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They were on Ziegler’s pool deck just after sunset. A warm breeze tickled the fronds of the tiki hut bar. Castiel had stopped by to check on his photographers and graphic artists. They were doing their last round of photos and illustrations for the state’s trial exhibits. Castiel believed in entertaining the jurors. He knew that people retain information more readily when it’s presented visually. His trials were renowned for their compelling slide shows, computer graphics, and animations. All to keep the jurors alert and involved.

Castiel wanted to do another session of trial prep, but the tequila snifter in Ziegler’s hand and the two bottles of Clase Azul on the table ruled that out.

“With the trial coming up, you really ought to watch your drinking, Charlie.”

“You do the watching, Alex. You were always good at that.”

Uncle Max had been right all along, Castiel thought.

“Use Ziegler for your own purposes, but don’t get too close to the man. His life is like Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Castiel looked at the man now, sprawled on a chaise, hairy belly sticking out from under a Hawaiian shirt. His face was stubbled with gray whiskers and he smelled like dried sweat and booze. Trial was starting next week and Ziegler would have to pull his shit together before Lassiter cross-examined him.

Castiel knew better than to underestimate his old buddy. Lassiter ate prosecutors for lunch and crapped out cops before the afternoon recess. Cross-exam was his forte. He didn’t adhere to any of the accepted styles taught in legal seminars. Lassiter once told him over drinks that he viewed the courtroom as a saloon in an old Western. He liked to burst through the swinging doors, knock over a poker table, pistol whip a gunfighter, toss a big lug through a window, and flip a chair into the mirror above the bar.

“And that, Alex, is just when I say ‘good morning.’ ”

In the Larkin murder trial, Lassiter didn’t have much to work with, but Castiel knew that’s when he was at his best. Give Lassiter an easy case, and he gets bored. He becomes just another lawyer asking the witness, “What happened next?” Give him a sure loser and he’ll latch onto an opposing witness like an alligator and take the guy’s leg off at the knee.

All of which made Castiel nervous about Ziegler.

How will Charlie hold up?

Lassiter needed to raise reasonable doubt by suggesting there was an unknown assassin hiding in the bushes that night. To do that, Lassiter would try to prove that Ziegler was a sleaze and Perlow a mobster. He wanted to link the worlds of pornography and organized crime and suggest that there were lots of potential killers who might have fired that shot through the window at either man.

“Where were you this weekend, Charlie?”

“Bahamas. Want to see my passport?”

“You take Lola?”

“She’s in L.A. getting work done. Bigger boobs or smaller thighs, can’t remember which.”

“Your girlfriend, then.”

“She was knitting a quilt for the church.”

Over by the solarium window, the techs were packing their metal boxes. Job done. Castiel waved to them, and the photographer responded with a thumbs-up sign. If he could just get through the trial without Ziegler cracking, the saga of Krista Larkin could be put to rest forever. Ziegler was always the weak link. A sieve when it came to keeping secrets. Max had said that eighteen years ago when all three of their lives became inextricably entwined.

Castiel turned toward the channel where some kids in a Boston Whaler were heading toward the bay, the boat’s wake slapping the seawall. “I had lunch with Archbishop Gilchrist yesterday. He told me you’re gonna fund a facility for teenage runaways.”

“That’s right.”

“Thirty-six beds. Counselors, social workers, teachers. The Archbishop couldn’t stop talking about it.”

“Yeah, so what?”

Castiel turned back to Ziegler. “Jesus, Charlie. Why not just put a sign on it, ‘Krista Larkin Memorial Foundation’? What’s next, throwing roses in the ocean on the girl’s birthday?”

“Got nothing to do with her. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.”

Castiel got in Ziegler’s face, inhaled his sour breath. “Max told me you were acting squirrelly ever since the sister came to town.”

Ziegler’s eyes seemed to clear and he looked straight at Castiel. “What if the Larkin woman isn’t the shooter?”

Castiel felt his breath slip out. “Of course she’s the shooter. The forensics nailed her, and you I.D.’d her.”

“C’mon, Alex. You know I didn’t see who did it. I said what you wanted, what I had to say to get the woman out of our lives. It didn’t seem so bad when I thought she was guilty.”

“She is guilty!”

“What if she’s not? What if I send away an innocent woman?”

“That’s your fucked-up guilt over Krista talking. Don’t start trying to do the right thing, Charlie. It’s not in your nature.”

Ziegler straightened in the chaise, pulled his shirt down over his bulging gut. “Breeze is kicking up.”

“So what?”

“You ever wonder where the wind starts? That air you feel on your face right now, did it come out of the Caribbean or somewhere farther away? How old is it?”

“How old’s the wind? That what you’re asking?”

“Is it the same air Columbus felt when he crossed the Atlantic? Was it the hot, desert air Moses felt crossing the desert?”

“Moses? Columbus? What the fuck are you talking about, Charlie?”

“I’ve been thinking about the origins of things, Alex. You ever do that?”

“I’m thinking about the end of things, Charlie. Now, you better hold it together, or you’ll lose everything.”

51 The Right Reverend Snake

My nephew is a damn smart kid. Hey, someone in the family had to be. But he doesn’t bat a thousand. For weeks, he’d been surfing the Net, armed with the last name “Aldrin,” looking for a man they called “Snake.” Coming up empty.

Still, the kid persisted. Each morning, he Googled and Lexis-Nexised and scoured the Web. He dug into arrest records and Corrections Department files. Nothing. Until yesterday, when he found the man.

In church.

Or rather, in a newspaper advertisement for services at All Angels Recovery Church in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. The reverend’s name was George Henry Aldrin. A self-described ex-addict, ex-biker, ex-con. Current lay minister at All Angels and, incidentally, owner of Foot Longs, a sub shop on Commercial Boulevard in West Broward.

The day before jury selection was to begin, I took the turnpike north and found Foot Longs in a strip mall just west of University Drive in Lauderhill. A U-shaped counter, four tables inside, another four outside. A high school kid was mopping the floor, smearing mayonnaise from one tile to another. A large, bearded man in an apron was at the cash register, counting one-dollar bills. He wore a small, gold cross around his neck, and his thin gray hair was pulled straight back and tied into a ponytail. A round helipad of a bald spot crowned his head. A worn copy of the New Testament poked out of a pocket of his apron and, true to his name, the tattoo of a cobra crawled up his arm.

Aldrin might have once been handsome and rugged. Now his eyes were rheumy, and his skin was as gray as a mullet’s belly. I guessed his weight as just south of three hundred pounds.

“George Aldrin?” I said.

“Yeah?”

“I’m Jake Lassiter.”

The name didn’t cause him to either salute or reach for a shotgun. “It’s good to meet you, Jake Lassiter,” he said evenly. “What kind of sandwich can we fix you today?”

“I’m looking for Krista Larkin.”

“Sweet Jesus,” he said, looking skyward.

“Do you have any idea what happened to her?”

He shook his head, sadly. “She disappeared, when was it …?”

“Eighteen years ago.”

“Another lifetime. Lassiter, you said?”