“Makes sense, I guess.”

  “At a hundred bucks per false alarm, you’d be surprised how many people use their alarms that way.”

  “You’re right, I see it all the time. But one other thing makes me curious: How do you suppose Jessie knew that you guys don’t set your alarm while you’re away?”

  Cindy thought for a moment, then looked at her and said, “Maybe she thought we had a silent alarm. It could be as you said, she wanted someone to come save her before she died.”

  Glenda screwed up her face and said, “Nah, doesn’t work.”

  “Why not?”

  “Like you said, your husband wasn’t having an affair.”

  Cindy didn’t answer.

  Glenda finished her coffee. “Then again, maybe we should ask Mr. Swyteck about that. What do you think?”

  “I’m not going to tell you how to do your job.”

  “Fair enough. Nice talkin’ to you, Mrs. Swyteck.”

  “Nice talking to you, too.”

  She handed Cindy a business card. “I’m sure you’re right. I’m sure things are just fine and dandy between you and Mr. Swyteck. But just in case there’s something you want to talk out, woman to woman, my home number is on the back. Call me. Anytime.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You bet.”

  They shook hands, and Cindy raised the passenger-side window. She watched from behind tinted glass as Officer Wellens cut through the chaos in the front yard and returned to the scene of the crime.

  14

  •

  It was the most unpleasant evening Jack had ever spent on his patio.

  Assistant state attorney Benno Jancowitz was bathed in moonlight, seated on the opposite side of the round, cast-aluminum table. Between his chain-smoking and the burning citronella candle, it was olfactory overload. Yet at times Jack could still almost smell Jessie’s blood in the air, his mind playing tricks on the senses.

  “Just a few more questions, Mr. Swyteck.” Smoke poured from his nostrils as he spoke, his eyes glued to his notes, as if the answers to the world’s problems were somewhere in that dog-eared notepad. So far he’d spent almost the entire interview combing over the civil trial Jack had won for Jessie.

  Finally he looked up and said, “Know anybody who’d want Jessie Merrill dead?”

  “I might.”

  “Who?”

  “The viatical investors who I beat at trial.”

  “What makes you think they’d want to kill her?”

  “She told me in those exact words. She thought they were out to kill her.”

  “Pretty sore losers.”

  “They apparently thought she’d cheated them.”

  “Did she? Cheat them, I mean.”

  Jack paused, not wanting to dive headlong into the matter of a possible scam. “I can’t really answer that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we’re getting into an area protected by the attorney-client privilege.”

  “What privilege? She’s dead.”

  “The privilege survives her death. You know that.”

  “If there was foul play, I’m sure your late client would excuse your divulgence of privileged information.”

  “She might, but her heirs will probably sue me.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Right now, Jessie’s estate has at least a million and a half dollars in it. Hypothetically, let’s say I breach the attorney-client privilege and tell you she scammed the investors out of that money. Her estate just lost a million and a half bucks. Her heirs could have my ass in a sling.”

  “You want to talk off the record?”

  “I’ve said enough. If something happened to Jessie, I want to help punish the people who did it. But there are some things I can’t speak freely about. At least not until I’ve talked to her heirs.”

  The prosecutor smiled thinly, as if he enjoyed having to pry information loose. “Did Ms. Merrill call the police about this alleged threat on her life?”

  “No.”

  “Did she tell anyone else about it?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “So she was in mortal fear for her life, and the only person she told was her lawyer?”

  “Don’t taunt me, Benno. I’m trying to help, and I’ve told you as much as I can.”

  “If you’re implying there’s a possible homicide here, it would help for me to understand the motive.”

  “The investors reached a viatical settlement thinking Jessie would be dead in two years. It turns out they might have to wait around for Willard Scott and Smucker’s to wish her a happy hundredth birthday. In and of itself, that’s pretty strong motive.”

  He wrote something in his pad but showed no expression. “Answer me this, please. When’s the last time you saw Ms. Merrill?”

  “Last night.”

  “What time?”

  “Around midnight.”

  “Where’d you two meet up?”

  “She was waiting for me.”

  “Where?”

  “The parking lot.”

  “You go anywhere?”

  “No. We talked in my car.”

  He raised an eyebrow, and Jack immediately regretted that answer.

  “Interesting,” he said. “What did you two talk about?”

  “That’s when we had the conversation I just told you about. When she told me she thought the investors might kill her.”

  “Is that when she told you she’d scammed the investors?”

  “I didn’t say there was a scam. I told you twice already, I can’t talk about that.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “I’m not being coy. I may end up telling you everything. Just let me do my job as a lawyer and sort out the privilege issue with her heirs, whoever they might be.”

  “Take your time. Get your story straight.”

  “It’s not a matter of getting my story straight. It’s a thorny legal and ethical issue.”

  “Right. So, other than this sacred attorney-client relationship that you’ve chosen to carry into eternity, did you have any other kind of relationship with Ms. Merrill?”

  “We dated before I met my wife.”

  “Interesting.”

  It was about his fifth “interesting” remark. It was getting annoying.

  He glanced at his notes once more and said, “Just a few more questions. Some mop-up stuff. Ever hear her threaten to kill herself?”

  “No.”

  “She ever make any utterances of farewell or final good-byes-like, those bastards won’t have me to kick around anymore?”

  “No.”

  “Ever hear her say she can’t go on anymore, that life isn’t worth living?”

  “No.”

  “Did she have any kind of physical pain that she couldn’t deal with?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Were you fucking her?”

  “Huh?”

  He seemed pleased to have set up the question so nicely, having caught Jack off-guard. “You heard me.”

  “The answer is no.”

  “Other than those viatical investors you mentioned, can you think of anyone else who’d want her dead?”

  “From the looks of things, maybe she wanted herself dead.”

  He nodded, as if he’d already considered Jack’s theory. “Breaks and enters through the French door, grabs a bottle of vodka from the liquor cabinet, goes upstairs, slits her wrist. Which leaves one gaping question: Why would she kill herself in your house?”

  “Who knows? Maybe to make some kind of statement.”

  “Exactly what kind of statement do you think she was trying to make?”

  “I can only guess. I was her lawyer. Maybe she didn’t like the job I did.”

  “You’d just won her a million and a half dollars.”

  “That’s a complicated situation. I already told you, I need to sort out some privilege issues before I can talk freely.”

  “Ah, yes. The scam.”

  “I never said there was a scam.”

  The prosecutor’s nose was back in his notes. The silence lasted only a minute or two, but it seemed longer. “Lots of nice pictures in your house,” he said finally. “I like that black-and-white stuff.”

  Jack had no idea where he was headed. “Thanks. My wife took them.”

  “She’s good with the camera, is she?”

  “She’s a professional photographer.”

  “That what she does for a living?”

  “Partly. She’s gotten into design work lately. Graphic arts. She’s really good on the computer.”

  “Pretty busy lady, I would imagine.”

  “It’s a full-time commitment.”

  “And your job? Hell, that’s more than a full-time commitment.”

  “I’m busy, yeah. We’re both busy people.”

  Jancowitz glanced toward the house and then back. “How are things with you and your wife?”

  “Couldn’t be better.” He felt a bit like a liar, but his marriage was no one’s business. Jancowitz didn’t seem to believe him anyway.

  The prosecutor said, “I couldn’t help noticing earlier. You seemed pretty eager to get her in the car, off to the sidelines, as soon as the police started showing up here tonight.”

  “Cindy was attacked by a man five years ago. Turning her house into a crime scene is a pretty upsetting experience for her.”

  Again, Jancowitz offered that long, slow nod of skepticism.

  “What are you trying to say, Benno?”

  He gnawed his pencil. “Well, so far we got a gorgeous young woman, who used to be your lover, dead and naked in your bathtub. Blood is dry, body’s still not at room temperature, rigor mortis is fading, but the larger muscle groups haven’t completely relaxed. Medical examiner will pin it down better, but I’d guess she’s been dead no more than twenty-four hours.”

  “Which means?”

  “Which means that the little talk you had in your car last night certainly puts you in contention for the last person to see her alive. And we’ve already established that you were the first person to see her dead.”

  “You’re ignoring the empty bottle of vodka, the slit wrist. I told you about those viatical investors just to give you the whole picture. It could be just me, but this maybe, kind-of, sort-of, looks a little like suicide, don’t you think?”

  “One thing I’ve learned after twenty-two years. Looks can be deceiving.”

  He gave Jack the kind of penetrating look that prosecutors laid only on suspects. Jack didn’t blink. “Sorry. I don’t scare easy. Especially when I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  Jancowitz closed his notebook, rose slowly, shook Jack’s hand, and said, “I just love a challenge. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Anytime.”

  He crossed the patio and walked back inside the house. Through the bay window Jack saw him stop in the family room to admire a long wall that was lined with Cindy’s photographs. He turned, grinned, and gave the thumbs-up, as if he were admiring her work. He seemed pleased to see that Jack had been watching him.

  “Twit,” Jack said quietly as he returned the phony smile.

  Jack waited for him to disappear into the living room, and then he took out his cell phone and dialed.

  It was late, but somehow he sensed he was going to need a lawyer. A good one.

  15

  •

  Jack had a noon meeting with Rosa Tomayo at his office. It was literally a matter of walking across the hall. Her office suite was on the same floor, same building as his.

  Rosa’s firm was three times bigger than Jack’s, which meant that besides herself she had two much younger partners to help carry the workload. Not that she needed much help. Rosa was a bona fide multitasker, someone who felt hopelessly underutilized if she wasn’t doing at least eight different things at once, all with the finesse of a symphonic conductor. Jack had personally engaged her in spirited debates over lunch only to have her later recount conversations she’d simultaneously overheard at nearby tables. That kind of energy and brain power had landed her among Miami’s legal elite, though some would say her reputation was equally attributable to the quick wit and enduring good looks she employed with great flair and frequency on television talk shows. She definitely had style. But she wasn’t the typical showboat criminal defense lawyer who proclaimed her client’s innocence from the hilltops when, in truth, the government had merely failed to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If Jack ever decided to seek out a partner, Rosa would have been first on his list.

  When he needed representation, Rosa was the obvious choice.

  Calling her from the crime scene last night had turned out to be the right thing to do. Even though he’d walked hundreds of his own clients through similar situations, the perils of a lawyer representing himself were endless. Rosa helped him focus objectively. They’d agreed that, first thing in the morning, she would meet with the prosecutor assigned to the case.

  At 12:15 Jack began to pace. Rosa, where are you?

  The wait was only made worse by the barrage of calls from the media. Jack dodged them all. As a lawyer he didn’t normally shy away from reporters, but in this case Jack was avoiding any public statements at least until Rosa confirmed one way or the other if he was a suspect.

  At 12:45, finally, she was back.

  “I think it’s solved,” she said.

  Jack chuckled nervously from his seat at the head of the conference table.

  “I’m serious.” She was picking over the deli sandwich platter he’d ordered for lunch. She removed the sliced turkey from between two slices of rye bread, rolled it up, and nibbled as she spoke. “I honestly think it’s resolved.”

  “Already?”

  “What can I say? I’m damn good.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  She tossed the rolled turkey back on the platter and started on the ham. It was the way Rosa always ate-two bites of this, a bite of that, talking all the while.

  “The meeting was just me and Jancowitz. He claims you all but admitted that Jessie scammed the investors.”

  “I didn’t go that far. I was just trying to give him some insight into the motive they might have to kill her.”

  “Well, the motive cuts two ways. He sees it as your motive to kill Jessie.”

  “How?”

  “Self-righteous son of a former governor gets scammed by a client who used to be his girlfriend. His ego can’t handle it, or maybe he thinks it will ruin his stellar reputation. He snaps and kills her, then makes it look like suicide.”

  “That’s weak.”

  “That’s what I said. Which is why I don’t think it’s their real theory.”

  “Then where are they headed?”

  “Same place you’d go if you were still a prosecutor. You and Jessie were having an affair. She threatened to tell your wife unless you played along with her scam. You got tired of the extortion and whacked her.”

  “When?”

  “Good question. I pressed Benno on the time of death. They’re not committing to anything, but bugs don’t lie. The medical examiner says that the maggot eggs in Jessie’s eyes were already starting to hatch. If you work backward on the timeline of forensic entomology, that puts her time of death somewhere about midday.”

  “Good for me,” said Jack. “I was in trial all day and then went straight to dinner with Cindy.”

  “That’s what I told Benno.”

  “Except the maggots give us something else to think about. Aren’t they more prevalent on a body found outdoors than indoors?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “But you see my point. Is anyone considering that Jessie’s body was moved from somewhere outside the house to my bathtub?”

  “I’m pretty sure they’ve ruled it out. With all the blood that ran from her body, her heart had to be pumping when she was in your tub, which means she was alive when she got there.”

  “Though not necessarily conscious.”

  “True. But there are other indicators, too. Benno was talking pretty fast, but I think he said something about how the livor mortis pattern on her backside suggests that she died right where she was found.”

  “When can we find out something definite?”

  “We have to be patient. You know how this works. It could be weeks before the medical examiner issues a final report. Until then, all we get is what Benno deigns to share with us.”

  “Does that mean I’m a suspect or not?”

  “I don’t think you’re high on the list. In my opinion, he just wants to tweak you, embarrass you a little.”

  “Oh, is that all?” he said, scoffing.

  “Better than making your life miserable for the foreseeable future as the target of a homicide investigation. All you have to do is give him a little of what he wants.”

  “What are you telling me? You and Jancowitz sat around a table all morning negotiating how best to embarrass me?”

  She bit off the tip of a pickle spear. “Basically.”

  “This is crazy.”

  “Just listen. Here’s the deal. We put down in writing the whole conversation you and Jessie had the night before she died. She was afraid for her life, she admitted that she had scammed the viatical investors, they were threatening to kill her. Then we put in your side of the story. She acted like she was on drugs, you told her to go to the police, blah, blah, blah. And most important, we put in bold and all capital letters that you knew absolutely nothing about the scam until after the verdict was rendered.”

  “You’re confident that there will be no repercussions about breaching the attorney-client privilege?”

  “A lawyer can breach the privilege to defend himself from possible criminal charges.”

  “I know that. But nobody’s talked about charging me yet.”

  “There was a dead body in your house. Trust me. They’re talking about it.”