Suspicion of Madness (37 page)

Anthony said, "If Jeremy was here, where were you? Where was your father?"

"You think I'm crazy. Don't you?"

"Come on, son, let's go." Water coursed off Martin's fishing hat when he bent to help him up. Billy knocked his arm away.

"Stop calling me your son! You want to get rid of me. You want to put me back in the hospital. You've been planning it with Lois, haven't you?"

"No, Billy."

"My father is taking me with him on his boat. I'm going to crew it for him and you won't have me around anymore. Won't
that
be a great day?"

"Billy, for the love of God, I'm not trying to get rid of you. I don't want you to leave. Stay here and let Dr. Vogelhut help you. Don't run away. If you won't do it for yourself, then for Teri. She loves you more than anything in the world."

"I'm gone. You make me sick. You're an old man, and you think your money can get you anything you want. I won't go in a hospital again!"

"Nobody wants you to!"

"You broke up my parents. Yeah, I know about that. They got a divorce because of you."

Martin stared at him. "Is that what Kyle told you?"

"It's the truth. You and her cheated on him. Didn't you?"

"Good God. All right, Billy. Your mother wants to protect you but you need to know what happened. It wasn't me. Your father was abusive to you and your brother—"

"That was in the past. He apologized—"

"Be quiet. He was abusive to your mother as well, even worse than he was to you, so thoroughly that she lost the will to fight him."

"That's a lie!"

"She had you to think about. She believed she had no alternative but to stay. She came to work for me, and yes, we fell in love. I loved her the first moment I saw her. I said that if she left him, I would take care of you."

Billy shoved Martin in the chest. "You're a goddamn bastard, and she's a whore!"

Martin's face darkened with anger. "What did you call her? Teri is
my wife.
What did you say?"

"I hate your fucking guts." Billy turned and ran up the slope.

Anthony shouted, "Billy, stop!"

"Go to hell!"

Anthony went after him and got hold of the back of his rain jacket and slung him to the grass. "Get in the boat or I will put you in it."

"Let me up. Get off, you spic asshole bastard. My neck! Jesus Christ, you're hurting my neck!" He erupted into more curses until Anthony took a fistful of his hair and shook him.

Billy screamed.

Anthony came down close to his ear. "I give you two seconds to shut up, or I will call the paramedics and have you shot full of tranquilizers." He tightened his fist. "You will go straight to a mental ward. Do you understand me, Billy? Do you?"

Billy wept and laughed at the same time. "Ask me about the house. Ask me if I burned it. You never had the guts to ask me straight out if I burned it on purpose."

"Did you?"

"Yes! I poured gasoline on the lawn mower and on the workbench and on the clothes in the hamper, and I lit a match. You believed it was an accident, didn't you? You went for it."

"Why did you do it?"

"Fuck you."

"Why did you do it, Billy? You didn't know the Morgans." Anthony shook him again.
"Why?"

"I hated them. I hate all of you! I wish the gun had bullets in it. I should've blown my brains out. I should be dead." His words dissolved into great, hacking sobs. He pressed his face to the ground, and his shoulders shook. "Oh, God, I didn't mean to. I didn't. I don't know... what to do. I don't—"

Anthony looked back toward the dock. Martin was waiting. He lifted his hands helplessly, a gesture asking
what now?

"Billy, you're going to get up and come with us. Nothing is going to happen to you. You go to your room, you take your pills, and you go to sleep for a little while. Can you do that?"

He buried his face in the crook of his elbow. "Don't tell my mother what I said. I didn't mean it. I'm sorry."

"You should apologize to Martin, not to me. Get up." Anthony gently helped him to stand. His eyes were puffy slits, and his nose was running. Bits of wet grass stuck to his cheeks. He leaned on Anthony as they walked across the grass. He felt fragile and small. Martin pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and gave it to Anthony, who handed it to Billy. "Here. Wipe your face."

Martin boarded the boat and started the engines. "Anthony, get the lines."

"I'll do it," Billy said.

He was away before Anthony could grab him. He went to the cleats and fumbled to free the ropes, tossing them onto the deck. His movements made it obvious that he was in pain. He gave the boat a shove, got back aboard, and sat in the seat directly behind Martin with his head bowed and his hands pressed between his knees. Anthony supposed this was his form of an apology.

In the narrow canal Martin maneuvered the boat around to go back the way they had come. From the first-mate's seat Anthony kept his eyes on Billy, unable to decide if he wanted to put his arm across his shoulders in sympathy or to backhand him. As soon as they returned to the hotel he would call Sharon Vogelhut. He knew what she would say: that they begin the commitment process immediately.

Billy had deliberately burned down the Morgans' house. He had
known
what he was doing. He had gleefully lied; he had joyously put one over on everyone, even his lawyer. Anthony's state of mind wavered between anger and shame. He had been wrong. Four years ago he should have taken the prosecutor's offer: Send the defendant to a state hospital. But Anthony had wanted to win the case. He had allowed himself to believe, as Teri did, that Billy would be fine, that his therapist could fix him, that $200,000 to the Morgans would make the problem disappear.

Anthony thought of Sandra McCoy lying at the edge of the rock pit, her throat slashed, blood pouring out. A crime that Billy had confessed to. Perhaps for once he had told the truth, and the possibility made Anthony feel sick.

He looked off the stern. The mermaid stared back at him with her empty eyes and cryptic smile as the rain came steadily down.

23

Kyle Fadden tossed the plastic tarpaulins onto Joan Sinclair's dock. He steadied himself against the up-and-down movement of the water and lifted his toolbox. It was like standing on the back of a horse. The boat shifted. Fadden fell on his backside against the bait well, and his toolbox crashed to the deck.

He let out a long curse, stopping abruptly when he heard the deep roar of engines.

There was a boat about a quarter mile out, coming from the direction of the Whale Harbor Channel. It was bouncing over the chop and kicking up spray, aiming straight at the island. They weren't likely to see him with the dock in the way. Fadden watched as the boat closed the distance. Its trajectory sent it past him toward the Buttonwood harbor. Not a small boat, maybe a thirty-footer, taking the seas fairly well. Before it disappeared behind the trees, Fadden had decided whose it was: Martin Greenwald's. He wondered if Martin Greenwald was out for a pleasure cruise.

Rain dripped off the brim of Fadden's hat. He got a grip on the toolbox and, between lurches of his boat, heaved it onto the dock. He followed that with the canvas bag, which landed with a clanking thud. Breathing hard, Fadden climbed up the ladder to the dock.

A few minutes later everything was on shore, wrapped inside one of the tarps and shoved under some bushes. Fadden got back into his skiff, cranked the engine, and nosed along the mangroves until he found a little cove. He stepped ashore and dragged the boat out of sight. The propeller scraped on sand and turtle grass.

It would be a bitch getting across the water again, running a flats boat on eight-foot seas. Fadden thought he could do it. He felt lucky. He would be long gone before the storm hit.

Gail was able to catch a ride back to Lindeman Key in Martin's boat, as she had hoped to do. Whatever happened when Billy came face-to-face with his mermaid, no one talked about it. Wanting to avoid the salt spray, Gail had joined Billy in the cabin. White-faced and silent, he sat on the forward bunk with his arms wrapped around his knees.

Once back in the cottage, Anthony flung his damp clothes into the bathtub and took a fast shower while Gail poured them both a brandy. She took the glasses into the bedroom. Anthony was getting dressed.

"Are you going to tell me what happened or not?"

He tucked in his shirt. "Besides calling me a spic bastard, Billy said that Jeremy drowned behind that house. Not his parents' house in Marathon. That house. So. If you want a connection between the mermaid and his dead brother, there it is."

"My God. Is it true?"

"Of course it isn't true. He's irrational. He needs psychiatric care. He should have had it four years ago." Anthony stared out the window at the rain.
"
¿
Cuándo va a parar la jodía lluvia?"
He wanted it to stop. So did Gail. He downed half his brandy in one gulp.

"What will happen now?" she asked him.

"You and I are going to Tavernier." Anthony sat on the end of the chaise to put his shoes and socks on. "We have to hurry. The courthouse might close early. Martin will take us to the marina. From there, you drive my car. I'll use his and come back. Did you pack everything? If not, I'll bring it later."

"Anthony, we don't have to do this. Never mind going to the courthouse. There's no time. Martin can take me to the marina. You stay here with Billy."

"No, no, I have this worked out. It was my idea that we get married in the Keys. It didn't happen, but at least we can apply for our license."

"Oh, sweetie. You don't have to prove you love me. I know you do." She went over to the chaise and sat on Anthony's lap. "I know it."

"What about our marriage license?"

"We can do it later. It's all right. Really."

He looked at her, the whites showing under the intensely dark irises of his eyes. His hair was still damp, combed back in waves off his forehead. He put his arms around her. "I would marry you anytime you want. Tomorrow, next week, a month... but not June. I can't wait that long. Do you want to come back here? A sunset wedding. Martin said he would give us the biggest, best party—"

She laughed. "No, thank you. Teri made the same offer, but I don't think so. Anywhere but Lindeman Key."

Anthony closed his eyes.
"Ay, Dios mío, todo sale mal."

"Everything is going badly? Is that what you said?"

"I don't mean you, sweetheart." He tried to move Gail off his lap, but she held on. "Gail, please."

"Wait. It's about Billy, isn't it? I want to know what happened. You're not telling me everything."

Seconds ticked by. Anthony let out a breath, then turned his eyes toward her again. "Billy admitted that he set the fire. He wanted the Morgans' house to burn. He poured gasoline on whatever would catch fire, and he lit a match. He lied to me, to everyone, and I fell for it. I bent the rules to save him, and all the while, he was laughing."

"He did it on purpose? But why?"

"Why? For fun. To see the flames. Because they didn't give him a big tip when he mowed their lawn the first time. Because he has a screw loose."

"That doesn't make sense."

"Exactly. He was sick. He needed help, and I refused to see it. But I won the case, no? I earned my fee. And I'll earn a fee defending him on a charge of first-degree murder."

"He didn't do it. Anthony, it isn't your
fault."
She tried to embrace him, but he took her arms away.

"Gail, we have to go."

"I don't want to go. Let me stay here with you. We'll go back on Sunday."

"Are you crazy? Your daughter would kill me."

"We can blame it on the storm."

"No, they expect you. You are going back to Miami, don't argue with me."

"God strike me dead, but I don't care about making sandwiches at a homeless shelter. Karen will just have to understand." Gail put her head on his shoulder. "Don't you want me to stay?"

"Ay, niñita,
of course I do, but there's nothing more to be done here. I'll make sure that Tom Holtz talks to the police about Doug Lindeman, and then I'll be on my way home, too, as soon as the storm passes. You should go. For me." He kissed her. "I don't want to worry about you. Go now, it's a long drive in the rain."

"I suppose I should. Are you all right?"

"I am already missing you. Come on, let me up."

Gail looked at him and realized why he didn't want her to stay. Not because of Karen. Not that. "You're afraid of Billy, aren't you? Yes, you are. Anthony, who's being irrational? He didn't kill Sandra McCoy. I don't care what he did four years ago, he wouldn't...
do
that. Cut someone's throat like that." Gail made Anthony look at her. "Do you honestly believe he did?"

He thought about it, then said, "There is a difference between what I believe, and what is
possible.
No, I don't think he did it, but... but all the same, I think you should go."