Gail leaned against Tom Nolan's legs and wept. "Please, you don't know him at all. He isn't what you think. We're engaged to be married. I love him!"
Tom pushed her away, and she toppled over. "Where's your purse? I need your keys to move your car."
"Please don't do this. Please!"
He grabbed her shoulders and shook her, and pain rocketed through her head. "The keys."
"In my pocket," she gasped.
He patted her skirt pockets and found the keys. Then went to get more rope. He bound her knees together, then looped a line through her wrists to her ankles.
"You were fifteen years old! She was being nice to you. Tom, think!"
From his pocket Nolan pulled a handkerchief and tried to cram it into Gail's mouth while she writhed on the floor. She bit him. He slapped her. She tasted blood. Softly he said, "Gail. Don't make this difficult. You have to be quiet." He tied another handkerchief around her head to hold the first one. She thought she might vomit. She pushed with her tongue, then choked and coughed on saliva. Nolan rechecked all the knots.
Sitting on his heels, he looked at her, his features softening. "I'm sorry. I really am." He patted her shoulder and stood up. He looked around the room. "Felix will show up to kill me while Anthony is here. Gunshots are exchanged. The bomb goes off accidentally. No. That won't work."
He took the gasoline and box off the table and took them into the kitchen. Gail heard him talking to himself. "You and I are having an affair? Anthony arrives to kill us both. He gets you, I get him—But that doesn't take care of Felix."
Nolan came out again and crossed the room to lift the lid on the grand piano. "I think Felix is holding me prisoner when you and Anthony show up. Felix shoots both of you, but gunfire ignites the gasoline." From inside the piano Nolan took a pair of latex gloves and snapped them on. Then he lifted out a longish black plastic case. He lowered the piano lid, set the case on top, and clicked open the latches. "This is Felix's rifle. At least, it has his fingerprints on it."
On the floor Gail moaned and choked. Her nose was clogged from crying, and she couldn't get enough air.
The barrel screwed into the breech. The scope clicked into the barrel. Nolan attached a silencer. "The fire is necessary because of Felix. He's starting to decompose. I'll be in the bedroom. There's a fire extinguisher in the hall closet I can use, so I'll be safe." Cartridges clicked into the magazine. "Safe enough."
The barrel pointed at the floor as Nolan came over to stand beside Gail. "Try to breathe slowly." He checked his watch, then went out the front door.
Gail prayed to go deaf rather than lie helplessly waiting to hear the pop of a silenced rifle. Her lungs burned. She wiped her nose on her shoulder and concentrated on breathing slowly. Slowly. Gradually the panic lifted. Anthony would never leave a client in the middle of dinner to advise Tom Nolan on an assault and battery case. What egotism to think a criminal lawyer would drop everything and rush right over. If Anthony had said he would come, he had to suspect something. He would come with the police.
The windows were losing light quickly. Gail lay on the floor no longer thinking of the pain in her body, but of Karen. Her energy, her sweet, mischievous smile. How little time they had spent together lately. Gail vowed to change. But her thoughts kept going to Anthony. Please let him know it's a trap. She thought of their arguments. How petty and selfish she had been. She swore never to be cross with him again. She would be patient and kind. Always gentle.
There was a thud at the door and Gail stiffened. The door flew inward, then Tom Nolan appeared, leaning over, the rifle across his back on its shoulder strap.
He was dragging Anthony inside. Gail heard her own muffled cry of anguish.
"He arrived early, and as I thought—" Tom pulled Anthony's .45 pistol out of the holster under his jacket. "He arrived armed."
Anthony lay facedown on the rug ten feet away from her with his arms curved above his head. Gail strained to see him. His back slowly rose and fell. He was alive. She saw no blood.
Tom Nolan closed the door. "I need to think. I need to set all this up first. I haven't decided yet how to do it." He lay the pistol and rifle on the lid of the grand piano.
She watched him go into the kitchen and come out with rope and a knife. Within five minutes he had Anthony tied up in the same manner he had used on her. Then he went down the hall toward the bedroom. A drawer opened and shut. Anthony was lying motionless on his side. Gail scooted nearer. She yearned to touch him. To say his name. Anthony, I love you. Tears leaked out of her eyes and ran into her hair.
Nolan returned and knelt to stuff one handkerchief into Anthony's mouth and tie it in with another. Anthony made a muffled moan and coughed. When Nolan had gone into the kitchen, Gail moved closer. Their knees were touching, and she could look into his face. She pressed her forehead to his chest and felt the steady beating of his heart.
Something thudded onto wood. She twisted her head around. Nolan was setting the table for dinner. Three place settings. Three wine glasses. A bowl of fruit. The meaning of this slammed into her mind. The ghost of the Commendatore had interrupted Don Giovanni's dinner to give him one last chance to repent. Tom Nolan was playing the part of avenger— but this Commendatore offered no mercy.
Nolan came out with a pitcher and filled water glasses. A muffled wail stuck in Gail's throat. She wheezed, dizzy for breath, for air. She began to feel faint. It would be better, she thought, to die now, and quickly.
Then the gag was jerked down over her chin. Nolan pulled out the handkerchief. "If you scream," he said, "I'll put it back in."
Coughing, she shook her head. "Tom—" She took a breath and lay still, twisted on her back, lying halfway on her hands. "Please do me one favor." He sat on his haunches and looked at her. "If you're going to . . . kill him, please don't let him wake up first and see me."
"I don't know. It depends." Tom shook his hair back.
"One other thing. Do you have a CD of Aida? You must have. Please put on the last scene." She took another deep breath, then whispered, "That's all I ask."
He put his hands on his knees and pushed himself up. At the stereo he clicked through his CD collection. She asked if he had ever performed in that opera. "I sang Ramphis in Chicago," he said. "The high priest." He smiled. "The man who condemns Radames to death."
He aimed his remote at the stereo, and a tenor voice soared from the speakers. Radames, sealed in the tomb, aware of his fate, praying that Aída never knows of his death. But to his horror, she has hidden herself in the same tomb. They will perish together.
Beyond tears or pain, Gail said, "Tom. You were right. I'm sorry I lied. Felix wasn't in Nicaragua."
He glanced up from the libretto. "I know that."
She said, "The real story was too complicated. I don't know why the people in Los Pozos told you those things, but I can guess. They were afraid. Anything was better than the truth."
Tom Nolan looked at her.
"I was looking for the truth, too," she said. "Anthony asked me to marry him, and I said yes, but there was a darkness in his past that he wouldn't talk about. I knew a little. When he got back from Nicaragua, he spent two weeks in a mental hospital. When he got out he went to New York, got his law degree, married, and had children. His marriage failed. I knew something tragic had happened, but I didn't know what.
"I asked Rebecca and Seth for help. They didn't want to talk about it either, but finally they did. We talked the night I went to Seth's house. Before . . . he died."
Behind her, a muffled moan came from Anthony. Nolan's eyes flicked toward him.
Gail projected her voice just over the music. "I read the same report you did, but I had more. A CIA report. Lloyd Dixon gave it to me after the memorial service for Rebecca. Lloyd has contacts. He was with the CIA in Nicaragua in 1986, flying missions for Oliver North. When you went to his apartment last week, who was there? Octavio Reyes. What do you think they were doing? Those men weren't just investors. They were plotting t
he overthrow of Castro, and the U.S. government knows about it. Felix Castillo told me about all this. When he disappeared, I thought the CIA had done it, and you were working for them."
Thomas Nolan tossed the CD case back onto the shelf. "This is insane."
"People cover things up, Tom. The people in Los Pozos were protecting themselves. What did they tell you about Pablo?"
"I never heard of this."
"Of course you didn't. Pablo Bermudez. Commandante Zero, a captain in Somoza's army. They were brutal. Anyone suspected of working for the rebels would be brutalized, tortured, murdered. Rebecca told me about seeing bodies lying by the side of the road. It was horrible."
Anthony shifted. Moaned again.
Gail spoke more quickly. "They went there out of idealism. Seth as a carpenter, Rebecca as a nurse. Anthony and Emily wanted to teach. Oh, Tom. They were in love. He adored her. Emily's aunt hated him because he was Cuban. She tried to keep them apart, but when Anthony asked Emily to go with him, she said yes. She believed in his ideals. Anthony talked about how poor these people were. They had no land, nothing. Somoza and his friends owned everything. It's true that Anthony met the Sandinistas while he was there. He wasn't afraid. He'd grown up in Cuba. Seth and Rebecca warned him to stay away, but he was young and naive and confident of his own power."
On the stereo, the chorus of Egyptians began to sing slowly. Chanting, invoking the gods.
"One day Pablo, the army captain, invited the Americans to his house in the hills overlooking Los Pozos. He had a piano that his wife had used before her death, and he wanted to hear music again. After dinner Emily played for him. He immediately fell in love with her. He wanted her, but she wouldn't have anything to do with him, of course. So Pablo had someone accuse Anthony of working with the Sandinistas. Anthony was thrown into a jail cell in La Vigia. He was tortured, but he refused to confess to something he hadn't done. Pablo told Emily he would let Anthony go if she gave herself to him. Otherwise, Anthony and all the others would be taken into the jungle and shot. Emily knew that Pablo meant what he said.
"When Anthony was let out of jail, he went to Pablo's house, but Emily had to tell him she had gone willingly with Pablo. Rebecca and Seth convinced him to leave with them. They left the country. And here the story runs out. Emily disappeared. I believe that she either killed herself or she tried to escape, and Pablo had her shot. What I read in the CIA report matches everything I heard from Anthony, Rebecca, and Seth. If the people told you anything else, it was because they didn't dare accuse Pablo. He's a high official in the government now. They had to blame somebody. You suggested the Americans, and the most logical crime to throw at them was dealing drugs. Tom, it wasn't true."
Tom Nolan had sat on the sofa as Gail spoke. His hands dangled between his knees, and his hair fell to cover his face.
"That was the darkness that Anthony has been trying to escape. Emily saved him, but at what cost? When he found out that she was missing, presumed dead, he nearly lost his mind with grief. They were all ruined. Rebecca took pills to forget. Seth couldn't forget, and he lost his faith and his courage. He was on his way to WRCL that night to regain his self-respect when he was shot. Before she died, Rebecca told me she couldn't go on without Seth.
"Oh, Tom, you've been lied to. I consider you innocent because you didn't know, but now you do. Please don't do this anymore. I beg you for mercy. They've all suffered, just as you have. I beg you for his life."
Aida's ethereal soprano floated through the room. O terra, addio. Addio, valle di pianti . . . Farewell to earth, farewell vale of tears—
Gail said, "He loved her. He never meant to take her away from you. She died, and he has suffered as much as you have, Tom."
A noi si schiude il del e l'alme errante, volano al raggio dell'eterno di. The heavens open and our souls escape to the rays of eternal day.
He went to the table and picked up the pistol. Gail leaned back against Anthony and felt his warmth.
Nolan stood over them. "There is no forgiveness. Pace t'imploro."
Gail closed her eyes.
Then heard footsteps retreating down the hall. She looked to see the bedroom door closing.
The last bars of the opera were soaring from the speakers. The chorus invoking God. Aida's rival, Amneris, begging the spirits for peace. Pace t'imploro . . . pace . . . pace. And above them all the fading voices of the doomed lovers.
Like their breath running out in the sealed tomb, the last notes faded away. There was silence. Then Gail heard a gunshot.
Shortly thereafter, when Anthony awoke, Gail tugged at his gag with her teeth. Quickly she explained what had happened. Her words;—and her tears—poured out. Maneuvering around so that he could feel the rope that bound her wrists, he loosened them, and in this way they freed themselves.
Anthony picked up the rifle, not expecting to need it. He led the way down the hall and pushed open the door with the barrel.
A lamp was on by the bed.
The pistol had dropped near Thomas Nolan's hand. He lay with a framed photograph on his chest. His other hand rested on a small brown suitcase.
Lowering the rifle, Anthony went across the room. He touched the suitcase. "What's this?"
Gail said, "No. Don't open it. I can tell you what's inside."
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Thomas Nolan was buried in Miami, his place of birth. At the funeral his friends mourned, the curious came by the hundreds, and no one knew whether to be horrified or saddened. They preferred not to believe that Nolan had been crazy, except in the operatic manner of Otello or of Don José in Carmen. That he had committed four murders was, if not excused, at least understood in the elevated context of great passion. Anthony commented to Gail that if Thomas Nolan had been one of his clients, a murderer of no particular distinction, Nolan and his crimes would have been deplored.
The Miami Opera had been forced to scramble to find a replacement to sing the lead in Don Giovanni. Even with a few glaring gaffes on opening night, the public clamored for tickets. The opera sold out every performance, and two more were added.
After closing night, when media attention had moved on—and when certain bureaucratic difficulties had been taken care of—another interment took place in the same cemetery.
A week or so later, on a warm sunny afternoon in mid-February, Anthony asked Gail if she would go with him to take flowers. The headstone had just been put in place.
It was a quiet, shady spot. Mockingbirds sang in nearby trees. Nolan's headstone, paid for by donations from friends, was an ornate affair of white marble. The other was simple. Emily Davis, 1958-1978. At peace with God.
Her aunt had passed away several years before, and her father could not be located. By choice more than by default, Anthony had taken over the arrangements. It had been suggested that both bodies be placed in the same coffin, or at least that their names be carved into the same stone, but Anthony did not think Emily would have wanted that. He had finally decided to purchase a site just across the walkway from Nolan's.
If Anthony had asked her to, Gail would have told the police that she had no idea whose remains were in the suitcase or why Thomas Nolan had turned homicidal, but Anthony was determined that Emily be buried properly. Gail had countered that revealing every last detail would accomplish nothing but to turn Anthony Quintana into an object of curiosity. They had finally agreed on what to say: With all his teenage passion, Thomas Nolan had loved Emily Davis, his young piano teacher. She and three friends had gone to Los Pozos as volunteers. She decided to stay and never came back. Nolan found her grave, then got it into his head that her friends were responsible for her death. Nolan killed Felix Castillo, who had become suspicious. Daisy had been in the way. Anthony was to have been the last victim, but for some reason or other Nolan changed his mind and committed suicide.
Later, Gail told Anthony the elaborate story she had spun for Tom Nolan—which in its way held more truth for him than the actual events. Nolan had wanted a story of
passion and self-sacrifice. Gail had taken a chance, asking him to put on the last scene in Aída, the story of an Ethiopian princess forced into slavery in the Egyptian court, beloved by Radames, himself betrothed to Amneris. He betrayed his country to save Aída, but rather than escape, she chose to die with him. Amneris wanted vengeance, but as the lovers slowly suffocated, she stood outside the tomb praying for peace. Pace t'imploro. At the end Thomas Nolan may have seen himself as Amneris. He had said, "There is no forgiveness." He meant none for himself. All he could ask for was mercy and peace.
These things went through Gail's mind as she stood with Anthony at the site of Emily's grave. She glanced at him. He had not spoken for several minutes, lost in his own thoughts.
He crossed himself, then leaned down to place the flowers on the grave. He looked at them for another moment, then turned and smiled at Gail. Hand in hand, they left the cemetery,
The Pedrosa house was not precisely on the way home, but Gail suggested they drop in to say hello. Until recently Anthony would never have considered such a thing, at least not without calling first.
Turning through the iron gates into the circular driveway, he put on his brakes. Gail saw a dark red Lexus parked near the front entrance. As far as she knew, Octavio Reyes had decided to move to Texas, taking the family with him.
"Did you know Octavio would be here?" she asked.
"No." His face wore that cool, impenetrable expression that she recognized as a mask for anger.
Gail said, "Let's not go in."
But he finished the turn and parked behind the Lexus.
Octavio Reyes had not been seen in public lately. He had been fired from WRCL, and his furniture business was up for sale. Bricks had been thrown through the plate glass windows of the showroom. It was said that Reyes had tricked Ernesto Pedrosa—a respected but elderly man—into supplying money and arms for a Cuban underground that did not in fact exist. Even worse, Reyes had already skimmed hundreds of thousands of dollars from Pedrosa's businesses to invest in the Cuban tourist industry.
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