Black Swan (A Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mystery)

by Chris Knopf

  "If that's a requirement, it's a good thing you asked me first. Some of my neighbors have a taste for thuggery. The security guys would be the last people you'd want involved in this."

  I thanked him.

  "As far as the Swan goes," he said, "the previous owners are distant cousins of mine. Though not exactly the Hatfields and McCoys, our families have never gotten along. It didn't help that I had to break their bartender's arm when he tried to bounce me from the place. I was in Special Forces during the first Gulf War and I don't like people touching me without my permission."

  "So that's what killed the deal?" I said.

  "Hardly. The greedy bastards would never let principle stand between them and a U.S. dollar."

  "So what happened?"

  "Outbid. The other side offered twice as much as I did, and I offered twice as much as the place was worth. I didn't want it that badly."

  "Obviously Fey did."

  "If by Fey you mean Christian Fey, that's not who we dealt with," said Desi, reaching down to scratch one of the Great Danes between the ears.

  "His lawyers?"

  Desi shook his head.

  "It was the girl. Anika. Can't call it a bidding war since it was over after the first skirmish. What the hell, her money."

  "Literally hers?" I asked.

  "According to my dopey cousins, though who knows with a family like that. Whose boat are you delivering, if you don't mind me asking."

  "Burton Lewis. I owe him a lot of favors, and there're worse ways to pay down the debt."

  He made another subtle hand signal and the dogs jumped up and galloped away. He walked over to me and offered his hand.

  "Luther Arness. I've known Burt since the regatta days," he said, proving the suspicion that all old money rich guys belonged to the same fraternity. "Good sailor, poof or not."

  "A good man, poofness and all," I said.

  He held up both hands.

  "Sorry. You're right. No offence intended."

  "None taken. I asked him if he could pull a string or two and get some cops over here. Maybe you could do the same. I'm told you're the king of the island."

  He chuckled.

  "Only when they're looking for something from me. Doesn't matter. Somebody's got to preserve this place."

  "That meatball who runs your fuel dock thinks it's his job."

  "Track? He is a meatball. He was part of the deal when I bought the place."

  "If you want him healthy enough to keep running it, tell him to back off," I said.

  "You ex-military?" he asked me.

  "Ex-juvenile delinquent."

  He let me go after I described Burton's boat as well as I could in the face of daunting technical questions.

  "Marine architecture's a hobby of mine," he said, as a form of apology. "I'm thinking of building myself a boat in the garage over there. Once I find a place for all the cars. Or maybe I should just build a workshop somewhere else," he said, looking around the vast property, his voice falling off as the thought circulated around his mind.

  "Good thing I'm not married," he added. "Workshops are the kind of things wives hate."

  I almost suggested he get to know Anika Fey as more than a reckless spendthrift, but didn't know how to frame the concept. Instead, I just thanked him again and drove off in the Mercedes. Sacco and Vanzetti came out of nowhere and followed me to the curve in the drive, then peeled off and loped back out of sight.

  I spent another two hours of unmolested time wandering around the country club, holding to the faint hope that I'd spot Axel or some clue to his whereabouts. Though the odds were long, I didn't see it as entirely fruitless, remembering what my cop friend Joe Sullivan said about professional detective work: "Most of our success comes from the ability to withstand the kind of boring crap that would kill an ordinary person."

  At the end of those two hours I'd gotten nowhere, but the boredom came to an end when a little blue and white car plastered with insignias and flashing a roof-mounted yellow light careened around me and put on its brakes. I slowed as the car slowed and stopped when it pulled to the side of the road. I waited until a guy got out, then went around him and continued on my way. In my rear view mirror I saw him scramble back into his car, which quickly sped up behind me again, its headlights blinking along with the yellow bubble-gum machine. I ignored him.

  This continued until we came to a relatively straight patch of road, which he used to race past me and then skid to a stop, the rear end of the car swinging around until it effectively blocked my passage. I considered ramming him, but I wasn't driving my own car. I watched the guy leap out and stalk over to my door, which he rapped with his knuckles.

  He was a young guy, with a pale, blotchy and almost hairless face. He wore a generic security guard's uniform, including a military hat, out from which sprang sprigs of thin red hair.

  "What the hell are you doing?" he said, when I rolled down the window.

  "Driving down the street. What the hell are you doing?"

  "This is private property."

  I looked around.

  "Looks like a street to me," I said.

  "It's a private street."

  "So what?"

  "What are you doing here?" he asked.

  "Joy riding."

  He looked into the back seat where the Feys had left some plastic bags filled with who-knows-what.

  "What's in the bags?" the guy asked.

  "None of your business."

  "I need to examine those bags," he said.

  "Not a chance."

  "Get out of the car," he said.

  He reached in the window and grabbed my shirt collar.

  "Get out."

  I shoved the door open with my shoulder, crashing it into his knees. He let go of my shirt and staggered back a few feet.

  "Touch me again and I'll break your face," I said.

  I saw him reach for his belt where a nasty-looking nightstick hung in a holster.

  "You can't do that," he said.

  "I just did," I said, and putting the Mercedes in reverse, backed up into a three-point turn and drove off in the opposite direction. A moment later he was behind me again flashing all his lights, but this time I didn't let him get ahead of me. Using Gwyneth's map, I took a few turns and found my way back to the gatehouse. By then another little blue and white car had joined the parade. I assumed they'd turn off when I left the club, but they kept at it. So I drove another hundred feet, slowed and pulled off to the side of the road.

  The young guy jumped out of his car, yelled fuck and slammed the door. As he came toward me he pulled the nightstick out of its holster. I left the Mercedes and moved toward him at the same pace, so when he raised the stick we had some combined momentum. I grabbed his wrist with one hand and midway up the stick with the other. Then I snapped it into his face, cracking him on the forehead. He stayed on his feet, but lost his grip on the nightstick. I pulled it free and continued on to the next car, out of which came a much bigger guy, meaty around the shoulders and bloated at the waist. He was older, with a Pancho Villa moustache and a greasy, florid face.

  He also had a nightstick on his belt. And a gun.

  Before he had a chance to figure out which one to draw, I got my foot behind his heels and bashed him on the chest with my elbow. The air woofed out of his lungs when he slammed to the ground. As he tried to catch his breath, I dropped down and stuck a knee in his sternum, giving him something else to grapple with while I dug his gun out of the holster. It was an old-fashioned police revolver, I guessed a thirty-eight caliber Smith & Wesson. I stuck it in the rear waistband of my pants. Then I stood up and looked behind me for the other guy, but he was flat on his ass, holding his head with both hands.

  I walked back to the Mercedes, tossing the nightstick on the ground in front of him as I passed by.

  "Try to be more patient with people," I told him. "It'll serve you better."

  In my rear view, I could see the flashing lights reflected in the trees
, dwindling with each curve of the road, eagerness for further pursuit apparently spent.

  (

  Jackie Swaitkowski called my cell as I was pulling back into the Swan's parking lot. This time I answered.

  "Did you get my email?" I asked.

  "I did. I can't believe it."

  "You don't have to believe anything if you understand the instructions."

  "I'll need help on the legalities, assuming I can't talk you out of it," she said.

  "Burton will help."

  "Help you come to your senses, I hope."

  "Just see what you can do," I said. "We can discuss my senses another day."

  When I walked into the foyer of the Swan, Christian Fey was on a ladder holding a wall sconce with one hand and using a pair of needle-nose pliers to dig around its internal regions with the other.

  "Hope you turned off the circuit breaker," I said.

  He looked down at me, expectantly.

  "No sign of Axel," I said. "You haven't heard from him?"

  He frowned and shook his head.

  "Nothing. Very frustrating." He went back to the sconce. "The wiring in this place is an electrical fire waiting to happen."

  "What made you decide to buy the place?" I asked. "Not much of an investment when you consider the costs."

  He looked down at me.

  "With all due respect, Mr. Acquillo," he said. "I've had a far smoother transition from the corporate world than yourself."

  "You can say that again. Though you might not know all the facts."

  "I'm sure I don't," he said. "And neither do you."

  "Where're your other guests?"

  "Out doing what you were doing. Looking for Axel."

  "You sure that's a good idea?" I asked. "What if they find him?"

  He gently let go of the sconce, letting it hang from the wall by its wiring. He climbed down the ladder and went into the bar. He took out two bottles of water and handed me one.

  "What did you mean by that?" he asked, in a low voice.

  "You don't know what made him run off. Maybe it was them."

  "And why would that be?" he asked, whether he really wanted to know, or knew already and wanted confirmation, was a hard call. I couldn't help him either way.

  "Beats me, but you can't ignore a simple correlation."

  "There's nothing simple about Axel."

  "Or you," I said. There was a lot I wanted him to tell me, but I didn't know how hard to push. He was still ostensibly in charge of the place, and without Anika's contrivances, I knew I wouldn't get too far. "None of this is any of my business, and you can tell me to shut up and go away anytime you want, but I gotta ask you one question."

  He neither agreed nor disagreed, so I kept going.

  "Why do you want to help those jamokes with N-Spock 5.0 when they treated you like such crap?"

  "You seem to think you know something about my business affairs."

  "Two can play the Google game," I said. "There's a lot out there, and I can guess what isn't."

  This amused him.

  "I wouldn't be so sure about that," he said. "And you're right, it isn't any of your business," he added, though not as harshly as the words would suggest.

  Anika came into the room. She examined our faces, as if to glean from there the topic of our conversation.

  "No luck?" she asked me.

  I shook my head.

  "But I did meet Desi Arness. And Sacco and Vanzetti, the best trained anarchists on record."

  She arched her eyebrows.

  "Oh? And what did they have to offer?" she asked.

  "Nothing useful. I hear you outbid Desi for the Swan."

  "That was easy," said Fey, "his heart wasn't in it. He already owns most of the island, anyway. They're better off with at least one landmark out of his hands."

  "But it was all friendly," I said.

  "Oh, sure," said Anika, before her father could answer. "We want to get along with everybody."

  I didn't think I'd learn more from Fey at that point, and Anika wouldn't speak freely in front of him, so I had to settle for small talk before excusing myself and going back outside. The storm had caused the trees to lose some of their color, but it still looked like autumn-the red, yellow and orange tones deepening as the sun headed toward the horizon. And felt like autumn, with erratic bursts of the northwesterly slipping the chill air under my windbreaker and burning my cheeks.

  I'd returned the key to the station wagon, so I decided to walk to the western end of the island to check on the arrival of the replacement Fishers Island State Police force.

  I went directly to the ferry office, which was back in operation. A piece of plywood covered the broken windowpane. Behind the ticket counter sat a woman with a thick head of frizzy red hair, parted in the middle and brushed down to her shoulders. Her face, too old for the hair, was high-cheekboned with an angular nose and pointed chin.

  "So you're back in business," I said.

  "Never should've been out, but yes. We are. With reduced runs. Here."

  She slid a computer print-out of the temporary schedule across the counter.

  "Do you know if there's a state cop back on duty?"

  She turned around and looked toward the barracks, as if she could see through the walls.

  "There should be, Lord knows. We could call."

  She picked up a phone and dialed a number read off a piece of paper taped to the counter.

  "I just wanted to see if someone was here," she said into the phone. "I'm calling from the ferry office."

  She nodded a few times, then looked about to get off when I asked if I could talk to the person on the other end of the phone. She gave up the receiver with some reluctance.

  "Not too long," she said. "That's our only line."

  "Officer, this is Sam Acquillo," I said into the phone.

  "Stay where you are," said a deep male voice. "I'll pick you up."

  I didn't know what being picked up implied, but I was committed. I thanked the red-haired woman and went outside to wait. In a few minutes Poole's cruiser pulled up, driven by a young guy in a New York State trooper's uniform. He had very clear brown skin and a close-cropped mat of black hair. When he got out of the car I saw he was about my height, but had a few inches on me at the shoulders. His handshake telegraphed plenty of reserve power. A pair of round, thin black-framed glasses perched on the end of his nose.

  He introduced himself as Ashton Kinuei.

  "Glad you finally got here," I said.

  "Just an hour ago. We launched as soon as the marine bureau got the okay. Still a bit bumpy. Trooper Poole sends her regards."

  He told me she was going into surgery to repair the damage inside her mouth, but was otherwise in recovery mode. He asked me if I knew who did it.

  "No idea," I said. "But I can tell you what I do know."

  We sat in the cruiser while I briefed him on everything I could remember, leaving out the altercation with the two security meatballs. I had no idea how that one would go, but I was hoping professional embarrassment over getting their asses kicked and the fact that they'd attacked me outside the club would keep it under wraps. Though the one guy's missing sidearm might take some explaining.

  Kinuei typed steadily on a small laptop while I talked, interrupting with apologies to clarify a point or to spell a name. I felt the repressed grip of anxiety loosen from around my heart as I listened to his calm, deliberate manner. I thought at that moment, all will be well.

  "You have a series of events and impressions here," he said, "but no beliefs or conclusions. Anything you're not sharing?"

  He looked up from his tiny computer over the top of his glasses.

  "I'm an engineer. We're congenitally committed to empirical reasoning. Sure, I have some guesses. But I can't support them with anything more than a hunch. And my experience with police investigations is to keep my hunches to myself until there's at least a shred of corroboration."

  "I'm told you've had more than you
r share of that type of experience. From both sides of the equation."

  "Yes, sir. Which I hope only supports my approach."

  He went back to his laptop and tapped out a few more lines. He wasn't a small guy, but his fingers were long and lean, and he typed like a jazz pianist. I waited.

  "You have friends in interesting places," he said, then looked over at me again, his expression both amused and filled with admonition. "I don't care."

  "Me, neither," I told him. "I just wanted to get somebody out here. The whole situation's got me a little nerved out."

  "So about the barracks' ordnance ..."

  I reached in the pocket of my windbreaker.

  "Here's Glock one," I said, tossing it on the seat. "I hid the other. The Remington's out of reach for a little while. I'll get 'em back to you as soon as I can. No worries on that. I hate guns."

  "I'm sure you will," he said, expressing both warning and conviction.

  He drove me back to the Swan where I introduced him to Anika and Christian Fey, who had mixed reactions. Fey nearly beamed with relief, Anika stood back, her jagged smile at half-mast. I felt sorry that they had to go through another grilling, this time with added content, but they couldn't expect the cop to be a mind-reader. As I listened to them, it became clear that Ashton Kinuei was more than a grade above the already well-trained New York State trooper. Erudition sweated off his carefully articulated sentences.

  When the interview drifted into technical esoterica, he didn't blink. After a half-hour survey of contemporary software development processes and protocols, including a brief diversion into the pros and cons of fifth generation programming language, from both technological and sociological perspectives, Kinuei said, "I will need to speak to Mr. Hammon and Mr. 't Hooft. Are they available?"

  "They're out sightseeing," said Fey. "I expect them back for dinner."

  "You'd be amazed at how much you can see in four square miles," I said.

  "They're also looking for my son," said Fey.

  "Any intellectual property disputes relating to your company's software is out of my jurisdiction," said Kinuei. "Unless it connects to the death of Mr. Sanderfreud. Should I be pursuing that avenue of inquiry?" he asked Fey, his face a wall of professional remove.