Suspicion of Innocence Read online

  Charlene said, "Missy's got a problem with some business partners."

  Gail glanced over Charlene's shoulder. The soon-to-be-ex-Mrs. Marcanetti was nervously swinging her foot, the fringe on her boot dancing up and down. "I'll bet Missy's her real name."

  "Good guess," Charlene said. "Anyway, she and Dennis and another couple invested in this boutique on South Beach." Charlene took a last drag off her cigarette and bent to stub it out in a stick-dry potted palm. She was grinning. "Postindustrial chic, is how she described it."

  "The kind of place where they charge a hundred dollars for a bra made out of metal kitchen strainers?"

  "Oh, so you shop there. Dennis gave Missy his share of the boutique as part of the settlement, but the other two are trying to take over. I'm not up on commercial litigation, or I'd take the case myself."

  "How's the business going?" asked Gail. "Profitable?"

  Charlene rocked her hand back and forth. "They serve wine. And the clientele is darling. The guys like the leather pants with the buns cut out."

  Gail dragged her eyes away from Missy, who was thumbing idly through a copy of The Florida Bar Journal, probably trying to find the pictures. "I don't know. It sounds like something a smaller firm should handle."

  She glanced around when the elevator bell dinged. A clerk pushing a basket of files got out, a female lawyer Gail had gone to law school with, and a tall Hispanic attorney about forty in an eight-hundred-dollar suit, carrying a shiny briefcase made of some kind of endangered reptile. He looked around as if to get his bearings. Still no George Sanchez, damn him.

  She said to Charlene, "We try to stick to bigger corporate accounts, unless the client can stand the fees."

  "Jesus. Don't you ever take a case for fun?" Charlene pretended to shudder. "Poor you, in that big firm. I've got my own office and my own hours and if I want to screw off for an afternoon or two I can damn well do it."

  Then she looked past Gail's shoulder, her finely penciled eyebrows lifting. Gail turned. It was the man with the briefcase.

  Charlene reached for his hand. "¿Cómo andas, mi amor?"

  "Bien, bien. ¿Y tú?" He bent to brush his lips across Charlene's cheek when she turned it up to him.

  "What brings you to these parts?" she said. "This ain't criminal court."

  He did a slow smile, lines bracketing a curvy mouth. Lots of white teeth. "I am here under duress, but your presence makes it a pleasure."

  Gail wanted to roll her eyes.

  Charlene laughed and pulled him closer. "¡Cabrón!"

  He glanced at Gail, acknowledging she existed. A subtle aroma of something expensive clung to his skin. She gave him a perfunctory smile.

  "Gail, this is Tony Quintana," Charlene said. "He defended a couple of my naughtier clients last year."

  The dark brown eyes moved quickly over her face, taking inventory. No matter how good the manners, Gail was certain the sexuality could never be bleached out of a Latin male. She couldn't complain. They were exquisite creatures to look at.

  Gail stuck out her hand before he could go for her cheek. "How do you do."

  Charlene said, "My friend Gail Connor, of Hartwell Black and Robineau."

  His look was still polite, but something else slipped into place. He released her hand. "Ah, Ms. Connor. I think I'm looking for you."

  Gail could have kicked herself for being so slow. That Quintana. "I assume George Sanchez can't make it."

  "Unfortunately, no. A conflict came up, and he asked me to take care of this matter for him." Quintana's Spanish accent was barely there. He smiled, the charm back in place. "George hoped we might work something out."

  "Oh? How optimistic of him."

  "Surely this isn't a case worth fighting over. Certainly not worth the time a firm such as yours will have in it."

  Gail would have bet money that Anthony Luis Quintana, Esq., had ordered George not to come, that he had been hiding out in the men's room to make sure the Darden case would be dead last on the motion calendar. "I can tell you, Mr. Quintana, attorney's fees are not an issue."

  "No?" He gave a slight shrug. "But in your motion, you ask that my client pay your fees."

  "Correct. Due to your delays in—"

  "Mine?"

  "Your firm's. Your client's."

  He innocently raised his brows. "But I am here. On time."

  Gail smiled back at him. "Just go check in with the bailiff, why don't you?"

  When he had gone, she muttered to Charlene, "God. He ought to be flogged."

  Charlene's mouth twisted into a grin. She said, "Gotta go. It's time to water Missy. Call me."

  They took their places in the back of the narrow room, Quintana by the door, his briefcase on the floor by his feet, Gail standing by the windows. Judge Coakley's big desk occupied the far end. Perpendicular to it was a long conference table, six chairs on either side. They were all taken, opposing attorneys facing each other. The judge rocked back and forth in his brown leather chair, the springs squeaking softly. Gail doubted he would oil them even if handed a can of WD-40. In chambers, he wore a short-sleeved shirt and tie, leaving his robe on a wooden hanger behind the door. Bushy eyebrows jutted over pale gray eyes. His hair, once auburn, had dimmed to rusty white.

  "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen," he said. "I'm covering a hearing at three for Judge Potter, so let's not waste any time."

  Thank God, thought Gail. She leaned her briefcase against the wall and crossed her arms, looking toward the window, seeing nothing but blue sky at this height. The glass was cloudy with grime. A black shadow flapped slowly past, then swooped upward. She idly studied the photos, many turning yellow, that hung around the room. One picture showed the judge with Governor LeRoy Collins outside the state capitol in Tallahassee. Behind him half a dozen other men, among them Gail's grandfather, John B. Strickland, lined up across the steps. All men, all white, all in suits with thin lapels and skinny ties.

  Rotating her shoulders, Gail dug her fingers into the muscles of her neck, barely listening to the drone of voices. Her skull felt like it was going to crack off right at eyebrow level. She knew the cause: She had lain awake until nearly three a.m. reliving her mother's birthday party Saturday night. It could have been scripted by Tennessee Williams and badly overacted by the cast of a small-town dinner theater. Her mother pretending she wasn't really fifty-seven. Her sister, Renee, as the drunken little bitch, falling out of her tank top. And Gail's husband, Dave, playing the brooding son-in-law, making an ass of himself. Gail couldn't decide where she fit in, except as a reluctant audience, a witness to this tedious melodrama.

  She noticed that across the judge's chambers Anthony Quintana was frowning into the pages of the thick court file on Darden v. Pedrosa. What was he doing, some last-minute cramming? She doubted he knew what he was getting into, a shoving match between two sets of clients—builder and home buyers—who were approximately tied for the jerk-of-the-year award.

  Gail represented the buyers. When Nancy and Bill Darden had seen an ad in the Miami Herald for a subdivision called Cotswold Estates they had no idea that the builder would be Cuban. Nancy asked, "Isn't that some kind of fraud?" They had signed the contract because the houses were "so cute," and because the subdivision was within five minutes of the new medical office where Bill worked, in the far reaches of West Kendall, where the Everglades still sent its feral creatures scurrying across clipped and watered lawns.

  The concrete pad was poured, the drywall up, a hole for the swimming pool dug. But the roof didn't suit the Dardens. "It's so spindly," Nancy whined. "I took some photos. Here, you can see for yourself. My God, if we have another hurricane, it will just blow right off." The molding around the doors wasn't the heavy oak they had seen in the model, but white pine. The supervisor at Pedrosa insisted oak would cost them more. Bill said put it in, then made a stink on the next construction payment. So the builder installed cheaper kitchen fixtures. When Nancy saw the aluminum sink, she told the plumber she wanted stainless stee
l. He nodded, but spoke no English and installed porcelain at three hundred and fifty dollars. The schedule stretched out, and out, irate demands coming from both sides.

  Bill Darden told Gail, "They're trying to take us, I know they are. Damn Cubans." And this while Gail's secretary, Miriam Ruiz, was handing them copies of the documents.

  "I don't care so much about the money," Bill said. "Although of course three hundred thousand dollars is a fair amount to lose." He took Nancy's hand. The slender, tanned hand with the gold and diamond tennis bracelet encircling the wrist. "Nan doesn't want the house anymore. If they're going to be like that, God knows what it would be like to live there."

  Gail had sued for breach of contract, rescission, and delay. The other side had promptly countersued. Motions had flown back and forth. For the past two months Gail had tried to get the company's relevant financial records and take the depositions of its owners. All she had been given was excuses.

  Gail wondered what lunacy made Ferrer & Quintana hang on so tightly. Latin machismo? Fat fees?

  Whatever they got, it would be more than Gail expected to bring in. Nancy was the daughter of U.S. Senator Douglas Hartwell, whose granddaddy had founded the firm. Not exactly kosher to waive payment of fees, but the other partners chalked it up to good community relations. Gail, doggedly working her way up to partner, had to smile and enter the hours on her time sheet in red.

  She heard two soft clicks. Anthony Quintana had taken his office file out of his briefcase. She recognized the nervous doodles George had made on its cover. Quintana calmly began to flip through its pages, marking this or that with a gold pen.

  Anthony Luis Quintana was taller than the average Cuban, nearly six feet. His medium brown hair was swept straight back, thick and gleaming. He was a bit too flashy for a motion calendar in civil court, Gail decided. The jacket of his forest green suit was unbuttoned, showing an abstract print silk tie that must have cost more than dinner at the Chez Vendóme. And the shoes. Polished and tasseled, low cut. He wore patterned socks, darker green, with maroon squiggles in the weave.

  As he closed the file, Quintana glanced up and saw her looking at him. Gail smiled coolly and let her eyes drift to the pair next in front of the judge.

  Ralph Matthews, a black lawyer representing a downtown bank, sat opposite a young attorney who was apparently going down for the count.

  Judge Coakley spoke with a mixture of incredulity and amusement. "Mr. Aguilar, what do you want this court to do? Do you want this court to issue a restraining order against a federally chartered bank? Do you want me personally to go down the street and tell them not to open their doors?"

  "Your honor, what we're seeking—"

  "I know what you're seeking, Mr. Aguilar."

  Gail noticed the botched pronunciation: Ag-will-ar instead of, properly, Ag-ee-lar.

  "This action is filed in state court because the relief demanded—' '

  "You're in here because you know good and damn well you can't get to trial inside of eighteen months in federal court, they're so stacked up with drug cases over there.”

  Eyes politely fixed somewhere above his opponent's head, the bank's attorney sat, chin on tented fingers, waiting.

  The judge extended a hand to him, palm up. "Mr. Matthews, do you have an order on this?"

  The attorney pulled it out of the file. "Yes, judge."

  Judge Coakley lifted a pen from a scuffed, gold-plated desk holder. "I got no jurisdiction, Mr. Aguilar. What you ought to do is run over to federal court and file this case where it belongs."

  The judge handed the signed order back to Matthews. "As for state court, well, I've just got to say— Bye-bye." He waggled his fingers. "Next case, please."

  Matthews stood up. "Thank you, judge. I'll make sure Mr. Aguilar gets a conformed copy."

  "You do that. Next case."

  It was two-twenty-five when Gail took her place opposite Quintana at the end of the table, waiting their turns to slide down the fine. The springs in Coakley's chair squeaked in a slow, steady rhythm. Eek-eek-eek. Like baby rats, Gail thought. The noise went right up her spine into her throbbing head.

  She shifted in her chair.

  Quintana was drumming his long fingers on his file. He wore a ring on his right hand. Gold with a diagonal row of diamonds. Not quite heavy enough to be tacky, she decided. Her eyes climbed up his sleeve, across his shoulder. He was watching something out the window. He had eyelashes like curls off a chunk of hard chocolate. A mouth you'd like to get your teeth on. Just a couple notches this side of excessive, she decided. The kind of man her sister would go for. Yes. Renee's type exactly.

  Gail leaned her forehead on her fingers and rubbed. Unbidden, unwanted, like photos thrust in front of her, scenes from her mother's birthday party intruded into her mind.

  Click. Renee at the front door, arms flung out. Ta-daaaaaah! Gail hadn't seen her in months, until Saturday night. She suspected the only reason Renee showed up was to ask their mother for another loan. Renee had brazenly pretended Irene's present was still being engraved.

  Click. Irene pulling Renee into the living room, showing her off to all her friends as if she had just come back from missionary work in Belize. Click. Renee, buzzed on Southern Comfort, talking Dave into playing the piano, though he hadn't played for years. Renee singing "The Way We Were," the song that got her into the finals of the Miss Miami pageant ten years ago. Renee muffing the words halfway through, then falling into Dave's lap, both of them laughing, the piano bench going over, a tangle of arms and legs, Renee flashing her panties. He had kissed her cheek, still laughing, and helped her up.

  Gail and Dave had argued again about it last night. No shouts. Just a cool exchange, leading to a colder silence. Gail took her pillow to the sofa. He must have seen her lying there this morning, but left her to wake up late, the weave of upholstery fabric on her cheek as red as a slap.

  Gail pulled back her cuff far enough to see her watch. As soon as this was over, she would have to call Miriam. No way to make it back in time for the deposition at three.

  When the attorney to her right moved along the line, Gail slid down another chair.

  Quintana clasped his hands loosely on his legal pad. Gail could tell the writing on it was in Spanish. He must have done it to keep her from knowing what was there. Her own Spanish was barely conversational. She noticed his neat manicure, the nails buffed to a soft patina. Another ring on the left hand—gold with dark green stones. A thin watch with a black lizard strap was just visible under a spotlessly white cuff. And on his right wrist— she would have been surprised not to see it—a gold link bracelet that could never have been mistaken for a woman's. He probably had a chain around his neck, too, with a religious medallion on it. The patron saint of Cuba, whoever that was, tangled in black chest hair.

  On the left cuff she managed to decipher the initials upside down: ALQP, stitched in tiny red letters. Gail's curiosity about the P following the Q was cut short when she had to move to the next chair. She glanced up and Quintana was looking at her again. He leaned back in his chair and dropped his hands into his lap.

  Finally, gratefully, she moved down to the final seat, and heard Judge Coakley say, "Well, looks like you folks are all she wrote."

  "Gail Connor, with Hartwell Black, for the plaintiffs."

  "How you doing, Gail?"

  Quintana's eyes lingered on her as he handed the judge the court file. He hadn't missed the familiarity. "Anthony Luis Quintana, your honor. Ferrer and Quintana, for the defendant."

  "Good afternoon, Mr. Quintana." Gail noticed the twangy mispronunciation. Kwintana.

  "That's Keentahna, judge," he said, smiling.

  "What? Okay. Sorry. I guess I ought to learn español." Judge Coakley settled back, springs squeaking. "Keentahna." He opened the court file. "Motion to suppress. Tell me about it."

  Startled, Gail sat up straight in her chair, staring across the table.

  "Pedrosa Development is moving to suppress the plaintiff
s quest for production of certain financial records on the grounds—"

  "Hold it." Gail nearly laughed out loud. "What motion to suppress? We've received no such motion."

  Quintana frowned at his copy. "No? The certificate of service is dated two weeks ago. It's in the court file."

  "Impossible." She looked at the judge, but he lifted the top sheet in his file.

  "Says it's a motion to suppress." He chuckled. "The post office strikes again."

  "Apparently," said Gail. "But I don't have it. And Mr. Quintana's motion isn't on the computer list outside. His motion can be heard as soon as he properly sets it."

  Quintana bounced his gold pen lightly in his palm. "Surely Ms. Connor would not take up the court's time at another hearing, when we can dispose of this matter now."

  "We have had no opportunity to prepare for this motion, judge."

  Coakley was thumbing through the court file. "Then what are you here on, Ms. Connor? I don't see anything from your office."

  She felt her stomach tighten. "A motion for sanctions on two matters, judge. First, fees. Second, along with the documents we want, we've attempted to take the depositions of Ernesto and Carlos Pedrosa for over two months, and—"

  "Judge—" Quintana broke in. "Ernesto Pedrosa has nothing to do with this case. He owns the company, yes, but in name only. Plaintiffs' counsel is aware of this."

  "I prefer to hear about it at his deposition," Gail said. Her eyes were on the judge, who was still looking through documents.

  "Here it is," he said, pressing open the file.

  "Such blanket production of the company's financial records is beyond the bounds of discovery," Quintana said. "The Florida Rules of Civil Procedure—"

  "Don't quote the rules to me." Coakley looked pained. "This case just keeps coming back and coming back. Can't you settle it?"

  "We've offered a reasonable settlement, your honor. The plaintiffs—"

  Gail quickly broke in. "What counsel would call 'reasonable' is nothing less than total capitulation." She noticed the judge look at his watch, and forced herself back on track. "As we are here on my motion, I'd like to explain to the court—"