Solomon Vs. Lord Part 24

"Yet," Steve said.

"Look at this." She pulled a greeting card out of the box and handed it to him. On the cover was a Winslow Homer print of a Caribbean beach. "It's dated the day before Charlie died."

He opened the card and read the handwritten note: Dearest Katrina, No one could have been so good as you have been, from the very first day till now.

Your Charlie "I like the 'Dearest,'" Victoria said. "Kind of quaint and Victorian."

"Okay, he still loved her. How do we prove she loved him?"

"When I saw them, Kat always seemed very affectionate toward Charlie. Very caring."

"What else? Give me examples."

"She was always buying him gifts. Watches, cuff links, clothing."

"Keep going. I like it."

Victoria thought it over a moment. "Maybe three months ago, we went to a surprise birthday party Kat threw for Charlie."

"We," he thought. Meaning Bigby and her. Another reminder she was about to marry the stiff, about to make third-person plural a permanent part of her life.

"The cake was shaped like one of his office towers," she continued.

"Cute. Unless the candles were sticks of dynamite."

"At sunset, we all went out on their boat. Music's playing, we're having drinks, eating stone crabs."

"Even Bigby the Vegan?"

"Bruce only ate the salad. That guy we met, Manko, anch.o.r.ed the boat in Hurricane Harbor off Key Biscayne. And just before the sun went down, the clouds were streaked with crimson, the bay's smooth as silk. I mean, how romantic can you get?"

Steve knew she was talking about Katrina and Charles, but his mind worked up the unfortunate image of Bigby and Victoria on deck. Haloed by the setting sun, serenaded by the band, Bigby kissing her. A slug slithering across a rose.

"Then this little plane flies over with one of those advertising banners behind it, like at the beach."

"'Use Coppertone,'" Steve said.

"This one said, 'Katrina Loves Charles.' She had it made just for the party. It was really touching. Some people even had tears in their eyes."

"We'll make the jury cry, too. And the media will eat it up."

"So you like it?"

"You nailed it. Our theme. 'Katrina loves Charles.'"

"Isn't that a little simplistic?"

"Themes have to be simplistic. Otherwise, the morons don't get it."

"Jurors aren't morons."

"I'm talking about the judges."

Still sitting on the floor, she pulled out her index cards and started scribbling notes. Steve gazed down at her. Without makeup, there was a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Every new discovery seemed to fascinate him.

"What?" she asked, catching him staring.

His addled brain immediately told him he had three choices. He could say, "Just thinking about the rules of evidence." He could say, "You're incredibly beautiful and wonderfully talented, so don't be a fool and marry Bigby." But he said: "Victoria, I have a really big favor to ask."

Twenty.

A PURPOSE FOR RUNNING.

The setting had to be right. The mood had to be right. The moment had to be right. After all, he was going to ask Victoria to marry him.

Rather than do it in the office, with its eye-stinging smell of ammonia and the clamor of the steel band, Steve suggested they take a ride. Now, top down on the old Caddy, crossing the causeway, he considered just what to say. On the radio, Gloria Estefan was promising that the rhythm was gonna get them. He took it as a good sign that, a moment later, they pa.s.sed the white and pink mansions of Star Island, where Gloria lived.

"How about a pineapple smoothie?" Steve said.

"What's the big favor you want?" Sounding suspicious.

"I'll tell you all about it when we get there."

"Where?"

"You'll see."

"Why so mysterious? Usually, you just plow ahead, go after whatever you want."

"It's about Bobby."

"So tell me."

"Soon."

He pulled the car into the parking lot on Watson Island, and Victoria said: "Parrot Jungle? Why here?"

He parked in the shade beneath a sign that pointed different directions to the Parrot Bowl, Serpentarium, Flamingo Lake, and Everglades Habitat. "There's something I want you to see."

They got out of the car and headed into the park, wending their way through a throng of j.a.panese tourists. Steve bought two pineapple smoothies at a refreshment stand and led her past a lagoon dappled with white water lilies. He pointed out the herons with S-shaped necks and showed her the pink flamingos and the ruby-eyed roseate spoonbills that are sometimes mistaken for them. They pa.s.sed snowy white egrets and long-legged storks. Walking through the make-believe rain forest, they were enveloped by a cacophony of birds, a philharmonic orchestra of caws and coos.

"Okay, what about Bobby?" she asked.

"Bear with me." He was still working up his courage, formulating his plan.

Staying in the shade of the banyan trees, they took a path bordered by blooming birds of paradise, pa.s.sed an alligator pond and an outdoor theater where a parrot show was under way, a bird grabbing dollar bills from a performer's pocket to polite applause.

"Here we are." Steve nodded toward a sausage tree. Its cylindrical fruit hung down like Hebrew National salamis in a deli.

Perched on a branch, a citron-crested c.o.c.katoo eyed them warily.

"Is that who I think it is?" Victoria asked.

"h.e.l.lo, hot stuff," Mr. Ruffles said.

"h.e.l.lo, birdbrain." She turned to Steve. "You still gloating over the Pedrosa trial?"

"Absolutely not. You're missing the point."

"Crime pays?"

"Justice was served. My client's not taking up a jail cell. Mr. Ruffles has a good home. And everybody's happy."

"Everybody's happy," Mr. Ruffles said.

"You can rationalize anything."

"The point I'm making, sometimes the ends do justify the means."

"Okay, I get it. This favor you want is illegal, but in your tortuous reasoning, somehow just."

"Do you know how much I love Bobby?"

She stirred her smoothie with the straw. "It's your one redeeming quality."

"I'd do anything for him, the law be d.a.m.ned."

"So where do I fit in?"

"There's this battle-axe named Doris Kranchick, a doctor who says I'm not fit to care for him. She's Zinkavich's star witness."

"I'll testify for you if that's what you want."

"It is, sort of."

"What's the problem, then?"

"I told Kranchick I'm engaged, and she wants to meet my fiancee."

"Why would you say something like that?"

"I was winging it."

"Winging it," Mr. Ruffles said.

"So who's the lucky . . ." Victoria's face paled. "No. You didn't. . . ."

"Just pretend for a couple hours. Drinks, dinner, and dessert, that's it."

"That's unethical. . . ."

Of course that's her first reaction.

"Blatantly illegal . . ."

Second reaction, too.

"A fraud on the court . . ."

Okay, already.

"Maybe grounds for disbarment."

"So you'll do it?" he asked.

"No!" She stomped away from him, heading down a shaded path.

He took off after her. "Victoria, you're my only hope."

"Why me?"

"Catherine Zeta-Jones is taken."

"So am I." She waved her engagement ring in his face. "Anyway, n.o.body would believe we're engaged."

"I'm not sure, but I think you just insulted me."

"I'm a terrible liar."

"Don't you ever fake o.r.g.a.s.ms?"

"Maybe the women in your life do."

"They fake it when they're alone. Please, Victoria. I really need you on this."

She wrinkled her forehead the same way she did in court when puzzling through a problem. "Even if I could convince this doctor that I'm your fiancee, I wouldn't do it."

Above them, birds circled the trees and cried to one another in a babel of cheeps and peeps, t.i.tters and trills.

"Do you know the main difference between us?" he asked.

"I'm going to end up a judge, and you're going to end up in jail."