by Chris Knopf
Not for lack of suspects. Everyone in the underground distribution chain had used his marine delivery services at one time or another, though no one really liked him personally, and he didn’t like any of them.
No wife, no girlfriend—or boyfriend—no group affiliations or notorious feuds, just a low-grade sociopath with a souped-up picnic boat and a penchant for risky business.
Despite the concentrated effort, there was more to read in the snitch files, but it was late, my eyes were sore, and a woman who made me promise to wake her up was quietly sleeping only a few doors away.
BEFORE I’D brought the Grand Prix to the repair guys to fix the rear window, I’d noticed in the daylight a rosy smear around an area that hadn’t quite busted through. My first thought was bloodstain, a thought that vanished from my consciousness almost as quickly as it arrived.
Until I saw the plastic sour cream container in my shop that held the salvaged piece of glass. I picked it out of the container with a pair of pliers and looked at it under a task light. The stain was still there, now dried a darker red, but unmistakable.
I slipped the shard into a zip loc bag and stuck it in my pocket.
I worked another few hours in the shop, then called Joe Sullivan.
“Say Joe, how close are you with the ME these days?” I asked him when he answered the phone.
“No closer than I have to be.”
“I think the guy who smashed in my rear window left a bloodstain. Do you think he’d run a DNA test for you?”
“I don’t answer ridiculous questions when I’m off duty.”
“They let you off duty?” I asked.
“Ask me tomorrow so I can officially say no.”
“No?”
“We can barely get DNA from a murder weapon these days. They’re backed up, like, fifty years,” he said.
“He’d do it for you.”
“No. But he might do it for Jackie.”
“Really?”
“I can submit it as evidence,” he said, “then she can tickle his tummy or whatever it takes to put it through sometime before the end of the century.”
I shook off the unwanted image before it could take hold.
“Okay. Can I bring it over?”
“I said I was off.”
“I know where you live. I’ll bring coffee.”
“Milk, no sugar,” he said, then hung up.
BACK IN the early twentieth century when regular middle-class neighborhoods were growing up around Southampton Village, it was common practice to put a little free-standing apartment at the back of the lot, often over a garage, to have a place to store surplus relatives, sometimes a maid or gardener, or even rent-paying boarders. Municipal planning had outlawed the practice for new construction, for no good reason, though grandfathered “mother-in-law” apartments and guesthouses endured, instantly hiking the value of any property thus endowed.
Joe Sullivan lived in one behind the home of a friend’s parents, local people thrilled to have such an eminent police presence in their neighborhood. Most of the other locals had sold out long before, converting the Hamptons’s breathtaking real estate inflation into bigger houses in South Carolina and unexpectedly sumptuous retirements.
Though crime in the area was nearly unheard of, the old couple was unnerved by all the summer homes left abandoned nine months out of the year.
The cottage Sullivan rented was a miniature version of the main house, enclosed in mature shrubbery and made no less quaint by the unmarked Ford Crown Victoria parked a few feet from the front door.
I rang the doorbell, waited a few minutes, then rang it again. Sullivan swung open the door, greeting me with a snarl.
“Repeated ringing of a doorbell doesn’t make a person answer any quicker,” he said.
“Now you tell me.”
He was wearing a sweat suit that loudly declared affiliation with the New York Giants. In his hand was a large coffee mug. On his feet were US Army desert-tan combat boots. I wondered where he’d stowed the lightweight .38 that never left his body.
He backed away from the door so I could enter a comfortable living area, unadorned, but clean and well lit, with a pair of plain fabric couches and a flat-screen TV.
“I brought reinforcements,” I said, holding up a large cup of coffee bought at the corner place in the Village.
We sat across from each other on the couches. He stuck out his mug and I filled it up. The sour, sugary smell of metabolizing alcohol scented the air.
“How’re you doing these days, Joe,” I asked.
He looked unhappy with the question.
“Never better. What about you? What’s with the grey hair?”
“It’s what happens when it doesn’t fall out.”
“Great. Something else to look forward to.”
Sullivan’s wife had left him the year before. She cited, fairly, his career’s lousy hours, dangerous working conditions, and short money. I’d never met her, but heard enough gritching in the background whenever I called him to guess the woman’s nature. I didn’t know how he felt about the whole thing, since we never talked about it.
“Or you could die early and avoid the whole thing,” I said.
“Thanks for the coffee,” he said, after taking a tentative sip.
“Pretty nice place,” I said, looking around.
“You have to live somewhere.”
I took the plastic bag with the glass shard and tossed it over to him.
“It’s from the busted rear window of my Grand Prix. You can see the red stain pretty clearly. Makes me think the idiot used his fist to punch out the glass.”
“Not easy to do,” he said.
“But possible if you know how.”
“Or you’re too dumb to know better.”
“Sure. If you’re dumb, but strong,” I said.
He put the bag in his sweatpants pocket.
“No promises.”
“Any progress on Alfie?” I asked.
His scowl, nearly gone, regained purchase on his face.
“It’s not going to be easy.”
“I don’t like that.”
He pulled himself up so he could rest his elbows on his knees, moving closer to his argument.
“No witnesses, no prints, no forensics. No suspects.”
“He was a snitch.”
“Nobody knew that,” he said.
“The cops knew. He said they were after him.”
He banged his mug down on the coffee table.
“He was my CI. Nobody else knew.”
“Ross knew. And Alfie could have spilled the beans to anyone. He was crazy, after all, as everyone likes pointing out.”
“We’re not talking Deep Throat here. He knew some shit, but nothing that should’ve got him killed. You think I’m happy about this? Tracking down killers is actually my job. And that freak was my responsibility. So take your fucking MIT, self-anointed moral paternalism and find somewhere else to peddle it.”
“Edith Madison anointed me. And don’t call her paternalistic. Would have to be maternalistic, but you’d know that if you went to MIT.”
He shook his head and downed the rest of his coffee. He said I could make another pot if I wanted more. I took our mugs into the kitchen where I found an ancient Mr. Coffee on the counter and a half-dozen empty beer cans in the trash. The only thing in the fridge was a quart of milk. There were frozen bagels in the freezer, but the cupboards were empty. Three-quarters of a case of beer was under the sink.
“What’re you looking for?” he called from the living room.
“Filters. Found ’em.”
When I brought out the coffee I asked him if he wanted to go grab some lunch. He said no.
“Got a busy day planned,” he said. “Checkin’ the fences on the back forty, rebalancing my portfolio, and damn, when am I going to finish that collection of tone poems? My fans’ll be at my throat.”
“Suit yourself.”
“That’s all I do now, Sam,”
he said, falling back into his couch as if shoved there by an invisible hand. “And all I’m ever going to do for the rest of my life. What there is of it.”
I left him there and went back outside where the summer heat had draped a sodden blanket over the East End, though somehow it felt more like a breath of fresh air.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I waited in Amanda’s bedroom for her to come out of the shower. I sat in the overstuffed chair she used to read in at night before making the four-foot journey to her king-sized bed. I wore an off-white linen suit and a yellow silk tie my ex-wife bought me back when I had a wife and few defenses against the imposition of silk ties.
Amanda wore a white terry cloth towel on her head when she came through the bathroom door.
“What’s the occasion?” she asked.
“Fund-raiser.”
“Whose funds do they expect to raise?”
“Yours, presumably. All of mine are in frozen assets,” I said, rattling the ice around the bottom of my vodka tumbler.
She threw the towel in my lap and retrieved an embroidered robe out of the clothes closet.
“I’ll have to dry my hair, moisturize, decide on a lipstick, and all that. You’re welcome to stay, though you’ll find it all rather boring.”
I wouldn’t. Watching Amanda get dressed was almost as involving as watching the reverse. Though usually with less consequential outcomes. Still I did have other things to do. The tumbler was nearly empty, a flashy rose and magenta sunset was about to get under way over the Little Peconic, and my copy of Candide, ou l’Optimisme was still on a glass-topped table on Amanda’s blue stone patio. So that’s where I headed.
The sun was just under the horizon and the impressionist’s hallucination in the sky was in its full fury when Amanda joined me. So quiet was her soft footfall that I heard a rustling sound before I saw her slipping into her favorite recliner. My eyes left Voltaire as I watched her smooth the folds of her dress over the fronts of her thighs, brush invisible flecks from her shoulders, and adjust the drape of aqua fabric around her flat belly into a more satisfactory set.
“You are going to explain all this, I’m sure,” she said, without looking up from her preening.
“Lionel Veckstrom’s father-in-law was born with a brick factory.”
“Not in one, presumably.”
“The business was started by his great-grandfather, and run successfully by the heirs until the early twentieth century when they stopped making things out of brick.”
“I’m building a brick chimney for one of my houses.”
“Mostly stopped. Veckstrom’s father-in-law had the fore-sight to dump the factory while it still had some value, enough to buy daughter Lacey a life without work, unless you count redoing her house on Gin Lane.”
“And you know this . . . ?” she asked.
“He told me. Veckstrom’s father-in-law, sitting on a bar stool at Mad Martha’s.”
“Pretty cheeky. I didn’t know a guy like that could drink in a bar like that.”
“Contrary to myth, Martha accepts US currency with no socioeconomic bias.”
“Not what I hear.”
“And as to Renard’s cheeks, they glowed a nice bright pink.”
“Wilson Renard? I knew him. He was one of my clients at the bank. Must have owned a very big brick factory.”
“More like a brick factory town. He hated the business, though I’m sorry to say he wasn’t much happier collecting investment revenue. Some people you can’t please, though according to him, his late wife and Lacey took to the responsibilities of wealth with selfless enthusiasm.”
“Noble.”
“An important feature of which, as you know, involves lots of fund-raising parties where the participants are forced to eat unpronounceable finger food off silver trays while wearing their best guess at what the season considers au courant.”
“That disqualifies us.”
“Come on, you love finger food.”
“And you hate fund-raisers. So why go to one thrown by Lionel Veckstrom’s wife? What’s the attraction?”
“Lionel Veckstrom.”
TO COMPLETE our disguise, we drove Amanda’s zippy little Audi. On the way over to the ocean, I convinced her that crashing an invitation-only society event in the Hamptons was the easiest thing in the world.
“All it takes is money,” I said.
“It seems my money’s being freely recruited into the project.”
“Nah, this one’s on me.”
Most people think the famous Gin Lane in Southampton got its name from the free flow of bathtub gin during prohibition, but it was actually the Puritan English settlers who called the cattle-grazing areas “gins.” Hard to say which era’s residents would be more horrified by the other’s definition of the word.
The Renard property might have supported a small herd if they gave up the 3,500-square-foot guesthouse, twin tennis courts, and topiary garden. I parked the Audi along the road and we walked up to a pair of bouncers disguised as valets in white shirts, thin black ties, and black pants.
“I forgot our tickets,” I said, rummaging around my inside jacket pocket. “I really hope we don’t have to go all the way back to East Hampton.”
The head bouncer, as identified by dominant height and girth, seemed unmoved.
“Sorry, sir. Tickets required.”
“We’re on the list, you have a list, don’t you?” I asked, looking around him at a little table that showed no sign of a list.
“Is Lacey nearby?” Amanda asked, looking through the open iron gate.
“Need tickets,” the guy said.
“Wait a minute,” I said, pulling out a folded piece of paper. “Maybe this will work.”
The guy took the paper, opened it up, then put it in his pocket.
“That works,” he said, stepping out of the way.
Amanda put her arm through mine as we passed through the gate.
“So you had the tickets,” she said.
“Just a hundred-dollar bill. A type of ticket.”
“We bribed our way into Lacey Renard’s fund-raiser?”
“Cheaper than a ticket.”
A prevailing southwesterly breeze was blowing mist in off the ocean, cooling the air and setting a fuzzy halo around the half moon above. Some of the guests were warming themselves by a line of commercial grills operated by men and women in white chefs’ outfits, though most were within gliding distance of the bars stationed at thirty-foot intervals around the periphery of the main tent.
The men’s costumes were predominantly white or mixed colors you’d normally see in tubs of sorbet. Hair was mostly white or grey, where it grew, though younger, leaner, and less confident swells were well represented. The women could be safely divided into two camps—those with and without artificial faces. The phony ones usually maximized the effect with an excess of processed hair and enough gold and precious stones to sink an ocean liner.
I recognized a few of them, altered and otherwise, many of them customers of Frank Entwhistle. One was a couple named Joshua and Roseanne Edelstein. Joshua recognized me despite the yellow tie and ran over as if he’d just rediscovered a rich uncle.
“Hey, Sam. Sam Acquillo,” he said, grabbing my hand in both of his. “You remember Sam, right Rosie?”
Rosie was a pale, consumptive-looking thing in a pure white dress and straw hat, and despite the late hour, sunglasses four times bigger than her featureless face could sustain. She dangled her hand in my general direction.
“I think I do,” she said.
“That’s okay if you don’t. I can’t remember my own name.” I held her limp hand and put an arm around Amanda’s waist. “This is Amanda Anselma.”
“Sam built all the coolest stuff in the house,” Joshua told her. “The fun stuff.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Amanda. “Who’s more fun than Sam?”
“It’s all still there,” said Joshua. “Nothing’s fallen on our heads.”
“There’s a relief,” I said.
“Did you do the Veckstroms’?” Rosie asked, still trying to get me fixed in the right place.
“I certainly hope not,” said Amanda.
“Lionel and I have had some professional involvement,” I said. “Professional for him, anyway.”
“I don’t know Lionel,” said Rosie, as if relieved by the fact.
“Some place they got here,” said Joshua, looking around.
“It’s all Lacey,” said Rosie.
“You don’t know that,” said Joshua, with gentle reproach.
She tilted her head away from him and I think rolled her eyes, but they were hidden behind the sunglasses.
“I miss all that, Sam,” said Joshua. “The building process. Who would have thought?”
“I would have,” said Amanda.
“She’s a builder,” I said.
“The problem with finishing a house is, you’re like, finished. You know?” said Joshua.
“Then you have to live in it,” I said.
His eyes flicked over to Rosie and back.
“You do.”
Rosie pinched a piece of his lime green and white seer-sucker jacket and pulled him away.
“Come, Joshua,” she said. “The champagne is calling.”
We let them retreat without resistance. Joshua saluted me with his cocktail, which made me wonder why he was drinking and I wasn’t.
“Hearing a call of your own?” Amanda asked, reading my mind.
It wasn’t until we’d hit one of the bars frequently enough to develop a relationship with the bartender that we ran into Lionel Veckstrom. Almost literally, as he spun toward me with a drink in each hand, barely avoiding a collision.
“Well, Sam Acquillo,” he said, running his eyes over my suit. His was a three-piece in an antique cut, well complemented by tan and brown saddle shoes and a bow tie. Pushing his fifties, Veckstrom had a handsome, though fleshy, face with a weak chin and Paul McCartney eyes. His vest did a decent job of outlining a narrow waist and contoured upper body.
“Hi, Lionel.”
“Didn’t see you on the invite list.”
“You probably haven’t met Amanda Anselma,” I said.
Amanda stuck out her hand.
