“Thank you. It’s nice to know that my reputation extends all the way down to Cuba.”
“It has nothing to with your reputation. It’s simply a matter of who you are.”
“That sounds like a compliment, but I’m not sure I fully understand what you’re trying to say.”
“Mr. Swyteck, every minute that the investigators spend focusing on me is a wasted minute. If someone doesn’t straighten them out, my husband’s killer could go unpunished. That would be a terrible tragedy.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
“Yes, you could. Believe me. This isn’t just another case of the authorities chasing after the wrong suspect. If they don’t catch the person who killed my husband, it would be a tragedy-for you.”
“Do I know your husband?”
“No. But that doesn’t make it any less personal. My husband…” She took a breath, her voice quaking as she tried once more. “My husband was the father of your child.”
Jack froze, confused. “Say that again.”
“I think you know what I’m saying.”
Jack mulled over the possibilities, realizing quickly that there was only one explanation. “Your son was adopted?”
She nodded, her expression very serious.
“Are you saying I’m the biological father?”
“The mother was a woman named Jessie Merrill.”
Jessie, the last woman he’d dated before falling head over heels for the woman he would marry-and later divorce. Not until his fifth and final year of marriage to Cindy Paige had Jack learned that Jessie was pregnant when they’d split up and that she’d given up their child for adoption.
“I don’t know what to say. I don’t deny that Jessie had a child and that she said I was the father. I just never followed up on it. Didn’t think it was my place to intrude on the adoptive family.”
“That was thoughtful of you,” she said, her voice still strained by emotion. “But my husband and I realized that someday our son might want to contact his biological parents. We did all the research a few years ago.”
“Are you absolutely sure about this?”
“I could show you the paperwork, but I don’t think that will be necessary.” She dug into her purse again and offered up a snapshot.
“This is Brian,” she said.
A moment passed as the photograph seemed to hover before him. Finally, he reached across his desk and took it by the corner, as if his past might burn him if he grasped too much of it. His gaze came to rest on the smiling face of a ten-year-old boy. He’d never seen the child before, but he knew those dark eyes, that Roman nose.
“I’m his father,” he said in a distant voice, as if the words were involuntary.
“No,” she answered, her tone gentle but firm. “His father’s dead. And if you don’t help me find the man who killed him, his mother could go to jail for the rest of her life.”
Their eyes met, and Jack searched for words that suited a situation no criminal defense lawyer could possibly be prepared to face. “I guess you’re right,” he said quietly. “This is personal.”
2
Jack didn’t think of himself as a drinker, but after the head-spinning meeting with the adoptive mother of his biological offspring-“son” seemed way too personal at this point-he found himself in need of a drink. His friend Theo Knight owned a bar called Sparky’s near the entrance to the Florida Keys, which was a long way to go for a glassful of solace, but Theo had a way of making it worth the trip.
“Bourbon,” Jack told the bartender. He knew the risk of not ordering a premium brand, but just walking through the door at a place like Sparky’s was living dangerously, so what the hell?
Sparky’s was an old gas station that had been converted into a bar, the term “converted” used loosely. If you looked around, you’d swear the guys from the grease pit had never left, just sidled up to the bar in their grimy coveralls, wondering where the awesome band and drunken bikers had suddenly come from. The joint was a definite moneymaker, often crowded, especially when Theo picked up his sax and blew till dawn. He could have afforded to do a little renovation, but clearly he liked things the way they were. Jack suspected that it was all about ego, that Theo smiled to himself every time some tight ass and his Gucci-clad girlfriend visited a dive they wouldn’t ordinarily be caught dead in, all just to hear Theo and his jazz buddies belt out tunes worthy of Harlem ’s best.
It was still early evening, and the band wasn’t up yet. Theo was on stage alone. He didn’t often sing or play the piano, except when his closest friends were around. Jack watched from his bar stool, nursing a throat-singeing bourbon as Theo sang his heart out and put his own satirical lyrics to popular tunes. Tonight’s victim was Bonnie Raitt and her 1991 R amp;B megahit, “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” a thoroughly depressing song in its own right about a woman who takes her cold-hearted boyfriend to bed one last time before getting dumped. Theo’s shtick was to doctor it up and rename it, simply, “The Suicide Song.”
The audience was in stitches. Theo never failed to deliver. At least among drunks.
“Hey, Jacko!” Theo had finally spotted him, and, like it or not, his arrival had been announced to the entire crowd. Theo stepped down from the small stage and joined his friend at the bar.
“Funny gig,” said Jack.
“You think suicide is funny?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Wrong answer. Everything’s funny, Jack. Until you learn that, I’m afraid I’m just gonna have to keep charging you double for rot-gut whiskey.”
Theo signaled to the bartender, who quickly set up a round of drinks. Another bourbon for Jack, club soda for Theo. “Gotta play tonight,” said Theo, as if apologizing for the soft drink.
“That’s the whole reason I came here.”
“Liar. After ten years, you think I don’t know you? Jack Swyteck don’t drink straight bourbon from the well unless he’s been dumped, indicted, or both.”
Jack gave a little smile, though it was somewhat disconcerting to be so transparent.
Theo was suddenly looking past him, and Jack followed his gaze across the bar, where his bass player was setting up for the evening gig. A crowd started gravitating toward the stage, staking out the good tables, and Jack knew he didn’t have his friend’s attention for long. But what else was new?
“So, what happened this time?” asked Theo.
“Two words for you: Jessie Merrill.”
“Whoa. How weird is it to hear that name, right after I sang ‘The Suicide Song’?”
“She’s back.”
“From the dead?”
“I didn’t mean literally, moron.”
Jack took a minute to bring him up to speed on Lindsey Hart. Theo wasn’t a lawyer, but if Jack decided to take Lindsey’s case, Theo would surely find his way into an investigative role, so it wasn’t a breach of the attorney-client privilege. Besides, Jack needed to talk this out with someone, and Theo was one of the few people who knew the whole Jessie Merrill story. He was also the only client Jack had ever known to spend time on death row for a murder he didn’t commit.
