The Water's Edge

by Daniel Judson

  She walked the length of the motel, past all the rooms, heading toward the door marked OFFICE at the far end of the unit. To the left of the door was a large picture window, reflecting the bleak Long Island sky behind her, but the reflection didn’t prevent Barton from seeing inside when she got near enough. There were no lights on, no sign of anyone anywhere. Barton wondered if Abby had expected to find the place open for business, only to arrive and discover, after she sent the cab away, that she had been mistaken. Could she have called another cab from the pay phone past the office, then gone elsewhere? Or maybe she had already known that this place was closed, came here to throw off anyone who might know how to trace her trail, cause them to waste their time coming all the way out to Montauk. For that matter, instead of calling for another cab, she could have been met here by someone, some unknown friend, and taken elsewhere. She was supposed to be clever, to have learned the art of staying one step ahead from Miller and Bechet, not to mention God knows who else she had crossed paths with in the years since she had disappeared on them.

  At the office door, nowhere to go from there, Barton turned and scanned the empty parking lot behind her, looking for something, anything—tire tracks, footprints, some piece of luck. This was all that was left for her to do. It was then that she spotted someone on the other side of Montauk Highway, a man dressed in a dark overcoat and dark pants. Behind him, parked on the shoulder of the road, pointed west, was an unmarked police car. It hadn’t been there when Barton arrived a moment ago, she was certain of that. The man waved to her, then crossed the road and started walking across the parking lot toward her. She recognized him then, more by his shape—a bull of a man, solid except for his round gut—than his face.

  Detective Mancini.

  She headed toward the middle of the lot to meet him. It seemed, for some reason, despite her ill-feelings for the man, the thing she should do. They stopped just feet from each other, Barton’s back to the motel, Mancini’s to the empty road.

  “Long time, no see, Kay,” he said.

  “Detective,” Barton said flatly.

  He stood with his hands in the pockets of his overcoat, smiled at her but did so guardedly. Happy to see you, I think. He would have, had she remained on the force—and had she, somehow, miraculously, been promoted to detective—become her boss; he had, in fact, been the one to encourage her to take the detective’s exam, was pleased but not at all surprised when she aced it on the first try. But in the months leading up to Barton’s resignation—when all the other cops, save Spadaro, had turned on her—Mancini had made a point of remaining abruptly neutral, doing nothing to hurt Barton but also nothing to help her. A ghost, present but seemingly, suddenly helpless. She had always considered that restraint nothing more than the act of Mancini’s true self—a politician protecting his backside, playing both ends of a tricky situation, just to be safe. The whole postaffair thing could have gone badly for the department—Barton could have sued—or it could have, somehow, worked itself out, no one hurt, not permanently, anyway, in which case Mancini’s behavior would have passed for, at least, appropriate.

  But as proper and true to his self as Mancini’s neutrality may have been, it still had hit Barton hard, like the betrayal that it was, the betrayal of a mentor. Nothing quite like that—she, of course, should know. By that cautious smile of his, she knew that there was the potential for this meeting to go a way that was less than pleasant. Which meant Mancini knew—fully knew—exactly what it was he had done to her. Somehow, that only seemed to make it all the worse. At least Roffman had acted from scorn and fear—honestly, in its way. Mancini had acted out of cold necessity, turned a blind eye to the wrong that was being done to someone who so much wanted to be his student.

  Tense, then, to say the least, this crossing of paths in the empty parking lot of a shut-down motel at the edge of the world.

  “What are you doing out here, Kay?” Mancini said. He was dressed, as usual, in expensive clothing—quality materials finely cut. Barton noticed that galoshes, not unlike the ones she was wearing, covered his shoes. Always pristine, Mancini’s shoes, as shiny as jackboots.

  “I’m just checking something out.”

  “Looks to me like maybe you and I are on the same dead-end trail.”

  Barton looked at him, said after a moment, “Roffman sent you out here?”

  Mancini nodded, looking toward the motel behind her. “Not the best use of head detective, wouldn’t you say? This might as well be Siberia. But we go where we’re told, right?”

  Barton looked toward the road, just to avoid his eyes. “Not fun, being left out in the cold, is it?” she said. She looked around the lot once more, then concluded, “Nothing here, I guess. I’ll see you, Detective.” She started toward the road.

  “Tommy sent you out here, didn’t he?” Mancini said.

  Barton stopped, was standing shoulder to shoulder with Mancini now. He hadn’t moved, kept his back to the road. She looked at him, said nothing.

  “I mean, he sent you out here to find his ex-girlfriend, right?”

  “I’m here on my own,” Barton said.

  “If you are, that means you found out where the girl lived. How else would you have known to come here, right? You traced her here, just like Roffman did, didn’t you?”

  “What do you want, Mancini?” Barton said.

  “I want to help.”

  “You want to help yourself, is what you mean.”

  Mancini nodded. “You’re still pissed off about that, fine, I understand that. I’m sorry about what happened to you. It was a stupid thing for you to do to begin with, but you didn’t deserve what Roffman did to you. I mean, it takes two to tango. If there was anything I could have done, I would have, you have to know that. It’s fucked-up, yeah, but women are still punished for ambition while men are rewarded for it, that’s just the way it is.”

  Barton felt a cold chill of anger. She did what she could, though, to hide it. “What happened between Roffman and me wasn’t me being ambitious.”

  “I get it, I do. A woman like you would be drawn to a man like Roffman.”

  “A woman like me?”

  “We all have our issues, Kay. I don’t think there’s a person walking around who doesn’t have some kind of father issue, man or woman. Roffman had all the power in our little world; he could help you, teach you what he knows, make sure you get the attention you deserve.”

  “What does that mean, the attention I deserve?”

  “You’re a smart woman, talented, even. You would have made a fine detective, clearly. But our department is a boys’ club, always has been. You had to have known, on some level, anyway, that you were going to have to do something to make yourself stand out.”

  “So I woke up one morning and decided to have an affair with the chief of police.”

  “Of course not. He picked you to be his driver, you two spent a lot of time together. Your issues made him attractive to you, and his issues made you attractive to him, it was only a matter of time and all that. But it’s seldom what something really is on the inside, Kay, it’s how it looks on the outside, you know that, or should by now. That’s what matters, that’s what your friend is about to find out the hard way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Roffman claims he got an anonymous tip early this morning that led him to where the Shepard girl was living. That’s why I’m out here in noman’s-land, wasting my time. But if you ask me, Roffman already knew where she lived.”

  Barton thought of what the camera outside of Abby’s apartment had caught. She looked at Mancini, said, “So what does this have to do with Tommy?”

  “Roffman searched her apartment this morning, found out that her phone was registered in Tommy’s name.”

  “That was fast.”

  “No need to involve the phone company. One of the cops with him called his own cell phone from her phone. Tommy’s name as clear as day came up on the caller ID.”

  “Roffman has cops with hi
m? He’s not doing this alone?”

  “There are a handpicked few he apparently trusts. Patrol cops, no one higher than that. If he doesn’t trust them, then he at least controls them or holds something over them.”

  Before Barton could ask the inevitable questions, Mancini continued.

  “So first there’s the business card connecting Tommy to one of the murder victims, and then one of the murder victim’s girlfriend’s phones turns out to be in Tommy’s name. If Roffman didn’t think Miller was involved before, he has to now.”

  “Involved how, though? In what?”

  “Roffman doesn’t actually confide in me these days, you know, but he must think Tommy is trying to set him up or expose him or something. He never believed that Tommy was retired, figured he was just lying low, waiting for his chance. Roffman’s been keeping a close eye on Tommy ever since. The guy’s paranoid, I’m telling you, Kay. He’s like Hitler in his last days. A real bunker mentality.”

  “Tommy has nothing to do with this, Mancini. Not a single thing. He just wants to find his ex, make sure she’s okay.”

  “Like I said, it’s how it looks, Kay. That’s what matters.”

  “But why would Roffman think he’s being set up?”

  “He’s owned by Castello, everything he does is on Castello’s behalf. Whatever he’s up to now—it looks like he’s manipulating an investigation—he’s got himself out on a limb, is probably looking for somewhere to land in case the limb breaks. Someone setting him up—if not proof of that, then at least the suspicion of that, circumstantial evidence indicating that—just might be the best place for him to fall. A onetime PI who has a well-documented history with Roffman and a chip on his shoulder, who better for the job, right?”

  “Roffman came to Tommy, asked for his help.”

  “Yeah, and promised him a twenty-four-hour amnesty. What kind of bullshit was that?”

  “Why would he do that if he thought Tommy was out to get him?”

  “Maybe he was hoping Tommy would lead him somewhere. Maybe he wanted Tommy to get caught somewhere he shouldn’t be, to add to the illusion that Tommy was conspiring against him.”

  Barton thought of the cottage in North Sea, the fact that the police had arrived just as Miller was looking through the place for a second time. It all added up, what Mancini was saying, but so had what Bechet had proposed. There could only be one true sum to that equation, though. But whose sum was it? The onetime enforcer for Castello, or the detective with the heart of a politician?

  After a moment, Barton looked at Mancini and said, “You think Castello is behind these killings after all, that Roffman is trying to cover up for him.”

  “Roffman took over the case, Kay. Locked me and certain others out, is keeping yet others very close to him. Low-level cops, desperate to prove themselves loyal, for a promise of promotion.”

  “Which others, exactly?”

  “Your buddy, for one.”

  “Ricky.”

  Mancini shrugged. “It looks that way, yeah.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Spadaro pretty much shot himself in the foot by sticking up for you, Kay. It’d take a grand gesture for him to make up for that with Roffman. I mean, Spadaro has to have realized by now that his career is heading nowhere, that for him to keep his job, let alone move up, he has to play nice with Roffman.”

  It made sense, it all did, but when push came to shove, Barton still refused to accept it.

  “What else could it be?” Mancini asked.

  “Something else.”

  “Yeah, but what?”

  “Do you think it’s possible that Roffman could be trying to bring Castello down?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You think Roffman has taken over the case so he can sweep things under the rug and protect Castello. Someone else thinks Roffman is behind these killings, that he coerced the couriers into stealing and then killed them or had them killed so people would think Castello was behind it.”

  “Who thinks that?”

  “It doesn’t matter. But there’s a third possibility here.”

  “What?”

  “That Roffman sees what’s going on as a chance to get out of Castello’s pocket.”

  “What makes you think that, Kay?”

  Barton shrugged. “It’s just a . . . hunch.”

  Mancini looked at her closely. “What do you know, Kay?”

  “Nothing. I just can’t see Ricky doing either of the things you guys suspect him of doing. I don’t see him being part of a coverup or going along with murder. I just don’t see that.”

  “Roffman could have given him no choice.”

  “That wouldn’t matter.”

  “So what do you think is going on?”

  “I think Roffman is trying to keep the investigation on track by taking charge of it, and Ricky is helping him.”

  “That’s a stretch, Kay.”

  “To me it’s less of a stretch than what I’ve heard so far.”

  “Tommy came running to you after his meeting with Roffman. Did you tell him something? About Roffman? Do you know something?”

  “No.”

  “Then why the hell do you think all this is some elaborate plan of Roffman’s to get rid of the man who has been buttering his bread for the last ten years?”

  Barton didn’t answer at first. Then, finally: “Tommy and I found a surveillance camera outside Abby’s apartment. It was wirelessly linked to a DVR inside.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “On it were two weeks’ worth of recordings. One of the recordings shows Roffman coming to Abby’s door once.”

  “When?”

  “Two nights before the murders, before last night. He knocked on the door and then just left.”

  “So Roffman did know where the Shepard girl lived. He lied about getting the anonymous tip this morning.”

  “That’s the thing, though. I don’t know if that necessarily means he knew her.”

  “Why not?”

  Barton shrugged. “Something about the way he knocked on her door. Like he was there for the first time. Like maybe he wasn’t even sure why he was there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know Roffman. You’re with a person for a time, you know them, right? It’s just a hunch, I know, but what if someone tricked Roffman into going there, lured him there so there’d be a record of him coming to Abby’s door?”

  “Why would someone do that?”

  “I don’t know. I just know Roffman, and I know Ricky, and none of what anyone is telling me adds up.”

  “No offense, Kay, but female intuition doesn’t really impress me. It sounds like your grasping at something to clear your friend and your ex. And that doesn’t really make sense to me. I mean, I’d think of all people, you in particular would be glad to see Roffman fall flat on his face.”

  “Not if it means two killers go free.”

  “If not Roffman and Spadaro, then who was on the bridge last night? Who killed the restaurant owner?”

  “Castello was under the impression that he had a traitor in his organization.”

  Mancini said quickly, “How do you know that?”

  “I just do. Maybe this traitor and someone else killed the two couriers. Maybe they killed the restaurant owner and Romano’s girlfriend.”

  “Hayes,” Mancini said. “Her name was Hayes. She had a police record.”

  Barton thought about that, the photos of the girl, her and Abby together, laughing, kissing. She was glad now, at least, that the poor girl had a name.

  “Maybe whoever is doing all these killings is playing Roffman and Castello against each other.”

  “Again, why would someone do that?”

  “I don’t know. To start a war. Or maybe to expose their relationship.”

  “That’s a great theory, Kay, but how could we prove that?”

  Barton looked away, toward the empty road, Miller’s truck pointed in one direction, Mancini
’s car on the opposing shoulder, pointed in the other.

  “I wish I knew,” she said.

  “Did you and Tommy take the DVR with you? The one you found in Abby’s apartment.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And the camera?”

  Barton nodded.

  “That’s a real piece of luck,” Mancini said. “If you hadn’t gone there and found it, Roffman would have it now. Whatever it turns out to mean, we might never have known it even existed. Do you still have it?”

  “It’s safe,” Barton said.

  “However this turns out to be, Kay, that’s evidence—of something, at least. Whether Roffman is covering up for Castello or he’s trying to nail Castello, the tape means something.”

  “Like I said, it’s safe.”

  “So tell me, how does it feel?”

  “How does what feel?”

  “To hold in your hand the life of the man who ruined yours?”

  Barton said nothing.

  “Where will you be?” Mancini said. “In case I need to find you.”

  “Back at Tommy’s.”

  “I’m surprised he didn’t come here himself. Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine. I was hoping to find Abby so there would be no reason for him to get any more involved than he already is. At least we would have done everything that could have been done.”

  “Roffman will probably keep me here all night. I’m out of his hair out here but, for the record, on the case. I doubt I will, but if I hear anything, I’ll let you guys know, okay? If you hear something, you know how to reach me.”

  There was a part of Barton that hoped there would be no reason to hear from Mancini again, ever. There was, too, a part of herself that wanted her and Miller’s part in this to end here and now. Nothing more than that, nothing left to do but heal.

  She said, “I’ll see you, Detective,” and left Mancini in the middle of that empty parking lot. She took several strides before he spoke. When he did, she stopped, listened without looking back.

  “You know, if Roffman falls on his face, I’ll probably be appointed acting chief while they look for his replacement. If that happens, I’ll be able to hire whomever I want. Do you think there’s a chance you might be interested in coming back? I’ll probably need all the allies I can get. Smart ones, even more so.”