“Sorry, I keep forgetting. And please call me Sully.”
When they first met back in December, she was following a case that led up to Mundy’s Landing in the Hudson Valley. After the arrest, she was so enamored of the village that she looked forward to return visits to wrap up the case. Barnes, however, complained every time they made the hundred-mile drive from midtown, and can’t understand why she wants to spend her long-awaited vacation there.
“Are you on your way?” Nick asks Sully.
“Not yet. I got a little bogged down in paperwork. You know how that goes.”
Barnes looks up with a snort and rolls his eyes at Sully, who ignores him. Her partner has little respect for their Mundy’s Landing law enforcement counterparts, based on their cushy headquarters on the village square and a crime blotter that typically features trespassers and pooper-scooper violations.
“John Patterson just stopped in to say he’s headed out of town,” Nick tells her, “but the cottage is all set for you. He left the keys under the front doormat.”
John owns the place she’s renting for the next two weeks in Mundy’s Landing. Like many locals, he flees town when the summer crowds descend, funding his vacation—and then some—by renting out his home in The Heights.
Just before Christmas, she’d casually mentioned to Nick that she’d love to visit the village again in nicer weather. He said that Ron Calhoun, the police chief, lives across the street from a place that had just become available again for the last week in June and first week in July. Nick showed Sully a couple of photos of the gingerbread cottage, painted lavender and gray, with window boxes and an ivy-covered chimney.
“You probably don’t want to waste much time making up your mind,” Nick advised. “Whoever was supposed to rent it just backed out last night, and John’s about to list it again. It’ll get snapped up right away. So if you don’t have other vacation plans . . .”
“She does,” Barnes spoke up. “She always spends those weeks down the Jersey Shore.”
He was right about that. Sully used to go with her husband when she was still married, and kept up the tradition with her single friends after the divorce. Last summer, she wound up going by herself, which was . . . fine. Relaxing. Just not exactly fun.
After some debate, she told Colonomos, “Maybe it’s time for a change of scenery. I guess I’ll take it.”
If you were to listen to Barnes—and Sully really does try not to listen to Barnes—you’d get an entirely different account of that conversation.
According to him, Sully was so eager to rent the place that she whipped out her checkbook on the spot, gushing to the dashing cop about how she couldn’t wait to see him again.
“I said the town. Not him. And I never carry my checkbook around. And gushing? I was not gushing.”
“You were gushing harder than ye olde fountain in ye olde town square, Gingersnap.”
“The fountain wasn’t gushing. Everything was frozen solid. It was ten degrees.”
“Well, it’ll be gushing in summer, and so will you if you go back there and hang around with Dudley Do-Right.”
Barnes was wrong. Not about the fountain, with its patinaed copper sculpture of Horace J. Mundy. It’s probably gushing away by now. But she isn’t in the mood. Her landlord told her this morning that he’s raising her rent again on September first. She’s paying a fortune to live in a concrete box that’s not much bigger than the holding cell at Central Booking.
For now, though, she only wants to think about vacation.
“It’s probably not a good idea for John to leave the keys under the mat,” she tells Nick. “Maybe there’s a neighbor who could hang on to them for me? Or maybe . . .”
She trails off, hoping he’ll volunteer to meet her at the house himself.
He says only, “Don’t worry. People do that all the time here. It’s safe. Not like the city. You’ll see.”
Right. Trespassers and pooper-scooper scofflaws. She doesn’t remind him that they met in the first place because she was there investigating a grisly homicide. Last winter’s serial killer was an anomaly. So was the one who struck the village exactly a hundred years ago next week.
Who knows? Maybe Sully will be the one to solve the Sleeping Beauty case and claim the reward. An extra fifty grand would allow her to tell the landlord to go to hell and . . .
And rent a slightly larger concrete shoebox in the sky. Swell.
“Good luck getting settled,” Nick tells her. “Holler if you need anything. I’d offer to show you around when you get here, but I’ve got my hands full with the commotion around here. We’re all working overtime, and then some. Safe travels.”
Overtime, and then some?
She thanks him, wondering if she’s just been given the brush-off.
It isn’t that she was expecting him to wine and dine her. Especially on her first night in Mundy’s Landing. Because of course she’s not going up there solely to see him. Or to see him at all.
It just would have been nice if he’d been a little more accessible, as a fellow cop. And, okay, as a man. An available man. She knows he’s single, and he doesn’t seem to have a girlfriend.
Hanging up, she sees Barnes watching her.
“What?”
“Just wondering what Tall, Dark, and Handsome had to say? Or not say?” he adds, obviously having read her mind, as usual.
“I thought you were Tall, Dark, and Handsome, Barnes.”
“I may be taller and a helluva lot darker, but pretty boy’s got me beat on the handsome.”
“You don’t honestly think that.”
“No, but you do.”
“Don’t put words into my mouth, Barnes.” She pockets her phone, pushes back her chair, and picks up the paperwork. “Come on. It’s time to get out of here. You want to walk me to my rental car?”
“You want to give me a ride to JFK?”
“On a Friday in the summer? Are you out of your mind?” She shakes her head. “I’d help you flag a cab, but we both know you’ll never find one at this time of day in this heat. Hope you brought something to read on the airport bus. I hear War and Peace is a real page-turner.”
“I was just kidding about the ride.” He picks up his own paperwork and reaches for the handle of a rolling bag parked beside his desk. “I’ve got a limo taking me to the airport this trip. Kicking things off in style, baby.”
“Same here. I went with the compact-class rental car instead of economy.”
“Good choice, considering you are compact.”
“And class. Don’t forget it. I’m all class.”
“You’re in a class all your own, Gingersnap.”
“Ditto, Barnes. Who’s footing the bill for the limo?”
“Remember that sweet little old lady I met on Sutton Place a few weeks ago? The one who was struggling with the purse snatcher?”
“The sweet little old lady whose mother was a Vanderbilt and whose purse cost more than I make in a year?”
“That’s the one. She took me to lunch last week to thank me, and when she heard I was going on vacation, she insisted on sending her driver to take me to the airport.”
Sully rolls her eyes and shakes her head.
“What?” Barnes is all innocence. “That’s not violating any rule about accepting gifts on the job. I wasn’t on duty. I was just being a Good Samaritan who happened to come along while she was being mugged.”
“And you were on Sutton Place because . . .”
“Because that’s where Jessica lives.”
“I thought you broke up Memorial Day weekend.”
“We did. I was picking up all my stuff.”
“And then you conveniently dropped it off at Mrs. Vanderbilt’s? Is she your girlfriend now?”
“Hilarious.” He shakes his head. “And she isn’t Mrs. Vanderbilt. Her mother was a Vanderbilt. Her name is—”
“What I want to know is how you managed to dump Jessica and yet somehow still get to take this fabulous vacatio
n to . . . where are you going again?”
“A tiny island in the South Pacific. Jessica’s not going with me.”
“No, but you were supposed to, and she paid for the plane ticket and you’re staying at her timeshare.”
“I told you, we ended things amicably, and she insisted I go.”
Of course she did. In Barnes’s charmed life, someone—usually a female someone—always seems to be jetting him to a resort or carting him around by chauffeur. Or at the very least, sending him pricey bourbon from a nearby barstool. In Sully’s not-so-charmed life, the drunk on the next barstool always seems to be puking on her shoe. Though that hasn’t happened in at least a few months. Maybe her luck is changing.
Five minutes later, stepping out into glaring sun, she and Barnes find Seventh Avenue transformed into a sauna writhing with too many bodies.
“Good Lord.” Squinting, Sully feels around in her pockets for her sunglasses as Barnes lowers his over his eyes. “It’s hotter than Hades out here.”
He holds out his hand, palm up. “Ten bucks.”
“What?”
“You swore you’d never complain again about being too hot. I bet you would. We shook on it. You owe me ten bucks.”
“When was that?”
“January. Remember?”
“Hell, no. My brain was numb from New Year’s until Easter.”
Winter had record lows, and spring came late. When it did arrive, it lasted maybe a day before blasting ahead into full-blown summer.
The city in summer, the city anytime, has never really bothered Sully before. She’s a native New Yorker, born to the breed: her father was NYPD, and so were his brothers, his father and grandfather. Same on her mother’s side.
This is the only home she’s ever known. But she doesn’t find it very appealing under the rippling sheen of sun and heat. The heavy air is ripe with sweat, tar, and garbage. Sirens wail incessantly. Crime goes up with the temperature. The streets are clogged with honking traffic, the sidewalks with cantankerous humanity. Everyone but the tourists would rather be someplace else.
Luckily, she’s about to be.
She pulls a crumpled ten from her wallet and hands it to Barnes. “Here you go.”
“Nah, it’s okay. Keep it.”
“No, give it to that resort masseur you keep talking about, and tell him to give you a couple of extra-hard slaps from me.”
“You mean her.”
“What makes you so sure it’ll be a woman?”
“I saw the Web site photos. She’s an exotic babe in a coconut shell top.”
“Pffft. That’s the Web site.”
“Jealous, Gingersnap?”
“Jealous? Me?”
Okay, so maybe she secretly hopes the masseuse turns out to be a masseur. Or at least a jolly, roly-poly old woman instead of an exotic babe—only for his own good, of course.
Like her, Barnes swore off serious relationships after his divorce. But he likes to flirt, and women enjoy flirting back, including those who think they can lure him for the long term.
Luckily for Sully—and perhaps for Barnes—she isn’t one of them. As far as she’s concerned, partners should never become romantically involved. She and Barnes learned the hard way that fellow cops often make lousy spouses. Reality isn’t changed by the fact that they get along far better with each other than they ever did with their respective exes.
“There’s my car.” He points to a black sedan waiting on the curb across the street.
“Wow, aren’t you fancy, Mr. . . . Baines.”
“What?”
She points to the white sign in the car’s window.
“Baines,” he reads aloud. “Yeah, I’ll be Mr. Baines. Hell, I’ll be Mrs. Baines as long as that car has A.C. Where’s your rental, Sully?”
“Twelve blocks up and around the corner on Eighth. Ready for a fast getaway, facing uptown.”
“Want a ride?”
“Nah, your car is headed in the opposite direction. Listen, you be careful, Mrs. Baines.”
“Of what?”
“The last thing you need is to fall in love with some hula chick masseuse who lives across the globe.”
“Right now, a hula chick masseuse is exactly what I need. How about you?”
“I don’t give massages. And I don’t hula.”
He laughs. Too hard. “I gotta admit, the thought of you jerking around in a grass skirt is . . . interesting.”
“Jerking? Interesting? Hey, I could do a mean hula if I wanted to.”
“A mean hula? Want to demonstrate?”
She gives him the finger.
“Yeah, that is mean. Anyway, what I meant is, what did the doctor order for your vacation? Maybe a strapping stable boy?”
“Stable boy? What am I, a cradle robber?”
“A strapping mature farmhand, then.”
“Where do you think I’m going, Barnes? Iowa?”
“I know where you’re going, Sully. Just remember what I said.”
“Yeah, yeah . . . nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.”
“Not even a nice place to visit. And you wouldn’t want to live there.” He points squarely at her. “Trust me. You might think you would, but you wouldn’t. Just take care of yourself and put everything behind you.” He wraps her in a quick bear hug. “I want you back, okay?”
Touched by the unexpected flash of sincerity, she stands watching him jaywalk across the avenue to his waiting car.
She turns abruptly and starts shouldering her way around the sightseers who insist upon walking four or five abreast. Holding hands. Jerks.
I want you back, okay?
When they first visited Mundy’s Landing in December, she was just busting Barnes’s chops when she said she was so fed up with city life that she’d consider moving there.
But now, six months later, after everything that’s happened, the everything Barnes wants her to put behind her . . .
You never know.
“Move, lady!” a guy bellows in her ear, jostling her from behind. The Don’t Walk sign has changed to Walk. Sully walks, headed north.
Holmes’s Case Notes
To most people, the three Murder Houses are a matched set, having played equal, chronological roles in the historic crimes.
But those people don’t know what I know.
One crucial detail makes 46 Bridge Street unique. Because of it, I find it difficult to stay away even now that the Binghams have moved in.
Augusta was still alive back when I began investigating the Sleeping Beauty murders in earnest, but she would never have invited me past the threshold.
She lived alone even at her advanced age, but caregivers came and went on a regular schedule that was ridiculously easy to discern.
One night, certain Augusta was the only one in the house, I crawled through a broken basement window and stealthily made my way to her bedroom.
For a long time, I stood over her and watched her chest rise and fall, swept by a reverence akin to what I experience whenever I gaze at the historical society’s special exhibit.
To think that the ancient crone, with her wispy white hair and translucent tissue-paper skin, had once been a round-cheeked, brunette six-year-old! I longed to awaken her just so that I could stare into those eyes—or better yet, see what she had seen. As the last surviving witness, she was a living artifact.
She passed away not long after my first stealthy nocturnal visit. By then, I’d found a spare set of keys in a desk drawer and used them to familiarize myself with the floor plan, laying the groundwork for things to come.
It isn’t the same with the other two Murder Houses, for the aforementioned reason and many additional ones. They’re both equipped with alarm systems that will alert police headquarters, conveniently located a block away. Plus, the Yamazaki family, who live at 65 Prospect Street, has a large dog.
Forty-six Bridge Street is readily accessible and has conveniently stood empty for months while it was on the
market. During that time, I often spent the night in the small room that opened off the master bedroom. It was there, in the dark, that my plan took shape.
Chapter 5
“Tonight?”
“Tonight,” Annabelle confirms as she hurries past Trib, dragging a chair around the obstacle course on the floor.
“What time are they coming?”
“Six-thirty.” She tiptoes on the chair to fetch the olive oil and vinegar. She can’t reach most of the shelves in the dark wood cabinets even though she’s an agile five-seven.
“It’s six-forty.”
She glances at the stove clock as she climbs down. He’s right. Damn. The Winstons will be here any minute.
Trib shakes his head, still rooted a few feet inside the door he’d walked through less than a minute ago, wearing khakis and a blue chambray button-down, loosened at the collar and sleeves rolled up. He’s always exhausted on Fridays and was probably looking forward to a low-key evening in front of a televised Yankees game.
“So you’re cooking dinner for them?”
“Me? No. What gave you that idea?” Sarcasm isn’t usually Annabelle’s style, but it’s hot as hell and she’s irritable.
Like the rest of the house, the kitchen is still cluttered with boxes that have yet to be unpacked. Somewhere among them are several window fans. Today would have been a great day to come across them.
“Easy there, Cruella,” Trib says mildly. “What are you making?”
“Couscous-stuffed chicken breasts.” Well, she’ll be making them as soon as the homemade angel food cake, to be served for dessert with strawberries and ice cream, comes out of the oven.
“On a ninety-degree day? What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that school is out and we should celebrate with Oliver, and Connor is leaving for camp tomorrow morning so they won’t see each other until August.”
She doesn’t add that it will take their son’s mind off the mouse—which he hasn’t forgotten. Or that it might be his last bit of fun for the next two months, since she failed to find a summer program for him.
“You don’t have to make yourself crazy. We could have just gone out for pizza.”
Blue Moon Page 7
