Timothy (29 page)

“Why didn't you just—” I stopped myself.

“What?”

“Never mind, go on.”
Why didn't you just hire a private detective to follow him, take photos of him doing the unspeakable things he was doing, and threaten to leak them to the tabloids? Use them to get him to leave once and for all?
was what I was going to say. But there was no point in saying anything—it was far too late for anything but guilt and recriminations—and even those feelings were pointless.

“The night it happened—well, no one was expecting me out here. I was in the city, and he called me around noon, said he needed to talk to me, in person, and could I come back out to the house? I didn't like the way his voice sounded—I'd never heard him that way before. He sounded desperate, almost frightened yet still so smug and triumphant. Much as I didn't want to, I drove out here. When I arrived the house was empty—all the servants were gone. I went up to his rooms, but he wasn't there. I looked out the window and I saw him walking out to the studio.

“So I followed him. I don't know what I was thinking, but with every step I took out there, all seven years of our sham marriage replayed in my mind, all the times I had to pretend to love him, all the things I'd had to do to keep the lie alive, and all the money of mine he'd spent. Of course, the underwear company was making him a lot of money and so he didn't use much of mine anymore, but I'd paid for that company. I remember asking myself as I walked out there, am I going to spend the rest of my life paying for him? There had to be a way—there had to be a way out somehow. I couldn't take it anymore.

“He was looking at his prints when I got there, and stood in the door. He smiled at me, and I couldn't help myself. I asked him, you've got the underwear company now, so why can't we get a divorce? I promised him as much money as he wanted, within reason of course, and all he did was laugh.

“‘But you won't give me Spindrift, will you?' he said, still laughing at me. ‘That's all I really want. The first time I saw it, I knew I would do whatever I had to marry you and make it my home. I fell in love with the house, not with you. I never loved you, Carlo, but you already knew that, didn't you?'

“‘Why am I here? I asked him. Get to the point. I need to get back to the city.'

“‘I want the house, Carlo,' he told me. ‘We stayed married long enough—no one will think anything of it now if we end this mistake. But I want the house.' He laughed at me when I told him I would never let him have Spindrift. He told me he didn't care about the money—he had enough of his own now…but he wouldn't have any problem with airing everything, accusing me of physical and mental cruelty…

“I snapped, Mouse. And honestly, I don't know what happened in the next five minutes, it all happened so quickly…one minute he was laughing at me, the next I was standing there, holding the desk lamp, and he was lying on the floor, his skull smashed. I'd hit him with the lamp, and kept hitting him until the lamp was battered and he was lying on the floor dead. I didn't know what to do. And then I remembered…I remembered that no one was at the house, no one knew I was here. So I rolled him up in a sheet and carried his body down the dock to the
Rhiannon
, and took him out to sea. I tied some weights to him and rolled his body overboard. I threw the lamp overboard as well, and weighted the sheet and got rid of it as well. And then I headed back here. I went up to his room and got his robe and a beach towel and the little bag he always took with him down there, and made it look like he'd gone for a swim and hadn't come back. I went into the studio and cleaned up the blood with bleach. And then, when everything was the way I thought it should look, I drove back into the city. That was a horrible night, let me tell you. It was the next morning that Carson called and told me what they'd found down on the beach, and that he'd already alerted the Coast Guard. I rushed back out here…and you know the rest.” He buried his face in his hands. “A week later, that body washed ashore at Montauk. I decided to identify it as Timothy—the face—the fish had been at it, and he was in good shape and wearing swim trunks…so, God help me, I said it was Timothy. And now…now they've found his actual body. And they know he was murdered—his skull… And I'm going to go to jail.”

I sat there for a moment, not saying anything.

He was staring at me, waiting for me to say something. I could tell by the look on his face he was expecting me to reject him, to recoil from him in horror, to get up and run.

The man I loved, the man I married, was a murderer.

But I felt strangely calm.

And finally, I looked him right in the eyes and said, “But no one saw you, right? No one knew you were here that night, right?”

He gave me an odd look. “Yes.”

I exhaled. “And they didn't find the lamp—and even if they did, it's been in the water so long they'd never be able to lift prints from it. So the only thing the police know for sure is that Timothy was actually murdered and you incorrectly identified the wrong body.” I shrugged. “That's not even enough evidence for an arrest—even if you weren't an incredibly wealthy and powerful man.”

He stared at me, his face shocked, like he couldn't believe what I was saying. “What are you saying, Mouse?” he asked, his voice strangely quiet and confused.

“I'm telling you any decent lawyer would get any charges dismissed on such flimsy evidence.” I shook my head and laughed harshly. “Haven't you ever read Maureen Drury's articles in
Street Talk
magazine? There's a different justice for the rich than there is for everyone else, Carlo. And you certainly can afford the best criminal attorneys in the country. All you did was wrongly identify a body. And who could blame you, under the circumstances?” I stood up. My hands were shaking, so I shoved them in my pants pocket. I couldn't believe my voice wasn't shaking. “You were traumatized by the unexpected death of your husband. The body'd been in the water for a week…any lawyer could make a jury understand you made a mistake, you weren't in your right mind.”

He just kept staring at me as I talked, his mouth open, and when I finished, his expression changed to one I'd never seen before from him—wonder. “You—you don't hate me, Mouse?”

“Hate you?” I couldn't help it—I started laughing and within seconds it turned into sobbing, tears running down my face, my nose running. I wiped feverishly at my face with both hands as I managed to choke out, “Oh, Carlo—all this time—it's just—I thought you still loved
him
, that you were always comparing me to him…but all this time…”

“Oh, my poor Mouse.” He crossed the room in a few strides and swept me up into his arms, kissing my neck and holding me so tightly I could barely breathe—but I didn't mind, I didn't want him to ever let me go. “I love you so much. Almost from the moment I saw you in that café—all I could do was think about you, and how kind you were, and how you were everything Timothy wasn't. I thought, after all the guilt and nightmares since the night I—I killed him, I thought, maybe he can make me forget, maybe I can be happy again.” He was shaking, and I realized he was crying. I started stroking his head. “And I thought for sure—I thought for sure once you knew the truth, you'd hate me.”

“I could never hate you, Carlo,” I whispered, and I knew it was true. Now that I knew for sure that he loved me, I knew I would do anything I could to protect him. “I love you.”

“And when I saw you last night—wearing something he would have worn—it was so horrifying—I thought—I thought you were turning into him, if you can believe that. That's—that's why I was so upset.”

I bit my lip and blinked my eyes to clear the tears that were welling up in them. “We can be happy, my darling, we can start over—we can be like we were back in Miami, would you like that?” I whispered. “We just have to get through this somehow.”

He nodded, and kissed me again. “I do love you, Mouse.”

As he held on to me, I couldn't believe how stupid I'd been for so long. What I'd mistaken for obsessive love had been guilt, Carlo punishing himself. He'd kept Timothy's rooms and studio and office the way they'd always been, preserved like a shrine, as a reminder to himself of what he'd done.

And now, now it was time to exorcise Timothy's ghost and his malevolent presence from Spindrift once and for all.

We sat down together on the couch and talked for what seemed like hours, in low voices so no one could hear us. We talked about our future and what we had to do to make sure that Timothy couldn't hurt us any longer.

And when the sheriff arrived, we were ready for him.

Sheriff Tate was an older man, either in his late fifties or early sixties. His hairline was receding, and what was left was iron gray. His eyes were a dark brown, and his face was lined. His teeth were yellowed from nicotine, and he smelled slightly of cigarette smoke. He was still in pretty decent shape, maybe carrying some extra weight around the middle. He was wearing his brown uniform and was clearly uncomfortable.

He sat down in a chair on the other side of a coffee table from where we sat on the couch. We rose and shook hands, and Carlo offered him coffee or something to drink.

“No thank you, gentlemen,” he said, pulling out a small spiral notebook out of a pocket as he sat down. “I don't want to take up too much of your time.” He took a deep breath. “A commercial fisherman from over in East Patchogue was doing some net fishing, and his net caught on something. He had to get help to haul it up, and of course, when he and his men got the net up, there was the, um, corpse. They immediately radioed the Coast Guard, and long and short of it, the body was brought in on Wednesday. There was nothing on it to identify it—all that was really left was the skeleton, and some rusted weights that had been tied to the feet—that's why it was so hard for the net to come up, the weights were still chained to the ankles. The skull had been cracked—and the coroner pretty much determined that was the cause of death. I don't mind telling you, Mr. Romaniello, everyone pretty much thought it was a mob hit of some sort. So, they did some dental impressions…and it took a few days for the identification to come back—it just came back this morning and they called me.” He swallowed. “You can imagine, Mr. Romaniello, how horrified I was to hear that it was positively Mr. Burke's body.”

“There's no chance it was a mistake?” I asked calmly, placing my hand on Carlo's leg.

“Dental records are pretty conclusive,” Sheriff Tate replied.

Carlo's response was measured and cool, with just the right touch of sadness and horror. “I don't know how I could have possibly made such a terrible mistake.”

“Well, sir, it's understandable,” the sheriff went on. “The face was pretty messed up, as I recall, and you were expecting it to be him…we all kind of were, to be honest…it made sense, didn't it? A man had gone missing off the beach and then a body washed up on shore…and it was a pretty bad time for you, sir.” He closed his little notebook and stood up. “It's going to be hard, sir, to solve this crime after all this time…but we'll do our best.”

“I would appreciate that, Sheriff.”

“Can you think of anyone who had any reason to want Mr. Burke dead?”

“No, I can't.” Carlo told the lie as smoothly as if he were telling the truth. “And as you remember, he'd given the servants the day off and he was all alone here at the house.”

Sheriff Tate stood up with a heavy sigh. “I remember it all too well, Mr. Romaniello. I don't mind telling you I don't have the slightest idea how to even get started with this. But we're going to do our best, sir, you can be sure of that. If I have to get help from the state troopers, I will. I won't rest until we find out the truth.”

“Thank you, Sheriff,” Carlo said and walked him out to the door.

And that was when I remembered there actually was someone who'd been around that night, and knew more than anyone else.

Nell had seen the
Rhiannon
go out that night, after all.

I let myself out the back door to Carlo's office and walked down the gallery steps to the back lawn. The weather had almost completely changed while I as in the office with Carlo—I had no idea how much time had actually passed, but it seemed like an eternity; it seemed like an entirely different day. I laughed at myself and had just a moment of doubt about everything as I stepped off the bottom step.

Knowing what had happened between Carlo and Timothy that day in the studio hadn't changed the way I felt about Carlo at all. If anything, I loved him more than I had before. I couldn't imagine how awful it would be to fall in love with someone and marry them—only then to discover they were a completely different person, someone awful who made your life a living hell. I didn't believe for a moment Carlo had gone out to the studio intending to kill him. It had been an accident, a spur-of-the-moment, heat-of-passion thing—and not something that should ruin the rest of his life.

Who are you to play judge and jury? To decide that Timothy's death was justifiable?

Dark clouds were blowing in from the sea, and the air felt chilly and damp. The wind was so strong it was an effort to walk against it. I put my head down and kept going. The hedges were swaying, and sand was blowing up from the beach. There was a storm coming—I could see lightning flashes far out to sea, and it was going to be really nasty when it did finally reach land. It was fortunate, I thought, that the cleanup crew had already finished with the yard—they would have had to quit if they hadn't. The back lawn looked almost normal again—it was like the party had never happened, other than the places where the grass had been leveled and flattened by people walking or dancing. The ball seemed now like it had happened a hundred years ago, in a different time and place. My memories didn't seem quite real—it was like last night had happened to someone else entirely.