Last to die Read online

  “That was it.”

  “Did she ask for the names of any of your friends who might do the job?”

  “No. But I don’t just give out names like that.” He seemed to catch himself, then added, “Because I don’t have friends like that anymore.”

  “Tell me about the letter you got from Sally’s lawyer.”

  “Not much to tell. Just says she would like me to be in her office for an important meeting relating to the death of Sally Fenning.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “Sure. Got it right here.” He pulled it from his inside jacket pocket, then handed it to Jack, who gave it a quick study.

  “Clarence Knight your real name?”

  “Yeah. Not sure how she got it.”

  “I take it you didn’t give Sally your real name.”

  “No. Just Tatum, nickname.”

  “Like Tatum O’Neal, huh?”

  “Fucking-A, no, not like Tatum O’Neal. What in the hell planet do you white people live on? Jack Tatum, the meanest, baddest football player-”

  “Yeah, whatever,” said Jack. “So, somehow Sally got your real name and passed it on to her lawyer.”

  “Like I said, her bodyguard hooked us up together, so he could have given Sally my real name. Which is more proof that I didn’t kill this woman. You think my buddy would give her my name or that I’d give her my actual nickname if I was going to commit murder? I’d be doing aliases, big time.”

  “In a normal hit, yeah. But maybe you don’t have to be so careful about throwing your name around when the person doing the hiring is going to be dead after the hit.”

  Tatum flashed a peculiar smile and said, “You a pretty sharp guy, Swyteck.”

  “Vivien Grasso,” said Jack, reading the lawyer’s name from the letterhead.

  “You know her?” asked Tatum.

  “Indirectly. She was a big supporter of my father when he ran for governor. Probate is her specialty. So I assume this letter has something to do with the administration of Sally’s estate.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “Did you ask her?”

  “I was hoping you would. As my attorney.”

  Jack laid the letter on the table. “I promised Theo I’d meet with you. I didn’t say I’d take it any farther than that.”

  “I can pay you.”

  “It’s not the money.”

  “Then what, you don’t like me?”

  “This isn’t a date. I don’t have to like you.”

  “Or maybe you think you’re Perry Mason and only represent innocent people. Well, let me tell you something: If someone’s trying to pin this woman’s murder on me, I am innocent. So what do you say, Perry? You my lawyer?”

  “It’s not that easy. I’m pretty busy right now.”

  “This has to be a lot juicier than whatever else you got on your plate.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “Right. Take a look at this picture,” he said as he handed Jack the same newspaper clipping that Theo had shown him.

  Jack took it but said nothing. Tatum said, “Here’s a gorgeous, twenty-nine-year-old woman. She’s just finagled forty-six million dollars from some rich, old fool she was married to for a year and a half. First thing she does is go around looking to hire someone who’ll blow her brains out. Don’t it make you wonder what’s the deal here?”

  Jack stared into Sally’s eyes, looking for signs of trouble. Her photo stared right back.

  “Don’t it, Jack?”

  “It has a certain pull.”

  “Tell me this much: Would you meet with this probate lawyer, if you was me?”

  “Not without a lawyer of my own.”

  “Then come with me. Worst that can happen, you make three bills an hour.”

  “If it was all about money, I’d be working for the mob.”

  Tatum leaned into the table, as if on the level. “Let me lay it on the line here. Yeah, I popped a few guys. That’s all in the past. Trust me, the world don’t miss the scum I did away with. I never killed no one like this woman here, this Sally Fenning.”

  Jack gave him a hard look.

  “Come on,” said Tatum, groaning. “I think someone’s trying to fuck me here. Sure, I did some bad shit in my life. But this time, damn it, I’m innocent. For a real-life criminal defense lawyer like you, that’s about as good as it gets, ain’t it?”

  Jack nearly smiled. The guy had a point. “Just about.”

  “So you with me?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Jack offered the letter back, but Tatum held up his hands, refusing.

  “Keep it. You might need it.”

  Jack folded the letter and tucked it into his pocket. “Might,” he said.

  Five

  On Friday night Jack went back to high school. The Cavaliers of Coral Gables Senior High were battling Miami Lakes on the gridiron, and he thought it would be fun to take his Little Brother to cheer on his alma mater. Jack was part of the local Big Brothers Big Sisters of America program, and he liked nothing better than to take Nate places that his mother didn’t take him-like football games and more football games. It seemed like a nice thing to do for a single mother trying to raise a boy on her own, which was why he’d volunteered in the first place. Nate turned out to be a great kid, which was why Jack loved doing it.

  Tonight, however, Jack had an agenda of his own.

  As usual, there was a good crowd on hand. Jack and Nate flowed with the stream of excited fans through the turnstyle at the main entrance gate. The marching band was on the field, putting their collective heart into the familiar school fight song. The grandstands were filling up quickly, as a lighted scoreboard at the far end of the field blinked down to fourteen minutes and counting till kickoff. A long line of football players suddenly rushed past him and Nate. Their pregame warm-up was over, and they were hooting and hollering all the way back to the locker room for last-minute game prep.

  It had been almost twenty years since Jack played varsity ball, and for a moment he could hardly believe that he’d ever actually looked that young in his gray and crimson uniform.

  “Did they wear helmets back when you played?” asked Nate. He was eight years old and sometimes had a way of making Jack feel like eighty.

  “Not always,” said Jack. “Which explains an awful lot.”

  “Like what?”

  “Nothing,” he said, pulling Nate along as they walked toward the stands.

  “Why do you always say that?”

  “Say what?”

  “Whenever I ask what you mean, you always say ‘nothing.’”

  “I don’t always do that.”

  “Uh-huh. My mom says you do it, too.”

  “Oh, she does, does she?”

  “She says you’re afraid to let people know what’s really inside your head.”

  “She really said that?”

  “Does that sound like something I would make up?”

  Jack smiled, though it troubled him to think that Nate’s mother saw him as someone who erected emotional barriers. Funny, but his ex-wife used to say the same thing. “Don’t want people inside my head, huh? What exactly is that supposed to mean, anyway?”

  “Nothing,” Nate said smugly.

  “Wise guy.”

  It was the sixth game of the season, no losses so far, and Jack could feel the excitement around the stadium. They’d arrived too late to get prime seats, but Jack wasn’t in a hurry to sit anyway. He waited behind the bleachers at the fifty-yard-line entrance, watching the fans pass by. This section was where players’ parents usually sat, and the Cavaliers’ quarterback was Justin Grasso. His mother, Vivien Grasso, never missed a game.

  Jack had intended to call Vivien before the weekend but was caught up in an arbitration proceeding in Orlando. Her letter to Tatum Knight had scheduled the mystery meeting for Monday afternoon. Jack figured he’d accidentally-on-purpose bump into Vivien at the game, find out what it was all about,
and then decide whether it sounded interesting enough to offset the hassle of dealing with a loose cannon like Tatum as a client. Jack wasn’t overly picky, but it had been one of those weeks where it seemed that if it weren’t for clients, judges, and other lawyers, the practice of law wouldn’t be such a bad way to make a living.

  “Let’s go,” said Nate.

  “Just a minute,” said Jack. Vivien was headed toward them, and Jack had a bead on her in the crowd. He hadn’t seen her since his father’s farewell party as governor, but she looked the same-lean and athletic, little to no makeup, as if she’d gone for a twenty-mile run, jumped in the shower, and rushed over to see her son rip the visiting team to pieces. No one wondered where the star player for Gables High got his abilities.

  “Jack Swyteck,” she said with a smile. “How’s your old man?”

  “Doing great. I think he’s fishing in North Carolina this month.”

  “Slacker. We need to get him out of retirement and run for Senate. Unless maybe his son is interested in politics.”

  “My interest is limited to voting. Even then, it’s pretty much limited to voting for immediate family members.”

  She laughed. Jack was about to introduce her to Nate, but the boy was already engrossed in deep conversation about Harry Potter with Vivien’s ten-year-old son. It was the diversion Jack needed.

  “Funny I ran into you,” said Jack, lying. “I was meaning to call you.”

  “What about?”

  “Friend of a friend situation. A guy named Clarence Knight.”

  She seemed to be searching her mind, then it registered. “Oh, yeah. One of the Sally Fenning heirs.”

  “Heirs?” said Jack.

  “I sent him a letter inviting him to the reading of the will. You’re coming with him?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “A will contest isn’t your cup of tea, huh?”

  “There’s a contest?”

  “I shouldn’t have said that. Could be, I suppose. But no one’s said anything. Yet.”

  “Are you telling me I should or shouldn’t get involved in this?”

  “Forget what I said,” she said, smiling. “Just a lawyer’s cynicism. Anytime there’s this much money at stake, you expect the heirs to fight.”

  “You’re sure Tatum Knight is an heir?”

  Nate spoke up, as close as he ever came to whining. “Come on, Jack, let’s go. We’re going to miss the kickoff.”

  “Just a minute, buddy.”

  Vivien said, “The boy’s right. We are going to miss kickoff. Call me in my office Monday morning. We’ll talk. And say hi to your daddy for me,” she said as she walked away.

  “I will. Good luck tonight.”

  “Go Cavaliers!”

  Jack watched Vivien and her young son disappear into the crowd. The steady stream of spectators continued past him to their seats. Nate tugged at his arm.

  “Hello up there!” said Nate. “Can we go watch the game now?”

  Tatum Knight, an heir? Jack couldn’t get the thought out of his head.

  Nate asked, “What’s that goofy look on your face for?”

  “What goofy look?”

  “You look like you just stepped in bat vomit.”

  “I think maybe I just did.”

  “Gross! Really?”

  “No, I didn’t mean really.”

  “Then what did you mean?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing, nothing, nothing. You did it again!” said Nate.

  Jack smiled. “So I did. Come on, let’s go watch football.” He put his arm around Nate and led him toward the bleachers.

  Six

  Kelsey was getting to know Sally Fenning.

  Kelsey Craven worked for Jack Swyteck. Her latest assignment was to pull together information on the two tragedies that punctuated Sally’s life, her own senseless shooting at an intersection and the murder of her daughter five years earlier. She wasn’t an investigator, so she’d gathered things that were publicly available, mostly from the Internet, such as newspaper articles and even an old Web site relating to Sally’s search for her daughter’s killer.

  It wasn’t a full-time job, but a few hours a week was all she could give Jack. In addition to being Nate’s mother, Kelsey was a third-year law student at the University of Miami. Law was her second career, something she’d decided to do after divorcing the man who’d convinced her that a ballet dancer was too stupid to get into law school. She’d danced professionally for two years before a knee injury ended her career, then she’d gotten married and had Nate. From the day he’d walked it was clear that Nate would never be a dancer, but she followed her dream anyway and opened her own studio, sharing her passion with children, mostly little girls. She still taught dance but no longer owned the studio, having sold the business to pay for law school. She made a little extra money as a law clerk, doing legal research and writing for Jack Swyteck, P.A. Sometimes he sent her on fact-finding missions, like the one on Sally Fenning. This wasn’t the most intellectually challenging assignment, but it had turned out to be one of the more interesting ones.

  Without a doubt, it was the only one that had ever made her cry. The doorbell rang. Kelsey put her notes and newspaper clippings aside, then rose from the table and went to the front door. Through the peephole she saw Jack with Nate’s head on his shoulder, the boy sound asleep. She opened the door and let him inside.

  “Straight back to the bedroom,” she whispered.

  Jack carried Nate down the hall, Kelsey right behind them. She hurried ahead to the bedroom, adjusted the dimmer switch so that there was just enough light to see, and pulled back the covers. Jack laid the boy on the bed, then spoke in a whisper.

  “Sorry I kept him out so late.”

  “No problem. It’s not a school night. I’m sure he had a great time.”

  “A total blast.”

  “Thanks for taking him.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Their eyes met and held. It was suddenly awkward, as if neither one knew exactly how to say good night when it was just the two of them in the bedroom, no crazy Nate buzzing all around them. Jack said, “Guess I better get going.”

  “Can you stay a minute?”

  “I-uh, yeah. I guess.”

  “I found some interesting stuff on Sally Fenning. We could have some coffee and go over it.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “I’ll be just a minute.”

  Jack turned and headed for the kitchen. Kelsey tried to get Nate into his pajamas without waking him, but it was a losing battle. No matter how gently you tried to pull a T-shirt off a sleeping child, it always seemed to want to take his head with it.

  “Mommy, stop.”

  “Let me help you.”

  “No, no. I’m a big boy. I can do it myself.”

  “All right. You do it.”

  “I need privacy.”

  He was cranky, obviously overtired. She handed him the pajamas. “Take these in the bathroom with you. And so long as you’re awake, be sure to brush your teeth.”

  He grumbled and marched off to the bathroom. Kelsey smiled to herself, though she was slightly saddened at the thought of her little boy all grown up and too embarrassed to get dressed in front of his mother. He was back in thirty seconds, wearing his pajama top backward.

  “Good night, Mom,” said Nate, crawling into bed.

  “Where’s my hug and kiss?”

  He came to her and squeezed tightly.

  “Oh, you’re so strong.” She broke the embrace and asked, “Teeth all brushed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me see.”

  His mouth tightened, as if amazed by the way his mother always knew. He lowered his eyes and asked, “Have you ever thought about…you and Jack.”

  She lifted his chin and looked him straight in the eye. “Me and Jack, what?”

  “You know. Do you think he’s handsome?”

  “Yes. Jack is very good-looking.”

>   “He’s nice, right?”

  “Extremely.”

  “Do you like him?”

  “Yes,” she said cautiously, seeing where his little mind was headed.

  “But there will never be anything romantic between us.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…” She wasn’t sure how to answer. It was a question she’d asked herself more than just a few times: Why not Jack? “Because he’s even worse than you are at trying to change the subject.”

  “I’m not changing the-”

  “Let me see those teeth.”

  His lips parted slowly. The Oreo cookies were a dead giveaway. Kelsey pointed him back toward the bathroom. “March. And don’t forget the ones in back.”

  He was groaning as he scurried down the hallway. He was a good kid who listened well, definitely the sole bright spot from her short-lived marriage. Her ex-husband was a smart and charming college professor who taught comparative studies. Unfortunately, the thing he liked to compare most was married sex to sex on the side.

  Nate was practically sleepwalking when he returned from the bathroom. She put him to bed, and he was in dreamland before she left the room.

  Jack was alone in the kitchen, enjoying the collage of photographs on the side-by-side refrigerator-freezer doors. It was a veritable time-line of Nate’s life, from birth to third grade, pacifiers to baseball mitts. Some were of Nate alone, but most were of Nate and his mom. They had the same big, hazel eyes, the same smile. Nate was looking more and more like his mother as he grew older, which was a good thing. All ballerinas seemed to have a handsome air about them when up onstage, and Kelsey was one of the truly beautiful ones who didn’t seem to dissolve into skin and bones when you got close.

  “Did you see the latest one of you and Nate?”

  Jack started at the sound of her voice. Kelsey entered the room, then pointed to a snapshot near the refrigerator door handle. It was Nate, Jack, and a life-size Tigger.

  “Wow. I made the fridge,” said Jack.

  “No higher place of honor in this house.”

  “Like getting a star on Hollywood Boulevard.”

  “Well, let’s not get crazy. It’s only Scotch tape and magnets. Today Jack Swyteck, tomorrow Derek Jeter. Know what I mean?”