Black Swan (A Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mystery)

by Chris Knopf

  't Hooft and Hammon wore short sleeved shirts, Hammon's a supple silk and 't Hooft's a polo with the logo of a Connecticut casino on the chest. Both had muscular arms, attached to contrasting body types. Hammon was all veiny sinew and 't Hooft resembled a long-legged sumo. They sat away from the others at a table with Christian Fey, with whom they were locked in deep conversation when I entered the room.

  "Just checking on everyone," I said to Anika. "Heading for the disco?" I added, looking at her outfit.

  "I can only get away with this when the lights are low," she said.

  I was glad the lights weren't all that low, and would have said so if I hadn't wanted to discourage what that comment might elicit.

  "We'd planned on installing a generator," she said. "Just hadn't gotten around to it. How're you on the boat?"

  "Fine. Plenty of battery power, and there's the engine. As long as we have fuel, we're good to go."

  Axel, who'd been sitting with Del Rey, walked over.

  "The worst of the storm is over," he said. "The wind's now dead east, and slipping toward the north. That'll pull in more high pressure air as the storm front moves off the coast."

  "And that's your weather report from WAXL, Fishers Island, New York," said Anika.

  "She thinks I'm a dork," he said.

  "You are a dork. Dorks rule the world."

  He smiled. They'd had this exchange before.

  "They do," he said, convincingly.

  "Sam's a dork himself," said Anika, "he just doesn't want you to know it."

  "Hardly ruling the world. Quite the contrary."

  "Okay, former dork," she said.

  "I could never memorize pi beyond a few dozen digits," I said.

  Axel looked at his sister.

  "I could go on forever if I wanted," he said.

  "Good memory," I said.

  "I don't memorize, I calculate."

  "So why don't you want to, go on forever?" I asked.

  "I'm done with the freak show," he said. "It's no different than the boy with two heads, or the bearded lady. They stare at you in horror."

  "Axel can do things like tell you which day of the week you were born on. Rain Man stuff," said Anika. "For which people call you an idiot."

  "Must come in handy when you're writing software," I said.

  "You don't 'write software,' " said Axel, disgusted. "You develop code. The words matter. All software is code. It's not a fucking story that you write, like Alice in Wonderland."

  "Watch the language," said Anika, frowning at Axel.

  "You're not a freak, Axel," said Del Rey, joining the conversation. "You're a genius. I heard the whole thing," she said to me. "Got ears like a cocker spaniel."

  Axel looked pleased by her defense.

  "Chris had him working at Subversive when he was just a little boy," she said. "Ultra-illegal of course, though it's not like child slavery. Axel loved being there. So did Annie," she added, using the long 'a' as in Anika. "We all babysat for them, at work and home. Made it feel like a family business. We were like family," she said, in the insistent way you do when someone had once disputed your assertion.

  "A family like in Addams," said Axel.

  "Del Rey still works in the shop," said Anika. "She does quality assurance for the boneheads in development. Catches all their screw-ups."

  "Not all," she said. "I can be pretty boneheaded myself. Good thing the boss's sleeping with me."

  She looked at Anika and Axel as if expecting to be refuted, but they were silent.

  "This is the longest I've ever spent in conversation without a drink. Do you still have ice?" I asked Anika.

  She smiled at me and strolled over to the bar, narrowly avoiding multiple collisions between her hips and the bar furniture. I got the feeling that little black dress had seen its share of underlit rooms.

  "She's so cute," said Del Rey. "And Axel, stop looking. She's your sister."

  Axel spun 180 degrees on his bar-stool and folded his arms like a rebellious child. Del Rey shook her head and whispered in my ear, "A mother would've helped."

  Anika brought me a vodka on the rocks in a half-gallon cocktail glass. Then we all toasted the Black Swan and its steadfast defiance of inclement weather.

  "It got moved off its foundation in '38, so they just dug a new one where she sat," said Anika. "Better than the old. Since then the water-line's risen, so we might be moving her again."

  "You call her 'she'-like a ship," said Del Rey. "I like that."

  "She might be a ship if the water keeps rising," said Anika.

  The conversation from there wandered a bit, as did my attention, which was drawn to the three men in the corner. Even in the candlelight it was clear a serious topic was at hand. Fey and Hammon both leaned out over the table till they were barely a foot from each other's face. 't Hooft sat back a bit, but listened intently.

  According to the commentary we read at Gwyneth Jones' place, Derrick Hammon had contributed to the original N-Spock application. But soon after the company was established, he'd moved to the business side, leaving Fey to focus on technology. Sanderfreud had always been the financial guy, which included liaison with public and private investors. Watching the two men bend into their conversation, I wondered how big a hole the oversized Sanderfreud had left in the structure of their relationship.

  This thought was interrupted by Anika handing me a stack of plates.

  "I know you didn't get any of the food," she said, "but since you're standing there ..."

  I followed her with a large load of used dinnerware down a hall guided only by the penlight I held in my mouth. In the kitchen, lit by dozens of candles and a few electric lanterns, she showed me where to unload.

  "There's plenty of tenderloin in the big 'fridge," she said. "We'll only have to throw it out if the power doesn't come on by tomorrow."

  "I'm all set."

  She handed me another vodka, mysteriously transported in with the dirty dishes. She had a full glass of red wine.

  "Tricks of the waitress trade," she said, toasting me.

  "Do you know what's going on?" I asked her.

  "There's a storm outside?"

  "Why Hammon's here. Why Sanderfreud was sent for after Hammon arrived. What he's talking to your father about."

  "Now there's a new level of nosiness. No, I don't know any of those things, but I have a guess or two, which are none of your business."

  "It's about N-Spock 5.0," I said. "They're not ready to launch in January and they need your father's help. Or advice. Or something."

  "How would you know that?" she asked.

  "I'm not a professional interpreter of body language, but Hammon looked like he was trying to press a point and your father looked like he was resisting. He shook his head ten times to every one of Hammon's."

  "Were you really innocent, or did you kill that guy in Southampton?"

  "Googling are we?" I asked. "Nice try, but I'm impervious to distractions."

  "Oh yeah?" she asked, taking one of the shoulder straps of the little black dress and slipping it over her shoulder, causing most of the supported breast to come into view.

  "I didn't kill him," I said. "The real killer confessed. That's a settled matter. Did Axel work on N-Spock 5.0?"

  She frowned and pulled the strap back over her shoulder.

  "My brother's off-limits."

  "Jennifer Poole, the state police trooper who was investigating Myron's hanging was beaten nearly to death today. The coast guard had to evacuate her off the island, leaving us without a local police presence. In a storm. Poole was convinced Sanderfreud was murdered. Don't pretend you aren't sophisticated enough to grasp all the implications."

  She cleared a space to sit on the counter where we'd dumped the dirty dishes. It took a couple hops, restrained by the tight dress, but eventually she made it. I leaned against the opposite wall and nursed the vat of vodka.

  Anika used her fingers to brush back her shiny black hair.

  "My fat
her created N-Spock and knew everything there was to know about the application. But as you well know, the people who create things are rarely the ones who benefit financially from their creativity. That goes to the people who buy and sell their work. The business people, the money people. Still, my father is a rich man, richer than he needs to be to live the way he wants. So what's the point in being some asshole's workhorse for the rest of your life? Why not get out while you can still enjoy the fruits of your labor? That's what he did."

  "Obviously not out far enough," I said.

  "You'd have to ask him about that. He's still my father. Only tells me what he wants to tell me."

  I downed most of the heroic glass of vodka, and put the glass on the counter.

  "I need to get back to the boat. If you need me for anything, don't hesitate."

  "You realize the irony in that statement."

  I crossed the distance between us and kissed her on the cheek, then left the hotel by the French doors in the back. It was still tempestuous, but true to Axel's prediction, the corner was turned. The part of me on edge because of the storm let go, filling me with a soothing calm. Looking back on the Swan, it was still dark and uneasy. Ahead, the portholes of the Carpe Mariana were aglow, and I caught just the hint of movement aboard, probably Amanda fussing around the cabin, fixing up plates of unannounced delectables, scrunching around Eddie's sensitive jowls and otherwise enjoying an existence that was far from predestined and the source of constant revelation.

  I headed in that direction.

  The next morning was sharp and brilliant as the edge of a razor. At 7:00 AM the sky was a deep blue, cloudless and unperturbed. For some reason, the wind had missed the memo, and was still blowing with unabated wrath. I'd seen this before with autumn storms, beautiful deceptive killers.

  I pulled myself out of the quarter berth and checked the instrument panel. Shore power was still out, but the batteries were barely tapped. I flicked on the gas valve and fired up the stove for coffee. When I poured the boiling water into the plastic French press, over a mound of Costa Rican select, Amanda stirred.

  "Could you pour some of that down my throat?" she asked.

  For Eddie, the smell of coffee portended a different experience. He waited patiently at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the companionway while I put on whatever clothes were within reach. Now familiar with his surroundings, he made a beeline to a cluster of hydrangea at the back of the Swan, into which he disappeared just long enough to take care of things, then ran back down the center dock.

  Back on board, I used the radio to check the NOAA weather report, which foretold a slow decline in wind speed during the day, with the promise of gentle winds tomorrow.

  The storm was all but over.

  We celebrated with a large breakfast, recklessly depleting our provisions on the assumption that we'd be shopping at the Southampton delis long before we ran out of food.

  I dug the dinghy and related equipment out of the deep lazarettes and put it all back together again. After that I took Eddie over to the pebble beach so he could run around for a while and get out the kinks. I brought my coffee with me, which I would have enjoyed more with a cigarette, but I'd quit, for the second time in my life. The first time was when I was around twenty-five, never having quite acquired the habit. In those days I was trying to sustain a career as a professional boxer, and the training was hard enough with clear lungs. I took up smoking again about twenty-three years later, the day I lost my job, left my home and wife, lost all my money and essentially burned my life to the ground. Adding a deadly habit didn't seem like such a big deal at the time.

  Things had improved since then. The route had been circuitous, but I was better for the trip. When I was living on the bottom of a ditch, self-reflection had seemed a meaningless endeavor, so I sought a blank calm, an unknowingness that would decouple waking consciousness from all that aching sadness and regret. To maintain this state of mind in the face of undeniably improved well-being seemed churlish and vain.

  Instead, I'd begun to count blessings the way I once catalogued guilt and remorse. While not what most people would consider an ideal romance, Amanda and I had found an equilibrium capable of sustaining the relationship. We lived together at the end of a peninsula, albeit in separate houses. We were both in the building trades, though in separate ways-she a general contractor and me a journeyman carpenter and cabinetmaker. She tolerated the few friends I'd made (with the exception of Burton Lewis, whom she adored), and they tolerated her, but she never begrudged time spent with them and I never asked about times away from me, frequent occasions that were unannounced and rarely explained.

  I knew from my daughter Allison that some of these episodes involved the two of them cavorting around New York City. This constituted the greatest and most mysterious blessing of all. Allison had spent the first twelve years of her life trying to engage my attention, exerting the full force of her yearning will, and yielding the most meager of returns. She'd spent the next twelve, give or take, hating me for it, an inclination aided, abetted and reinforced at every opportunity by her mother. I got to it late, and only when there was almost nothing left of my life, but we'd more or less brought our relationship back from the dead. But then to have her magically connect with Amanda was astounding.

  And I'd lived to see it, an outcome that was far from an eventuality. In fact, on several occasions the odds were heavily weighted the other way. So whatever time I had left I decided to treat as a bonus, out of respect for which I'd make some effort to support the cause.

  (

  I didn't have the heart to put Eddie back on the leash, but we were still in an untested environment. So I compromised by forcing him to heel, something he would do if convinced I really meant it. A few carefully chosen words were usually all it took.

  Thus configured, we were nearly at the boat when I heard someone running up from behind. It was Anika.

  She gripped my arm with both hands and said, "I'm not ready to panic yet."

  "Over what?"

  "I can't seem to locate Axel."

  "Does he like to disappear?" I asked.

  "No. That's sort of the point. He likes to cling."

  "What about your dad?"

  "He's pretending to be unconcerned, but he took off in the car a few minutes ago to search the roads. I've already looked all over the hotel and around the Harbor Club. I don't think Axel's been anywhere else on the island by himself."

  "It's not that big an island," I said.

  "Big enough. Though he can't get lost. He has a map of the place in his head."

  "We could report a missing kid, but there's no one to report to."

  "Technically, he's not a kid. He turned eighteen last month. Of course, if you say he's autistic, there's no problem. As if he's retarded or something, which he's anything but. I hate that label."

  I pulled her along to the boat as we talked so I could deliver Eddie to Amanda. I asked Anika to wait for me, and went below to explain things.

  "What's next?" said Amanda. "Are you going to lead the local militia against an invading horde?"

  "You remember how to start the engine and drive the boat?" I asked.

  "I do. Why?" she asked, stretching 'why' into two syllables.

  I pulled a detailed chart of Fishers Island out of the navigation table.

  "We're here," I said, pointing to the waterway beyond the breakwater. "Up here on the eastern shore of West Harbor, there's this little lagoon. The charts tell you it's too shallow for our draft, but that's not true if you follow this course."

  I used a pencil to draw a route from the Inner Harbor, through the breakwater, around a buoy and a cluster of rocks, and then through the narrow inlet, favoring the southern shore.

  "I've been there with Burton on a bigger boat than this. I've been tucking in there since I was a kid. It's part of a big estate and there's nothing on shore, no access roads or houses."

  "Why are you telling me all this?" she asked.
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br />   "Unless I radio and say to head straight for New London, this is our best bet. Don't make a big deal of it, just start the engine, untie the lines and slip away. I'll tie the dinghy off on the dock before I go, and meet you there as soon as I can."

  "You'll never stop scaring the hell out of me."

  "I'm just getting started," I said, pulling the shotgun out of the hanging closet. "Ever used one of these?"

  Before I gave her a lesson, I poked my head out of the companionway and reassured Anika I was coming. She had her arms clenched across her chest, holding herself. She said to meet her back at the hotel and to take my time, though she didn't mean that last part.

  Down below Amanda was staring incredulously at the Remington's long black barrel. As I loaded it, I gave her the essentials of safety and proper use. I don't like guns, and have never owned one. But as a young mechanical engineer, I'd made a study of their inner workings.

  "With a shotgun, you don't have to be a very good shot. Just aim the barrel in the general direction and pull the trigger. Try to stay on your feet. This model has a reduced recoil so a cop can get off a few shots at a time, but it still has plenty of kick."

  "You're saying this as if it's going to happen," she said.

  "Better to be ready."

  "For what?"

  "I don't know, but we're in the realm of three."

  "The realm of three?"

  "A term coined by a guy who taught me how to troubleshoot process applications. Two simultaneous coincident failures could easily be unrelated. The likelihood of coincidence drops dramatically after you hit three. Sanderfreud is killed. Poole beat up. Now Axel's missing. All in a short period of time. It's got my attention."

  Amanda and I had been through a lot together, so she wasn't completely unfamiliar with moments like these. Though past events never involved sailboats, hidden lagoons or pump-action shotguns. Or beautiful young artists.

  "This will make Anika happy, "said Amanda.

  "Her happiness isn't my concern," I said.

  "It isn't?"

  We stood and looked at each other, stopped in our tracks by a topic neither of us had ever broached.