Death of a Prince Read online

  A strong south wind whipped strands of hair around her face, where they stuck to beads of perspiration that broke out almost as soon as she set foot outside. She didn’t mind. She wasn’t planning to move from that spot until well after the sun went down, when she’d take a quick run on the seawall and a splash in the pool before it got too dark.

  One of the reasons she had decided to buy the condo was that she enjoyed periods of solitude on the balcony where she could watch the brown pelicans soaring inches above the waves in search of dinner or see the dolphins breaching just over the breaker line. She also loved to sprawl out on a chaise lounge with a good read and sip wine.

  Eleven stories below, a line of cars headed toward Sixty-first Street and then the causeway off the island. Every Sunday each summer was the same, miles of cars exiting, people returning to the big city. As she watched, she saw a black BMW coming fast from the east. It pulled into the parking lot below. Kitty Fulton drove a black beamer. Sandra hung over the balcony to see who it was. A blond woman jumped out, glanced over her right shoulder, then over her left, and hurried toward the front of the building.

  Inside her apartment, Sandra pulled a brush through her long black hair and twisted it up into a knot. Her curiosity was about to get the best of her.

  Opening the door at the first knock, Sandra found a surprised and breathless Kitty on the other side. Her hair was in a French twist. She wore a black suit, a prim white button-front blouse with a large oval, silver, antique brooch at the throat, and white spike heels. Tears filled her bloodshot eyes.

  “Come in.” Sandra held the door wide. “I saw you from the balcony.” She pushed the door closed. “What’re you doing dressed to the teeth on a Sunday afternoon?” Sandra briefly thought about the T-shirt and shorts she wore. She wasn’t much for dressing on the weekends. The weekdays were another story. She spent a lot of money on clothes. She was a firm believer that any lawyer who charged several hundred dollars an hour ought to look like it, even though a lot of her friends never dressed up unless they were in trial.

  Kitty twisted her purse in her hands. “Can I talk to you?”

  “Sure. Sit down.” She pulled out one of the barstools and went around into the kitchen. “Want something to drink?”

  “Got a beer?”

  As Sandra retrieved a can from the refrigerator and a mug from the freezer and set both on paper cocktail napkins, she studied Kitty. The woman was dressed to the nines all the way down to her fingernails, which looked like they cost every bit as much as her own. Opening the can of beer with a top popper, she went back around the counter to sit next to Kitty, anxious to hear why she was there.

  Kitty poured the beer expertly down the side of the mug and took a long swallow. Afterward, she expelled a deep breath. “Oh, that’s good. It’s so hot out there.”

  “You could have gotten a beer at a bar.”

  “I’m sorry. I feel like such a hypocrite. I am a hypocrite. Sandy, you’ve just got to help me.” Kitty banged the mug on the counter and burst into tears.

  Kitty’s makeup rolled down her cheeks. After a moment, Sandra thought about finding some Kleenex and loped into the bathroom for a box. When she returned, she pushed it at Kitty and asked, “Did you and Raymond have a fight?”

  “You don’t understand.” Mascara formed two vertical lines down her face like clown makeup.

  “Tell me, then.”

  “I. . . killed him. I killed Phillip Parker!”

  Sandra slid off her barstool. After a moment, she put an arm around Kitty. “You don’t know what you’re saying.” Kitty sobbed into Sandra’s shoulder as Sandra walked her to the sofa and sat her down on one end with the box of tissues.

  Kitty smeared the mascara across her cheeks and blew her nose. Her breath came in short gasps. “It’s t-t-true. I’ve b-been in church all day praying over it.” She reached for another tissue and blew her nose again. Taking a couple of deep breaths, she said, “I had to tell someone. I just couldn’t keep it to myself any longer. If I go to the police, Sandy, will you defend me like you said yesterday?”

  “Hold on. I—I was just making a joke yesterday.” Dumbfounded, Sandra stared at her. Kitty would have been her last choice for murderer of the year. This had to be good. She loved a juicy murder case. She couldn’t wait to hear her story and then call Erma. Erma. Phillip. Her mother’s best friend. Shit. Well, the least she could do was hear Kitty out. She held up her hand. “Slow down a minute, will you? I’ve got to think.”

  “I just thought that if anyone could get me off, Sandy, it would be you. I—I’ve seen you and you’re good.”

  Was Kitty just trying to flatter her? Did she really want Sandra to defend her or did she have some other motive?

  Kitty appeared sincere. Sandra knew she was good. She just didn’t know whether Kitty really knew it. Perhaps Kitty wasn’t as dumb as she appeared to be. “Whoa, Kitty, slow down girl. How about you tell me what happened, and then we’ll go on from there.”

  Kitty bit her lower lip. “You mean the whole story? Everything?”

  “Well, sure. If I’m going to help you, I’ll need to know it all.”

  Kitty’s breath came unevenly. She wiped her nose again and settled back into the sofa. “Okay, Sandy, if you think it will help. Only I don’t know where to start.” Her face puckered up once more.

  Sandra brought Kitty’s mug of beer over to the coffee table. She hoped the alcohol would make it easier for the younger woman to talk.

  “Thank you.” She gulped down a couple of swallows and patted her mouth with the crumpled tissue.

  “You know, Kitty, you don’t have to be afraid of me,” she said. “People tell me all kinds of things. Everything’s confidential. I can’t reveal what you say to anyone.”

  “You didn’t say you’d represent me.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Even if I don’t, I still can’t tell anyone what you said.”

  Kitty sniffed and nodded and watched Sandra’s face.

  “I want to represent you, Kitty, but I’ll have to hear you out first. It’s only routine. I never agree to represent someone until I hear his or her side of the story. No lawyer would.”

  “Well . . .”

  “What you say remains confidential,” Sandra repeated. “Whether I take your case or not. Or whether you decide you don’t want me or, heaven forbid, fire me later. Is that what you’re worried about?”

  Kitty licked her lips. She rubbed them together and nodded. She reminded Sandra of a nervous little kid. “I didn’t know. I’ve never had to hire a lawyer before. My husband hired the one for our divorce. I just signed the papers.”

  “I didn’t know you’d been married.” As she listened to Kitty, she had the most tremendous desire for a cigarette. She found herself groping the coffee table for a package of them before she remembered that she had quit years ago. Sandra sucked air into her mouth and exhaled a couple of times. She smiled at Kitty, who she thought looked at her peculiarly.

  “Ten years ago. I got married when I was eighteen. This sounds weird, but I think I married him because we were already doing it. Having sex.” She swiped at her nose again. “We had gone together for two years and had been doing it for most of that time. I felt so guilty. We got married the week after my birthday. That’s why my name is Fulton.”

  “Oh.” Sandra wasn’t sure what Kitty’s marriage had to do with the murder, but she nodded and feigned interest to keep Kitty talking.

  “Having a different name seemed to fool my father, though I didn’t mean it to. He didn’t recognize me. I guess because it had been so many years. Of course, I look a lot different. See, before he left, he called me Kathy. I told my teachers in kindergarten that I wanted to be called Kitty and it stuck. My mother didn’t like it. She always called me Kathryn.”

  “To get back to Phillip’s death—”

  “Just a minute. I’m getting to that.”

  Sandra drew back. Kitty made no sense, but Sandra decided to let her go on since she s
eemed so determined.

  “My mother was heartbroken when I married so young. It didn’t last more than a year and a half. It seemed to me that Mama had been sickly ever since Daddy left us. She died when I was twenty, and I promised myself then that I’d find the bastard and make him pay.”

  Kitty’s voice had grown vehement. Sandra decided “Uh- huh,” was all she would say. She was anxious to hear how all this seemingly irrelevant information about Kitty and her mother was going to fit with her killing Phillip.

  Kitty pushed her shoes off and hiked her feet up under herself like Sandra had done. She smoothed her skirt over her knees and pulled a throw pillow into her lap. “I didn’t know how I intended to make him pay, Sandy. I didn’t mean to kill him. I just wanted to talk to him.”

  Phillip had been Kitty’s father, Sandra realized. She almost laughed at her own stupidity. No wonder Kitty rambled on. “Would you mind if I got a legal pad to make some notes? Just to keep all this straight in my head?”

  Kitty nodded. “Okay.” She reached for her beer as Sandra leapt from the sofa and dashed into her office.

  Sandra could feel the adrenaline spurting into her veins like drugs into a junkie’s. She would have to take Kitty’s case, even if it meant a knockdown, drag-out fight with Erma. The defense of Phillip Parker’s daughter for his murder could very easily be the case of the century. Grabbing a legal pad and a pen from atop the file cabinet in her office, Sandra ran back into the living room. She tried to smile encouragingly at Kitty as she sat cross-legged on the opposite end of the sofa, Indian style. “Go ahead,” she said, concealing her glee as best she could. Head down, Sandra scrawled notes as fast as possible, recording what Kitty had already told her. They’d be going over it many more times before trial, but initial impressions were always important.

  “I used most of Mom’s life insurance to bury her. I sold the furniture. We lived in a rented house. I went to New York to be an actress. I held the starring role in my high school play my junior and senior years. The money from the furniture and stuff didn’t last long. I read for a lot of parts but only got a few walk-ons. So I decided to see if maybe I could model a little. That’s how I came to live in Texas.”

  Sandra glanced up. “What’s how you came to live in Texas?”

  “Oh. I made a lot of money in New York as a large-sized model, but I didn’t really like it, you know? Life is real hectic there and a girl like me from Tennessee is used to a slower lifestyle.”

  “Just out of curiosity, what size are you?” Kitty wasn’t her idea of the type of people who should be modeling for August Max Woman or Lane Bryant.

  “Oh. Ten to twelve.” She feigned a smile.

  Sandra didn’t always win the struggle to stay a size twelve, but she didn’t consider herself large-sized. Tall people just wore a larger size, that’s all. “Go on.”

  “Well, someone told me that I could make money in Dallas and that the pace wasn’t quite as bad as New York. After I landed my job there, I moved down here to Galveston and bought my condo near Gaido’s Restaurant up on the seawall because I always wanted to be near the water.” She flashed a quick smile. “And I like that giant crab they have out front.” She wiped at her eyes again with the wadded-up tissue. “I still do some magazines, too. I usually fly to my assignments.”

  “You were looking for Phillip all that time or did you know where he was?”

  “No, I didn’t start looking for him until I moved to Dallas. I needed money to support myself—that was the main thing at first. But my mother had told me years ago that he had come to Texas.”

  Sandra shook her head. “No—I’m confused. Explain to me what happened with Phillip.”

  “When I killed him, you mean?”

  “Before that. What happened to him and your mother? They were married, right?” Sandra tapped her lower lip with her pen. These days, you never knew whether a person’s parents had been married or not.

  Kitty started fanning her eyes with her hand. Sandra saw that she was close to tears again. She nudged the Kleenex box over to Kitty’s side of the coffee table.

  “I’m sorry, Sandy. It’s all I’ve been doing for two days now.” She blew her nose; her chin quivered.

  “You’re going to be okay.”

  “It’s not that. This whole thing has brought back so many memories. He was so ugly to me, Sandy. He made me feel so worthless.” Kitty broke down and started sobbing.

  Sandra, who still didn’t have a handle on what Kitty’s emotional state was all about, didn’t feel that she could do anything but hold Kitty’s hand and wait for the tears to subside. Sandra had thought she was hardened to tears after so many years of divorce, child custody, and criminal cases, but she found herself responding to Kitty by wanting to cry herself. She didn’t yet understand what Phillip had done to this young woman, but figured it must have hurt her very deeply. Sandra squeezed Kitty’s hand and patted her knee and finally got up and moved to Kitty’s end of the sofa and ran her hand up and down her back and hugged her. That always seemed to work with people. She muttered inane phrases and wished Kitty would stop crying so she could finish her story.

  A few minutes later, Kitty began taking gasps of air in an apparent attempt to settle down. Lifting her head from Sandra’s shoulder, Kitty pulled a few tissues from the box.

  “You going to be all right now?”

  Nodding, she blew her nose several times and wiped her eyes again.

  Sandra began to wonder if perhaps Kitty needed psychological help. It was something she would discuss with her if she decided to take her case. If nothing else, she would never be able to put Kitty on the witness stand if Kitty couldn’t tell her story without breaking down. The risk that jurors would think her mentally unstable would be too great.

  Kitty stared hard at Sandra as she made her next statement. “He left us when I was about five. As far as I know, we never heard from him again.”

  So that was why she was so hurt. How could Phillip have abandoned his only child? “You mean he never supported y’all?”

  Kitty shook her head. “I don’t think so, else why would Mama and me have been so broke? She was a teacher, but they didn’t get much back then, and especially in such a small town.”

  “She could have gone after him for child support in the divorce.”

  “I know, Sandy, but I don’t think Mama ever divorced him. She didn’t have the money and she wouldn’t have wanted anyone to know about what had happened. She told people he was dead. Sometimes I think she believed it herself.”

  “Maybe he divorced her after he got here.”

  “Maybe. I looked through all her papers after she died. If she got any, she must have destroyed them.”

  Sandra shook her head. “There are ways to get divorced without ever telling the other party. It’s not exactly legal, but it can be done.” She stared at Kitty. “Maybe he never let her know.” Or, she thought, maybe they never did divorce and that’s why he never married Lizzie. Damn. Just wait until Erma heard that.

  Kitty shrugged. “I don’t know, Sandy. It really doesn’t matter though.”

  It mattered more than Kitty knew, but she wasn’t going into that yet. “Do you know why he left? Were they having bad financial problems or fighting a lot? Was he an attorney then?”

  Kitty shook her head and stared down at the pillow in her lap. “It was because of me.”

  “Oh, Kitty,” she said, “children often believe they’re at fault in their parents’ separation but they aren’t. I’m sure they just didn’t get along for some reason.”

  “No, you don’t understand.” Kitty raised her eyes to meet Sandra’s. “He didn’t want a child. I heard him say so. He left because of me.” She bowed her head and sobbed.

  Reaching for Kitty’s hands, Sandra grabbed them in her own and squeezed them. “It wasn’t your fault. You were a child. How old were you—four? Five?”

  “Five when he left. At first Mama thought he was dead. He wrote her a letter telling her h
e was going to kill himself. After a few years of not hearing from him again, she went to Social Security to draw death benefits and found out that he was still alive. I don’t know how she found out he had come to Texas. She didn’t tell anyone, though; she kept pretending that he was dead.”

  Sandra shook her head and scooted closer to Kitty on the sofa, slipping her arm around Kitty’s shoulders. “God, Kitty, there had to be more to it than that. Your mother never told you why he really left?”

  “After Mama died, I found some papers. I think my father was being investigated for taking money that didn’t belong to him. All I can figure is that he couldn’t deal with that and having a child, and left us.” Kitty bit her lower lip, as if to hold back a scream. She started breathing in short gasps.

  Sandra patted her shoulder. “It’s okay, Kitty. You’re a survivor.” She hugged her real hard and then released her. “You need to try to maintain control so we can finish this, and then honey, we’re going to get some help for you. Okay?”

  Sandra was trying to sound strong and cheerful, but she felt sick inside. How could Phillip Parker have done such a thing? She’d always thought he was an asshole, but this proved it. She wondered if her mother knew. Impossible. Her mother never would have developed a relationship with the man had she known. And what would she do about telling her? If Sandra represented Kitty, Erma would be helping with the defense. She’d have to know. But first, Sandra needed to get the rest of the story and decide whether she would represent the girl or not.

  Picking up her notepad and pen, Sandra said, “Tell me how you went about finding Phillip.”

  Kitty sniffed again and wiped her nose. “It really wasn’t difficult, but I didn’t do it myself. About three years ago, I hired this firm I saw an ad for in Houston. They’re investigators, but they use computers. They said they could find almost anyone in about twenty-four hours if the client could supply a driver’s license number, or former driver’s license number, Social Security number, or credit card numbers. I had found my father’s Social Security number in those old papers of my mother’s.”