“Looks like someone got here ahead of us, huh?”
“Looks that way,” Miller said. He was preoccupied, studying the scene.
Barton took a few more steps. Everywhere she went, there was something under her feet.
“Well, it obviously wasn’t a robbery,” she said. “The stereo and TV are all still here.”
It was then that Barton looked up from her feet and saw what was occupying Miller’s attention. There were holes in the walls. Too large to have been made by fists. Below each one of them, mixed in with the debris of someone’s possessions scattered on the floor, were chunks of Sheetrock.
Miller said nothing, continued looking around. Barton sensed that he was puzzled by something, moving almost hesitantly, the way someone would when trying to reconcile in his head what could not be so easily reconciled.
“What?” she said.
Miller shrugged, looked around some more, then said, “The walls in the bedrooms had the same holes punched in them. The bathroom and kitchen, too.”
“Someone was looking for something.”
“My guess is they didn’t find it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“When you’re searching a place, you don’t start by punching holes in the walls. That’s a last resort.”
“But what makes you think they didn’t finally find whatever it was they were after?”
“There’s a wildness to this, a desperation. It’s like whoever did this was getting progressively more and more pissed as they went. There’s a line where searching becomes rage, becomes tearing apart. They obviously crossed that line.”
Saying nothing, Barton looked around.
“Whatever they were looking for,” Miller said, “it must have been important to them. Unless they had a crew, this took time. And it was noisy. But they were willing to risk it. You don’t do that because there might be something in the walls. You don’t do it for a couple hundred bucks.”
Barton, once again, felt a chill, felt goose bumps rise on her arms.
“Maybe we should get out of here, Tommy. This might have just happened, and whoever was here might still be around.”
Milled nodded, but absently. He said nothing.
“Tommy?”
“Do me a favor, Kay,” he said. “Look around for a phone.”
“I really think we should maybe get going.”
“Please, Kay.”
He didn’t look at her, was standing by a bookcase that had been emptied of its contents. His eyes were on the heap on the floor before him. Barton waited, then crossed the room. She figured the best place to look for a phone was the kitchen. She moved down the narrow hallway, saw as she entered that this room was worse than the front room. Cupboards emptied, kitchenware knocked off counters, all of it on the tile floor. Even the contents of the old freezer were there. Barton knelt down beside a carton of ice cream and opened it. The ice cream was soft but not yet melted. Whoever had been here hadn’t been gone for long.
There was a jack on the wall by the door but no phone mounted on it. Barton returned to the front room, kicked her way through the debris as she walked to the first bedroom. The holes punched in these walls were every few inches, both high and low. Thorough, but, too, as Miller had suggested, out of control. The mattress had been sliced down the middle and pulled off the box spring, which itself had been gutted. The drawers of a single bureau had been removed and turned upside down and emptied, then tossed to the side.
A life in ruins, Barton thought. She could barely imagine how it would feel to come home to this.
In the second bedroom, on the floor beside the bed, among framed photographs, their glass shattered, she found the cradle of a cordless phone. It took her a good minute of looking to find the phone itself. Returning with it to the living room, she saw that Miller was standing with his back to her. By the way he was standing, she could tell that he was looking down at something in his hands.
“I found the phone,” Barton said.
Miller didn’t answer. She walked across the room to him, stood at his side. In his hands was a small stack a photographs and the envelope that had contained them. He had already gone through the first few pictures, was holding those in his left hand. Barton looked at the photo he was now studying. A young man and a woman, sitting on a couch. Even with the room as it was now, Barton could tell that the photographs had been taken here—close, in fact, to the very spot where they were standing.
Miller said, “The guy’s Romano.”
“You sure?”
He nodded. “Roffman showed me a Polaroid at the canal.”
“Then this must be his girlfriend,” Barton concluded. The girl in the photo had dark, curly hair cut bluntly at the shoulders, and a wild smile. Mid-twenties, slender, in jeans and a red turtleneck sweater. Recent, maybe? Certainly not last summer; the sweater was a heavy, dense knit. She had a beer bottle in one hand, the other clasped around Romano’s arm. Adoringly. She was enjoying herself. In love? Maybe, probably.
“Pretty,” Barton observed.
Miller nodded, shuffled through the next few pictures. More of the same—Romano and his girlfriend laughing, drinking, kissing. The photos had been taken in a somewhat rapid succession. Not by a timer, then, by someone.
Miller shuffled through a few more photographs, then stopped. Romano was no longer in the picture. This photo was of the girlfriend and another girl, sitting together on the couch. Barton recognized her at once.
Abby.
Saying nothing, Miller looked at the picture for a moment. Studied it. Barton tried to read him but couldn’t. His face was stone. He shuffled to the next photo. In this one the girlfriend and Abby were laughing and drinking from bottles of beer. Abby was wearing green cargo pants and a white tank top. Ribbed, the tank top clung to her narrow torso, her nipples, hard, all but visible through the thin fabric. Miller moved to the next photo, and then the next. A few photos later he stopped dead again.
In this photo Abby and the girlfriend were kissing, their mouths open, their eyes closed. The next photo showed them kissing still, but trying to do so while laughing. The one after that showed them pulling away from the kiss, Abby reaching up under the brunette’s red sweater, the two of them still laughing.
“Well, I guess they know each other,” Barton said.
Miller said nothing. He thumbed through the rest of the photos quickly. He’d obviously seen enough, and anyway, this was what they had come here to determine, whether Romano’s girlfriend knew Michaels’s girlfriend, and if there was something here to lead them to her. Barton stepped away, looking around the room. She hadn’t seen a computer anywhere—certainly that might be of help. But she hadn’t really been looking for one. She decided to make another pass around and sift through the debris. As she did, she watched Miller pick two photos—each one from different places in the stack—and slip them into the inside pocket of his overcoat. He stuffed the rest of the photos back into the envelope, then dropped it onto the floor. He stood there for a moment, as if lost in deep thought. Barton waited for as long as she could, then said, “I don’t see a computer anywhere. In fact, I don’t see anything to indicate that she even owned one.”
“Does the phone have caller ID?” Miller said. He spoke as if in a trance, one he was certain he wanted to break free of.
“Yeah.”
“Scroll through it.”
Barton found the buttons, pressed them. “It’s empty,” she said.
“It was probably cleared out.”
“By who?”
“Romano’s girlfriend, or whoever was here.”
“Why would they clear out her caller ID?”
“Maybe they weren’t just looking for something. Maybe they were trying to cover their tracks.”
“So what do we do?”
“Hit redial.”
Barton did. The phone began to dial.
“Is there a number on the display?” Miller said.
“Yeah.”
“When it’s done dialing, hang up.”
Barton waited, then pressed OFF.
“What’s the number?” Miller said.
She read it off to him. It was an East Hampton number. “I should write it down,” Barton said.
“No, I’ve got it.”
Miller opened his cell phone, pressed a single button, waited a moment, then said, “It’s me. I need you to do a reverse look-up.” He repeated the number, then said, “Thanks, Eddie,” and hung up.
Neither said anything for a moment. The silence was odd, considering the state of the room they occupied. There should be noise, Barton thought, to go with this mess. Finally, she spoke, breaking the hush.
“You all right?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re partners in crime now, Tommy. Should you really be lying to me?”
“It’s a shock, seeing her after all this time, that’s all. Even just seeing a picture of her. I guess it’s a shock to see that she’s become quite the party girl.”
“Is that your fault, too?”
Miller said nothing.
“At least we know now that your business card might have actually been in Michaels’s wallet legitimately. Abby could have known he was in trouble and gave it to him. It doesn’t rule out Roffman being up to something, but—” She shrugged and stopped there. Her thought wasn’t exactly the consolation she had thought it would be when she first started to speak. “So what now?” she said.
“Eddie will call back in a minute.”
“So why are we still here? Why aren’t we leaving?”
Before Miller could respond, his cell phone rang. He answered it, listened for a moment, then said, “What?” Barton watched his face, could see the confusion. It erupted like sudden anger. “Are you sure?” Miller said. He listened a moment more, then thanked Eddie again and hung up. He looked to Barton absolutely bewildered.
“What?” she said.
It seemed almost as if Miller couldn’t say anything.
“What?” Barton repeated.
“It’s in my name,” Miller muttered.
“What?”
“The last number dialed from this phone is a number that’s registered to my name.”
“I don’t understand. Do you have a second number?”
“No.”
“So what does that mean?”
“It’s Abby. It has to be. She’s the only person who ever had access to the information someone would need to get a phone in my name. That’s how she stayed hidden all this time.”
“Jesus,” Barton said. “Did Eddie give you the address?”
“Yeah.”
“So do we go?”
“First hit redial again,” Miller said. “This time let it ring.”
Barton did. The phone rang a half dozen times. Miller waited until it had rung ten times total, then told Barton to hang up.
“No one’s there, or someone’s there but not answering,” Barton said.
“A machine would have picked up before ten rings, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So maybe she has call waiting. Maybe someone was on the other line and didn’t click over.”
Barton could see the look in his eyes. A wild glimmer. A man caught up in bargaining, a man grasping for something. To be this close now, suddenly, had to mess with his thinking, she knew that—thinking that probably wasn’t all that clear to begin with, thanks to the pain pills. But this was dangerous territory for Miller, there was no escaping that. Everyone has certain behaviors—bad behaviors—that linger always just below the surface, looking, like insurgents, for any reason to emerge or reemerge and take us over like a riot, drive us to do things we should know better than to do. Tommy Miller, as much as he wanted the world to believe otherwise, as much as he wanted to believe otherwise, was no exception to this. He was prone to obsession, Barton knew this, everyone who knew him knew this, and when geared toward something constructive, this tendency was a positive force in a town in need of all the positive forces it could get. But when geared toward destruction, as was the case back in Miller’s youth, innocent people suffered, Miller himself suffered, and terrible events—events with long-reaching repercussions, maybe even an endless chain of repercussions, like an echo that just won’t die—were set in motion.
Miller, then, like everyone, walked the edge of his own dangerous territory, walked it every day and every night of his life. A sentry guarding himself from the worst parts of himself. It was what we all do, Barton thought, there was never any choice in the matter, at least for most of us. The only question, for Miller, was what would it take to unleash the part of himself that waited always for its chance to break free, that followed him as silently and as closely as a shadow? What would it take for the violent child to overrun the man who had finally given up on the notion of redemption?
Barton laid the cordless phone on the bottom of the overturned couch. There was no way she couldn’t express the thought that was now foremost in her mind.
“I need to know, Tommy. Is this about getting answers, or is it just an excuse for you to find Abby?”
“It seems to me one will probably lead to the other.”
“Maybe. But maybe not.”
“Listen, I’m going to make a run out there, see what I can find. First, though, I’m going to take you home.”
“Like hell you are.”
“You’ve stuck your neck out enough as it is.”
“Look, if you don’t take me with you, I’ll just follow you. Besides, Roffman’s amnesty is no good out in East Hampton. Without me, you’re just a guy in a raincoat and baseball cap walking up to someone’s door at one in the morning. You need me.”
“I don’t have time to argue, Kay.”
“Then don’t. I’m going with you, Tommy, that’s all there is to it. In for a penny, in for a pound, you know.”
“It’s better if I do this alone—”
“Please, Tommy. You need me, okay? You need me. That’s all there is to it.”
It took a moment, but Miller finally nodded. He said nothing, though, what was there to say? They left the cottage together, Barton carrying the mock present in one hand, Miller beside her, her free hand in his. His palm, unlike when they had approached the cottage, was damp now. His grip, though, remained as firm. Walking back to his pickup, he surveyed their surroundings as carefully and as discreetly as he could, the bill of his baseball cap dipped low to obscure his face, the distant ends of the dark street on which they moved barricaded by the slowly rolling fog.
It took close to an hour to reach East Hampton. The village was brightly lit but as still as a ghost town, its shimmering streets and wide brick sidewalks empty. So fashionable, East Hampton was, so proper. A New England town at heart. There was less ground fog now, much of it having broken apart as Barton and Miller drove eastward through Noyac and Sag Harbor. But by the time they had reached the edge of East Hampton, the fog had risen back up to treetop height, where it had been when this night had begun. Low-hanging fog might have proved useful, provided them with some degree of cover, but they would have to make do with the somewhat commonplace appearance of a man and woman—two lovers, to anyone’s eye—coming back from late-night drinks, coming back home, hers or his or, if they were lucky, theirs. With the air clear and the village as well lit as it was, this pretense was the only thing they could count on to conceal their intention, if not who they were.
Abby’s apartment was on Newtown Lane, a wide side street that led from Main Street to the train station. The exact heart of the village, but nonetheless asleep at this time of night. Barton parked on the far end of the long block, not far from the train station. As she did this, Miller called Abby’s number—his number, technically—from his cell phone, first entering *67 to block his information, in case Abby’s phone was equipped with caller ID. Again, only a long string of uninterrupted ringing. Barton and he had removed their galoshes before reentering the truck back in North Sea, placed them in the truck’s be
d. Quickly Miller grabbed them now, rinsed them off with one of several bottles of water he kept behind the driver’s seat, then handed Barton her pair. They pulled them on, then walked together down the sidewalk—no gift in hand this time, it was too late for them to play the role of late-showing party-goers. They reached Abby’s street door, found that it was equipped with an intercom system. Three buzzers, the first two of which were labeled with names, the third one blank. According to the information Eddie had provided, the third-floor apartment was Abby’s. Miller pressed the button for that apartment, the unmarked button, with his gloved hand and waited. Nothing. He pressed it once more. Still nothing. He glanced at Barton, and understanding what the next step would be, she positioned herself to best block him as he removed his pick gun from his raincoat pocket and inserted its long needle into the lock. He pulled the trigger twice and turned the knob. It spun free. They moved inside, closed the door, and started up the stairs, Miller in front, Barton close behind him.
The stairwell was lit by a cluster of small antique lamps mounted on the walls at each landing. Tulip lamps, the amber-colored glass giving off a warm glow. A nice thing to come home to, Barton thought. The building was old, the stairs steep, and the planks, no matter how much care they took when they stepped down, noisy beneath their feet. At the foot of the second landing, Miller and Barton stopped and looked up at the door to Abby’s apartment. The same warm, inviting glow was there, but Miller waited like somebody suddenly unsure of his footing. Barton couldn’t see his face, but there was a stiffness in his shoulders, and that was enough to give her insight into his state of mind. Finally, though, Miller pushed through his hesitation and started up the second flight. Barton followed. At the door he stopped once more, this time to listen. There were no sounds from within, no light visible under the door. Miller knocked. Nothing. He knocked a second time, again got no answer, was leaning down in preparation of picking this lock when something above the door caught his attention. He stood up straight, looked. Barton followed his line of vision, found immediately what it was Miller was looking at.
The Water's Edge Page 19
