Free Suspicion of Madness by Barbara Parker Page B

tell her, Tom, she'll get the place cleaned up. She'll have time to bathe and put on a nice dress. She'll convince them she's perfectly sane, and she isn't."
    "She is! She's fine. At least she was, last time I saw her. Don't pretend you give a damn about Joanie. I looked the other way when Sandra McCoy came around, and you telling the cops that you hardly knew her. You're a liar. If I decide to drop in on Joan, you'd best not interfere."
    Doug leaned on Tom's desk, his muscular, curly-haired arms making pillars for his chest. His face was white with anger, and the freckles were brown dots. "Don't threaten me with Sandra, you pervert. What were you doing with her? Keep away from Aunt Joan. Do you understand me? Are we real clear on that?"
    Doug went out, and Tom stared at the empty doorway. He sat for several minutes without moving. Confusion and shame overtook him. His chest ached. He couldn't breathe. He sobbed once, then held it back with a knuckle pressed against his lips. Sandra had told Doug. They must've had a good laugh. But it hadn't been so terrible, what he'd done. He wasn't a pervert. He had never touched her.
    It had started when Mary was dying. She had a woman to come in and help her so Tom could get out of the house. The smell of medicine and bandages and the sight of her body hadn't driven him away, though that had been bad enough. No, he hadn't wanted to be there when she died. He'd prayed to come home and she'd be gone.
    He had done some damage to his liver those last weeks. He'd been to every last bar in the Upper Keys. He was leaving The Green Turtle Inn at closing time and ran into Sandra McCoy coming across the parking lot in her waitress outfit, little black shorts and a red top. He took a hundred dollar bill out of his wallet and asked her to show him something sweet. And she did. She laughed, lifted her shirt and the bra with it, then grabbed the money and ran for her car, her long red hair swinging behind her. A few days later he waited for her to finish her shift, and it happened again. They started finding places to park. A day came when she took everything off, but he never asked to touch her, and she never offered to let him.
    It stopped when he and Joan Lindeman got back together. Then Joanie changed her mind. Please, darling, let's not torture ourselves with regrets. Think of me fondly sometimes, won't you? It had sounded like a line from one of her damned movies, and that was the last he'd heard from her. Eventually he stopped trying.
    A few months later, Tom waited for Sandra to get off work. He followed her to her apartment. She asked to borrow money for some new clothes. Tom gave it, knowing damned well he'd never get it back. Then she had needed money for this or that, and he'd given it to her. One day Sandra had told him not to bother coming around again. He'd wanted to ask her if the reason was Doug Lindeman, but he hadn't asked. It didn't matter. He was tired of girls. He felt old. He was old. An old man.
    All his life, he'd thought he was happy. He'd told himself so often he'd believed it. When Joanie had said she loved him, the lies had vanished like smoke, and he could see that he'd been waiting for her all his life. What they'd had once, they could have again. Tom had to make her listen. She needed him, needed somebody who wasn't going to stand by while her nephew picked her bones clean and ruined her last good years.
    His door was open. Tom got up and closed it. He took a bottle out of his credenza and poured himself a drink to steady his nerves. He smoothed his hair and sat at his desk. Joan's number was in his Rolodex. Tilting his glasses to see, he punched the numbers one by one as he held the receiver close to his chest. He raised it to his ear and listened to the ringing on the other end, hoping she would pick up. She didn't. Her machine came on.
    He could have repeated the message from memory, the same one she'd had for years. The voice was dark and smoky and bored. "Hi. If you