Suspicion of Madness (5 page)

"That's good. Are you hungry? I saved you some leftovers."

"No, I ate a sandwich. Is there anything to drink?"

"I'll get it. Scotch?"

"Please." He pivoted, studying the room. "This is smaller than the one I had last time."

"It's perfect," Gail said. There were wooden shutters at the windows, a high beamed ceiling, furniture that could have come from a Jamaican sugar planter's house. The minibar had been made from an old china cabinet, and painted pottery brightened the shelves.

When she gave him his drink he noticed her robe and slid a hand over the silk at her shoulder and sleeve. "That's new. I like it."

She held it open and showed off the nightie underneath. "You bought it for me."

"Ah. So I did. Why don't you take it off and get in the shower with me?"

"If you let me scrub your back."

"You have a deal." He put an arm around her and she lifted her face to be kissed. His mouth was cool from the ice in his drink, but she liked the taste of him.

"Anthony, I ran into Lois Greenwald tonight. Martin's sister?"

"Yes, I remember Lois." He sat down on the end of a rattan chaise to take off his shoes.

"She thought I was your law partner. I don't know where she got that idea, but she started going on and on about Billy. She said that four years ago he was arrested for arson, and you were his defense lawyer." Gail waited for Anthony to say something. He picked up his glass from the coffee table, which had been crafted from polished teak, perhaps the planks from an old sailing ship. "Well? Is it true?"

He shrugged and took a sip of his drink.

"Why didn't you tell me about it?"

"Why should I? It has nothing to do with why we're here now."

"Well, I was standing there like an idiot without a clue what she was talking about."

"And now you know."

"No, I don't. What happened?"

"Gail,
por favor,
not tonight. It's late." He walked away, drink in one hand, shoes in the other. Lovely brown leather shoes that he had bought in Spain, where he'd gone last year after they'd split up, to avoid having to talk to her.

The bedside lamp was on, softly glowing. The four-poster bed had a tent of mosquito netting that could be let down, which was of no possible use unless one opened the windows and ripped out the screens.

"Your clothes are in the armoire," Gail said. The huge piece of furniture took up half of one wall.

He opened the doors. "Yes, I see. Thank you." He unbuttoned his shirt and jerked it free of his pants. His waist was slim and hard. Muscles moved in his back.

Gail leaned against the armoire. "Lois thinks the fact that her brother has brought you here again means something. She wanted to know if Billy's a suspect. I think she really believes that his suicide attempt is an indication of guilt. She started talking about losing business if people think there's a killer running around loose on the property."

Anthony laughed. "Lois Greenwald invented the word neurotic. Believe me, Billy is no threat to anyone except himself." He tossed his shirt over the back of a chair. "How is the bathroom? The last time I stayed here, my room had a Jacuzzi."

"How can you be sure Billy is harmless? He burned down somebody's house."

"He was arrested, not convicted. He said it was an accident, there wasn't enough evidence to proceed, and the charges were dismissed." Anthony unbuckled his trousers.

"Then why did you advise the Greenwalds to pay the homeowners? Didn't they collect on their insurance?"

He gave her a look. "I do not pay off witnesses."

"I
know
that. But why did you—"

"Billy was responsible. Whether the fire was an accident or deliberately set, he was responsible. Insurance didn't cover it all, and Martin and Teri paid the difference."

"Before guilt was decided."

"Yes. So what?"

Gail's temper flared. "It doesn't sound like an accident. Lois told me he confessed to a friend. She said the reason the case didn't get anywhere was because the witness changed his mind. She implied that you intimidated him."

"Intimidated? I set him down for a deposition! He wouldn't show up. I never spoke to the boy."

"That's not exactly a lack of evidence, is it?"

"Ay, Dios mío."
Anthony let out a breath between his teeth, a habit she found particularly annoying. He took off his pants and tossed them in the direction of his shirt. "Billy said it was an accident, I have no reason to doubt his word, and therefore the answer is no. I was his lawyer, not his mother. I had an ethical duty to protect the legal rights of my client. Any lawyer who cannot grasp that concept should find some other line of work."

"Stop preaching at me, Anthony."

He slid out of his low-cut gold briefs. "It is easy to criticize another lawyer's judgment when you are standing on the outside."

"I wasn't—"

"I did what was necessary to defend my client. Why can't you respect that? I have been a criminal defense attorney for seventeen years, and occasionally I know what I'm doing." Holding up his hands, he said,
"Ni una más.
I'm tired. I'm going to take a shower and go to bed. Are you coming or not?"

He reached into the armoire for one of the resort's plush terry-cloth robes, which he threw over one shoulder as he headed for the bathroom.

Gail followed but had no intention of getting into the shower with him. She had bathed earlier in the tub, which was half the size of her car. The bathtub took up one corner, the shower another. Anthony reached in and turned a knob, creating a fall of water like tropical rain. There was no curtain, only the depth of the shower itself to prevent splashes from hitting the floor outside. The toilet and bidet had their own room, discreetly out of sight. The vanity was a long slab of marble. Standing there naked, marble at the level of his hipbones, Anthony rummaged through his toiletries bag for a razor. Scented soap. Pumice stone.

"Anthony?"

"What?"

"Are you having second thoughts about marriage?"

Their eyes met in the mirror. "Why do you ask me that?"

"Tell me the truth. I can take it."

He let out a breath. "I still want to marry you, Gail." The top of the mirror was steaming up. His dark head, her blond one, were becoming obscured in mist. "I love you."

She threaded the belt of her robe through her fingers. "We don't talk about it anymore. Marriage, I mean."

"What is there to talk about? We decided on June, no? I wanted to do it sooner, but you said stop pushing, I'm too busy, wait until Karen is out of school, so I said, well, all right, I won't bug her about it anymore." He raised his brows. "You want to get married sooner?"

"No. June is fine."

"¿Qué te pasa?
You said June."

"I know I said June!"

He spread his hands. "Then why did you bring it up? Are you going to come in with me or not?"

"I'll just wait here till you've finished."

"Haz lo que te dé la gana."
Telling her to suit herself, Anthony vanished into the cloud of steam rolling out of the shower, and she heard him humming an old disco tune. It sounded like the Bee Gees.

A door with glass jalousies led to the deck, and she pushed it open and went outside, a cloud of steam rolling out with her, then dissipating in the faint breeze. She caught the scent of jasmine. The sky was deepest blue, touched by moonlight and dotted with stars.

Finally the shower went off, and Gail leaned against the open door. The shower enclosure was visible, and so was Anthony.

Water had run from his chest to his groin and down his legs, making the hair lie flat and dark. "Give me a towel." She tossed him one, and he wrapped it around his waist and took another to dry himself. He pressed his face into it. He had left his jewelry on, a gold watch, a heavy bracelet, three rings. He drew the towel down his face and looked at her. His eyes were so dark they could seem black, and they did now, underneath thick, straight brows. He smelled faintly of scented soap.

"You want to know why I handled the arson case as I did."

"What I want is for you to stop treating me like a weekend girlfriend."

He looked at her for another moment, then put on the hotel robe. "You know very well I don't think of you that way." He lightly kissed her lips. "Come outside with me."

They stood at the railing. "The last time I was here, the landscaping wasn't this full. Martin has done a beautiful job. Did you know that the lights are all solar powered?"

"Really."

"Each cottage has a panel on the roof." He leaned on his elbows and smoothed his damp hair. It fell into curls at the back of his neck. The moonlight gleamed on the white robe and lit his eyes when he turned to look at her.

"I was going to talk to you, Gail. I am sorry that Lois got to you first. She doesn't like Billy. She never has, or Teri either. Lois was born in the Keys and she stayed here. Martin left but came back after nearly dying in New York of a heart attack, and she took care of him. He put her in charge, and no one can say she hasn't done a good job. She took it from a second-class bed-and-breakfast to a small resort featured in travel magazines. Then her brother remarried a young woman, an attractive woman with a difficult son. Lois was demoted, one might say. Martin and Teri are very much in love. It's rare, no? Martin is a fine man. A good father to Billy, but Billy can't see it. Where did I put my drink?"

In the bedroom Anthony went through the shelves of the armoire for a pair of the satin boxers and soft cotton T-shirt he liked to wear to bed. He dropped his jewelry on the dresser. His drink was completely diluted, so he went to the living room to make another.

Gail moved her legal files off the sofa and curled up on one end. "Tell me about Billy."

"Ah, Billy. I don't know who he is anymore." Ice clanked into Anthony's glass. "Four years ago, I could tell you, but now? He's intelligent. A dark sense of humor. His childhood was lousy. Give me a criminal defendant, I give you a lousy childhood. His father is a fishing guide named Kyle Fadden, they say a very good one, but during his marriage he was a drunk and an abuser. Teri was too loyal to leave, or lacked the courage. There were two sons. Billy was eight years old when his little brother Jeremy, age six, drowned in the canal behind their house. It was Billy who discovered the body."

"Oh, no. That's horrible. Where were their parents?"

"Teri was a waitress on the night shift. Kyle was at home working on his car in the garage. It was an accident. No one was to blame, but it didn't matter, the family fell apart. Fadden spent time in jail for a series of DUIs. Teri lost her job. The house went into foreclosure. Billy got into trouble. Shoplifting, fighting at school. A psychiatrist put him on Ritalin and antidepressants. But now the story takes an upward turn. Teri was hired to clean rooms here at the resort, and Martin noticed her. He had been a widower for six years, and he fell very hard. So did Teri. He was the first man who had treated her with respect and kindness. She got a divorce and married him. Kyle didn't take it well, and Billy was caught between them."

Anthony came over to the sofa, and Gail pulled him down beside her. She sat on her folded legs and stroked her fingers through Anthony's hair as he talked.

"When his mother remarried, Billy was… I think eleven. Martin sent him to a high-priced hospital in West Palm Beach. He began to settle down after that, making fairly decent grades, staying off drugs. And then came the arrest for arson. The Morgans had hired him to mow their lawn. Billy said the gasoline spilled in the garage, caught fire, and spread out of control. That was his story, and he stuck to it. However, he made an inculpatory statement to a friend of his from high school, Richie Moffatt, who turned him in. Based on his priors, and the fact that he was a couple of months short of his sixteenth birthday, the state wanted to charge Billy as an adult. Do you know the maximum for arson?"

Gail shook her head. "Twenty years?"

"Thirty. But since Billy was so young, the prosecutor was willing to offer ten. Ten years in prison. What was I to do? Go to trial and cross my fingers? I hired a couple of very good investigators. Ah, the things we learned about Richie Moffatt. He was seventeen. Billy danced with his girlfriend at a party, and Richie wanted to fight him, but someone dragged them apart. A motive to frame Billy? Perhaps. Richie was the contact at Coral Shores High School for party drugs. Rufinol, Ecstasy. He would buy the stuff on Miami Beach. My investigator took some photographs of Richie in action. None of this is a defense to arson, but it adds a certain perspective, no? Richie knew what we had. I set him down for a deposition, and he didn't show up. Twice. Richie told the prosecutor he'd made a mistake in saying that Billy had confessed. And the Morgans had received complete restitution for their losses. So. The case was dismissed."

Gail couldn't decide whether to be appalled at such maneuvers or envious.

Perhaps reading her thoughts, Anthony took her hand. "You asked me if Billy was guilty of arson, and I said I didn't know. I didn't care then, and I don't care now. He was a seriously disturbed kid facing years in an adult prison. I couldn't let that happen. What about Teri? She would have lost her only remaining son. Do you understand?"