"Anyway," Wally said, swallowing so hard I could see it from the third row, "one night, it was a Friday, because I get off later on Fridays, I was walking through the grass, and I hear something, I don't know what, so I stop. And I walk over a little bit..." Wally began to squirm in his chair and stuck a finger in his collar. "Ah, and I see a couple leaning against a tree."
"What was the couple doing?"
"They were, ah, necking, sir."
"Could you identify the people you saw, Walter?"
"Well, I recognized Mrs. Spooner right off, because of that blue gown she's got. And she must have heard me, because she twisted around, but she didn't see me. She ducked her face kind of, and the guy looked over her shoulder, and I saw it was Mr. Coleridge."
"You're certain?"
"Yessir, I saw them plain as day."
The judge knocked the gavel for silence.
I knew exactly which night it was. Mom had gone upstairs with a headache. I'd sat in the lobby for a while and then gone outside, and Peter had been walking to his car. We'd gone to the beach.
He kissed me that night.
But first, he'd kissed Mom. I remembered seeing Wally in the lobby, just getting off his shift. I'd killed at least ten minutes after that, walking around the hotel. All that time, Mom and Peter were together.
She didn't go upstairs that night. She didn't have a headache. She'd run out the side door, the same door I'd used so no one would see me. She'd met him under the trees. They'd arranged it beforehand. And Wally had caught them.
"What did you do next?"
"I walked away. Real quiet. I didn't want to get in any trouble. The thing is, about hotels, my old boss, Mr. Forney, told me, whatever happens in a hotel you keep your mouth shut. Whatever you see, you keep your mouth shut. That's the way you keep your job, he said. So I didn't say anything."
"Why did you come forward, Walter?"
"When I read the news, I told my dad what I saw. It was him who told me to come forward. It's the right thing to do, he said."
"Indeed," the state's attorney said in a flowery way, as if he was reciting the Gettysburg Address. "Indeed."
He let the silence hang while he pretended to look down at his notes. We kept our eyes straight forward, because everyone in the courtroom was trying to get a good look at us.
"Now, let's go to the early morning of September seventeenth. You were working at the hotel that night."
Wally nodded eagerly, a question he could answer without getting anybody in trouble. "I was on bellhop and valet duty. Nobody was up yet, just a couple guests. Mr. Spooner came down and asked for his car, so I brought it around. Usually he'd just take off, but that morning he shot the breeze a little. We were all talking about the storm by then. Wondering where it would hit. And he asked about hurricane preparations for the hotel, what we did to prepare and whatnot. And then he asks about the boats, what happens to the boats."
The courtroom was completely silent. The judge didn't have to bang his gavel.
"Said he heard something about hurricane holes. So I tell him, sure, there are places to tie a boat, hope nothing bad happens, a kind of shelter. Bunch of them down by Lake Worth, some a little bit north. I told him about snook fishing around Munyon Island, that my dad has a boat. He's interested in that, asks if my dad rents his boat, and I say sure, that's what he does for a living. So he says that maybe he'd want to take it out that morning, and he'd make it worth my dad's while. I don't think anything about it until I hear that he found a hurricane hole for the boat. That's all." Wally looked at the attorney in a pleading way, waiting to be released.
I could feel it on the back of my neck. I knew the whispers would travel from those in the courtroom to those out in the hall, and then to those down the courthouse steps, and through the streets of downtown. I could feel it in the eagerness of the reporters as they jostled to get pictures of Mom.
Joe had planned it, they thought now. The whole thing. He'd planned the murder for right before the storm. He'd planned to stay out with the boat, he'd planned to hide it. Maybe he'd even done something to the engine, somehow. Whatever had happened, every single person in the courtroom now knew that Joe was a murderer, and Mom was a tramp.
They were guilty now.
We had already learned how to walk past photographers, head turned in, keep walking no matter what, don't stop for anything, keep going toward Mr. Markel's open car door, slip inside. Mom first, then Joe. We'd sent Grandma Glad out the back door with Miss Geiger. I was last in the car and I tripped and fell halfway inside. Joe picked me up by the wrist and hauled me in and I lay sprawled over their ankles while he slammed the door shut and Mr. Markel took off.
Joe leaned over and helped me up, and I slid between them. We didn't talk.
I couldn't look at my mother. I couldn't stand the smell of her perfume. I kept myself very still so that I wouldn't brush against her. I couldn't bear the picture in my head of her pressed against Peter.
After Wally's testimony, I'd felt how the mood had changed in the courtroom. Now everyone wanted to punish her. Because she was beautiful, because she was careless, because she was bad. I wanted to punish her, too.
After a minute, Joe placed his hand over mine, so gently. His hand needed my hand. I could feel it in his fingers, his worried fingers. I slipped my hand away.
Chapter 32
I had a headache, I went out for some air, and he was I there," Mom said. "He said, come look at this palace I across the street, you can't believe it. Then he made a pass. I pushed him away, I didn't want to be rude. I said, 'Down, boy' or some such. That Wally kid got it all wrong. That's all."
We sat together, Mom and me on the couch, Joe in the armchair. Grandma Glad sat on the edge of the bed, her arms folded.
"They're going to hang me for it," Joe said. He didn't look at Mom. "That was all they needed."
"She's the one who should hang," Grandma Glad said.
"That's enough!" Mom's voice rose on the enough. She sprang up, her fists clenched at her sides. "I've had it, old lady. This is my husband, not yours. I don't need you sticking your nose in our business."
"You need me in your business!" Grandma Glad snapped. "You see what happens when I'm not around? You see what you do to him? You can twist him around your pinky finger in your fancy nail polish, Miss High and Mighty, but I know the truth. You can put sawdust on the floor, but a fish store still stinks like fish!"
Mom looked like she wanted to leap over the coffee table and wrap her hands around Grandma Glad's throat. "You wouldn't know the truth if you tripped and landed in it nose first, Gladys. I love Joe and I'm not going anywhere. Unless he sends me away." She looked Joe full in the face, and for the first time since we left the courthouse, he met her eyes.
"Unless you send me away," she said to him. Her voice broke.
Joe stood. "Ma, could you leave us alone for a few minutes? Go on down to the lobby, order yourself some coffee."
Grandma Glad blinked. "What?”
“They have some nice pastries down there. Have a little rest."
"You're kicking me out?"
Joe stood his ground. "I need to talk to my family.”
“I'm your family!"
Joe walked to the door and opened it. "Just a half hour."
Grandma Glad couldn't refuse. She picked up her big purse. She walked out, furious. Her face was dark red. After all these years complaining about her blood pressure, she finally had a problem.
Joe closed the door after her. He and Mom just looked at each other for the longest moment.
"This is how it's going to be from now on," Joe said in a dead voice. "After this is over, when we get home, we never say his name again."