Part 32 (2/2)

She spoke almost dreamily. ”Because someone had said, 'I wonder why the dog didn't bark.' Or maybe, 'I wonder if the dog's all right. Why isn't he barking?' Something like that. I remember that now. And I went out there to find out. I went down to the beach. The son said that, I think. Said the dog was down by the beach and pointed in that direction. Yes, I'm fairly sure it was the son.”

”Neil Zide?”

”Yes.”

”Did you go down to the beach alone?”

”No, I took one of the Jacksonville Beach cops with me. Nick said, 'Don't go alone, Carmen. You never know who's out there.' So this cop went with me.”

”And you left Neil Zide and Mrs. Zide and Victor Gambrel and Sergeant Nickerson and one other Beach patrolman in the house.” ”No, there were two other Beach cops. Three of them came in two patrol cars. One went with me to the cabanas-I remember he had this huge, powerful flashlight that he could hang on his belt. Two stayed behind.”

I took a chance. ”When you and the third Beach cop got back from the cabanas to tell them about the dead dog, were the two other Beach cops still in the living room with the Zides and Victor Gambrel and Sergeant Nickerson?”

”I don't think so,” Carmen Tanagra said. ”I think the ambulance was coming up the drive and those two guys were out there to flag it down. Yes, I'm positive of that.”

”Positive ... after thirteen years?”

”Yes.”

”Why?”

”I don't know,” she said, but I could see by the fresh lines etched into her forehead that she was troubled by some memory or vision just beyond her grasp. Or maybe just within it, so that her mental fingertips touched it but couldn't haul it in.

”I have no more questions,” I said, ”for now.”

Chapter 28.

IN THE AFTERNOON, after lunch, Whatley said calmly, ”The State of Florida calls Constance Zide.”

Heads turned, and necks craned. A uniformed bailiff escorted Connie into the courtroom, down the aisle past the bar and through the well to the witness stand. Even as the door hissed shut you could hear the clicking of Nikons and the soft roll of the rubber wheels on the big TV cameras. I turned too, and saw that Connie's black leather purse was raised in front of her face in the direction of the cameras.

When she pa.s.sed in front of me on her way to the stand, I understood why she was doing that. I hadn't seen Connie since the day Darryl Morgan had been given his death sentence by Judge Eglin. She was nearly sixty years old now. I had a.s.sumed that with her bone structure and her pale clear skin she would always remain a beautiful woman, that if you were young you would look at her and wish you'd known her in her prime.

That had not happened.

Her hair was the same color, dyed now to mask the gray, and it had lost some of its sheen. But her hair was almost the only recognizable feature.

Connie's cheeks were doughy, and a roll of flesh moved down from the chin to the thick throat. The scar was of course gone; cosmetic surgery had taken care of that. She wore a black suit as if she were still in mourning, but I remembered that she had once said, ”Darling, black's not my color, it's too dramatic, although it does make one look thinner. The day you see me in black, you'll know I'm an over-the-hill bag.”

When she walked she swayed with uncertainty, as if it took a certain effort to move her hips down the aisle, and she seemed grateful to finally sit down in the witness box. Diamonds and emeralds and heavyweight gold bangles bedecked her as though she were a film star, and I sensed that today they weren't fake. I was about twenty-five feet away from her, and when she gazed across the courtroom there was hardly any expression in her eyes: a minimal greeting by way of rapid blinking, a bit of anesthetized pain, perhaps, but that was all. The blue-green eyes were flecked at the corners with a tracery of pink. Surrounded by heavy pancake makeup and set above thin vermilion lips, they seemed moribund.

Oh, Connie ... my old dear Connie, what happened to you?

I wanted to reach out, touch her and comfort her. But I could hardly do that.

On the bench, Judge Fleming coughed, and when I looked quickly up I realized that for the first time he was wondering if it was so important to be enlightened. But it is, Judge-it is. I promise you.

John Whatley treated Connie gently.

He took her back thirteen years to the night of December 5, to the Mozart horn concerto and smoked Nova flown down from Zabar's on the West Side of Manhattan. And in a slightly hoa.r.s.e but warm voice, which had hardly changed over time, she told the story of that night.

I had heard it before. She had been my mistress and my witness. I had read her testimony later in the trial transcript. And I had thought about it now for nearly a year.

Telling that tale now took only fifteen minutes. She had heard shots, she recalled, and rushed outside to the terrace, where her husband lay dead. Two black men had been standing there, one with a pistol in his hand. Someone had slashed her in the face. That's all she remembered.

Whatley moved a deferential step backward, like a courtier withdrawing before a queen, and gave her a gracious smile as accolade.

”No further questions. Thank you, Mrs. Zide. We're sorry to have troubled you this way.” He turned to me and said curtly, ”Pa.s.s the witness.”

”I have no questions,” I said.

And Connie's eyes shone at me with a grat.i.tude beyond deserving.

I added, ”But I would like to have Mrs. Zide stay in the courtroom, or nearby on call.”

In most trials, witnesses are prohibited from hearing the testimony of the other witnesses. But that prohibition must be invoked by one side or the other-literally, the defense attorney or the prosecutor rises at the outset of trial and says, ”Your Honor, we invoke the rule.”

Neither Muriel nor I had done so in this hearing. I had my reasons, and I a.s.sumed that she did too. So Connie stayed in the courtroom to listen to her son testify. Neil had listened to her as well, and to Carmen Tanagra.

Neil's hair was still long and unruly, but he had shaved for this occasion, and wore a three-piece suit and pin-dot cranberry-colored tie instead of Levi's and silk cowboy s.h.i.+rt. The suit was black; Neil was slim and unafraid of drama.

His testimony about the failed burglary and the shooting echoed what his mother had said. He too had been my witness thirteen years before, so there were no surprises.

When Whatley said, ”Pa.s.s the witness,” I rose from my seat at the counsel table.

”Mr. Zide, you and I have known each other socially for about fourteen years, isn't that correct?”

”Yes, it is.” He was already wary. I suppose he had thought I would let him go the way I had done with his mother.

”So you won't mind if I call you Neil?”

”No, of course not... Ted.”

”I didn't want the court to think that I was taking liberties,” I explained, and smiled up at Judge Fleming.

Then I turned back to Neil. ”You've been in the courtroom, and you heard the testimony of Ms. Carmen Tanagra today, didn't you?”

”Yes, I was here,” Neil said.

”So you heard her testify about going to find the Doberman in the dunes near the beach? And the dog was dead, she told us. Poisoned.”

”Yes.”

I consulted Gary Oliver's notes. ”Sergeant Tanagra remembered that the reason she went down to the beach was because someone had said, 'I wonder if the dog's all right. Why isn't he barking?' And she thought that someone was you. Do you remember that, Neil?”

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