The Dark of Day Read online

  The reporter said, “Your accuser has filed a suit for damages. Do you think he has a better chance in civil court?” She shoved her microphone at him.

  That brought a scowl. “No! Uh-uh. I’m gonna beat him there, too. You put me in front of a hundred juries, it’s all the same.”

  C.J. gripped her client’s elbow and pulled him away. They walked in a moving blaze of light toward an elevator that his friends held open for him. When the doors slid shut, C.J. found herself squeezed among men so tall that even in four-inch heels she couldn’t see over their shoulders.

  Robinson’s wife had stopped crying. She stood stiffly with her arms crossed. Robinson stroked her hair. “Baby? You all right?”

  “If you put me through this one more time, I will rip off your face.” The chuckles in the elevator stopped when she whirled around and glared at the men behind her.

  The group crossed the lobby and exited the glass doors of the fading, 1960s-style courthouse. A black Range Rover pulled up at the curb just as reporters and cameramen came out of the building and ran down the steps. People stopped to stare.

  Spots of light shone on Harnell Robinson’s wraparound shades. He bent to give C.J. a hug. “Girl, I appreciate everything you did for me.”

  On tiptoes she whispered into his ear, “I want the rest of my fee, Harnell. Cashier’s check, my desk by noon on Monday. It had better not bounce this time.”

  “No problem.”

  His friends cleared a path, and Robinson and his family waved as they climbed into the vehicle. Through the open front passenger window he gave a thumbs-up. Reporters chased the car, which quickly picked up speed, heading for the expressway.

  Alone on the sidewalk, C.J. opened her tote bag and found her sunglasses. The shadows from the palm trees didn’t reach this far, and already she could feel the prickle of perspiration. Her lightweight wool suit was fine for an air-conditioned courtroom, but it soaked up the sun. She lifted her long, blond-streaked hair and scanned the parking lot for a silver BMW moving among the acre of cars and the support pilings of the expressway that arched over the river.

  “Ms. Dunn!”

  The Justice Files reporter was racing toward her in sneakers. Her cameraman trotted behind, shouldering his heavy camera. Black-haired, smooth-skinned Libi Rodriguez, showing her cleavage. She spoke into her cordless mike. “We’re here with celebrity lawyer C.J. Dunn, who just came out of court with her client, Miami Dolphins running back Harnell Robinson, after a surprising victory. C.J., our viewers want to know. How did you pull it off, when so many witnesses testified that it was Robinson who started the brawl?”

  C.J. didn’t like to look into a camera wearing sunglasses, but if she took them off she would squint. She said, “The prosecution witnesses were mistaken.”

  “Some say the jurors were swayed by stories leaked from your office in the weeks before the trial. Do you have a comment?” She thrust the microphone at C.J.

  Maintaining her smile, C.J. said, “Libi, I think you’re just mad that you didn’t hear about them first.”

  She walked away and noticed her car making the turn at the end of the block. The single line of traffic moved slowly. When Henry was in front of the building, he swung the BMW close to the sidewalk and waited for C.J. to get in. But her eyes had shifted to what was behind him, a Mercedes-Benz limousine, vintage 1956, with bulbous front fenders and a heavy chrome grille, glinting in the sunlight. She knew that car, and she knew its owner.

  The driver’s door opened, and a young man with blond hair got out and hustled around the long hood. He didn’t look like a chauffeur; he wore a blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. “Ms. Dunn? Mr. Cahill wonders if he could have a few moments of your time.”

  The tinted glass gave no view of the man inside. She held up a hand, then walked back to her own car and motioned for Henry to lower the window. “Looks like I have a ride. Go ahead and take the files back to the office.”

  Henry turned around to see behind him. “Who is that?”

  “In the limo? Milo Cahill.”

  “Milo Cahill the architect?”

  “Right. I won’t be long. Go on, we’re holding up traffic.”

  The driver opened the rear door of the Mercedes, and C.J. peered inside the dim interior, making out a white Panama hat and a tropical print shirt. “Milo? What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you. Get in, will you? It’s an oven out there.”

  C.J. got in, and the door closed with a solid thud. They exchanged a quick kiss on the cheek. “You look fantastic as ever,” he said in his honey-sweet Carolina drawl. He took her hand. “My word. Is that blood on your claws? My spies told me you won, and I ran right over to congratulate you.”

  She folded her sunglasses into their case. “Thank you for sending Harnell to me, but he still owes me twenty thousand dollars.”

  “But think of all the publicity!”

  “My partners at the firm would rather have the cash,” she said.

  “Stop complaining. You should be happy. C.J., why don’t you return your calls? I’ve been trying to reach you for days.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, Milo, it’s just been crazy. You didn’t say it was urgent, so—”

  With a dismissive wave, he settled into his corner as the limo glided away from the curb. A glass panel separated passengers and chauffeur. “Kick off your shoes if you want to.”

  “May I?” They were ankle-strap Pradas, lovely and lethal. She dug her toes into the plush carpet. “Sweet Jesus, that feels good.” She slid her hand over the faux leopard-skin rug on the seat. “You are getting too, too decadent.”

  “I would only confess this to my dearest friends, but the upholstery is so worn out I can’t bear to look at it anymore. I’m having it replaced with red leather. This old rattletrap surely needs some TLC. I am speaking of the car, so don’t make any jokes.” Milo reached over to open a cabinet between the jump seats. A mahogany shelf dropped down, revealing a row of crystal glasses, a silver martini shaker, and cocktail stirrers. “I’d have brought champagne, but I wouldn’t want to lead you astray.” He lifted a Perrier from the cooler and handed it to her with a napkin. “Happy Friday, darlin’.”

  “I adore you, Milo.” She twisted off the cap, and as she raised it to drink she saw a lamp bolted to the ceiling in place of the dome light. There were six antique doll’s heads with curly blond hair, dimples, and small white teeth. Small halogen lights were wired to spirals of silver-colored metal. “Oh. My God.”

  “Like it?”

  “It’s insane. It’s so . . . you. Where did you find it?”

  Round cheeks pushed his eyes into inverted curves when he grinned. “Picked it up in Berlin over Christmas.”

  Milo Cahill looked younger than the late forties she knew him to be, with his wide blue eyes and small rosy mouth. His tan came from a high-priced salon. He usually wore a hat, and C.J. suspected it was not an affectation but vanity: hiding his bald spot. People assumed he was gay. The truth, C.J. had found out, was more complicated: he didn’t like the physical act of sex; it was enough to surround himself with beauty, or the oddities that he judged to be beautiful.

  Born to faded gentry in Charleston, Milo had gone to Duke University on scholarship. A genius, undeniably offbeat, Milo was a man who could glide without a ripple among the wealthy and cultured as easily as among drunks and addicts, sports stars and models, artists, actors, and various other cheerful wackos who drifted at the edge. It was they, he had once told an interviewer, who gave him his creative kick.

  Before he was thirty, Time magazine named Milo Cahill one of the “Top 50 Future Leaders in the Arts.” At forty-one he had been short-listed for the Pritzker Prize for his contributions to architecture. But Milo’s plans required immense budgets, and he refused to compromise. Jobs dried up. He was reduced to designing furniture made of recycled plastic for a discount chain. Deep into a bottle of bourbon, he had confided to C.J. that he nearly wept with shame every time
he cashed a royalty check. She hadn’t seen him in a while, but she’d heard he was doing a big project in Miami, something about a residential tower with solar panels or windmills.

  They had met in Los Angeles when C.J. had been living there, married to a TV anchor and working at her first job out of law school for a top-rated criminal defense firm. Milo Cahill had been the lead architect on a civic center in Malibu. Driving through a thunderstorm, he swerved to avoid a car and skidded into a tree. He came away with a broken arm, but his passenger, a thirteen-year-old boy he’d picked up hitchhiking, died at the scene. The boy’s parents sued. This was C.J.’s first big case. She won the trial, saved Milo Cahill’s reputation, and became a celebrity herself when he swept her into his glittering circle of friends. She moved to Miami and for years didn’t hear from him, until one day he phoned to announce he’d just bought a house on Miami Beach, come on over, have a drink.

  Milo smiled at her. “Would you like an early dinner? We could go to my place and call out for Thai.”

  “It sounds wonderful, but I’d better get back to my office. You’re not in trouble, are you?”

  “Me? No, it’s just a favor for someone. Well, for myself too, in a roundabout way.” He leaned toward the intercom and pressed a button. “Jason? We’re going downtown to Ms. Dunn’s office. The Met Center.”

  “Jason is gorgeous,” she said.

  “Brains, too. He has a degree in architecture from Princeton.”

  “If he’s that smart, why is he driving your car?”

  “He’s just thrilled to be working for Milo Cahill. He’d take out my garbage if I asked him to.”

  “You have no shame,” C.J. said.

  The driver skipped the exit to the expressway and continued straight on Seventeenth Avenue, crossing the river. C.J. guessed they would go through East Little Havana, then north on Brickell Avenue, cross the river again, and finally arrive at the seventy-six-story skyscraper that dominated the Miami skyline.

  “Who’s the someone you need a favor for?” she asked.

  “Have you watched the local news in the last couple of days?”

  “I’ve been in trial.”

  “Well, it seems that a young lady by the name of Alana Martin vanished after, or during, a party at Billy’s house last Saturday night. Alana is one of those girls on the fringes of the club crowd. Pretty little thing. Twenty years old. Venezuelan, I think.”

  “A party at Billy’s house? Which Billy?”

  “Yours. Guillermo Medina. It was an after-party that got going around ten o’clock. The main party earlier was a reception at the Sony studios for Yasmina. She’s from Lebanon. She was nominated for a Grammy last year. Have you met her? Why am I asking? You’ve been locked in your law office for months. We never see you anymore.”

  “Were you at Billy’s?” she asked.

  “Not for long. I ducked out as soon as I could. I can’t stand those pointless millings-around. Alana Martin wasn’t at the reception because it was invitation only, but she showed up at the after-party. And . . . poof! Gone. It’s been almost a week. Her parents were on the news last night, asking for help locating her. She prob’ly ran off with a man she’d just met. She could have overdosed in some crack house in Overtown. They say she was doing drugs.”

  “Billy hasn’t told me about this.” She added, “Not that I’ve seen him lately.”

  “He isn’t involved. He can’t tell you if she was there or she wasn’t. You know how people come and go at Billy’s. He’s in the clear. The person I need the favor for is Congressman Paul Shelby. One of his employees was at the party, supposedly the last person to see this girl alive. If that’s true, it could look bad for Shelby.”

  C.J. finished the Perrier and screwed the cap back on. “I’ll tell you up front, I’m no fan of Paul Shelby. Since when did you ever care about politics?”

  “I don’t. I care about The Aquarius. Please don’t say you haven’t heard of it. The Aquarius is revolutionary. It uses almost no energy, and it’ll be a snap to hook it up to a desalination system. Problem is, there’s not much waterfront left at a reasonable price, so we’re looking into some unused federal land that’s just sitting there, going to waste. Paul Shelby is on the Finance Committee, and he’s pushing it for us. He says if the Committee approves, which it will, Congress will go along.”

  “What federal land?”

  “About fifty acres down in the south part of the county, off Card Sound Road. Back in the sixties, the Navy used it for a listening post. Right now it’s just weeds and rocks.”

  “So how is this a problem for Shelby? Or for you?”

  “I’m getting there. He’s up for re-election this fall, and the Democrats want his seat. They’re looking for anything against Paul, anything. He was at the party, too—just dropped in and out long enough to thank Billy for that nice article he published in Tropical Life.”

  “Is Billy investing in The Aquarius?”

  “Sure. He’s staking his last dollar on it, so he’s biting his nails like the rest of us. He didn’t tell you? Oh, well, that’s Billy.” Milo put an imaginary key to his lips and turned it. “You didn’t hear it from me.”

  C.J. lifted her brows. “And what is Shelby getting out of it? Or should I even ask?”

  “No, no, not a dime. Honestly, C.J., he isn’t. The tricky thing here is the girl. She disappeared from a party attended by Paul Shelby, at which the main entertainment was a woman from the Middle East who openly opposes our foreign policy. Then someone on Shelby’s staff is suspected of—of kidnapping? Or murder? The Finance Committee will abandon him. There goes the project. It’s enough to make me want to cut my wrists.”

  “And Paul Shelby has no financial interest?”

  “He doesn’t need to. He’s loaded.”

  “That never stopped a politician. Tell me why he’s supporting a project in green architecture when he has one of the worst environmental voting records in Congress.”

  “He’s had a change of heart,” Milo said.

  “Try again.”

  “It’s true! Well . . . it’s probably true. Go ahead, accuse him of paying attention to which way the wind blows. The voters want green. The Aquarius would do a lot for his image.”

  “So it’s just a public relations issue for Paul Shelby?”

  “Just?” Milo closed his eyes and laid a hand over his heart.

  “Whose idea was it, getting me involved? His?”

  “No, it was mine. I haven’t told him yet. They think they can handle it. They can’t. They don’t see the potential for disaster. It’s not a big deal yet, and if it’s managed correctly, it won’t be.”

  “If something happened to this girl, it’s a big deal to her family.”

  “Yes. All right. But so far there’s no national media interest. A girl is missing. It happens. But she did disappear from a party on South Beach, with all the connotations that go with it. I’m sorry for her folks, but she’s not a girl who will generate much sympathy.”

  C.J. shook her head. “I think what you need is a very quiet, well-connected public relations adviser. Want me to recommend someone?”

  “I want you. This could blow up, and who else could I trust to handle it as well as C.J. Dunn? She’s brilliant. She’s beautiful. The media love her.”

  “Don’t try to sweet-talk me, Milo.”

  He stared out the window as they paused at a stop light. The brim of the hat put a shadow on his face. On the opposite corner, men lined up outside the little window of a bodega. How they drank Cuban coffee in this heat, C.J. could not understand. A matron waddled across with her shopping bags. Past four o’clock, traffic getting heavier. A few blocks on, the chauffeur turned left onto Brickell Avenue. Soon they would arrive at her office.

  He sighed. “I swear to you, if I have to go back to designing cheap bed frames and wall units, just shove me out of the car now and run me over.”

  “Milo.” She squeezed his hand. That brought another sigh. She set the empty bottle int
o the cup holder on the bar. “Who is this person working for Shelby? What’s his name? What does he do?”

  The car headed north on a boulevard shaded with banyans. Sunlight reflected off the windows of the bank buildings and flickered through the trees.

  “His name is Richard Slater. He drives the congressman and his wife to events and things. He takes their kids to soccer practice. He picks up the dry cleaning.”

  “So he’s a chauffeur. Good. We’re not talking about the inner circle. Did he take Paul Shelby to the party at Billy’s that night?”

  “He did.”

  “Shelby stayed only a little while, correct? Did his driver take him home?”

  “No, Paul let him go and took a taxi.”

  “But the driver stayed. How long was he there?”

  “Who knows?”

  “He could have left with Alana Martin.”

  “I hope not,” Milo said.

  “Was he involved with her sexually? Or in any other way?”

  “He denies he knows her at all.”

  “He might be lying,” C.J. said. “Has he made any statements to the police?”

  “He’s managed to avoid them so far.”

  “Is that so? Maybe he’s had prior experience with the cops. Who actually hired him?”

  “Paul Shelby approved it. Slater was recommended by a security company.”

  “Fine.” C.J. returned to her corner of the backseat. “Here’s what you do. Tell Shelby to let Mr. Slater go. Fire him. If the media or the police ask questions, direct them to the company that sent him.”

  Milo chewed on his lower lip. “Well . . . some of the folks on his staff would agree with you, but Paul doesn’t want to do that. What if this man doesn’t like being fired?”

  “Tough. Give him a severance check.”

  “I said, Paul won’t do it.” Milo’s voice rose. “Are you being obtuse on purpose? He’s in a delicate position. He can’t just go around axing people. No telling what would happen.”

  Surprised by this outburst, C.J. was silent for a moment. “The congressman doesn’t trust Richard Slater to keep his mouth shut. Is that it? What would he say, I wonder?”