A Perfect Life (28 page)

CHAPTER 43

Scott Thomas sat on a teal bedspread and stared at his feet. They seemed particularly ugly to him. Not that feet are ever pretty.

Natalie interrupted his aesthetic evaluation. “What's the matter?”

“I don't know.” He stood and walked to look out a window awash with silver rivulets. They heard thunder rolling in the distance. “Something.”

“I understand about not reporting Bobby to the police in Virginia. It's just not time yet.”

“No. It's not.”

“Scott? What's bothering you? What specifically?”

His eyes were fixed on the streaming panes, not the windswept Atlantic. “A couple of things. One is . . . This is weird, but I'm not sure I believe Bobby killed Click. That stuff about having his hand in the trunk . . . Jeez, maybe he is that crazy. Maybe . . . Hell, I don't know.”

“It could be that you don't want to believe it,” Natalie said softly.

He nodded, and a heavy silence settled over them. Finally, Scott said, “I keep thinking about Bobby when we were little. He was a tough little kid. Used to butt me with his head when he got mad.” He smiled at the memory. “And smart. Bobby could read when he was three. He had these huge brown eyes.” His voice cracked, and Natalie pretended not to notice. “How do eyes like that turn black? It's like the fire . . .” The words didn't come.

Natalie interrupted to pull him out of it. “What was the second thing?”

“Huh?”

“You said a couple of things are bothering you.”

“Oh, yeah.” Scott cleared his throat. “Timing.”

“Timing?”

“Timing.” He turned to find her eyes, and a tired smile crept over his face. “I need to think.”

“So, think.” Natalie stepped forward, raised up on her toes, and kissed him on the nose. “Heck, tell me what's bothering you and I'll think, too.”

“No party tonight, right?” He reached out and circled her waist with his hands.

“That's what the saleslady said. But we're invited to Charles Hunter's home tomorrow night for dinner. Kind of to make up for it, I think.”

“Okay.” He looked down into her eyes. “I'm going to do some doodling on a piece of paper. It's how I think. Could you have another look at the e-mails I printed off at the hospital? There were a couple from Click to an address outside the psych department.”

“Right. I couldn't find anything on those. They didn't follow usual protocol for assigning in-house addresses. And yes, I'd be glad to have another look.” She smiled and reached up to brush his cheek with the backs of her fingers. “Cannonball told you to slow down and think. So, we're slowing down and thinking.” Natalie pulled away and walked over to rummage through her case. “Do they have room service in this place?”

Charles Hunter hung up the phone in his office just as Carol Petring strode in. With the quiet familiarity of people who work together for hours a day, he went on with his thoughts while she perched a hip on a metal stool and started flipping through drawings on his drafting table.

Seconds ticked by as Carol perused drawings and Charles simply stared into space. Finally, his eyes snapped into focus as if he'd made up his mind about something. “What are you looking for?”

Carol didn't look up. “I'll find it.”

“Can it wait?”

“Sure.”

As she walked out, he said, “Close the door behind you.” It wasn't rude. Just familiar.

Alone again, Charles looked down at the two names he'd just printed in architectural lettering on the pad in front of him. The letters were all caps, the slant and angles of each stroke a mix of flair and precision. Charles drew rectangles in the corners of the pad and connected each by a straight line, then he scratched diagonals across each connecting line. He was trying to make a decision. Finally, he picked up the phone and spoke to his assistant. “Maria, get me Michael Marion at Boston Hospital. He's chairman of their management board.”

A few minutes later, his phone beeped and he picked up. Mike Marion's voice came over the line. “Charles?”

“Mike, how are you?”

“Fine, fine.” His voice held no affection for anyone. “What can I do for you?”

Charles picked up the note pad from his desk. “I've just this minute learned that two of your employees—Scott Thomas and a woman named Natalie Friedman—are here on the island.”

Marion's words came quickly now. “You should call the police immediately. Do you
know . . . Well, of course you know who Thomas is. Apparently this Friedman woman was with Thomas the other night when Dr. Phillip Reynolds was gunned down right outside the hospital. The police actually interviewed them at the scene and let them go.”

Charles had turned his chair to face the big bayside window. Charcoal clouds rolled toward him in layered bunches, casting shadows across dark water. “Right, I'll make that call. But tell me first, what's the status of the investigation into my wife's murder?”

“I, uh, really don't know details, Charles. Just—”

“Then give me someone who does.” He paused. “I need that information now, Mike. Do you understand?”

The chairman of Boston Hospital could afford to register irritation at being ordered around by Charles Hunter. He could not, however, afford to ignore that order. After all, he was speaking with a man who had donated his services to design an award-winning children's wing. “I'll have someone call you within the hour.” Mike Marion's words were distinct and well spaced, conveying irritation combined with power. He might have to comply with Hunter's request, but he wanted it known that he had the power to make people jump in Boston.

“Thank you, Mike.” Charles tried to smooth things out a bit. “This is a difficult situation.”

“Right” was all the other man said. Then he hung up.

Fifteen minutes later, the hospital's general counsel was on the phone with Hunter. It was not a comforting report. The investigation was wavering. Scott Thomas had given a detailed account of his movements and theories when he'd been arrested in Boston. And, according to the officer in charge of the investigation, Thomas's story was checking out. Worse. Some assistant DA named Anne Foucher had taken a personal interest in the case. Word was, Thomas had so pissed off this Foucher woman that she was on a vendetta. Unfortunately, “The more she digs, the more loose ends and problems she finds. And”—the attorney paused—“I'm hesitant to mention this . . .”

“Mention what?” Hunter's irritation was growing.

“Mike Marion tells me that Scott Thomas is there on the island with a woman named Natalie Friedman. She was arrested with Thomas in Boston.”

“I know.”

“Well, one of my contacts in the Boston PD says there's a rumor in the department that Friedman struck some kind of deal with them.”

“What kind of deal?”

“
Allegedly,
she agreed to keep an eye on Thomas for the police. But I don't even know if the rumor is fact. And, even if it is, Friedman could've simply told the cops whatever they wanted to hear just to get back out on the street. That's why I wasn't sure whether to tell you about it.”

Hunter swiveled around to face his view of the Atlantic. His head was swimming; the room seemed to be closing in. He thought of Scott Thomas sitting in a guest cottage just up the road; he thought of what had been brought into his perfect paradise; and his hands began to shake. “What would be the reaction of the cops if Thomas just fell off the face of the earth?”

“I'm sure you don't mean . . .”

“Answer the question.”

“Well, this is just my opinion, Mr. Hunter. But if something happened to Scott Thomas right now, I think we'd all—the hospital, Kate Billings, and even you—we'd all find ourselves in the middle of a giant shit storm.”

Obviously this man knew that Kate was working for him, and that did not make Charles happy. He'd never even heard this lawyer's name, and the guy knew who Charles had baby-sitting his daughter. He rolled the new information around in his head and said, “Thank you.”

“It's just possible that Scott Thomas didn't kill your wife, Mr. Hunter. Misdirected revenge is a waste.”

“Why don't you have that printed on your business cards?” He slammed the receiver down.

Thoughts tumbled through his mind—snapshots of Kate nursing him after he kicked Patricia's ashes into the Atlantic, gauzy mental pictures of the nanny tickling Sarah at dinner, slow-motion reels of that beautiful young woman pulling away her nightgown and lowering herself onto him. He thought of Patricia and what she had done to Trey, to
his
son. Everyone had forgotten about that. The bitch had checked into Boston Hospital after
his
only son had drowned.
Goddammit
! The woman had destroyed Trey's life. Ruined his life. She kept ruining his life.
Goddammit!

He looked up to find his assistant standing in the open door to his office. She looked frightened. “Are you okay?”

Charles froze in place. Somehow he had gotten to his feet and gotten his hands on a brass desk lamp. The big plate-glass window overlooking the Atlantic was spider-webbed with cracks; the lamp lay at the base of the window. He had no memory of throwing the lamp, not even of hearing it crash against the glass.

“Charles? Are you okay? Can I get you something?”

He struggled to control his breathing as the room swirled around him. “It's okay, Maria. It's okay.” He decided on a partial truth. “I just got a call about the murder investigation in Boston. It's . . . upsetting.”

Maria walked forward. “Of course it is. Sit down, Charles. I'll bring you a cup of coffee.”

“Thank you.” As she turned to leave, he sank into the chair. “Maria?”

“Sir?”

“Is my guest here?”

“The contractor from Boston?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “That's the one.”

“Yes, sir. We put him in the Beckers' place. They're on the mainland for a few days, and you didn't want him in the guest cottages.”

“Right. Could you get me that number? And, uh, you can forget the coffee. Just the number, please.”

Maria wrinkled her forehead and said, “Yes, sir. Won't be a minute.”

Scott sat at a painted wooden table on the porch of their cottage. Cold mist sprayed over the legal pad in his lap. Wind ruffled the pages, and he absentmindedly smoothed out his notes. He'd been at it for a couple of hours. The sky was dark. A yellow bulb burned on the wall behind him.

“Got anything?”

He looked up bleary eyed. “Something, yeah. Nothing concrete.”

Natalie had put on fresh makeup and a heavy sweater. She pulled the sweater tight around her ribs as the crossed the porch to sit opposite Scott at the little table. Leaning forward, she said, “Tell me.”

Scott looked up into her bright, intelligent eyes. “You look happy.”

“I am. Yours truly has had some success with the e-mails. But I want to hear first what you've come up with.”

“Okay.” He placed the pad facedown on his lap, not to hide his notes but because he didn't need them. “The timing of everything that's happened has always bothered me. First, two gangbangers broke into my apartment and stole information out of my Palm Pilot. Then there was the phone call from some unidentified person at the hospital the night Patricia Hunter was killed. So, okay, somebody's trying to set me up. That's simple enough. Especially when you put it together with the country house that Cannonball and I found with all the porno on the walls.”

She interrupted. “And on your computer at work.”

“Right. Make it nasty, and everyone will abandon the little orphan boy.”

Natalie pushed her hair back with one hand and laughed. “Little orphan boy with a trust fund and a Harvard education.”

Scott smiled. “I wasn't trying to sound pitiful. Just telling why Kate and Click thought it would work. I have no real family. And who else stands by perverts who smother older women in their sleep?”

Natalie leaned back away from him and squirmed in her chair. “God.”

“Sorry. But what I'm getting to is this—when I outlined everything that had been done to frame me, which I thought was almost overkill, Click just laughs and says there was nothing to it. Something to the effect of ‘all we did was make a few calls, break into your crib a couple of times, and put some porno in a rented house.'”

Natalie was leaning toward him again, focusing—both elbows propped on the table, her cheeks resting on closed fists. “So . . . I'm trying here, Scott. But I don't see . . .”

“I think Click was telling the truth,” Scott said. “He was planning to kill me at the time, so why lie?”

She sat back in exasperation. “I still don't get your point.”

“I'm not there yet.”

“Well, get there.”

“Sorry. This is it. Click didn't know about Bobby. But Bobby knew about him and about Cannonball and about me. And look at when my long-lost brother decides to show up. Right at the point in my life when I've been accused of murder. Right when I need help. Think about it. What was it? Destiny? Karma? I don't believe in that stuff.”

Natalie shook her head. “Neither do I.”

“So what's that leave?”

“Maybe somebody brought Bobby into the picture. Maybe . . . hell, I don't know.”

“Well”—Scott stood again—“I still think that someone higher up in the world than Click was pulling strings.”

“Kate?”

He shook his head. “Remember Dr. Reynolds? We were supposed to be standing out there with him. No. No way. Both Click and Kate wanted us dead. I mean, we don't know for sure it was Click, but you'll never convince me . . .”

Natalie stood and walked over to stand facing Scott. “Me, either.” She slapped her head. “God! The other e-mails to the hospital. Come inside. I need to show you something.”

CHAPTER 44

The courtesy golf cart bounced and weaved over the island's sandy roads. Natalie sat in the passenger seat, a nylon windbreaker zipped up tight over a sweater and jeans. Scott manned the tiny steering wheel.

“I feel like a dork.”

Natalie looked over in the dark and grinned. His curls were soaked, his glasses misted with rainwater. “You look like a dork.”

“Thanks.” He came to a jolting stop at a wooden street sign and leaned forward to peer through dripping lenses. “Which way?”

She shone a tiny penlight on a map of the island. “Right . . . I think.”

“You sure?”

“Sort of.”

Scott turned right. Five minutes later, Charles Hunter's house came into view. Scott slowed, then pulled off the road to guide the cart around a dune to a clump of seagrass and brambles. They both stepped out without speaking. Natalie, whose vision was better even when it wasn't raining, led the way. Staying low, she cut alongside the last fifty yards of roadway before turning off to the right away from Hunter's house.

It was a beautiful place. Copper roof and weathered cedar. Leaded glass and stonework. The yard was softly lit by glowing globes of varying sizes—like some alien life-form had deposited giant, luminescent eggs among the rock outcroppings and natural flows of vegetation surrounding the house. It was just enough. Strange and beautiful.

Natalie hunkered behind a rock. “It's too well lighted. They're gonna see us if we go up there.”

Scott nodded. “If anybody's looking.”

“Would ‘duh' be an inappropriate—”

“Do you sit in your living room at night watching outside for peeping Toms or burglars or some other kind of bad guy?”

“Well”—Natalie sighed—“no.”

“Neither does anyone else. They'll watch the sea, if anything. Maybe glance out at the front drive once in a while if they're expecting someone.”

“So you've done this before?”

“It's just human nature.”

She shrugged, and Scott trotted off to approach the house from the darkest side. It was easy enough. No one lights the side of a house next to a child's bedroom, not unless they like torturing a sleepy kid. In minutes, he was beside the house and looking through an open window.

A little girl sat cross-legged on the floor of her bedroom. A dozen pages of notebook paper were spread out around her. She leaned forward and marked in a textbook with a highlighter.

Easing carefully along the outside wall, Scott ducked under her window and made it to just outside the living room. The glass door was open. Music floated out, mixing with the sounds of rain and surf.

The only thing that saved him was Kate calling out through the open door. “Charles?”

Less than five paces to Scott's left, a male voice answered. “Is it time?”

“You said eight, right?”

Scott began easing backward. He'd gotten close because the storm covered his footfalls. He hit a shadowed corner where two walls formed an inside angle, and he squatted down to watch.

The dark form of Charles Hunter rose up on the stone patio. He paused and looked out at the ocean, then placed a tumbler on a table before turning to go inside. Just outside the glass door, the famous architect paused and turned back toward the beach. “Is that you?”

Scott could hear his own heartbeat. He tried not even to breathe.

Again, “Is that you? Answer me.”

Scott could see Hunter's face now. The man's hair was plastered against his skull. Water ran from the tip of his nose and dripped from thick eyebrows. His pants, beneath the protection of a green slicker, were soaked. Scott wondered why Hunter had been drinking alone on his patio, in the pouring rain, without an umbrella or hat. He studied the man's features. Tension tugged at Hunter's voice when he spoke. Lines cut worried paths in his tanned face.

Seconds passed. Finally, Hunter stepped inside, then closed and locked the glass door.

That was enough. Scott made good time getting back to the dark side of the house, and he was getting ready for a dash across the roadway when the engine of Hunter's ragtop Jeep roared to life.

Headlights swept the house, and Scott dropped onto his stomach in wet sand. In no time, Hunter was past the spot where they had hidden the golf cart, and Scott started to run. He hoped Natalie would understand enough to meet him back at the cart. If she didn't, he wondered if he would still go. Every second counted, since he needed to follow Hunter's Jeep and a golf cart was going to be a pitiful way to do it.

He was in the cart when he saw Natalie running toward him. “Wait!”

Scott spun the cart around and was pointed out toward the road by the time she jumped in beside him. “Hold on.”

Scott swerved onto the road and stomped the little electric go-pedal. Natalie reached over to grab his hand. “This is ridiculous. We could run faster than this.”

He nodded. “But not as far. Just see if you can tell which way his headlights are going.”

“Look!” Natalie pointed off to the right. “He's headed north.”

“Good.”

“Why good?”

“There's not much on that end of the island yet. We'll be able to find his Jeep.”

Scott stopped the tiny cart in the middle of a sandy road. Cool rainwater shot through the cart in gusts, drenching already drenched clothes and sending shivers through both occupants. “See anything?”

Natalie shook her head.

“Know where we are?”

“Nope.”

“Mad?”

“I was sitting right here with you. I got us here as much as you did.” She got out of the cart and walked around. She cussed and got back in. As she sat down, Natalie pointed down the twin beams of their headlights. “Look.”

A thin man walked slowly toward the cart. He was fifty feet away and strolling through the thunderstorm like it was a sunny afternoon. Scott squinted through misted glasses. “It looks like Bobby.”

“Are you sure?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Can we get the hell out of here, then?”

Scott hesitated, and Natalie called out his name. He stepped on the accelerator and turned the cart.

A hoarse voice cut through the wind and rain, the way a rusty hinge creaking open slices into conversation and thought. “I know where he is.”

Scott cut the lights back toward the approaching figure. “Did you hear that? I think it's Bobby.”

Natalie grew even more frantic as she recognized Scott's scarred and lonely brother. “Scott!”

Bobby was only twenty feet away now. His rusty voice came again. “I'll take you to him.”

Natalie grabbed Scott's arm, and he stepped on the go-pedal. The little cart began to move away down the road. Natalie looked back and gasped.

Scott tried a backward glance. “What's he doing? Is he running after us?”

Her nails dug into Scott's arm.

“Dammit, Natalie. Is he coming?”

“No.” Her grip relaxed. “He's just standing there alone in the rain. He
looks . . .”

Scott leaned into the rain trying to get a better view of the road. “What? He looks what?”

“Sad. I don't know why, but he somehow looks sad standing there in the storm.”

As they crested a small hill, Scott saw the lights of the town square in the distance. Twenty minutes later, they were back in the guest cottage and the message light on the phone was blinking. Scott dialed voice mail. It was Cannonball. The message was simple. “Somebody else's been down here lookin' into your family. Some time back, right around when all this mess started. Bobby took off right after that. Probably didn't know you were alive, either. Not till then. Thought you might wanna know. Oh, sorry to tell you like this, but your little brother has killed at least one person in his life. Spent time in some kinda nut house for doin' it. Be careful.”

That night, Scott and Natalie showered together to wash away the chill. They cuddled under the homemade quilts that came with the cottage. They listened for Scott's brother and for Kate Billings and for any noise that didn't fit the night. They did not make love. They lay very still and listened.