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Meanwhile, the dreams got worse.
She longed to talk about them to someone, to unburden herself of the guilt and anguish, to talk openly about what had happened that fateful afternoon at the beach. But who could she talk to? Her girlfriends were all gossips and bitches. Charles Braemar Murphy hadn’t called once since the day she left Camp Williams. As for her parents, her father was too obsessed with how the negative publicity might affect his business to give a damn about his daughter’s emotional state. Walter Gilletti acted quickly to keep his Toni’s name out of the papers, issuing preemptive injunctions against a number of media outlets and TV networks, and had kept Toni under virtual house arrest since she got home. But that was as far as his paternal support went. As for Toni’s mother, Sandra, she was too busy shopping, playing bridge with her girlfriends, and self-medicating to question Toni about what had really happened on the beach that day, or how she might be feeling.
Forcing herself out of bed, Toni walked into the bathroom. Splashing cold water on her face, she gazed at her reflection in the mirror.
You left Nicholas Handemeyer to die, frightened and alone.
You let Billy Hamlin take the rap for what YOU did.
You’re a coward and a liar, and one day everybody will know it.
The trial would begin in six days.
Chapter Six
“How do I look?”
Billy Hamlin turned to face his father. Standing in his sparse, six-by-eight-foot cell, his blond hair newly cut and wearing a dark wool Brooks Brothers suit and tie, Billy looked more like a young attorney than the accused in a major murder trial.
“You look good, son. Smart. Serious. You’re gonna come through this.”
The last three months had been a living hell for Jeff Hamlin. The carpenter from Queens could have coped with the malicious local gossip about his son. He could have dealt with the loss of half his customers and the judgmental glares of the women from his church, St. Luke’s Presbyterian, the same church he and Billy had attended for the last fifteen years. But having to sit back impotently while his adored son’s character was defiled on national television, torn to shreds by ignorant strangers who called Billy a monster and evil and a murderer? That broke Jeff Hamlin’s heart. The trial itself might be a travesty—no one, not even the Handemeyers, seriously doubted that Billy would be acquitted of the murder charge—but whether the boy was acquitted or not, the entire country would forever remember Jeff Hamlin’s son as the druggie who let an innocent boy drown.
The worst of it was that Billy had done nothing of the kind. Unlike the police, Jeff Hamlin hadn’t swallowed Billy’s story for a second.
“He wasn’t the one in charge of those kids,” Jeff told Billy’s lawyer, a state-appointed defender with the deeply unfortunate name of Leslie Lose. They were sitting in Lose’s office, a windowless box of a room at the back of a nondescript building in Alfred, Maine, just a few blocks from the courthouse. “He’s covering for the girl.”
Leslie Lose looked at Jeff Hamlin thoughtfully. The truth was, it didn’t much matter who had been supervising the children. What happened to Nicholas Handemeyer remained an accident. Any jury in the world would see that. But the lawyer was curious.
“What makes you think that?”
“I don’t think it. I know it. I know my son and I know when he’s lying.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Did you know that Billy likes to drink, Mr. Hamlin?”
“No,” Jeff admitted. “I mean, you know, I assumed he had the occasional beer.”
“Did you know he smokes marijuana?”
“No.”
“Or that he’s used hard drugs? Cocaine. Amphetamines.”
“No, I didn’t. But—”
“All those things were found in Billy’s system the day Nicholas Handemeyer died.”
“Yes. And why were they found?” Exasperated, Jeff Hamlin threw his arms wide. “Because Billy told the police to look for ’em. He suggested a blood test, for God’s sake. Why would he do that if he weren’t trying to make himself look guilty?”
Leslie Lose cleared his throat. “I’m not suggesting Billy’s guilty. This entire trial is a grudge match dreamed up by Senator Handemeyer, and the whole world knows it.”
“I hope so.”
“All I’m saying, Mr. Hamlin, is that once they’re past the age of thirteen, none of us know our children as well as we think we do. The worst thing Billy could do right now would be to start pointing the finger at others, trying to shift the blame. He’s admitted using drugs, he’s admitted making a mistake. That doesn’t make him a murderer.”
