to protect his son.'

'Barry Luber got probation, Pinky got eighteen months, and ah got what you might call a life sentence.'