by Jeff Abbott
I rubbed my temples. My theories were all well and good, but they were more insubstantial than the ocean spray that scented the air. I didn't have proof and I didn't have a clear path to follow to a suspect. And no confirmation that Lolly had even been murdered. If it was foul play, no doubt the police here would catch the murderer. After all, it had to be one of us. And while they completed their investigation, we might all be stuck on this island a lot longer than anyone had planned—trapped with a murderer cold enough to kill within his or her own family.
I decided to check on Gretchen and found her in her room, drinking a large glass of ice water.
“Can I come in?” I asked. She didn't answer but closed her eyes and placed the cool glass against her forehead. I ventured inside her room, shutting the door behind me, and stood before her bed.
“How do you feel?” I asked. She sat on the edge of her mattress and didn't look at me.
“Gretchen?” I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice. Her earlier, pain-filled confession made me more patient than my hair-trigger temper generally allowed. I didn't want her to hurt any more.
“Bob Don said you think someone spiked my soda with alcohol.” Her tone was colorless and flat.
“Yes. Unless you've changed your story about what happened.”
“No. Not at all.” She rubbed her cheek with her hand, as though stinging from an invisible slap. “I don't know why anyone would slip me a mickey, though.”
I chose my words carefully. “Although no one here seems willing to admit the possibility quite yet, I think Lolly was poisoned.” Gretchen's head jerked up, shock lighting her eyes. I continued: “If someone here was cruel enough to kill her, spiking your drink for a laugh wouldn't be hard to imagine.”
She stared at me. Darkness bagged the skin beneath her eyes. She absently rubbed the hollow of her throat. “But the family always wanted me to be sober. What's the point of derailing me?”
“They can't derail you. Not if you don't let them.” I sounded like Aubrey, but I didn't know what else to say. Meaningless advice works—at least to assuage the giver's guilt.
The ploy didn't play. Gretchen answered me with a hard smile. “You're being awfully nice. I guess it's easy for you to feel superior to me right now.” Her voice had taken on an unpleasant edge I was all too familiar with.
“What?”
“I can see the goddamned pity in your face, Jordan. You're just looking at me like I'm a worthless drunk all over again.”
“That is about as far from truth as you could wander, Gretchen. I've been worried about you.”
She shook her head and stared again at the window and its bright canvas of sky. “How could you worry about me? After all the bad blood that's passed between us?”
“I don't know. It's not like you and I have ever been close. And we may never be. But I know how hard you've worked for your sobriety and it pisses me off beyond belief that anyone would casually shove you toward the bottle.”
“We never have been close,” she murmured, echoing my words. She tented her hands before her face, hiding her eyes from me, breathing in her own breath. “Do you know how much I loved Bob Don when I first met him? How painful it was not to be with him?”
“Because you were married to his brother?” I asked.
“No, Jordan, because he wore too much plaid,” she snapped. My heart lifted a little—she still had a sense of humor, albeit twisted. I didn't answer. I only laughed softly. She laughed, too, but an undercurrent of deep sadness cooled any frivolity in her voice.
She continued: “Yes. And Paul wasn't a good man. He was … empty inside. I don't know how else to describe it. Deborah would never speak ill of him—she's kept only the kind memories of her daddy. But Bob Don was so different from Paul.” She lowered her hands and tears glimmered in her eyes. “I thought if I could be with Bob Don, I'd never do anything to ruin it. And when I'd divorced Paul and married Bob Don, I was the happiest woman alive. Until the booze stole my life.”
I remembered once when Bob Don had told me that Gretchen drank because she suspected someone mattered more in his life than she did—that person being me, his secret son. Now I wondered if there wasn't another reason, locked in the meshwork of relationships between Gretchen and the Goertz brothers.
“So why did you start to drink, Gretchen?” A terrible question, finally asked.
Her lips, pale and clean of her usual makeup, trembled. “What does it matter now? I drank. I craved it and I drank my fill, every day, for years.” She stood and crossed to the window. She laughed, a low, throaty chuckle. “I'm amazed my liver's still with me. Remember the bad flu epidemic several years ago? I got terribly sick, and I still drank. Bob Don had to put me into the hospital in Austin. He didn't want everyone in Mirabeau to know how bad off I was. Protecting my reputation, which was like holding rainwater in a leaky barrel. I probably should have died then. I didn't. I got a second chance.”
“And we're not going to let anyone take that away from you.” I reached out—very tentatively, like petting a spider—and touched her shoulder. She flinched at my fingers.
“I promise you, Jordan, I'm not lying. I'm not. I didn't intend to drink. I didn't spike my own soda.”
“I believe you. And we're going to find out who messed with you.” She heard the anger heating my voice.
“I don't need you to be my knight, little boy.”
“Did you know Lolly was screwing with my head?” I don't know why I felt the need to share my own sorrows with her, but I quickly related the story of the vicious hate mail I'd received.
“You didn't say how you knew it was Lolly,” she finally said. Her shoulder trembled under my touch.
“I found another hate letter in her closet.” I had forgotten that explaining how I knew my torturer's identity would mean confessing to searching Lolly's room.
“She was a rotten bitch,” Gretchen said. Her voice sounded like she was uttering a prayer. “She hated me for hurting Paul. He was her pet, her joy. She never had children of her own and she loved Paul like he was hers. Strange, because God knows no one else could abide him. She could never forgive him for what he became.”
She glanced over her shoulder at me, one stray lock of grayish hair dangling in her forehead, and I saw then that she must have been a strikingly pretty girl. Her beauty was only an echo now, though, distorted by time and the havoc she'd wreaked upon herself. I wished she would answer my question as to her drinking trigger from so long ago. I tried again.
“So why'd you start drinking? Paul's positive influence?”
She searched my face; for what, I didn't know. “I—I don't want to discuss this anymore. I can't—”
“Can't? Why?” I stiffened. “Does it have to do with Bob Don?”
“Playing detective again?” She ventured a half smile.
“You needn't bother on my behalf. And as far as whoever spiked my Dr Pepper, I plan to track down that particular skunk myself.”
“You might need a little help.”
“I might. But my brain's not so pickled I can't figure out who's screwing with me.”
Her mouth set in a fierce line, and from my own experience, I nearly felt sorry for whoever had dared to tangle with Gretchen. Revenge was her best dish.
I wanted to talk with Deborah again, but she was napping in her room and I didn't disturb her.
Candace still felt unwell and lay on her bed, paging through an old issue of Southern Living. I offered to bring her up some lunch, but she said she'd had a glass of tea and some crackers and felt better. I left her to her magazine and went in search of Bob Don.
I found him alone on the porch, sitting on the swing. The bright chain that connected the swing to the porch ceiling squeaked quietly as he rocked back and forth. I stood in the doorway, watching him, this man who'd come in and completely capsized my life in the rough waters of truth. The breeze from the bay, blowing with greater force now, ruffled his hair and he looked like a little boy, forlorn without his
playmates. I came and sat next to him. We rocked quietly for a moment.
“I just talked with Gretchen. She's awake and feeling somewhat better,” I offered.
“I know. I took her some water to drink earlier.” His voice sounded soft, as usual, but it lacked the sharp edge of persuasion he always used to close his deals. He sounded exhausted; he sounded angry. I suspected his ire was directed not only at me, but at the terrible situation we were locked in.
We creaked along for a while, not talking. He did not—or would not—look at me. I stayed quiet, hoping the hush would force him, a dedicated extrovert, to speak. But he stayed intractably mute. I'd committed the wrong; the first words in the treaty would be mine to write.
“I'm sorry if I upset you by asking about Paul. I had no idea it was a tender subject with you.”
He moved his khaki-clad legs back and forth, the squeak of the swing his only answer.
I forged ahead. “I meant no harm, and I hope you're not mad at me.”
“I expect it. You always poke your nose in where it don't belong.”
Bitterness wasn't his standard reply. I knew he must be terribly upset and I resisted my natural urge toward sarcasm. “That's not entirely fair, Bob Don. You can't expect me to be around your relatives and not hear about some dirty family linen you'd just as soon I not know.”
“Jordan, you could find dirty linen if it was burned and buried beneath the clothes hamper. But I don't want you playing detective here. Not with my family.”
“What are you worried I'm going to find out about?”
“Nothing. I just don't want you getting hurt.” His voice quavered on the last word.
I grabbed his arm. “What do you mean, get hurt?”
He covered my hand with his own. “Son. I brought you here because I love you and I want my family to know I have a son I love. I want them to see you and know you and maybe in time love you like you were always one of us.” His mouth tightened. “Every holiday with them, every reunion, I felt like something was missing because you weren't here. I'd watch Aubrey and Deb and Brian tear the paper off their Christmas presents and I couldn't even tell them you existed. Never got to watch you unwrap a gift. Never got to give you a toy.” His voice choked. “It left a mighty hard hole to fill.” He cleared his throat. “But I didn't bring you here so you could go snuffling around the family garbage like an old hound dog. This isn't one of your little hobby cases—”
“Excuse me?” I managed to sputter, anger coloring my face. His gaze held mine like a vise.
“I don't want you poking around here. As soon as Uncle Mutt gets back, and that justice lady says we're free to go, you and Candace are leaving. You're right. There's no need for you to stay for Lolly's services. Y'all can take my car back to Mirabeau. This ain't got a thing to do with either of y'all.”
“Yes, it does,” I parried. “Lolly threatened me.” His face drained of blood. I explained about the scarred greeting cards.
“Christ a'mighty,” he finally gasped. “How do you know it was her?”
“I snooped in her room,” I answered. “Were you snooping in there, too? Wendy says you were.”
The color that had evacuated from his face surged in an angry return. “I don't know what she's talking about. But like I said, nothing here's got anything to do with you.”
“Being here,” I said slowly, “has everything to do with me. And with you. You were the one who begged me to come here, begged me to give your family a chance. You want me to be a Goertz, but you don't want me around when the going gets tough.” I could not keep the edge of anger out of my tone. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Oh, so now you're a Goertz.” Sarcasm was a stranger to his voice. “Just because there's trouble brewing and you can't keep your hands out of it. It never seemed to matter much to you to be a Goertz just because you were my son and it might matter to meT
“I can't be your son if you don't trust me. Now I've been threatened, and the woman who tried to scare me away from this reunion is dead. I find out you married your brother's wife, and that said brother killed his second wife and himself. I think something's off here. And I think you know a hell of a lot more than you're telling, Bob Don. How am I supposed to be a son to you if you don't trust me?”
“Maybe you ought to trust me when I say it's none of your goddamned business.” He stood. “If you ain't gonna act like my son, then I guess you don't have to listen much to me. But I think it'd be best for all concerned if you and Candace left.”
I kept my voice steady. “Contradiction doesn't suit you, Bob Don. First you wanted us to stay for Lolly's funeral, now you're bound and determined to get us off the island. Why the change? What are you afraid I'll find out?”
His lips, dried by the sea breeze, twitched into a lean, hard smile. “I'm not afraid of anything. I just want you to go. This trip wasn't a good idea.”
I should have kept the heat I felt close to me, away from him. But I didn't. “Bullshit. You can't screw around with my head this way, Bob Don. You want me to come here, put my neck on the chopping block with your family, and now that you're concerned I'm going to find out some dirty secret of yours, you want to pack me off. Either I'm your son, or I'm not. Finding out something unpleasant about you isn't going to change the way I feel—”
“You feel? How do you feel about me?” He thrust the words in like a sword.
I fumbled for the swing's chain, steadying myself against it. “I care about you. I respect you. I want you to be happy. I just—”
His words cut through my litany of meaningless syrup. “You don't love me, Jordy. You don't love me like a son should love a father. And you never will.”
“You haven't given me time,” I started meekly, but I stopped as he stared into my face. Pain, direct from the heart, made his features tremble.
“Time? How much time do you need? You've had over a year, with us seeing each other nearly every day. I've saved your life once, nearly at the cost of my own.” I felt the heat of Sass's accusation against me in his voice. “I've provided a nurse for your mother so you and your sister don't have to slave away day and night. I've been there for you in thick and thin. And I'm sick, sick of being kept an arm's length from you like I was a goddamned leper.” His voice broke with emotion, and he clumsily wiped an arm across his eyes. When he looked at me again, he was flush with hurt and he jabbed a finger toward my face.
“Either I am your father, or I'm not. For all those long years I wanted to be your daddy. I couldn't. And maybe those empty years mean I never can be. If that's true, I'd just as soon cut my losses and go on. Pretend once again I don't have a son.”
“All those years you wanted to be a father?” My voice sounded like a stranger's, riddled with its own hurts. “Why didn't you ever step forward, then? Why'd you let me live for years thinking I was a Poteet?”
He shook his head, his expression hard. “Oh, no, you don't. You ain't gonna lay this on me, Jordan. I did as your mama asked—”
“Bullshit!” I hollered. Pain I didn't recognize had me in its grip. I felt like I'd been endlessly prodded by a bully who finally faltered and I was flailing back. “You could have done what you wanted, never mind my mother! You could have claimed me as yours! You let my whole life be a lie—”
“I let your life be normal!” he roared. “With a mama, and a daddy who loved you, and a sister! I let you have it all while I had nothing but a drunken wife and all the pain God could give a man.” He glared at me with eyes too much like my own. “You think you know what hurt is? Poor, poor Jordan. So you found out you got the wrong daddy, and you've had a tough year. Hell, I've had thirty tough years, watching you and never being able to reach out to you—”
“Your choice!” I snapped back. “That was your choice.”
He lowered his arm, tired of pointing. “Yes, fine. If you want to play it that way—my choice.”
“You chose not to be my father. And now you want me to choose to be your son—” Anger wob
bled my voice. I saw Aubrey watching us from the safety of the gardens. When he saw me see him, he turned and fled.
“I am choosing to be your father, if you'll let me.” Bob Don lowered his voice. “But now you have to go, Jordan. You get out of here. Or you and I never speak again.” His hands closed into fists and he could barely speak. His lips tightened into a vicious frown.
I managed to form words with my bone-dry mouth. “I don't respond very well to emotional blackmail, Bob Don. I don't like ultimatums.”
For a moment the only sound was the rush of the waves on the beach below us. “I don't like doing my damnedest to be a father to you and being made to feel like a redheaded stepchild. You've made it quite clear you think you don't need a dad. I won't trouble you anymore. Get your bags packed and go, then. Take my car. Gretchen and I'll make arrangements to get back to Mirabeau.” Fear played along his face. He glanced away from me, toward the front door.
I shook my head and took his arm. I kept my voice soft. “Stop this. Just stop it. You don't want to push me away. I know you don't.”
“What I don't want is to hurt anymore about you, son. I wish you'd never found out I was your father. Then you could have stayed the ideal son in my mind. I never would have sullied my picture of you with a real person.”
We'd sparred with the truth that lay between us for the past year. I had tried to reconcile the lie my life had been. He had tried to father me past the thirty years we hadn't shared. His abandoning the quest to integrate us into a family seemed completely out of character. I stood my ground.
“I don't believe you. Tell me what it is you don't want me finding out.” My mind nimbled over the possibilities. “Is it about whatever might have happened between you and Paul and Gretchen all those years ago? Or why Sass is such a terror? Or why Tom seems to hate the rest of this family? Or whatever happened to Deborah's parents? Or what Wendy might be up to? Or is it some dirty secret of Uncle Mutt's?”