Suspicion of Madness (18 page)

Lois had a telephone at her ear, walking back and forth as far as the cord would allow. Her dress was long and loose, with a pattern of white cartoon fish to relieve the funereal black. She was saying, "Yes, I understand. It's no problem at all…. We'll run the credit through immediately. Good-bye. We hope to see you another time." She hung up. "Damn it."

Her brother asked her what was going on.

She smiled at him. "Oh, some of the guests are a little nervous about the weather. Don't worry. We've transferred most of them to other open dates. And no, I'm not returning any deposits."

Martin nodded absently, less like the owner than an outsider, as comfortable here as he would be if he'd stumbled into the ladies' room. He said, "Lois, I need to check on something in the back, all right?"

"Certainly." Lois followed him with her eyes, then said to Anthony, "I'm sorry that our regular shuttle service won't resume till Sunday."

"Not a problem," Anthony replied.

When Martin came back, he asked Lois if she had seen his gun, the .38 they kept in the file drawer.

"No, Martin, I haven't. It's not there? Where else would it be? We keep that drawer locked."

"Billy found the key," Martin said.

"My God." Alarmed, Lois clutched at her heart through the fabric of her dress. "Well, get the gun back from him. Martin, what's he going to do with it?"

"Calm down. He doesn't have it. He took it with him last night to Joan's dock and dropped it somewhere, or threw it. He can't remember."

"We have to find it."

"We will, we will. As soon as I get back, I'll take a look. Let me have the keys to my boat, will you?"

"Martin, don't go." She put her hand to his cheek. "You should rest. You've been up all night. I can take them to the marina." Even with more than ten years between them, their faces echoed in the prominent nose and thin lips. Under the blond streaks her hair was brown, and his was the same shade, though it was going gray and he'd lost most of it.

"I'm fine," he said. "It would do me good to get some fresh air."

In reproachful silence she went to a desk in the far corner and opened a drawer.

Gail murmured to Anthony, "Could you guys go ahead to the boat? I'd like to talk to Lois." Anthony raised a brow. "I'll be right there," she said.

He glanced at his watch. "Five minutes."

Returning, Lois handed her brother a key ring with an orange plastic float attached. When the men were out the door, Gail said, "Lois, I know you're busy, but I have a question about Sandra McCoy."

"Are you working for Mr. Quintana? You said you weren't."

"Well, now I am. He asked me to help out."

"Please don't tell me we have to pay you too."

Gail smiled at her. "Anthony's taking care of my fees." She glanced at the woman still clicking away on a calculator. "Could we talk privately?"

Lois led her to the same office from which Martin Greenwald had emerged a minute earlier. Lois's desk was as plain as those in the front office. A bulletin board on one wall tracked cottages, rooms, and reservations in multiple colors of ink. Lois remained standing, a hint for Gail to ask her question then be off.

"We've found out that Joan Lindeman's nephew, Douglas, paid a thousand dollars to Sandra McCoy to run errands for his aunt. What he was probably doing was gathering information to use against Joan Lindeman in the petition for guardianship. Were you aware of this?"

Lois Greenwald blinked a few times, then said, "A thousand dollars? I wasn't aware of the amount. I was aware that he asked her to take care of Joan, in a manner of speaking. Delivering meals. Seeing if she needed anything."

"Do you happen to know how long Sandra had been doing this?"

Lois's pale green eyes went blank for a moment before she said, "About two months, perhaps a little longer."

"So that works out to five hundred a month."

"Yes," Lois said, "it does. What is your point?"

"That it's a lot of money for running errands."

Since hearing about Tom Holtz's strange relationship with Sandra McCoy, Gail had realized that this had been a girl with a creative approach to morality. A girl who, according to Billy Fadden, was going out with a man whose name she wouldn't divulge. So who was this guy? Maybe the one who was paying Sandra McCoy an exorbitant amount for her services—whatever they were.

"How old is Douglas Lindeman?"

"Thirty-six. Why do you ask?"

"I was wondering if perhaps there could have been something between him and Sandra. Of a romantic nature, I mean. Is that possible?"

With a small laugh of surprise, Lois Greenwald said, "No. It's not possible. Doug and I are very close. We're engaged, in fact. He wasn't involved with Sandra. I would know, believe me."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize—" Gail smiled an apology even as her mind groped to find where her theory had gone wrong.

"Douglas lost his fiancée last year, and he's still in mourning." Lois whispered, "I'm helping him work through it. He says I'm indispensable to his recovery."

"Really." Gail studied the deep lines in Lois Greenwald's sun-splotched skin, the bony knobs of her collarbone.

"We aren't
officially
engaged, but I'm sure it will happen for us. Do you believe in fate, Ms. Connor?"

"I... suppose so."

"I have a psychic reader in Key Largo that I go to. She says that when two people are meant to be together, they will be. Doug and I are destined to spend the rest of our lives together, so if he needs a little extra time to work out his issues, I can be patient."

"Well. Congratulations," Gail said, though unsure if this was the proper sentiment in the circumstances.

"Thank you." Lois Greenwald's face softened with pleasure, and a blush tinted her angular cheekbones.

Gail thought of something else. Time was pressing on her, and Anthony might already be picking out what words he would toss her way when she got to the boat, but she couldn't keep from asking Lois, "Two years ago, Joan Sinclair was going to sell her property to your brother, but she changed her mind. Do you know why?"

"Her life estate," Lois corrected. "She doesn't really
own
the property. No, I haven't the slightest idea why she decided not to sell. Martin was heartbroken. He had planned to have a palm nursery and garden. We wanted to put in walking paths and some very exclusive cottages. It would've been beautiful." After a pause, Lois added, "I think Joan did it for spite. This whole island used to belong to her family. She can't stand the fact that her brother sold it to Martin instead of leaving it to her."

There was a clock on the wall behind Lois, but Gail didn't want to look.

"It's my understanding that Sandra's work here wasn't satisfactory. And you were planning to let her go? What was the problem?"

Lois had a cold little smile that could have scooped ice cream. "She was lazy. Devious. Flippant. She dressed too provocatively for the Inn, these short little skirts that showed her navel! I was within a few days of firing her. She thought she was doing us a favor, working here. She was routinely late. Sometimes she'd call Billy to come pick her up. He would've jumped off the roof if she'd said to. He was always tagging around after her, always watching. What do you think was going on in his head? I'm very much afraid that you and Mr. Quintana are going to end up right where you started. Billy said he killed her. Maybe he meant it."

Thirty seconds later, running down the front steps of the hotel with her purse bouncing and a shoe in each hand, Gail silently repeated the question that she hadn't asked, wouldn't have dared to ask, even if there had been time.

Where were you, Lois, when Sandra McCoy was dragged into the dark and murdered?

11

Anthony sat with Martin Greenwald under the white canvas top of a twenty-eight-foot Sea Ray twin inboard. Employees at the resort were few this week, but Martin had found one, and had told him to bring the boat down from its lift in the boat-house. The young man was waiting on the dock, ready to let go the lines as soon as Ms. Connor was aboard.

The boss wore a faded khaki fishing hat secured under his chin by a wooden knob, a long-sleeved shirt with air vents, and a fraying pair of hiking shorts. His legs were tanned nearly as dark as his deck shoes, whose leather laces were pieced together. Except for the Rolex and expensive prescription sunglasses he might have been mistaken for one of the local fishermen. His speech was laconic, his movements deliberate and slow. Creases scored his long, solemn face. Those who didn't know him might think he lacked a sense of humor.

Martin was telling Anthony about Joan Sinclair's trips to the Lindeman family graveyard. He had last taken her there in the spring.

"There's a routine for this, you see. We leave the boat at the marina, and then we go by the florist to pick up some roses. She buys them wrapped in cellophane, and not a few of them, every last rose in the shop. She says, 'Why don't you have
more
? Is this
all?'
and the clerk says, 'Well, Miss Sinclair, if you had called first—' Joan likes the red ones best. Then we drive over to the graveyard. I sit on a bench under a tree outside the fence. She dresses like a widow at a Mafia funeral, right down to the black gloves and stockings and a hat with a veil. She crosses herself, and she's not even Catholic. You'd swear it's a movie."

"Where is this graveyard?" Anthony asked.

"Go past Mile Marker 86 and turn into the Bay Harbor Resort. You'll see it from the road. Old man Lindeman, Harry and Joan's father, used to own the property, and he sold it on condition the graveyard be kept up. He's buried out there. It's a pretty little place, about half the size of a tennis court."

Something caught Martin's attention. He looked through the crack between his sunglasses and the brim of his hat. "That woman sure has a lot of energy."

Anthony turned to see Gail in her pink dress rushing along the path from the hotel. At the dock she put on her shoes, balancing on one foot, then the other. She smiled and waved. Anthony lifted his arm and tapped his watch. When she reached the boat he helped her aboard. "You said five minutes."

"No,
you
said five minutes." She apologized to Martin for running late.

"As long as you're running, it's okay," he said. "Sit there next to me. Make that ugly boyfriend of yours sit in the back." Anthony took the seat directly behind Gail's. She made an air kiss in his direction. Martin turned one key, then the other, and the engines purred to life.

Crossing to Islamorada, he kept the boat moving slowly, steadily toward shore. Martin was rarely in a hurry. The wind teased Gail's hair around her face. She chatted with the captain about palm trees. He had recently acquired a
Pelagodoxa henryana
from the Marquesas Islands, very rare. The baby was only two feet tall, but was doing nicely. She might also enjoy the sealing-wax palm, with its shiny, bright-red leafstalk.

Gail showed an interest in the subject that Anthony had not known she possessed. Raptly she listened to Martin explain the difference between
pinnate
and
palmate
leaf structure. Anthony sat so that the sun warmed his back and he could look at Gail's face. He loved looking at her: the soft skin, the dusting of gold at her hairline, delicately arching eyebrows, a small chin, and a nose that turned up. Her upper lip protruded slightly farther than its mate, and at any moment her mouth could curve into a smile. The light made her squint, but she held her sunglasses in her lap. Anthony wondered if she did this to let Martin Greenwald see her eyes, which were the blue-gray of dawn, a color any man could admire. An irritating thought.

He slid his hand up her arm and caressed the back of her neck.

Martin recommended a lady palm for her office. Better still, a
Chameadorea metallica,
a hardy but well-mannered plant. He would give her one to take home.

She said, "Martin, when we saw Tom Holtz today, he mentioned that you had planned to grow palm trees on the other side of the island. Do you still want to?"

"I wouldn't mind, but Joan Sinclair is living there, you know. I was going to start a nursery for rare species, but it would have been more of an ego thing than a sensible investment. We've put the money into improvements in the facilities instead."

"What about Lois? She had hoped to build on the other side?"

"Yes, some two-story guest houses, but development laws have been tightened to the point that's no longer possible. Last winter Lois worked out a deal to lease the dock, but Joan backed out. I said never mind, what's the point of getting excited about things you have no control over?"

"Why did Lois want her dock?" Gail asked.

"For bigger boats. Our harbor is only four feet, which is plenty for boats like this one, but the big boys could scrape bottom. Sailboats are out of the question. The state won't let us dredge, but over on Joan's side, it's ten feet, with a natural channel out to the Florida Straits."

"You have shuttle service to the marina. Don't people leave their boats there?"

"They do, but they don't like it. Would you? While you're cruising, the boat is your home. You don't want to leave it at the marina, pay them a docking fee, and move your stuff into a cottage. You'd rather tie up to our dock and pay three hundred a day for full use of The Buttonwood Inn facilities."