“I know you tried, Joe.” Was tried a good word when it came to loving someone?
“I miss you calling me Dad. You haven’t been, lately.” Joe waited a moment or two. “Okay, okay. The thing is, the lawyer is going to talk to you about Peter, and even though he’s our lawyer, I just want you to know this…you don’t have to tell him everything. He’s going to say, ‘You can tell me everything, Evie,’ but you don’t have to. Some things are private. You had your first love with Peter, am I right? Nobody has to know about that but you. You can keep it close. You look right in his eyes when you answer. Don’t smile, don’t look away. The thing is, Evie…” Joe cleared his throat, stretched his fingers out, then grabbed the wheel again. “It’s better they don’t think that I knew about Peter chasing Mom. That I wondered. Like, that day at the golf course—they shouldn’t know she said she was taking lessons when she wasn’t. She just needed to get off by herself sometimes, she said. You see, the less we’re tied to this guy, the better. Because if they start digging for stuff, they are going to find out things that wouldn’t be good for the family.”
“Things like what?”
“Just things.”
I jerked my head and stared out the side window, even though I couldn’t see anything. It was like seeing through tears in your eyes.
“Maybe I’m not your hero anymore. I can see that. Evie, look at me. Please.”
I looked at him, like he asked. He looked me right in the eye.
“I didn’t kill him.”
“Okay.”
“What I had to do during the hard times, and then during the war—that was different. I had to make my own breaks, and I did. But I didn’t just do it for me.”
The rain stopped. I could just make out a girl walking down the street. She had her shoes in her hands and she was walking barefoot. She walked right through a puddle, laughing. She was part of something that was so far away from me now.
“Do you remember right after I got back?” Joe asked. “We went to the city and saw a show and had dinner and came home and fell asleep, the three of us, on the couch, because we didn’t want to go to bed?”
I remembered. I had felt part of them, of their love.
“That’s the way it can be again. If we all stick together here. Okay? If we can just be smart now. If we can stick.”
Chapter 30
The door was lettered WILSON MARKEL ATTORNEY AT LAW on the frosted glass. Joe knocked on the door and opened it.
An older woman sat at a desk right inside. There were a couple of wooden chairs and an old carpet on the floor. Not much for someone who, according to Gladys, was supposed to be the best criminal attorney in South Florida.
The woman stood. She had tight curls clustered on her forehead and the rest of her iron-gray hair tied tight back in a bun with long pins to anchor it there. It looked painful, that bun.
“How do, Miss Geiger,” Joe said. “Lovely dress. This is my daughter, Evelyn Spooner.”
She gave a short nod. Her gaze was like ice on a February pond. “Mr. Markel is expecting you.”
She turned and walked across the floor on surprisingly high heels. If a man saw her from behind, he might follow those hips down the street. She knocked on an inner door and then opened it slightly. “Mr. Markel, the girl is here.”
“Send her in, Miss Geiger.”
“You may go in, Miss Spooner.”
Joe started in with me, but Miss Geiger took one step toward us. “Just Miss Spooner, Mr. Spooner.”
“But—”
“Just Miss Spooner. Thank you, Mr. Spooner.”
I walked in. Mr. Markel was standing at his desk. He gave me the kind of smile you get from people who have a hard time smiling. It didn’t help my nerves.
“Do you need me to take notes, Mr. Markel?” Miss Geiger asked.
“No, that will be all, Miss Geiger. Please shut the door.”
The door closed with a soft click. I let out a long breath. “She looks at Joe like she wants to lock him up,” I said.
“Miss Geiger reserves her judgment on guilt or innocence.”
I didn’t think so. Miss Geiger had the eyes of a judge and jury rolled into one.
“Please sit down, Miss Spooner. As your father no doubt told you, tomorrow I would like you to attend the inquest. An image of family solidarity can be a good thing. This will open you up to attention, however. You must be prepared for photographers and the press.”
“All right.”
“Now. Tell me about Peter Coleridge.”
The words were already in my mouth, and I found them so easy to say, answering his soft questions while he watched me across the desk.
We didn’t know him that well. He was another guest. He said he was from New York, too. Yes, we went out together sometimes. He said he’d teach me how to drive. No, my mother didn’t see him alone. I don’t remember who said to go for the boat ride even though the storm was coming. It could have been Peter.
Silence. Joe had told me not to look away, so I didn’t look away.
Mr. Markel’s eyes weren’t colorless, they turned out to be the softest blue, the blue of a baby blanket. His silver hair was brushed straight back but little tufts made a break for it and waved around his ears.
“Was Peter Coleridge your mother’s boyfriend?” His voice had been mild before, but now it whipped through the air like a slap coming out of nowhere.
“No.”
“You are aware, Miss Spooner, that whatever you tell me, I can’t tell to anyone, even the judge. An inquest is not a trial, but if they call you—and they might—you will be under oath. The inquest is held in order to determine if charges will be filed against one or both of your parents.”
“Yes, Mr. Markel.”
He waited, and I didn’t look down. I just thought of baby blankets, of baby carriages, of soft, downy hair.
He pushed his glasses up his nose. The lenses flashed, hiding his eyes. He gave me instructions on how to speak, what to wear, how never to get angry, to stay calm no matter what. I should never look at Joe or Mom before I spoke.
“Miss Spooner—may I call you Evie?—thank you. You take mathematics in school, correct? Well, this is elementary mathematics, Evie. No additions, no subtractions. If called, you say exactly what you just said.”
I nodded.
“If you are called, the state’s attorney will ask if your mother was ever alone with Peter Coleridge. They will ask if your parents got along.”
Yes. We’d already gone over those answers, too.
“They might ask if your mother was in love with Peter Coleridge. What will you answer, Miss Spooner?
“Miss Spooner?”
I answered the way he told me, clear and quiet.
“No,” I said. I looked right at him when I said it, just the way Joe had told me to when he’d taught me how to lie. Just the way he’d looked at me when he told me he hadn’t killed Peter.
I wasn’t expecting the crowds. Mr. Markel had warned me but I still was surprised when I saw all the people on the stairs, waiting. I wondered what they were waiting for, and I realized it was us.
I thought there would be one reporter, but there were so many, and they asked me questions as we pushed our way up the stairs, Joe on one side of me, Mom on the other, Mr. Markel in front with Grandma Glad.
I kept my head down and my hair swung in front of my face. I thanked Mrs. Grayson for my new hairstyle.
The courtroom was the same one I’d spent the night in during the hurricane. I walked right past the bench where I’d slept. It seemed like years ago that I’d been here, scared and alone. Now the room was bright and hot, even with the fans whirring all around. I watched the blades. If I concentrated hard enough, I could lose myself in the blur.
We sat and the judge came in, stout and red-faced, with heavy black-framed glasses. Mom took my hand and held it. Hers was icy and damp, and every few moments she squeezed my fingers hard. I wished I could push her hand away, but I was afraid the repor
ters would see me do it.
The first witness was one of the maids from Le Mirage, the young one with the nice smile. She looked apologetically at Joe and Mom as she sat down in the witness chair.
She testified that one day she’d emptied the wastebasket, and there were pieces of a pineapple vase in it.
“Something the tourists buy, you know,” she said. “I felt bad, but I was glad it wasn’t me who smashed it.”
Joe was called next. He was nervous. What Mom called his “salesman hat” went on. He said things like “your fine state of Florida” and “this terrible tragedy” and “even in the service, you never get used to a pal dying.” Which was a lie, because he told me once that the awful thing about the service was that you did get used to dying. You learn it pretty quick. Never make friends with the new guy.
He went over what happened on the boat, how they decided to go out into the ocean and how it was a dumb move, he admitted it, something that tourists do, and they were almost swamped by the waves when the engine quit.
“You said Mr. Coleridge was an experienced sailor, Mr. Spooner,” the attorney said.
“He said he was.”
“Were you at the helm when he attempted to fix the engine?”
“He told me to take it. He told me to keep it steady, you know. It had started to rain a bit, and we’d been out for most of the afternoon by then. The seas just kept getting higher. There was no radio. This squall came—we couldn’t see more than a foot in front of us.”
“Do you think your handling of the boat contributed to Mr. Coleridge’s fall, Mr. Spooner?”
“Now, I’ve asked myself that question a thousand times, sir. I kept the boat as steady as I could. But the wind had picked up something fierce, so we were getting bounced around. When he went over, I shouted for Bev to come up with the life vests—”
“You weren’t wearing them at the time?”
“Well, I was, and Bev was, but Peter said he didn’t need one. We threw one overboard, right away. We thought we saw his head, we thought we could get to him. But he slipped under.”
Mom bent her head.
I concentrated on the fan, whirring.
The lawyer asked in a sneery way how Joe had fixed the engine. Joe said what he did, and added that he owned appliance stores, so he was good with motors. He wished he’d been the one to crawl down into the engine well first, he said.
“You don’t know how often I wished that,” he said.
You can feel a courtroom’s mood if you listen hard. Rustling and coughing and murmurs and something in the air, deeper than words, that passes from person to person.
They didn’t like Joe.
They didn’t believe him.
There were more questions, but it was over for Joe. We heard how long he looked for Peter, how he almost capsized going back through the inlet to the lake, how he knew he’d never make it back to the dock. It was dark by then, pitch-dark, and it was just dumb luck that he got stuck in the mangroves and found a safe place to leave the boat. The voices went on and on and I was hearing them without listening. I held Mom’s hand, slick with sweat.
She was next.
After that, me.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Mom whispered.
They called her name, and she walked up to the chair at the front. She looked so serious, and so pretty. She’d flattened out her curls (“No tumbling hair tomorrow,” Mr. Markel had warned her yesterday) and drawn back her hair in a bun. She wore a little white hat that matched the white collar of her navy dotted-swiss dress. She crossed her legs at the ankles. Instead of sandals she wore navy pumps.
I could feel the temperature in the room change. Not how warm it was, but how people were thinking. They’d made Joe into a murderer because they wanted him to be. Now they were watching Mom. Was she his hardboiled accomplice, was she a tramp, or was she an innocent wife chained to a jealous man? That was what they wanted her to tell them.
I wanted to know the answers, too. But not here. Not like this.
Mom answered the questions so quietly that the judge had to ask her to speak up three times. I don’t know where she had put her pizzazz. Maybe she had squashed it in that little lace-trimmed pocket of her dress.
She told the same story Joe had. Except she added some other feelings. She said she hadn’t wanted to go, but she wanted to be a “good sport.”
“Did your husband and Peter Coleridge get along?”
“Oh, yes. They were chums. You know, there aren’t many tourists here this time of year, so you get to know the people at the hotel.”
“Did you have romantic feelings for Mr. Coleridge?”
“I have romantic feelings for my husband,” Mom said firmly, and you could tell the courtroom liked that.
“A witness has testified that he saw you leaving in Mr. Coleridge’s car every day.”
“With my daughter,” Mom corrected with such gentleness that I could feel the spectators move slightly to her side. “He took us for drives sometimes.”
I sneaked a look around. Everybody’s eyes were on her. Nobody was whispering or scratching or blowing their nose.
She told the courtroom about the pineapple vase. Yes, she’d been to the store with Peter. She’d been walking to town and he gave her a lift. It was the nice thing to do, he was that sort of person.
And how did the vase get smashed?
I felt myself almost falling, I was so afraid. Mom tilted her head and gave the tiniest shrug.
“My husband and I were dancing to the radio, and we bumped into it,” she said. She looked over at Joe and smiled just a little bit. “He’s not a very good dancer.”
A woman in back of me laughed a little, and the judge banged his gavel.
When did my mother get to be such a cool liar? When did she learn to use her face to look so innocent?
Maybe when she fell in love with Peter. She had so many lies to tell.
The attorney in the gray suit started pounding her with questions now. He didn’t like the way the tide was turning. What time did they get the boat, whose idea was it to leave the lake and go out into the ocean, did the two men argue?
“The wind picked up. There were these gusts…they frightened me. Peter said if he couldn’t fix it, we could be in trouble. The boat went up like this—” Mom held her hand out and tilted it. “I was terrified. So I went downstairs.”
Everyone in the courtroom busted out laughing.
“You went below,” the attorney said in a scolding way, like she hadn’t done her nautical homework and he’d caught her out.
“Below.” Mom nodded like an eager student. I think if she’d smiled, if she’d laughed along with everyone, that would have ruined it. They wouldn’t have liked it if she was in on the joke.
He kept asking questions, but Mom had won. They liked her now. She was from New York but she didn’t know what they knew. She had turned herself from a femme fatale into a dumb blonde. They knew she couldn’t kill anyone. She was too pretty. She was too dim.
Chapter 31
“You both did well,” Mr. Markel said. We’d left the courtroom straight through the judge’s chambers to avoid all the cameras. Now we sat in a small office Mr. Markel had borrowed. Miss Geiger had left us lunch. Sandwiches had been unwrapped and a thermos of coffee sat steaming, its lid forgotten. The only one who ate and drank was Grandma Glad.
“Evie’s next up, right?” Joe asked, leaning forward, his hands clasped. “And she’s the last witness. It could all be over today, right?”
“There’s another witness,” Mr. Markel said. “Just came forward. Walter Forrest.”
“Who?” Joe asked.
Mr. Markel looked down at his file. “He worked at Le Mirage. As a bellhop and valet.”
“Wally?” I asked.
“What the devil does Wally know about anything?” Joe asked.
Mr. Markel looked over his glasses at Joe. “That, indeed, is the question.”
Mom pushed her chair back and went
to the window. She hugged herself as she looked down at the street.
“Is there anything you can think of that Mr. Forrest might have to say?” Mr. Markel asked.
“Nothing,” Joe said. “Bev?”
“Nothing,” she said. She didn’t turn around.
Wally was wearing a white shirt tight at the neck and a bow tie. His pants were hitched up too high. When he sat down I could see his brown socks end and his calf begin. He didn’t look at me or Joe or Mom.
I recognized his father in the courtroom. He kept his hands on his knees and his eyes on his boy.
Wally stated his name and where he worked. He said he was acquainted with the Spooners and with Mr. Coleridge, that he parked cars for the hotel and carried suitcases and ran errands. “Short staff, they didn’t usually open in September, see,” he said. “They don’t get so many guests. So sure, you get to know ’em.”
And why did Walter come forward and talk to the police, Mr. Toomer wanted to know, asking the question in a smug way that let you know he was delighted he knew the answer before everyone else.
“I walk home on the lake trail,” Wally said. “Every night, the same way. It’s real quiet now because it’s off-season. Mr. Wentworth’s place—he lives down the block from the hotel—it backs up on the lake there, and I cut through it to get to the trail. It’s a shortcut. He gave me permission, since he eats at the hotel most every night during the season.”
“Mr. Allen Wentworth,” the attorney said, and I could tell everyone knew who he was, some Palm Beach swell.
“Anyway,” Wally said, swallowing so hard I could see it from the third row, “one night, it was a Friday, because I get off later on Fridays, I was walking through the grass, and I hear something, I don’t know what, so I stop. And I walk over a little bit…” Wally began to squirm in his chair and stuck a finger in his collar. “Ah, and I see a couple leaning against a tree.”
“What was the couple doing?”
“They were, ah, necking, sir.”