Beyond Suspicion

35

•

Katrina Padron had blood on her hands. It was all in a day’s work. The vial had leaked in her hand. One of the idiots at the mobile unit had failed to seal it properly, something that occurred far too often in the shipment of product from the source to the distribution warehouse. Mishaps were inevitable when dealing with untrained workers. What else could she expect? A month earlier the crew had been operating a video rental shop, next month they might be hawking gemstones. For now, it was human blood. Diseased blood. Lots of it.

Thank God for latex gloves.

Katrina was in the back of the warehouse, scrubbing her hands with a strong soap and disinfectant, when her assistant emerged from the walk-in refrigerator. He was dressed in a fur-lined winter coat and carrying a box large enough to hold a dozen vials packed in dry ice and wrapped in plastic bubble wrap.

“Where’s this one going again?” he asked.

“Sydney, Australia.”

He grabbed a pen and an international packing slip. “I saw a travel show about Sydney on the TV a while back. Isn’t that where England used to send its worst prisoners?”

“A long time ago.”

“So that means everybody down there descended from some guy who was in jail.”

“Not everyone.”

“Still, prison is prison. You’d think they’d have enough AIDS-infected blood already. What do they need us for?”

Katrina just rolled her eyes. Morons, I work with. Total morons.

He sealed up the box with extra tape and attached the shipping label. “All set. One Australian football ready for drop-kick shipment,” he said as he went through the pretend motion.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“What do you think, I’m stupid or something?” He removed his coat, hung it on the hook beside the big refrigerator door, and started for the exit.

“Hey, genius,” said Katrina. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

He turned, then groaned at the sight of the unfinished paperwork in her hand. “Aw, come on. I’ve been in and out of that refrigerator for three hours. Can’t you at least do the invoicing for me, babe?”

“Only if you stop calling me babe.”

He winked and smiled in a way that was enough to make her nauseous. “You got it, sweets.”

She let him and his remarks go. It was easier that way. She wasn’t pla

Most amazing of all, the blood business was a huge step up from her first job.

A dozen years earlier she’d come to Miami from Cuba by way of the Czech Republic, having spent four long years in Prague under one of Fidel Castro’s most appalling and least known work programs. At age seventeen, she was one of eighty thousand young Cuban men and women sent to Eastern Bloc countries to work for paltry wages. The host countries got cheap labor for jobs that natives didn’t want, and Castro got cash. Katrina had been lured across the ocean by the prospect of exploring a country outside her depressed homeland. Once there, she’d ended up seeing little more than the inside of a sweatshop and the two-bedroom apartment she shared with seven roommates. Not even the wages were as promised, which only galvanized her determination never to return home to Cuba. In time, her sole mission devolved into nothing more than getting out of Prague alive.

At times even that had seemed too lofty a goal.

“Katrina?”

She looked up from her paperwork to see her boss standing in the doorway. Vladimir was strictly a front-office guy. He didn’t usually spend any time in the warehouse. Especially since they’d gotten into the dirty-blood business.

“Yes, sir?”

He came toward her, stepping carefully around the boxes scattered about the concrete floor. Under his arm was the glossy red folder that held the latest slick marketing brochure for Viatical Solutions, Inc., which told her that he’d come to see her about his other business. The two companies shared office space.

“I just got off the phone with some guy who says you referred him to me.”

“Says I referred him?”

“Big, deep voice. Sounds like a burly old football player. Says he wants to meet and talk about a huge book of viatical business for us.”

“What’s his name?”

“Theo. Theo Knight. You know him?”

Katrina instantly recognized the name but forced herself to show no reaction. “I do.”

“I told him I’d meet him at the Brown Bear for di

She put the blood invoices aside, struggling to keep her own blood from boiling. “Sure. I’d love to chat with my ol’ pal Theo.”

36

•

Jack and Rosa reached the Law Offices of Clara Pierce amp; Associates at precisely 3:29 P.M. The reading of Jessie Merrill’s will was scheduled for half-past three, and one extra minute was plenty of time for Jack to sit in enemy territory.

A receptionist led them directly to the main conference room and seated them in chairs of ox-blood leather at the long stone table. From the looks of things, Clara’s practice was thriving. Plush carpeting, cherry wainscoting, silk wall coverings. The focal piece of the room was the exquisite conference table. It was cut from creamy-white natural stone, rough and unfinished, one of those expensive excesses that interior decorators talked lawyers into buying and that was completely nonfunctional, unless you were the type of person who liked to try to put pen to paper on the Appian Way.

The receptionist brought coffee and said, “Please be sure to use coasters. The stone is porous and stains quite easily.”

“Sure thing,” said Jack. Beautiful, impractical, and high maintenance, he thought. Jessie would so approve.

She closed the door on her way out. Jack and Rosa looked at each other, puzzled by the fact that they were alone.

“Are you sure Clara said three-thirty?” asked Jack.

“Positive.”

The door opened and Clara Pierce entered the room. A leather dossier was tucked under one arm. “Sorry I’m late,” she said as she shook hands without a smile. “But this shouldn’t take long. Let’s get started.”

“Isn’t anyone else coming?” asked Jack.

“Nope.”

“Are you saying I’m the only heir?”

“I think I’ll let Jessie answer that. Her will is as specific as it can be.”

Jack didn’t fully understand, but Rosa gave him a little squeeze on the elbow, as if to remind him that they had come only to listen.

Clara removed the papers from the dossier and placed them before her. Jack sipped his coffee and absentmindedly set the mug on the table. Clara’s eyes widened, as though she were on the verge of cardiac arrest. With a quick snap of the fingers she said, “Jack, please, coaster.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“This table is straight from Italy. It’s the most expensive piece of furniture I’ve ever purchased, and once it’s stained, it’s ruined.”

“Just lost my head there for a second. Won’t happen again.”

“Thank you.”

“Can you read the will, please?” said Rosa.

“Yes, surely. Let me say at the outset, however, that it was not my idea to have an official reading of the will. I would have just as soon let you see a copy when I filed it with the probate court. But it was Jessie’s specific request that there be a reading.”