BMW at Sugden Park just across US 41 from where Claire lived. The traffic sounded muted here. It seemed like another world.
He carried a cooler and a tartan blanket, no less, when the temperature must be in the high eighties. She couldn’t wait for the weather to break to the clear coolness of autumn days, but the oppressive humidity and the cloudy sky seemed appropriate somehow. She was sure she would—at least should—turn him down.
A warm Gulf breeze rippled the man-made lake that was set back a mile or so from the shore. The park service was giving kids waterskiing lessons today, and several small sailboats zigged and zagged across the surface. The screech of ospreys sailing overhead reminded her of the drone in the sky at the courthouse.
Then, high above the lake, she saw there was a drone, a white one, hard to see in the sun against the sky. She’d read those might be used to spray for mosquitoes, but surely over the Everglades, not in a populated locale like this. She scanned the area to see who might be controlling the drone. Maybe the man way down where the bike trail disappeared into the woods.
She watched Nick flap the blanket over the worn wooden surface of the picnic table. He took soft drinks—with plastic glasses and ice—and two plastic deli cartons out of the cooler. Plastic utensils, napkins, dark rolls and tiny tubs of butter. She saw everything was from Wynn’s, a market uptown she loved but usually avoided because she’d walk out of there with a bill twice what she’d intended.
“Lobster salad,” he said, sitting across from her with his back to the lake, when she was hoping he’d sit beside her so he didn’t seem to be interrogating her. She was really sensitive about body language, and his said impatience and controlled aggression right now. Worse, since his back was to the sun, he took off his sunglasses and regarded her with those disturbing silver-gray eyes. “Hope lobster’s okay.”
“Great. I’d eat that even if I had no hands instead of just one that’s working well. So how is the state of Florida involved in this St. Augustine situation, other than, if your friend is indicted, she’ll go on trial there?”
“So you have been thinking about this case. Good sign.”
“Maybe, but I’m not ready to sign up.”
“Let’s not do a contract per se, except for this.”
He fished a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket, unfolded it and turned it toward her. He was eager now, in a hurry. And he had not answered her question.
She took off her sunglasses to read the paper better. It was not a contract but an offer letter, for two hundred dollars an hour for interviews! And fifty dollars for “general consultation” time! She’d never earned more than seventy-five dollars for an entire interview. It also offered a daily rate of three hundred dollars while in St. Augustine (St. Johns County) and someplace called Palatka (Putnam County) to be paid weekly to her account. Her stomach cartwheeled as she read on. If she helped his South Shores company prove that Jasmine Montgomery Stanton did not murder her mother, Francine Montgomery, there was a $10,000 bonus. He’d signed the paper and had it dated and notarized.
She just stared at the document at first, a forkful of lobster salad halfway to her mouth. She put the fork down and stared into his intense gaze. He moved across from her to block the sun from streaming into her eyes.
“This means a lot to you,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “You said she—this Jasmine—was a friend. Is that why?”
“It’s not the only reason. Through South Shores, I usually take cases in which I believe a so-called suicide or accident is actually a murder. I don’t want to sway what you’ll find out but I don’t think this woman would kill herself. She was influential in St. Johns County, owned Shadowlawn Hall, one of the largest pre-Civil War plantation houses in the area—not a working plantation anymore but a real historic and cultural treasure. It’s been handed down in her family for generations. For financial reasons, she came to the difficult decision to either deed it to the State of Florida or auction it privately. But her daughter Jasmine disagreed with letting it go from the family, despite the financial crunch. I’m convinced Jasmine did not kill her mother, so someone else did. People who knew the deceased are the ones who need to be deposed—I mean, interviewed.”
“And Jasmine herself, of course.”
“Indirectly. She’s been through hell with the authorities, and they still may indict her. She has a small staff and there is at least one other acquaintance who needs to be interviewed.”
“Then let me start briefly with you, since you know her well enough to be quite assertive that Jasmine is innocent. She and her mother did have a disagreement on the fate of the property, which some could construe as a motive for murder.”
“See, I knew you were good. But it isn’t like that,” he insisted, hunching forward. “She loved her mother. I’ve known her—both of them—for years. Francine was a friend of my father, which makes this case more important to me. He thought the world of both of them.”
“I read your father started your law firm.”
“True.”
She’d thought a slight change of subject would calm him, but he seemed even more agitated. And she needed much more information than he seemed willing to share. He gripped his plastic fork so hard he snapped it in half. He sighed deeply, frowned and put the fork down.
“After founding the firm,” he told her, “Dad got into some real estate investment problems that ruined his reputation, but this isn’t about him.” He narrowed his eyes. “So, have you been reading up on me like I have on you?”
“Not yet, but you’re not exactly a private person around here.”
“No, but I’m a deeply concerned person. Claire, I need your help on this. Maybe on other cases, too. I saw how damn good you are. Besides being a Certified Fraud Examiner, I see on your website you’ve trained to be a Forensic Document Examiner, too. I don’t think any forgeries are involved with this case, but that could be important for the future.”
The future, she thought. We’re already talking about a future?
“You’re strong,” he went on, “but you can come off as gentle and nonthreatening. There’s something about you people like and trust, but you’re wily and clever in psyching out and piercing through their armor of lies. Let me ask you the same question I overheard a reporter ask you. Besides verb tense and body language, how do you psych people out?”
She nodded, on familiar ground now, even though she was well aware he’d shifted the conversation from himself. She took a bite of the lobster salad—delicious—though she wasn’t tempted to take a second one right away because he was asking her about her passion. People. People who built walls the way her parents had, people who could help or hurt others and too often did the latter.
“To summarize six years of working my way through college with a double major in psych and English, here it is. When people are lying, they seldom refer to themselves and they tend to talk around direct action. They don’t say, ‘I unlocked the door,’ but ‘The door was left unlocked.’ They speak evasively, try to answer a question with another question like, ‘Why in the world would I kill my own brother?’ They use you’ve-got-to-believe-me language with oaths or vows like ‘I swear,’ or ‘God as my witness.’ They either leave out details or talk too much, often off the subject. So in court, as you saw in the trial, explaining this as I testify makes me an expert witness—hopefully a credible one who can sway the jury.”
“As I’ve seen close up and personal,” he said. He nodded and rapped the table with his knuckles. “You should have gone to law school. And that psyching people out is the way I’m trying to learn to think. Maybe after this St. A case, you can do a workshop for my associates at the firm.”
“I’d rather do that than go to St. Augustine, Nick, because I should stay home. Besides, my sister and doctor will have a fit if I go with this shot-up arm over three hundred miles away anytime soon. You said soon, right?”
“Are