The Blood Red Indian Summer

by David Handler

  CHAPTER 13

  WHITE SAND BEACH, WHICH was the only stretch of precious sand anywhere in town that was open to all Dorseteers, was a dinky little public beach by most people’s standards. Two hundred yards wide at most, with parking for no more than a few dozen cars. There was a covered picnic area with a couple of picnic tables. And, during the peak summer months, there was a lifeguard on duty watching over a roped-off swimming area. After Labor Day, there was nothing. Just sand.

  A pair of troopers from the Troop F barracks had secured the perimeter a half-mile back where Old Shore Road intersected Brighton and Seaside, the two roads that led down to the beach. News vans and satellite trucks were already crowded there. TV reporters were busy doing their stand-ups for the cameras. It sure hadn’t taken them long. They were the same mob who’d been camped out on Turkey Neck in front of the Grantham place. And nothing, but nothing, jump-starts news crews like a 911 call about a multiple homicide. They love blood. Anything with blood.

  The trooper who’d sealed off Brighton Road let Des in, and she eased her cruiser through the two-block-long colony of summer cottages, slowing for the speed bumps that had been installed years ago for the safety of the children who lived there. They were small, squat cottages that were nestled close together. Almost all had been in the same working-class New Britain and Hartford-area families for generations. Almost none were winterized. Since the calendar said it was nearly November, most of the cottages were already shuttered for the season. Only a few lights were on here and there.

  As she inched along between the speed bumps, Des saw a flash of lightning in the southern sky over Long Island. The storm was moving in fast. Soon, Mitch would be taking the salmon off the grill and the Bergers would be sitting down to eat. Des had insisted they go ahead without her. Ruth hadn’t cared for that idea. She wanted to wait for Des to return.

  “That’s very sweet of you,” Des said to her. “But I’m liable to be gone for hours and hours. Please enjoy your evening, okay?”

  The Deacon had come along for the ride. Sat right there beside her in the cruiser, big hands resting on his thighs, face impassive. The grown-up inside of Des was thrilled that he wanted to be at a crime scene again, be involved. This was a good sign. But her inner child definitely felt funny about him breathing down her neck while she was on the job. Not funny ha-ha. Funny freaked.

  A trooper was stationed at the entrance to White Sand Beach’s dimly lit parking lot. Another was posted over at the lot’s exit on Seaside. Traffic in and out of the lot was routed that way so the streets absorbed the beach flow evenly. When Des pulled into the lot, she encountered a hive of activity. The crime scene techies were there with their blue and white cube vans. So was the death investigator. Everyone was crowded around Andrea Halperin’s black Mercedes sedan. Bright camera flashes kept going off as they photographed the bodies, the car, the pavement surrounding the car, it all.

  “Your instincts were good,” the Deacon said as she pulled up and parked. “You thought something nasty might go down. You had it right.”

  “Daddy, that’s not giving me a whole lot of comfort right now.”

  “Wouldn’t expect it to. Sometimes, being smart can be a real curse.”

  “Now you tell me.” Des climbed out, giving her big hat a tug against the wind that gusted off the water. A few raindrops were starting to spatter.

  Yolie spotted her and came right over, shaking her head in amazement. “Damn, girl, I forgot how whack this town of yours is. It’s so peaceful here that you’d swear everyone’s on Prozac. Except every time I turn around somebody’s getting shot or poisoned or bashed over the head with a-a-a…” She broke off with a sputter, her eyes growing round as she realized who’d just climbed out of the passenger door of Des’s cruiser. “Deputy Superintendent Mitry, it’s great to see you up and around again, sir. How are you feeling?”

  “Hungry, Lieutenant. I was just sitting down to dinner when you called.”

  “I’m so sorry to break into your evening.”

  “You didn’t. Your shooter did. Besides, I’m not on active duty. Merely observing.”

  Toni scurried over to them now like an anxious little spaniel. “Good evening, Deputy Superintendent Mitry,” she exclaimed with a big smile. “So pleased to meet you, sir. I’m Sergeant Toni Tedone.”

  “Of course you are,” he said to her dismissively.

  Toni stood there with her mouth open. No sound came out.

  “Would you like me to run it for you, sir?” Yolie asked him.

  “Well, I didn’t come down here to inhale the sea air, Lieutenant,” he barked in response.

  This was the Deacon who Des knew. The Deacon whose intimidating presence could make even a hardened twenty-year veteran lose his lunch. She hadn’t seen this Deacon in a long while. It made her smile inside, she had to admit.

  “Sir, we have two victims in the front seat of the vehicle,” Yolie reported. “The passenger’s Stewart Plotka. The driver’s Andrea Halperin, his attorney. If you’ll come with me…” She started toward the Benz, Des and the Deacon following her. “Guys, could you step back for just one moment, please?” she asked the techies. “Thank you.… Her window was rolled down, sir. His wasn’t, as you can see by the shattered glass. The engine was running when we got here, and the air conditioning was on. It would appear that they were idling in comfort while they waited.”

  The Deacon stared at her. “Waited for?…”

  “I’m surmising that they had a prearranged meeting here with someone.”

  “You’re surmising this based upon what, Lieutenant?”

  “I’ll get to that in a moment, if you don’t mind. Miss Halperin probably rolled her window down when the shooter arrived. She took two in the forehead from point-blank range, here and here…” Yolie pointed to the wounds with a Bic pen. Andrea’s eyes were open wide. She had a totally shocked expression on her dead face. An expression that Des doubted she’d ever had in life. “Mr. Plotka took two to the left side of the head, as you can see. He was also shot once through his left hand and twice more in the chest. We make seven shots fired altogether. We just dug a nine-mil slug out of the armrest on Mr. Plotka’s side. It’s likely to be the shot that went through his hand.”

  “Did you find the weapon?” Des asked, head spinning and spinning.

  “No weapon.”

  A powerful gust of wind buffeted them. It was a chill wind. The air suddenly felt ten degrees colder. Lightning crackled in the sky over the Sound, followed one, two, three, four seconds later by a clap of thunder.

  “We’d better let these people get their work done before the rain comes,” the Deacon said, stepping under the overhang of the covered picnic area. Des, Yolie and Toni joined him there. “When did it go down, Lieutenant?”

  “A neighbor one house up on Brighton Road heard shots fired at two minutes past seven and phoned it in. And a young couple out walking on the beach phoned it in three minutes after that when they came upon the scene. The shooter was long gone by then. We took their statements and sent them on their way. The girl was pretty upset. We can reinterview them tomorrow.”

  “Did this neighbor hear the shooter drive away?”

  “No, sir. But if he exited the lot over there on Seaside, then our Brighton Road caller wouldn’t necessarily have heard him. I have men canvassing the neighbors on Seaside now.”

  “How about prior to the shooting? Did your Brighton Road caller observe either car entering the lot?”

  Yolie nodded. “The Benz. Not a second vehicle.”

  “And what does that tell you?”

  “The shooter could have come and gone on foot,” Des suggested. “Parked his car up by Old Shore Road. Approached the Benz nice and quiet in the darkness, let them have it, then hightailed it back to his car.”

  Yolie nodded. “I’m with you. We’re asking the neighbors if they saw anybody out walking or running.” She glanced uneasily at the Deacon. “Sir, we sealed off the perimeter ASAP but a couple of
tabloid photographers slipped through and ID’ed the victims before we could chase them off. So I’m afraid we’ve got ourselves a real circus.”

  “That can’t be helped. Just do your job and accept the fact that they’re doing theirs.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  There was another crackle of lightning followed almost instantly by a deafening clap of thunder. Rain began to hammer down on the roof over their heads.

  “Before I jump to an obvious conclusion I always pause to consider the less obvious,” the Deacon said, thumbing his jaw thoughtfully.

  Yolie frowned at him. “As in?…”

  “Is there any chance that your victims had become romantically involved? That they were down here admiring the sunset together and were attacked by a jealous lover?”

  “Stewart Plotka’s lady friend, Katie O’Brien, presently lives and works down in Boca Raton,” Des said. “I’m not up on Andrea Halperin’s love life but I doubt she’d go there. She was way out of Plotka’s league.”

  “There’s no telling who a woman will fall for,” he countered.

  “True enough,” Des allowed, wondering if she’d imagined that extra little edge she’d heard in his voice.

  “Lieutenant, you were surmising that your victims arrived here for a prearranged meeting with someone. Possibly a seven o’clock meeting given the time of the shooting. Who would that someone be?”

  “Well, that’s pretty clear,” Toni the Tiger spoke up. “I mean, isn’t it?”

  He turned his frosty gaze on her. “I’ve only been on this job for thirty-two years. Absolutely nothing is clear to me.”

  “If you ask me what I think, it reads Tyrone Grantham all the way,” she went on. “Da Beast made up his mind that Plotka raped Kinitra Jameson and decided to make him pay. The lawyer’s merely collateral damage.”

  The Deacon nodded his head slowly. “Fair enough, Sergeant. Except you neglected one critical detail.”

  “Which is what, sir?”

  “I didn’t ask you what you think.”

  “Yes, sir.” Toni gulped, her big-haired head beginning to swivel spasmodically atop her neck. “I mean, no, sir.”

  He turned back to Yolie now. “You had something more to tell me.”

  “Yes, I was just coming to that, sir.” Yolie held up a plastic evidence bag that had a cell phone inside. “It’s Andrea Halperin’s. Her most recent incoming call, at 6:33 p.m., came from the landline inside the Grantham home.”

  “Therefore, you’re surmising that someone in the Grantham home called her and arranged the meet. Does the time frame work?”

  “The victims were staying at the Saybrook Point Inn,” Des said. “That’s a fifteen-minute drive from here. Twenty if there’s traffic. It works.”

  The Deacon considered this for a moment. “What sort of a call would prompt the victims to jump in her car and drive down here at the drop of a hat?”

  “A settlement offer,” Des answered, shoving her heavy horn-rimmed glasses up her nose. “A nice, quiet settlement offer in a nice, quiet place. The victims stood outside Tyrone Grantham’s house this afternoon waving a red blouse for the cameras and challenging him to take a DNA test. It was not a good day for Team Grantham. Maybe Tyrone decided he was ready to shove some cash at them so they’d go away.”

  “Who’s authorized to negotiate such a settlement? Is Grantham’s attorney currently in Dorset?”

  “He wasn’t as of a few hours ago,” Des replied. “Although it’s certainly possible that he came out from New York late this afternoon.”

  “That’s not an acceptable answer,” he growled at her.

  “I’ll find out,” Des said quickly.

  “Much better.” The Deacon never showed her any favoritism—especially in front of others. “If his lawyer isn’t present then who would be authorized to negotiate a settlement?”

  “His brother, Rondell, handles all of his business affairs,” Yolie said. “Rondell also happens to be madly in love with Kinitra. I have a trooper posted outside her hospital room in case someone decides to pay her a visit. No one has, according to hospital security, but there’s no telling what we’re into now.”

  “It appears as if you’ve done a pretty fair job so far, Lieutenant,” the Deacon said. “Although your shooter did serve it up awful nice and easy by leaving Miss Halperin’s cell phone behind that way. You wouldn’t figure someone who’s smart enough to lure her down here would be dumb enough to leave such incriminating physical evidence behind. In fact, if I were you, I’d be wondering if someone’s playing with my head.”

  “I am wondering that, sir.”

  “What’s your next move?”

  “Paying a call on Tyrone Grantham.”

  “Mind if we tag along?”

  “Not at all,” Yolie responded, raising her chin at him. “As long as you remember one thing.…”

  The Deacon looked at her, stone-faced. “And what’s that?”

  “It’s my case.”

  “Good answer, Lieutenant.”

  * * *

  By the time they got to Turkey Neck the rain was coming down in blinding sheets. Des could barely make out Yolie’s taillights ahead of her as they sloshed around the bend to the Grantham place. And it was drumming so hard on the roof of the cruiser that she practically had to shout when she asked the Deacon if he wanted to borrow her hooded rain slicker. He didn’t. Of course he didn’t.

  When they reached Tyrone’s driveway, Yolie pulled in and lowered her window to talk to Oly, who’d taken cover inside his cruiser next to the gate. Most of the media throng had relocated to the double-homicide scene. The few who’d stayed put had sought refuge inside their own rides. But at the sight of two cruisers pulling into the driveway they jumped out and came splashing toward them, hollering and screaming for an update, a quote, something, anything. Des had nothing to say and refused to roll down her window. Just waited for Oly to open the gate so she could follow Yolie inside, the gate closing behind them.

  Yolie came to a stop almost immediately and got out.

  Des rolled down her window, feeling the hard, chilly rain on her face. “What’s up?”

  “Tyrone’s not home,” she reported, huddled inside her hooded rain jacket. “Oly said he drove off in his Escalade at about six-thirty and hasn’t come back.”

  “Was he alone?”

  “He was alone. Told Oly he was going to get some ice cream for Jamella.”

  “Ice cream,” the Deacon repeated, staring straight ahead.

  She dashed back to her car and jumped in and they followed her to the front entrance to the house.

  Clarence answered the door, looking wide-eyed and tense. He was also not his usual yappy self. Led them in silence into the vast, high-ceilinged living room where those six sharks swam restlessly, endlessly, inside their giant aquarium. Rondell, Jamella and Chantal were seated on the white leather sofas grimly watching CNN’s live news coverage of the White Sand Beach murders on the flat-screen TV. The rain-soaked correspondent, who stood under an umbrella at the Brighton Road perimeter, was reporting that Stewart Plotka and his attorney, Andrea Halperin, had been gunned down “gangland style” in the front seat of her late-model Mercedes at approximately 7:00 P.M. The correspondent also pointed out that Tyrone Grantham had left his luxurious waterfront estate on nearby Turkey Neck Road at approximately 6:30 P.M. in a black Cadillac Escalade and had not yet returned home. Thereby leaving viewers to connect the dots for themselves. It wasn’t exactly hard.

  When Rondell noticed them standing there with Clarence, he muted the sound on the TV. It fell silent in the room—except for the wind-driven rain that was pelting against the glass walls.

  Rondell and Chantal hadn’t met the Deacon yet. Des made the introductions. They were so distraught they barely seemed to hear her.

  “He just went out to get me some ice cream,” Jamella protested, plopped there forlornly on the sofa, her hands folded across her big belly. “That’s all he did.”

  “That�
��s right, hon,” Chantal said to her comfortingly. “Ain’t no law against that. Is there, Trooper Mitry?”

  Des mustered a faint smile. “No law at all.”

  Rondell could not stop fidgeting or clearing his throat. He was dressed way sportier than usual. Instead of a sober, neatly tucked oxford button-down, he wore a loose-fitting electric blue Hawaiian shirt emblazoned with a white palm tree. “I—I’ve tried him numerous times on his cell,” he stammered nervously.

  Yolie narrowed her eyes at him. “And?…”

  “He’s not picking up. Here, I’ll try again.…” Rondell hit speed dial and listened, shaking his head when the call went to voice mail. “It’s me, big man,” he said into the phone. “Please call me, will you?” He rang off, aware of Des’s eyes on him. “This shirt’s not me at all, is it?” he acknowledged self-consciously. “Tyrone bought it for me in Honolulu. It’s a genuine Tori Richard, whatever that means. Silly thing’s made of silk.”

  “It’s not silly at all,” Toni spoke up. “I think it’s beautiful.”

  Rondell looked at her in surprise. “Really?”

  “Where’s Calvin?” Yolie asked, glancing around.

  “In the pool house, last time I looked,” Chantal responded with a discernible chill in her voice.

  Yolie nodded to Toni. She immediately went marching off to fetch him.

  “And how about Monique?” Des asked Chantal.

  “She’s up in her room watching the TV.”

  “Ask her to join us, please.”

  “The girl’s simple. She don’t know nothing.”

  “Please ask her anyway.”

  Chantal craned her head around and yelled, “Monique?…”

  “What?…” Monique hollered back.

  “Get your ass in here, girl!”

  It took her a while but Monique came scuffing in. At the sight of all of them there, her dull-eyed gaze went down to the floor. “I do something wrong, Chantal?” she asked, standing there knock-kneed in her T-shirt and cutoffs.