Suspicion of Madness

by Barbara Parker

  "Be patient. We'll have a good dinner, go to bed early..." He nudged her hair aside with his nose and spoke into her ear. "Vamos a hacer el amor basta que me supliques ‘papi, no más. '"

  The words slowly translated themselves in her mind. Make love until... you beg me to stop. "Mmm, that might take all night." She bumped against his hip. "Tell me something. Why does Billy need a lawyer? If he isn't a suspect, and the police only want to collect information about the victim, why do you have to come along to hold his hand?"

  Anthony shrugged. "Well, Martin and Teri called for my advice, and I thought it would be better if I went with him."

  "Yes, but why?"

  "Because, sweetheart, I never assume that when the police ask a client to drop by for a visit, their motives are innocent. When the client is nineteen, I'm doubly careful. And if the police have heard, who knows how, that my client used to give the victim money to buy liquor for him, I hear alarms go off."

  "Oh, I see. Liquor. Is that all?"

  "Maybe not. In the morning I'll talk to Billy and see if he has anything to add to the investigation that will not at the same time incriminate him in something else. If this is the case, as I expect it will be, I'll take him to see the detective in charge, he will spill what he knows about Miss McCoy, and the rest of the week is ours."

  "Promise?"

  Anthony turned his head toward the channel at the sound of a boat engine. "Ah. Here comes our taxi."

  The boat was a shiny little craft made of varnished teak, a replica out of the 1950s. Standing at the helm with the divided windscreen pushed open, the pilot slowed and put the engines in reverse. Water frothed, and the boat bounced against tires bolted to the pilings. A slender, light-haired man in baggy pants and a faded blue work shirt stepped onto the dock and ran to secure the lines at bow and stern. He went back aboard to position a carpet-covered step stool, then once more jumped to the dock.

  "M-Mr. Quintana and Ms. Connor? I-I'm sorry to be late. The boat man isn't on duty, you know, with the... con-construction and all. Mr. Greenwald said t-t-to tell you... there was an… a- accident with Billy. They took him out by air ambulance... a-about an hour ago."

  Anthony exchanged a look with Gail, then said, "Is he all right?"

  "Oh… we think so, b-but they might not get back from the hospital till tomorrow, and... Mr. Greenwald said he'll call you when he can. I'll take you to the Inn." The man reached for Gail's suitcase.

  "Wait," Anthony said. "What kind of accident? What happened?"

  The man lifted his shoulders. "I-I guess you should talk to Mr. Greenwald."

  "I'm Billy's attorney and I would like to know what happened to my client."

  "Well… he tried to… to hang himself. With a rope. Someone saw. They cut him down."

  "Where is he? What hospital?"

  "Mmmm-Mariner's. In Tavernier."

  "I'm going to call Martin." Anthony thumbed through the display on his cell phone and hit a number, then turned and walked away. Privacy. The attorney closing the door to his office.

  Gail glanced at the strange little man. She smiled politely. He returned her smile, then lowered his eyes.

  Anthony came back. "There's no answer. I need to drive to the hospital. Would you take Ms. Connor to the island and pick me up later?"

  "Sure. No problem. Use that same... n-number you called before."

  Gail held onto Anthony's hand. "Do you want me to come with you? I'd like to."

  "No, go get settled in. Have some dinner." He quickly kissed her cheek. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

  Under the low roof of the boat, two cushioned bench seats faced each other. Gail sat on one of them and looked backward at the shore as the boat left the marina, went past the breakwater, and picked up speed. The American flag fluttered at the stern. The lights of Islamorada receded.

  Gail thought about Billy Fadden. Nineteen years old, putting a noose around his neck. Why? There had been nothing in what Anthony had told her—which hadn't been much—that had remotely hinted at a suicidal client.

  Holding onto an overhead rail for balance, she made her way toward the front. The pilot sat clutching a wheel made to resemble antique brass. His narrow shoulders were hunched up, and his eyes were fixed on the empty ocean as though he expected a killer whale to surface. He adjusted the boat's direction to stay precisely between the channel markers. Gail noticed that he was wearing green gardening gloves with leather palms.

  "May I?" She indicated the seat to the left.

  He looked up at her. "Sure."

  The boat dipped into a trough, and Gail dropped into the copilot's seat. She tugged at her hem. "Sorry, I didn't catch your name," she said.

  "Arnel Goode." He smiled. "E-E-Everybody calls me... Arnel."

  "Hi, Arnel. You can call me Gail." She pointed toward the pinpricks of light in the distance. "Is that the island we're going to?"

  "Yes. Lindeman Key."

  "What do you do there?"

  "I'm the caretaker," he said. "Also the gardener. And the plumber and the pa-pa-painter. Whatever they need." His soft voice was nearly lost in the purr of engine and rush of water on the hull. His fair hair was thinning on top, and his skin reflected the amber glow from the lights on the instrument panel.

  "Are you from here?" Gail asked. "The Keys, I mean?"

  "Indiana. It was too cold. I don't like... s-s-snow."

  "Do you think Billy's going to be all right?"

  "I think so." He stared ahead for awhile, then glanced over at Gail. "You know who cut him down? Joan Sinclair. She lives o-o-on the island."

  "Oh? Who is she?"

  "You don't know... who she is?"

  "No, I don't."

  "She's a famous movie star."

  Gail shook her head. "I don't think I've heard of her."

  "She was nnn-nominated for an Academy Award in 1963. Best supporting actress. She played Carlotta Sands in The Edge of Midnight. She didn't win, b-but she should have. She... she was in seventeen other movies. And on TV. She was in two episodes of Sss-star Trek."

  "Really. Tell me how she saved Billy's life."

  Arnel Goode allowed his eyes to move only briefly from the black water ahead of them. "Billy was on her dock, and there's a place to hang up big fish. You know? Miss Sinclair was taking a… a walk and heard noises and... and she saw him, so she cut him down and called me to... c-come help her. We p-put him on my golf cart and I took him to the hotel."

  Gail murmured, "How lucky for Billy that someone saw him." She thought of asking why Billy had done it, but that information would be better coming from Anthony. "I didn't know you had a famous actress at the hotel."

  "No, she... lives in a house on the other side of the island. Her real name is Lindeman. Her gr-great-grandfather built the house out of mahogany. There was a big hurricane in n-n-nineteen thirty-five and it swept away everything but the house. That's where she lives."

  "I'd love to meet her."

  "Well, no, she doesn't accept visitors. Do you like plants? At the resort we have rare orchids and a hundred kinds of p-p-palm trees and a lot of native species."

  "It sounds like paradise," Gail said. "I'm not much of a gardener. Everything I buy seems to drop dead in the pot."

  Arnel pointed through the windscreen. "Here we are."

  Gail rose up on one knee. Lindeman Key appeared just ahead like a fantasy of a tropical island. Coconut trees curved along the shore, and the fronds of taller, more stately royal palms moved slowly in the wind. Among them a high metal roof gleamed with moonlight. Lights along the seawall reflected in the black mirror of a small harbor. Several small boats were tied to the dock. Gail could see the figure of someone standing there. A woman.

  The boat stopped underneath a white canvas awning that announced in gold letters, THE BUTTONWOOD. Arnel shut off the engine and pushed open the windscreen to scramble through to the bow and toss a rope. He jumped off and hurried toward the stern. Gail picked up her hat and purse. Arms out for balance, she stepped
carefully over the gunwale. The soft, warm breeze was perfumed with flowers.

  The woman on the dock made a quick figure eight around a cleat and tugged it tight. Her permed and frosted hair was pinned rather severely into a tortoise-shell clip. Her clothes were no less severe: white camp shirt, navy-blue skirt. Her legs were bare, her narrow feet in a pair of brown sandals.

  Seeing only one passenger get off the boat, she turned a quizzical look toward Arnel, who was unloading the bags.

  "M-Mr. Quintana went to the hospital. I'll pick him up later."

  The woman walked over to Gail. She had a firm, quick handshake. "Welcome to The Buttonwood Inn, Ms. Connor. I'm Martin's sister, Lois."

  "How do you do. This is such a beautiful place."

  "Thank you. We've done quite a lot with it recently." Lois Greenwald was in her early forties. She might once have been pretty, but time or the burdens of business had dragged down the corners of her mouth and sketched worry lines in her brow. Her thin lips were filled in by pink lipstick too pale for her sun- browned skin. "You've heard about Billy, I imagine. I apologize that we've had to cancel dinner. Would you mind if I have a tray brought to your room?"

  Before Gail could respond, Lois Greenwald led her to a two- seat golf cart with a gold Buttonwood Inn palm tree painted on the side. Arnel Goode was loading the suitcases. They all got in, and Ms. Greenwald pressed the accelerator. She had a straight- ness to her spine that connoted extreme tension, and Gail assumed she was worried about her brother's stepson. Her wispy bangs lifted in the wind as the cart hummed forward.

  "Have you heard anything from the hospital?" Gail asked.

  "Martin called a little while ago. Billy's fine." Ms. Greenwald seemed less concerned about Billy than the inconvenience he had caused.

  The narrow road went parallel to the shore, passing cottages hidden behind palm trees and decorative plants. Landscaping lights showed the way. Presently they arrived outside the main building, a white clapboard structure with a picket fence and wraparound porch. Gail followed Lois Greenwald's quick strides up a walkway paved with antique brick. The front garden was a profusion of multicolored crotons and bromeliads, bougainvillea tumbling across lattices, and miniature palm trees set among thick green grass that had to be a bitch to maintain. And not a blade of it growing in the cracks. Gail heard the wheels of the suitcases rattling behind her, then thumping up the steps to the porch.

  They went through a door of beveled glass, then into a decorator's dream of a seaside mansion, with antique fishing rods up one wall, paintings of sea birds on another, and a staircase to a second floor. Sofas and chairs were grouped in congenial arrangement around a coral-rock fireplace for that one week of winter when warmth was needed.

  "This is lovely," she said, looking around.

  "I've put you upstairs. You should find it comfortable. There's a view of the ocean."

  The stairs were carpeted with a pattern of palm fronds. At the top, a hall ran left and right, with doors set at intervals in floral wallpaper and white woodwork. Lois Greenwald unlocked a door to a room with a four-poster bed and wicker furniture. French doors opposite revealed a small terrace, the tops of palm trees, the moonlit ocean.

  Gail noticed that Arnel had come upstairs with only her bag. She ventured to ask, "Have you put us in separate rooms?"

  "Mr. Quintana asked for a cottage. I assumed…"

  "No. We're together."

  "I apologize. Obviously there's been a misunderstanding. Arnel, take Ms. Connor's bag to Mr. Quintana's cottage, will you?"

  Gail smiled at her. "Thanks. Sorry for the inconvenience." She turned toward the door, but heard Lois Greenwald ask her to wait.

  The sound of the wheels faded down the corridor.

  Resting one hand in the other at the waist of her dark-blue skirt, Ms. Greenwald stood for several seconds without moving. Her deep-set eyes were that indistinct color between green and gray. She was not quite as tall as Gail, but her bearing belonged to a woman accustomed to delivering orders.

  "I would like to know something," she said. "Is Billy a suspect in Sandra McCoy's death?"

  Surprised to be asked about the case, Gail could only reply, "I... I'm sure he isn't. They're just gathering information."

  "Are they?" The rise of Ms. Greenwald's brows made fine lines across her forehead. "When Martin told me he'd contacted Anthony Quintana again, I knew it had to be serious. He wouldn't bring him here for nothing. You don't find it all just a little strange, what happened tonight?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "Billy trying to kill himself the day before he's supposed to give a statement to the police? You don't find that interesting?"

  Confused, Gail managed to ask, "Are you saying... you think he murdered Sandra McCoy?"

  After a moment, Lois Greenwald sighed. "I'm asking what the police think. On Sunday we reopen for business. We have thirty- two guests checking in, and the following weekend we'll have fifty-six. Do you have any idea what would happen if people start saying there's a killer running loose at The Buttonwood Inn? We'd see it all over the news. The phone would start ringing with cancellations. Suspicion is enough, never mind guilt. If you know something, I'd appreciate hearing it."

  "No, I— Look. Why would they suspect Billy? He was here at the hotel at the time the girl was killed."

  "He wasn't here, he was at Joan Sinclair's house."

  "The famous movie actress," Gail remembered.

  "Famous?" Lois Greenwald smiled. "In her own mind. She was washed up thirty years ago. Billy was supposedly over there watching Alfred Hitchcock movies. I hope it's true, but who knows? Joan would lie for him if he needed an alibi."

  Finally Gail's mind registered what this woman had said before. "What did you mean... Martin contacted Anthony again? What was the first time?"

  "The arson case."

  "Excuse me?"

  "You don't know? When Billy was fifteen he set fire to a waterfront house on Plantation Key, a total loss. He said it was an accident, but he told a friend of his that he did it on purpose. The police arrested him for arson. Teri insisted on hiring Anthony Quintana, never mind that his fees cost us a fortune. But he got the job done, didn't he? By the time he finished, Billy's friend couldn't remember his own name. We had to pay off the homeowners under the table, and the case never got to trial. Anthony Quintana is quite the lawyer, isn't he?"

  It took Gail a few seconds to reply. "Yes, he is. But I don't work for him."

  "What do you mean? Aren't you his law partner?"

  "No. I'm a lawyer, but we don't practice together. He's my fiancé."

  "Your... fiancé. Oh." Lois Greenwald managed an apologetic smile. "I'm so sorry, Ms. Connor."

  "It's all right. It's fine. Could you show me to the cottage, please?"

  "Of course."

  Head still reeling, Gail followed her hostess toward the stairs. She wanted food, a drink, a hot shower. She wanted to ask Anthony what the hell was going on.

  3

  Still unconscious, with a blood-alcohol level making the meter spin, Billy Fadden had just been put in a private room at Mariner's Hospital. Anthony Quintana stood at the end of the bed watching Billy's mother gently kiss his face and brush his hair off his forehead. The blond streaks in his hair hadn't been there four years ago, nor had the chain tattooed around his left bicep or the dark stubble of beard. An IV line dripped into a vein, and a plastic brace held his head straight. The staff had secured his wrists and ankles to the bed frame in case he woke up and decided to throw himself out a window. Fortunately for Billy, he hadn't put on much weight. He was still too scrawny to snap his own spinal cord.

  Anthony could recall having lost only one client to suicide. The man had written a note confessing to his wife's murder, placed it in an envelope on his desk marked "For my lawyer," then had put the barrel of a shotgun into his mouth and pulled the trigger.

  Billy had not written a note. He had called the police directly.

  Martin Greenwald had announced t
his mind-bending news fifteen minutes ago, escorting Anthony upstairs from the lobby. Before attempting suicide, Billy had called the Monroe County

  Sheriff's Office and confessed to killing Sandra McCoy. A homicide detective was now waiting at the end of the hall, presumably so that he and Billy could continue the conversation.

  "Teri?" When she looked around, Anthony said, "We have some decisions to make. I need to talk to you and Martin for a few minutes. Not here. I don't want to wake Billy."

  Her large brown eyes were swollen. "I can't leave him. You go, Martin. Is that okay?"

  "Sure, honey." He kissed the top of her head, and she vanished for a second into his ample embrace. "We'll be right outside."

  Teresa Flores had come over on the Mariel boatlift in her teens, had married early and unwisely, then had met Martin Greenwald. Martin had made more money on Wall Street in the 1980s than a man could reasonably use. His first wife was dead, his adult daughter attended university in London, and Martin had nothing to do but play at running a resort and hope his heart held out long enough for him to enjoy it. Teri was a dark-haired beauty; Martin was fourteen years older, bald and nearsighted. While she dazzled the guests, he stayed in the background with his palm trees and solar energy projects. He and Teri were clearly mismatched and completely devoted. Anthony didn't know how they had lasted. The burden of a stepson like Billy would have made most men think twice, no matter how attractive the mother.

  Crossing the hall Anthony noticed that the detective had not moved from his position near the nurses' station. His name was Jack Baylor. They had met on the last occasion Anthony had been called here to extricate Billy Fadden from trouble. The cop stood with a shoulder against the wall, a pistol on his hip.

  Anthony led Martin into the empty room across the hall. They left the door open and the end of Billy's bed in view. The spindly chrome legs of a visitor's chair creaked when Martin sat down. He had lost weight in four years, but he was still a big man. His face sagged, and for a moment he closed his eyes. "Thank you for coming."

  "Martin, are you okay?"