Paul Levine - Solomon versus Lord

Steve drove home wishing she had asked him to come in for a while. He could have carried Bobby upstairs and put him on the sofa-the kid could sleep in a bowling alley. Steve wanted to talk to Victoria. Not about the two of them. He'd come to accept the fact that she was gone. No, he wanted to talk about what was gnawing at him like rats in the basement. At first, he had vowed never to tell her that he had bribed Janice to flip her testimony in the guardianship case. Now, guilt-stricken, he felt a need to confess. But how could he?

She wouldn't understand. He barely did himself. Why had he paid off his sister? Did he have so little confidence in the system? Or in Victoria? Or in himself? They were winning Bobby's case without cheating. He should have just let it play out. He'd cut corners before, but never anything like this.

An hour ago, Steve had listened as his father spoke so proudly.

“My son's got integrity.”

What would his father say if he knew about the bribe? Steve would never be able to face him if the truth came out.

“He's a fine role model for my grandson.”

Right, I teach him baseball and bribery, Steve thought. And what about Bobby's testimony? So strange, seeing his life through his nephew's eyes. Models and mojitos. God, was he really that shallow and immature?

Dark thoughts were swirling in his mind. By the time he swung the car past the Cocowalk shops for the drive down Grand Avenue, the doubts had morphed into borderline paranoia.

What if Janice is setting me up?

She could have been wearing a wire when he gave her the money, their cars parked side by side on the Rickenbacker Causeway. Maybe Pincher and Zinkavich had him under surveillance. Had there been a white van with darkened windows pulled under the trees near the first bridge? He couldn't remember.

When Steve turned onto Kumquat Avenue just before midnight, with a mockingbird hooting in a neighbor's tree, he was certain that disaster would strike tomorrow. A phalanx of police officers would storm the courtroom. He would be led away in handcuffs as Zinkavich gobbled Krispy Kremes and Pincher cackled with laughter.

What was it Pincher had said to him in Judge Gridley's chambers the day of the bird trial? “I'll have the Florida Bar punch your ticket.”

Yes, of course, they'd set him up. Pincher and Zinkavich must have arranged to snatch Bobby off the street. The whole stinking thing was a setup to entrap him.

He would lose his license.

He'd go to jail.

But worst of all, he'd lose Bobby.

BARKSDALE WIDOW GOES FREE

Suicide, Not Murder, Pincher Declares By Joan Fleischman

Herald Staff Writer

In a stunning courtroom reversal, murder charges were dismissed yesterday against Katrina Barksdale, the widow accused of strangling her husband, construction magnate Charles Barksdale. Following a closed-door hearing, State Attorney Raymond Pincher announced in open court that he was dismissing all charges. “The due diligence of my office has uncovered irrefutable proof that Charles Barksdale's death resulted from suicide, not homicide,” Pincher said. Posing for photos on the courthouse steps, Mrs. Barksdale, 33, said she might write a book about her ordeal, but not until she celebrated with a trip to the Bahamas. “That's the way my husband would have wanted it,” said the widow. “He was a good-time Charlie, not a gloomy Gus.” At a posttrial press conference, Pincher shrugged off suggestions that his office acted too hastily in securing a murder indictment against Mrs. Barksdale. “Had defense counsel done their job, the case never would have gotten this far,” Pincher said. “Because of our tireless efforts, justice has been served.” Defense lawyers Stephen Solomon and Victoria Lord rushed from the courtroom and could not be reached for comment.

His milky gray complexion tinged with pink spots like a poisoned oyster, Jack Zinkavich said: “We have a serious crisis, Judge.”

“Is there any other kind?” Judge Althea Rolle said.

Steve sat quietly at the Petitioner's table, letting the little drama play out. Next to him, Victoria watched, notepad in hand.

“What now?” the judge said. She wore baby blue robes, the collar of a white silk blouse visible at the neck. It was just after nine A.M. With the Barksdale case over, they were back on a normal schedule.

“Rufus Thigpen, our first witness, is missing,” Zinkavich said.

“Then call your second witness.”

“But, Judge, that interrupts my order of proof.”

“Don't be so anal, Z.”

“I am concerned there may be foul play afoot.”

Foul play afoot? Steve thought.

Like Sherlock-fucking-Holmes.

“How so?” the judge asked.

Zinkavich shot a look at Steve, who instantly put on his angelic Bar Mitzvah boy face. Victoria cast a sideways glance at him, too.

Does she suspect something? Or is it just my guilty conscience?

Victoria seemed tired, he thought, her eyes bloodshot, her hair not quite up to its usual standards. Sleepless night? Not sharing her bed, he didn't know. The fatigue-if that's what it was-softened her edges, made her more vulnerable, and, if possible, even more desirable. She was wearing a brown double-breasted pinstripe jacket with a wide collar and a matching below-the-knee skirt. To Steve, it had an expensive, handmade by nuns in the Swiss Alps look.

Zinkavich said: “I call upon the Petitioner to disclose if he knows the whereabouts of Mr. Rufus Thigpen.”

Steve kept quiet. He had a lawyer to take the heat.

“Judging from Mr. Thigpen's rap sheet,” Victoria said, “he's probably in jail somewhere.”

Yes! Exactly what he would have said, Steve thought, if he were counsel instead of a litigant. He was proud of Victoria. She'd come so far so quickly.

“Just call a witness, Z, so we can move this along,” the judge said.

Zinkavich frowned. “In that event, Your Honor, the state calls Janice Solomon.”

Hearing his sister's name sent creepy crawlies up Steve's spine. Thigpen's disappearance was part of the bargain, part of what he'd paid for. But Janice could still double-cross him on the witness stand.

His sister frumped her way into the courtroom, avoiding Steve's gaze. She wore a shapeless print dress that stopped just above her ankles and white socks with sandals. She carried a soft leather purse big enough to hold twenty kilos of hash. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and was held in place by a psychedelic orange scrunchy. Behind her granny glasses, her dark eyes seemed distant, as if focused on a place her body had left but her mind had lingered. The overall impression, Steve thought, was of a woman who ate too many Cheetos and drank too many Cokes, between bouts of inhaling, injecting, and smoking an array of exotic substances.

After Janice was sworn in, Zinkavich took her through the preliminaries. She was Steve Solomon's sister, two years older. Grew up on Miami Beach, expelled from high school for repeated drug use, attended a combination school-and-dairy-farm for troubled kids in rural Pennsylvania. Tossed out for growing marijuana in an alfalfa field and running a semipro brothel in the barn. Arrested a dozen times for drugs, larceny, and disorderly conduct, plus once for criminal mischief when she squatted on the roof of a police cruiser and peed on the windshield. She didn't really know who fathered Bobby. It could have been this crackhead in Ocala who used to beat the shit out of her. Or this trucker who gave her a lift to Pensacola in return for spreading her legs at a rest stop just off the Loxley exit of the I-10.

Hanging out all the dirty laundry on direct examination. It was the only way to keep your opponent from smearing your witness on cross, Steve knew. Though he was a pompous prick with a vicious mean streak, Zinkavich was not stupid, and so far, he was doing everything right.