Suspicion of Vengeance

  Suspicion of Vengeance

  Barbara Parker

  For Milton Hirsch

  lawyer and man of conscience, intellect, and wit

  And Abraham drew near and said, Wilt thou also

  destroy the righteous with the wicked?

  Genesis 18:23

  PROLOGUE

  September 1988

  It was the first good luck in weeks. A soft rain after a dry spell, a portent of better days. The home owners had signed the listing agreement. The papers lay like sheets of hammered gold in her portfolio on the seat beside her.

  Louise hadn't expected this. She'd driven way the hell out in the boondocks, almost as far as Lake Okeechobee, because the head of the agency didn't want to spoil his Saturday night. He found Louise at O'Haney's Pub around the corner from the office, finishing her second gin and tonic. She told him she would be happy to go, of course, no problem. Her job was hanging by a thread.

  She put some gas in her Buick sedan, bought coffee and breath mints, and headed west. Suburbs fell away, and flat fields of sugarcane blurred past her windows, the sun red as blood on the horizon, dropping out of sight as Louise finally, after several wrong turns, reached a scrubby, two-acre plot of land with a concrete-block ranch house that might bring eighty thousand dollars, if they were lucky. The Jamisons were a husband and wife and their two little girls. Tliey kept a Bible on the coffee table in the living room, and they brought Louise some iced tea and apple pie. She had expected them to ask for an estimate of how much the property was worth, then show her the door. But they wanted her to sell it for them. Louise had a listing.

  She thought of stopping back by O'Haney's to see who might be there she could tell, somebody from the office, but just as quickly she put the idea aside. At this hour the bar would be too full of smoke and loud laughter and men who'd want to buy her a drink. Louise decided to go back to her apartment, tidy the place up, do her nails, and get to bed early. Tomorrow she would be at her desk by nine o'clock to catch the early customers.

  Things were about to change for her, she could feel it. The Jamisons had brought good luck. They'd given her the listing. It was a sign.

  At the end of the long gravel road Louise turned on the dome light and checked her hand-drawn map. Go left. The tires spun, then caught. Her headlights illuminated a narrow county road, strands of barbed wire, and an occasional pine tree or sabal palm. West Palm Beach was a glow on the horizon.

  She thought of the pint of Bombay gin in the glove compartment. One eye on the road, she unfastened her seat belt and reached across the car. The little door fell down, and Louise felt for the bottle, then pulled it out. The amber lights on the dashboard showed the level: half gone. She couldn't remember when she had last opened it. Two weeks at least. The remembered taste of it suddenly sickened her. She punched the button to lower her window, intending to fling the damned bottle into the weeds. Good-bye, good riddance. The wind whipped her hair around her head. She veered left, tires rumbling on the rough pavement.

  Her eyes went to the rearview mirror. Someone was behind her, headlights on high beam, closing in. A Palm Beach County deputy? Her heart leaped, and she swerved back to her lane and glanced at the speedometer. Sixty-five miles per hour. She slowed to the speed limit, fifty-five. One more DUI, they would send her to jail and take away her license. But she wasn't drunk, she reminded herself. Her last drink had been hours ago.

  Louise shoved the bottle under her seat. Her hands were shaking. She raised the window and looked into the mirror for the telltale silhouette of a light bar, seeing only the glare of headlights. There was nothing to illuminate the vehicle behind her. No moon, no other traffic on this desolate road.

  Slowing to fifty, Louise expected the other driver to go around, but he kept a steady distance of four or five car lengths behind. The light in her eyes was an annoyance. She angled the mirror. Who was it back there? Migrant workers in an old car too wheezy to accelerate around her. Or kids out joyriding. They could be drunk, using the red beacons of her taillights to guide them back toward the coast. Louise had done that, focusing on someone else's taillights, hanging on to the Wheel with both hands, praying to make it home.

  She had gotten away with it a couple of times, but that had been in Martin County, where her husband was a captain in the sheriffs office. The deputies had known who she was. Here, she was on her own. She couldn't call Garlan for help. He was already using her last DUI as an excuse not to let the children get into her car. She had to visit them at the house. She had to knock on the door and wait for Garlan to open it, then go in and look at everything that used to be hers. He would let her take Alex and Jackie for walks or go upstairs to their rooms. The door to the master bedroom would always be closed. Garlan had set the terms, and she had been too weak to fight him. Her failures. Her guilt.

  I can't forgive you for this, Louise.

  But it wasn't his forgiveness she was after. It was her own. She knew that now.

  "To hell with you, Garlan."

  She would call the children tonight. That's what she would do. Garlan didn't want her calling too late, but she'd be home by nine o'clock; that wasn't late. She hadn't called them in almost a week. Hadn't seen them in ... longer than that. Why?

  She'd been afraid. Ashamed.

  A longing for her children—to hold them, to kiss their faces, to say she loved them—suddenly overtook her, settling in to her heart, which ached with both regret and hope. She would call them. Alex was only nine. He would speak to her. Jackie might not. She was twelve years old and angry. Her father's daughter. Oh, baby. I left you too, didn't I? What have I done?

  The lights in the rearview mirror grew brighter, and Louise heard the throb of a powerful engine. She eased her car to the right, but the other vehicle remained behind her. For the first time, she felt a prickling of fear. They had to know she was a Woman. They must have seen her shoulder-length blond hair.

  It wasn't a small car, she could tell that much. Perhaps a pickup truck. They were popular out here, so many farmers. Louise wondered where she could turn off that wouldn't lead to a dead end.

  "Jackass." She tilted her pump on its heel, pressing down on the accelerator. The lights fell back, then closed in again. The speedometer said seventy, eighty. The broken white line came faster. Tick tick tick tick..,

  She kept her eyes on the rearview mirror, watching to see what the other car would do. Gravel clattered under her right front tire, and she quickly pulled the wheel left. She'd almost gone off the road.

  "Be careful!"

  She dried her damp palms on her skirt and took her foot off the gas. Her heart hammered in her throat. Let the other car follow. So what? A few more miles, they would get to a main road. She stared into the darkness. There were no houses nearby, nothing, only the tantalizing glow to the east.

  He was coming closer. Lights filled the interior of her car. He struck her from behind, and Louise's head jerked. Then another tap, and his bumper settled against hers. She felt the sudden increase in speed. He was pushing her, shoving her car faster and faster. Her speedometer rose past seventy.

  She tried braking, but it did no good. A burning smell reached her nostrils.

  "Stop it! Stop!"

  She stamped on the accelerator once more. The lights dropped back suddenly, very fast. And then Louise noticed the yellow sign, the sharp, left-turning arrow. It flew past her. The white line on the side of the road veered sharply. Louise slammed on her brakes, and the car swerved, fishtailed, and jolted over gravel and weeds.

  She screamed and hung on, but the world swung wildly around her. Trees flew toward the windshield. Her jagged scream ended in an explosion of noise and tearing of metal.

  Then nothing.


  She became gradually aware of pain so intense it shocked her with its ferocity. Each breath sent fire through her flesh. Her bones flamed. Her eyes were filled with sticky warmth. She blinked. Saw a shattered windshield. A tree lying across it. A starburst of cracks. One headlight still on.

  Blood in her mouth, flowing down her chin. Her jaw wouldn't work. "Ehh. Ehhh." The words screamed in her mind. Help! Somebody. Please help. Help me.

  Then her door came open, and her arm flopped out. The interior lights came on. She couldn't turn her head to see. Someone turned off the headlight.

  His fist closed on the front of her jacket, and he pulled. She slid into the white-hot steel cogs of an immense machine of pain.

  He stood over her, black sky behind him. Stars exploded into blue and fiery orange sparks. Her throat gurgled with a laugh.

  It's you. I should have known.

  He was wrapping a cloth around a metal bar. Raising it high. It came toward her, and the cogs of the machine bit into her skull. Don't. Not yet. It isn't fair.

  There was a slow, ringing noise. A telephone. On her nightstand. She couldn't wake up. So sleepy. Fumbled for the handset, knocked her glass over. Heard it shatter. Warm liquid flowing over her.

  Her daughter's voice. Mama?

  Jackie. Is that you? The ringing stopped. Wait. Please don't hang up.

  Water rushed in slow waves through a deep chasm, echoing, growing fainter. Shush. Shush. Shush.

  The card. She'd bought it two days ago at the mall. A funny card with a cat holding a flower. Still on her dresser. She'd meant to send it today. Honestly had meant to. I'm so sorry. Oh, my babies. So sorry.

  The pain was gone now. She floated.

  Forgive me.

  CHAPTER 1

  Sunday night, March 4

  The porch lights were too bright, Gail thought. They turned the front of her mother's house into a stage set: wrought-iron furniture, the bricks and white wooden columns, the screen door with its metal silhouette of egrets. Between porch and driveway a live oak tree, fuzzy with air plants, interrupted the glare, and Anthony stopped his Cadillac in its shadow.

  He turned off the engine and tilted his head toward the girl sleeping in the backseat. "Do you want me to carry her in?"

  "No, it's okay. She can walk."

  Neither of them made any move to open a door.

  Gail touched his cheek. The late hour had put the stubble of beard on his face. She said softly, "What a fast weekend."

  He turned his head to put a kiss in her palm. His lips were full and warm. "We should have stayed in Miami."

  Anthony's law partner had invited them to a family weekend at his house in the Keys. The house had unexpectedly filled with relatives and friends of relatives bringing enough Cuban food for a month. Gail and Karen had shared a bed in a guest room; Anthony had been exiled to Raul's boat with some of the other men.

  "I miss you already," she said.

  He whispered in her ear. "Why don't you put Karen to bed and come to my house?"

  She laughed. "I wish."

  "Come on. I'll even let you sleep for a couple of hours."

  "Karen likes me around in the morning."

  "So do I." His smile was visible in the brief glint of light on his teeth.

  "Well, you're not eleven years old. Anyway, I have to be in court at eight o'clock."

  "Ay, Gail." He held her. "This is crazy, living apart."

  "You were the one who threw my engagement ring into the pond."

  "A mistake. I told you a thousand times."

  "Really. Your aim looked pretty good to me."

  Their rush toward marriage last summer had ended in a spectacular fight. Gail had shoved her engagement ring at him, and he had flung it into a water hazard on the golf course behind the Biltmore Hotel. It had taken them months to forgive each other. Anthony wanted to start from where they'd left off. Gail wasn't so sure it could be done.

  "When are you going to stop torturing me for that?" He rested his forehead on hers. "What if I found it? Would you marry me if I found it?"

  "In all those weeds and muck? Not a chance."

  "But if I did?" His black eyes seemed enormous, so close to her face. "Would you?"

  "Maybe."

  He whispered, "Caprichosa. I think you don't love me anymore." His breath warmed her cheek. He spoke to her in Spanish. What he wanted to do to her.

  Her skin burned.

  Then his eyes were shifting toward the house, focusing on something past the passenger window. "Cono. It's your mother." He popped the trunk release, opened the door, and got out.

  Gail felt like a teenager caught necking past her curfew. Irene Connor stood at the edge of the porch in a bright yellow sweater, arms crossed against the chill. She was a petite, pretty woman with curly red hair.

  "Hi, Mom."

  "Hi, honey. I was about to wonder if you'd been in an accident or something."

  Gail opened the rear door. "Karen, we're home. Wake up." She tugged the beach towel away. "Come on, sweetie, get up."

  Karen yawned widely as she stumbled toward the house, eyes half closed, a long-legged girl in shorts and big sneakers. She was making a show of it, and it occurred to Gail that Karen hadn't been asleep at all. She eavesdropped without remorse, spurred by a squeamish but ravenous curiosity about her mother's sex life. . Anthony walked behind them with a suitcase and beach bag.

  Irene held the screen door. She was frowning. "Anthony, dear, do you have a couple of minutes? I need to talk to you."

  "Is something wrong?" He looked down at her, concerned.

  "I want to ask a favor for a friend of mine. Her name is Ruby Smith. Gail, you remember Ruby, don't you? When we used to go up to Sewall's Point? The older woman who baby-sat for you and Renee?"

  "Of course I remember Ruby. Is she all right?"

  "She needs to find a criminal lawyer. I'll tell you about it inside. Isn't it cold tonight?"

  Anthony sent an inquisitive look Gail's way, and she shrugged. Irene's gray cat scooted through the door as they came into the foyer. The tabby watched from the sofa. Irene straightened Karen's sleep-tangled hair. "It's bedtime for somebody."

  "Not yet, it's too early. Can I have something to eat?"

  A look passed between Gail and her mother, and Gail turned Karen toward the hall. "Go on, sweetie. Bath and pajamas first, okay? Gramma needs to talk with Anthony for a little while."

  With a dramatic sigh, Karen vanished toward her bedroom.

  In the kitchen, Irene offered to make coffee. Anthony preferred plain soda, if she didn't mind, or he would be up half the night. When her mother turned away, Gail caught him looking at his watch. He made a quick, guilty smile and smoothed his hair back. It fell into deep waves at his collar. Gail's fair complexion required sunscreen and a hat; Anthony's skin glowed with a dark tan.

  Irene filled the glasses. "Have you ever been to Sewall's Point?" When Anthony replied that he wasn't sure if he had heard of it, she said, "It's on the intracoastal waterway near Stuart, about a hundred miles north of here, the next county up from Palm Beach. My parents bought a vacation house after Daddy came back from the war. Ruby worked for us. Later on, Ed and I bought the house from my parents' estate, and we kept Ruby on. The girls adored her."

  Gail's memory produced a snapshot of a short, round woman, a frizzy gray perm, and a muumuu with big patch pockets. Ruby Smith had carried a box of Red Hots in one of them, which she would tap out into their palms if they'd been good. Her accent was twangy Florida Cracker, and her lap could hold three children at once. Ruby had cleaned house and cared for Gail, her sister, and the assortment of cousins and friends who would drop by.

  Her mother said, "After Ed passed away, I sold the house, but I'd go visit my sister Louise and her family. Her husband was Garlan Bryce. He's the sheriff of Martin County now. You might have heard the name? My niece, Jackie, is with the city of Stuart police department, following in her father's footsteps, you might say."

  Anthony sipped his c
lub soda, gamely trying to follow this torrent of information.

  "Louise died in a car accident," Irene said. "She was thirty-six. Did Gail tell you?"

  He let out a murmur of condolence and said that yes, Gail had mentioned it.

  "Anyway, Ruby and I have kept in touch. She's eighty-one years old, and I haven't seen her since my sister's funeral, but we've written. She lives in a retirement home now, and her eyes are so bad she can't drive. Except for church she hardly goes anywhere. She is the dearest, sweetest thing."

  "Mrs. Smith doesn't sound like a person who would need the advice of a criminal defense attorney," Anthony said. "What's the problem?"

  "Her grandson. His name is Kenny Ray Clark. Eleven years ago, he was tried for murder and sentenced to death. Ruby believes he's innocent. She asked me to talk to you about it."

  Anthony raised his brows. "I think he's past any help I could give him."

  The memory slowly reassembled itself in Gail's mind. "Kenny Ray.... Right, I remember. Ruby brought him with her a couple of times. He was kind of tall and skinny? He didn't talk much. That was ages ago. Did you ever tell me about his arrest?"

  "Yes, but you were away in law school," Irene said. "Want to hear what else Ruby said? She said Jesus spoke to her and told her Kenny Ray was innocent, and if he was going to be saved, it was up to her to find a way to do it." Irene looked from Gail to Anthony and back again.

  Gail nodded, unable to think of an appropriate reply.

  Anthony appeared to contemplate the ice cubes in his glass. "What did her grandson do? Allegedly. Who was the victim?"

  "A young married woman. Someone broke into her house and stabbed her to death. The real tragedy is, her baby died, too. He was in his crib and choked on his milk. Just awful. They wanted to charge Kenny Ray with two murders, but the medical examiner said the baby's death was an accident. The husband came home from work and found his wife and child both dead. Of course the community was up in arms, and the police had to find someone to pin it on."