Suspicion of Madness (44 page)

"What about Doug Lindeman?"

"He knows better than to knock on my door. No, I haven't seen him either." Joan took her empty martini glass across the room to the ice bucket on her stereo cabinet. "Would you care for a drink?"

"When did Gail leave?"

"Somebody's
manners have certainly gone downhill." She lifted a cocktail shaker from the ice bucket and poured. "Five minutes ago? Now please be a good boy and close the door behind you." She turned up the music and smiled at him.
"¿Por favor?"

Anthony went out. He rounded the stairs just as Billy Fadden appeared at the bottom. His wet hair lay flat on his head.

Anthony shouted at him, "I told you to stay at the hotel!"

"Where's my father?"

"Not here. No one's here but Joan. Come on, let's go." He pushed Billy toward the living room. "Go." Anthony churned with rage and frustration. "You're going to help me look for Gail."

Kyle Fadden had cut through all three hinges of the metal box. He tugged at the lid with a gloved hand. Impatient, he put a crowbar in the crack and tried to lever it up. Failing at this, he relit the torch and pulled the mask over his face.

Gail had no doubt that this man had killed Sandra McCoy with that knife on his belt. She assumed he was working for Douglas Lindeman, and that when he finished opening the box, Kyle Fadden would have to decide what to do next with Gail Connor.

She had freed the line holding her to the support column. The knots at her wrists were impossible. Her hands were still tied behind her back, but that wouldn't stop her from running. Fadden couldn't see her with the mask over his face. Gail shoved on the plywood panel to loosen it. She dug her heels into the ground and pushed.

There was a tickling sensation on her hands that spread quickly to her wrists, her arms. She heard a soft clatter, growing in volume. Something went up her arms, into her sleeve.

She screamed. Palmetto bugs. Giant cockroaches. Dozens of them. Hundreds, scrambling from their nest. Shiny brown bodies, long quivering antennae.

"Shut up!" Fadden lifted his mask. His torch was still burning. "I told you to shut up!" Then he saw, and he stared.

Gail scooted backward, away from them, away, away. They poured from the darkness under the house. They crackled and flew into her face. She rolled on the ground. Her hands were tied, and there was nothing she could do. Except scream.

From somewhere came heavy thuds, then the splintering of wood.

Fadden was looking up the steps. A second later, a man hurtled toward him. "Where is she?" A pistol was extended in his hand.

"Anthony!"

He spun around, and his eyes searched for Gail and found her.

Fadden went for the gun on the packing crate.

Gail yelled, "Look out!"

Anthony crouched and turned. A flash exploded from the barrel of his gun, then another. Kyle Fadden jerked backward. His welding mask fell off, and the torch clanged against the wall and went out. Fadden dropped to his knees.

"Dad!" Billy leaped from the stairs and raced toward him.

Fadden bent over and slowly fell sideways into the crate, held on for a moment, and slid to the ground.

"You shot my father! You killed him!" Billy ran to his father.

Gail was leaning against the wall, sobbing, her hands tied behind her. "Oh, God, Anthony... they were all over me. Please get these ropes off my hands. I'm not hurt, I screamed because of the roaches. They were crawling inside my shirt. Do you see any? I can still feel them."

"No, they're gone now." He stamped on something in the dirt.

Gail told him there was a knife on Fadden's belt, and to cut her loose.

Billy sat on the ground beside his father. "Dad, can you talk? We're going to get you to a doctor. Jesus, he's bleeding! Somebody
do
something!"

When her hands were free, Gail ran over to the lantern and held it up as Anthony crouched beside Kyle Fadden. She averted her eyes, then looked quickly. Fadden's right arm was across his body. He held a wound in his side, and blood came through his fingers. Anthony moved his hand aside. The wound went through the flesh at his waist. The second bullet had ripped through Fadden's left forearm. Blood pulsed from an artery.

Gail moved her lips soundlessly.
Oh, my God.

Anthony rolled his handkerchief and knotted it above the wound. Kyle Fadden grimaced and clamped his teeth together. "Shit, that hurts."

Billy was shrieking. "Don't let him die! Dad!"

Gail set down the lantern. "Billy, he's not going to die. We'll take him to a hospital." She looked at Anthony.

He said to Billy, "Go upstairs and find a bedsheet. We need to cut some strips. Hurry up. Run!"

Gail crouched beside him and whispered, "Is he going to make it?"

"I don't know." She watched as Anthony picked up the revolver and opened the chamber. He emptied the bullets into his hand. Six of them. "I thought he fired."

"You had no choice," Gail said.

He put the bullets into his pocket and threw the revolver into the darkness. "Fadden, wake up. Kyle Fadden!" The man's eyes came open. Anthony leaned over him. "Do you know who I am? I'm your son's lawyer. Billy is suspected of murdering Sandra McCoy. I want to know who did it."

"I didn't—"

"Who killed her? Lindeman?"

"Yeah. Lindeman."

"How do you know this? Fadden, talk to me!"

A woman's frantic voice came from the top of the steps. "What is going on? I heard gunshots. Who's down there? Billy says his father's been shot!"

Gail called up, "Joan, I'm down here with Anthony. Kyle Fadden tried to kill us."

Billy came down the stairs with a yellow striped sheet, ragged at the edges. "He wasn't trying to kill you!"

Anthony told him to shut up and tear the sheet into strips.

Joan was still yelling. "What are you doing in my house? Why is everyone here?"

Gail called back, "Joan, please go upstairs. It's all right."

Anthony pressed a pad to the hole in Fadden's arm. He told Billy to give him a long strip of cloth. The pad was immediately soaked through. Anthony threw it aside and tightened the rope tourniquet.

"Don't let him die!"

"He's not going to die." Anthony went around to lift Fadden's shoulders. "Billy, you take his feet. Gail! Gail, where are you?"

"Joan is freaking out."

"Never mind Joan. Hold the door open and tell her to stay out of the way."

Within a minute they had Fadden on the front porch. The rain was not as heavy, but the wind still whistled through the trees. A rivulet of diluted blood flowed lazily toward the edge of the porch. Anthony said, "We'll put him in a cart and take him to the dock. Billy, can Martin pull his boat up to Joan's dock in this weather?"

"No way, it's too rough," Billy said. "We have to board in the harbor."

Anthony nodded. "All right. You call Martin on the way, tell him we'll need an ambulance to meet us at the marina."

There were two carts at the bottom of the steps. Anthony picked up Fadden under the arms, and with Billy taking one leg, Gail the other, they maneuvered the unconscious man into the back seat of the larger cart with his knees over the arm rest and his boots dangling.

Joan leaned over the porch railing and called, "Billy! I'm praying for your father." She crossed herself and kissed an imaginary rosary. He looked from under the roof of the cart and nodded.

Anthony shouted, "Gail, get in."

She stood in the rain. "Come with us, Joan. Please. You don't want to stay here all alone, do you?"

"Well, I—I'm not
dressed!
" She clutched the robe at her throat, and feathers trembled. "Would you wait for me, Gail? Would you?"

"Yes, but hurry." Gail said to Anthony, "Go on without me. I'll bring Joan in the other cart. We'll be right behind you."

29

Gail watched the golf cart splash through a puddle and disappear around the corner of the house. She went up the steps to the porch and opened the screen.

Joan was just inside. "What should I wear?"

Gail let out a breath. "It doesn't matter. Just hurry. Bring something for tomorrow too, you'll probably stay the night."

"I've never stayed at The Buttonwood Inn. I've been to
dinner,
of course. Tom took me several times, and I enjoyed it tremendously. Their chef is marvelous—"

"Joan, please."

"Of course. I'm so nervous. I want to look nice. Do you think it'd be okay if Tom came to dinner? Would Teri mind? I gotta make it up to him for last night. What was
wrong
with me? Yes, I'll hurry." Joan's footsteps faded away up the stairs. "I'm going to buy some champagne! You and Teri and I can get drunk till the boys come back!"

Gail pivoted and went down the steps. At a front corner of the house where two gutters joined, the weld had broken, and rainwater poured through. She stood directly under the stream until the mud sluiced away from her hair, her clothes, her fingernails. She rinsed out her sandals and pulled open the neckline of her shirt. She was freezing but she didn't care.

On the porch she used her hands to squeegee the water off her pullover and slacks. She went inside and called, "Joan?"

"Coming, coming."

Drawers opened and shut. There were footsteps back and forth over Gail's head. Gail sat huddled on the sofa and pulled a musty afghan around her shoulders. Finally Joan came clomping downstairs in white vinyl knee boots, green tights, and a psychedelic green-and-orange minidress. Green O-shaped earrings swung at her ears, and her blond wig swooped across her cheeks. She carried a brown, hard-sided suitcase with a handle. "How do I look?"

Gail stared, then smiled. "Great."

"The word is groovy." Joan set down her bag and searched through a white purse for cigarettes and lighter. "I haven't been to The Buttonwood Inn since God-knows-when. Yes, I do. Tom took me. Arnel didn't want me going out with Tom. If he was here right now, he'd start whining about it." Her lighter flared.

Gail was shivering. "Joan, do you have a sweater or something I could borrow?"

"Oh! I'm sorry!" She exhaled smoke. "Just grab one out of the hall closet upstairs. Want me to go up and get it for you?"

"No, I can. Thanks."

"I'll be on the porch." Joan pushed open the screen door. "Would you look at that rain? It smells nice, though. You know what? I've been cooped up in the house too much. I used to argue about that with Arnel, and he was wrong, wrong, wrong."

The only hall closet was beside the bathroom, intended for a linen closet but crammed with winter clothes. Gail stuck her hand in and came out with a heavy white sweater with gold buttons and epaulets, size fourteen. With a sigh she put it on. It smelled of mothballs. On her way to the stairs she noticed an umbrella against the wall outside Joan Sinclair's room. She thought they might need it.

The door was open. Gail looked inside. The red feathered robe lay across the bed. One of the candles was still burning, reflected in the triple mirror whose gold metal frames were pitted with rust. She went to blow it out. Aware that she should not be in here at all, Gail walked carefully across the threadbare faux-oriental rug.

Her appearance in the mirror startled her. Her makeup was gone, and her hair was beyond belief. Combing it quickly with her fingers, she noticed a jewelry box on the vanity. It was green padded vinyl embossed with gold fleur-de-lis, and one of the small drawers was open. A gold medallion dangled over the edge. There was an inscription. Gail lifted it to see what it said. The name "Emily" had been neatly scratched through, and "Joan" incised above it. It wasn't even real gold; the plate was wearing off. It was fantasy, an illusion.

A prickle of fear crept up Gail's spine as she sensed she was being watched. She raised her eyes and looked into the mirror. There was nothing. Behind her, the empty door. The red robe across the bed. And a face on the wall.

It was one of the framed movie posters. Gail recognized the woman from the video box of
Bride of Nosferatu.

A heart-shaped face both innocent and evil, wide-set eyes, a small chin, and sharp little vampire teeth protruding onto her lower lip. Nosferatu standing behind her. In the distance, bare trees and a ruined castle.

Slowly Gail turned around. She stared into a pair of dark, catlike eyes outlined in heavy black pencil. Joan Sinclair in her twenties, but... not Joan Sinclair. The nose was shorter. The face was more... delicate. Gail had the sensation of looking at a puzzle-drawing. She thought of the old black-and-white drawing of the young lady at her dressing table fixing her hair. Stare at it long enough, it becomes a drawing of a skull.

As Gail continued to study the face in the poster it gradually began to make sense, even as her mind refused to accept it. Her heart did a dance in her chest, and her limbs felt weak.

"Oh... my God." Sandra McCoy must have seen the poster. She had come in here looking around and had seen it. The face of the actress, Joan Sinclair, the same face on the video box that she rushed out to rent and show to Doug Lindeman. That face. Not... the face of... the woman who lived in this house. But how could that be?