Gold Coast

The car stopped in front of Alhambra, and I got out quickly and went into the house. In the palm court were six FBI men, two in casual clothes with rifles slung across their backs and four in suits. They all turned and looked at me. I was approached by two of them and frisked, then got the metal detector routine that they should have given to my wife.

The first thing I noticed as I looked around was a large potted palm lying on its side near the archway that led to the dining room. The clay pot was cracked open, and soil and palm fronds were spread over the red tile floor. Partially hidden behind the big pot and the foliage was a man sprawled on the floor. I walked over to him.

Frank Bellarosa was lying on his back, his arms and legs outstretched and his striped robe thrown open, revealing his naked body. I could see the healed wounds and pockmarks where the shotgun blasts had hit his arms, neck, and legs some months before. There were three new wounds, one above his heart, one in his stomach, and one right in his groin. I wondered which shot she had fired first. There was a lot of blood, of course, all over his body and his robe, all over the floor, and even on the plant. The three wounds had partly coagulated and looked like red custard. I noticed now that there was blood splattered some distance from his body, and I realized he had fallen from the railed mezzanine above. I looked up and saw that I was standing under where his bedroom door would be.

I looked back at Bellarosa's face. His eyes were wide open, but this time there was no life or pain in them, no tears, only eternity. I kneeled down and pressed his eyelids closed, and I heard Mr Mancuso's voice behind me, "Please don't touch anything, Mr Sutter."

I stood and took a last look at Frank Bellarosa. It occurred to me that the Italians had always understood that at the core of life's problems are men with too much power, too much charisma, and too much ambition. The Italians made demigods of such men, but at the same time they hated them for these very same qualities. Thus, the killing of a Caesar, a don, a duce, was a psychologically complex undertaking, embodying both sin and salvation in the same act. Perhaps Susan, not the sort of person to think of harming anyone for any reason, had absorbed some of her lover's psyche along with his semen, and had decided to use a Bellarosa solution to solve a Bellarosa problem. But how did I know that for sure? Maybe John is projecting. Mancuso tapped my arm and drew my attention to the far side of the palm court.

Susan was sitting with her legs crossed in a wicker chair, between a pillar and a potted tree, out of the line of sight of the corpse. She was fully dressed in her riding outfit, though I did not know then nor would I ever know if she had been fully dressed earlier. Her long red hair, however, which had been tied up under her riding cap, was now loose and dishevelled. Otherwise she looked very composed. Very beautiful, actually. I walked toward her. As I got within a few feet of her, she looked up at me but made no move to meet me. I saw now that an FBI man was standing near the pillar, watching her, guarding her actually. She glanced up at him, and he nodded, and she stood and came toward me. Odd, I thought, how even the highborn learn so quickly how to become prisoners. Depressing, actually.

We stood a few feet apart, and I saw that she had been crying, but she looked all right now. Composed, as I said. I suppose our audience was waiting for us to embrace or for someone to break down or maybe go for the other's throat. I was aware that six or seven men were ready to spring into action in the event of the latter. These guys were tense, of course, having already lost one person they were supposed to be safeguarding.

Finally I said to my wife, "Are you all right?"

She nodded.

"Where did you get the gun?"

"He gave it to me."

"When? Why?"

She seemed a little out of it, which was normal under the circumstances, but she thought a moment and replied, "When he came home from the hospital. The FBI men were searching the house, and he had a gun hidden so he gave it to me to keep for him."

"I see." You blew it, Frank. But really, if it weren't a gun, it would have been a knife or a fireplace poker, or anything she could get her hands on. Hell hath no fury like a redheaded woman scorned. Believe it? I asked her, "Did you make any statement to anyone here?"

"Statement…? No… I just said… I forgot…"

"Don't say anything to them or to the police when they arrive."

"The police…?"

"Yes, they're on the way."

"Can't I go home?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Am I going to jail?"

"Yes. I'll try to get you out tomorrow on bail." Then again, maybe I won't. She nodded and smiled for the first time, a forced smile, but genuine nonetheless. She said, "You're a good lawyer."

"Right." I saw that she was pale and shaky, so I led her back to the chair. She glanced over at the mess at the far end of the palm court, then looked at me and said, "I killed him."

"Yes, I know." I sat her down in the chair, knelt, and took her hand. "Do you want something to drink?"

"No, thank you." She added, "I did this for you."

I chose to ignore that.

The county police arrived, uniformed officers, plainclothes detectives, the forensic unit, ambulance attendants, police photographers, and other assorted crime-scene types. The grandeur of Alhambra seemed more interesting to them than its dead owner, but eventually they got down to business. Susan watched the activity as though it had nothing to do with her. Neither of us spoke, but I stayed with her, kneeling beside her chair and holding her hand. I saw Mancuso speaking to a big beefy guy with a ruddy face, and they kept glancing over at Susan and me as they spoke. Finally, the big guy walked over to us and I stood. A uniformed female police officer joined him. The big guy said to me, "You're her husband?"

"And her attorney. Who are you?"'

He obviously didn't like my tone or my question, but you have to get off on the wrong foot with these guys, because that's where you're headed anyway. He said, "I'm Lieutenant Dolan, County Homicide." He turned to Susan and said, "And you are Susan Sutter?"

She nodded.

"Okay, Mrs Sutter, I'm going to read you your rights in the presence of your husband, who I understand is your attorney." Dolan had one of those little cheat cards like Mancuso had and began reading from it. Good Lord, you'd think they could remember a few simple lines after twenty years of saying them. I mean, I can still recite the entire prologue of the Canterbury Tales twenty-five years after I learned it, and that's in Middle English.

Dolan asked Susan, "Do you understand your rights?"

Again she nodded.

He looked at me. "She understands?"

"Not really," I replied, "but for the record, yes."

He turned back to Susan. "Do you want to make any statements at this time?"

"I -"

I interrupted. "No. She is obviously not going to make any statements, Lieutenant."

"Right." Dolan signalled to the uniformed policewoman, who approached, somewhat self-consciously I thought. Dolan turned back to Susan. "Please stand, Mrs Sutter."

Susan stood.

Dolan said to her, "You are under arrest for murder. Please turn around." The policewoman actually turned Susan by the shoulder and was going to cuff her hands behind her back, but I grabbed the woman's wrist. "No. In the front." I looked at Dolan. "She won't try to strangle you with the cuffs, Lieutenant." This didn't go over very well, but after a little glaring all around, Dolan said to the policewoman, "In front."

Before Susan was cuffed, I helped her off with her tweed jacket, and then the woman cuffed Susan's hands in front of her. This is more comfortable, less humiliating, and looks better because you can throw a coat over the cuffs, which I then did with Susan's jacket.