Read The Deep Blue Alibi for Free Online

so you might as well hear me out. I’ve got a great plan of attack.”
    “Ah ain’t listening.”
    “You resigned from the bench and the Bar but were never impeached or disbarred.”
    “So what?”
    “You can still pass the ‘moral character’ test.”
    “Let it be, son.”
    “I can win this, Dad.”
    “Sleeping dogs, son. Let ‘em lay.”
    “What are you saying? Did you take bribes to rezone property?”
    “Screw you! You know better than that.”
    “Then you should have fought back. Hired counsel. Jeez, Dad, if you were innocent—”
    “Innocent until proven broke. Ah walked away. That’s mah right.”
    “I’m gonna subpoena Pinky Luber, force him to recant his allegations.”
    “Son, you ain’t got enough butt in your britches to take on Pinky.”
    “That little old man? He’s …He’s…”
    Steve tried to come up with a down-home expression to keep pace with his father. Just how did you describe Pinky Luber, ex-lawyer and ex-con, the sleaze-ball who fingered his father?
    Softer than a pat of butter?
    Greasier than a deep-fried donut?
    All vine and no taters?
    Skipping dinner seemed to make all his metaphors turn on food. Steve settled on: “Pinky’s nothing. Nothing at all.”
    “Don’t be fooled by appearances. Pinky always had scary friends, even when he was a prosecutor. Dirty cops, thugs, P.I.’s. And he probably made a few more acquaintances in prison.”
    “Is that what you’re afraid of, Dad? Pinky coming after you?”
    “One thing you never learned, son. You start turning over rocks, you best be expecting snakes, not flowers.”

Six
     
    A DREAM CALLED OCEANIA
     
    It was just after eight a.m., but the humidity already hung in the air like damp sheets on a clothesline. Overhead, the clouds were fleecy white with just enough gray to warn of afternoon rain. Victoria, Steve, and Bobby walked along a scrubby beach at Pirates Cove, waiting for Hal Griffin’s seaplane to pick them up and take them to Paradise Key, where Junior would be waiting.
    A turtle as big as a garbage-can lid slid from the sand into the water and paddled away. Victoria wished they’d had time for a morning swim. Preferably without Steve’s plea for an underwater hump-a-rama. And preferably without crashing boats and cash-carrying lobsters.
    Bobby and Steve were skipping stones across the shallow water, betting who could get the most skips, the loser having to peel mangoes for their afternoon smoothies. Despite his numerous flaws, both personal and professional, Steve was a terrific surrogate father. If Victoria kept a scorecard of her boyfriend’s pluses and minuses—and what woman doesn’t?—Steve’s care for Bobby would be his finest attribute. Once, while sipping a glass of Chardonnay, she had scribbled notes on a legal pad, grading Steve’s potential as a life mate:
     
    1. Great parenting skills
    2. Makes me laugh
    3. Makes me come
     
    The negatives took up two pages, but still, those three positives carried a lot of weight.
    Her cell phone rang, the readout showing the hospital. “Morning, Uncle Grif. How do you feel?”
    “Lousy, Princess. Those fifty-dollar sleeping pills don’t work.”
    “What about your headache?”
    “Like a drill bit going through bedrock.”
    “How’s that guy Stubbs doing?”
    “I ask but they don’t tell. Listen, Princess—lying awake last night, it all came clear to me. Someone’s trying to sink Oceania.”
    “Oceania?”
    “A dream of mine that’s almost a reality. It’s what I was coming to talk to you about. Junior will tell you everything.”
    “So who’s trying to sink Oceania?”
    “Whoever shot Stubbs. That’s your case. Someone wanted me out of the picture. No more Hal Griffin, no more Oceania.”
    Whatever that is. Victoria swatted at her neck, where a mosquito had settled for breakfast.
    “What I’m saying,” Griffin continued, “if Stubbs doesn’t make it and I’m charged with killing him, you can’t just poke holes in the