The morning after Castiel picked up the dinner check—and, I hoped, indigestion—I gave two research assignments to my trusty nephew. When I first appointed him my unpaid law clerk, he asked just what lawyers did.
“We play poker with ideas,” I said, a tad pompously.
“Cool. Granny said all you did was push paper and tell lies.”
I had already talked the case through with the boy while teaching him the finer points of a left-right combination on the heavy bag.
“Find the biker who called himself ‘Snake’ and find Krista Larkin’s missing car,” I told Kip.
“That’s it? A biker named ‘Snake’? You don’t want me to find Osama bin Laden’s body while I’m at it?”
“C’mon, Kip. You’re a whiz on the computer. A lot better than me.”
I dropped him off at the Tuttle-Biscayne computer lab. He promised to work hard, and I promised to teach him how to kick Carl Kountz in the nuts.
I was stuck in the office the rest of the day. Interviewing new clients, paying bills, handling the routine paperwork that made me wish I’d chosen another career. Shrimping, maybe, like my old man. Or coaching football at a little college in New England.
I kept replaying my conversation with Alex Castiel. I’d insulted him, and he’d lost his cool and threatened me. Maybe he’d slipped over to the dark side. Or maybe he was just playing it safe like every politico who avoids butting heads with the rich and powerful. And maybe he was right that I was pulling a Vallandigham.
Clement Vallandigham was a lawyer who—like me—would go to great lengths for his clients. Defending a murder trial in the 1870s, Vallandigham tried to prove that the victim accidentally shot himself when drawing his gun. So the lawyer pulled the gun from his pocket, and bang. Shot himself. Vallandigham died, but on a brighter note, the jury acquitted his client.
I wasn’t going to stop looking into Krista Larkin’s disappearance, but I would try to avoid shooting myself. Around midday, I called Amy, doubting she would talk to me. We hadn’t spoken since she scored a TKO against me on the beach with a flurry of girlie punches.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the whole truth when we first met,” I said, as soon as she answered.
“No, my fault,” Amy said. “I shouldn’t have berated you for the way you used to be.”
“I deserved it.” Competing to see who could bake the biggest humble pie. “The ‘grinning ape,’ you called me.”
“That was the guy in the picture. If you were still that guy, you wouldn’t be trying to help me.”
“So, a truce?”
“Truce.” She chuckled. It was not a sound I was accustomed to hearing from her.
I invited her to come over for dinner. A family dinner. This time, she said yes.
In late afternoon, I signed up a new client. A guy charged with siphoning gas from a police cruiser. No, I don’t know why he chose that car. Or why he used a cigarette lighter instead of a flashlight in the darkness. Or how he’ll look once he gets his prosthetic nose.
After a full day of upholding the Constitution in the ceaseless pursuit of justice, I headed home, listening to Billy Bob Thornton’s Boxmasters offer a deal to girlfriends everywhere: “I’ll give you a ring when you give me my balls back.”
When I pulled up to the house, Csonka was sitting in the shade of the chinaberry tree, licking the claw of a land crab. He didn’t ask for melted butter or mustard sauce. I smacked the front door open with my shoulder, just like always, and entered the house. I heard feminine voices coming from my kitchen. Okay, one was feminine—Amy Larkin. The other was a whiskey and tobacco contralto.
“Look what the cat drug in,” Granny greeted me.
Cat being on her mind, what with another mess of catfish frying in an iron skillet.
“Glad you could make it,” I said to Amy, who gave me a shy smile. Maybe she was embarrassed by the boxing match on the beach.
She sat at the kitchen counter. No makeup I could detect, with that frosting of freckles across her nose. She wore a turquoise tank top and jeans, her hair tied back with a simple band.
I told her about last night’s dinner with Castiel and his angry threats.
She wrinkled her forehead and thought about it. “If the State Attorney won’t help, what about the U.S. Attorney?”
“No jurisdiction without a federal crime.”
“The local police, then?”
“I can try. But the missing persons investigation was closed a long time ago.”
“What about taking what we have to the Grand Jury.”
“Great idea, but we’re just private citizens. Only the State Attorney can do that.”
“And he wants to protect Ziegler, not prosecute him.”
I didn’t debate the point.
“You won’t give up, will you?” Amy asked, real concern in her voice.
“Jake never gives up,” Granny volunteered, dropping balls of jalapeño-spiked cornmeal into a pot of oil. Deep-fried hush puppies. The required side dish to fried catfish, a meal she insisted on cooking at least three times a week. “Nobody scares him, neither.”
Not true. A lot of people scare me. I just swallow the fear, and I don’t back down. As a result, I break a lot of dishes in the china shop.
“I won’t give up,” I promised, “and we’ll find the truth.”
That brought a warm smile from Amy, a look I hadn’t often seen.
Granny shooed us out of the kitchen, so I took Amy to the backyard, where the sticky sweet aroma of mango trees hung in the air. Just as we settled onto the porch swing, the screen door opened and Kip joined us. Even though it was well past dark, he wore sunglasses, his hair spiked with gel. This week’s look.
“Kip, this is Amy,” I said.
He gave her a bashful look.
Amy smiled and said, “Your uncle is helping me.”
“I’m helping, too,” Kip said.
“How’s that coming along?” I asked.
“I tried to find the biker guy, Snake, but there’s like hundreds of guys with that nickname who’ve been in and out of prisons.”
“Thank you for trying,” Amy said.
“No problem.” He stared at the tops of his bare feet.
“What else, Kip?” I knew that look.
“I found some other stuff, but I don’t think it’s good. In fact, I think it’s really bad.”
“What’s that?” Amy asked, her body suddenly rigid.
“Your sister’s car. I found it at the bottom of a canal.”