The Gold Coast

by Nelson DeMille

  “Sure.”

  “And watch your ass. You got some of my paesanos on your case now—Alphonse and the other guy. But you can handle it.”

  “I sure can.”

  “Yeah. Good luck.”

  “You, too.’’ And I left.

  Thirty-seven

  I had decided to visit Emily in Galveston, and I was packing enough clothes for an extended trip. Visiting relatives is sort of like walking out but under cover. Susan had her turn at it, and now that she was back, it was my turn.

  I was going to take the Bronco rather than fly, because maybe the states west of New York were not just fly-over states, but places that should be seen, with people that should be met. It was a step in the right direction, anyway.

  I was looking forward to my first stop at a McDonald’s, to staying at motels made out of concrete blocks, and to buying an RC Cola at a 7-Eleven. The thought of self-service gasoline, however, was a bit anxiety-producing, because I wasn’t sure how it was done. I suppose I could watch from the side of the road and see how everyone else did it. I think you pay first, then pump.

  Anyway, I intended to leave in the morning at first light. It had only been a few days since my last call on Frank Bellarosa, and in that time, Susan had come home from her trip to Hilton Head and Florida looking very fit and tan. Her brother, she informed me, loved Key West and had decided to finally settle down and do something with his life.

  “Like what?’’ I asked. “Get a haircut?”

  “Don’t be cynical, John.”

  She had greeted the news of my cross-country trip with mixed emotions. On the one hand, my absences removed a lot of strain from the situation, but she honestly seemed to miss me when we were separated. It’s not easy to love two people at the same time.

  Anyway, as I was packing that night, Susan came into the guest room where I was still in residence and said, “I’m going for a ride.”

  She was wearing riding breeches, boots, a turtleneck, and a tailored tweed jacket. She looked good, especially with her tan. I replied, “The bulldozers have changed the terrain, Susan. Be careful.”

  “I know. But it’s bright as day tonight.”

  Which was true. There was a huge, orange hunter’s moon rising, and it was such a beautiful, haunting sort of night that I almost offered to join her. With the two estates about to become subdivisions, and Fox Point about to become Iranian territory, and with the remaining landed gentry not speaking to us, the days of horseback riding were drawing to a close, and even I was going to miss that. But that night, I decided not to ride. I think I had sensed she wanted to be alone.

  She said, “I may be late.”

  “All right.”

  “If I don’t see you tonight, John, please wake me before you leave.”

  “I will.”

  “Good night.”

  “Happy trails.”

  And she left. In retrospect, she had seemed perfectly normal, but I told you she was nuts, and that full moon didn’t help.

  • • •

  At about eleven P . M ., I was contemplating retiring for the night as I wanted to be up before dawn and I had a long day on the road ahead of me. But Susan still wasn’t home, and you know how husbands and wives are about falling asleep before the other is home. I suppose it’s partly concern and partly jealousy, but whatever it is, the person at home wants to hear the car pull up in the driveway, even if they’re not speaking to the other person.

  In this case, I wasn’t waiting for a car to pull up, of course, but for the sound of hoofbeats, which I can sometimes hear now that the stable is closer to the house. But it was a car that pulled up in front of the house, and I saw its headlights coming up the drive long before I heard the tires on the gravel. I was in my second-floor bedroom at the time, still fully dressed, and as I came down the stairs, I heard the car door shut, then heard the doorbell ring.

  A strange car in the driveway at eleven P . M . and a ringing doorbell is not usually good news. I opened the door to see Mr. Mancuso standing there with an odd expression on his face. “Good evening, Mr. Sutter.”

  “What’s up?’’ was all I could think to say with my heart in my throat.

  “Your wife—”

  “Where is she? Is she all right?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to . . . she’s not hurt. But I think you should come with me.”

  So, wearing corduroy jeans and a sweatshirt, I followed him out to his car, and we got in. We didn’t speak as he made his way down the dark drive. As we went past the gatehouse, I saw Ethel Allard looking out the window, and we were close enough so that our eyes met, and I wondered if I looked as worried as she did.

  We swung onto Grace Lane and turned left toward Alhambra. I said to Mr. Mancuso, “Is he dead?”

  He glanced at me and nodded.

  “I guess he wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest this time.”

  “No, he wasn’t.’’ He added, “Do you have a good stomach?”

  “I saw a man’s head blown off on a full stomach.”

  “That’s right. Well, he’s uncovered, and I guess you’ll see him, because we held off on calling the police. I came and got you as a courtesy, Mr. Sutter, a favor, so you can speak to your wife before the county detectives arrive.”

  “Thank you.’’ I added, “You didn’t owe me any favors, so I guess I owe you one now.”

  “All right. Here’s the favor. Get what’s left of your life together. I’d like that.”

  “Done.”

  Mancuso seemed in no hurry, as if he were unconsciously hesitating, and it took us a while to get up the long cobble drive. I noticed, irrelevantly, that every window in Alhambra was lit. Mancuso said to me, “What a place. But like Christ said, ‘What is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’”

  I didn’t think St. Felix understood the true nature of Frank Bellarosa. I replied, “He didn’t sell his soul, Mr. Mancuso. He was more in the buying business.”

  He glanced at me again. “I think you’re right.”

  I said, “Is Mrs. Bellarosa here?”

  “No. She’s in Brooklyn.”

  “Which was why my wife was here.”

  He didn’t reply.

  I added, “In fact, it was very convenient for Mr. Bellarosa and Mrs. Sutter having Mrs. Bellarosa packed off to Brooklyn for extended visits.”

  Again no reply.

  I said, “You not only allowed that, you aided and abetted it.”

  He replied this time, “That was not our business, Mr. Sutter. It was your business. You knew.”

  “I know you have to keep your witnesses happy, Mr. Mancuso, but you don’t have to pimp for them.”

  “I understand your bitterness.”

  “Understand, too, Mr. Mancuso, that neither you nor I are as clean and pure as we were last Easter.”

  “I know that.’’ He added, “This was a very dirty case. And I can’t even say that the ends justified the means. But I’ll make my peace in my own way. I know you’ll do the same.”

  “I’ll give it a shot.”

  “Professionally, no one is very happy that Frank Bellarosa died before he could tell us everything he knew. No one is very happy with what Mrs. Sutter did. So maybe we got what we deserved for what we did, for bending the rules and letting her come here and never even running a metal detector over her. We have some answering to do for this. Maybe that makes you feel better.”

  “Not a bit.”

  The car stopped in front of Alhambra, and I got out quickly and went into the house. In the palm court were six FBI men, two in casual clothes with rifles slung across their backs and four in suits. They all turned and looked at me. I was approached by two of them and frisked, then got the metal detector routine that they should have given to my wife.

  The first thing I noticed as I looked around was a large potted palm lying on its side near the archway that led to the dining room. The clay pot was cracked open, and soil and palm fronds were sp
read over the red tile floor. Partially hidden behind the big pot and the foliage was a man sprawled on the floor. I walked over to him.

  Frank Bellarosa was lying on his back, his arms and legs outstretched and his striped robe thrown open, revealing his naked body. I could see the healed wounds and pockmarks where the shotgun blasts had hit his arms, neck, and legs some months before. There were three new wounds, one above his heart, one in his stomach, and one right in his groin. I wondered which shot she had fired first.

  There was a lot of blood, of course, all over his body and his robe, all over the floor, and even on the plant. The three wounds had partly coagulated and looked like red custard. I noticed now that there was blood splattered some distance from his body, and I realized he had fallen from the railed mezzanine above. I looked up and saw that I was standing under where his bedroom door would be.

  I looked back at Bellarosa’s face. His eyes were wide open, but this time there was no life or pain in them, no tears, only eternity. I kneeled down and pressed his eyelids closed, and I heard Mr. Mancuso’s voice behind me, “Please don’t touch anything, Mr. Sutter.”

  I stood and took a last look at Frank Bellarosa. It occurred to me that the Italians had always understood that at the core of life’s problems are men with too much power, too much charisma, and too much ambition. The Italians made demigods of such men, but at the same time they hated them for these very same qualities. Thus, the killing of a Caesar, a don, a duce, was a psychologically complex undertaking, embodying both sin and salvation in the same act.

  Perhaps Susan, not the sort of person to think of harming anyone for any reason, had absorbed some of her lover’s psyche along with his semen, and had decided to use a Bellarosa solution to solve a Bellarosa problem. But how do I know that for sure? Maybe John is projecting.

  Mancuso tapped my arm and drew my attention to the far side of the palm court.

  Susan was sitting with her legs crossed in a wicker chair, between a pillar and a potted tree, out of the line of sight of the corpse. She was fully dressed in her riding outfit, though I did not know then nor would I ever know if she had been fully dressed earlier. Her long red hair, however, which had been tied up under her riding cap, was now loose and disheveled. Otherwise she looked very composed. Very beautiful, actually. I walked toward her.

  As I got within a few feet of her, she looked up at me but made no move to meet me. I saw now that an FBI man was standing near the pillar, watching her, guarding her actually. She glanced up at him, and he nodded, and she stood and came toward me. Odd, I thought, how even the highborn learn so quickly how to become prisoners. Depressing, actually.

  We stood a few feet apart, and I saw that she had been crying, but she looked all right now. Composed, as I said. I suppose our audience was waiting for us to embrace or for someone to break down or maybe go for the other’s throat. I was aware that six or seven men were ready to spring into action in the event of the latter. These guys were tense, of course, having already lost one person they were supposed to be safeguarding.

  Finally I said to my wife, “Are you all right?”

  She nodded.

  “Where did you get the gun?”

  “He gave it to me.”

  “When? Why?”

  She seemed a little out of it, which was normal under the circumstances, but she thought a moment and replied, “When he came home from the hospital. The FBI men were searching the house, and he had a gun hidden so he gave it to me to keep for him.”

  “I see.’’ You blew it, Frank. But really, if it weren’t a gun, it would have been a knife or a fireplace poker, or anything she could get her hands on. Hell hath no fury like a redheaded woman scorned. Believe it. I asked her, “Did you make any statement to anyone here?”

  “Statement . . . ? No . . . I just said . . . I forgot . . .”

  “Don’t say anything to them or to the police when they arrive.”

  “The police . . . ?”

  “Yes, they’re on the way.”

  “Can’t I go home?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Am I going to jail?”

  “Yes. I’ll try to get you out tomorrow on bail.’’ Then again, maybe I won’t.

  She nodded and smiled for the first time, a forced smile, but genuine nonetheless. She said, “You’re a good lawyer.”

  “Right.’’ I saw that she was pale and shaky, so I led her back to the chair. She glanced over at the mess at the far end of the palm court, then looked at me and said, “I killed him.”

  “Yes, I know.’’ I sat her down in the chair, knelt, and took her hand. “Do you want something to drink?”

  “No, thank you.’’ She added, “I did this for you.”

  I chose to ignore that.

  The county police arrived, uniformed officers, plainclothes detectives, the forensic unit, ambulance attendants, police photographers, and other assorted crime-scene types. The grandeur of Alhambra seemed more interesting to them than its dead owner, but eventually they got down to business.

  Susan watched the activity as though it had nothing to do with her. Neither of us spoke, but I stayed with her, kneeling beside her chair and holding her hand.

  I saw Mancuso speaking to a big beefy guy with a ruddy face, and they kept glancing over at Susan and me as they spoke. Finally, the big guy walked over to us and I stood. A uniformed female police officer joined him. The big guy said to me, “You’re her husband?”

  “And her attorney. Who are you?”

  He obviously didn’t like my tone or my question, but you have to get off on the wrong foot with these guys, because that’s where you’re headed anyway. He said, “I’m Lieutenant Dolan, County Homicide.’’ He turned to Susan and said, “And you are Susan Sutter?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay, Mrs. Sutter, I’m going to read you your rights in the presence of your husband, who I understand is your attorney.’’ Dolan had one of those little cheat cards like Mancuso had and began reading from it. Good Lord, you’d think they could remember a few simple lines after twenty years of saying them. I mean, I can still recite the entire prologue of the Canterbury Tales twenty-five years after I learned it, and that’s in Middle English.

  Dolan asked Susan, “Do you understand your rights?”

  Again she nodded.

  He looked at me. “She understands?”

  “Not really,’’ I replied, “but for the record, yes.”

  He turned back to Susan. “Do you want to make any statements at this time?”

  “I—”

  I interrupted. “No. She is obviously not going to make any statements, Lieutenant.”

  “Right.’’ Dolan signaled to the uniformed policewoman, who approached, somewhat self-consciously I thought. Dolan turned back to Susan. “Please stand, Mrs. Sutter.”

  Susan stood.

  Dolan said to her, “You are under arrest for murder. Please turn around.”

  The policewoman actually turned Susan by the shoulder and was going to cuff her hands behind her back, but I grabbed the woman’s wrist. “No. In the front.’’ I looked at Dolan. “She won’t try to strangle you with the cuffs, Lieutenant.”

  This didn’t go over very well, but after a little glaring all around, Dolan said to the policewoman, “In front.”

  Before Susan was cuffed, I helped her off with her tweed jacket, and then the woman cuffed Susan’s hands in front of her. This is more comfortable, less humiliating, and looks better because you can throw a coat over the cuffs, which I then did with Susan’s jacket.

  By this time, Dolan and I were getting to understand each other a little better, and we didn’t like what we understood. Dolan said to the policewoman but also so I could hear, “Mrs. Sutter was searched by the federal types when they grabbed her, and they tell me she has no more weapons, but you have her searched again at the station house, and you look for poison and other means of suicide, and you keep a suicide watch on her all night. I don’t want to lose this o
ne.’’ He glanced at me, then said to the policewoman, “Okay, take her away.”

  “Hold on,’’ I said. “I want to speak to my client.”

  But Lieutenant Dolan was not going to be as cooperative as Mr. Mancuso had been under similar circumstances in this very spot some months before. Lieutenant Dolan said, “If you want to talk to her, come to the station house.”

  “I intend to speak to her now, Lieutenant.’’ I had my hand on Susan’s left arm, and the policewoman had her hand on Susan’s right arm. Poor Susan. For the first time since I’d known her, she actually looked as if she wasn’t in control of a situation.

  Well, before the situation got out of everyone’s control, Mancuso ambled over and put his arm around Dolan, leading him away. They chatted a minute, then Dolan turned back toward us and motioned to the policewoman to back off.

  I took Susan’s cuffed hands in mine, and we looked at each other. She didn’t say anything but squeezed my hands. Finally, I said, “Susan . . . do you understand what’s happening?”

  She nodded. Actually she did seem more alert now, and she looked me in the eye. “John, I’m so sorry for the inconvenience. I should have waited until you left.”

  That would have been a good idea, but Susan had no intention of letting me off that easy. I said, “Maybe you shouldn’t have killed him at all.”

  Her mind was either elsewhere or she didn’t want to hear that, because she said, “Could you do me a favor? Zanzibar is tethered out back. Will you ride him home? He can’t stay there all night.”

  I replied, “I’ll certainly take care of Zanzibar.”

  “Thank you. And could you see to Zanzibar and Yankee in the morning?”

  “All right.”

  “Will I be home by afternoon?”

  “Perhaps. If I can make bail.”

  “Well, my checkbook is in my desk.”

  I replied, “I don’t think they take personal checks, Susan. But I’ll work something out.”

  “Thank you, John.”

  There really wasn’t much else to say, I suppose, now that the horses were taken care of and I knew where her checkbook was. Well, maybe this wasn’t the time for sarcasm, but if I told you I wasn’t enjoying this at all, I’d be a liar. Still, I couldn’t really enjoy it, nor for that matter could I weep over it unless I fully understood it. So, against my better judgment, I asked her, “Why did you kill him?”