Final Argument: A Legal Thriller Part 21

"You're always an addict. No, David's att.i.tude was: 'I spent seventeen f.u.c.king months in that G.o.d-awful miserable freezing hole in the back of beyond, and if I go back to drugs now, then it was a total waste of time. That I won't accept.' He's a stubborn kid."

"What does he do now?"

"He's a cab dispatcher in West Palm Beach. They don't turn you into lawyers and doctors. They just teach you to survive."

We went back to Muriel's house after dinner. I hadn't planned anything, and I don't think she had, either. Since that calm kiss at the door when she'd fed me the lamb, nothing had happened between us, and I hadn't even fantasized about anything happening. But women have a way of letting you know what they want. It's in a look, an arch of the shoulders.

She took my hand at the door and drew me inside. And we kissed. She smelled of salt and charcoal and red snapper.

"I thought you liked women."

"Well, that's true," she murmured. "But I don't dislike men, except guys like Jaime Ortiz, who made me jerk him off in the front seat of his Mustang back in high school."

"I don't know," I said honestly. "I'd hate like h.e.l.l to convert you." "Not much chance," she admitted.

"If it's a challenge, I'd rather stay friends."

It was as simple as that. We had a drink together, and then I went home. And in time I was more grateful than I could have predicted.

The Zide Building was out in the suburbs, behind the Regency Plaza Mall.

Neil Zide ran the empire now and was the princ.i.p.al stockholder. He let more competent specialists and Ivy League M.B.A.'s handle the various arms of the Zide Industries octopuslike conglomerate. But ZiDevco was his. At that enlightened time in the seventies when county commissioners all over Florida set what was called the bulkhead line, theoretically protecting the wetlands and the coastal inlets, they also reserved unto themselves the right to change that line. Not long after his father's murder, Neil Zide on behalf of ZiDevco bought options on half the mud flats in seven coastal counties. He pet.i.tioned the county commissioners for a change in the bulkhead lines, and at the same time requested permission to buy the bay bottom from the State Internal Improvement Fund.

In North Florida the county commissioners met to consider the propositions. Cash changed hands in manila envelopes, shoe boxes, suitcases. Stock options were courier-delivered to corporations in Liechtenstein, Grand Cayman, Mexico. Permissions were granted. Neil Zide, who had been rich, became very rich. He let his hair grow down to his shoulders in unruly brown waves, shaved only when the whim took him, went to work in Levi's and Italian silk s.h.i.+rts with flowing d'Artagnan sleeves, and wore only scuffed basketball shoes with the laces loose and dragging on the parquet floor of his office. He looked like a young Hollywood producer. He was thirty- four years old now. He no longer needed to live in a wing of his mother's house but had built his own white Moorish fantasy down at Ponte Vedra and bought a flat on the lie de la Cite in Paris, an office-apartment on Central Park South in Manhattan, and a vacation home on Red Mountain in Aspen. Photographs of all these places, signed on the mats by Neil, lined the black walls of his office.

"You ski?" he asked me.

"Used to. Now I don't have the time."

"I often hear that excuse. I've got two guest cottages on that Red Mountain property. You're certainly welcome to come out. Great skiing, greater partying, and the greatest air. Now that they've got the gondola, you get to the top of Ajax in fifteen minutes."

"Sounds like progress of a sort. How's your mother?"

"Very well indeed. Thank you for asking. I'm pleased it's not a subject that has to be avoided."

I leaned back in my chair and decided to do just that: avoid it. Neil was not the right person to discuss it with, if there was such a thing as a right person.

Neil was quick. He could hear what was being said by silence. Sitting behind his gla.s.s desk, he glanced at his watch to make sure I realized his time was valuable and limited. He looked up. In the past twelve years the eyes had gained no warmth.

"You're here in your capacity as an attorney, I take it. How can I help you?"

Beyond his desk, through a half-open doorway, I could see a bed with a golden bedspread, gold-colored sheets, and a gold headboard.

"I'm representing Darryl Morgan," I said, "to see if I can win a new trial for him."

The flesh was still slack around Neil Zide's jawline. It seemed to go even slacker.

"Did I hear you correctly?"

"I think so."

He studied me carefully, waiting. He was a bright man despite his foppishness. He knew when to shut up.

So I fired from the hip. "There are a few questions I'd like to ask you about Floyd Nickerson and Victor Gambrel."

Neil exhaled quietly, then inhaled deeply. But the blue eyes told me nothing. He said nothing. I waited, and so did he.

He ended the uncomfortable silence. "Go ahead."

"I'll refresh your memory. Nickerson was with Homicide. He investigated your father's death."

"I remember that."

"And until some five or six years ago Victor Gambrel was head of security for Zide Industries, the main Jacksonville office. Right?"

"That's correct."

"Nickerson took a confession from Darryl Morgan-do you recall?"

"Yes, I do."

"And Nickerson also dug up a cellmate who heard Darryl Morgan confess. Does that ring a bell?"

"I remember that too," Neil said. He shook his head as if to free it from a web; the long brown locks waved and settled back into place.

"Jerry Lee Elroy."

"I beg your pardon?"

"That was the name of the cellmate."

"If you say so."

"I'm not cross-examining you, Neil." But in fact that's exactly what I'd been doing.

"You still haven't told me how I can help you."

"You can satisfy my curiosity about a few things. I'd like to find out what happened to Floyd Nickerson. If you know."

"I'm not sure." Neil scratched his nose, then his unshaven cheeks, and blinked a few times.

"Well, I didn't mean I didn't know where he was," I said easily. "He's over at Orange Meadow Estates in Gainesville. What I meant to say was, I wondered how he got there."

Neil shrugged.

"He's chief of security there," I said.

"Oh?"

"It's a ZiDevco project."

"That's correct."

"Do you recall how Nickerson got that job?"

"I'd have to ask someone to check the personnel records," Neil said, starting to work on his stubble again. "Would you like me to do that?"

"You don't recall giving him the job?"

"Ted"-smiling now, trying to appear friendly, worldly-"that's a long time ago. How could I remember that? One forgets a great many things. In fact, prefers to forget them."

"And there's no way that your mother could have given him the job? Or recommended him?"

"Of course not. Con had nothing to do with the business. Didn't then, doesn't now."

"Then I would like to see those personnel records. That would be kind of you. If you could arrange to have a copy sent down to me, care of Kenny Buckram at the public defender's office here in Jacksonville?"

"I'll try." Neil scratched a note on a desk calendar. "If they still exist, that is. We may not keep records like that for as long as nine years."

I was silent for a moment. "And Gambrel. What do you remember about Victor Gambrel?"

"Victor ... well, I remember him, of course. He came to an unfortunate end."

"He was shot and killed in his car at the parking lot of the Regency Square Mall in July of 1985. Yes, you could definitely call that an unfortunate end."

"A real whodunit," Neil said. "Might turn up one of these days on that TV show-what is it? Unsolved Mysteries."

"Maybe," I said. "I heard recently, and this is between you and me, that the Bongiorno people were behind it. But I'm still not sure why Gambrel would be a target for organized crime. Doesn't make sense. Does it to you?"

Neil seemed to consider that for a few beats. "Are you implying that the investigation is ongoing?"

"I wasn't implying anything at all. I didn't know Gambrel. You did, though. You knew him well."

"I wouldn't say that."

"The night that Darryl Morgan broke into your house and you panicked him so that he shot your father, you called the police and then you called Gambrel. That's what you told me, and that's what you told the court. Didn't you testify to that when I had you as my witness on the stand?"

Neil cleared his throat. "Ted, the truth is, I don't remember what I said on the witness stand about Victor Gambrel. That was an exceedingly traumatic time for me-not that I was in mourning for my father, as you well know, but simply that I was deeply concerned about my mother. She had no one else to lean on but me. I called Victor that ghastly night because he was chief of security at what was then my father's company, and it seemed appropriate to do so."

"What's your theory as to why he was murdered?"

"What I heard was ... gambling debts. Large sums. To the wrong people."

"Such as Bongiorno?"

"Might well have been. May I ask you a question now?"

"Fire away, Neil."

"Why are you getting involved again, and on the other side? Why are you handling Morgan's case?"

"Everyone asks me that," I said, shaking my head sorrowfully. "My wife, my law partners, my friends, the state attorney ... and I don't seem to be able to give a very satisfactory answer. I was never happy with what Judge Eglin did-that's one reason. So I suppose it's because I don't think Darryl Morgan received a fair trial and therefore doesn't deserve to die. I've learned something that's fact- specific along those lines. Nothing earth-shaking, but it's of some significance."

"Which is?"

I sighed and said, "It's confidential. Something a client told me. Sorry."

Neil looked at me steadily. "Is that all?"

"Yes, that's all-and thanks, Neil. My best regards to Connie, and I appreciate your taking all this time."

We shook hands; then, at the door, I turned. The night before, I'd watched a few minutes of Columbo, with Peter Falk. I said, "Oh, by the way, there's just one more thing I wanted to ask you ... may I? It's okay?"

"Yes, it's okay," Neil said.

"I asked you how Floyd Nickerson got that job over at Orange Meadow, and you said you didn't know. Isn't that right?"

"Yes, that's right."

" You didn't give him the job."

"That's correct."

"Because you had no reason to."

"Correct. I had no reason."

"And a few minutes ago when I asked you for the personnel records, which you very kindly said you'd provide, you said you didn't know if your office kept those kinds of records for as long as nine years. You did say that, didn't you?"

"I believe I did."

"Well... I don't believe I told you when it was that Floyd Nickerson quit JSO and went to work for ZiDevco. So how did you know it was nine years ago?"

Neil stared at me calmly. But he was upset. I could see that. You can't control certain bodily functions, and the body never lies.

"I was guessing," he said.

"You just picked a number, like out of a hat?"

"Yes."

"And hit it right on the b.u.t.ton. That's remarkable. Can I ask you one more question?"

"If you must."

I opened my mouth, then shut it. "I can't believe this. I forgot what I was going to say. It's just gone. Does that ever happen to you?"

"Sometimes," Neil said quietly.