I sipped at the beer, thought about the possibilities.
"Sherry is going to l-listen to a woman in pain, M-Max. No matter what."
I brought the bottle down.
"I'll call her tomorrow," I said.
"You can do it from here," Billy said and I could tell by his tone that he was leading me. I looked over at him and raised an eyebrow.
"S-Stay here in the guest room tonight," he said.
"No thanks. You know? You guys deserve some guest-free living."
"Diane w-went back to her place," he said.
This time I swung my legs off the chaise and faced him.
"Besides, I g-gave your bed away at the b-beach."
I'd just be wasting my time if I asked why his fiancee was sleeping away from the penthouse. He would tell me if he wanted me to know so I kept my mouth shut while he got up and went inside. When he returned he handed me a manila envelope and started to explain while I went through the contents.
"We got this two days ago, no p-postmark. It was somehow dropped on the front d-desk without anyone noticing."
The front of the envelope said simply: Manchester. The name was written in block letters with some kind of black marker.
I pulled out a sheaf of five photos. One shot was of Billy and Diane, in front of the apartment building, both dressed for work in business suits. Another was a single shot of Billy in front of the West Palm Beach County Courthouse, carrying his briefcase, heading inside. Another single shot was of Diane, exiting her car in the federal courthouse parking lot only a few blocks away. Another was of her sunbathing on the beach, one knee raised as she lay on a blanket. Her skin was moist with lotion and her straw hat was placed over her face.
The final photograph was of a woman I did not recognize. She appeared to be of medium height and build and was also in business attire and coming out of a small shaded residence built in the old style of South Florida in the 1950s.
"When you told us the other day that you had s-seen someone outside with a camera, we weren't exactly sure whether to tell you," Billy said. "Diane had n-noticed someone on the b-beach taking photos in her direction, but didn't mention it until I brought up a concern. The p-political hierarchy was m-making noise about our marriage, the race issue. I had considered that s-someone was taking pictures to put up on some Internet site or d-distribute them another way to influence those of a like mind to second-guess Diane's judgeship."
I started to say something when Billy stopped me with a raised hand.
"I was b-being paranoid," he said and then handed me a typewritten note sealed in a plastic bag. "This came with the pictures."
I held the bag by the corners, laid it smooth on my thigh and read:
GET OFF THE CRUISE WORKERS CASE OR ALL THREE OF YOU LAWYER FUCKS WILL BE GATOR FOOD
"Eloquent," I said. I glanced at the evidence tag that was stripped and dated on the corner of the bag.
"Brody come up with anything?" I said, guessing at the precise tag markings.
Brody was a former FBI forensics expert who had quit the agency when his entire government lab was smeared as incompetent by the general accounting office a few years back. He'd moved to South Florida and opened his own private lab and did uncompromising work for a variety of attorneys, investigators and the occasional freelance operator who needed his services with no questions or paperwork.
"I assume the stranger is a lawyer?" I said, holding up the photo of the single woman.
"Sarah O'Kelly," Billy said. "I know her, but I was unaware that she was doing work with cruise ship workers from the Port of Miami.
"She lives in Fort Lauderdale and when I called her, her secretary said she had been traveling in Panama doing research on the cruise cases and had been gone for ten days. The assistant had not opened her mail, but nothing unposted or of similar size to this one had arrived at her office."
"If she got it, it's probably at her house," I said.
"If our new friends are c-consistent."
I turned the photos over and scanned through them again. The shot of Diane seemed uncomfortably pornographic, knowing someone had stalked her and taken it without her knowledge with the purpose of a threat.
"The Hix brothers?" I said.
"I can only imagine," Billy said. "I asked O'Kelly's assistant to pass on my number as soon as she contacts her and preferably before she gets home. She said she's due in tomorrow."
I put the photos and letter back into the envelope and handed them back.
"You tell Rodrigo about this?" I said, thinking of the scared man and his decision to go home.
"That's w-why you'll have to stay here tonight, M-Max," Billy said. "He's out of the hospital, b-but I gave him your bed down at the Flamingo."
"Hiding?"
"For now."
"And Diane?"
"She is not the k-kind of woman who is used to threats," Billy said. "I asked her to st-stay at her place because it is g-gated and secured and she did not argue."
I wasn't sure what it was in his voice: Disappointment? Guilt? All I did know was that I wasn't going to probe there. Not without an invitation.
He was still standing, leaning against the railing now and, unlike the analytical and focused man I had always known, he was preoccupied. I gave him space and looked out where I knew the horizon was, where dark sky met dark water, and searched for the light of a trawler or overnight fisherman, something to give the blackness a reference point. I finally found one far to the south, winking on and off with a rhythm that I knew had to be the roll of the swells.
"So what's the plan?" I finally said. "Do we take this to the authorities as a written threat and let them handle it?"
"Huh?" Billy flinched and looked down as if just discovering the glass in his hand and stepped back from the slosh of wine that had spilled to the deck.
"I'm sorry, M-Max," he said and looked embarrassed. "I, uh, well, certainly that's an option. B-But I think I would rather wait until we get the chance to t-talk with O'Kelly. I'd like to s-see if she too has b-been contacted and what her take on all this is. If I recall correctly, she is an amiable and thoughtful lawyer and I w-would think we'd want her opinion since she is obviously intimately involved."
"Spoken like a true attorney," I said, razzing him for his quick little soliloquy, spit out with style even though it had been far from his thoughts.
He smiled and raised his glass. "I have been threatened b-before. This will wait. I think you have more p-pressing matters at hand. Let's go over your scenarios with a true attorney's perspective on all of this."
CHAPTER 28
The smell of wet green earth and the sound of rain pattering through high trees woke me and I was startled in the way you are when you can't register where the hell you are. I blinked the dream away and pushed my hands up into my face and realized I was already sitting up on the edge of a bed.
Billy's, I recalled, noting the deep ivory color of the wall in front of me and the chill on my bare shoulders from the air-conditioning. I was in his guest room. I was still wearing my canvas pants and looked around to see that I had not pulled the bed covers back and had simply fallen asleep atop them. I rubbed my eyes and again caught the smell of turned and rotted soil on the palms of my hands and stared stupidly down at them. Clean.
I pushed myself up and walked into the bath and stood at the basin and splashed water up into my face and the odor disappeared. When I was a child my mother described how my dreams had seemed so vivid and my recollections of them so detailed that it made her uneasy. She said she would walk to the Italian Market in South Philly or to church and half expect to come around the corner and see the shear cliffs or talking dogs or some falling child that I had foretold from a dream the previous night. There were times now that I fell back into that vividness when dreaming or daydreaming of past experiences. As a cop who saw too many ugly scenes I often considered it a curse. Still, they were dreams. I had never had them portend the future before.