by Chris Knopf
Dan looked uneasy.
“I guess you’d call it an anonymous tip,” he said, then added quickly, “But very credible.”
“How the hell do you know that?” asked Amanda.
“That I can’t tell you,” said Dan.
“Why not?”
“Not in the loop,” he said, “and glad for it. I’m a site investigator. My job is to investigate the site, not the source. But,” he said, looking at Ned.
“But, you have a few options,” said Ned, who shuffled around inside his manila folder until he came up with an envelope with an elaborate-looking return address in the upper-left corner.
He slapped it down on the table.
“The temporary restraining order is only good for ten days. It’s our responsibility to get on the site and look around and confirm or deny there’s an issue within that designated time frame. If we don’t hit the deadline, we go back to the judge, who could give us another ten days or say, ‘Sorry boys, you had your chance. Apologize to the lady and toddle on back to Stony Brook.’”
“Or,” said Dan.
“Or, you could bar us from the property. That’s your right. You could fight the inspection, fight the judge, fight the DEC, fight the State’s Attorney, and figure out a way to explain to the reporters we contact why you’re afraid of an inspection. This is one of your options.”
Amanda had started out in the publishing trade, copy-editing magazine articles, answering the phone, schlepping coffee for the editors, until she became an editor herself, after which a very bad thing drove her back to Southampton, where she ended up in a bank, where she worked her way up to personal banker. Along the way she married the bank manager, Roy Battiston, who tried to hijack her inheritance, the proceeds from which threw her into the world of real-estate development. None of which prepared her for this meeting we were having with the
DEC.
“When do you want to start?” I asked. “We have the schematic of the site plan. You could be ass deep in test procedures in less than an hour.”
“Just give the word,” said Amanda.
Dan sat back in his chair and waved his hands in the air.
“Whoa, what’s the hurry? Let’s talk about the focus of the investigation.”
“If it’ll get this resolved and Amanda back on schedule,” I said.
Ned waddled over to a large file box with a pull-out drawer, inside of which were rolled-up drawings looking like ancient Roman scrolls. When he spread one of them out on the table, I felt a little jolt. It was the original tax map of Jacob’s Neck and Oak Point, drawn around the time my father built our cottage. I’d seen it before in a variety of iterations in support of a massive redevelopment plan, the one that eventually landed Roy Battiston in jail and Amanda in the house next-door to mine. I shook off the associations and tried to concentrate on what Dan was saying.
“The issue is here,” he said, tapping his pencil on the abandoned WB plant. “Ned, give me the old architecturals.”
Ned heaved himself up again and this time dragged over the whole box. He dug out a roll of brittle, brownish yellow drawings. I’d seen similar examples before: hand-drawn copies of the original blueprints. Beautifully, painstakingly rendered.
Dan lifted the corner of each drawing until he came to the one he wanted. Then he yanked it roughly out of the roll. I heard myself admonishing my junior engineers to be gentle and respectful of architectural antiquities.
“See here,” he pointed to a sub-elevation titled “Subterranean storage.” The drawing had been in the roll, but creases showed that it had been folded once as well. The title of the drawing in the identification box said something like “Typical of holding cellars constructed at considered locations serving the industrial establishment.”
“The facility goes back over a hundred years so we don’t know their original purpose,” said Dan. “But the information we have indicates there’s a potential for at least some of these subterranean storage units to be containing what’s best described as toxic waste.”
I wasn’t looking at her, but I could imagine Amanda’s face turning white. It was almost quiet enough in the room to hear the blood drain away. I studied the elevations.
“Looks like laid-up stone and mortar,” I said.
“That’s right,” said Dan. “Nothing fancy. About as porous as you can get.”
“The site study found zero contamination in the soil or the water. In the ground or the lagoon,” said Amanda.
“No such thing as zero, ma’am,” said Ned. “You probably mean within allowable limits.”
Amanda graced the room with a brittle smile.
“I’ll leave the nuance to you,” she told him, without looking his way.
“Point taken,” said Dan. “It’s a good sign. But we won’t know for sure until we find and examine every one of these units and determine the adjacent soil composition.”
“Splendid. When do we begin?” she asked. “As Sam said, we’re ready anytime. You only have ten days.”
“Nine,” said Ned. “Today’s the first day.”
“Tomorrow morning will do fine,” said Dan. “We just need to get onto the factory site.”
“When you’re talking to people in Town, don’t feel obliged to throw around words like ‘toxic waste,’” I said.
Dan nodded readily.
“Absolutely. We’re just doing the State’s work. No need to elaborate.”
“An informant’s work,” said Amanda. “An anonymous informant.”
“Like I said, Amanda,” said Dan, “that’s not my part of the house.”
Watching another person struggle to preserve composure as a surge of wrath tried to hijack her better judgment was informative. So, I thought, this is what it looks like. Easier on the observer than the forbearer. Amanda’s olivey tan had in fact tilted toward the green, which nicely set off the bright red spots glowing from her cheeks.
“Very well,” she said quietly. “What time shall we meet at the front gate?”
“Early’s better,” said Dan. “Seven-thirty?”
“Fine.”
“We can be done sooner if we get full cooperation,” he said, with an attempt at a warm smile.
“What do you think you’ve been getting so far?” Amanda asked.
“Well,” said Dan, moving along, “we’ll be spending the bulk of our time finding those chambers. And if we don’t get ’em all, we’ll just have to call Albany and get that judge to extend the terms of the TRO. Which he’ll do without a doubt if the State’s Attorney wants him to, ‘cause he always does. So, you could save us all a heap of time right now,” he tapped again on the site map, “by showing me where they all are.”
One of the ways I solved engineering puzzles was to start with an unbiased look at the operating conditions, the set parameters within which the system was malfunctioning. More often than not it was an assumption at the sub-process level that assured failure at the end game. Most people resist the notion that a petty piece of established information could possibly be incorrect. A flaw not of analysis but in human nature.
Scientists call this getting stuck in a paradigm, something the more rebellious of whom are famously eager to shift.
Amanda, meanwhile, only looked like she wanted to slaughter the guys from the DEC.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“You know,” said Dan, as if disappointed in himself. “I haven’t done a very good job explaining the information we’re working with. What got the State’s Attorney’s interest was the possibility that the owners of this property, and I guess that would be you, Amanda, might have, how do I put this, had some foreknowledge of this potential hazard. Who might be, you know, hoping nobody’d find out, given the concealed nature of the situation and the fact that a phase-one study had already given you a clean bill of health. Understandable, considering the money at risk, but you can also understand why the DEC would want to have a little look- see ourselves.”
&
nbsp; I reached over and took one of Amanda’s hands in both of mine. Her skin was dry and cool to the touch.
“Say fellas,” I said to Dan and Ned, “I just realized we got another appointment.” I checked my watch. “And damn, we’re already late.”
I let go of her hand and gathered up her papers, shoving them back into the briefcase.
“We’re gonna have to catch up with you later,” I told them, standing and pulling Amanda to her feet. “Where’d you say you were staying?”
Dan stayed deadpan.
“The Breezewater, out on Montauk Highway. Nice view of the Shinnecock.”
He handed me a card from the motel.
“I’m in twenty-three. Unless we’re out painting the town. So what about tomorrow morning?”
“We’ll get back to you.”
“Here,” he said, pointing to the card, “let me write down my cell number. If I don’t pick up leave a message.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to say you’re working out logistics. So we can have full access. If anybody asks,” said Dan, at once more and less inscrutable.
“Thanks.”
“Until I hear from you tomorrow. Say by noon. After that, everything escalates.”
“Okay,” I said again, then slipped my arm though Amanda’s and escorted her out of the room, down the hall and back outside into the cool daylight of early spring.
“What the hell was that all about?” Amanda asked, once safely in the front seat of the Grand Prix.
“Deep water.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That, beautiful, was a set-up.”
“What on earth for?”
“I don’t know. I can guess, maybe, but I’m done with assumptions.”
“Don’t we have to let them in?” she asked.
“That’s a question for Burton. You’re paying that damn lawyer, you oughta get your money’s worth.”
“I’ve never paid him a cent.”
“All the more reason.”
——
When we got to Burton’s I called Isabella from the gate. I could tell by her pleasure in reporting Burton was back in the City that she was telling the truth.
“Did Hayden go with him?”
“No. But you can’t talk to him. He’s swimming in the pool.”
“Little chilly for that.”
“That’s what I tell him, but he’s like you. All polite talk and no convincing of anything.”
I drove from there to one of the last pay phones in Suffolk County, next to the men’s room in the basement of a restaurant on Job’s Lane. They probably forgot it was down there and it just lived on, a ghost in the machinery of modern telecommunications.
I had a secret phone number for Burton when I really needed him. It wasn’t a direct line, but his executive assistant would usually pick up, which was the next best thing.
“Sorry, Sam,” she told me. “He’s out of reach until later today. I think he’s playing chess in Central Park. If it’s really an emergency, I can send out a runner.”
“That’s okay. If you could give him a message and have him call me or Amanda as soon as he can. With my apologies. We’re on a bit of a deadline,” I said, then tried to make a long story short.
I’d left Amanda in the car. When I returned she was lying back in her seat with her eyes closed. It reminded me of how she looked on the way home from the incident with Robbie Milhouser. Either bitterly dejected or simply gathering strength for the next round. Composing herself. At rest, but on the verge.
When I told her we’d have to wait for Burton to call she asked me to take her home. She was quiet on the way back to North Sea. Just as well, since there were lots of questions floating randomly around the inside of the old Pontiac, most of which I wouldn’t be able to answer.
Then she surprised me by sliding over and wrapping two strong arms around my shoulders. She squeezed hard, her face pressed into the crook of my neck.
“You try to be a good person,” she said. “Most of the time.”
“Ah, come on.”
“You want to think that isn’t true. It makes it easier for you, which I suppose makes sense. It’s much harder to accept that even good people can do evil things.”
I waited until she made it all the way to her house and disappeared inside before letting Eddie take her place in the front seat of the car. I headed south again, through the Village and all the way to the parking lot at the end of Little Plains Road where you could pull up and look at the ocean. When I was a kid I lived with the delusion that looking out on that vast and irritable body of water would inspire answers to any question. What I know now is that the questions you’re likely to ask while looking at the ocean are impossible to answer. So instead, I took the experience for what it was worth. A chance to allow the solemn sea to remind me of how little Nature cares that human beings want their existence to make sense.
A chance for a respite from the ceaseless and untenable struggle to prove Her wrong.
SIXTEEN
AFTER THE MONTAUK HIGHWAY flows like an ancient tributary across the western border of Southampton Village, it disperses into a confusion of side streets, storefronts and neighborhoods, losing all distinction until it reaches the other side of town, where its identity is restored and volume engorged by merging with County Road 39, itself a descendant of Sunrise Highway, the other main artery connecting the South Fork with the rest of Long Island.
In an open area overlooking the confluence of traffic is a wooden building, not much more than a swayback row of storefronts welded into a single edifice, exhausted and forlorn.
This is where Jefferson Milhouser had his office, if that described the miserable little closet he’d stuffed with a heavy mahogany desk, a pair of file cabinets and a leather easy chair serving the dual purpose of guest seating and storage repository that would make Jackie Swaitkowski feel right at home.
My original plan for the day, delayed by meeting with Amanda and the DEC, was to pay Milhouser a visit. It was late morning when I dropped Amanda off at her house, so there was still plenty of time.
I thought I’d break the ice with a phone call, but his number was unlisted. Robbie’s number was still active, so I tried that and got to listen to a dead guy tell me he was unable to come to the phone, but if I wanted to leave a message, he’d call back as soon as he could. I fought the urge to see if he was as good as his word and called Frank Entwhistle instead.
Frank didn’t have Jeff Milhouser’s number either, but he knew where I could find him.
“I’d tell you to give him my regards, but I don’t think I have any,” he told me.
Then I placed another call, to Jackie Swaitkowski.
“Are you nuts?”
“People keep asserting that,” I told her.
“Sometimes I think you’re working for the prosecution.”
“Then come with me.”
“No.”
“I’m going anyway.”
“Not without me.”
“Great.”
“What are you trying to prove?” she asked.
“My innocence.”
“By talking to the victim’s father?”
“I just want to ask a couple of questions.”
“This ought to be a treat.”
I had her meet me at the corner coffee place in the Village so we could drive together over to Milhouser’s.
She was wearing her stable-girl outfit, complete with barn jacket and cowboy boots. It must have been the influence of the big horse show they had in Bridgehampton every year, because that was the closest she’d ever been to an actual horse.
Her massive ball of strawberry-blonde hair struggled against a pair of black plastic barrettes. Her lips were the color of a freshly waxed fire engine
“Hey, Annie Oakley. Where’s Trigger?”
“You’re thinking of Roy Rogers.”
“Not in that lipstick.”
“Get your coffee and let’s go,�
�� she said. “I want to get this over with.”
As we drove she asked me why I wanted to talk to Jeff Milhouser.
“Robbie’s crew told me they’re now working for the old man. I just want to know if he realizes who he’s dealing with.”
“That’s all?”
“Until I think of something else.”
When we got to Milhouser’s office I was glad I brought Jackie along. It wasn’t hard to imagine what kind of reception I was going to get. I just hadn’t let myself think about it until I saw his name on the sign: “Jefferson Milhouser, Construction Management, Floors Refinished and Installed, Real Estate, Fine Arts.”
I went ahead and knocked.
I heard a yell from inside telling me to come in. Jackie glowered at me as I opened the door.
“Hello Mr. Milhouser. I’m Sam Acquillo.”
“Sammy Acquillo,” said Milhouser, looking at me over the top of his Newsday.
You could probably trace the roots of my boxing career to elementary school when some jerk thought he could call me Sammy and get away with it. But I figured hearing it from an old man who thought I’d killed his son was worth a pass.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked me.
“That’s my question,” I heard Jackie murmur.
“This is Jackie Swaitkowski. She’s my attorney. We tried to call but the line was busy.”
“So that gave you the idea you could just drop by?”
“People call me Sam, Mr. Milhouser. And I didn’t do it.”
I hadn’t offered my hand and he hadn’t moved from his desk. He looked better than I thought he would. I guessed his age to be around seventy, but he was still slim and reasonably good looking, with a full head of wavy white hair and delicate, Anglo features that made him look a lot more like Burton’s father than Robbie’s.
“They call me Jeff. And why should I believe you?”
“Because I want to talk to you. And I can’t see you talking to somebody you think is capable of such a thing.”
“That was a poor choice of words. Capable is exactly what you are.”
His eyes were light blue, like the color of a robin’s egg. A random sprinkling of age spots spread across his pale skin.
