Читать книгу Sidney Sheldon’s The Tides of Memory - Сидни Шелдон, Sidney Sheldon - Страница 10

“SO LET’S GET THIS STRAIGHT. WHEN did you first notice—first notice—that Nicholas was missing?”

Mrs. Martha Kramer cast her beady eyes from Toni Gilletti to Billy Hamlin. Both young people looked terrified. As well they might.

Martha Kramer had been running Camp Williams for twenty-two years now, first with her husband, John, and for the last nine years as a widow. Never, in all that time, had there been a single serious accident involving any of the boys in her care. Never. But now tragedy had struck. And it had struck on the watch of the carpenter’s son and the electronics millionaire’s daughter.

At only five feet tall, with perfectly coiffed gray hair and a pair of trademark pince-nez spectacles permanently suspended on a chain around her neck, Mrs. Kramer was considered a Kennebunkport institution. But her diminutive stature and soft-spoken, grandmotherly manner led many people to underestimate both her intellect and her business acumen. Camp Williams might sell itself as an old-fashioned, family-run retreat. But since her husband’s death, Mrs. Kramer had doubled the prices and started strictly vetting the boys she admitted, ensuring her reputation as the owner of the elite summer camp on the East Coast. Teenage labor was cheap, overheads were low. She’d even gotten a great deal on the carpentry for last year’s refurbishment project. Put simply, Mrs. Martha Kramer had been sitting on a cash cow. And these two irresponsible children had just slaughtered it.

“I told you, Mrs. Kramer. I had a concussion. Toni was looking after me. We thought all the kids were right there on the beach, until Graydon came over and said Nicholas was gone.”

Billy Hamlin, the boy, was doing all of the talking. The girl, Gilletti, normally a chatterbox of the worst order, was curiously mute. Perhaps it was shock? Or perhaps she was smart enough not to say anything that might incriminate her later. Something about her eyes made Mrs. Kramer uneasy. She’s thinking, the little minx. Weighing up her options.

Both Toni and Billy had gotten dressed since the beach, he in bell-bottoms and a Rolling Stones T-shirt, she in a floor-length skirt with tassels on the bottom and a turtleneck sweater that covered every inch of her skin. Again, the demure clothes were uncharacteristic of Theodore Gilletti’s wayward daughter. Martha Kramer’s eyes narrowed still further.

“And you raised the alarm right away?”

“Of course. The coast guard was already at the scene. I stayed to help them, and Toni came back here, just in case …”

Billy Hamlin let the sentence trail off. He looked at Toni, who looked at the floor.

“Miss Gilletti? Have you nothing to say?”

“If I had something to say, I’d have said it, okay?” Roused from her stupor like a sun-drunk rattlesnake, Toni suddenly lashed out. “Billy’s told you what happened. Why do you keep hammering at us?”

“Hammering at you?” Martha Kramer drew herself up to her full five feet and glowered at the spoiled teenager in front of her. “Miss Gilletti, a child is dead. Drowned. Do you understand? The police are on their way, as is the boy’s family. They are going to hammer at you until they know exactly what happened, how it happened, and who was responsible.”

“No one was responsible,” Toni said quietly. “It was an accident.”

Mrs. Kramer raised an eyebrow. “Was it? Well, let us hope the police agree with you.”

OUTSIDE MRS. KRAMER’S OFFICE, TONI FINALLY gave way to tears, collapsing into Billy’s arms.

“Tell me it’s a dream. A nightmare. Tell me I’m going to wake up!”

“Shhh.” Billy hugged her. It felt so good to hold her. There was no more “poor Charles” now. He and Toni were in this together. “It’s like you said. It was an accident.”

“But poor Nicholas!” Toni wailed. “I can’t stop thinking how frightened he must have been. How desperate for me to hear him, to save him.”

“Don’t, Toni. Don’t torture yourself.”

“I mean, he must have called out for me, mustn’t he? He must have screamed for help. Oh God, I can’t bear it! What have I done? I should never have left him alone.”

Billy pushed the image of Nicholas Handemeyer’s corpse from his mind. The little boy was floating facedown when Billy found him, in a rocky cove only yards from the shore. Billy had tried the kiss of life and the paramedics had spent twenty straight minutes on the sand doing chest compressions, trying anything to revive him. It was all useless.

Toni said, “They’ll send me to prison for sure, you know.”

“Of course they won’t,” Billy said robustly.

“They will.” Toni wrung her hands. “I already have two counts on my record.”

“You do?”

“One for fraud and one for possession,” Toni explained. “Oh my God, what if they drug-test me? They will, won’t they? I still have all that coke in my system. And grass. Oh, Billy! They’ll lock me up and throw away the key!”

“Calm down. No one’s going to lock you up. I won’t let them.”

Billy was enjoying being the strong one. It felt good having Toni Gilletti lean on him. Need him. This was the way it was supposed to be. The two of them against the world. Charles Braemar Murphy wasn’t man enough for Toni. But he, Billy Hamlin, would step up to the plate.

As he stood stroking Toni’s hair, two Maine police squad cars pulled into the graveled area in front of the Camp Williams lobby. Three men emerged, two in uniform, one in a dark suit and wing-collared shirt. Mrs. Kramer bustled out to greet them, a grim look on her wizened, old woman’s face.

Pulling Toni closer, Billy caught a waft of her scent. A surge of animal longing pulsed through him. He whispered in her ear.

“They’re going to separate us. Compare our stories. Just stick to what you told Mrs. Kramer. It was an accident. And whatever you do, don’t mention drugs.”

Toni nodded miserably. She felt as if she might throw up at any minute. Mrs. Kramer was already leading the police toward them.

“Don’t worry,” said Billy. “You’re going to be just fine. Trust me.”

A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER, ONCE the little boys were safely in their beds, the rest of the Camp Williams counselors sat around a large cafeteria-style table, comforting one another. They’d all seen the ambulance arrive and drive away with little Nicholas Handemeyer’s body. Some of the girls cried.

Mary Lou Parker asked, “What do you think will happen to Toni and Billy?”

Don Choate pushed a cold hot dog around his plate. “Nothing’ll happen. It was an accident.”

For a few moments they were all silent. Then someone said what everyone was thinking.

“Even so. One of them should have seen Nicholas leave the group. Someone should’ve been watching.”

“It was an accident!” Don shouted, slamming his fist down on the table so hard it shook. “It could have happened to any one of us.”

Don had helped carry Nicholas’s body back to camp. He was still only twenty, and obviously traumatized by the whole episode.

“We shouldn’t be throwing accusations around.”

“I’m not throwing accusations. I’m just saying—”

“Well, don’t! Don’t say anything! What the hell do you know, man? You weren’t there.”

Sensing that the boys were about to come to blows, Charles Braemar Murphy put an arm around his friend and led him away. “It’s all right, Don. Come on. Let’s get some air.”

Once they’d gone, Anne Fielding, one of the quieter Wellesley girls, spoke up.

“It’s not all right, though, is it. The boy’s dead. He couldn’t have drowned in such shallow, calm water unless someone took their eye off the ball. For a long, long time.”

“I can see how Billy might have been distracted,” said one of the boys. “That bikini Toni was wearing was kind of an invitation.”

“This is Toni Gilletti we’re talking about,” Mary Lou Parker drawled bitchily. “You don’t need an invitation. It’s first come, first served.”

Everybody laughed.

“Shhh.” Anne Fielding interjected, her face pressed to the window. “They’re coming out.”

The door to the administrative offices opened. Inside, Toni and Billy had both spent the last three hours straight being interviewed by the police. Toni emerged first, leaning on one of the uniformed officers for support. Even from this distance, you could see how smitten the young cop was with her, wrapping his arm protectively around her waist and smiling comfortingly as he escorted her back to her cabin.

“Well, she doesn’t look like she’s in too much trouble,” Mary Lou Parker said caustically.

Moments later, Billy Hamlin came through the same door. Flanked by the plain-clothed detective on one side and the uniformed patrol officer on the other, he had his head down as he was marched toward the squad car. As he climbed into the backseat, the group in the cafeteria caught a glint of silver behind his back.

“They’ve cuffed him!” Anne Fielding gasped. “Oh my goodness. Do you think he’s under arrest?”

“Well, I don’t think they’re taking him to an S-and-M club,” one of the boys said drily.

The truth was, none of the boys at Camp Williams much liked Billy Hamlin. The carpenter’s son was too popular with the ladies for their liking. As for the girls, although they humored him because of his charm and good looks, they too regarded Billy as an outsider, a curiosity to be played with and enjoyed, but hardly an equal. For those with a keen ear for such things, the sound of ranks closing in the Camp Williams dining hall was deafening.

“What do you think you’re doing, gawking at the window like a gaggle of geese?” Martha Kramer’s authoritative voice rang out through the room like an air-raid siren. Everybody jumped.

“If I’m not mistaken, you all have to be at work tomorrow.”

“Yes, Mrs. Kramer.”

“And it’s vital that camp routines continue as normal, for the other children’s sake.”

Only Mary Lou Parker dared to pipe up. “But, Mrs. Kramer, Billy Hamlin—”

“—won’t be helped by idle gossip.” The old woman cut her off. “I hope I don’t need to remind you that a child has died. This isn’t entertainment, Miss Parker. This is tragedy. Now I want you all back in your cabins. Lights out at eleven.”