What I Saw and How I Lied

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.

"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.