Nobody Knows (9 page)

“Yeah, be ready at six—but if I know Lou-Anne, we’ll be late.”

“I’ll be here.”

Jerry was about to hang up, but he heard Webb continue to speak. “And, Jerry, just to let you know, I think we’ll be bringing a couple of guests along.”

“Whatever you want, Webb. Whatever you want.”

The hand on Siesta Beach was hers. It was Merilee’s. He was sure of it.

The anxious feelings that had boiled within him over many years were relieved by forcing himself on his victims and, once his energy was spent, walking away. He had done lots of things. Horrible things. Brutal things. But he had never killed before. He had never meant to kill Merilee.

He had seen her in her movies, and he knew this depraved life wasn’t the life she was meant to live. Perhaps she hadn’t realized it yet, but her relationship with him would have set her free. And he was sure that she would have set him free as well. If he could have had a real relationship with her, he’d hoped he wouldn’t have had to go on doing what he had done to those other girls.

Merilee had been interested enough in him, in his plans for them together, that she had gone out with him on the boat that night, into the dark waters of the Gulf. It had been going so well. She had been delighted with
the ring, smiling in the moonlight when he slipped it on her finger.

He hadn’t been able to help himself. He’d been so excited he just had to do it, just for a few minutes, just to relax. He’d excused himself and gone to the head. But he stayed in there too long, painting the blue around his eyes, powdering his face. He had planned to wipe it all off before he went up to her again, but he didn’t have the chance.

If only she hadn’t come below and opened the door. If only she hadn’t seen him, and mocked him. If only she could have loved him the way he needed to be loved.

He couldn’t bear to see her running away from him, scrambling up the ladder to the deck. He followed her, wanting to explain, wanting to make it all right between them again. But up on the deck Merilee would have none of him; she demanded that he take her back to shore. “Get away from me, you sick freak.”

Her words still echoed in his mind.

He’d lashed out, striking her across her beautiful face. She fell backward, hitting her head against the railing. Dazed, yet still repelled by him, she pushed him away as he tried to wrap his arms around her.

All the rage that he felt, rage that had grown over years of derision and self-loathing, seethed within him, culminated in the heave that sent her over the side of the boat.

When he revved the motor, he heard a thud. He felt sick as he imagined the propeller slicing at her beautiful body.

Maybe he had set her free after all. Yes, Merilee was
free now. Free from the sick life she had been living. But he was left behind, still shackled by his desperate desires. And, once again, the media were covering the results of his actions.

He needed some release. He thought of the nurse. He’d had his eyes on her for a while now. The pretty one he’d noticed when he went to visit the kids in the pediatric unit at the hospital. She had been so appreciative of his coming to entertain the sick children.

He’d taken to waiting in the parking lot to catch a glimpse of her when she left at the end of her shift. Once, he’d followed her into the supermarket where she stopped on the way home. He’d purposely bumped his cart into hers, then apologized profusely. She’d shown no recognition—hadn’t known him without his clown makeup. Nor had she shown any interest in him. But she’d liked him with the makeup, he thought with hope.

He didn’t like the idea of striking where he lived. It was better to do it out of town, but it would probably be a few more months before he had the opportunity to leave Sarasota. He didn’t know if he could wait that long.

He was pretty sure his mother had bought his hastily concocted explanation that the metal detector must have been triggered by a bottle cap that happened to be lying next to the hand. For once Vincent was glad about Mark’s coughing fit. It distracted his mother from questioning him further.

“I’m going out, Mom,” he called into the bedroom. Vincent grabbed his peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and headed to the beach. He found Gideon out on the Old Pier.

“They biting?” asked Vincent, taking a seat on the concrete wall.

The fisherman thrust his chin in the direction of his empty bucket. “Nah. Caught a couple of catfish, but I threw ’em back.”

Vincent nodded, knowing that Gideon wanted the good stuff. Pompano was his favorite. Permit, a close second. The boy riffled through the worn tacklebox, examining Gideon’s treasured lures.

The fisherman put fresh bait on his hook. “Did you see yourself on the news?”

“Yep.”

“Your mother see you?”

“Yep.”

“What did she say?”

“She wanted to know why my metal detector went off when a hand doesn’t have any metal in it.”

Gideon cast the fishing line into the rolling water. “Good question. I guess the police will get around to wondering about that, too.”

The boy was silent as he digested the thought.

“Anything you feel like telling me, Vincent?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” He pulled the ruby ring out of the pocket of his shorts and handed it up to Gideon.

Alligator Alley was aptly named, thought Cassie as she gazed out the car window at the canal that ran alongside the highway. Scores of alligators, lethal giants trying to retain heat from the sun, stretched out on the banks. Mammoth, black birds hung motionless with wings spread wide in the limbs of the trees that dotted the landscape, looking like huge bats. The scene was surreal, and Cassie gave an involuntary shudder.

“Anhingas,” said Leroy, breaking the silence that had enveloped them since they’d gotten into the Jeep in Miami. Felix was following in the satellite truck.

“What?”

“Those birds are called anhingas. They dive into the water for their food, and they sit in the trees with their wings spread open like that to dry out.”

“They’re creepy looking. Gruesome really,” Cassie answered. She had no desire to keep the conversation going. She continued to stare out the window, watching as one alligator slid from the bank into the murky water and another opened his vicious snout as if yawning.
As the car carried her farther and farther from Miami, the knot in Cassie’s stomach grew tighter.

So, the widowed Mrs. Cox and the soon to be divorced Jim Sheridan were seeing each other. That was just great. It wouldn’t have hurt as much if Gillian Cox weren’t such a nice person. Cassie liked the school principal very much. She was smart, good at her job, had a great sense of humor, and was pretty, too. Of course Jim would be attracted to her. Cassie tortured herself, imagining Hannah at a beachside seafood restaurant, cracking her favorite lobster claws and laughing with her father and Gillian Cox. Sitting at the table where Cassie should have been. Gillian Cox standing in as Hannah’s mother.

Oh God, what am I doing?
she asked herself silently as the car sped across the baking asphalt. With every fiber of her being, she wanted not to be going on this trip.

Anthony walked on short, bandy legs across the hot, concrete parking lot next to the circus museum. He was scheduled to do the two o’clock tour, and he liked to arrive ahead of time. Today he was running behind. He’d been helping out with the preparations for the party tonight. His mother would enjoy seeing what was going on over at the mansion, just a couple hundred yards away. They were really doing it up over there.

If you were going to do something, you might as well do it right. That’s what his mother had always told him. He loved his mother, and he knew that from the moment she realized the child to whom she had given birth was going to have an especially tough row to hoe, she had worked to prepare him to have the best life he possibly could.

Mother didn’t feel sorry for him or, if she did, she didn’t show it. She encouraged him to study hard, play sports, have friends, though that wasn’t easy. Kids were afraid of anyone who was different, and they expressed their fears in mean taunts and ostracism. But
Anthony had learned early on that, while his mother would dry his tears, she wouldn’t allow her son to isolate himself. She’d send him right back out to the playground again. He was going to have to learn to live in the world as it was. A world populated by a lot of so-called normal people who thought that “little people” were some kind of sideshow for their amusement.

Anthony noticed a familiar bicycle propped against the wall on the side of the museum building. Sure enough, Vincent was waiting at the doorway. “You here again?” Anthony asked, shaking his head but smiling.

Vincent’s head bobbed up and down. “Anthony! You’ll never guess what happened!”

Anthony looked past the boy to the small crowd gathered at the reception desk. “I want to hear all about it, kid, but it’ll have to wait until after the tour.”

The boy was always riding his bike all the way up here, enthralled by everything to do with the circus. Anthony had lost count of the times he had guided Vincent through the museum along with the paying customers. After the first couple of tours, Anthony had told him that he could come along for free. He wasn’t sure if that had been a mistake or not. The kid couldn’t get enough. He should be out playing with other kids on these summer afternoons. Instead, he was spending them in a museum that he had already been through so many times he could probably have given a good tour himself. Still, Anthony understood Vincent’s fascination. He shared it.

“Sarasota’s honeymoon with ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ lasted for thirty-three years as the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus wintered here from 1927 to 1960,” Anthony began as his tour group gathered
around him. “Each season as it traveled across the country, the circus promoted Sarasota as Florida’s most beautiful city, which led thousands of tourists to come here for a behind-the-scenes look at the big show.”

The group shuffled from room to room, looking and listening as Anthony described the activities and logistics of the circus. He peppered his descriptions with the words associated with the circus.
“Clown
originally meant ‘clod,’ and the word was used to denote a clumsy country bumpkin,” Anthony explained as the group examined the life casts, plaster replicas of the talented clowns’ faces. “But as P. T. Barnum said, ‘Elephants and clowns are the pegs on which the circus is hung.’ ”

Anthony took care to explain the three types of clowns. “The whiteface clown is meant to play straight man to the Auguste, the clown with the most comic face. The Auguste is considered the prankster among clowns. And, of course, there is also the character clown, the most recognizable of which are the tramps or the hobos.”

“Like Emmett Kelly?” someone asked.

“Exactly,” answered Anthony.

Vincent and his group listened to Anthony’s stories of the Flying Wallendas and rubbed the sides of the silver truck mounted with a gigantic cannon that shot human beings into the air. “The mechanism in the truck is a guarded family secret,” whispered the diminutive docent.

After describing the difference between Asian and African elephants—“the easiest way to tell are the ears; the African ears are sometimes four feet wide, the Asian ears are much smaller”—Anthony took his group past the carved tiger cages and organs and calliopes into the
last large room, rimmed with old wooden circus wagons. In the middle of the room a miniature, automated circus had been built to scale. Anthony said good-bye, leaving the circus enthusiasts to ooh and aah over the tiny mechanical ringmaster and flying trapeze artists.

“I don’t know about you, kid, but I’m thirsty. Let’s go get something to drink.” The little man and the boy walked outside to the screened restaurant that sat in the shade of a huge banyan tree. Finally, as they waited for the waitress to come and take their order, Vincent had his chance to describe what had happened that morning.

Anthony let out a thin whistle from between his teeth.

“And I was on TV, too!” the boy continued with enthusiasm.

“Sorry I missed it.”

“Oh, I think it might be on again tonight,” Vincent offered. “You can see it then.”

Anthony nodded, but Vincent suspected his friend was thinking about something else as he watched Anthony’s eyes staring toward Cà d’Zan.

“Hey, Anthony,” the boy said, trying to pull back his friend’s attention, “will you give me that makeup lesson today?”

“Another time, Vincent. I can’t do it now. I have to get to the hospital. Those kids are waiting to see their favorite clown.”

The boy was disappointed, but he shook it off. He would ride down to the marina and hang around there for a while.

This ring was too good to go to his usual guy out on the Tamiami Trail. This required a trip to posh St. Armands Circle, and Gideon knew he had better go all out in his preparation. He shaved the three-day-old stubble from his weathered face, trimmed his mustache, clipped his fingernails, and combed back his white hair from his suntanned brow. He pulled on his one pair of nice trousers and buttoned on a collared sports shirt, sliding the ring into the breast pocket.

With trepidation he drove his old Plymouth across the Ringling Causeway. It was obvious the ring was worth a lot of money. But it was also evidence in a police investigation, and he knew he shouldn’t be trying to sell it. Gideon’s lips moved as he talked to himself, trying to rationalize what he was about to do.

Vincent was a good kid, and his mother was a decent woman who was struggling to keep her little family together. They could sure use the money the ring would bring. If the ring was turned over to the cops, it might help identify the hand, but it wouldn’t do a thing to
help Vincent and, after all, the boy had found it. Finders keepers. Let the cops do their jobs some other way.

Gideon drove around the circle twice before finding a parking space. He didn’t bother to lock the rickety old car. If someone wanted to steal a car, there were lots of nicer ones than his to choose from among the BMWs and Mercedes lining the curb. He walked past the high-end boutiques and gift shops until he reached his destination. The icy air inside Sebastien Jewelers was welcoming after the oppressive heat on the sidewalk. A well-groomed man was bent into the display window, removing glittering necklaces and bracelets. “Can I help you, sir?” asked the man, eyeing Gideon’s clothing.