"You know that Felicia lied when she said she didn't know why Byron killed himself."
"Felicia's definition of truth is what portion of it suits her at the moment," Beth acknowledged. "Now, about the girl. She has a lawyer, and I think you know her Lisa Kane."
"Yes, I do." Ainslie liked Kane. She was young and intelligent, and often served as a public defender. The difference with Kane was that despite the small fee public defenders received, she would go the extra mile and work to the limit for her clients.
"Could you meet her tomorrow?"
Ainslie agreed he would.
* * *
Lisa Kane was thirty-three, looked ten years younger, and some days as if she were still in high school. She had short red hair, a cherubic face with no makeup, and was dressed, when she met Ainslie, in jeans and a cotton T-shirt.
Their rendezvous was a small, dilapidated apartment block, three stories high, in Miami's crime-notorious Liberty City. Ainslie had come alone in an unmarked police car, Lisa in a vintage Volkswagen bug.
"I'm not sure why I'm here," he said. In fact, curiosity had brought him.
"My client and I need some advice, Sergeant," Lisa answered. "Beth said you'd be able to give it." She moved to a stairway and they climbed to the third floor, avoiding garbage and animal droppings, and emerged on a balcony with crumbling cement and rusty railings. Lisa stopped at a door halfway along and knocked. It was opened by a young woman, probably in her early twenties. Taking in her two visitors, she said, "Please come in."
Inside, Lisa announced, "This is Serafine . . . Sergeant Ainslie."
"Thank you for coming." The girl put out her hand, which Ainslie took, at the same time looking around him.
In contrast to the squalid exterior, the small apartment was spotless and gleaming. The furniture was a mixture. Several pieces a bookcase, twin side tables, a reclining chair looked expensive; the rest was of poorer quality, but all well cared for. A glimpse into another room revealed the same. And then there was Serafine attractive, poised, dressed in a flowered T-shirt and blue leggings, her brown eyes regarding Ainslie gravely. She was black and, it was evident, several months pregnant.
"I'm sorry about the way things are outside," she said, her voice deep and soft. "Byron wanted me to..." Abruptly, shaking her head, she stopped.
Lisa Kane took over. "Byron wanted to find a better place for Serafine, but other things got in the way." Then, gesturing, "Let's sit down."
When they were seated, Serafine spoke again, looking directly at Ainslie. "I'm carrying Byron's children. You probably know that."
"Children ? "
"My doctor told me yesterday. It's twins." She smiled.
"There's some background," Lisa said. "Byron Maddox-Davanal and Serafine met because she was supplying him with drugs. She and I met when I got her off a drug-trafficking charge with probation. She's clean now, the probation's over, and Byron was off drugs months before he died; he was never a heavy user."
"I'm ashamed, though," Serafine said. She glanced toward Ainslie, then turned her eyes away. "When it happened, I was desperate. . ."
"Serafine has a four-year-old son, Dana," Lisa continued. "She was an unmarried mother, without support, couldn't find a job, and around here there aren't many ways to get money for food . . ."
"I see it all the time." Ainslie's tone was understanding. "So how does Maddox-Davanal fit in?"
"Well, I guess you could say that he and Serafine responded to each other; somehow they filled each other's needs. Anyway, Byron started coming here to get away from his other life, and Serafine weaned him off drugs; she never did any herself. Maybe it wasn't love, but whatever it was worked. Byron had some money, apparently not much, but enough to help. He bought some things" Lisa motioned around her "gave Serafine money for food and rent, and she quit selling drugs."
Sure, Byron had money, Ainsliethought. You can't imagine how much.
"And of course they had sex," Lisa added.
Serafine broke in. "I didn't plan to get pregnant, but something went wrong. When I told Byron, he didn't seem to mind, said he'd take care of things. He was worried about something else, though, really worried, and one time he talked about being caught in a rat trap. It was right after that he stopped coming."
"We're talking about a month ago, and the money stopped, too," Lisa said. "That's when Serafine called me for help. I tried phoning the Davanal house, but couldn't get Byron and he didn't return my calls. I thought okay, so I went to see Haversham and . . . you know, 'We the People.' "
Ainslie did know. The prestigious Haversham law firm had so many important partners that its full title on a letterhead occupied two lines. It was also well known that the firm represented most of the Davanal interests. "Did you get some result?'' he asked.
"Yes," Lisa answered, "and it's why we need your advice."
* * *
The Haversham law firm, it emerged from Lisa's recounting, was smart enough to take an unknown young lawyer seriously, treating her with respect. She met with a partner named Jaffrus, who listened to her story, then promised to investigate her client's complaint. A few days later, Jaffrus called Lisa and arranged another meeting, which, as it turned out, took place about a week before Byron MaddoxDavanal's suicide.
"They didn't futz around," Lisa now told Ainslie. "It was obviously confirmed that Byron was responsible, so Haversham's agreed to financial support for Serafine, but under one condition: the Davanal name must never, ever, be used in connection with her child, and there'd be a means to guarantee that."
"What kind of means? What guarantee?" Ainslie asked.
Serafine, Lisa explained, would have to certify under oath, in a legal document, that her pregnancy resulted from fertilization in a sperm bank, with an anonymous donor. Documentation would then be obtained from a genuine sperm bank to confirm the arrangement.
"Probably after a big donation," Ainslie said. "And how much money would there be for Serafine?"
''Fifty thousand a year. But that's before we knew about her twins."
"Even for one child, it isn't enough."
"That's what I thought. It's why I need your advice. Beth said you'd been around the family and you'd know where we should aim."
Serafine had been listening intently. Ainslie asked her, "How do you feel about the sperm-bank thing?"
She shrugged. "All I care is that my children get to live someplace better than this and have the best education. If I have to sign a piece of paper to do it, even if it's not true, okay. And I don't care about the Davanal name. Mine's just as good maybe better."
"What is your last name?"
"Evers. You know it?"
"Yes, I do." Ainslie remembered Medgar Evers, the civil rights activist of the 1960s, a World War II U.S.
Army veteran who was shot and killed by a renegade white segregationist, now serving a life sentence for his crime.
"Are you related?" he asked.
"Distantly, I think. Anyway, if one of my children is a boy, I've decided to call him Medgar."
"And if there's a girl, you could call her Myrlie." Ainslie had once met the former wife of Evers, now as Myrlie Evers-Williams chairperson of the NAACP board of directors.
"I hadn't thought of that." Serafine smiled again. "Maybe I will."
Ainslie thought back to his conversation with Felicia Davanal, in which she had revealed that Byron received a quarter of a million Dollars annually, plus a luxurious life, for, in effect, doing nothing. And then her impatient words: For this family, that kind of money's petty cash.