around the opposite sex, I had not bothered to notice if she wears a wedding band. I would guess her age at forty-two. I seem to remember photos of children in her office.
“You’re on,” she says. “Where shall we meet?”
“It’s your city,” I say, on my heels. The only food I’ve eaten in Orlando has been in the basement cafeteria of Mercy Hospital. It’s dreadful, but cheap. I desperately try to remember the balance on my last credit card statement. Can I afford to take her to a nice restaurant?
“Where are you staying?” she asks.
“At the hospital. It doesn’t matter. I have a car.” I’m staying in a cheap motel in a sketchy part of town, a place I would never mention. And my car? It’s really a little Ford SUV with bald tires and a million miles on the odometer. It hits me that Agnes knows this. I’m sure the FBI has checked me out. One look at my wheels and she’ll prefer to “meet” at the restaurant rather than go through the formality of me picking her up. I like the way she thinks.
“There’s a place called Christner’s on Lee Road. Let’s meet there. And Dutch treat.”
I like her even more. I may even fall in love with her. “If you insist.”
With a law degree and eighteen years of seniority, her salary is around $120,000, or more than mine, Vicki’s, and Mazy’s combined. In fact, Vicki and I really don’t consider ourselves on salary. We each extract $2,000 a month to survive, and give ourselves a bonus at Christmas if there’s anything left in the bank.
I’m sure Agnes realizes that I live in poverty.
I dress in my only clean shirt and well-used khakis. She breezes in from the office and, as always, is well put-together. We have a glass of wine at the bar then retire to our table. After we order another glass of wine, she says, “No shoptalk. Let’s talk about your divorce.”
I chuckle at her abruptness, though I’ve come to expect it. “How’d you know?”
“Just guessing. You go first and talk about yours, then I’ll talk about mine, and in doing so we’ll avoid talking about work.”
Well, I say, it was a long time ago, and I launch into my past. Law school, courting Brooke, marriage, the career as a public defender, my nervous breakdown that led to seminary and a new career, the calling to help the innocent.
The waiter hovers and we order salads and pasta dishes.
She’s had two divorces, actually. A minor one that followed a terrible first marriage, and a major one that was settled less than two years ago. He was a corporate executive who was transferred a lot. She wanted her career and got tired of moving. It was a painful split because they loved each other. Their two teenagers are still trying to cope.
Agnes is intrigued by my work, and I’m happy to talk about our exonerees and our current cases. We eat and drink and talk and enjoy a delightful meal. I’m thrilled to be in the presence of an attractive and intelligent woman, and also to be dining outside the hospital cafeteria. She seems to crave conversation that is unrelated to her work.
But over tiramisu and coffee, we drift back to pressing matters. We are baffled by the actions of Bradley Pfitzner. For many years now he has lived a comfortable life far away from the scene of his crimes. He never came within a mile of being indicted. He was suspected and investigated but too smart and lucky to get caught. He walked away with his money and laundered it nicely. His hands are clean. He did a fine job of putting Quincy away and making sure Kenny Taft would never squeal. Why would he now run the risk of entangling himself in a plot to kill our efforts by killing Quincy?
Agnes speculates he was acting on behalf of the cartel. Perhaps, but why would the cartel, and Pfitzner too for that matter, care if we walk Quincy out of prison? We are no closer to identifying the hired gun who murdered Russo twenty-three years ago. And if by some miracle we learn his name, it will take three more miracles to link him to the cartel. Exonerating Quincy does not equate to solving that murder.
Agnes speculates that Pfitzner and the cartel assumed the hit in prison would be easy and leave no clues. Just find a couple of tough guys pulling hard