Black Swan (A Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mystery)

by Chris Knopf

  "That's all?"

  "There might be more after I'm actually awake."

  I got into a pair of shorts and T-shirt and I took Eddie for a jog along West Harbor and around the northern curve of the island, eventually heading west toward the ferry dock. I hadn't run for a week, and felt it, especially running against a strong headwind. Eddie trotted at my side, a habit formed over years of jogging the sand roads around the Little Peconic Bay in Southampton, where this seemingly attentive obedience would be punctuated by mad bursts into the sea grass and piney scrub growth in pursuit of God knows what. That day I still had him on a leash, an affront he took with barely contained forbearance.

  For both our sakes, I slowed to a walk when we reached the ferry dock, where as hoped, a red and gray coast guard patrol boat was tied up against the tall dock walls. There was no one on the deck, so I resorted to yelling, "Anybody home?"

  The cabin door opened and a long-haired guy with a heavily bearded face and wire rimmed glasses popped out.

  "Depends," said the guy.

  "On what?"

  "What you want."

  "A conversation. I was at the Swan last night when they found the body."

  "We don't discuss open cases."

  "What if I possessed vital information?" I asked.

  "What information?"

  "I can't tell you if you won't discuss the case."

  The guy was young, the thick curly hair that covered most of his head a deep, dense black. I think it was a signal to the rest of us that he was the intellectual sort.

  "I'm a crime scene investigator," he said. "You need to talk to the regular cops."

  "Over your head. I get that."

  The guy's glasses were too thick to clearly see his eyes. Instead, the refraction made him look like a confused bug. A very hairy bug.

  "Okay, what kind of information," he said, after a long pause.

  "The killer knew boats. And ropes."

  "Who said there was a killer?" he asked. "We were sent out here on a suicide report."

  "You're kidding, right?" I asked.

  "Haven't seen a hanging yet that wasn't self-inflicted."

  "In the shower?" I said.

  "Still possible."

  "Is there somebody on board who's ready to take this seriously?" I asked.

  "If you mean another CSI, no. I'm it."

  "Ah, crap," I said, kicking the ground like a ten-year-old. Eddie looked up at me, vaguely unsettled.

  "Listen, sir, I appreciate your eagerness to help, but everything is under control. Let us do our job and we'll sort this all out."

  "You don't appreciate me at all. And what you're doing is guaranteeing you'll never figure out what happened here. The police are sending in the Rockville Little League to play the Boston Red Sox. You're already fucked and you haven't even finished your report."

  "I beg to differ. And as of right now, this conversation is over," he said, then popped back into the boat.

  Nicely done, Sam, I said to myself.

  "Hey, sorry," I yelled at the boat. "Come on back. I apologize."

  A different guy came out, this one a foot taller in height and wider at the shoulders. A coastie.

  "Something I can help you with?" he asked, in a flat, dead voice.

  "I was trying to talk to the CSI."

  "Not on my boat you aren't," he said. "Please step away."

  Eddie looked ready to jump aboard and make some new friends, but I used what little sense I had left, and after giving the captain a quick salute, turned and strolled back down the tall breakwater and out to the street. As I tried to remember the location of the state police office my cell phone rang. The little screen said it was Burton Lewis.

  "Hi, Burt."

  "Hah!" said Jackie Swaitkowski, "I knew it."

  "Ah, shit, Jackie, I don't want to do this now. How'd you get Burton's phone?"

  "He handed it to me. We're here in my office. It's decision time and I can't hold them off much longer."

  I'd known Jackie since she was a real estate lawyer working out of her house, and then a screwball office in Watermill, a little village within the Town of Southampton. During that time she'd switched over to criminal law, providing her the opportunity to defend me on several occasions, successfully, through no fault of my own. Now she ran the East End office of Burton's free legal defense operation, which he'd started in Manhattan and slowly built out across Long Island and into Upstate New York. This particular matter, however, was strictly civil, in the legal sense.

  "Yes you can," I said. "Rushing you is just a legal tactic. If stall ball was in their favor they'd be doing that. Anyway, I'm busy right now. Geez, Jackie, show a little backbone."

  "You're impossible," she said.

  "Since Burt's right there, could you put him on the line?"

  I couldn't hear what she said when she handed him the phone, but I could guess.

  "Say, Burt, remember when you told me seeking help from friends was good for the soul?" I asked.

  "I do. It still is."

  "Then could you do me a favor? Get one of your minions to do a little research on Subversive Technologies. What's their financial and operational status? What's the public story and what's going on behind the scenes, the extent to which we can figure that out."

  Ordinarily this was the kind of favor I'd ask of Jackie, but now didn't seem the ripest time. Anyway, I'd asked Burton for help along these lines once or twice before, and he was always gracious about it. Having a few thousand tax lawyers at his disposal was particularly handy. They not only knew numbers, they knew people in every corporate office in the country.

  "Already underway," he said.

  "Really."

  "I knew you'd want to know. And take your time with the boat. I was only going to pull her out for the winter anyway."

  I almost got off the phone feeling nothing but warmth and gratitude toward Burton Lewis, when he spoiled it by putting Jackie back on the line.

  "I don't understand your reluctance over this," she said, using her reasonable-girl voice. "There's a lot of money at stake. Have you been broke for so long you don't remember what lovely things money can buy?"

  She was referring to the lawsuit against my old company Con Globe, brought by a group of people in the engineering department. It involved an intellectual property claim on some technology they developed, the rights for which Con Globe had done a lousy job retaining solely for itself. I'd assumed I forfeited all such claims myself when they shitcanned me, and had me sign things in return for ignoring that I'd punched our corporate counsel in the nose.

  But in the following years a lot had happened, like the prosecution of Con Globe's senior management for fraud and the take-over of the company by one of their competitors. I had a hand in making some of that happen, in the midst of which Jackie found a way to void my severance agreement and get my name added to the settlement, which was soon to be wrapped up by the courts.

  When Jackie got on to something she could be a mixedbreed bloodhound and Staffordshire terrier, and this was no different. What got her particularly exercised was learning that the technology in question, an octane-enhancement device, had been developed by a research team led by the director of R&D, who was credited with some of the key design features that made the thing work, and whose name appeared prominently on the patent. That director being me.

  "Get the best deal you can without taking anything from the others and I'll sign the papers," I said.

  An unfamiliar silence formed on the other end of the line.

  "Just like that?" she asked. "After stalling and wheedling and avoiding me at every turn?"

  "I just hadn't figured out what to do with the money," I said.

  "And now you do."

  "Just now. Thanks to you," I said.

  She asked for an explanation and I was going to give her one when Officer Poole pulled up next to me. Jackie didn't believe me, but I told her I really had to go.

  Poole looked unhappy when she
climbed out of her car.

  "I just had to have a coast guard patrol boat captain surgically removed from up my ass," she said.

  "Sorry," I said. "I shouldn't have let that CSI get to me."

  "You shouldn't have left your boat. Listen up. I appreciate the help you gave me last night, but you're now busted back to full-time civilian. Any more bullshit and I'll charge you with impeding an investigation."

  "You don't actually think it was suicide," I said.

  "I don't. But Jeffrey doesn't want to rule it out."

  "Jeffrey's the CSI? He's a dick."

  "And you mean that respectfully," said Poole.

  "Can't you get him back to the Swan so I can go through what actually happened?"

  "They're pulling out now," she said, nodding toward the harbor. "His boss wants him back before the storm. So do the coast guard."

  "The loops in the rope were made with a bowline. And the end was cleated off in a standard figure eight. That's a sailor," I said.

  "Like Myron Sanderfreud."

  I don't usually let my face share what I'm thinking, but not always.

  "Don't glower at the police," said Officer Poole. "It's our job to consider every angle. You'd understand that if you weren't a civilian."

  I closed my eyes and breathed, collecting the bits of myself that were flying freely through the air. When I opened them up, she was still standing there.

  "Sorry," I said. "I do know how hard a cop's job is. I've seen a lot of it up close, more than I ever wanted to."

  She studied me, as if to determine the authenticity of my apology.

  "I'm actually headed for the Swan now. Do you want a lift?"

  I demurred, disappointing Eddie who clearly wanted to ride in the cruiser. Instead, I forced him to jog with me the long way back to the boat, hoping the extra miles would soak up some of my frustration. Which didn't happen, though the black clouds gathering along the northern horizon and the lighter grey swirls streaming overhead started to become a distraction. The sun was temporarily shining through a clear spot, lighting up the autumn foliage against the backdrop of a darkening sky. I noticed the leaves flipping over, exposing a pale delicate underside, a telltale of big weather on the way according to my old man, who was occasionally right about things like that.

  Eddie noticed it as well, pausing to sniff the air and letting the ground-hugging gusts back brush his fur.

  When I got to the hotel, Poole had apparently come and gone. Only one of the gleaming cars that had brought the unheralded guests was in the parking lot-the Town Car. Anderson Track was standing in front of the gas station that served as the land-based fuel dock. He had his hands on his hips and a smirk on his face.

  "That dog ain't no jogger. Can hardly run in a straight line."

  "You're right about that. Nothing straight ahead about him," I said.

  Disappointed that he hadn't insulted me, he tried again.

  "Runnin' around in your underwear seems like a stupid waste of time to me."

  I stopped jogging and leaned on my knees to catch my breath and feel the freshening breeze cool the sweat off my back. I looked up at him, standing about twenty yards away, forcing us to almost shout back and forth.

  "That's why you're fat," I said. "And these are jogging clothes. I only run around in my underwear on Saturday nights."

  "You are truly begging to get your ass kicked," said Track.

  "And you're truly welcome to give it a try."

  He stayed where he stood, deferring the ass-kicking to some future date, which was fine with me, tired as I was from the run around the island and concerned about Eddie getting caught up in the fray.

  I walked the rest of the way to the Swan and was about to head down the path to the docks when Anika stepped out from behind a hedge, appearing suddenly as she often did from the dense foliage she scrupulously attended to.

  "Your cop friend was here," she said. "She wanted to look over the shower again. Took a bunch of pictures. Wouldn't let me talk to her. A hearse took Myron over to New London on the last boat before they closed for the storm. He's going to the medical examiner. Grace wasn't happy about it, but the cops have all the say, apparently. She followed the hearse to the mainland. You think somebody killed him, so I guess that's alright with you."

  I looked around the property.

  "Make sure everything's tied down," I said. "Could have a bit of wind."

  "Oh, geez, you're right. Never thought of that."

  In fact, the area had been scoured of unanchored objects and the shutters on the first floor of the hotel closed and latched.

  "Sorry," I said. "I'm projecting boat anxiety."

  "You should go look after her," she said.

  "I should."

  "But not before I show you my painting."

  "Your painting."

  "Up on the third floor. In my studio. I told you I'd show it to you and this is probably the last chance I'll have before I turn into Dorothy and get blown out to sea."

  She wore a pair of paint-splattered denim overalls over a white tank top that made only a weak effort at containing her upper body. Sweat gathered on her upper lip and across her forehead-despite the cooling winds-and dampened the hair at the edge of her scalp. As if noticing me noticing, she used the back of her arm to wipe it clear.

  "As long as I can bring the dog. Never look at art without a critic by your side."

  The ceilings were high in the Black Swan, so the third floor was more of a climb than expected. The last leg was up a steep and narrow enclosed staircase that building codes had disqualified fifty years ago. It was a true attic, unfinished and rich in woody mothball smells. Anika asked me to hold Eddie while she put Eloise in a travel case.

  "Your dog might be okay with my cat. Not sure about the other way around," she said.

  She was gone a few moments, then came back and let me in the door. She flicked on a switch that fired up a bank of bright can lights that exposed a huge canvas running parallel with the ridge of the hotel and standing nearly as high. I voiced my first thought.

  "How're you going to get it out of here?"

  She walked to the end of the attic and patted the wall.

  "Through the gable between these studs. With a crane."

  "That's okay with your dad?"

  She gave me the same look I got when I suggested she properly prepare for a big storm. A friendly blend of insulted sensibilities and patient tolerance.

  "I own half the joint, pal," she said. "It's okay with us."

  I only half heard her, since I'd already been swept up by the painting itself. It was a rectangular concoction of precisely rendered swirls, each formed by a slightly different palette of colors and shades. Taken as a whole, it was an orderly composition, but as you moved in closer, greater variation was revealed, especially where seemingly separate swirls intersected.

  "Interesting," I said.

  "Doesn't that usually mean something sucks?"

  "No. It means the painting's interesting. I like looking at it."

  "You an art lover?" she asked.

  "Not exactly. I just like the stuff I like. How did you get half the Swan?"

  "Nosy, nosy. Axel and I sold the Subversive stock my father gifted us when we were born, when it wasn't worth so much. The Swan was my idea, so I put my money where my mouth was."

  "You're a programmer, too?"

  "I did a little as a kid. Nothing like Axel, who was all in. It was the Fey family's version of fun. Other girls played dress-up and went on vacations. I wrote code."

  "And painted pictures," I said.

  "And painted pictures. Axel joined Subversive. But I found art a better way to express an analytical creation than i's and o's. Left brain, right brain. The only part of me that's in balance."

  "Balance is over-rated."

  "Maybe by your standards," she said. "I know your whole history. I think imbalanced and out-of-control were two of the more flattering adjectives applied to you."

  "Don't
believe everything you Google," I said, pointing over at a flat screen monitor hooked up to a CPU.

  "You didn't tell me you ran a big lab, and that the lab ran on N-Spock," she said. "You missed out on the later versions. They're a lot more robust."

  "Can't say the same for me. My earlier version had a leg up."

  "That's not what I see," she said, moving closer. "Design engineers really do it for me."

  "Anika," I said, "no go. One woman at a time is complicated enough."

  "That's entirely no fun at all."

  "You should have thought that through when you marooned yourself on an island."

  To punctuate the point, a gust of wind slapped the window at the gable end of the attic. We both looked over.

  "It's just a sou'wester," said Anika. "The Swan's been through a lot worse than that."

  "I should get back to the boat."

  "Next time a girl invites you up to look at her paintings, you'll know what to expect."

  Before I could react, she kissed me on the cheek. Her lips were fuller and softer than Amanda's and her smell a rougher sort, though more than pleasant enough. I headed for the staircase and she followed.

  Back out on the docks, I could see that conditions had continued to deteriorate. There were now white caps out in West Harbor, which generally meant about fifteen knots of steady wind speed. The breakwater was still holding the worst of it back, but the chop just outside the docks was hardly restrained. I re-checked the dock lines and the placement of fenders around the Carpe Mariana and made a few adjustments. There's an unwinnable debate among sailors over where to weather a storm-out of the water, in the water, at a mooring, tied up at a dock, and so on. Unwinnable because you only knew the right answer after your decision proved to be disastrously wrong.

  When the light drizzle that had greeted me when I came down from the attic turned to solid rain, I climbed aboard and went below, where Amanda had a late breakfast waiting. She looked a little nervous, but wouldn't admit she was. I ate my food then took Eddie out for what could be the last time for a while. As confirmation, the rain fell harder, now slanted by the force of the wind.

  I got us below again as lightning lit up the sky, and a crack of thunder followed seconds later, betraying the lightning's proximity. Eddie had spent the first two years of his life living in the pine barrens of Long Island, a feral dog directly connected to the natural world. I think that explained why he gave little notice to things like thunder and lightning, or heavy rainfall. I couldn't say the same about his human shipmates, as we anxiously battened down the hatches, entombed in the luxurious yellow-lit cherry cabin, hunkered down to wait it out.