Suspicion of Deceit (41 page)

Gail said, "Maybe that's why Felix killed her. He did it for you and the others."

"We never talked about it," Anthony said, "so I don't know. And I don't know if I would have shot Emily. I will never know."

"But you didn't."

Slowly his head turned toward her. "That's what you wanted. The answer. Okay, there it is."

"Anthony, it wasn't your fault. You had no choice."

"But won't you wonder?" There was enough light to see him smile, a glint of light on his teeth. "Sooner or later, won't you ask yourself, what would I have done?"

"No."

"You will."

"Stop it! I don't
care.
I love you. Whatever happened in Los Pozos, whatever you've done or seen or have been in your life, I know who you are, and I love you."

"That sounds very pretty."

She drew in a breath as if he had slapped her. The windshield, the streetlights, and his silhouette wavered.

"Oh, my God. Gail—" He pulled her close. "I didn't mean that. Forgive me, sweetheart, please." He held her tightly and murmured,
"Perdóname. Tú sabes que te quiero tanto, tanto.
Why do I make you cry? I'm sorry."

It had been Irene whose call had interrupted Gail's climb down the scaffolding. Her note was stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet made to look like a miniature orange. Gail read it after Anthony had checked the house, then had driven away.

Karen and I have gone to a movie. Be back about eight-thirty. Tried to call you. Love, Mom.

Gail looked at her watch. 8:20. Days seemed to have passed since she had walked into the Dixon Air Transport hangar. She fixed a sandwich and a glass of milk and sat at the kitchen counter, but her appetite was off.

Leaning her cheek on her palm, Gail thought again of the ladies in Irene Connor's bridge club. How many versions of a story, and which could you really believe?

She heard her mother's car in the driveway. In a few seconds there would be voices on the porch. Comments on the movie. Irene shaking off her umbrella. The door opening. Karen running into the kitchen. Irene appearing a moment later, bustling around to make some hot tea, saying it is just
awful
out there, and how was your evening, darling?

And then later—much later—Gail would hear her bedroom door open. Anthony would come tonight. Gail had no doubt of that. He would have been out doing whatever it was he said he had to take care of. He would come, and they would hold each other and go to sleep, but she was not sure they could survive Los Pozos.

CHAPTER THIRTY

On Donor Day, the Miami Opera allowed board members and major donors to attend the technical dress rehearsal. The action would pause if the set or lighting director needed to make an adjustment. An immense number of details had to come together before
Don Giovanni
opened on Thursday. Irene Connor talked Gail into taking Karen out of school early.
Oh, come on, every kid needs to play hooky once in a while. So do you.
Gail had given in when Irene slyly mentioned the educational value of looking behind the scenes.

Most of the audience clustered down front, their faces turned expectantly toward the stage while the orchestra tuned up.

Lloyd Dixon was not in attendance. He had told his friends he intended to take an extended vacation, but no one seemed to know where he was going. Irene had told Gail
she
had heard that Lloyd Dixon intended to move to South America with the housekeeper, Juanita, and don't you just know something is going on there?

The house lights dimmed. Gail squeezed Karen's hand. The conductor raised his arms, paused, and then the overture began, the long dark chords that signaled disaster in the final act.

The curtains parted, and moonlight shone on the house of Donna Anna with its balcony and red tile roof. Don Giovanni would be inside seducing the lady. Karen tapped on Gail's arm and whispered, "Who's that?" Gail answered, "Giovanni's servant. He's waiting for him. Shhh." She pointed to the surtitles projected above the stage. "Read that."

The door to the house burst open, and a man in a cape came out, trying to get away from a woman in a nightdress screaming for help. They threw insults at each other. Gail recognized Thomas Nolan's voice, but could not see him clearly. His cape swirled, and a white-plumed hat hid his face. The servant, Leporello, ran about helplessly. Gail glanced at Karen, whose eyes were wide, taking it all in—the father demanding that Giovanni defend himself, the swordfight that ended in death.

When Thomas Nolan swept off his hat, Gail let out a breath of surprise. He was not blond, but dark. A wig, of course. The hair was combed straight off his forehead, thick and wavy, tied in a bow at the nape of his neck. Makeup had given him dark eyes and brows, a straight, narrow nose, and a fuller, more sensuous mouth. For a second Gail had seen Anthony Quintana. Somehow he had walked onstage in this costume. In the next moment the man was Thomas Nolan again, and Gail relaxed in her seat, laughing at herself as if an illusionist had shown her a magic trick.

Karen tapped her arm. Gail leaned over to explain that the tenor who had come back with Anna was in love with her, and he promised to avenge her father's death.

There was a glitch in the scene change, and the stage manager conferred with the director. The curtains closed, the conductor once again tapped his baton on his music stand, and the orchestra began scene two. Giovanni strolled past an inn with his servant, plotting to make another conquest before dawn. Suddenly a disheveled woman appeared, her hair flying about her face. Gail recognized the aria. This was Donna Elvira, who wanted to tear out Giovanni's heart for deserting her.

Giovanni escaped, and Leporello assured the woman that she was not Giovanni's first victim or his last.
"Madamina, il catalogo è questo, delle belle che amò il padrón mio
..." The audience laughed when he pulled out a roll of paper that hit the floor and unrolled toward the orchestra pit.

Gail whispered to Karen, "Don Giovanni had more than two thousand girlfriends. Elvira was one of them. He dumped her but she's still in love with him."

“
I
think she's crazy," Karen whispered back.

"Well, she can't help herself, he's so charming and handsome."

Anthony had come back from his visit with Lloyd Dixon telling Gail that everything had been worked out. The boxes would go back to Sun Fashions and the money returned. Dixon had taken a look at the photos and laughed.
No skin off my nose, buddy.
Gail had asked Anthony if he intended to let Octavio walk away from this. He said he had to think about it.

Onstage Don Giovanni was singing to a young peasant girl, persuading her to go with him to his villa. Gail smiled. She had seen Tom Nolan show this one to the students in his master class. His velvet voice wrapped around the girl, and her lovely soprano quivered with uncertainty, then desire.

Watching this, Gail again experienced the odd sensation of seeing Anthony onstage. His dark eyes fixed on the girl, and his hand lightly touched her cheek. The same day Gail had visited the master class, Seth Greer had told her about Emily Davis. She hadn't wanted to go to Nicaragua, but Anthony had talked her into it. She had followed him believing he loved her, but at twenty-two, Anthony still had too much of his father in him, a
machista
for whom love was a useful word.

Enter Donna Elvira to save the girl from ruin. But a few scenes later Giovanni was ordering his servant to make preparations for a party, at which he would seduce at least ten more.

The music whirled and danced, and Thomas Nolan ran from one spot to another, miming how he would flirt with so many women. His sprained knee had apparently healed. His voice was leaping, too, easily taking the fast turns of a difficult aria. Nailing every note. When he finished, the audience shouted "Bravo!" and applauded and whistled. Nolan made a deep bow.

Exit stage left.

Gail's eyes were directed at the stage, but she didn't register the next scene. She was wondering how he had recovered so completely in less than two weeks. His voice had come back from a ragged, painful whisper, and there was not the slightest sign of a limp. She recalled he had been in the workroom making a photocopy when the bomb went off. Closer to the bomb than she herself, standing around a corner in the hall. The door to the workroom would have been open, of course, because Rebecca Dixon was waiting for him in the lobby. She had been sitting next to a small table with a lamp on it, and the bomb had been under the table in a cardboard box. The explosion had thrown her across the room. If Nolan had been where he said he'd been, the fireball would have fried his ponytail into a crew cut.

Possibly he had gone into the supply closet for more paper. Or even into the next room, a small conference area outside Jeffrey Hopkins's office. No reason to go that far, but if he had—Gail counted three turns and two walls between him and the blast.

Strange that Rebecca had sat in that particular chair waiting for him to make a photocopy. They had been talking in the board-room. Why not wait there? No, Rebecca wouldn't have let him make the copy at all. She would have done it. She knew where the machine was. Thomas Nolan was the opera star. He should have been sitting in that chair.

Gail had told the police she had heard them talking in the lobby. But no. Not both of them. She had heard only Nolan's voice. He had laughed, then said,
Take care. I've got to be going now.

That wasn't,
Let me make a copy, I'll be right back.
It was . . .
Goodbye.

In the lobby at intermission, Karen finished her cup of soda and asked Gail if she could go to the topmost balcony. "All right. I'll go with you." Gail was too tense to sit still.

Up and up the silent, carpeted stairs, trying not to lose sight of Karen, who knew this theater's secret hiding places and could move like a cat in her sneakers and jeans. "Wait for me!" Gail trotted behind in her pumps and the tailored dress she had worn to the office this morning.

Her eyes were on Karen, but her mind was constructing the case against Thomas Nolan.

Point one. He could not have been standing at the copy machine. Point two. Most singers arrived three weeks before opening night for rehearsals, then left after closing. Nolan had arrived just after Christmas and would be here through the semester. Time to plot murder.

Point three. There was only one reasonable way he could have known that Seth Greer was heading for WRCL the night he was killed. Lloyd Dixon had told him. Nolan had said he'd been out with friends. Assume a beeper. Assume a return telephone call to Lloyd Dixon, who had overheard Seth Greer telling Rebecca where he was going.

The shiny brass railing turned up another level, the stairs getting narrower., Gail saw the flash of Karen's sneakers in the dim light. "Would you slow down?"

Nolan had to be working for Lloyd Dixon. Perhaps it had been Dixon who suggested using the controversy with the exiles. That would explain why Dixon had apparently not been worried about it. He had let the situation continue in order to make murder look like political terrorism.

But the police had not been fooled. Detective Delgado had explained to Gail why they did not suspect the exiles. There was no communique. In addition, the method was wrong. If a killer had really wanted to make Seth Greer's murder look like a political act, he would have used a pipe bomb.
Pipe bombs are as Cuban as the royal palm tree.
And Gail had sat with Tom Nolan on his patio having sandwiches, telling him everything.

Holding onto the railing, Gail sank down on a step. Her legs were shaking. Even now, two weeks after the bombing, her body had not completely recovered, but it wasn't just that. She was staggered by the knowledge that she might have enabled Rebecca Dixon's death.

Nolan had made the bombing look like an attack on the opera. He had somehow maneuvered Rebecca into position and set the timer. Gail remembered how annoyed he had been that she had unexpectedly showed up.
We don't have much time.
He waited for her to leave, then knocked Rebecca unconscious. Possibly strangled her. A blow to the head or bruises on her neck would hardly show after a pipe bomb explosion.

How easy. Put Rebecca in the chair, put the bomb under the table. Set the timer for ten or fifteen seconds, run through the workroom, around the corner, crouch behind Jeffrey Hopkins's desk. Hands over the ears, eyes closed. Then come out limping and roll in the ashes. A cut to the arm and a bump on the head for good measure.

After the shocked silence following Seth Greer's murder, Thomas Nolan had been ordered not to talk to the press, not to stir things up again, but he had made some outrageous statements, setting off the controversy all over again. The bombing was at first assumed to be the work of militant exiles, right down to the communique from a phony anti-Castro group. Until the announcement that Felix Castillo was wanted for murder.

Still clinging to the brass balustrade, Gail lowered her forehead to her hand. Point four. Thomas Nolan was the one who had reported seeing Felix Castillo's van driving through the parking lot before the bombing. It had been his tip that sent the police to Castillo's house, finding the black powder and bullets like those that had killed Seth.

Gail heard music and remembered Karen. She ran up the remaining stairs, coming out in the top balcony.

The second act had begun. She found Karen with her chin on the railing, a small solitary figure among all the empty seats. Gail hugged her and sat down.

She barely took note of what was going on in the opera. Giovanni attempting to seduce Elvira once again, only to trick her and laugh about it. Then disguising himself as his own servant.

Felix Castillo had suggested Thomas Nolan was a hit man, and Gail hadn't listened. Castillo had suggested that a sniper's rifle would fit in that suitcase Nolan had brought back from Costa Rica. A contract killer in the disguise of an opera singer.

From this angle the street scene on the stage looked like a doll's village, and the singers were two inches tall. A group of men were preparing to capture Giovanni, but he sent them off in all directions. He tricked the leader into handing over his musket and pistol, then beat him up. A clever, ruthless man.