Suspicion of Deceit (24 page)

"You didn't tell me that the last time we talked."

He aimed a little ball of bread and flicked his long, graceful fingers. The bread bobbed on the surface before vanishing with a tiny smacking noise into the mouth of a fish. "I didn't want to talk about Havana."

Gail dusted her hands over the napkin on her lap. "You invited Lloyd Dixon and his wife to hear you sing in Germany because you wanted to be hired for the lead in
Don Giovanni.
Then you went to Cuba. I happen to know that Dixon goes to Cuba occasionally—a fact that you shouldn't spread around. Did he suggest the trip to you?"

After a moment Nolan released a small sigh and turned around. "This is what happened. Lloyd and Rebecca Dixon came to the opening night of
Lucia di Lammermoor,
and I invited them to the party afterward. I don't remember how, but it came up that some of the other cast members—not Americans—were going to the music festival in Cuba, and their bass was ill. Lloyd said I ought to do it. He said I wouldn't get into trouble as long as I came in through a third country. How wrong he was. Lloyd's apologetic about it. He even wanted to pay me for singing for his dinner guests, but of course I said no."

Gail looked at Nolan, then said, "You didn't by any chance see Lloyd Dixon in Cuba, did you?" The thin lips curled into a smile. "Yes. I did."

"Was he there for the investment conference?"

"What's that?"

"At the Hotel Las Americas. Some Cuban VIPs spoke there, which is the reason we're in this mess."

Nolan finger-combed his hair off his forehead. "I don't think he was there for that reason, but I can't say for sure. When my friends and I got to the hotel, things were running late, so we went outside to the pool bar to have a drink. Somebody tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned around and there was Lloyd Dixon. He was dressed like a tourist, not a businessman. He said he had come down to do some fishing. I didn't ask about the investment conference. It didn't enter my mind."

"Where was he staying? At the Las Americas?"

"He didn't say."

"Did you see him with anyone else?"

"No. He said his wife was in Miami. We spoke for a few minutes, then he left."

"What did you talk about?"

Nolan let out a small breath and walked back across the patio. "Oh, what was it? Had we been sightseeing? Had we seen Ernest Hemingway's house? Did we like Cuban music? Things like that."

"Was that the only conversation you had with him?"

"Yes, there by the pool. I didn't see him again till I got here to Miami two years later." Nolan looked down at Gail in her chair.

Gail shaded her eyes. "Rebecca Dixon said she didn't know you had performed in Cuba. She was horrified. So I thought."

"She knew he'd
suggested
that I go," Nolan corrected. "He may not have told her that he saw me there."

Gail added silently, Or else Lloyd Dixon had taken off on another of his adventure trips without telling Rebecca where he was going.

The wind shifted the branches of the tree, and light flickered on Thomas Nolan's hair, turning it into a froth of pale gold. In the shadow cast across his face, his eyes danced with amusement. "Now I have a question for you. How did you become engaged to a Latino?"

"He asked me and I said yes."

"Dark, handsome, and irresistible? Were you overcome?" Nolan's laugh rumbled in his throat. He spread his arms with a flourish. "I have to play Don Giovanni. I guess I'd like to know if it's true what they say."

Gail smiled back. "Absolutely."

"Would he shoot me if he knew I invited you here for lunch?"

"No, don't be silly. This is business."

"So he'd shoot me if it weren't business."

She laughed. "We'd both be goners."

His eyes stayed with her a second before he stuck his hands in his pockets and gazed out toward the bay, where a sailboat was just passing out of view, hidden by trees at the edge of the property. "Just teasing. I was thinking the other day, it's funny how life brings you around to places you never thought you'd be in. I never thought I'd be back in Miami, but here I am talking to Gail Connor. I didn't remember you at first, but I do now. In high school you were one of those cheerleader types who never noticed anybody but the jocks."

Momentarily confused, Gail said, "I was never a cheerleader."

He seemed not to hear her. "You were going with that kid—what was his name? Ronnie Bertram. His family made yachts. He had sun-bleached hair and a new Trans Am. Played tennis—naturally."

"We went together for a month," Gail said.

In profile, his face half-hidden by his hair, Tom Nolan smiled. "And you don't remember me at all."

"I'm sorry, I don't."

"Don't apologize." He shrugged. "I was not a memorable guy."

But of course Gail did remember—not perfectly, but in hazy shadows cast by events far past recollection. Tommy Nolan, walking alone across campus, head down, hair over his eyes, as if his loneliness were an affliction that could be hidden from the other students.

Against his protestations that she not bother, Gail helped him carry the remains of their lunch back inside the cottage. In the living room, the piano lid was up, and his music littered the worn oriental rug. Compact discs of operas were stacked by the stereo. There was only one pillow askew on the sofa, only his sweater on the rack by the door. For all his acclaim and the money he had to be making, and the career that was taking off, he seemed so alone.

Then Gail considered that this view of Thomas Nolan could be skewed by her memory, which might be faulty. She could be wrong about him, just as Thomas Nolan had been wrong about her. A cheerleader type? Each of them looking at the other from his or her own peculiar, imperfect teenage perspective. And yet...

And yet.

She could not dismiss the sense of unbearable loss. Something had happened to make him drop out of school halfway through the spring semester of 1979, but like a remnant of a dream, the memory whirled beyond reach.

Just before noon on Tuesday, the day after Seth Greer's murder, Irene Connor had received on her answering machine at home a message from Glasgow, Scotland. She had jotted down the number and brought it along when she came to Gail's house to check on her injured hand and, more important, her emotional state after having seen a man shot to death an arm's length away. Gail had left the piece of paper folded in her purse.

Stopping down the street from Tom Nolan's cottage, she pulled it out, along with her telephone, and caught Jane Fyfield just as she was getting dressed to leave for the opera house in Glasgow. She would be singing the title role in
Norma
for another week, then on to Sydney, Australia, to rehearse
I Puritani.

She spoke quickly, in a light, clear voice. "I don't have much time. Sorry. I'm in a bit of a rush. Your mother—Irene, was it? Yes. She explained your situation. Good lord. What a bizarre city. I've never been to Miami. Not sure I want to go after hearing this."

Jane Fyfield confirmed the basic facts of the trip to Havana. "Tom decided to go with us, a last-minute replacement, really. . . . No, we didn't get paid, but we had a nice holiday. ... He said I was
married?
Oh, really."

Then Gail explained the reason for her phone call, and if Ms. Fyfield could indulge her a moment longer—

"Let me think. Lloyd Dixon. Big man, white hair— Yes, of course. I saw him in Dortmund with his wife. It was he who suggested that Tom go with us. . . . You're right, he did appear in Havana, too, but he didn't call himself Dixon. I've forgotten what he called himself, but it was a false name. He said it was the only way he could get into the country. ... I can't recall what they talked about. Wait. He told Tom that he had arranged for him to do
Don Giovanni.
That made Tom happy. . . .

"Only that one time, yes. . . . Except I seem to recall that Tom left with him. . . . No, not that night, a couple of days later, before our last performance. We were scheduled for the amphitheater on the beach, and we had to rearrange the music. It was rude of him to leave us in the lurch. The baritone had to fill in. . . . Tom said that the American—Dixon, correct?—Mr. Dixon was going to give him a lift in his airplane to . . . oh, where was it? Central America. One of those countries. ... I can't remember. That stuck in my mind because it was so extravagant—his own airplane. He must be quite wealthy.

"I can't remember, it's been so long. . . . Costa Rica! . . . Positive. . . . I've no idea why. . . . I'm sorry, that's all I know about it. Tell Tom I'm still annoyed with him for leaving. ... He didn't call me after that, even to say thanks for the great time. Well, it wasn't so great, actually. . . . Tom was, shall we say, a letdown.

"Oh, God, sorry, I've got to go or I'll be late. . . . Yes, of course, call again if you like."

CHAPTER NINTEEN

A huge fan in a steel cage revolved slowly at the far end of the hangar. One of several doors had been shoved open, sliding along a track in the concrete. Gail walked inside. There were three aircraft, the nearest of which was a cargo jet with a scaffold under one of its engines. The cowling was off, revealing tilted blades and more wiring than she wanted to know about. The mechanic turned around when he heard her footsteps.

"Excuse me. Where can I find Lloyd Dixon?"

"In the office." He tilted his head toward the other end of the hangar. She went around the nose of the plane and crossed the cavernous space toward the glass-enclosed room on the other side.

Dixon was talking to somebody at one of the desks. No leather jacket today. He wore a dark suit, probably for Seth Greer's funeral, which would start in a couple of hours. He saw her through the window and came to the door. His crooked smile showed some puzzlement. "Ms. Connor." He stood aside. The other two men in the room looked back at her.

"Hello, Lloyd." She didn't come in. "I wonder if I could talk to you for a few minutes."

He told the men to finish working up the figures, then said, "Walk outside with me. I have to speak to one of my pilots. It won't take long."

They went out an exit door to the field. Private aircraft were parked in rows extending from the high chain-link fence to the concrete apron that led to the main landing strip. A small passenger jet took off, rattling the air.

Lloyd Dixon strode toward a cargo plane with blue stripes and the Dixon Air insignia on the tail. A truck was backing up, and men waited by the cargo bay. Another started the engine of a forklift. Dixon hauled himself halfway up the ladder to the cockpit and had a conversation through the open door.

When he walked back toward her, Gail asked him how many planes he had.

"Seventeen. Most of them are en route somewhere or other. The operations manager keeps up with them." He looked at her. "What brings you?"

Gail had already decided to get straight to it. "I talked to Jane Fyfield by telephone an hour ago. She's the soprano who sang
Lucia
in Germany, then went to Cuba with Tom Nolan. She saw you there. Tom says the same thing, but don't blame him for telling me. It came up in conversation. I thought I'd ask you about it."

"What do you want me to do, admit I went? The answer's yes. Cuba is one of the few places you can go that's not overrun with American tourists."

She said, "Why am I only now finding out about this?"

"You sound pissed off, Gail."

"Annoyed. I'd say I'm annoyed. Did you attend the international investment conference at the Hotel Las Americas that week?"

He crossed heavy arms over his chest, which had the effect of making his neck seem even thicker. "Isn't this a little outside the scope of your duties as our lawyer?"

"On Tuesday morning," she said, "unless the permitting department of the city of Miami cuts us some slack, I'm going to file a federal lawsuit. The opera is going to be in the spotlight. I hate to think what would happen if somebody finds out that one of our major donors is making—even contemplating—investments in Cuba."

With a barely audible chuckle, Lloyd Dixon watched his men load crates through the cargo bay of his airplane. "My name was not on the attendee list, so don't worry about it."

"Did you use another name?" When Dixon looked at her, she added, "Jane Fyfield said you used a false name in Havana."

"Isn't she a fountain of information," Dixon said. "Am I investing in Cuba? No. It can be done if a person is creative, but it's just not a good risk right now. Soon as the embargo is lifted it'll be a different story. When Fidel falls, you're going to hear this big sucking sound—all the money in Miami flowing south. Construction, transportation, health care, tourism— name it."

"Air freight," she said.

He smiled. "There you go."

She asked, "Are you working with Octavio Reyes?"

The sunlight made Dixon squint, closing his eyes to slits through which showed a glimmer of gray. "In 1994 the University of Miami sponsored a weekend seminar called 'Investing in a Post-Castro Economy.' That was an optimistic year. Forty thousand rafters floated across the straits, and it really seemed that the regime was going belly-up. Didn't happen, but there was a bunch of activity on this side of the water. Reyes attended the seminar, and we got to talking. His company was already shipping on Dixon Air, and we'd met a couple of times. I know several people who are seriously looking at possibilities in Cuba. He's one of them. And I'm asking you, what's the problem?"

"You denied knowing him."

"Imagine that."

Gail laughed. "This is such massive hypocrisy. Both of you! He singlehandedly made Thomas Nolan into a flashpoint in this town, and you let him get away with it."

"I didn't expect the Cubans to make a big deal out of it," Dixon said. "Who pays attention to opera? I had a talk with Reyes. He's got a new enemy now— provocateurs. Don't worry about it, Gail. The city's going to drag this decision out to the last minute, but they'll come around. They don't want another black eye."

"Don't worry," she repeated. A four-engine propeller aircraft thundered past them and angled upward. Some high cirrus clouds were moving in from the north. When the roar had diminished, she said, "Seth Greer is dead. I keep thinking, maybe the person who did it was after me, too, but I fell and rolled under the car. He was afraid to show himself, so he's saving me for another time. This goes through my mind. I replay it at night in my sleep."