Suspicion of Innocence (14 page)

She set the box on the daybed. "You're in charge."

Britton picked up an unlined tablet from the desk, held it to the light at an angle, then put it to one side. He noticed her looking at him. "The lab boys can tell what's been written here, four or five sheets up."

Gail smiled. "I can't believe you're doing all this."

"Here, sit down." Britton pulled the desk chair out for her, then dragged the armchair over for himself. He sat on the edge of it, his pant leg riding up far enough to show the tip of a black holster strapped to his ankle. He opened the top drawer and took out a double handful of loose papers.

She raised her eyes from the gun.

Britton was shuffling through a stack of charge slips. "Like I said in your office the other day, we wouldn't bother, except that your mother seemed concerned. Normally in a suicide you're going to have an upset relative. Oftentimes people just need something to hang their emotional hat on. So they ask you to check it out, make sure it wasn't something else."

"This is a lot of trouble to go through to make my mother feel better." Gail took the checkbook he handed her and flipped it open. Checks were entered but the remaining balance wasn't figured. Renee's recordkeeping was as chaotic as her housekeeping. She wrote down the name of the bank and the account number.

Britton held the second drawer on his lap, poking through loose bank statements. "A couple other things bothered me," he said. "In the parking lot. Her purse was on the seat with the car door locked. Would you leave your purse like that?"

"Sometimes," Gail said.

"So does my wife. I tell her don't do that in Miami, but she does anyway." He turned over papers. "She says what's the big deal, I'll be right back." He shoved the second drawer shut and opened the last. "The razor blade bothered me, too. We found it about eight feet off the end of the boardwalk in a foot of water. The bottom's pretty soft there, the officer just got lucky." He looked at Gail, explaining. "We always try to find the instrument, see if it matches up with the wound."

Gail nodded, trying not to show a reaction. Before this, she hadn't thought about the scene at all. It had seemed enough that Renee was found dead. No gruesome details required.

Britton went on. "It had to be the one. Brand new, no rust. No prints, either, but that's not surprising. The thing is, though, if you kill yourself, you don't throw it eight feet away."

"You don't?" Gail maintained an expression of rapt interest even as the skin on her neck tightened.

"No, you drop it where you are." Britton made the motion with his right hand, opening his fingers. "This is what you do."

It was all a game to him, Gail thought. A jigsaw puzzle to be put together, even if he already knew how it would come out. She began writing down credit card numbers. "Sergeant Britton. Have you ever, in— How many years as a homicide detective?"

"Eight. Have I ever seen a wrist slashing turn into something besides a suicide?"

"Have you?" She lifted her brows.

He nodded. "Yes, ma'am. It can happen. There was this one case, guy tried to make us think his wife did herself in. Problem was, the cuts were made in the wrong direction." Britton held out his left wrist and drew a finger across it right to left. "That's just not going to happen unless you use an electric meat slicer or something."

Gail felt her breath stop.

"And people who kill themselves that way make the first cuts shallow, like they're seeing if that was enough, or if they have to go deeper. One guy I saw had over fifty little cuts on his wrists. But your sister. No hesitation marks that the M.E. could find. One or two cuts, all the way to the bone, both wrists."

Gail closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry." Britton put his hand on her arm. "I should've known better."

She took a deep breath, nodding. She pushed the papers aside. "I don't need to do this now. The estate can't be filed until we get the death certificate."

Britton seemed apologetic. "I can get you a preliminary certificate, how's that? It'll show cause of death, but not manner of death. I have to leave that open for the time being."

Gail managed a smile. "I don't understand the difference."

"Renee died of exsanguination—she bled to death. That's the cause." As if gauging Gail's ability to hear anymore of this, he continued slowly. "There are many ways to die, but only four manners of death. Natural, such as dying of cancer. Or you could die in an accident. Or there's suicide. Or homicide."

"I see."

He gently took the papers from her. "You didn't get a letter in the mail from Renee, did you? Didn't find a note, anything like that, when you were here, that we might have missed?"

"No, I only came in long enough to get the dress, as I told you. I didn't want to stay any longer."

"I can understand that. You didn't lend the keys to anyone else?"

"No."

"Do you know anyone who might have wanted to harm your sister?" "No, I don't."

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Did she own any property besides the condo here?" Gail shook her head. "Did she have a will?" "I don't think so."

"No, most young people don't," he said.

"Didn't you discuss all this with my mother?"

"Sure, but I might have missed something. Sorry I have to put you through this. I know you'd rather be home with the family."

Gail started to cap her pen, missed, and leaned over to pick up the cap from the floor. "Do you know that I don't even have a will?" She laughed a little. "Me, a lawyer."

He smiled at her. "Did Renee have a life insurance policy?"

"No. She had no one to leave anything to." "You think maybe she was depressed about the baby? You know, unmarried and so forth." "I doubt it." "How come?"

"Renee had already had two abortions, the first when she was sixteen. She asked me to go with her. I used my savings."

"And the other one?"

"It was . . . Renee was twenty-five." Renee had asked her for help again; Gail had refused. "She tried to commit suicide the first time a few months later. We ... my mother and I had her committed to a psychiatric hospital."

"How long was she in?"

"A few weeks. She was an outpatient for several months after that."

The technicians were talking in the bathroom. One of them flushed the toilet. The medicine cabinet opened, its hinges squeaking.

Gail pushed her hair off her forehead.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes." She laughed. "Actually, no. We argued the last time I saw her. We really had it out. That keeps going through my mind."

He patted her hand. "No, people don't decide these things as a result of one argument."

"Sergeant, we're finished." It was the black technician at the door. "You got anything else?"

"No, let's just take these papers. You can bag them up as is. I want to give Ms. Connor a receipt."

Gail stood up. "I'll be in the bathroom. If that's permitted."

"Sure."

She closed the door behind her and pulled off a few sheets of toilet paper to wipe her nose. She hadn't wept, thank God. She hated losing control in front of strangers. A glance in the mirror told her nothing was out of place. She fluffed her hair.

Not wanting to go back into the guest room, Gail wandered down the hall to Renee's bedroom. If anyone asked, she had a purpose: making a quick inventory of furniture and clothing.

The pile of things on the bed had vanished, probably shoved back into the nightstand, a concession to the relatives' sense of propriety.

Slowly Gail let her gaze go around the room again, both fascinated and repulsed. The colors and textures raised an expectation of uninhibited, guiltless sex. Over the mussed bed, with its pouffy pillows strewn about, hung a huge print of a Georgia O'Keeffe painting: an open orchid with soft, ruffled edges.

The sun had moved further west, streaming through the miniblinds on the double window, making a pattern of slanting stripes on the deep pink carpet. The cut-glass vase on the dresser threw shards of light into the room.

Gail sat down at the dresser and turned the vase. Rainbows moved across the walls.

A few months before their father died, Gail was in Renee's room, reading while Renee played with her Barbie dolls. Rather, both book and dolls lay untouched on the floor. The adults were arguing. They could hear their mother's sharp voice, their father's angry responses. A door slammed, opened, slammed again. Renee's eyes widened. She hugged her knees, rocking back and forth, a flush of excitement on her face.

Then from the living room came a crash, an explosion of glass, then another and another. The front door slammed, and their father's car roared out of the driveway.

They tiptoed into the living room. Irene stood in the middle of it. The crystal from her étagère—bowls, vases, paperweights—was smashed against the fireplace. Gail ran weeping to her mother. Renee crunched across the carpet in her sandals. Diamonds, she said. Diamonds everywhere.

Gail turned the vase on the dresser and watched the light bounce off the greenish water. Renee had seen light dancing on the ceiling, filling the room with tiny rainbows. Gail had been afraid, but not of broken glass. Her father had come home past midnight that night, and she could hear the bedroom door opening, closing, then muffled voices, finally her mother's husky laughter. Gail had held her pillow over her ears.

There was a knock at the open door. Britton came in, put a Metro-Dade property receipt on the dresser. "We're done in here, if you want to leave with us and lock up."

She stood up. "I'd like to stay for a while."

"No problem." He watched her for a second, then said, "I'll give you a call about getting Renee's stuff back to you."

After they had gone, Gail crossed the room and closed the miniblinds. She would stay long enough to straighten up a little, before Irene could see all this. She would clean out the nightstand and empty the rotting irises from the vase on the dresser.

Seven

Paul Robineau, the managing partner, had set up a catered buffet lunch in the main conference room on Wednesday for all attorneys of the firm. Those who arrived first found places at the long mahogany table. Others, including Gail, took chairs along the walls and had to balance their plates on their knees.

The announced topic was attorney-paralegal interaction in billing procedures. The real agenda, Gail quickly saw, was to explain why the firm couldn't buy a new computer system. More to the point, to explain why the budget committee was honing its scalpel. The year had not been good to Hartwell Black & Robineau. That law firms in general were suffering failed to lighten anyone's mood. Gail saw only grim faces in the sea of suits.

Picking at the crust on her miniature quiche, she wondered what all the food had cost.

Gail shifted her plate on her lap, ignoring the drone of the supervising paralegal. She mentally reviewed her schedule for the rest of the day. Some documents to go over, phone calls to make, a deposition transcript to review. And Anthony Quintana. He would show up at two o'clock to discuss the Darden case. Gail wondered what to say to him. Maybe she should throw herself on his tasseled Italian shoes and beg. When the meeting was over she pushed back her chair and headed for the door, where the butler and a woman in a starched apron waited to tidy up. Through the crowd streaming out of the room she noticed Lawrence Black's secretary signal to her.

Gail joined her across the corridor.

"Mr. Black asked if you could come upstairs a moment. He's about to leave for the airport, so you'll have to hurry."

On her way up the back stairs Gail fell into step behind Maxine Canady, once an editor of the
Harvard Law Review
and now a full partner and specialist in taxation. Maxine had not been at the meeting. She had the clout to play hooky if she wanted to. Maxine was dressed in a severe suit and black pumps, just the attire for discussing the IRS.

Maxine glanced over one padded shoulder, smiled, then paused to let Gail catch up. "I was just thinking about you," she said. "Louis and I have decided to trade in our boat."

"That leaky old thing? I should hope so." Gail had seen their boat—a forty-foot Bertram yacht, fully air conditioned.

Maxine laughed. "Well, Lou wants something he can take down to the Islands next winter with the kids. Not my idea of heaven, to go bouncing around the Caribbean, even if I had the time, but he has his heart set on it."

"Men," Gail said.

"Do you suppose Dave could give him some advice? We'd like a good used boat if we can find one. We really can't afford anything new."

Poor Maxine, thought Gail. Falling on hard times. She said, "I'll ask Dave to give you a call. Maybe what you want to do is outfit your Bertram for longer distances."

"There's a thought." They reached the top of the stairs. Maxine said, "Come by next week, we'll have lunch."

Gail watched Maxine turn the corner into her office. Well, well. Lunch with Maxine Canady. Maxine Canady did not usually invite rank-and-file associates to lunch. Gail's mood lifted a notch.