“Probably not that evening.”
“How many pictures do you have?” the judge asked, growing bored.
“Hundreds, Your Honor. The joy of this couple was infinite. But let's wrap it up with this one.” Steve turned toward the witness but spoke to the reporters. “Three months before he died, Charles Barksdale turned sixty. For a surprise birthday party, Katrina Barksdale sent the whole world a message. She gathered her husband's friends on their boat. She arranged for a band and a gourmet meal. And finally…”
He lowered his voice, using the lawyer's trick of garnering more attention with softer words. “Katrina hired an airplane to tow a banner across the sky.”
Victoria glanced at Pincher. Why didn't he object? Steve was testifying, not asking a question. Strictly speaking, all of this was irrelevant to bail. Why was the State Attorney as still as a potted plant?
Steve hoisted the airplane photo into view and waltzed along the bar, making sure the reporters had a good look before turning back to the witness. “What does the banner say, Detective Farnsworth? What did Katrina Barksdale proclaim in letters ten feet tall?”
“Katrina loves Charles,” Farnsworth said.
“KATRINA LOVES CHARLES!” Steve blared.
“Would it be impolite,” Pincher asked, “to inquire what the point of all this is?”
“The point,” Steve said, “is that the prosecution has not shown that the proof of guilt is evident or the presumption great. There's no evidence that the death was even a homicide. Indeed, all that's been proven today is that Katrina Barksdale loved her husband very much. The court must therefore release her, pending trial.”
Steve ambled back to his chair, circled the prosecution table, and grinned at the gallery. His victory lap. Like he'd just scored from first on a single and wanted the moment to linger. Then he sat down, reaching over to squeeze Victoria's hand. As he did, a tiny spark of static electricity jolted them both.
WIDOW FREE ON MILLION-DOLLAR BOND
Sky-High Message: “Katrina loves Charles,” By Joan Fleischman
Herald Staff Writer
Katrina Barksdale, accused of murder in the asphyxiation death of her husband, Charles Barksdale, walked out of the Women's Detention Center today, free on one million dollars bond. Over the strenuous objections of State Attorney Raymond Pincher, Judge Alvin Schwartz granted bail following a two-hour hearing. “Murderers belong in jail, not free on bail,” Pincher said. Defense lawyers Stephen Solomon and Victoria Lord argued that the state could not even prove Charles Barksdale was murdered, much less that his wife was the guilty party. The defense contends that the 60-year-old construction magnate accidentally suffocated during consensual sex with his 33-year-old wife. Solomon also introduced a series of photographs of the couple in an attempt to show that they were deeply in love. In one photo, an airplane towed a banner reading, “Katrina Loves Charles.” At a post-hearing press conference, Solomon set the tone for the forthcoming trial. “My client is a woman who loved her husband as much as I love the law,” he said. After turning over a deed to the couple's Gables Estates mansion as security, Katrina Barksdale was released, pending trial.
Twenty-three
HOW BIG IS YOUR BIGBY?
Clothes strewn across his bed, Steve dressed for dinner, trying to choose between a boring brown plaid suit he'd bought on sale years ago and a charcoal gray pinstripe job that would be suitable for an execution. Ordinarily, dinner attire meant khaki shorts and a rugby shirt, but tonight Steve had to convince Dr. Doris Kranchick that he was a solid citizen, a marrying man.
“The brown's friendly and the gray's powerful,” Steve said, unable to decide.
“Both are dorky,” Bobby said. He was drinking a peanut butter and chocolate shake, one of Steve's concoctions to help the boy gain weight. “Didn't you see me waving at you in court?”
“Yeah, what was that all about?” Steve held the brown plaid jacket up to the mirror. “You know better than to interrupt me when I'm rocking.”
“I wanted to tell you something-”
“Dr. Kranchick, you look lovely tonight,” Steve practiced into the mirror.
“-about that Breitling watch.”
“Did I look like I was lying just then?”
“No more than usual. Are you listening, Uncle Steve?”
“Yeah, the watch Katrina bought for Charles. Maybe I should ask Victoria what she's wearing. We could be color-coordinated.”
“Then you'd be super dorky.” Bobby slurped the shake, a glob of peanut butter stuck in the straw. “What I wanted to tell you, I looked at all the pictures, and Mr. Barksdale had skinny arms and wrists.”
“So?”
“All his other watches were thin, but the Breitling Superocean is thick. It's heavy-duty, good to like three thousand feet.”
“So it's a dive watch. What of it?”
“In those pictures on the beach and on boats, why wasn't he ever wearing it?”
Steve was looking for a tie to match the brown plaid. “Like you said, it wasn't his style. Maybe he didn't like it.”
“So why'd Mrs. Barksdale buy it for him?”
“Because she's a ditz. What difference does it make?”
“Was Mr. Barksdale a scuba diver?”
“I doubt he ever got out of the Jacuzzi. Can you wear a striped tie with a plaid-” Steve stopped. A feeling of dread crept over him. “Are you saying what I think you're saying?”
“If you ask me, Uncle Steve, Mrs. Barksdale bought the watch for somebody who wasn't her husband.”
At about the same time as Steve was trying to match a plaid suit with a striped tie, Victoria was dressing in Jackie Tuttle's Grove Isle condo. They had played two hours of tennis, Victoria rushing the net whenever possible, and sometimes when it wasn't. Jackie had been content to stand at the baseline and hit a variety of dinks, drops, and dipsy doodles, expending as little energy as possible while talking nonstop. Flying to the net was not only draining, it could also break a girl's nose if she got walloped by one of Victoria's powerful volleys.
Now, after showering and downing a pair of gin and tonics each, they were slipping into their clothes while chattering about work and men and a shoe sale at Bloomingdale's. Jackie had changed into a Roberto Cavalli black spandex top with open shoulders, dripping with gold-tone chains. Examining herself in the mirror, she cupped both hands under her breasts and lifted them. “How do my bazooms look?”
“Big and bodacious,” Victoria said.
“That's the idea.”
Victoria chose a consignment-shop Ralph Lauren dress, white silk from the waist down, a sexy silver mesh racer's back on top. Like a wrestler's singlet, it was scooped low, leaving her shoulders and most of her back bare.
“You can't wear a bra with that,” Jackie said, pouring herself into tight, stretchy black and gold jeans that picked up the gold chain motif.
“Wasn't planning to. Do I look too flat-chested?”
“Not a bit. It's great on you. Really hot. You just don't usually
…”
“What?”
“Dress like that. But it's terrific.”
Victoria borrowed a pair of Jackie's shoes-ankle-wrap champagne sandals with three-inch heels-then spent longer than usual on her makeup, trying the chestnut lip liner before starting over with red chocolate, a perfect match with the naked pink lipstick. Jackie watched, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
“What now?” Victoria demanded.
“Nothing. You just seem different tonight. Less inhibited.”
“I'm playing a role, that's all.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I need to make an impression.”
“On the doctor or the Bad Boy?”
“Don't start with that. I'm playing the kind of woman Solomon would marry.”
“When you're with Bruce, do you play the kind of woman he'd marry?”
“What's that mean?”
“Don't take this wrong,” Jackie said, “because I'm your absolutely best friend and I'm not being catty. But I'm just wondering. Which is the real you?”