Clean Sweep

by Jane Heller

  “So you admit it! You and Melanie knew each other!”

  “I had things I wanted to discuss with her.”

  “Things you’d rather not tell the police?”

  “Look, Sonny,” Cullie said, moving toward the main halyard. “Let’s give this a rest for a while. The wind’s picking up. If I don’t shorten sail, we’ll be blown to South America.”

  South America? “All right,” I said. “Do whatever you have to do to this boat. Just get us back to the marina.”

  “Yez, ma’am. Yez, Miz Koff.” Cullie bowed at the waist.

  I hurried down to the cabin and stayed there. For the next two hours I sat rigidly at the navigation station next to the cell phone, poised and ready to call the police if the need arose. At four o’clock, Cullie came down the hatch to inform me that we were about to dock at the marina.

  “We’ll talk as soon as we’re back in the slip, okay?” he said, finally showing a modicum of concern.

  “Fine.” The least I could do was hear him out.

  “Why don’t we have a drink,” he suggested once we were back at the dock.

  “I don’t want a drink. I want the truth.”

  “Suit yourself. I’ll have a drink. Then I’ll tell you the truth.”

  Cullie poured himself a Mount Gay rum and tonic, then stood beside me at the navigation station.

  “The reason I went to see Melanie that day was to talk to her about my father,” he said softly.

  “Did Paddy know Melanie?”

  “No, but he knew Alistair.”

  “So?”

  “As I’ve told you, Alistair ruined my father’s life. I was afraid Melanie’s book would go into all that.”

  “Why would you care? I would think you’d be ecstatic if the book made Alistair look like a scumbag. You hate the guy.”

  “I hate the guy, all right, but I loved my father and I didn’t want him linked with one of Alistair’s slimy scandals.”

  “I don’t understand any of this,” I said. “Why would your father show up in Melanie’s biography of Alistair?”

  “Remember I told you that Paddy was fed up with his job at the yacht club and wanted to take the two of us back to Europe to live?”

  “I remember. You said he ended up staying in Connecticut, because he fell in love with somebody here.”

  “Right. Guess who he fell in love with?”

  I thought for a second. “Alistair P. Downs,” I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster. Didn’t Melanie’s book say that young Al Downey had an affair with a male dance instructor?

  “Close. He fell in love with Annette Dowling, Mrs. Alistair P. Downs.”

  I was speechless—momentarily. “Your father was in love with Alistair’s wife? No wonder the Senator wasn’t too fond of your dad.”

  “The Senator wasn’t too fond of his wife either. He didn’t love her. He treated her like shit, traveling all the time and sleeping with other women. Annette gave up her acting career and her life in Hollywood to marry Alistair, but when she moved to Connecticut she had no friends, no career, no way to fill her time—except to raise Bethany, and there was a nanny to do that. So while Alistair made movies, played politics and screwed around with other women, she was a neglected suburban housewife—a very beautiful neglected suburban housewife.”

  “So beautiful your father fell for her?”

  “Yup, but it was more than just her looks. He took her sailing. They made each other happy.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “They planned to run away together. My father was going to take Annette and me back to England.”

  “What about Bethany?”

  “Annette thought she’d be better off with Alistair. The girl adored her father. Still does.”

  “Don’t I know it. So let me get this straight. Annette asked Alistair for a divorce, so she could marry your father?”

  “Are you kidding? Do you think Alistair Downs would allow his wife to divorce him for the sailing instructor at the yacht club? Do you think he would allow himself to be humiliated that way?”

  I shook my head.

  “Here’s what Senator Downs, that paragon of virtue, did when he found out Annette and my father were planning to run off together: he threatened to deport my father if he didn’t break it off with her.”

  “But that’s bribery.”

  “Yup. Alistair’s specialty. He summoned my father to Evermore, sat him down in that library of his, and said, ‘Paddy, my boy, I’m going to give you a choice: either you end your little fling with my wife or I get my pals in Immigration to send you back to England.’ Alistair had my father by the balls.”

  “Why, if the three of you were planning to move back to England anyway?”

  “My father was a British citizen. I’m an American citizen. If he were deported, he would have to leave me behind. I would have become a ward of the state. He wasn’t about to let that happen.”

  “Of course not. I’m sure he loved you very much. But it sounds like he loved Annette too. And Alistair made him choose between you?”

  “Bingo.”

  “Obviously, he chose you.”

  “Yup, and he paid a pretty price for his choice. When Alistair gave him his little ultimatum, my father punched the good Senator right in the jaw, then walked out. Little did he know that Annette saw him leave.”

  “What happened?”

  “She confronted her husband and asked him what Paddy Harrington was doing in the house. Alistair gleefully delivered the news that her precious sailing instructor had taken his bribe and wouldn’t be seeing her again.”

  “The bastard. No wonder you despise him. How could he do something so slimy?” I said, shaking my head. “Annette must have been devastated when she found out your father was leaving her.”

  “Devastated is exactly what she was. Faced with the prospect of spending the rest of her life with a husband who didn’t love her and a daughter who didn’t need her, she took her XKE for a drive—right into a guard rail off the Merritt Parkway. Alistair conned the police and the media into reporting her death as a tragic accident. But it wasn’t an accident. It was a suicide. Alistair knew it and my father knew it.”

  “I can’t believe all this. How did your father react to Annette’s death?”

  “He got drunk. And he stayed drunk a lot of the time. He was a broken man, Sonny. His years at the club were pure torture for him after Annette was gone.”

  “You don’t mean he continued to work there after all that happened.”

  “He sure did. He had to support me, don’t forget. There weren’t exactly hundreds of employment opportunities for a middle-aged sailing teacher who liked his whiskey and had a young son to tote around. So he stayed at the club and drank his days away.”

  “Alistair didn’t try to run your father out of the club?”

  “You don’t understand the sick mind of Alistair Downs. Whenever the members would complain about my father’s drinking or his surly attitude or the fact that he wasn’t getting any younger, it was Alistair who insisted that the club keep him on. He loved watching my father suffer. He enjoyed watching the members order him around. Most of all, he enjoyed telling the tale of the uppity sailing instructor who made a pass at his wife and then fell into a whiskey bottle when she rejected him. He actually told the other members that story. And they all believed him. My father became a joke. A poor old English rummy. It was painful for him and painful for me. If it hadn’t been for me, he could have quit the club and lived a happy life in England. With Annette.”

  “I don’t know what to say. Why didn’t you tell me all this before?”

  “Before what? Before we fell in love? Are you ashamed to be seen with me, now that you know my father was the laughingstock of the illustrious Sachem Point Yacht Club?”

  “Cullie, I didn’t mean…” I started to put my hand on his cheek, then pulled it back. There were still too many questions to be answered. “You haven’t told me what you were doing at
Melanie’s house that day,” I said.

  “I loved my father, and I didn’t want his sordid history showing up in a book. So I went to see Melanie to talk to her about leaving it out. When you told me she wasn’t home, I went back later that night.”

  “Did you get to talk to her then?”

  “I tried to. She listened to everything I had to say, then thanked me for giving her such ‘usable material’ about Alistair. What an idiot I was. Instead of telling her my father’s story as a way of convincing her not to use it, I actually volunteered information she hadn’t known about. I pleaded with her not to include it in the book. I said, ‘My father’s dead. Let him rest in peace. Why drag him down just so you can write a bestseller about Alistair?’ She laughed at me, Sonny, and told me to stop bothering her. I tried to bargain with her. I said, ‘Okay. Tell my father’s story if you have to. But don’t use his name. At least have the decency not to use his name.’ You know what she said? She said, ‘Of course, I’ll use his name. He’s dead. He can’t sue me. It’s the live ones I have second thoughts about. Live ones have lawyers, and lawyers make my publisher nervous.’ ‘What about Alistair?’ I said. ‘He’s a live one and he’s probably got an army of lawyers.’ She laughed. ‘Don’t be naïve,’ she said. ‘Alistair Downs won’t sue me. He’s much too high and mighty to dirty his hands with a lawsuit that’ll bring him so much unwanted publicity he won’t be able to stand it. No, he won’t sue me. He may kill me, but he won’t sue me.’”

  Maybe Cullie was telling the truth. But how could I be sure? I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. “This is all very well and good, Cullie, but what made you think Melanie even knew the story of your father and Annette? What gave you the idea she’d write about it in her book?”

  “Remember Hadley Kittredge?”

  “Vaguely.” I remembered. She was the one with the humongous tits and the miniature brain.

  “One of the reasons we got together that night I ran into you was so she could tell me what she knew about Melanie.”

  “How would Hadley Kittredge know Melanie? Didn’t you tell me she was the dockmaster’s daughter?”

  “Right. And people who work at marinas talk to each other. Anyway, Hadley said Melanie and some guy that worked for her were snooping around at the yacht club, asking about my father’s relationship with Annette. She wanted to warn me. That’s why I went to see Melanie.”

  “So you went to see Melanie and became furious with her when she wouldn’t take you seriously,” I said, prodding Cullie the way I’d seen courtroom lawyers prod witnesses on TV. “You were so furious with her that you went back to her house, tried to steal the manuscript from her, and killed her.”

  “What?” Cullie started laughing. “You think I killed Melanie?”

  “You did try to steal the manuscript from her house, admit it.”

  “I did no such thing. After that horrible meeting with the woman, I never went back to her house again. I figured, if she’s insensitive enough to put the stuff I told her about my father in her book, there’s nothing I can do about it. I wasn’t happy about it, but I was helpless.”

  “Then explain why you stole these pages from my suitcase.” I held the missing pages in front of his face and shook them at him.

  “Curiosity. I knew you had the manuscript the day you moved in on the Marlowe. Remember when I said you brought one too many bags onto the boat?”

  “How could I forget?”

  “Well, I thought maybe the other bags were just as unnecessary, so I checked to see what was in them. I saw the manuscript on the floor of the hanging locker. I read bits and pieces of the book when you were out. I was crazy to find out if Melanie had used the material I was stupid enough to hand her.”

  “Fine, but why didn’t you tell me you knew about the manuscript? Why did you have to read it behind my back?”

  “I didn’t want you to know what happened to my father. I didn’t want anybody to know.”

  I felt for Cullie. I really did. But was he telling me the truth? How did I know he wasn’t conning me, pretending to be something he wasn’t, giving me the old cha cha cha, as his father would say?

  I let go of the manuscript pages and slumped in my chair. I didn’t know what to believe—about Cullie, about Alistair, about Melanie’s murder.

  “How do I know all this isn’t one big lie?” I asked Cullie. “I was really starting to believe in you, to believe in us. I was actually starting to believe we were in love. I’ve just been through the most traumatic few months of my life, but I was happy. I was happy with you. I was happy trusting you. Please, tell me how I can trust you now.”

  Cullie moved closer to me and took me in his arms.

  “The answer is in these pages,” he said softly, looking down at the section of the manuscript that lay on top of his desk. “I’ve read them. It’s all there. Melanie didn’t miss a trick. The only thing I care about now is that you read these pages and satisfy yourself that I’m telling the truth. Please, Sonny. I want us back where we were.”

  “I will read these pages,” I told him. “And I hope they’ll give me the answers I need.”

  “Good,” he said. “Now, it’s getting late. How about dinner? Should I pick us up some chicken cacciatore, your favorite?”

  “No, Cullie. I’m going back to Maplebark Manor. I need some time to take all this in. I really think it’s best if I go home.”

  He looked disappointed, then assumed the I-don’t-care-if-you-don’t posture he often affected when he was hurt. “Home,” he scoffed. “That place was never your home. It was your prize acquisition, your way of showing the world you were somebody. But you were somebody even in that maid’s uniform, Sonny. You brought me a kind of joy I’d never experienced, do you know that?” Tears welled up in his eyes, but he wiped them away quickly, hoping I wouldn’t notice. “Hey, if you want to go home, go home. It’s up to you.”

  It was up to me, and I needed a break from the intense atmosphere on the boat.

  I packed my suitcases and Cullie helped me load them into the trunk of my car. It was dark and cold as we stood next to my Porsche and fumbled with a goodbye.

  “Should I call you or do you want ‘space’?” he asked.

  “You remind me of Sandy,” I laughed. “He always talked about people needing their ‘space.’”

  “I’m nothing like Sandy,” he said solemnly. “Sandy left you just when you needed him most. I’m not the one who’s doing the leaving.”

  “I know,” I whispered, a giant lump forming in my throat. “I really do know.”

  Cullie put his arms around me and held me for several seconds. Then he let go of me and opened my car door. “Give my best to Maplebarf Manor,” he said, trying unsuccessfully to smile. He helped me into the car, closed the door, and walked away. I didn’t turn on the ignition. I just watched him go, across the parking lot, over to Arnie’s All Clammed Up, up the stairs of the restaurant and inside the crowded bar. I imagined him pulling up a stool and asking for a Mount Gay rum and tonic. I imagined him taking a sip of his drink, gazing out over the crowded bar and hurting as much as I hurt. When it hurt so much I could no longer stand to imagine him, I started the car, flipped on the lights, and began the long drive home.

  Chapter 17

  After spending so much time on a forty-foot sailboat, Maplebark Manor seemed bigger than ever as I entered the house and turned on the lights. “Hello?” I called out to the empty rooms and hallways. “Anybody home?”

  I carried my suitcases upstairs and dropped them beside the bed in the master bedroom. Then I turned on the television and let it blare. I needed noise. I had never felt so alone.

  I unpacked my bag—not the one containing the manuscript—and lay down on my bed. I closed my eyes and let the sound of the TV wash over me. I was too tired to sleep.

  I thought of Cullie. I tried to imagine where he was, what he was doing, whether he was thinking of me. I thought of how I had come to depend on him, how I had held him in such high e
steem, how I had envied his values. I thought of how I had trusted him, and wondered how I would trust him now. I trusted my first husband and he left me. I trusted Sandy and he left me. I trusted Cullie and he lied to me. And if he could lie about why he was at Melanie’s house, he could lie about other things, more important things. Like saying he loved me and then leaving me, the way the others had.

  I believed he didn’t kill Melanie, but could I believe his story about Paddy and Annette? There was one way to find out: I could read Melanie’s book. “The truth is in these pages,” Cullie had said.

  I got up from the bed, retrieved the suitcase containing the manuscript, and pulled out the pages Cullie had hidden from me. I carried them over to the bed, sat with my back propped against two pillows, and began to read. I didn’t have to read long before I came to the chapter called, “Alistair/Annette/Paddy: The Love Triangle That Turned to Tragedy.” It was all there, just as Cullie said it was, the whole sorry saga recounted in excruciatingly florid prose. I shuddered to think what Alistair’s reaction to the book would be. I thought of Bethany too, and wondered how she would take Melanie’s assault on her father’s character. Not well, I was sure. Would either of them be angry enough to kill Melanie if they knew the damage the book could cause?

  I should call Cullie and tell him I believe him, I thought. I was foolish to leave the boat. I could have read the missing pages of the manuscript on the Marlowe, with Cullie next to me. I should have stayed. I should have had more faith in the man I loved. Stupid, I scolded myself. Stupid, stupid.

  I put the manuscript aside and reached for the phone to call Cullie. I checked my watch. It was ten-thirty. I dialed his number and waited.

  “Hi, this is Cullie Harrington,” said his answering machine.

  “Cullie, it’s me,” I managed, after hearing the beep. I felt the lump rising in my throat. “I read the manuscript. Do you think we could talk?” I paused. “Please call me back, no matter what time it is. I miss you.”

  I hung up and took a deep breath. Please call me back, I prayed. Please give me another chance. I love you.