Suspicion of Madness

by Barbara Parker

  He had done some damage to his liver those last weeks. He'd been to every last bar in the Upper Keys. He was leaving The Green Turtle Inn at closing time and ran into Sandra McCoy coming across the parking lot in her waitress outfit, little black shorts and a red top. He took a hundred dollar bill out of his wallet and asked her to show him something sweet. And she did. She laughed, lifted her shirt and the bra with it, then grabbed the money and ran for her car, her long red hair swinging behind her. A few days later he waited for her to finish her shift, and it happened again. They started finding places to park. A day came when she took everything off, but he never asked to touch her, and she never offered to let him.

  It stopped when he and Joan Lindeman got back together. Then Joanie changed her mind. Please, darling, let's not torture ourselves with regrets. Think of me fondly sometimes, won't you? It had sounded like a line from one of her damned movies, and that was the last he'd heard from her. Eventually he stopped trying.

  A few months later, Tom waited for Sandra to get off work. He followed her to her apartment. She asked to borrow money for some new clothes. Tom gave it, knowing damned well he'd never get it back. Then she had needed money for this or that, and he'd given it to her. One day Sandra had told him not to bother coming around again. He'd wanted to ask her if the reason was Doug Lindeman, but he hadn't asked. It didn't matter. He was tired of girls. He felt old. He was old. An old man.

  All his life, he'd thought he was happy. He'd told himself so often he'd believed it. When Joanie had said she loved him, the lies had vanished like smoke, and he could see that he'd been waiting for her all his life. What they'd had once, they could have again. Tom had to make her listen. She needed him, needed somebody who wasn't going to stand by while her nephew picked her bones clean and ruined her last good years.

  His door was open. Tom got up and closed it. He took a bottle out of his credenza and poured himself a drink to steady his nerves. He smoothed his hair and sat at his desk. Joan's number was in his Rolodex. Tilting his glasses to see, he punched the numbers one by one as he held the receiver close to his chest. He raised it to his ear and listened to the ringing on the other end, hoping she would pick up. She didn't. Her machine came on.

  He could have repeated the message from memory, the same one she'd had for years. The voice was dark and smoky and bored. "Hi. If you don't know who this is, you've got the wrong number. If you're selling something, hang up now. Otherwise, leave a message. If I feel like it, I'll get back to you."

  Beep.

  "Heyyyy, Joanie, guess who? It's Tom Holtz. Been thinking about you. Wondering how you're doing." Tom put his forehead in his hand and stared down at his desk. A draft of a last will and testament. A receipt from the dry cleaner's. He made it rock on its fold. "I've missed you, Boo-boo. Missed you more than you know."

  There was only an empty electronic silence on the line.

  "Call me, Joanie. We need to talk. It's serious, and I want you to call me back. Use my cell phone number. It's still the same. Don't call the office. But you will call, won't you? Soon?"

  He swung his chair around and stood up. "Dammit, Joanie, I'm coming to see you. How about a late lunch? Say two o'clock? I'll bring some sandwiches. Champagne! Wouldn't you like that? Don't worry about getting all dolled up. It's just Tom, and he thinks you're perfect."

  In his own office, Doug Lindeman carefully hung up the extension. He could feel everything starting to spin away from him. The old man was about to screw it up. There was no time left, none. He'd have to think of something fast.

  As the boat picked up speed coming out of the marina, Kyle Fadden automatically scanned the sky to the southeast. Rolling out of bed this morning he'd done what he always did, turn on the NOAA weather station. The low pressure south of Cuba yesterday had become a tropical storm. This time of year it could head this way and get nasty. The sea was still a cauldron of heat, feeding whatever storms might pass over it. It would take a couple of days to get here, if it did. At present the sky was empty of anything but sea gulls and a couple of fighter jets streaking toward the naval air base at Boca Chica.

  Fadden had three customers in the skiff, businessmen from Ohio with shiny new rods and reels, who had informed him they were here for the pharmaceutical sales conference at The Cheeca Lodge. The charter had come up at the last minute, these guys suddenly deciding they wanted to go fishing for snapper. Fadden had almost said no, having told his ex-wife he'd be by the hospital, but he needed the job, and he could just as easily make a phone call to check on Billy. So he'd bought some sandwiches and sodas at the market and put bait in the live wells. The salesmen brought a cooler of beer. They were the kind who would want him to bait their hooks, entertain them with stories about Colombian drug running, and say cheese in the photos.

  The wind whipped through his hair and buffeted the bill of his cap. Fadden turned north between Upper and Lower Matecumbe Keys, taking Tea Table Channel toward the mangrove islands dotting the shallows in Florida Bay. Once under the bridge, he followed the network of troughs through the turtle grass, staying away from the places that could snag his propeller. He had a 150-horse Mereruiser, and it was running ragged, burning oil. The rings were about shot. The boat was eighteen feet of fiberglass with a console in the middle, a casting deck at the bow, and live bait wells aft. A flat canvas top provided some shade. He had designed the boat himself, and an old guy in Marathon had built it for him. Even fully loaded, it could run on dew.

  A couple of miles northeast of Shell Key he slowed, cut the engine, and drifted between two mangrove islands. Using the electric motor he raised the engine to get the propeller clear of the water. The salesmen roused themselves from their seats and went about baiting their hooks. Their voices carried over the water and echoed off the trees. Fadden threw out some chum to attract the fish. Ordinarily he wouldn't do this, but these ignoramuses wouldn't know the difference. They did know what a fish was, and they didn't want to wait all day for a strike. Fadden expected a good tip for his efforts.

  He stood on the casting deck with the pole while the men spread out along the gunwale, two of them getting their rods tangled. Fadden told them to quiet down. The only way he'd been able to keep from knocking a few people overboard lately was thinking about his new boat, his in just a few more weeks. He had refinanced his two-bedroom, one-bath stilt house in Marathon to put a deposit on a thirty-six-foot Silverton for deep-sea charters, ten years old but only a hundred hours on the rebuilt engines. He could keep himself together by thinking about running that baby to Cabo San Lucas, Grand Cayman, maybe take it as far as Puerto Rico, and with men who appreciated his talent, not a bunch of yahoos like these.

  Fadden leaned on the pole, lifted it free of the sand, then gave another push. Shafts of light came through the mangroves and danced on the white patches on the bottom. The water was transparent, and the skiff hung suspended above brain coral, purple sea fans, jellyfish, and undulating turtle grass. Small hogfish and red drum scattered in flashes of silver as the boat drifted toward them. Fadden watched for something worth going after.

  The skiff glided closer to the mangroves, into their cool shadow. The tide gurgled through the mangrove roots and ticked on the sides of the boat. A white heron spread its wings and lifted up from a branch. With no breeze coming through the mangroves, the water was calm. He set the pole, pushed, then lifted it free, drops making circles. He noticed some turbulence and pointed toward the entrance of a trough. "Okay. Cast over that way."

  The boat tipped dangerously before the men laughed and rearranged themselves. Cursing silently, Fadden helped himself to a beer out of their cooler. He had just popped it open when he felt his cell phone buzzing in his shirt pocket. He took it out. The display said HOLTZ AND LINDEMAN, P.A. He thought about not answering it, but he wondered why Doug would call him this early.

  "Yeah."

  Doug told him he'd just heard about Billy. He had run into Lois Greenwald, and she had told him about it.

  Fadden said
, "He's okay. I was by the hospital last night. Listen, I'm on the water right now with some people."

  Then Doug asked what he thought about his son's confession.

  "What are you talking about?"

  Billy had called the police just before his suicide attempt. He'd told them he murdered Sandra McCoy.

  "You're shitting me."

  The salesmen looked around at him. Fadden turned his back. Anger and confusion boiled in his brain. A confession? Teri hadn't said anything about it last night. Nothing. She'd left him standing on the outside, as usual.

  It didn't make sense. Billy? Sandra McCoy? How could that be?

  Then he caught up to what Doug Lindeman was saying. An alibi. Billy watching movies with Doug's aunt that night. And Doug wanting to do the best thing for Billy. God knows, they had to help him out. So Doug would wait to file the guardianship till after Aunt Joan talked to the police and got Billy cleared. So for now, everything was off.

  All Fadden could say was, "I'll call you later." He disconnected and dropped the cell phone back into his pocket.

  For several minutes he stared, unseeing, into the distance. Heard the swoosh and click of fishing rods, the men's low laughter.

  Billy hadn't done it but he had confessed. What had gotten into him? Billy had always liked to act out, to grab attention for himself. But this was over the top. Before the divorce, Fadden had made him toe the mark. His mother had babied him and excused his behavior. Obviously that hadn't changed. What it looked like to Fadden was a boy pushing the limits to see if there were any.

  Taking a long drink of beer, Fadden thought about the phone call from Doug Lindeman. He'd said he wanted to help Billy. Some joke. That was the last thing Doug Lindeman would care about. If he was holding off on the guardianship, there had to be some other reason. Fadden didn't know what it was, and that bothered him. If he asked Doug about it, he would lie. Fadden felt like he was treading deep water, and something was coming up from the bottom about to bite him clean through.

  "Hey, guys. We have to go back." The salesmen looked at him. "It's an emergency with my son. They just rushed him to the hospital. I'll give you a refund or we can come out again tomorrow. Your choice."

  They were pissed off but trying to hide it, glancing at each other from behind their sunglasses. They reeled in their lines. Fadden poled out of the shallows, lowered the engine, and cranked it. Uneven vibrations radiated outward in the water, and blue smoke poured from the exhaust. One of the men started opening beers.

  Standing at the console, Fadden swung the boat southeast. Soon the skiff was skimming the surface. He pointed the bow at the red-and-white lighthouse at Whale Harbor. Gulls and cormorants lifted out of the way. The bottom was a blur of turtle grass, cap rock, and sand.

  The outlines of what he would do had begun to form in his mind. He had to get out to Lindeman Key. He had a right to see his son, didn't he? Teri had ripped him off for everything else, but he still had Billy.

  7

  The veranda at The Buttonwood Inn, spacious enough to hold fifty people at breakfast, was occupied by only one. Gail Connor's table overlooked the lawn, the coral-rock path winding through it, beds of flowers, and a small, deserted beach. Empty lounge chairs were stacked under a thatched hut. No one lay in the cotton rope hammock. The ocean was a vast sheet of twinkling blue that vanished off the curve of the globe. Not a person or sail or even a bird moved across her field of vision. She thought of the woman at the other end of the island. What would it be like to look out day after day on such emptiness, and hear no human voice but one's own?

  Anthony had just called. He'd been checking to see if she had left the message for Joan Sinclair to call him. Gail told him she hadn't forgotten, she'd obtained the number from the housekeeper and made the call an hour ago. Maybe Miss Sinclair was out taking a walk, or her phone was turned off. Maybe she slept during the day and roamed by night. Not in a mood for humor, Anthony had asked Gail for the number so he could try it himself.

  Chin propped in her hands, Gail was disappointed with her lack of success. She had been sure her message would produce a response. This elusive actress, as rarely glimpsed as a Florida panther, should have taken notice of Billy Fadden's name. They were friends, were they not? Joan Sinclair had cut through the rope when he'd hanged himself. Why couldn't she return a phone call?

  Gail had left the cottage a little while ago dressed in shorts and a souvenir T-shirt from Key West, as though this were a real vacation, as though she might take the walking tour of the resort and identify the various species of native plants, or see if there were someone around who could unlock the sports center and lend her a mask and fins. No chance of that. She was wanted back at the cottage. Her computer and her files were waiting. There were clients to contact, opposing counsel to yell at, a complaint to draft in an auto accident case, and God only knew what else her secretary had thrown into her briefcase. On one hand, the urgent, grinding, and nit-picking demands of a law practice, along with the queasy fear that if these matters were not handled immediately, her career would fall into ruins. Or she might just walk over to that little beach. How pleasant to kick off her sandals, dig her toes into the warm sand, and stretch out in the hammock. But not by herself. What was the good of playing hooky without a coconspirator?

  She wet her fingertip and picked up a toast crumb from the tablecloth, a soft sea-foam green. The coffee cup was empty. The waitress had gone to fetch more, and Gail thought she could afford the time it would take to drink it.

  What bothered her at the moment, aside from the awareness that she was, in fact, playing hooky, were the two words that Anthony Quintana had not said in his phone call. Marriage license. She recalled that he hadn't said them when he'd left this morning, either. She had been half asleep but remembered his quick kiss and pat on the bottom, his request that she call Joan Sinclair. There had been no reminder that they had to apply for a license today, or forget it.

  On the phone just now, Gail had almost brought it up, but Anthony had been preoccupied. He wouldn't have wanted to hear his fiancée nagging him about wedding plans.

  What wedding plans? A notary, assuming they could find one, a hurried ceremony after midnight on Friday, then up before dawn, driving back to Miami, husband and wife, and then? And then? What a dumb idea, getting married here.

  Gail took her cell phone out of her shorts pocket and pressed the speed-dial button for her mother. If Irene hadn't already gone to one of her various charity organization meetings, she would be in the kitchen tidying up after breakfast with Karen. She considered it her life's mission to put some meat on that girl's bones. There had been some success: Karen had started her period and sprouted some size-AA curves on her chest.

  Irene's cheerful voice invited the caller to leave a message.

  "Hi, Mom, it's me, checking in. We're having such a great time. You would love Buttonwood Key. Anthony's in Tavernier with his client right now, and I'm just about to get down to work. I'll call Karen after school. Love you."

  For a while, two summers ago, Gail and Karen had lived with Anthony in Coconut Grove. A breakup, though temporary, had ended that arrangement. They had moved in with Irene, to the house where Gail had grown up. Karen seemed happy there. She had made friends in the neighborhood, and her grades had improved. There was someone to supply milk and a sandwich when she got home, listen to the latest school gossip, keep her uniform pressed and her room dusted, and ferry her to soccer practice and Scout meetings and the preteen group at church. It was horrifying to think of not having Irene around. As horrifying as not having Anthony.

  He was intent on getting married ahora mismo, right away. If she dared to point out that it might be better to wait, his eyes would darken. He would accuse her of trying to back out, and did she want to marry him at all? Yes! She loved him, ridiculously so. After Karen's father had walked out, Anthony had made her feel wanted again. Not just wanted, desired, with a passion so hot her bones had melted.

  Gail heard a su
dden crack, a whoosh, a thump. She leaned over the railing and looked toward the front of the hotel. At the base of a tall, curving coconut palm, a man with a pole saw was picking up a cluster of coconuts. He had apparently cut them down before they could fall and conk an unsuspecting guest on the head. He heaved them into the back of a miniature electric-powered truck. The truck bed was already loaded with palm fronds that draped to the ground like the tail of a peacock.

  He wore a hat and his back was turned, but something about the narrow shoulders and shapeless khaki pants was familiar. This was the man who had piloted the boat last night. Arnel. He knew Joan Sinclair. Gail dropped her napkin on her chair and hurried across the veranda and down the steps, then doubled back along the path. She was too late; the hum of an electric cart faded around the corner of the building.

  A voice came from above her. "I have your coffee, Ms. Connor. Are you leaving?"

  "No, I wanted to speak to someone, but he's gone."

  The young woman who had served breakfast was caramel-skinned and brown-eyed, with the friendly detachment common to exclusive hotels. Her knee-length shorts and crisp white shirt had the look of a British island colony. She poured more coffee from a porcelain pot as Gail returned to the table. The coffee was delicious, the Canadian bacon had been juicy, the omelet fluffy, and the toast warm, even in the silver toast rack. The breakfast dishes were sunny yellow with ocean waves around the edges. A lush purple vanda orchid bloomed from a basket on the table. This was perhaps too much fuss for one person, but Gail, who usually wolfed cold cereal before running out the door in the morning, could hardly complain.

  She lifted the lid of a gold-rimmed sugar bowl. "You're going to spoil me. I'm not really a guest, you know."

  "I know. That's all right." The woman stood there with the coffee pot. She hesitated, then said, "I heard they're bringing Billy back this morning. They say he'll be all right."