Free Blood Relations by Barbara Parker

story.
    “She puked down his back, all over his jacket, which was this really fab green silk, and he was looking the other way and he didn’t even notice because he was like totally smashed, and she just walked out of the restaurant-”
    Tommy trotted back down the beach to reload. Caitlin could have done it, but he considered it his job. Rafael stayed where he was, arms crossed, kicking idly at a scrap of driftwood. With deft movements, Tommy detached the camera from the lens, attached a loaded camera, then took the film out of the first. He marked the roll, zipped it onto a bag on the cart, reloaded, then jogged back to the models, his black hair flowing out behind him.
    Sullivan asked, “Who is that kid? He looks sort of Asian.”
    Caitlin said, “His father’s Chinese, and he’s eighteen years old. Leave him alone.”
    “You’re in a funny mood. I was only asking.”
    Caitlin grabbed some bottled water out of a small ice chest and unscrewed the cap. She had planned to shoot the other roll of film. Just in case. In case what? Maybe Martin Cassie, hired by the Grand Caribe Resortand who happened to be Uta’s husband-wouldn’t like any of these. Maybe Marty didn’t like doing favors.
    Maybe Caitlin hadn’t kissed Uta’s fanny sincerely enough. Maybe it would have been better not to have taken this job at all.
    Still waiting, the male model cupped his hands and shouted, “Are we about done? I have to take a leak.”
    Caitlin tossed the bottle back into the cooler. “Yes!
    That’s it! We’re done.”
    Sullivan swung his feet off the beach lounger. “You girls go to the van and fetch me some water, will you?”
    “Have some of mine.” The Haitian girl held out her insulated tumbler with the straw through the top.
    “Don’t make me be rude. Go on, I have to talk to Caitlin. And tell that Chinese kid to give us a minute as well.” He waited for them to leave, then walked over to where Caitlin was unsnapping the latches on her camera case.
    “What is it, Sullivan?”
    “Are you going to testify against Klaus Ruffini, if there’s a trial?”
    “I haven’t thought about it.” She laid the camera into its fitted nic’he and closed the lid.
    “Have you been to the state attorney’s office yet?”
    Caitlin stopped with the telephoto half off the tripod.
    “No. What for?”
    “They had me down there for two hours yesterday, asking questions. You mean nobody called you? I went with Mirabelle-you know Mirabelle. She said she didn’t see much, but she certainly did. Anyway, we got lost in the criminal courts-God, what a freak show!and finally stumbled into the right building. Not gray and blocky, as you would expect. The walls are turquoise, and the carpet is deep pink. Sort of Kafka tropicale.
    They wanted to know exactly what I saw, what I was doing at the club that night, who else was there, who I had come with, whether I was high. As if I were on trial. You’ll never guess who’s in command of the interrogations.”
    Caitlin lowered the lens into its case. “Who?”
    “You remember that boy who died in a motorcycle accident last year? Stavros? Don’t look so blank, Caitlin.
    You know who I mean. You and he worked on a French sportswear catalog.”
    She stared at him for another second, then said, “Yes, of course,”
    “Well, the prosecutor is Stavros’s father. Can you believe it? His name is Hagen, a hulking, stone-faced man with a government haircut and an atrocious blue suit. I’d never have guessed, because there’s not much resemblance to Stavros, but when I told him I was a model, he said his son was a model on South Beachwas, as in deceased. So I asked who, and he said Matthew Hagen, who had also called himself Stavros. So I said, yes, of course I had known his son, that we’d been friends, in fact, and that I was terribly shocked when he died, although I had been out of the country at the time.”
    Caitlin began to fold up her tripod.
    Sullivan said, “Hagen asked me if I would