Suspicion of Madness (36 page)

"Have you got your phone set to vibrate? I didn't hear it."

He nodded. "She d-doesn't like it to ring. If I'm... over at her house? She says, 'T-t-turn that... goddamn thing off! Can't you see I-I'm resting?'" Except for the stutter, his voice was eerily similar to Joan Sinclair's. He had mimicked perfectly the bored drawl, the Lauren Bacall accent, the smoky rasp. Why not? Arnel Goode was Joan's biggest fan. How many hundreds of hours had he spent watching her movies, memorizing her lines?

He shook out a cluttered key ring and inserted the right key into the ignition. Gail remembered something. "Arnel, you took Sandra and Billy to the marina the day she died, didn't you?"

"Sure." Arnel checked the rearview and backed up.

"Did you hear what they were they talking about? Did Sandra mention why she was leaving work early?"

"No." He frowned through the windscreen. "But I think... she had a f-f-f-fight with Miss Sinclair."

Gail had guessed correctly. This had been the day that Joan Sinclair had kicked Sandra out after catching her upstairs in her bedroom. "Did Sandra tell you about it?"

"Miss Sinclair did. She said... Sandra was t-t-trying to steal her jewelry and... she told her to get out and don't... come back."

"Does Joan have a lot of jewelry?"

Arnel drove out of the marina and turned right, making no indication he had heard the question. The wipers beat on the windshield.

"Arnel? I'm trying to help Billy. Anthony and I are looking for the reason Sandra McCoy was killed. What if Sandra... let's say she told someone that she had seen some valuable jewelry in Miss Sinclair's bedroom."

"Told who?"

"It's just a theory. Let's suppose that this other person wanted all of it. He killed Sandra so he wouldn't have to share it with her. Or maybe he thought she was going to turn him in to the police. Whatever. So does Joan Sinclair have something worth stealing?" Gail waited for Arnel to respond. "Arnel? What did Sandra see?"

His face was hidden by the slouching brim of the old rain hat. "I-I don't know."

"You just said Joan accused Sandra of trying to steal her jewelry."

"I don't know w-w-what she has. She won't let anybody in her room."

"Not even you?"

He shook his head.

"Has Joan ever mentioned having something valuable in there?"

"No."

Gail wanted some way to get past the surface, unsure whether Arnel simply didn't know or refused to say out of loyalty.

Arnel glanced at her. "How are you g-g-getting back... back to the marina?"

"A taxi?"

"I'll take you. If-if you won't be in the store too long, I'll take you back to the marina. Then you call Martin."

"But you're supposed to drive straight to Key West."

"A-a-are you going to tell Lois?"

"Not me," Gail said.

"Me either," said Arnel.

It had become a custom between Gail and her daughter that whenever one of them went on a trip, the other could expect a small gift to appear from the suitcase when the traveler returned home. The gift wouldn't be expensive; humor was valued more highly than cost. At Island Treasures, suffering from low-grade guilt, Gail found two items for Karen. The silly gift was a green plastic change purse shaped like a sea turtle; the other, a piece of polished coral set in a spiral of silver wire that Karen could wear as a pendant on a chain.

The clerk was still attending to another customer, so Gail set the gifts on the counter and wandered into an alcove featuring tropical clothing for ladies. On the half-price rack she noticed a white linen dress with starfish and shells embroidered around the low neckline. Original price, $195, on sale for $100. She found a mirror and held the dress under her chin. It was beautiful, flaring from a slim waist to mid-calf with panels that would lift if caught by a breeze.

"That dress would look very nice on you." The young woman had apparently finished with her customer, a fact that was confirmed when the front door opened and shut. "I sold one to a lady who was going to get married. We have a lot of brides come in here. You can't wear a traditional bride's dress in the Keys. Well, you
can,
but who wants to sweat in all that satin?"

"It goes so well with my sneakers, don't you think?"

"Why don't you try it on?"

"I'm afraid I might end up buying it. Are you Penny Lobianco?"

"And you're Gail Connor. Emma said you'd be coming in." Penny was in her early twenties, thin as a stick with short blond hair like the fuzz on a poodle.

"Thank you for talking to me," Gail said.

"Emma threatened to slash my tires if I didn't. Just kidding."

"Billy didn't kill Sandra McCoy."

"I wasn't there, and you weren't either, so who knows?"

"You don't like Billy."

"He's a smart-mouthed geek, a spoiled little rich boy. But hey. Why be different?"

"Was Sandra sleeping with Doug Lindeman?"

"Do you think
he
killed her?"

"I think he might have, yes."

"Why?" Penny snorted. "They weren't in love." Her tone put quotation marks around the word. "I mean, it's not like if she looked at some other guy Doug would get all pissy-faced about it."

"They were just having a good time?"

"You could say that."

"Did you tell the police about their affair?"

"They didn't ask." Penny smiled. "Anyway, he didn't do it."

"Do you have any theories as to who did?"

"Besides Billy Fadden, you mean? Because he flipped out when she broke up with him? And he hit her and said she was a slut whore who should drop dead?"

"Yes, who besides Billy?"

Penny sighed. "Some whacked-out freak. A sexual sadist. A jerkoff who just happened to see her in the parking lot. It happens. You do something as simple as leave your house to rent a video, and you wind up with your throat cut. I'm from Miami. I left there because I got mugged
four times,
but it's getting crazy here too. We have murders in the Keys. People are killed for no reason except it seems like a fun thing to do. I keep my doors locked, and I always look behind me at night. It could happen to anybody, especially girls with long hair, like Sandra. The psycho serial killers go for girls with long hair, it's a proven fact. That's one reason I cut mine off."

For a few moments Gail could think of no reply that would not contain the word
paranoid.
She asked, "Did Sandra ever talk to you about Joan Sinclair?"

"Jeez-o-Pete, there's a weirdo for you. The way she lives, shit all over the place, talking to herself, freaking out if Sandra wanted to come in."

"But Sandra did come in. In fact, Doug Lindeman paid her a thousand dollars to look around Joan's house. Did you know about that?"

"No, I didn't. No way I'd go in there. She said that woman used to be a vampire in the movies."

Gail asked Penny Lobianco if she knew about the apartment on South Beach. Penny said she did. Gail asked, "Do you know how she intended to pay for it?"

"She said her aunt died and left her some money in her will. That was probably bullshit, but I don't blame her for wanting out of here."

"Why do you live in the Keys if you don't like it?"

"Because everywhere else is
totally
horrible. We've still got a few good days, mostly when the tourists aren't littering the beaches and running people off the road, you know what I mean?"

"Did Sandra ever talk about Joan Sinclair being rich? Maybe she had something of value in the house? Jewelry, gold, cash..."

Penny Lobianco laughed. "Are you serious? The way Sandra talked, if that lady didn't have a house, she'd be on the street with a shopping cart."

This picture was so at odds with the one that Gail had been developing in her mind that she rephrased the question. "Did Sandra specifically tell you that Joan Sinclair had no money? That she was broke?"

Penny crossed her thin arms and jacked a hipbone out to one side. "I don't remember
what
she said, okay? But that's what she
meant.
Maybe she was wrong. You know, a lot of those old women get taken away by social services, and you find about fifty flea-bitten cats and a big pile of cash in their houses."

"When was the last time you talked to Sandra?"

"When? That same night your client, William the Wonderful, slapped her across the face."

Two days before Sandra McCoy had been murdered. On her last day alive, Sandra may have seen something in Joan Sinclair's bedroom that she didn't get a chance to tell her friend Penny about.

"Is there anything else you want to know?"

Gail smiled at her. "No, I guess that's it."

They walked to the cash register. Penny keyed in Karen's change purse and coral pendant. Subtotal $45.00. She looked up. "Where's the dress?"

"I don't really need it."

"Who ever
needs
a dress? It would look good on you. Plus it's marked down. Last chance."

"All right, why not?"

"One thing, though," said Penny. "You gotta lose the sneakers."

22

In the false twilight of heavy overcast, Martin Greenwald's boat proceeded slowly into a channel that Anthony barely recognized. He pointed out what he believed to be the correct turn, and Billy swung the long prow of the boat to the left. The houses along the narrow inlet were quiet; no one appeared in the yards; closed hurricane shutters indicated that many owners had not yet returned for the season. The rain came down in a slow, steady drizzle. Wind catchers hung limply from the trees, and a line of seagulls perched miserably on the railing of an upper deck. Standing between the front seats, Anthony told Billy that the house they were looking for would be just beyond the big sportfisherman parked at the next dock.

Slowly the mermaid lamp came into view. She stood as before on her concrete pedestal of waves, blond hair flowing over her shoulders, one hand demurely at her breast, the other holding a white glass globe. If the light was on, it was too weak to be seen in daylight.

The boat nudged up against the bumpers. Billy cut the engines, pushed himself out of the captain's seat, and stepped onto the dock. Anthony scanned the house. There were no lights, no movement at the windows.

"Throw me the lines," Billy said. Martin went around to the bow, and Anthony picked up the line at the stern and handed it to Billy, who knelt awkwardly to turn it around a cleat, protecting his neck from sharp movements.

When the boat was secured Billy rotated toward the lamp at the far end of the dock and stood there staring at it. Only his fingertips were visible at the cuffs of his shiny green jacket, and his legs seemed too thin for his body. Rain dripped off the curled fins of the mermaid's tail. Salt corrosion had eaten into the light fixture, and rust stained her outstretched hand. Patches of paint flaked from her naked torso. Her smile was a curve of pink, and her faded blue eyes gazed vacantly down the canal.

Billy abruptly turned toward the house. The oversized jacket and the stick legs moved up the slope, then toward a chain-link fence at the edge of the property, then across to the fence on the other side. He made a circle around two of the pilings supporting the house. His sneakers crunched on gravel. He came back, zig-zagging toward the canal. His hood was tilted toward the ground as though to blot out the sight of his lawyer and stepfather watching him. Billy stepped off the seawall onto the dock and stopped with his toes at the edge.

During this series of erratic movements his companions had come closer. They stood on either side of him. Martin asked if he wanted to leave now, but there was no reply. "Billy?"

He staggered away from the edge and sat down on the wall. Anthony bent to see inside the hood. Billy's brown eyes were unfocused and his skin was pale. He was taking shallow breaths.

Anthony asked him if he had heard the dogs.

He swallowed and nodded.

Martin put a hand on his back. "Lean over. Get some blood in your head."

Billy shrugged away from Martin's hand. "This is where Jeremy died. It was here. The dogs were here. They were in the yard barking. Three of them. Three rottweilers. I remember. Barking and barking."

Crouching beside him Anthony said, "Billy, your brother died behind your parents' house. You were eight years old."

"No, it was here. I'm sure it was here."

The rain was coming harder, splashing on the dock, running down Billy's jacket. Anthony looked at Martin. "Let's take him home."

"Wait. Billy, why do you think Jeremy died here?"

"I remember the mermaid. The light was shining in the water. I could see Jeremy. I could see him. The light— I saw him because of the light."

"He fell off this dock?"

"Yes!" Billy sucked in a long, wheezing gasp of air.

"Take it easy." Martin touched his shoulder.