"Do you think your handling of the boat contributed to Mr. Coleridge's fall, Mr. Spooner?"
"Now, I've asked myself that question a thousand times, sir. I kept the boat as steady as I could. But the wind had picked up something fierce, so we were getting bounced around. When he went over, I shouted for Bev to come up with the life vests —"
"You weren't wearing them at the time?"
"Well, I was, and Bev was, but Peter said he didn't need one. We threw one overboard, right away. We thought we saw his head, we thought we could get to him. But he slipped under."
Mom bent her head.
I concentrated on the fan, whirring.
The lawyer asked in a sneery way how Joe had fixed the engine. Joe said what he did, and added that he owned appliance stores, so he was good with motors.
He wished he'd been the one to crawl down into the engine well first, he said.
"You don't know how often I wished that," he said.
You can feel a courtroom's mood if you listen hard. Rustling and coughing and murmurs and something in the air, deeper than words, that passes from person to person.
They didn't like Joe.
They didn't believe him.
There were more questions, but it was over for Joe. We heard how long he looked for Peter, how he almost capsized going back through the inlet to the lake, how he knew he'd never make it back to the dock. It was dark by then, pitch-dark, and it was just dumb luck that he got stuck in the mangroves and found a safe place to leave the boat. The voices went on and on and I was hearing them without listening. I held Mom's hand, slick with sweat.
She was next.
After that, me.
"I think I'm going to be sick," Mom whispered.
They called her name, and she walked up to the chair at the front. She looked so serious, and so pretty. She'd flattened out her curls ("No tumbling hair tomorrow," Mr. Markel had warned her yesterday) and drawn back her hair in a bun. She wore a little white hat that matched the white collar of her navy dotted-swiss dress. She crossed her legs at the ankles. Instead of sandals she wore navy pumps.
I could feel the temperature in the room change. Not how warm it was, but how people were thinking. They'd made Joe into a murderer because they wanted him to be. Now they were watching Mom. Was she his hard-boiled accomplice, was she a tramp, or was she an innocent wife chained to a jealous man? That was what they wanted her to tell them.
I wanted to know the answers, too. But not here. Not like this.
Mom answered the questions so quietly that the judge had to ask her to speak up three times. I don't know where she had put her pizzazz. Maybe she had squashed it in that little lace-trimmed pocket of her dress.
She told the same story Joe had. Except she added some other feelings. She said she hadn't wanted to go, but she wanted to be a "good sport."
"Did your husband and Peter Coleridge get along?"
"Oh, yes. They were chums. You know, there aren't many tourists here this time of year, so you get to know the people at the hotel."
"Did you have romantic feelings for Mr. Coleridge?"
"I have romantic feelings for my husband," Mom said firmly, and you could tell the courtroom liked that.
"A witness has testified that he saw you leaving in Mr. Coleridge's car every day."
"With my daughter," Mom corrected with such gentleness that I could feel the spectators move slightly to her side. "He took us for drives sometimes."
I sneaked a look around. Everybody's eyes were on her. Nobody was whispering or scratching or blowing their nose.
She told the courtroom about the pineapple vase. Yes, she'd been to the store with Peter. She'd been walking to town and he gave her a lift. It was the nice thing to do, he was that sort of person.
And how did the vase get smashed?
I felt myself almost falling, I was so afraid. Mom tilted her head and gave the tiniest shrug.
"My husband and I were dancing to the radio, and we bumped into it," she said. She looked over at Joe and smiled just a little bit. "He's not a very good dancer."
A woman in back of me laughed a little, and the judge banged his gavel.
When did my mother get to be such a cool liar? When did she learn to use her face to look so innocent?
Maybe when she fell in love with Peter. She had so many lies to tell.
The attorney in the gray suit started pounding her with questions now. He didn't like the way the tide was turning. What time did they get the boat, whose idea was it to leave the lake and go out into the ocean, did the two men argue?
"The wind picked up. There were these gusts ... they frightened me. Peter said if he couldn't fix it, we could be in trouble. The boat went up like this —" Mom held her hand out and tilted it. "I was terrified. So I went downstairs."
Everyone in the courtroom busted out laughing.
"You went below," the attorney said in a scolding way, like she hadn't done her nautical homework and he'd caught her out.
"Below." Mom nodded like an eager student. I think if she'd smiled, if she'd laughed along with everyone, that would have ruined it. They wouldn't have liked it if she was in on the joke.
He kept asking questions, but Mom had won. They liked her now. She was from New York but she didn't know what they knew. She had turned herself from a femme fatale into a dumb blonde. They knew she couldn't kill anyone. She was too pretty. She was too dim.
Chapter 31
You both did well," Mr. Markel said. We'd left the courtroom straight through the judge's chambers to avoid all the cameras. Now we sat in a small office Mr. Markel had borrowed. Miss Geiger had left us lunch. Sandwiches had been unwrapped and a thermos of coffee sat steaming, its lid forgotten. The only one who ate and drank was Grandma Glad.
"Evie's next up, right?" Joe asked, leaning forward, his hands clasped. "And she's the last witness. It could all be over today, right?"
"There's another witness," Mr. Markel said. "Just came forward. Walter Forrest.”
“Who?" Joe asked.
Mr. Markel looked down at his file. "He worked at Le Mirage. As a bellhop and valet.”
“Wally?" I asked.
"What the devil does Wally know about anything?" Joe asked.
Mr. Markel looked over his glasses at Joe. "That, indeed, is the question."
Mom pushed her chair back and went to the window. She hugged herself as she looked down at the street.
"Is there anything you can think of that Mr. Forrest might have to say?" Mr. Markel asked.
"Nothing," Joe said. "Bev?"
"Nothing," she said. She didn't turn around.
Wally was wearing a white shirt tight at the neck and a bow tie. His pants were hitched up too high. When he sat down I could see his brown socks end and his calf begin. He didn't look at me or Joe or Mom.
I recognized his father in the courtroom. He kept his hands on his knees and his eyes on his boy.
Wally stated his name and where he worked. He said he was acquainted with the Spooners and with Mr. Coleridge, that he parked cars for the hotel and carried suitcases and ran errands. "Short staff, they didn't usually open in September, see," he said. "They don't get so many guests. So sure, you get to know em."
And why did Walter come forward and talk to the police, Mr. Toomer wanted to know, asking the question in a smug way that let you know he was delighted he knew the answer before everyone else.
"I walk home on the lake trail," Wally said. "Every night, the same way. It's real quiet now because it's off-season. Mr. Wentworth's place — he lives down the block from the hotel — it backs up on the lake there, and I cut through it to get to the trail. It's a shortcut. He gave me permission, since he eats at the hotel most every night during the season."
"Mr. Allen Wentworth," the attorney said, and I could tell everyone knew who he was, some Palm Beach swell.