“Again, why do you ask?” said Elissa.

  “I have a friend in the ME’s office.”

  “This friend is giving out confidential information to the public?”

  “Well, first, it’s not confidential. Autopsy reports are public record. Anyone can request one. And second, she was talking to a fellow investigator.”

  “Is there a brotherhood or something?”

  “As someone working on behalf of the public defender.”

  “You haven’t been deputized, Jones. There’s no badge.”

  “You’re not hearing me. I wasn’t told anything that isn’t in the report. You’ll get it, you’ll read it. And what you’ll learn is that the victim died from a blow to the head delivered by someone wearing brass knuckles.”

  “Brass knuckles?” said Barry, flipping through his papers.

  “That’s bad,” said Elissa.

  “I didn’t think it was good,” I said.

  “It’s hard to argue ‘no depraved mind’ if you’re wearing brass knuckles. Bringing them with you implies intent.”

  “Brass knuckles,” said Barry. “They’re listed here. Retrieved from Mr. Cabrini’s garage at the time of his arrest.”

  Elissa rubbed her eyes. “Not good.”

  “Have you guys seen the video?” I asked.

  “The surveillance video?” asked Barry. “We don’t have it yet. It’s on the list though.”

  “I have a copy.”

  Elissa dropped her hands to the table. “You have it? How?”

  “I asked for it.”

  “From the state attorney?”

  “No. From the store that owns the camera.”

  “Did you pay for it?”

  “Don’t worry about how I got it.”

  “You are representing this office.”

  “I know, and I’m getting the job done. Look, there’s no chain of evidence on this. You’ll get the version provided by the prosecution sooner or later, so let’s call this a working copy.”

  “I don’t have time right now to go through it.”

  “That’s fine. I’ve got my office viewing the footage with a magnifying glass, but I think we should just check one thing. You have a computer we can use? The screen on my phone is too small.”

  Barry pushed his chair back and left then returned with a laptop. After receiving my email with the link, he opened it up. I moved around the table to better see his screen and told him to fast-forward until the action started. We all watched Johnny Cabrini walking toward the alcove.

  “Where’s the victim?” asked Elissa.

  “Already in the alcove.”

  I was sure Elissa and Barry were taking in the big picture. I, on the other hand, was looking for something specific. We saw Johnny enter the alcove and then return to his car. Barry stopped the video.

  “It doesn’t show the fatal blow, but it places him there,” said Elissa. “Combined with a murder weapon, that’s fairly damning.”

  “But did you see what he had on his hands when he arrived and when he left?”

  “No.”

  “Exactly. No brass knuckles.”

  “He could have put them on after entering the alcove and then taken them off.”

  “Maybe. But right after hitting the guy? Johnny’s still fired up. You can see him yelling at Ricky as he leaves. Would he really have stopped to remove them that quickly?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Neither do I. It’s just weird is all. And if you were Ricky and you were there for a drug deal, and you saw a guy you know is a former boxer put on brass knuckles right in front of you, would you just stand there? That alcove isn’t that big. Even if Ricky tried to run and Johnny stopped him, surely we would have seen something—Johnny stepping back or a flailing arm or something.”

  “That’s all supposition. The prosecution has hard evidence.” She shook her head. “You guys keep on this if you want. I have to get to court.”

  Elissa left the room without another word, and I sat down. Barry looked at me, then closed his laptop.

  “Do you have the crime scene photos?” I asked.

  He nodded and slid them across to me. I opened the folder and looked at them again. They didn’t tell me anything new, but I wasn’t used to thinking in a room that smelled like the inside of an IHOP coffee pot.

  “Did you find anything else?” asked Barry.

  “I found out where Johnny was before the fight.”

  “I’m not sure the prosecution even has that.”

  “I’m not sure they care. They’ve got their case right here. But I found out that Johnny was drinking at a bar and got a phone call around midnight. The bartender thought Johnny knew the caller.”

  “The victim?”

  “Possibly, but he said by the tone of Johnny’s voice, it was someone he knew well, and I don’t know if Ricky fell into that category. He also said the call made Johnny angry and that he left straight after. The timing suggests he went directly to the club.”

  I spread the photos out on the table and started snapping them with my camera.

  “I don’t think you can do that,” said Barry.

  “Just for my personal use, I swear. As soon as the case is done, I’ll delete them.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I want to think the whole thing through, and these may help, and I can’t keep coming over here. Your receptionist hasn’t taken a shine to me.”

  Barry didn’t look convinced but said nothing more on it.

  “So do you happen to have Johnny’s phone log in your evidence file there?”

  Barry flipped through and pulled out a sheet. “There’s a download of the call log from his cell phone.”

  “Is that normal?”

  “Pretty normal.”

  “What about Ricky’s phone? Got that log? Let’s see if Ricky called him.”

  “No. Nothing.” Barry looked through his list. “I don’t see Ricky’s phone in the evidence log at all.”

  “So the victim had no phone?”

  “None that the PBSO found at the scene.”

  “What’s the number that called Johnny’s phone around midnight?”

  Barry looked the call log over. “There isn’t one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s no call around midnight on that night. Nothing incoming or outgoing. Could the bartender be wrong?”

  “Don’t think so, he was a pretty switched-on guy. Doesn’t make sense. Can you ask the state attorney’s office if they have Ricky’s phone and forgot to log it?”

  “I doubt that, but we can ask. Why?”

  “Because if they agreed to meet, then there was a mutual reason. Maybe that reason tells a different story than Johnny intending to commit murder.”

  Barry made a note and I stood. He walked me out and took my visitor’s badge.

  I wandered in the sunshine back to my office. Lizzy was standing in the front office again, looking at more paint swatches, which all appeared to be variations on white. I made no comment. At least they weren’t coral.

  “What do you know about call logs?”

  “That’s an odd question,” she said.

  “Someone called Johnny just before he left the bar for the club that night, but there’s no record of it on the call log that the sheriff’s investigators downloaded from his phone. So how can that be? Could he have another phone?”

  “What was he, a spy?”

  “No, but he appears to have had contact with a known drug dealer, so maybe he was dealing too?”

  “Didn’t you say he had no money? What kind of a dealer has no money?”

  “A not very good one, or he was hiding it.” My mind drifted back to the bar and the alcohol Johnny had been drinking. The thought alone made me almost gag. If he was only pretending to have no money, then that was Brando-level method acting.

  “Maybe it’s more simple than that,” said Lizzy. “Maybe he deleted it.”

  I pondered that. He was drunk, had just been in a fight, and had gone home and collapsed in his garage. If he knew that he had killed Ricky the Fudge, would he have had the presence of mind to delete the call from his phone? To do that and leave the brass knuckles right next to his cot?

  “It doesn’t matter anyway,” said Lizzy. “Even if he deleted the call from his phone, there would still be a record of it with the cell phone provider.”

  “You’re right. It would be on his bill.”

  “If he gets a bill. Some people go paperless and pay automatically online. It might even be a prepaid phone, so there is no bill.”

  “How would we see that online record?”

  “If he had an online account, you can just log in. But you would need to get his username and password, and he’s in jail.”

  I nodded. “I need to speak to Tina.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I returned to the Cabrini house. Tina was dressed in a shirt with a logo for a chain pharmacy.

  “I don’t have long,” she said. “Gotta get to work.”

  “No problem.”

  She let me in, and I noticed that the room not only looked orderly but also smelled better. I glanced instinctively at the hole in the wall and saw a picture hanging there.

  “The landlord will never fix it,” she said. “And if he kicks us out, he’ll use my deposit to pay for the repairs anyway.”

  “I know a guy who can fix that.”

  “I don’t have any money, Miami.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Don’t worry about it?”

  “I mean with fixing the wall.”

  “I got another call.”

  “From the fund? How much?”

  “A thousand. I was going to call back on my break and say yes.”

  “That’s it? Geez, that Priestly’s a real philanthropist.”

  “You got him to double it, so I’m grateful.”

  “Don’t be grateful yet.”

  “I just want this done.”

  “I know, Tina, but you also need to start preparing for a life where Johnny doesn’t bring in any money.”

  She led me into the kitchen and leaned against the sink. “I’ve been living that life for years.”

  “But this time he won’t be around at all.”

  “You’re saying he’s guilty? That he killed this person?”

  “I’m saying the evidence suggests he’ll be found guilty of something. He may even end up pleading guilty in return for a reduced sentence.”

  “Why would he do that? Aren’t you innocent until proven guilty?”

  “Yes, unless you confess or enter a guilty plea. It might ensure that he does his time in a facility that can take care of his mental health needs.”

  “You mean the nut house.”

  “I mean a secure hospital. He’s increasingly a danger to himself and others, you included. You know that. There are places where he can serve time without it being a regular jail, where he’d just go downhill.”

  “So how do we get him in this place?”

  “We have to show that he is of diminished capacity, that he already had these health issues. We get testimony from Dr. Abe, for instance. We show that the death was accidental.”

  “Of course it was accidental.”

  “That’s perhaps not what the prosecution will present.”

  “Why? How?”

  “They have a police record of a domestic-disturbance complaint from you against Johnny.”

  “That was nothing.”

  “It’s an official record that the prosecution will say shows a pattern of behavior.”

  “It was just the mood swings. Johnny left to cool off, and the deputy asked should it happened again if I had somewhere to go. I told him my daughter’s place. That’s why last time I didn’t call anyone. We just left and went to Sofia’s.”

  “Well, it’s evidence that can paint a certain picture, so we have to paint a different one. I found out where Johnny was that night: at a bar called The Copper Kettle. Do you know it?”

  “No.”

  “It’s between here and the club. Lake Worth Corridor. Anyway, the bartender says he saw Johnny take a call that agitated him, and he left, presumably to the club. But there’s no record of such a call on Johnny’s phone log.”

  “Maybe the man at the bar was wrong.”

  “It’s possible but unlikely. He had a good memory of it.”

  “Was it this man, Ricky?”

  “Maybe. That’s what I’m trying to find out. Do you guys have an online account for your phones?”

  “No.”

  “Do you get a bill or are they prepaid?”

  “Prepaid. From the drugstore where I work.”

  “Are they on the same account?”

  “They don’t work like that. Each phone is separate. Johnny had his phone for a few years first because he got calls about work. I didn’t need one because I was at home, but I got one when I started working.”

  “How do you refill the credit?”

  “I buy it at work. Five bucks a time. We just keep the minimum on there in case of emergency.”

  “I understand. So has Johnny ever mentioned this guy Richard Whitecross?”

  “Who?”

  “Ricky the Fudge. That’s his nickname.”

  “No.”

  “Something got Johnny all worked up about this guy. There was a rumor going around that he was dealing drugs at the high school.”

  “Our girls’ school?”

  “Yes.”

  Tina sighed. “Johnny maybe mentioned something about that. A drug dealer was hanging around the school and something needed to be done.”

  “Something like what?”

  “He didn’t say, but I thought he meant like call the police.”

  “What about the girls? Have they ever mentioned anything?”

  “They don’t do drugs. They’re good girls.”

  “I don’t doubt it, but they don’t have to be using to hear things. In schools the walls have ears.”

  “No, they never said anything about it. Listen, I have to get to work.”

  “Of course. I’ll walk you out.”

  She collected her bag and keys, and we walked across the grass to the driveway. Before she unlocked the car, she paused.

  “Is Johnny going away for the rest of his life?”

  “I don’t know, Tina. I really don’t. But it would seem he’s going away for a long time. Why?”

  “That thousand. I really need it, Miami. My girls are losing their father, and I can’t let them lose their home as well. I got a letter from the landlord saying he’s starting eviction proceedings. The fund guy said I could have the thousand by the end of the week. All I need to do is say yes and he’ll send me the papers. I told the landlord, and he said he wasn’t stopping the process, but he would if I gave him the thousand on Friday.”

  “Okay, Tina. Leave it with me. I’ll go and collect the papers personally.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The offices of Fishook Financial were in an upscale suite on Royal Palm Way in Palm Beach. The building’s tenants list read like the most likely to create a Ponzi scheme. Import–export, accounting, finance, hedge funds. Businesses most of us rarely had cause to use but that were of vital importance to the well-heeled of the island.

  The vacuous marble glistened in the lobby, and my shoes squeaked as I crossed to the elevator. I preferred to take the stairs as a rule but they were locked from the outside, so I did it the old-fashioned way and got the elevator.

  I found the office I wanted and pulled hard to open the door but it didn’t budge. Then there was an electronic buzz, so I pulled again, and voilà. I didn’t see the point of the lock if they were going to buzz me in sight unseen anyway.

  “I’m here to see Fishook,” I said to the receptionist. Lizzy had mentioned Fishook’s first name, but I couldn’t remember it. Moron was all that came to mind, and that really didn’t feel right, although with what people named their kids these days, it was a possibility.

  “You are?” asked a blond-haired woman with an eighties do. It seemed my childhood was repeating on me like a bad burrito.

  “Jones.”

  She used her headset to announce my arrival—no one picked up a phone anymore—then stood up.

  “Follow me.”

  We walked about twenty paces. She knocked on the door, and someone said, “Come.”

  The woman opened the door and said, “Mr. Jones.”

  I stepped around her and into the office. It wasn’t anything special. Room for a decent-size desk but no meeting table or sofa. Ron would have hated it. My office across the bridge was bigger, and I probably paid a quarter of what this guy coughed up in rent. Such was the glamor of a Palm Beach address.

  “Nolan Fishook,” he said from behind his desk. As we shook hands, I repeated in my head Nolan, Nolan, Nolan. I feared it wasn’t going to stick. Moron was going to be hard to dislodge.

  “Miami Jones.”

  He gestured for me to sit.

  “So, you are here on behalf of Mr. and Mrs. Cabrini.”

  “I am. They have authorized me to accept an offer of five thousand dollars.”

  Fishook looked like he was about to choke. “Umm, sorry. I believe the figure discussed with Mrs. Cabrini was one thousand.”

  “No, that was the lowball, embarrassing offer you put to her. Not really a discussion.”

  “It’s too much. You misunderstand the nature of the fund.”

  “To help boxers with medical issues post-career. That’s Johnny Cabrini.”

  “That’s debatable,” said Fishook, in a voice that had suddenly gotten an edge to it. “Our doctor has confirmed that Mr. Cabrini does not fit our criteria, and I also believe he is now in prison, so I’m not sure the fund can help a felon.”

  “He’s in jail. He won’t be in prison unless convicted.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  “Nevertheless? Okay, let’s look at what you have. A series of blanket denials from a doctor who has no qualifications in neurology. We, on the other hand, have testimony from a university researcher who is not only a world expert on the effects of combat sports on the human brain but is also a neurological surgeon. Yeah, that’s a brain surgeon. He says Mr. Cabrini’s issues are a direct and demonstrable result of a career as a GBC boxer. His expert opinion is that Mr. Cabrini not only qualifies, but he is the poster boy for who the fund is meant to support. I also have a well-known litigator on call who is willing to work pro bono to take this case to court. It’s going to cost you tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyer fees alone.”