Randy White - Dead Silence

Why? They had been neighbors as boys.

I held the paper up to the light. Unreadable, but the length was right, the number of letters. Some of the nicknames were rooted in family wealth: oil, distilleries, airline stock. The Tomlinson fortune had been manufactured from small metal parts: steel, iron, brass, tin.

Tinman.

“Tenth Man,” Choirboy had pronounced it through chattering teeth, revealing the name of his American contact.

There it was.

Finally, I knew the truth, but it wasn’t the truth I had expected to find. I expected to discover some link between Nelson Myles and an intelligence agency or the military in particular since he was a pilot. It would have been enough to keep me on track.

Because there was no link, my other inferences collapsed. I had been wrong about the golf clubs and the abstinence. I had been wrong to demand that the graves be exhumed and wrong about Nelson Myles. Maybe Myles had been used in some way, but the man who knew where Will Chaser was buried was Norvin Tomlinson.

Damn it.

I glanced from the window to the door, then at my Rolex: nine minutes. Time to lock the desk and go. Roxanne would be checking on me soon.

Turned out I was wrong about that, too. The woman had just returned with the mail and was on the cell phone with her lover and boss. It wasn’t conjecture. I could hear her yelling at Myles as I descended the stairs.

“How could you do this to me. You sonuvabitch! Even when I suspected, even when I gave you the chance to tell me the truth, you lied to me!”

Roxanne’s office was off the kitchen. To spare us both embarrassment, I decided to leave through the front. It was also a prime excuse to get the hell out. I had wasted too much time following my idiotic instincts. Because of a rock-absurd! But the woman stepped into the hallway as I crossed the great room, too angry to notice me at first. She had the phone in one hand and a sheet of paper in the other. It wasn’t personal stationery.

I walked faster, hearing her say to Myles, “No… No, it is not possible. Yes, I have the occasional glass of wine. So what? It doesn’t make me a drunk. And it doesn’t mean I whore around. Stop with the excuses. For once in your life, goddamn it, accept responsibility, Nelson. You did this to me!”

A lab report, that’s what she was holding. Home pregnancy tests are inexpensive and the results don’t arrive in the mail. There was only one explanation: Myles had given her herpes.

I was almost to the door when Roxanne saw me. When our eyes met, I waved and shook my head- Sorry -then offered a thumbs-up. She could take that any way she wanted. The house phones would soon work, then I would be out of there. I thought it was my last look at Roxanne Sofvia.

Wrong again.

I opened the door and there was Greta Finnmark coming up the walk toward the kitchen. She smiled, but then stopped smiling when she realized who I was. Her head swiveled toward the mansion, then back to me. Her expression was puzzled, as if she’d gotten off the wrong bus.

“You are… Guardian’s friend,” she said, using her pet name for Tomlinson.

I had to stop. No other way to handle it.

“Isn’t your name…?” It took Greta a moment. “You are the biologist. Yes, I know you. What are you doing here, Dr. Ford?”

I started to make up a story about helping a sick repairman but then realized that Greta wasn’t listening. She was focused on Roxanne, who was standing at the window sobbing, no longer on the phone.

Greta was stricken, her reaction confirming her relationship with Roxanne. It was touching, but that’s not why I didn’t run for the truck.

I said, “Let’s go inside. Your daughter needs your help, Greta.”

I needed it, too.

Roxanne was ignoring me, watching a little wall-mounted TV over the breakfast bar, where a newscaster had just said, “In what is now believed to be a homicide, Florida police say they are seeking ‘a person of interest’ in the drowning murder of Bernard Heller, a former NFL lineman, himself a convicted murderer. Police aren’t releasing the name of the individual, but on Sanibel Island local fishermen think they know who it is and they are talking. More on that story when CNN returns…”

I was thinking, Bernard?, not surprised that police wanted to question me. Bernard made me think of Barney Fife, the funny little deputy on Andy Griffith, not the three-hundred-pound freak who’d spent a lot of time in the weight room but not enough time in the swimming pool.

“You mind turning that thing off?” It was the second time I’d asked, but Roxanne was pretending I wasn’t there, sitting at the kitchen table, while Greta flitted around making tea to cover her own aggravation. Greta was irritated because I kept pressing, rewording my question after she’d already said she hadn’t seen Norvin Tomlinson in more than five years.

“Does that mean Norvin hasn’t been back in five years? Or that you haven’t seen him in five years? A house that size, he could stay for weeks and you might not run into each other.”

Greta had started to answer when Roxanne turned the volume louder, interrupting, “I’m thinking about moving to Florida. Get the hell away from the ice and the insanity. It’s warm enough, apparently, even psychos get out on the water. But wait”-she flashed me a sarcastic smile-“I forgot, you’re from Florida. So maybe I’ll try Grand Cayman instead.”

I said, “Enough. I’m trying to save a boy’s life. Give me fifteen minutes. Do you mind?”

Roxanne had not told Greta about the lab test and wasn’t aware that I knew. Act sympathetic and she would suspect. A smart woman.

Big sigh, but Roxanne touched the POWER button as Greta explained, “Even if Norvin came home for one hour, I would have seen him.” With her accent, it came out I voould hap seen him. “He would not come back and hide from me. I raised those boys! Norvey isn’t affectionate-not like Guardian, who is still so sweet. But he is not rude.”

I was thinking, Tomlinson avoids contact for fifteen years, that’s sweet?

“Norvey would speak to me,” Greta said. “Sometimes he sends cards from far places. Only a word or two, but it shows he still cares. Five years ago, he looked so terrible I didn’t want him to leave. But he went anyway and hasn’t come back.” She turned to Roxanne. “Why doesn’t he believe me?”

Roxanne was holding a jar, reading the label, before spooning honey into her tea, probably already thinking of homeopathic remedies. She said, “You mean, the liar who claimed to be a phone man? The one who’s pretending to be a cop now? Maybe he’s hung up on the truth.”

I nodded, conceding.

She said, “Everyone who comes here lies. Blame this goddamn mausoleum”-she stood and slapped a light switch-“it’s so goddamn dark, only lies can survive.”

Until we’d clashed over the TV, Roxanne hadn’t said much. Here she was in the middle of a personal crisis being questioned by a stranger when all she wanted to do was pack her bags, maybe break a few of Nelson’s personal items in the process, before slamming the door on her Nissan and on her dreams of traveling by Learjet and owning a castle in the Hamptons. She had that kind of temper. It was also possible she was that mercenary.

I was beginning to believe Greta was.

I said, “What about Norvin’s father?” I had asked before but she hadn’t answered me.

Greta said, “Dr. Tomlinson is the executor of the trust. The trust pays me. If I worked for you, would you want me spreading gossip?”

“I wouldn’t mind if it could save a kid’s life. If Hank Tomlinson visits from time to time, what’s the harm in telling me? If it’s true, it’s not gossip.”