by Alice Orr
“In what way?” she asked.
“In the way that makes the two of you each other’s alibi.”
“Are you saying that we’re suspects?” Taylor asked. “If we need an alibi, we must be suspects.”
“I seem to recall this same topic coming up last night at April Jane’s murder scene,” Santos said. “Except that we were only talking about you at that time, Ms. Bissett. My answer to your question is this. Just as everything even vaguely connected with a murder case is subject to investigation, anybody even vaguely connected with a murder victim is subject to suspicion. You and Mr. Maxwell were on the scene last night at the guesthouse. You’re on the scene here today. That puts both of you on the suspect list.” He flipped back a couple of pages in his notepad and perused whatever was written there. “Your personal histories put you near the top of that list.”
“What personal history are you referring to?” Taylor had to ask, though she dreaded the answer.
“Well, Ms. Bissett—” Santos tapped the notepad against his raised thigh. “—in your case, there’s the matter of possible matricide and a childhood pattern of psychological disturbance.”
“Wait just a minute, Santos.” Des pulled up in his seat and jutted his square chin toward the detective. “You’ve got no proof of any of that.”
“I said possible matricide, and the psychological stuff’s documented.”
“Documented where?” Des snapped.
“Winona Starling was her therapist—” Santos began.
Des cut him off. “That information is privileged. You can’t use it.”
Taylor knew she should be saying these things for herself, but she wasn’t able to talk at the moment. Santos kept using the term for killing one’s mother. Taylor could barely stand to hear it spoken. The sound cut her like a sword to the heart.
“There are also eyewitness statements taken at the time of Mrs. Bissett’s death,” Santos said. “Including the words of that lady in there.” He nodded toward the house.
“Violetta made a statement against Taylor?”
“She stated the facts, as she witnessed them, of Ms. Bissett’s behavior as a child. She also attested to Ms. Bissett being under Starling’s care for emotional problems.”
“Detective Santos,” Taylor said after clearing her throat to force her voice back into working order. “Were any charges ever brought against me in my mother’s death?”
“No formal charges.”
“Then it doesn’t seem appropriate for you to be bringing up unsubstantiated allegations now.”
“What I call appropriate, Ms. Bissett,” Santos said, leaning forward to sneer more directly into her face, “is that I’m the one working these current cases, and I’m not the kind of bleeding heart who investigated your mother’s death. They backed off then because you were just a kid and your family agreed to get your head shrunk, then get you out of here. I wouldn’t have handled it that way. What is also appropriate, as well as significant, is that the arson death of your mother is still an open case. There’s no statute of limitations on murder.”
“You’re bluffing,” Des said, more belligerent than ever. “You could never get a judge to try that case after all these years and against a kid.”
“Never say never.”
Santos actually smiled after saying that. He gave every indication of enjoying what was going on, especially the fact that he was obviously irritating Des. Taylor wondered if this was also an interrogation tactic. Maybe Santos reasoned that Des would be easier pickings once his cool facade had been broken down some. And maybe Santos was using Taylor’s predicament as the sledgehammer to do that breaking. She didn’t want that to happen, and she knew how to prevent it. She forced herself to take charge, though she hardly felt capable of doing so.
“I refuse to have my mother’s death or any possible charges against me discussed further without my attorney present.” She knew enough about the law to understand that was her right.
Santos gave a derisive sniff. He obviously understood the same thing. “What about you, Mr. Maxwell?” he asked. “Do you have to have a mouthpiece to talk for you too?”
“I’ll talk to you on my own,” Des said. “Any time. Any place.”
“As long as you don’t talk to him about me,” Taylor added. She didn’t look at Des to see how he felt about her butting in. She suspected he wouldn’t approve.
Santos, meanwhile, pretended to ignore her. “Speaking of past histories, I had a look at your rap sheet, Des. I’d forgotten just how big a bad boy you were.”
“That was a long time ago,” Des said.
“They say the child is father to the man.”
“You’re full of quotations lately, aren’t you?”
Taylor guessed that Des was referring to Santos’s quip about Brando that morning.
“Besides, Ms. Bissett wasn’t the only name I found in the file on that fire all those years ago. You were also very prominently mentioned.”
Taylor could hardly believe what she was hearing.
“I didn’t have anything to do with the Stormley fire,” Des said.
He was as cool as a cucumber again. Taylor wished she felt the same.
“There was a strong body of opinion to the contrary at the time,” Santos said. “The way I understand it is that you were a nobody who wanted more than anything to be somebody. When you saved the kid from the fire, you got to be a hero.”
Taylor stared at Des. Could she be the “kid” Santos was referring to? She must be. There hadn’t been any other child at Stormley, as far as she knew. Had Des saved her life back then? Before she could blurt out those questions, which felt so impossible to contain, Santos was talking again, to Des still.
“Then there’s the matter of your feelings toward the victim. According to several of the statements on file, you were obsessed with her. One person described you as insanely jealous of anybody who came anywhere near her. You were even jealous of the kid here.” He gestured toward Taylor. “Allegedly, that is.”
Those last words were so sarcastically uttered that Taylor surmised that Santos believed everything alleged against anybody had to be true or it wouldn’t have been alleged in the first place. However, Taylor wasn’t up to challenging him on that point at the moment. Her head was too full of other, more personally troubling things.
Des had been the one who saved her from the fire. Why hadn’t he told her that? Maybe because it placed him at the scene and because of what Santos had just said. When she went to Des so tormented about her own possible guilt in the fire, why hadn’t he told her he was also suspected? He’d supposedly been trying to comfort her. Wouldn’t that revelation have been a comfort, at least as an indication that there were wild suspicions of everybody at the time? Did Des fail to mention any of that because he actually did have something to hide?
“This is all ancient history,” Des said.
Whatever emotion he had exhibited before was no longer in evidence now. Taylor wondered how he could stay so steely calm under these circumstances. It occurred to her that he appeared not only cold, but also calculating—and not just to Santos.
“It was ancient history until Ms. Bissett here reappeared on the scene. She tried to tell me she wasn’t even in the Keys at the time of the fire, but we all know that isn’t so. Maybe that’s got something to do with these psychological problems I’m not supposed to talk about till she gets her legal eagle here to hold her hand.”
Taylor opened her mouth to protest the way the conversation was going. Then she realized she wanted to know what else Santos had to say. She closed her mouth and let him continue. He nodded his head as if he might have recognized her signal.
“But just suppose she should start stirring up those old ashes again. Maybe they’re not as cold as everybody assumes. What if she should find out how serious a suspect you were back then, Maxwell? What if she should even try to dig up some evidence against you?”
“There isn’t any evidence,” Des stated fl
atly.
“So you say. But what if she came up with something? Maybe they tossed her room last night to find out if she’d come up with something, or why she’s back here after all these years.”
“I was at the Beachcomber last night,” Des said. “I have witnesses to that.”
“The bartender and waitress both say you were up in your office by yourself for at least an hour that they know of. There’s a door to the street from that office. I know. I checked it out. You could have slipped out while nobody was looking, snuck into Ms. Bissett’s room, met up with April Jane, done her in and been back at the bar in way under an hour.”
Was that possible? Taylor’s head was nearly spinning. Would he have had time to do all that while she was walking to Duval Street? She had taken a detour after her encounter with that bummy guy. She’d ducked into a card shop and pretended to browse until she was absolutely certain he had to be gone. Then, she had made her way cautiously down the street, watching her back all the while. Even before that unnerving encounter, she’d been walking a lot more slowly than usual. She wasn’t used to the humidity in the air. She remembered slowing down so she wouldn’t get uncomfortable and dishevelled again, the way she had been when she first arrived at the Key Westian. How long would all of that have taken? Enough for Des to have done what Santos was suggesting?
“That all sounds pretty flimsy to me,” Des said in answer to Santos’s suppositions. Taylor hoped it would apply to her thoughts as well.
“The money motive puts some starch in it. Wouldn’t you agree?” Santos asked, looking at both of them. “You wouldn’t want anything to get in the way of inheriting Netta Bissett’s dough. Would you, Des?”
“Still sounds like a flimsy case to me,” Des said.
“We just might be able to get a grand jury to indict.”
“Grand juries always indict. I suppose you have another flimsy case that says I killed Violetta, too. How was she killed, anyway?”
“You might say Mrs. Ramone was frightened to death,” Santos said. “We figure that whoever came in here and ripped the place apart scared her so much she had a heart attack. You knew about her bad heart, didn’t you, Des?”
“I knew.”
“What’s even more interesting is what Violetta knew, like all about the old days at Stormley. About you and Mrs. Bissett and how you had a key to the house and run of the grounds. Violetta knew all about your bad-boy times too. Maybe she knew more about you than was healthy for her to know. How does that sound to you?”
The detective was supposed to be talking to Des, but Santos looked at Taylor when he asked that last question. It occurred to her that this interrogation of Des had been partly for her benefit. Santos wanted her to hear what he had to say about Des, past and present.
“I told you how it sounds to me,” Des said. “It sounds flimsy.”
Taylor wasn’t sure she could agree.
* * *
FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, Des wished he were a manipulative person. Maybe then he could think up some clever way to get Taylor to come with him to Stormley. Instead, he had to rely on his usual direct approach, which struck him as inadequate and clumsy under the circumstances.
“I’d be willing to bet money that just about the last thing you want right now is to go anywhere with me,” he began.
They were standing in front of Violetta’s house. Santos had decided to forego further questioning at the station house. He’d repeated his warning not to leave town, then told Des and Taylor they could go. Des would have preferred to stick around till the medical examiner and the forensics people were finished inside, but it was obvious that Santos didn’t want any civilians here while the official investigation was going on. Des couldn’t have brought himself to go back inside that house, anyway. Even out here on the front porch, the occasional whiff of Violetta’s chicken sauce threatened Des’s precarious control over his ravaged emotions. He hadn’t felt this much like breaking down since Desiree had died. It would be a good idea to get out of here before that happened.
Meanwhile, Taylor was looking at him and listening, but she didn’t say anything. She was still wearing the same outfit she’d put on when he picked her up at Starling’s this morning. There was an orangy-red stain near the hem of one leg. Des didn’t want to speculate whether it was tomato sauce or blood, but he couldn’t help himself. Her hair was fluffed out wilder than he’d seen it before. He remembered that her hair had gotten wet in his hot tub. He had felt the dampness there when he ran his fingers through the silky softness of those waves after making love to her. The thought of her naked and beautiful beside him brought with it a stab of both desire and sorrow. After what Taylor had just heard from Santos, Des wondered if she would ever be that way with him again. Maybe they weren’t meant to be together, after all. Ordinarily, he would have been able to shrug and move on with hardly a backward glance. He was honest enough with himself to admit that accepting the inevitable wouldn’t be so easy this time. He was also realistic enough to realize he probably had no choice. Still, there was at least one more thing they had to do together.
“I want you to come to Stormley with me,” he went on.
“All right,” she said.
Des had been ready with a barrage of arguments against her expected refusal. He stood staring at her now with his mouth agape. He was totally unprepared for her easy acceptance of his suggestion.
“I think it’s time for me to go back there,” she said, “and I would rather not do it alone.”
“And, since I’m almost the only person you know around here, you’re stuck with my company.”
“You know about the past, more than I do really. I don’t have to explain things to you like I would with somebody else.”
He was grateful that she hadn’t mentioned what had recently been revealed about his own past or the explaining that made necessary. Maybe it was the fact that she hadn’t yet pressed him for answers that made him start talking the minute they started driving.
“There’s some truth in what Santos said about me,” Des began. “Maybe even a lot of truth.” He grabbed his sunglasses from the dashboard and put them on. He was shielding his vision from the brightness of the sun. He was also trying to shield himself from a sudden stinging behind his eyes.
“What truth is that?”
“I did want your mother all to myself. You see, I’d never had anybody of my own. I’d also never known anybody like her. I was jealous of anyone who had even so much as a piece of her.”
“Were you jealous of me?”
“I guess probably I was, though you were at that kind of pesky little-kid age that a teenager doesn’t pay much attention to. Most of the time I was hardly aware that you existed.”
He could see out of the corner of his eye that she’d managed another sad smile. “I can imagine how that would be. I was only about half your age at the time.”
“That’s right. But when you did come around your mother, I probably wished you wouldn’t.”
“But you saved my life anyway.”
Des hesitated, trying to decide how honest he wanted to be. “Not altogether willingly,” he said, going for broke. “I meant to save your mother, but I heard you calling out and went for you first. After that, it was too late to go back. The fire was too bad by then. Nobody could have gotten to her. Nobody.” Des heard in his own voice the desperate need to justify his actions. He also felt the stinging grow sharper behind his eyes.
“I’m sure you did all you could,” Taylor said quietly. “I’m very grateful to you. It’s long overdue for me to thank you. I’d like to thank you now.”
He knew she was looking at him, but he couldn’t look back. “You don’t have to thank me.”
“I want to.”
“I just want you to know I didn’t do it for the reasons Santos said,” Des blurted out. He was gripping the steering wheel so hard that his fingers hurt. “I wasn’t trying to be a hero. He’s right about how messed-up I was, but I wasn’t that far gon
e. I could never have done anything to hurt Desiree. I cared too much about her. She was the only person I’d cared that much about since my mother died.”
“Were you sorry you saved me instead of her?”
The question hung in the air between them. Des glanced over at Taylor. The breeze created by driving along in the open Jeep had swept her hair across her face, so he couldn’t make out her expression. Twenty-four years of self-recrimination filled his heart, threatening to overwhelm him.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you both,” he said over the hard knot in his throat.
He glanced over again and saw her nod. She didn’t speak.
“That’s when I started on that rap sheet Santos was talking about. Winona would probably say I was trying to get myself punished. All I know is that I didn’t care about much of anything, least of all me. If it hadn’t been for Violetta and your aunt, I probably would have flushed myself all the way down the tubes a long time ago.”
“I see,” was all Taylor said.
Des almost went on pleading his case, just to see if he could get her to say more. Then his common sense told him there wasn’t much point in that. She’d either believe him or she wouldn’t. And why should she? He was a no-account saloon keeper with a shady past and just about nobody to recommend him but a bunch of barflies. Why would a classy lady like Taylor want to take his side in the first place? He’d always wondered the same thing about her mother, too.
Chapter Eight
They had driven nearly to the ocean. Taylor noticed that the houses were considerably larger here than they had been in the center of town. Architectural styles varied more also. The smaller structures in town had been mostly wood-framed and squarish with simple siding painted white. Here, in what Santos had called the Casa Marina section of Key West, there were mansions and ranch-styles, porticoes and balustrades—just about every house layout that could indicate a wealthy owner.
Taylor wondered what Stormley would be like, and if she would remember something when she saw it. She might have spent some time pondering Des’s amazing revelations on the way here, amazing because such openness seemed so unlike him. But Taylor’s growing anxiety over returning to her childhood home had pushed all other subjects from her mind.