The Weeping Buddha

by Heather Dune Macadam

  In the wake of skyrocketing real estate prices, many of the old families had succumbed to parceling off sections of their farms to make life more than a little easier. Devon’s father could have been a very rich man if he sold the Halsey farm, but he wasn’t giving up another inch of soil to outsiders. He rented the land to the few neighbors who still farmed so they could plow and till it into crops to sell at Sag Main Street vegetable stands and in town. Secretly, he liked to watch the plows kick clouds of dirt from his fields and hoped it filled estate homes with more dust than their maids and air filters could handle.

  Her father used to tell her how as a boy he could walk straight across the field to the beach and on his way dig a fresh potato out of the warm earth, wash it in the ocean for flavoring, and eat it raw for lunch. Now, there was a kingpin who blocked his daily trek to the beach with gun-carrying thugs who threatened trespass violations against anyone who crossed the land. Devon believed in upholding the law, but couldn’t help wondering if the guards shot pheasant and deer for trespassing on land that the animals had rights to long before human beings invaded the East End.

  Sometimes she wished for those simpler times when fishermen, farmers, and a few eccentric writers and artists knew about the peace and beauty of the eastern shore of Long Island—before the nouveau riche. Of course, her family had come uninvited as well and inflicted their presence on the Shinnecock and Montauk peoples, but then Dad had married Lelia Haile, who was part Shinnecock. Halsey was an old name, and it had not gone over well when he married a girl with “Indian” blood. Evan had never cared much about society people, and had chosen to leave the area rather than place his wife under their ridicule. Working for the navy, the young couple had toured the world, and when he finally returned to head the local coast guard, his new family was embraced by the Halsey clan. His first love had always been the sea; Lelia’s first love had always been the land—their daughter loved both equally. It wasn’t the land’s property value or anything that could be figured on paper—it was an emotional connection to the soil, the salty wind, and the way her heart soared whenever she drove across Little Bridge at Sag Pond toward Daniels Lane, toward home.

  The Halsey farmhouse was badly in need of repair and a new paint job, the indoor swimming pool needed to be drained and re-tiled, the porch steps were collapsing and had to be rebuilt, but Lelia and Evan secretly relished being the eyesore of the neighborhood. Amid all the spanking-new mansions their house was a lingering reminder to the newcomers that in place of manicured lawns, crops had once grown; chicken coops had housed chickens, not stockbrokers; and ramshackle shacks had housed real artists, not copy-writers and graphic designers. While the rest of the world was consumed with a renovating mania to paint over the past and got their knickers in a twist about keeping up appearances, the Halsey’s house peeled. Who was going to complain? The Halseys had helped found the damn town!

  Her dad waved and moved quickly to the house, yelling something—probably to her mother. In a few moments, the driveway was full and she was hugging Beka’s uncles and crying as her mother brushed the hair from her eyes and asked if she was okay. The smell of wood smoke hung in the air like a comforting blanket, anchoring her to her parents’ home. Her only wish was that Beka were here to sit around the big supper table, just like old times.

  “Uncle Biz. Uncle Bert.” She squeezed Beka’s uncles again, while her parents watched the reunion.

  “Detective Brennen and DeBritzi were just here,” her mother said.

  “You met Lochwood?” Devon stammered.

  “Yep. I think your father threatened him with a harpoon if he didn’t treat you right, but I liked him just fine.”

  Her father hugged her.

  “A harpoon, Dad?” Devon rolled her eyes.

  “Just a small one. He’s older than I thought.”

  “He looks reliable enough,” her mother tried to be supportive.

  “He’s not a car, Mom.”

  “No, he’s a man who has his eye on our most precious asset.” Her father slipped his arm around her waist as they walked toward the house, and she felt the deep pit inside her gut widen until she was overwhelmed by the desire to curl up in a ball and weep like a little girl.

  Biz patted her back. “There, there. We’re all in this together now. No one is alone in this.”

  Beka is, she thought to herself, but she did not say that to him.

  Her mother opened the door and they walked in toward the kitchen table where cups of tea were set out on the table and the teapot was snug in its cozy. Her mother put out an extra cup for her daughter and, knowing how Devon liked her tea, placed the sugar pot nearby. The fire crackled in the hearth. “Honey, you look tired. Are you working too hard?”

  “Mom, we’re trying to find out what happened to Beka. Of course I’m working too hard.”

  “You can’t solve anything if you’re exhausted. I know Lochwood’s an insomniac, but you need your rest, young lady.”

  Devon started to laugh, as all desire to be comforted faded. “You’re making me feel twelve years old! I’m almost forty, Ma.”

  Lelia blushed and looked over at Bertram and Bismarck.

  “Beka was the same way, argumentative,” Bismarck reminded her. “Always refusing to take care of herself.”

  “She works late and sleeps late, or she did when she used to sleep,” Lelia affirmed.

  “Mom.”

  “It’s my prerogative to worry. Evan, talk to her.”

  “She’s a grown woman, Lelia. And I want her to catch Beka’s killer.”

  “Well, so do I!”

  “She’s a tough broad like her old lady.” He patted his daughter’s shoulder but remained standing while the rest of them sat. There was a moment of almost silence.

  “Bert, Biz, how are you doing?” Devon finally asked gently.

  “They’re releasing her on Thursday.”

  “You’ll take her home then?” They nodded, both looking down at the table. “I’m so sorry about all of this.”

  “It’s not your fault, Devon.”

  She did not answer. All she had been thinking for the past twelve hours was just how much of it was her fault. If only she’d called back when Beka beeped her. If only she had stopped by like Beka had asked. If only … Her thoughts started racing.

  She wasn’t actually sure Beka had beeped her. If what Loch said was right, the killer knew an awful lot about Devon … Did the killer have her beeper number as well? She jumped up from the table and ran to the phone.

  “See that?” Lelia exclaimed. “Still working!”

  “Mom! Please, this is important.” She listened to the person on the other end of the phone. “Records, please. This is Detective Halsey. I need you to trace a beep I received at 10:45 New Year’s Eve. I just want to know where the call was made from.” She gave the operator her parents’ phone number and hung up. “They’ll know in a few minutes.”

  “Know what?”

  “I don’t know yet.” She piled two teaspoons of sugar into her Earl Grey tea.

  “Will you come visit when this is all over?” Bert asked Devon. “We won’t have our girl to come and keep us in line; we’ll be counting on you.”

  “Yeah-yeah.” She reached across the table to take both of their hands. The room filled with the granite stillness of sorrow.

  “You always have a home in Oahu. Just like Beka always had a home here. You don’t know how many times she told us that you …” Biz looked at Lelia and Evan, “… made it easier for her to deal with the loss of her parents. She felt like she had a family here.”

  Lelia patted his hand. “She did, Biz.”

  “You know, I thought that was strange when Beka stopped by. She usually confides more in me, and this time she only talked about superficial things. It was almost like she had just come to say goodbye.” She reached for a tissue and dabbed her eyes.

  It was suddenly quite clear to her that her mother’s tirade about taking care of herself came from her own re
action to Beka’s death. Devon reached her hand across the table. “I’m sorry, Mom.” Devon ran her finger thoughtfully around the rim of her teacup. “So, what’d you and Beka talk about?”

  “You two.”

  The phone rang. Devon grabbed it and listened, said “Thanks” into the receiver, and hung up, disappointed. The call had come from Beka’s cellphone, which they still had not found, and was probably so damaged by the snowfall that it had long since stopped working. Nor did it prove that there had been a third party. Beka could have thrown it into the woods before she killed herself, if she killed herself. She winced, then looked at Uncle Bert and Uncle Biz.

  Her mother brought a tin of shortbread out of the cupboard. They ate thoughtfully while discussing the funeral. Hans had called and offered the zendo for a memorial service. Devon told them she planned to come to Hawaii for the funeral at Byodo-in Temple, and Bert and Biz decided to hold off on the dates until Devon could tell them which week she could take off from work.

  Devon finished her tea and got up to leave. “I have to be at the zendo by five or Hans will be mad at me.” She hugged them each good-bye.

  Her father walked her out to the car. “Sweetheart, you and I both know your mother’s just worried, but I think she has good reason to be.”

  “Why, Dad?”

  “You don’t sail the ocean without learning to listen to your intuition as well as the radar screen.” He paused. “Watch your back.”

  “I will.” She squeezed him, then got in her car and headed for Town Lane, the shortcut over to Swamp Road, and into the depths of the Northwest Woods.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  The current of ordinary life;

  But he, after all, comes back

  To sit among the coals and ashes.

  —PORTION OF A ZEN KOAN

  Sam seemed to be expecting them and met Gary and Loch at the front door of his modest Westhampton Beach home, just a block from the ocean. He showed them the way through the house with little fanfare, but cordially enough.

  “Nice digs,” Gary whispered to Loch, then said to Sam, “You can afford this on a psychologist’s salary?”

  Sam looked surprised by the question, but answered without much hesitation. “It was my parents’ first vacation house. They gave it to me after they moved to Southampton to be near Dad’s golf course.” The living room looked out across the dunes to a scrap of ocean on the horizon. “Please have a seat.” He gestured to the couch and two chairs, cushioned in plaid, probably from the ’60s. There was a scrapbook lying face open on the table with a newspaper article about Todd in it. “I guess you’re here about Beka.”

  “And Edilio.”

  “I heard about that.” A shadow of fear fluttered across Sam’s face.

  “How’d you hear?” Because of his credentials and everything he and his family had been through, Loch expected to feel empathy and perhaps an affinity for the man—he felt nothing. And searching Sam Daniels’s face for some sign of emotive depth turned up nothing; even his body language seemed to lack emotion.

  “Alex called.” His voice was flat, but a tinge of anger seemed to creep into his words. “If I were you, I’d see if Godwyn took the photo. The Post loves Godwyn. They print him under the name Ian McGregor, although in this case I bet it’s an anonymous photographer. Maybe Hurley will tell you who took it. No, he’d probably lie, too.” Sam stopped himself from talking any further and looked at the detectives.

  Sam Daniels obviously held no love for Godwyn Kamani, but Loch wondered if he had any notion of how strange he had just sounded.

  “Any idea where he is?” Gary asked.

  “God? His apartment in the city this morning. We had words.” He wrote down the address for them and handed it to Gary, then sat and began flipping through the scrapbook on the table. “Yesterday’s events brought up a few unpleasant memories for me. I couldn’t even make it into work today.” He looked up at the detectives and shrugged his shoulders. “Some shrink, aren’t I?” He flipped the pages of the book again.

  “Mementos?” Loch inquired.

  “You could call them that. Anytime someone goes missing on New Year’s Eve I follow the story. I can’t contact the families directly, the last thing they want is to hear from someone who never learned what happened—my family is every family’s worst nightmare.” He went to the bar, picked up a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and poured himself a drink. “It’s easier to have a corpse. That sounds cold, doesn’t it, but you don’t know how many times I’ve dreamt, wished, prayed that some part of Todd would wash up on a beach and give us proof that he’s gone forever. The haunting is unbearable.” Loch glanced over his shoulder and saw clippings of the last New Year’s Eve case Carol Freesia had worked—Eric Heron’s disappearance two years ago.

  “You interested in Eric Heron?”

  “He disappeared on New Year’s Eve.”

  “Do you know if Gabe might have known him?”

  “No idea, but he was a dancer.” Sam’s eyes seemed to narrow as he raised one eyebrow.

  “He was?” Loch looked at the article more closely. Eric Heron had taught Pilates at a city studio and danced with the International Dance Company—the same company to which Edilio and Beka had belonged. He was not about to let Sam Daniels know that this information was news, though.

  “Is it healthy to keep these articles around?” Gary asked.

  Sam chuckled. “No, but it’s human. Just call me a psychological rubbernecker.”

  “Do you mind?” Loch gestured to the book and caught Gary’s eye.

  “No, please. I left it out for you to look at.” Sam handed it to him.

  Gary continued the interview to take Sam’s attention away from the scrapbook and give Loch free rein with the clippings.

  “We think Beka’s murder may be connected to the night your brother disappeared.”

  “Really?” Sam sounded interested and at the same time doubtful, as if the effort to hope had been worn down by the passing years.

  “We’re following up with everyone we know who was at the party and checking on their whereabouts this New Year’s Eve.”

  Sam gestured to the scrapbook. “That’s easy. I spent the night with my brother and a bottle of booze. I’m afraid my idea of a happy New Year’s is pulling out that old book and getting rip-roaring drunk, just like we used to. Doesn’t solve anything but it hurts the next morning, and I prefer pain to numbness.”

  “You’re not married?”

  “Divorced two years. She got tired of sharing me with Todd, too.” The hardness in Sam’s voice was like thin flakes of shale that could crumble if touched too roughly, but nick the flesh if rubbed the wrong way.

  “And last Tuesday, where were you?” Gary redirected Sam’s attention to the present.

  “My office. You can check with the receptionist. I work at a daytreatment center for the mentally ill up by Port Jefferson.”

  Loch’s ears perked up for a reason other than the investigation—Sam must work at the same place he and Ruth were considering for Marty. “How is that facility?”

  “Professional interest or personal?” Sam asked.

  “Both.”

  “It’s excellent for treatment of critically, permanently mentally ill and PTSD or trauma issues. We have an art-therapy program, which is extremely effective for personality and psychotic disorders, like schizophrenia; there’s a lot of one-on-one supervision. For those who don’t have permanent issues I can think of more effective treatment environments; our clients aren’t going to get miraculously better someday, but we try to help them cope with their illness in a safe environment where they can’t hurt themselves or be hurt.” He paused. “I sound like a brochure.”

  Loch appreciated his candor but didn’t say anything about his own situation. He needed to keep Marty out of his professional life. But if Sam wasn’t a murderer, he might prove to be a good contact at the program.

  Gary looked at Loch for his lead, then asked, “Do you have keys to Gab
e’s loft in the city?”

  “Me? No. Beka and I didn’t stay very close after Todd’s disappearance. I always sort of held her responsible. I think she knew that.”

  Loch’s ears perked up again; Sam was the only person they’d interviewed so far who denied having keys, and that seemed strange. “What’s this letter here?” he asked, holding out the first page of the album.

  “Todd’s last note to me. He left it on my door Saturday afternoon before the party.”

  Loch showed the note to Gary.

  Bro. Went to Gabe’s studio with Beka, you should come over.

  Hang in there. Catch you later!

  T

  Sam walked over to the picture window and stared out at the tempestuous ocean. “It’s like somebody is picking us off one by one.”

  “That’s what Katiti French said.”

  “Well, normally I wouldn’t agree with her, but in this case …” Sam pressed his head against the glass and sighed heavily.

  Loch finally found the empathy and pity he had expected to feel at the beginning of the interview. There was no way he wanted to be in Sam Daniels’s brain or place. Maybe this recent loss, despite his feelings for Beka, had taken one more toll on the once-young man. He seemed to be aging before their eyes. Loch turned his attention back to the scrapbook. There was a collage of Todd’s baby photos and school pictures, the brothers in Boy Scouts together, Todd’s high school graduation, and a photo of Beka looking lovingly into the camera—the date at the bottom of the photograph read 12/31/83.

  “Why is she in here?”

  “I dunno.” Sam laughed, a little too ruefully.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Speech and silence tend toward separation or concealment.

  How shall we proceed so as not to violate it?

  —PORTION OF A ZEN KOAN

  Devon left her parents’ house and was at the zendo in less than ten minutes. There were a few cars parked along the side of the road when she pulled up, and Barney, the zendo dog, began his warning bark as soon as she got out of the car.