James Grippando - Beyond Suspicion

“I didn’t do anything. It’s so obvious what they’re up to. They lay this cockeyed romance theory on you to get you mad enough to turn against me. They’re fishing, that’s all.”

“You really think she killed herself?”

“I don’t know. But whatever happened to her, we weren’t lovers.”

“Damn you! The woman slit her wrist in our bathtub- naked. ”

“Looks bad, I know.”

“Yeah, all over the news for over a week it’s been looking bad. There isn’t a person in Miami who doesn’t think you two were doing it.”

“Everyone but the person who mattered. You believed me.”

“I wanted to believe you. But sooner or later, even I have to face facts.”

“The fact is, it didn’t happen between me and Jessie. And there isn’t a bit of proof that it did.”

The anger drained from her voice, and she was suddenly stone-cold serious. “That’s the problem, Jack. Now there is proof.”

He could almost hear his own heart pounding. “What?”

“The investigators. They left it for me.”

“Left what?”

She pushed away from the table, crossed the kitchen, and stopped at the cassette player on the counter. “This,” she said as she ejected the tape.

“What’s that supposed to be?”

“Seems your friend Jessie-your client -taped one of your little episodes in her bedroom.”

“That’s not possible. There were no episodes.”

“Stop lying! It’s your voice. It’s her voice. And the two of you aren’t talking sports.”

He was speechless. “This is crazy. We were never together. And even if we had been, why would she record it?”

“Get real. She’s a swindler, and you’re a married man with an awful lot to lose. She wouldn’t be the first woman to slip a tape recorder under the bed.”

“I want to hear it.”

“Well, I don’t. I’ve heard enough.”

She grabbed her purse and dug for the car keys.

“Wait,” he said. “Give me a minute to listen to it.”

“No.” She started for the door.

“Cindy, please.”

“I said no.”

He stepped between her and the door. “You’re not driving anywhere. You just drank a whole bottle of wine.”

She glared, then started to tremble. A huge tear streamed down her check. Wiping it away only brought replacements, a flood. Jack went to her, but she backed away.

“Just stay away from me!”

“Cindy, I would never cheat on you.”

“What about Gina?”

He froze. Gina Terisi, years earlier. “That was before we were even engaged. You went to Italy on that photo assignment and told me we were through before you left.”

“You obviously took it very well.”

“No. I was a wreck. That’s how it happened with Gina in the first place.”

“Were you a wreck this time? Is that how it happened with Jessie?”

“No. It didn’t happen with Jessie.”

“It’s on tape!”

“I think I know what this is. Just let me hear it.”

“I’m not going to sit here while you play that thing.”

As she tried to pass, he backed against the door. “You’re not driving drunk.”

“Let me out!” She punched him in the chest, not a boxer’s punch but more like beating on a door in frustration. She practically fell against him, partly catharsis, partly the alcohol. He tried to take her in his arms, but she kept fighting for the doorknob.

“I’ll go,” he said. “Just give me the tape and promise you won’t drive anywhere.”

Their eyes locked-those beautiful, blue, moist eyes filled with doubt and disappointment. Quickly she went to the cassette player on the counter and threw the tape at him. He caught it.

“Knock yourself out, Jack. Now leave me alone.”

He didn’t budge, couldn’t move his feet. “Cindy, I love-”

“Don’t even say it. Just go!”

He hated to leave on that note, but he didn’t want to make things worse by trying to explain the tape before hearing it. He lowered his head, opened the door, and went without another word. He was halfway down the steps when the porch light switched off. It seemed that Cindy wanted it that way-Jack walking to his car in total darkness, alone.

•

Jack listened to the audiocassette in the car. Immediately, he knew what it was. The bigger question was, Why was she doing this to him?

Jack had one good friend who’d known the old Jessie. Not in the same way Jack had known her, but they used to hang out together back when Jack was dating Jessie. He’d first met Mike Campbell in Hawaii. Jack spent a summer slumming it in Maui before law school, one last blowout before immersing himself in the study of law. Mike had done him one better, having spent his entire senior year as a transfer student at the University of Hawaii before starting law school in Miami. He’d simply packed up his old Porsche at the landlocked University of Illinois, driven to Los Angeles, hopped on a ship, and finished out his undergraduate degree surrounded by palm trees and beautiful women. They were a couple of young immortals, crazy enough to night-dive in the black ocean beneath the fishing boats, living for the rush of adrenaline that came each time they’d spot holes in the nets that sharks had torn through. Mike was always a bit more fearless, which is why he now lived on the water, with a forty-three-foot Tiara open-fisherman docked in his backyard. He’d second-mortgaged his house and risked everything to wage a ten-year battle against the makers of a polybutylene piping that was supposed to replace copper plumbing in homes across the United States. Turned out that even the minimal levels of chlorine in normal drinking water disintegrated the stuff. Darn. It only ended up costing the big boys 1.25 billion dollars. At the time, it was the largest settlement ever in a case that didn’t involve personal injuries. Mike walked away with twenty-two million bucks, thank you very much.

The best part was, it was still impossible to hate the guy.

“You and Jessie on tape?” said Mike.

Jack had stopped by his house and caught him tinkering with the stereo system on his boat. They were sharing a couple of beers on deck, Mike leaning against the rail and Jack reclining in the hot seat, as they called it, a bolted-down fishing chair that made Jack want to strap himself in and reel in a monster sailfish. It was well past sunset, but the landscape lighting from the expensive homes on the other side of the canal shimmered on the waterway.

“Yeah. On tape.”

“Like, screaming and everything?”

“Mike, you’re not helping.”

“Every good lawyer needs all the facts.”

“The most important fact, buddy, is that this tape is ancient. It was made before I’d even met Cindy Paige.”

“So, was it a high-pitched scream, or more of a guttural-”

“Mike, come on.”

“Sorry.” He swiveled in his chair and grabbed another Bud from the cooler. “So, it’s an old tape. Did you even know she had it?”

“Not really.”

“What do you mean, not really?”

Jack tipped back his beer, took a long pull. “Jessie was a lot of fun, but she wasn’t nearly as promiscuous as people thought. We didn’t jump in bed together, by any means. But once we dated awhile, things progressed. And once we got there, things got kind of… interesting.”

“Interesting?”

“She wanted to make a videotape.”

“What?” he said, smiling.

“I wouldn’t go for it. But for about a two-month stretch, she brought it up almost every time we got naked. One night we were out dancing, got pretty drunk. About thirty seconds after we get back to her apartment, we’re in bed rolling all over each other. She reaches for the remote control on the nightstand, and I think she’s switching on the television to throw a little light on the subject. We’re about five seconds away from doing it when I realize that there’s a tape recorder on the nightstand. She figures that maybe we’ll ease into this with just the audio, then maybe I’ll warm up to the idea and do a video. I tell her to turn it off, but at this point I don’t care if we’re live on National Public Radio. That’s how it happened.”