Mark Mills - Amagansett

Manfred placed the file on the table and they perused it, side by side. After a couple of pages Justin muttered, ‘Jesus Christ, how many silver stars does a man need?’

‘There’s also a Distinguished Service Cross in there.’

‘I think we get the picture,’ said Manfred.

‘Only part of it. That was the bad news.’ Wakeley handed over the other file.

‘And this is good?’

‘It helps us, yes, quite a bit.’

‘Skip the dramatics, Richard,’ said Justin irritably. ‘Just tell us.’

‘He cracked up in southern France. Badly. He spent the last year of the war in a psychiatric hospital in England.’

‘That’s the good news?’ asked Justin. ‘We’re not just dealing with a war hero, we’re dealing with a deranged war hero!?’

‘He’s unreliable,’ said Manfred, catching on. ‘It discredits anything he says.’

‘Exactly,’ said Wakeley. ‘The question then becomes: what does he know? I think we can safely say he didn’t witness the accident, so we have to assume he heard about it from Lillian.’

‘It’s hearsay.’

‘Right. The word of a dead woman, relayed via her mentally unstable lover, against ours, the three of us. It would never stand up.’

‘But it might create a scandal,’ offered Manfred. ‘The sort of talk we’d never recover from.’

‘We’d gag him as soon as he went to the police with it. Which begs the question: why hasn’t he, gone to the police, I mean?’

‘Because he knows he doesn’t have enough.’

‘And he’ll never get it, as long as we all keep our heads.’

Justin unwound his long legs from beneath the chair and leaned forward, pensive.

‘Justin…?’ said Wakeley.

‘Huh?’

‘Is something bothering you?’

‘It’s probably nothing.’

‘Tell us anyway.’

‘The day of Lilly’s funeral, just after she was buried, this policeman approached me. He asked a bunch of questions about her.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Small…nondescript,’ shrugged Justin.

‘Deputy Chief Hollis.’

‘Yes, that was his name.’

‘What kind of questions?’ asked Wakeley.

‘I don’t know…my relationship with her. He seemed to know we’d been engaged. I really can’t remember, I was pretty upset at the time.’

‘Try and remember.’

Wakeley could feel Manfred tensing beside him and he wished he was alone with Justin right now.

‘He wanted to know how she was, the last time I saw her.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘Well, not the truth,’ snorted Justin, ‘if that’s what you’re worried about.’

He had told them the truth, by phone, within a few hours of that walk on the beach with her. He had described Lillian’s worrying appeal to his conscience, the extent of her own crushing guilt, which seemed to have grown since her move out to East Hampton. He had told them, and they had told him not to worry, they would talk to her, make her see sense. But she hadn’t, she had stood her ground.

‘Why the hell didn’t you say something about this before!?’ snapped Manfred.

Justin was clearly taken aback by the vehemence of the question. ‘What…?’

‘Manfred…’ said Wakeley, trying to silence him with a look.

‘You should have told us before,’ insisted Manfred.

‘He was just a policeman doing his job, asking questions,’ said Justin defensively. ‘Anyway, her death’s got nothing to do with this.’

And then the unthinkable dawned across his face.

‘It doesn’t, does it?’

‘Of course not,’ said Wakeley, stepping in.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

It was an admirable recovery on Manfred’s part, just the right note of dismissive indignation.

‘But we can’t afford to take any chances. Everything has to go through Richard, we agreed that—everything.’

Dinner was a muted affair. Justin declined the offer of a nightcap and they accompanied him to his car. As he pulled away into the night, Manfred turned to Wakeley.

‘I’m sorry, Richard, I messed up.’

‘You’re inclined to speak before you think. It’s your one fault.’

‘He knows, doesn’t he?’

‘He can’t afford to.’

‘That’s not the same thing.’

‘Yes, it is.’

Manfred offered him a cigarette and lit it for him.

‘The policeman, Hollis, he’s no fool. He has shrewd eyes.’

‘Christ, it’s unraveling, isn’t it?’

‘No, it’s not. These things are rarely perfect, it’s all about evidence, a game of percentages. If Hollis had anything concrete we’d know it by now.’ Wakeley paused. ‘It’s Labarde who concerns me. We haven’t heard the last of him.’

‘You think?’

‘They were close, Manfred.’

‘You said they only knew each other a few months.’

‘She was in love with him.’

Manfred snorted.

‘You don’t want to believe it, I understand. But why would she lie to Rosa about something like that?’

‘Rosa said that?’

Wakeley nodded.

Manfred shook his head in disbelief. ‘What did she think, that we’d welcome him into the fold?’ He flicked his cigarette away in anger. ‘A fucking fisherman!?’

‘Our opponent. And you never underestimate an opponent. We have to assume he’s not going away.’

‘That’s very comforting, Richard.’

‘It’s no time for sarcasm.’

‘You know what bothers me? What bothers me is that we didn’t know about him in the first place. Why is that, Richard? Why wasn’t that in the fucking plan?’

‘It was an oversight. It wasn’t dealt with then, we’re dealing with it now. We just have to stay calm.’

Manfred laughed, amused by the notion. ‘Calm? You have any idea what’s at stake here?’

‘You know I do.’

‘Everything. I mean everything. And you’re telling me to stay calm?’

‘Don’t forget,’ said Wakeley, ‘I wasn’t the one driving the car that night.’

Manfred’s eyes locked on to him, but the anger went out of them. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘This is what he wants, to rattle us. Try to think of it as a test. For the future. You’ll learn from it, be stronger for it.’ He rested a comforting hand on Manfred’s shoulder. ‘We’ll get through this, you have my word.’

‘It’s the waiting, I don’t think I can stand the waiting.’

‘Who said anything about waiting? There are times when it’s right to throw the first punch.’

They went indoors and Wakeley spelled out his stratagem.

‘It’s a high-stakes game you’re proposing,’ said Manfred.

‘But the right one.’

Manfred thought on it. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘But I want your friend brought back in, just in case.’

‘He’s not my friend,’ said Wakeley. ‘I don’t even know who he is.’

‘But you know where to find him, right?’

Wakeley nodded.

Twenty-Six

Hollis had always loved the night shift. Even as a patrolman he’d never complained, often trading his days for others’ nights. He preferred the stillness of the sleeping city, the company of the midnight folk—the tramps picking over the detritus of the day, hurrying to beat the street-sweepers and the garbage men, heaping their treasures high upon creaky handcarts; the park-bench philosophers and the outright crazies with their uncommon wisdoms; the cabbies gathered at the taxi ranks, smoking and joking, blue banter swathed in blue smoke.

Then there were the sounds, not smothered by the deafening white noise of the daylight hours—the distant peal of an ambulance, the snatches of music as customers rolled out of basement jazz clubs, the rumble of the early milk wagons. The night made you aware, it allowed you to pick up the trails of other people’s lives.

A Monday night in East Hampton was a very different affair. It was as if word of an approaching plague had reached the community and everyone had left in haste, a few forgetting to extinguish their porch lights before fleeing.

Hollis set himself the challenge of finding any form of life. He was rewarded a few minutes later by the twin beacons of a cat casting a derisory glance in his direction as it loped across Dunemere Lane in front of the patrol car.

At the junction with Egypt Lane, the radio squawked into life. It was young Stringer—always so earnest—holding the fort back at headquarters.

‘Calling Deputy Chief Hollis, calling Deputy Chief Hollis. Over.’

‘Calm down, Stringer. What is it?’

‘An intruder, sir, I just got a call. They heard noises. Over.’

‘You want to tell me where?’

‘Oh, yes…62 Three Mile Harbor Road. Over.’

‘I’m on it.’

‘Do you want assistance? Over.’

‘I can handle it.’

He parked the car some distance down from the house, approaching on foot. There were no lights burning, and he made his way round to the back door. It wasn’t locked. He entered. A tap dripped in the kitchen sink. It was the only sound.

He stepped lightly across the wooden floor, creeping along the corridor, glancing into the living room. It was deserted. A loose board creaked beneath his feet as he climbed the stairs.

The door at the far end of the landing was ajar. He poked his head into the room before stealing inside.

Taking hold of the cotton sheet, he drew it slowly off the bed, inch by inch. She was lying face down, one leg cocked.

His fingertips traced a lazy course from her ankle, up her calf, the back of her leg, gently delving into the warm fork of her thighs.

She stirred, moving her leg slightly to allow his fingers better access. He began unbuttoning his jacket with his free hand.

‘No, don’t take your uniform off,’ she said quietly.

He woke late, his nose searching for the smell of brewing coffee. There was none. He was at home, and had been since four o’clock that morning. He glanced at his uniform discarded on the chair, smiled at the memory of the fleeting encounter with Mary, then swung his legs out of bed, moving with purpose.

He began by tossing the clothes Lydia had left behind into a pile in the middle of the room, hangers and all. Objects followed, the endless knick-knacks she’d accumulated over the years—a family of clay mice with leather tails, a wire figure of a clown, a stuffed redheaded woodpecker clinging to a piece of bark, and worse, far worse. Out of guilt, she’d left him the lion’s share of these, unaware that he’d only ever cooed over them out of politeness to her. They all ended up on the pile. He moved on, working his way through the other rooms, heaping up the litter of their marriage. He was ruthless in his selection. Anything that wasn’t essential to his survival or comfort was tossed. He felt no bitterness, rather a lightness of head.

When he was done, he bundled the piles into his car and drove to the town dump. It occurred to him that much of what he was throwing out might be of interest to the ladies in charge of the rummage booth at the LVIS summer fair, but he dismissed the idea. He didn’t relish the prospect of Mary hearing about the ceremonial purging; she might take it the wrong way.

What was the wrong way? Or the right way, for that matter? He wasn’t sure. All he knew was that, for reasons he’d yet to fathom, she seemed very keen on him. It was all a little overwhelming, to say nothing of exhausting.

Was it normal to want to make love so frequently? He had assumed that the women who populated the pulp novels that used to make the rounds of the detective division were creatures of fiction, with their steamy glances and insatiable appetites.

The last few days had forced him to reconsider that position. Twice she had spurred him on in the scallop shack behind Joe’s house, the mosquitoes feasting merrily on his back. Then in the depths of the night she had stirred him awake with her mouth, insisting that he just lie there this time, inert on his back, while she straddled him. She wasn’t wholly to blame. In the morning, he’d been the instigator as they were dressing for breakfast.

Joe had prepared a small feast to set them up for the return journey, and when he shuffled off to church in his Sunday best, they too went on their way, following the boggy, twisting shoreline of Accabonac Harbor, emerging on to the shimmering sweep of Gardiner’s Bay.

They headed south along the beach, beneath the bluffs, chatting idly as they strolled barefoot across the sand. It was a windless day, and they screwed up their eyes against the sun glancing off the mirrored surface of the bay. At first he resisted the sensation, wary and mistrustful, but he soon gave in to it, recognizing it for what it was: contentment, the simple yet complete pleasure of just being with Mary.

They cut inland, working their way up on to Stony Hill, just north of Amagansett. The narrow trail rose and fell, snaking through the dense woods. It was a rare glimpse of the ancient Appalachian forest that had once blanketed much of the East End, Mary explained. He knew he was meant to appreciate this virgin patch of untamed nature, but he didn’t; it unsettled him, with its gloomy aspects, its rustlings of unseen creatures, and its chorus of amplified birdsong echoing off the canopy of leaves. He was relieved when they finally emerged once more into the sunlight, stepping out through the open pastures that lay to the west, and that led them eventually to the post-and-rail fence of Mary’s home pasture.

They shared a bath then ate a late lunch, which left Hollis plenty of time to return home and get ready for his first of two night shifts. The next day, he had dropped by the LVIS offices on some false pretext to do with the summer fair. With five days to go till the big event, the place was in the grip of a barely contained panic, but Mary still found time to whisper what she intended to do to him the following evening.

She hadn’t waited, summoning him to her house that same night with the call to police headquarters, and he had gone, unquestioningly. And now he was standing at the town dump, hurling away the last tangible remnants of his marriage, wondering what in the hell he was getting himself into: a divorced woman with a difficult son, a violent goose and an unnatural attachment to a place he’d had every intention of leaving before the summer was out.

His confusion hadn’t faded by the time he showed up for work at midday, but it was quickly replaced by another.

Tuesday was Milligan’s day off, the day he set aside for fishing with his cronies, when they wouldn’t have to do battle with the crush of weekend anglers for the best casting spots out at the Point. Yet there the Chief was, sitting at his desk, going over some files. The squad room was deserted.

‘You got a moment?’ called Milligan, far too reasonably. Hollis entered the office.

‘Take a seat.’

‘Not fishing today, Chief?’

‘Doesn’t look that way, does it?’ He nodded at the chair, and Hollis sat himself down. ‘You’ve been asking questions about Lillian Wallace.’

It was bad, worse than he thought.

‘I spoke to the maid, yes.’ Did Milligan also know about his conversation with Justin Penrose?