Suspicion of Madness

by Barbara Parker

  "No one is accusing Lois," Anthony said. "You asked me to help Billy. To do that, we need to know at least as much as the police do."

  Weighing that, Martin said, "I expect to be kept informed. If you have anything to say to Detective Baylor, I want to know about it first."

  "That may not always be possible, Martin. You aren't the client. Billy is."

  He looked for a while longer at Anthony, not liking what he'd heard, but finally he pushed himself out of his captain's chair. "All right. I'll be back later. Call and let me know if you need a ride."

  They stood beside Anthony's Cadillac under the long awning set aside for The Buttonwood Inn. Gail couldn't see his eyes behind his sunglasses but it was obvious he had something to say. His lips were pressed together to hold it in. He was waiting for Martin Greenwald to get into a Jeep Cherokee and head out of the marina parking lot.

  She spoke before he let go. "Anthony, before you say anything— You and I both suspect that Doug Lindeman was sleeping with Sandra McCoy. What if Lois Greenwald was so jealous that—"

  "Oyeme" He held up a forefinger to silence her. "You shouldn't have raised the issue of Lois's guilt without first discussing it with me."

  "How could I? I just talked to her!"

  "Then you say nothing. You wait"

  "Anthony, I wanted to have Lois's alibi before we talk to Lindeman. You'd have done the same."

  "You don't make that decision! I do!" He ripped off his sunglasses to glare at her, dropped them, then glanced around as he picked them up, to see how many boat owners or fishermen were watching this petty display of temper. No one.

  Gail said, "If you didn't want me involved, you shouldn't have hired me. Since you have, I expect to be treated as an equal partner, with due respect for my abilities as a lawyer and as a person with some intelligence."

  "Five dollars an hour! ¿Que tú crees? This makes you an equal partner?"

  "You're a lucky man we aren't still on the boat. I would probably shove you overboard."

  "You start questioning my client without any warning, without asking me—"

  "Martin Greenwald isn't your client. Billy is. Did you not just say that to Martin?"

  "You were wrong, Gail. Admit it." He lowered his head to look at her straight on. With one finger he pushed her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose.

  She felt her fingernails dig into the straw of her handbag. She thought of hiring a boat to take her back to The Buttonwood Inn. No, a bus to Miami. She smiled at him. "I remember now why I didn't take a job at your law firm last year when you offered. It's your attitude. Your way or no way."

  "Screw my attitude, you were wrong. Admit it."

  "Okay. Fine. I was wrong."

  "Thank you."

  "And screw you for being such a jerk."

  They looked at each other.

  She said, "Are you going to be mad at me the rest of the week?"

  He put his sunglasses back on and took his car keys out of his pocket. "Forget it. Let's go talk to Lindeman. We don't have much time."

  "You still want me to go with you?"

  "What do you think?" He opened her door for her. "Talk to me on the way. Tell me what other surprises you have."

  "I think that was it," she said.

  The fog of rage had lifted far enough for her to see that Anthony wasn't angry that she had been wrong in her theory. He was ticked off about having to take the heat from Martin Greenwald. He could have deflected it off on Gail, but he hadn't. When he got in the other side, she said, "Thank you for not screaming at me in front of Martin. You aren't a total jerk."

  "Gracias." He started the car.

  "Are we— Excuse me, are you going to follow up with Doug Lindeman on this issue of Lois and Sandra?"

  Anthony sat there with the engine idling. "I want to know one thing from Lindeman. Is Joan Sinclair crazy? If she is, I won't waste our time taking her to see Detective Baylor. Maybe Billy has somebody else who can vouch for him, maybe not. I will send my investigators here next week, and they can interview everyone and his dog. This wasn't supposed to be complicated. I don't want to get involved any further in this fucking case. It was supposed to be a vacation, and I don't know what I'm doing here. You were right, wanting to leave on Friday. Tonight we see Vampira, tomorrow we talk to the police—or not—and after that, we thank Teri and Martin for the very nice time and get the hell out of here."

  Gail turned and put her hand on his arm. "Anthony, what's wrong? Do you want to go somewhere and talk about it?"

  "No, no, y no. I want to get this over with."

  Holtz and Lindeman, P.A. was in a one-story, concrete-block building on U.S. 1. Gravel bed with cactus for landscaping. Tile roof, blue awnings over the windows, and a carport at one end with four spaces. In the space marked LINDEMAN, a silver BMW with a rusting dent in one fender. A vanity plate: KEYSLAW, no doubt meant to read "Keys Law," but it made Gail think of shredded cabbage.

  Douglas Lindeman had wavy, sun-bleached hair, a mouth too ripe for his short, upturned nose, and freckles, lots of them. His office had the expected bookshelves, corner seating area, two client chairs, and a desk, behind which sat the lawyer. On the wall to his right hung a stuffed fish that looked like a blue plastic pool toy. Gail had never seen the point of this; the equivalent of a stuffed moose head, she supposed.

  Her attention went back to the man at the desk. Yellow knit shirt, gold necklace, a nice chest. A little soft around the middle, but Gail was accustomed to Anthony's middle, so she was picky. Doug Lindeman could have been the former star quarterback at the local high school, who got his excitement these days driving up to Miami with his buddies for lap dances at the strip bars on South Dixie Highway.

  She tried to imagine him and Lois Greenwald naked together in bed, and couldn't see it. She wondered if Lois had unusual talents. Anthony had told her on the way here that Doug Lindeman liked to hang out at the upscale resorts to pick up female tourists. She doubted that Lois knew about it.

  Gail tuned back in just as Lindeman was saying, "My great-grandparents built that house out of solid mahogany. Aunt Joan spent time in the house as a kid, I guess that's why she decided to live there. On breaks from law school I'd go out to visit her. You asked what she was like. Sorry to be so blunt, but she was a drunk. Skinny, foul-mouthed, stumbling around the house, babbling about her movies and her lousy directors and her lousy ex-husbands.

  "My Dad said, 'Joan came home to die.' She didn't die, which surprised us all, but I think the alcohol affected her brain. You'll see. She sits in her house with the curtains drawn and watches movies. She's afraid to go out in the daytime. I'd be interested to know what you find in her refrigerator. It makes my stomach turn to see that fine old house go to ruin."

  Doug Lindeman leaned on his elbow. His arms were as freckled as his face. "There's a guy that helps her out, Arnel Goode, but he's useless. Have you met him yet? You have? He's a weird one, isn't he? Get this. Aunt Joan told me why Arnel stutters. When he was a kid his family owned a farm in Indiana. He saw one of the farm workers fall into a grain auger. That's a big pipe with a steel screw inside that moves the corn from place to place. Aunt Joan didn't go into details, but you can imagine what came out the other end of the auger. She said Arnel couldn't speak at all for months afterward."

  Gail and Anthony exchanged a look.

  Lindeman said, "Don't get me wrong. I like Arnel. He's completely devoted to Aunt Joan, but this is the person she's relying on for her sustenance and care? He's a handyman, not a nurse. He told me he does what he can, but she's not always easy to get along with. I tried to see Aunt Joan a few months ago to make sure she was okay, but she told me to go away. God, it was so sad. I hate to see her like this. She needs some help, she really does. I'm not going to put her in a hospital. I want to find a nice apartment for her with people her own age."

  He noticed his watch and stood up. "Golly, look at the time. I hate to do this, but I've got a client coming in soon."

  Not moving
from his chair, Anthony glanced over at Gail. "Is there anything you want to ask about?" His eyebrows lifted, inviting her to go ahead, what the hell, nothing to lose.

  "Well, I was wondering about Sandra McCoy. You knew her, didn't you?"

  "Yes, she worked for The Buttonwood Inn."

  "You asked her to run errands and keep an eye on your aunt. Sandra told one of her coworkers that you paid her a thousand dollars, and I'm assuming you paid her in cash, over a space of about two months. Is that right?"

  Lindeman focused on Gail. "I don't know. Possibly. That amount of money isn't so much when you're talking about peace of mind. I can't get out there as often as I'd like, and frankly, I was worried about Aunt Joan. I'm still worried."

  "How did you happen to hire Sandra?"

  "Well, I needed someone already at the resort. I'd met Sandra, and she seemed like a responsible young lady. Lois Greenwald gave her a good reference, so I asked her to help me out. She already knew Aunt Joan and was very sympathetic."

  "How did that work? I know that Sandra often came here to your office on business for The Buttonwood Inn, delivering papers and so forth. Is that when you paid her?"

  "I... I guess so." He spread his hands. "Is there some point to this?"

  "I'm just trying to figure things out. Excuse me for asking such a personal question, but… did you and Sandra have more than a business relationship?"

  He stared at Gail, then made a single laugh. "No."

  "Sorry. I suppose the police interviewed you after her murder?"

  He let out a breath, showing how patient he was. "Yes, they did. They talked to everyone who knew her. Everyone except for Billy Fadden." He looked at his watch again.

  "One other thing," Gail said. "Could you tell us where you were when Sandra was killed?"

  Frowning, he ran his tongue across his lower lip, then laughed and looked over at the only other male in the room for support. "What's going on here?"

  "I think she's asking for your alibi," Anthony said.

  "Oh? I think it's time for both of you to get out of my office." Doug Lindeman stood directly over Anthony, whose eyes were turned upward, though he remained casually slouched in his chair.

  Anthony took his cell phone out of his pocket and unfolded it. "Martin Greenwald's number is on speed-dial. Martin is a big client of yours, no? He'll take the call. Ask him if it's all right if you talk to us."

  Lindeman backed off. "Great. I have nothing to hide. I was in trial in Key West all day. I drove back, had something to eat, then came here to finish some work. Lois Greenwald came around seven o'clock to go over some contracts, and she left at eight-fifteen. I turned off the lights, locked up and went directly home. I got there at eight-thirty. All right?"

  Gail looked at him. "You were with Lois Greenwald."

  "That's what I just said."

  "What is your relationship, exactly, with Lois?"

  "Relationship? She's my client."

  "There's no romantic involvement?"

  "What is it with you? I said she was my client. I do not involved with my clients."

  "Really. She said you were. She said you were practically engaged."

  Doug Lindeman's full, rosy mouth hung open. He laughed. "Yeah, well, she's... we're friends."

  "I must have misunderstood her," Gail said.

  "I guess you did."

  They stood at the edge of the quarry looking down into a weedy, brush-choked pit about twenty feet deep and fifty yards across. White coral rock thousands of years old had been blasted, hacked, and broken away in great cubes, then hauled out to be sliced into decorative slabs called keystone. The quarry had shut down in 1962. The state had turned it into a geological site.

  Behind the visitors center a hundred yards or so east, out of view from where they stood, were some rusted tracks and an even more rusted steam engine. Men had pounded steel pikes into the rock, gouging a long trough so the block could be cracked away from the side.

  Sandra McCoy's body had been found here on the desolate western side of the pit. A ranger had supplied a map and marked the place. Anthony walked to the edge. Gail kept her distance, fighting the irrational urge to look behind her.

  The sun had dropped below the tops of the trees but still shone on the pit floor and on the opposite wall. She could see across to the bright water of Florida Bay and a scattering of low mangrove islands. She wondered if, in the days since the murder, the rain had washed the blood away, or if streaks of it still darkened the rock.

  Sandra's body had been positioned with her legs pointing away from the pit, shoulders just at the edge, her head back, throat exposed. Already dead. When the knife had sliced through her neck, the blood had not spurted but flowed. She had been found crumpled at the bottom in a patch of weeds, discarded like a soda can or a cigarette pack.

  Still looking down, Anthony peered through the viewfinder and pressed the shutter.

  Gail had shown him how, no real trick to it. When they got back to the cottage, which she hoped would be soon, she could download the card to her computer and bring up the image on the screen.

  Taking shots of the video store had been easy. Movie Max was the last of four small, glass-fronted stores in a building set back at an angle off the highway. She had captured the parking spaces in front, a few shade trees, and at the far end of the lot, a hedge. Sandra McCoy had left her car in the last space. She had gone in for a video, come out, stuck the keys in the door, and he... someone... had grabbed her. No one had noticed the video bag and her purse on the ground until late the next morning.

  The rope had gone over her head too fast for her to scream.

  He had dragged her around the end of the building and finished the job. His car would have been close by. He had probably driven to the access road just west of the rock quarry and carried or dragged her through the woods, a distance of only twenty yards or so. Why here? He could have taken her body anywhere, could have left her in the mangroves. She'd have been reduced to bones in a week. But he had brought her here. He had laid her out on these rocks like a sacrifice, her sightless eyes staring up at the starlit sky, and her throat slit open, the blood pouring out, a long quiet flow.

  "Anthony, are you about finished?"

  He raised the camera and took a couple of shots across the rock pit, then turned and picked his way over the weedy ground to where she stood.

  "Did you see anything?"

  "Some crime scene tape. The brush is trampled. That's all."

  Gail turned off the camera and put it back into her purse. "Let's get out of here. This place gives me the creeps."

  Arriving at the Blue Water Marina, they spotted a man in old hiking shorts and a khaki fishing hat seated among the patrons at the bar outside the restaurant. Anthony parked the car under the awning near the Buttonwood dock, and they walked back across the lot.

  Martin saw them and lifted a hand in greeting. He was halfway through a mug of beer. Anthony asked if there was time for him to talk to the marina manager. Unspoken but understood was the reason for this: Anthony wanted to find out who had been on duty the night of October third. Had anyone seen Billy Fadden around 7:30 P.M. getting into his boat and heading for home?

  "Go ahead, take your time," Martin said. "We'll be right here." Someone moved down one stool, and Gail slid in next to Martin. A waitress bustled through the screen door of the restaurant with a basket of peel-and-eat shrimp, which she gave to a man at the end of the bar. Martin asked Gail if she was hungry. Gail said she would have a beer, and the bartender tilted a frozen mug under the tap.

  Martin told her he'd just heard one of the fisherman bitching about losing a charter. "They say the storm is right on track for the Upper Keys, unless it veers off at the last minute."

  "It is going to become a hurricane?"

  "No, no, don't worry. They're not going to start ordering evacuations, but we'll get some heavy rains and wind on Friday. I've talked to Lois. She's already putting every hand to work battening down the hatches. We
'll have to delay the opening."

  "Oh, that's bad."

  "It's not bad. Bad is the roof blowing off the hotel. This is inconvenient."

  "What about your nursery?" Gail grabbed a napkin to blot the foam off her lips.

  He answered with a shrug. "Palm trees are made for this weather."

  "Martin, I want to apologize to you."

  "Why?"

  "I shouldn't have asked about Lois the way I did, making it sound like we suspected her."

  "No need to apologize," Martin said. "I've had some things on my mind, and I took it badly. You go ahead and do your job. I won't interfere."

  "Well, we talked to Doug," she said. "He confirmed that he and Lois were in his office discussing business at the time in question."

  "What did he say about Joan?"

  "He thinks Joan is loony."

  "I thought he would."

  Gail took another sip of her beer, crisp and cold. "Martin, forget what I said about Lois and Doug being involved in any way. I must not have heard her correctly. Please don't mention it to her. I'd die of embarrassment."

  But Gail had heard correctly. And either Lois had wildly misunderstood her relationship with Doug Lindeman, or she was delusional. Anthony said it didn't matter; it was Lois's problem, and they should leave it alone. Gail thought he was right, but it bothered her. She already felt sorry for Teri. Now this.

  "I won't say a word." Martin had finished his beer and was signaling the bartender for another.

  Gail said, "Should you be drinking? Oh, God, listen to me. I'm sorry."

  "You're right, I shouldn't. This is my last one. I've just been to see my doctor."

  "Not bad news."

  "The old ticker is wearing out. They want me to go to Miami next week for some tests. The cardiologists are talking about raising the hood and replacing a couple of parts. I'm not in any imminent danger of falling off this bar stool, don't look so alarmed." He smiled at her, then said, "I hope you don't mention this to Anthony. Above all, not Teri. You and I will have a mutual pact of silence."