Paul Levine: Mortal Sin

“A turd!”

“The Journal said he was executive director of the Everglades Society. A pretty nice obituary.”

“A shithead.”

“I assume he wasn’t fond of real estate developers the likes of Nicholas Florio,” I said.

She placed a hand on my stomach. “All Nicky did was send some surveyors onto the Micanopy Reservation. He’s been doing business with the Indians for years.”

“The reservation’s in the Big Cypress Swamp, so Tupton was probably concerned that-

“Who cares! I mean, the Indians have something like seventy thousand acres out there. It’s all mucky. Yuk! Who would want it?”

“Nicky, I guess. He’s probably going to improve the environment by draining the groundwater, chasing out the birds and alligators, and building ticky-tacky condos on rotten pilings.”

“Jake, that’s not fair. He’s got a planned community on the drawing board. Something that would enhance the environment. That’s what the brochures say.”

“Maybe the buildings would even last until the first hurricane.”

“Don’t let your feelings about Nicky interfere with your good judgment, Jake.” She let her fingers do the walking, or maybe it was a slow dance under the sheet, a soft stroking of me farther south. “Anyway, Tupton files a suit against Nicky’s company for not having all the right permits. But Nicky wasn’t dredging or anything, just surveying, for crying out loud! I gotta tell you, Jake, these bird-watchers and gator-loving eco-nuts are real wackos. They’ve protested against the oil companies for making seismic tests and the airboat tours for disturbing the tadpoles. And Tupton, talk about holier than thou, he comes to our house wearing jeans and a chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up, like some urban fucking cowboy. I’ll bet the dipshit makes thirty-five K a year, tops.”

“Made,” I said. “He’s not cashing any more checks. And I remember when you shook your booty for fifteen bucks a game at the Orange Bowl.”

She withdrew her hand and studied me. “You disapprove of me, don’t you, Jake? You never say it, but I disappoint you.”

I listened to fat raindrops plopping against the window. The wind whistled through gaps in the barrel-tile roof. “Nothing and nobody ever turns out the way you think.”

She turned away from me, either to express her displeasure or to show off her profile. “And what did you think, Jake, that I’d be doing brain surgery now? I just count my blessings that I’m not dancing tabletops in one of those dives near the airport.”

In the distance, a police siren sang against the wind. “Maybe I’m just jealous that you’re with Nicky, and this is the way I show it.”

“You? Jealous?” She laughed a throaty laugh, her breasts bouncing. “Since when? You never cared. You never once said you loved me, not even when it was just the two of us. We were close, Jake, or don’t you remember?”

“I remember everything,” I said. “The Germans wore gray. You wore blue, and I missed the boat.”

“The boat?”

“The one to Grand Cayman-others too, I imagine. I never could keep up with you.”

She turned back to me and brought an elbow down into my stomach. Not hard, but not soft either. I let out a whoosh. “Jeez, what’s that for?”

“You jerk! You big, dumb jock jerk! You never asked me to stay. You think I wouldn’t have stayed? You never cared!”

“Who says I didn’t care?”

“Me! I say it. You didn’t care.”

“I cared,” I said softly.

“Then you’re a double dumb jerk for never saying so.”

Gina sat on the edge of the bed, craning her long neck and blowing cigarette smoke into the air. She’d been quitting smoking ever since we met, probably longer. Self-discipline was not her strong suit. It took her another half hour to tell me the rest of the story.

She had put on what she called her sweet face and served Peter Tupton a pitcher of mimosas to loosen him up. Nicky lent him a swimsuit, and before you knew it, there he was frolicking in the pool with a couple of Junior Leaguers from Old Cutler Road.

“Is there a Mrs. Tupton?” I asked. Without a wife and kids, the value of the wrongful-death case would plummet.

“There is, but he didn’t bring her,” Gina told me.

“Why not? Were they separated?” An impending marital split could limit the damages, too.

“Tupton said something about Sunday being her day to spend at Mercy hospital. She’s a volunteer with child cancer patients.”

Oh shit. When the surviving spouse is an angel, tack another digit onto the verdict form.

“Any little Tuptettes?”

“No. They’d been married a couple of years. No kids yet.”

Be thankful for small blessings.

“How’d he get into the wine cellar?”

She exhaled a puff into the draft of the ceiling fan. “Beats me. When he first arrived, Nicky gave him a tour of the house, including the cellar, which isn’t a cellar at all or it’d be under five feet of water. It’s a custom-built room off the kitchen. Lots of insulation, custom wood shelving, a couple thousand bottles. He must have come back into the house from the pool. Maybe the jerkoff wanted to steal a Chateau Petrus 1961. Or maybe he was looking for a place to pee.”

I was trying to figure it out, but it made no sense. There was plenty to drink outside, where it was also warm, and tummy-tucked women in bikinis lounged poolside. “Why would he wander into a freezing room soaking wet, settle down, and drink two bottles of champagne? Did he lock himself in?”

“Impossible,” she answered, tossing me the hand again. “The bolt slides open from the inside. Apparently, he didn’t want to leave.”

Or couldn’t, I thought.

The rain had stopped, and the wind had died. Outside the window, the late-afternoon sun peeked from behind the clouds, slanting shadows of a palm frond across the room. In the chinaberry tree, a mockingbird with white wing patches was yawking and cackling. Mimus polyglottos, Doc Charlie Riggs called him, using the bird’s Latin name. Mimic of many tongues. My mocker is a bachelor. They’re the ones who sing the songs. Maybe that’s what I was doing, too.

“Who was the last person to see Tupton alive?” I asked.

Gina looked around my bedroom for an ashtray. She seemed to consider the question before answering. “Nicky, I think.” She appeared lost in thought. There being neither an ashtray nor Iittala glassware on the premises, Gina dropped the cigarette butt into the mouth of an empty beer bottle. Her eyes brightened. “Sure, they were both sitting in the kiddie pool drinking the mimosas, Nicky trying to charm him. I remember thinking that Nicky must be making progress, maybe getting through to him. Then they walked toward the house together, going into the kitchen. That’s the last I saw him. You’ll have to ask Nicky what happened next.”

I intended to do just that. As Nicky’s lawyer, I had to be ready for anything. I had to “zealously” defend my client. It’s in the Canons of Ethics, you can look it up. Just now, the lawyer inside me-the guy who sees evil and deception, artifice and mendacity-had a lot of questions to ask. And so would the state attorney, I was willing to bet.

The death of Peter Tupton was just a bit too bizarre. Words like “inquest” and “autopsy” and “grand jury” were popping into my head. And motive, too. What was it Doc Riggs always said? When there’s no explanation for the death, always ask, cui bono, who stands to gain.

Hey, Nicky Florio, this may be more trouble for you than just a wrongful-death suit that’s probably insurance-covered anyway. You could be up to your ass in alligators.

Gina was up and getting dressed. She wriggled into her ultra tight jeans and shot me a look. “Jake, why are you smiling?”