have been opened and emptied into Lolly's wine. But when? If Lolly's dinnertime cocktail was consistently a red wine that no one else touched… I needed to ask some hard, hard questions. Someone had the time to dope her wine, or her food.
I rubbed my temples. My theories were all well and good, but they were more insubstantial than the ocean spray that scented the air. I didn't have proof and I didn't have a clear path to follow to a suspect. And no confirmation that Lolly had even been murdered. If it was foul play, no doubt the police here would catch the murderer. After all, it had to be one of us. And while they completed their investigation, we might all be stuck on this island a lot longer than anyone had planned-trapped with a murderer cold enough to kill within his or her own family.
I decided to check on Gretchen and found her in her room, drinking a large glass of ice water.
“Can I come in?” I asked. She didn't answer but closed her eyes and placed the cool glass against her forehead. I ventured inside her room, shutting the door behind me, and stood before her bed.
“How do you feel?” I asked. She sat on the edge of her mattress and didn't look at me.
“Gretchen?” I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice. Her earlier, pain-filled confession made me more patient than my hair-trigger temper generally allowed. I didn't want her to hurt any more.
“Bob Don said you think someone spiked my soda with alcohol.” Her tone was colorless and flat.
“Yes. Unless you've changed your story about what happened.”
“No. Not at all.” She rubbed her cheek with her hand, as though stinging from an invisible slap. “I don't know why anyone would slip me a mickey, though.”
I chose my words carefully. “Although no one here seems willing to admit the possibility quite yet, I think Lolly was poisoned.” Gretchen's head jerked up, shock lighting her eyes. I continued: “If someone here was cruel enough to kill her, spiking your drink for a laugh wouldn't be hard to imagine.”
She stared at me. Darkness bagged the skin beneath her eyes. She absently rubbed the hollow of her throat. “But the family always wanted me to be sober. What's the point of derailing me?”
“They can't derail you. Not if you don't let them.” I sounded like Aubrey, but I didn't know what else to say. Meaningless advice works-at least to assuage the giver's guilt.
The ploy didn't play. Gretchen answered me with a hard smile. “You're being awfully nice. I guess it's easy for you to feel superior to me right now.” Her voice had taken on an unpleasant edge I was all too familiar with.
“What?”
“I can see the goddamned pity in your face, Jordan. You're just looking at me like I'm a worthless drunk all over again.”
“That is about as far from truth as you could wander, Gretchen. I've been worried about you.”
She shook her head and stared again at the window and its bright canvas of sky. “How could you worry about me? After all the bad blood that's passed between us?”
“I don't know. It's not like you and I have ever been close. And we may never be. But I know how hard you've worked for your sobriety and it pisses me off beyond belief that anyone would casually shove you toward the bottle.”
“We never have been close,” she murmured, echoing my words. She tented her hands before her face, hiding her eyes from me, breathing in her own breath. “Do you know how much I loved Bob Don when I first met him? How painful it was not to be with him?”
“Because you were married to his brother?” I asked.
“No, Jordan, because he wore too much plaid,” she snapped. My heart lifted a little-she still had a sense of humor, albeit twisted. I didn't answer. I only laughed softly. She laughed, too, but an undercurrent of deep sadness cooled any frivolity in her voice.
She continued: “Yes. And Paul wasn't a good man. He was… empty inside. I don't know how else to describe it. Deborah would never speak ill of him-she's kept only the kind memories of her daddy. But Bob Don was so different from Paul.” She lowered her hands and tears glimmered in her eyes. “I thought if I could be with Bob Don, I'd never do anything to ruin it. And when I'd divorced Paul and married Bob Don, I was the happiest woman alive. Until the booze stole my life.”
I remembered once when Bob Don had told me that Gretchen drank because she suspected someone mattered more in his life than she did-that person being me, his secret son. Now I wondered if there wasn't another reason, locked in the meshwork of relationships between Gretchen and the Goertz brothers.
“So why did you start to drink, Gretchen?” A terrible question, finally asked.
Her lips, pale and clean of her usual makeup, trembled. “What does it matter now? I drank. I craved it and I drank my fill, every day, for years.” She stood and crossed to the window. She laughed, a low, throaty chuckle. “I'm amazed my liver's still with me. Remember the bad flu epidemic several years ago? I got terribly sick, and I still drank. Bob Don had to put me into the hospital in Austin. He didn't want everyone in Mirabeau to know how bad off I was. Protecting my reputation, which was like holding rainwater in a leaky barrel. I probably should have died then. I didn't. I got a second chance.”
“And we're not going to let anyone take that away from you.” I reached out-very tentatively, like petting a spider-and touched her shoulder. She flinched at my fingers.
“I promise you, Jordan, I'm not lying. I'm not. I didn't intend to drink. I didn't spike my own soda.”
“I believe you. And we're going to find out who messed with you.” She heard the anger heating my voice.
“I don't need you to be my knight, little boy.”
“Did you know Lolly was screwing with my head?” I don't know why I felt the need to share my own sorrows with her, but I quickly related the story of the vicious hate mail I'd received.
“You didn't say how you knew it was Lolly,” she finally said. Her shoulder trembled under my touch.
“I found another hate letter in her closet.” I had forgotten that explaining how I knew my torturer's identity would mean confessing to searching Lolly's room.
“She was a rotten bitch,” Gretchen said. Her voice sounded like she was uttering a prayer. “She hated me for hurting Paul. He was her pet, her joy. She never had children of her own and she loved Paul like he was hers. Strange, because God knows no one else could abide him. She could never forgive him for what he became.”
She glanced over her shoulder at me, one stray lock of grayish hair dangling in her forehead, and I saw then that she must have been a strikingly pretty girl. Her beauty was only an echo now, though, distorted by time and the havoc she'd wreaked upon herself. I wished she would answer my question as to her drinking trigger from so long ago. I tried again.
“So why'd you start drinking? Paul's positive influence?”
She searched my face; for what, I didn't know. “I-I don't want to discuss this anymore. I can't-”
“Can't? Why?” I stiffened. “Does it have to do with Bob Don?”
“Playing detective again?” She ventured a half smile.
“You needn't bother on my behalf. And as far as whoever spiked my Dr Pepper, I plan to track down that particular skunk myself.”
“You might need a little help.”
“I might. But my brain's not so pickled I can't figure out who's screwing with me.”
Her mouth set in a fierce line, and from my own experience, I nearly felt sorry for whoever had dared to tangle with Gretchen. Revenge was her best dish.
I wanted to talk with Deborah again, but she was napping in her room and I didn't disturb her.
Candace still felt unwell and lay on her bed, paging through an old issue of Southern Living. I offered to bring her up some lunch, but she said she'd had a glass of tea and some crackers and felt better. I left her to her magazine and went in search of Bob Don.
I found him alone on the porch, sitting on the swing. The bright chain that connected the swing to the porch ceiling squeaked quietly as he rocked back and forth. I stood in the doorway, watching him, this man who'd come in and completely capsized my life in the rough waters of truth. The breeze from the bay, blowing with greater force now, ruffled his hair and he looked like a little boy, forlorn without his playmates. I came and sat next to him. We rocked quietly for a moment.
“I just talked with Gretchen. She's awake and feeling somewhat better,” I offered.
“I know. I took her some water to drink earlier.” His voice sounded soft, as usual, but it lacked the sharp
