You Only Die Twice (20 page)

“I tell her she's got the wrong guy, the old man is gone, but somehow she gets the impression I'm a knight on a white horse, young blood still fighting my father's crusade.”

I wondered how she happened to get that erroneous impression but curbed my smart mouth.

“She wants me to stop an execution, get the sentence commuted. She's not local, she says, and wants to stay anonymous. Wants me to claim I'm taking up the cause pro bono, like my dad used to do, but behind the scenes she'll foot the bill.

“I snatch a figure outa the stratosphere and say here's what it'll cost you. I'm expecting an argument. Instead, in a heartbeat, she says she'll send the money. Sure, I say, you got a deal, never expecting to hear from her again. But what do you know, next day an envelope arrives. Swear to God! I never dreamed she'd really send it.”

“What did you do?”

He stretched out his hands, palms up, in a gesture of helplessness, his expression ironic. “The sentence she wants commuted is R. J. Jordan's. When my old man did his volunteering he worked to save poor bastards who were indigent, without a dime. The Jordans have more money than God. Heavy-duty legal power's been hammering at that case for years, doing everything any legal genius could possibly conjure up. Those pros already filed every appeal in the book and then some. And despite it all, the case still looks like a lost cause.

“What am I supposed to do, show up, announce my arrival? Tell all that high-powered talent, ‘Here I am, guys, joining your team, uninvited? I never had one-a these cases but don't let it worry ya, it's not gonna cost ya a dime.' They'da laughed their asses off. They'da told me if I wanted to volunteer, I should join the army.”

“And, of course, you couldn't give the money back,” I said, “because you didn't know where to send it, right?”

“Right.” He jabbed a finger in my direction, nodding emphatically, apparently pleased that I perceived his predicament. “I didn't know who the hell the broad was.”

“So what did you do?”

“Had a clerk monitor the case for me, all the motions, pleadings, and appeals, so whenever she called,” he said, “I could provide her with an update, let her know what progress was being made.”

“Of course she probably misunderstood and believed you were generating some or all of that paperwork.”

His Adam's apple lurched. “Could be that she did.” He reached for his glass.

“So she sent more money, because she thought you were really working to save R. J.”

His head shot up, eyes darting.

“Hey, who wouldn't have done the same thing? Everything on earth was being done for the guy, and then some. I didn't go looking for her. She fell off a Christmas tree. She found
me
.”

“But you led her to believe there was progress, that there was hope.”

“Well, you know, there's always hope.”

“You did do something,” I said. “You hired Rothman.”

“That bigmouthed son-of-a-bitch shouldn't have talked to you,” he said testily. “I don't know what he said. But you can't trust him.”

His righteous indignation was impressive.

“I wanted him to find out the broad's story, where she was coming from. I mean, I hadda protect myself. Maybe I was being set up. Why would some outa-town philanthropist suddenly become a rich guy's benefactor? She hadda have an angle. So Rothman, he's good; he tracks her down, even makes a trip out there at my expense. Shoots surveillance pictures and, lo and behold, we put two and two together and realize the broad with the bucks is the victim in the homicide Jordan's about to fry for!

“All of a sudden, everything makes sense. I don't even hafta feel guilty. Taking her money is absolutely justifiable. Broad's just buying off her own guilty conscience. I'm helping her sleep nights. What is she
gonna do, file a complaint against me with the bar association? She's not even divorced. She's sure as hell not gonna blow the deal she's got out there, the big house, the new husband, the kids.

“So I go on keeping her apprised as usual. Everything's going along fine until last month. All of a sudden, the supremes shoot down Jordan's last appeal and some goddamn tabloid TV show profiles ‘R. J. Jordan, millionaire heir, about to die for murdering his beautiful young wife.'

“My luck, the bitch sees it. Shows up in Miami a couple days later, mad as a wet hen.”

“She was shocked by the story,” I said, “because she thought your legal work was successful and he would escape execution?”

“She mighta had that impression,” Kagan confessed.

“So she shows up here and has the chutzpah to accuse
me
when
she's
the one hung the poor bastard out to fry. She's bellyaching that I took money under false pretenses. Me! That's when I drop the bomb, let her know I know she's living her whole goddamn life under false pretenses. I tell her if she don't shut her yap I might just call in the cops and a camera crew.”

“What did she say?”

“Ah, the usual female rants, raves, and threats, but eventually we cleared the air, worked out an amiable compromise.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I was gonna sorta keep working for her, on a regular retainer. Even had a meeting with Rothman. Had it all worked out.”

“When did you see her last?”

He shrugged, eyes darting. “Doesn't matter.”

“Somebody killed her,” I said.

“Think it was me? Think I'm crazy? You don't butcher the cash cow.” He leaned close, his voice a raspy whisper. “What you do is you keep on milking it. Kapeesh?”

I stared back, at a loss for words.

“Look,” he said, “the way I see it, she was a legacy. A gift left to me from my old man. Like all families, we had our ups and downs, but we happened to be on a downer when he had his stroke. Left me in a awkward position. He sure as hell didn't leave me much of anything else. This is no story. There's no witnesses. I'll deny it. What I told you here is deep background, just to clarify the situation, so you don't get the wrong idea and write something that makes me look like the villain here. The real story is who killed her, and I had nothing to do with that. I'm an innocent bystander.”

“An innocent bystander?” I said. “You were an officer of the court, willing to let an innocent man die so you could keep taking money from his alleged victim.”

“Naw, naw. I never woulda let that happen. If it came right down to the wire, I'da done something.” His eyes were furtive.

“Too bad,” I said. “You blew your chance to do the right thing, to be a hero, a crusader like your dad.”

“The old man ain't here,” he mumbled. “You don't know what he was like. Even if he was alive, he'da never believed I did anything right.” He stared, eyes moist.

“Did Kaithlin ever tell you why she wanted to save R. J.?”

Kagan averted his eyes to pour himself another drink. “Who knows what goes on in a woman's head?”

“But you must have picked up a sense of why. Was she still in love with him?”

“She didn't want a new trial, didn't want 'im to walk or ever draw a free breath. All she wanted was to keep his ass outa the hot seat, keep him alive and in a cage. If that's love”—he shrugged and lifted his glass—“ain't it grand?”

I'd missed something, I thought, as I drove back to the office. Something obvious that nagged, just off center in the shadowy reaches of my mind.

I called Stockton, R. J.'s lawyer, at home. He wasn't there yet so I called the Elbow Room, the downtown bar where lawyers from his building congregate. The bartender said he'd just left, so in five minutes I called his car phone.

He recalled the tabloid show well, he said, words slightly slurred. He had appeared briefly on camera himself, but refused to allow a death-house interview with his client. R. J. was the problem. Defendants who confess, find religion, and heartily repent their crimes are those whose sentences are most likely to be commuted. But, ever the bad boy, R. J. refused to repent. He kept insisting he didn't do it.

I could stop by his office and watch the tape anytime during working hours, he offered.

“The TV people love this case,” he said dreamily. “It has it all; greed, sex, and violence among the beautiful people.” He was more than a little annoyed that, after all he had done for the man, R. J. was behaving churlishly, refusing to cooperate with the big network shows now eager for interviews.

I told him I'd come to see the tape in the morning, then checked my messages as I navigated through traffic on the Dolphin Expressway. The Department of Corrections spokeswoman had left an answer to my query. Bingo, I thought, and beeped Rothman. I was almost back at the
News
when he called.

“Where you been?” he said. “I tried to get ahold of you.”

“Working on the story,” I said. “I was hoping to talk to you before it goes to press.”

“Where are you at?”

“The
News
,” I said. “Just pulling in.”

“Okay, I'm close by, checking something for a client. How's about we meet over by the Casablanca on the MacArthur Causeway? Ten minutes.”

“The fish market? They open this late?”

“No.” He sounded disgusted. “That's the idea. It's private.”

The world's freshest fish is sold at the Casablanca outdoor fish market on Watson Island, along the causeway that links Miami and Miami Beach. The small island is also home port for commercial fishing boats, a shark fishing fleet, a sightseeing helicopter service, and Chalk's seaplanes, with regular routes to the Bahamas and Key West.

“Okay,” I said, “I'll see you there. What are you driving?”

“A rental. Dark-colored Blazer.”

“I'll be in—”

“A white T-Bird. I know,” he said, and hung up.

 

Magenta lighting illuminates the swooping new design of the recently elevated west bridge. A $1.4 million necklace of high-intensity bulbs stretches for 2,500 feet. Its eerie purple glow reflects off the water and the sheer concrete bridge supports, disturbing the dreams and nightmares of the homeless and hopelessly deranged who dwell there. Their nights now a purple haze, they have become edgier, more prone to psychotic episodes and violent outbursts.

I hit the brakes near the fish market as a stick-thin figure in tattered clothes stumbled across my path. How many like him, I wondered, could be fed and sheltered with the $20,000 a year spent on electricity for the purple lights?

The wind had picked up out of the east, the temperature was in the 60s, and the blue lights of the port span, the purple of the bridge, the cruise ships, Bayside, and the city skyline were as breathtaking as a bejeweled kingdom in some ancient fable. The huge moon, in all its splendor, paled by comparison.

I parked at the windswept fish market, a narrow one-story building, dark and boarded up for the night. No one else seemed to be there as I marveled at the view, inhaling the scents of water, fish, and the city night. Then the Blazer rolled up out of the dark.

I knew that Rothman, like most private eyes, was an ex-cop. But his strong telephone presence had led me to expect a bigger, more imposing man. He wore a short-sleeved guayabera. Beefy and middle-aged, his hairline was receding, and his eyes were hostile and alert.

“Beautiful, isn't it?” I said.

He looked startled, then eyed the view suspiciously, his glance hard and sweeping.

“Yeah,” he said. “It was right over here, 'bout this time last year, they found that hooker floating facedown. Name was Norma. They think she bought it over there at Bayside and rode the tide over here.”

“That's right.” I recalled the case. Was that a veiled threat, I wondered, or was this the man's version of small talk? “Did they ever solve that one?” I asked.

“Not that I heard. You know how some cases tend to fall through the cracks.”

He must wish the Jordan case would do that, I thought.

“So you're still sniffing around, huh?”

“Right,” I said, remembering how R. J. had reacted to the man's name. “The story's finally coming together. I just found out about the business you did with R. J.”

Rothman shook his head slowly, eyes incredulous in the shifting light off the water. “You must be one hell of a poker player. You should come work for me if you ever need a job.”

“I never got into card games,” I said mildly. “Saw R. J. this afternoon, over at Williams Island.”

“He mention my name?” he said skeptically.

“It came up in conversation.”

He shook his head, smiling.

“And, of course,” I added, “there is also the fact that you were placed on R. J.'s visitor's list and made a trip up to see him, two days before Kaithlin Jordan was murdered.”

Rothman's smile faded. “Not unusual for private investigators to visit inmates. It's not like they can visit us.”

“But you were never part of his defense team. You had to fake it for permission to see him.”

“Look,” he said. “I just do my job. Sometimes you stumble onto a piece of information that's valuable to various parties in a situation. That's what keeps this business interesting.”

“So.” My voice sounded thin in the rising wind. “Kagan hired you to find out who she was. How did you do that, by the way?”

“You expect me to share trade secrets?” He sniffed the air and shifted his weight, eyes on the move. “Let's just say nothing's impossible when you got a direct link.”

“Was it the money deliveries or her phone calls?” I asked.

“I've said all I'm gonna say about that.”

“I was just curious,” I said. “You're good. Once you made Shannon Broussard, the leap to Kaithlin Jordan wasn't all that tough. You were out at the cemetery too, right?”

He smirked but didn't answer.

“When you did put it all together, you not only collected from Kagan, you sold the information to R. J. You told him where she was, right?”

“In good conscience, I couldn't let the guy die.”

“You could have told the police or his defense team.”

“Yeah, but why not accomplish the same thing and make a buck? Kagan's one stingy bastard, and I'm not in business for my health. You ever freelance? You ever write stories for somebody besides the
News
?”

“Sure,” I said.

“I'm betting you don't do it for nothing, am I right? Same premise. We all gotta make a living in this world. Never give away what you can sell. And the end result was justice. The guy was exonerated.”

“But not until later, after her body was found and identified. Why the delay?”

He shrugged. “Don't know, ask him. Day after I went up there, Jordan's mother paid my bill and I provided the info on where her late daughter-in-law was staying.”

“So Eunice also knew Kaithlin was alive?”

He nodded, then sighed. “I did nothing illegal.”

“When I freelance nobody dies.”

“You're saying Jordan might be responsible?”

“Right.”

“The man was behind bars.”

“What better place to hire a killer?” I said.

“I hafta admit the thought might have occurred to me. But if he's guilty, he's got the best damn alibi I ever heard—at the time of the crime, he's on death row for her murder. But if it's him, the M.O. makes no
sense. Her body coulda washed out to sea easy. She coulda wound up shark food or been lost in the Gulf Stream. He hadda make sure she was found and identified.”

“But why didn't R. J. blow the whistle right away once he knew she was alive? Her body wasn't identified for another two weeks.”

“Maybe the guy gets off on near-death experiences.” Rothman gazed pensively out across the water.

I wondered what he was really thinking. “Maybe,” I said, “there was a misunderstanding. Maybe he or Eunice hired a hit man who didn't get the concept.”

“Or maybe she just didn't want junior back on her hands. From what I hear, he was always a pain in the ass.”

“So Eunice hired somebody to send Kaithlin out to sea? Hard to believe that of a mother,” I said, “even that one.”

“You'd be surprised what some mothers will do to their kids,” he said.

“That was you, wasn't it?” I said. “At the cemetery?”

He cocked his head to stare at me for a long moment.

“What were you doing out there?” he countered.

“Trying to piece things together, figure out who was who and what was going on.”

“See, I told you,” he said. “We think alike. You oughta come work for me.”

“You met Kaithlin, right?”

He nodded.

“Why did she want to save R. J.? What brought her back?”

He gave me a toothy smile, as though happily sur
prised that there was something I didn't know. “Maybe he had something she needed, or thought she did,” he said wryly.

“Like what?”

He shook his head. “Why don't I see you to your car? You don't want to hang around here alone in the dark.”

“What was Kaithlin like when you met?” I asked, as we walked to the T-Bird. “Was she scared?”

He paused as I unlocked my car. “I'm the one shoulda been scared,” he said. “She was one cold, scary bitch.”

I sat in the car, scribbling in my notebook. I had more questions than before. What exactly did he mean by that last remark? Troubled, trembling suddenly in the chill, I stepped out to ask, but his Blazer was gone. He had pulled away, lights out, and vanished in the darkness.

 

The newsroom had emptied after deadline for the final. The office was quiet. I had a message from Myrna Lewis, but it didn't say urgent and it was too late to call her now. I'd try her in the morning. I typed up my notes from Kagan and Rothman, then tried to draw a timeline of Kaithlin's final days in Miami, but too many gaps existed and the list of suspects was growing.

R. J., Eunice, Kagan, and Rothman. Who else knew Kaithlin was alive and in Miami?

I scooped up my ringing phone, with a wave to Rooney as he passed by, whistling on his rounds.

“Britt, thank God you're there!”

“Mr. Broussard? What's wrong?”

“You haven't heard? It's terrible. What more can
they do to me?” He sounded barely able to speak, choked by rage, pain, or grief. “How much more can I take?”

“What is it? What's happened?”

“I was taking Shannon home tomorrow. Arrangements are made, a service at our church, where we were married, where our daughters were christened. But the funeral home handling things called me a couple of hours ago. The medical examiner's office refused to release the body to them.”

“Don't worry,” I said, relieved. “It must be a mistake, some clerical error—”

“No. You don't understand. It's Jordan. He's claiming her body. They said that legally he's her next of kin.”

“R. J.? But from what I understood, he refused to—”

“He's changed his mind. She's my wife, Britt. Our children—”

“That bastard. Why would he—?”

“Is there any way to reach him? Can you help me appeal to his better side?”

If R. J. had one, I'd never seen it.

“I called my Seattle attorneys,” Broussard said. “They recommended some lawyers here. I wanted to run their names past you. We need to seek an emergency injunction, go before a judge. I just want to take her home on schedule tomorrow and see my girls, tell them about their mom.” His voice broke. “Why is he doing this?”

“I'm not sure,” I said. “Maybe it's a mistake. Let me make a few calls and get back to you.”

Pearl, the overnight attendant on duty at the M.E. of
fice, answered. A determinedly cheerful and savvy black woman, she backs up ten years' experience at the office with a keen intelligence and innate common sense. Few mistakes occur on her watch.

“Oh, that one,” she said indignantly. “Nobody wanted that woman for weeks. We were stuck with the body, thought the county was gonna have to bury it—now everybody wants it. They're fighting over her.”

“Everybody?” I asked.

“Yep. Two husbands and a friend. She mighta had a short life, but she musta lived it to the hilt. Looks like she never got divorced. Now the lawyers are getting into the act.”

“Friend? What friend?”

“Lemme see. Got the file right here.” I waited while she shuffled papers. “One Myrna Lewis,” she said.

“Claims the funeral for this one was prearranged, that the deceased's late mother left specific instructions years ago.”

“I'd forgotten about that, but it's true,” I said. “But I thought other arrangements had been made, to ship the body to Seattle.”

“That's right. She was going outa here to Lithgow's this evening, to be prepped for shipping. Then this afternoon, the Lewis woman shows up with a copy of the mother's will. Wants the deceased picked up by Van Orsdale. An hour later, a hearse from Riverside shows up at the loading dock with a release signed by one Robert J. Jordan, husband. This gal's got too many dates for the prom.”

“Did they take her?”

“No. The chief said to wait, hold onto the body, and
straighten things out in the morning. All three parties say they're hiring lawyers. At one point I had the Lewis woman on hold, husband number two crying on one line, and husband number one cussing me out on the other. But I can tell you one thing right now: Florida State Statute eight-seventy-two, the one that deals with the custody of dead bodies, puts the legal spouse at the head of the list. Then comes a parent. If none of the above claims a deceased, the body goes to anybody willing to pay for the burial.”