Mark Mills - Amagansett

He scanned the harbor, a rueful look in his eyes.

‘I guess it don’t matter who’s got it. The Montauketts took it off the Accabonacs with spears—butchered the whole lot of ‘em one evening—we took it off the Montauketts with a pen, the city folk takes it off us with their checkbooks. Men does as men is. It don’t matter, just so long as who’s got it looks after it. How’s Mary?’

‘Er…she’s fine,’ said Hollis, caught off guard by the swift change of subject.

Joe’s eyes searched his face. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘last week we buried old Underwood from over Molly’s Hill there. He were well along in years, that crazy old he-goat. Worked the big clippers most of his life, seen and done more’n enough for ten men.’ He took a swig of beer and smiled. ‘The priest, he’s a young ‘un from up island, he asks around, and he’s got all these stories to tell of Underwood this and Underwood that, how Underwood done pretty near everything save beat Columbus to the Indies. And we’re sitting at the back of the church, me and some others what knew him going back aways, and Ted Durrant says in that voice of his, “Underwood, Underwood…well he is now.”’

Joe erupted in laughter. ‘It got out, you know, around the church, got handed along till the whole place is just heavin’. You shoulda seen the face of that priestling, bub. If he sees out the month…’

Hollis was beginning to fear for the old man’s sanity, when Joe finally composed himself.

‘I guess I mean we’ve all got us a box waiting for us. I know Underwood went to his with no regrets, and that’s a life well lived in my book.’ He paused. ‘They don’t come better than Mary. I were fifty years younger I’d want her for my bride, fight you or any man for her, I would. Don’t screw it up.’

‘It’s good advice,’ said Hollis, ‘it just comes a little late.’

‘Don’t bet dollars to doughnuts on it. Nothing you done to her comes close to what that other one done.’

Joe eased himself into the old spring-rocker.

‘I’ll stop my preaching now, and you tell me why you come all the way out here.’

Hollis hesitated. ‘Lizzie Jencks.’

‘Young Lizzie…’ said Joe wistfully.

‘You knew her?’

‘Her folks is from Springs. They was married right here, bought a little patch down Amagansett, been skinnin’ fleas for their fat ever since. Sure, I knew her. Damn shame what happened.’

‘I think I know who killed her.’

Joe stopped rocking. ‘You think?’

‘I can’t prove it,’ said Hollis. ‘There’s more. Another killing. I can’t prove that either.’

‘Sounds like one heap of killin’ and not much proof.’

‘It is. That’s why I need your help.’

‘My help?’

‘I need to know what Lizzie was doing out at that time of night. It doesn’t make sense, it never has.’

‘You talk like you think I know.’

‘Her mother knows; she’s not saying.’

Joe scrutinized him. ‘Even if I did, you think I’d go against a mother’s wishes?’

Hollis cursed himself silently; he’d come at it all wrong.

‘I need this, Joe.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s all I’ve got.’

Aside from extracting a confession under duress, this was his last play—Lizzie’s midnight stroll.

‘She was going to meet someone, wasn’t she?’ said Hollis.

‘Was she?’ Joe’s face was set like iron.

‘I think it could have been the man who ran her down.’

He had gone back over his chain of assumptions, challenging each of them, forcing them to earn their place in his thinking. One had failed the test: the idea that mere chance lay behind the accident, that the impact of two alien worlds on a dirt-grade road in the dead of night—young flesh and hurtling metal, poverty and wealth—owed itself to nothing more than an unhappy coincidence.

But what did he really know about Manfred Wallace’s movements that night? Only that he’d gone with Lillian from the Devon Yacht Club to Penrose’s place. The rest was alibi, it had to be, concocted after the event. Maybe Lillian had stayed with her boyfriend that night—it was quite natural that she should—maybe Manfred Wallace had left Penrose’s house not in order to return home, but to keep a meeting, a rendezvous with a local girl.

It was thin, he knew that, but his talk with Sarah Jencks had reinforced his suspicions. She knew a lot more than she was letting on, and he wondered if her silence had been bought, or even secured with threats.

‘What if you’re wrong?’ asked Joe. ‘What if Lizzie was just out walkin’?’

‘She wasn’t.’

‘What if you’re wrong?’ insisted Joe.

Hollis couldn’t bring himself to say the words at first.

‘Then it’s over. I’ve got nothing else.’

Joe heaved himself up out of the rocker and wandered to the rail. He ran his hand over his crest of stiff white hair and glanced up at the sky. ‘Weather’s set fair for Mary’s bash.’

It was a good minute before he spoke again.

‘What I’m fixin’ to tell you goes no further.’ He turned to face Hollis. ‘I need your word on it.’

‘I can’t promise that, Joe, not if it leads to something.’

‘It don’t. It is over.’

‘If you’re right, you have my word.’

‘Why don’t you give me the name you got and we’ll go from there.’

Hollis hesitated before speaking. ‘Manfred Wallace.’

‘It’s the wrong name, bub.’

Thirty-Four

The man glanced at his watch but was unable to read off the time in the darkness. Almost ten o’clock, he guessed. With any luck he’d be back in his cottage and asleep by two a.m., maybe three. The call to New York could wait till the next morning. Nobody would want to be dragged from their bed at that time of the night.

He tried to picture the face that went with the voice at the other end of the telephone line, but failed. He wasn’t well spoken, just well connected with those who were, that was clear from the kind of jobs he handed out. Who else had there been? The lawyer, the Chicago banker, the square-jawed young polo player who’d pissed himself at the last moment. Establishment types. He never knew why they’d been singled out for his attentions, never even thought to ask. Best to just do the job and clear out.

This one was different though, intriguing—first the rich girl, now the big fisherman with the crappy truck. What was the connection between them? Something to do with the document, but he couldn’t see what exactly. He might have to break with tradition on this one and ask the guy before doing the deed.

He got to his feet and wandered over to the window. He could still see lightning scything the night sky way out at sea. The storm had stayed offshore, heading east. That was good. Rain was problematic. It meant mud on the shoes, it meant tire tracks, it meant a big pain in the ass.

He froze. His first thought was that the wind buffeting the fisherman’s house must have drowned out the noise of the truck. His second thought was that he’d been spotted. He hadn’t been. The darkened figure moving across the deck outside didn’t alter its course.

The man skipped lightly across the boards and took up his position.

The fisherman entered warily, but didn’t think to look behind the door.

The cosh was already raised, and he brought it down on the back of his skull.

Not too hard, not too soft—just right, he thought—as the fisherman crumpled to the floor.

Conrad came at the house from the beach, the gun in his hand brushing against his thigh as he walked. The breakers were building, booming as they collapsed—snatches of thunder stolen from the storm that had given them life.

He peered over the crest of the frontal dune and thought at first he was seeing things. There appeared to be light coming from the barn. He wasn’t mistaken. He could just make out the sound of the generator above the noise of the warm wind whistling through the beach grass.

He made straight for the house, skirting it, only approaching to examine the corner where the telephone cable entered the building. It hadn’t been cut. He waited in the darkness a while, listening for noises from inside the house, then he headed for the whaleboat house. It was deserted. He tucked a gutting knife into his boot before leaving.

He approached the barn with caution, glancing around him as he went. Ideally he would have checked the interior from one of the high windows, but the ladder he required was inside the barn.

He made two tours, drawing progressively closer. There was no way of entering unnoticed, no loose cladding to be gently prized aside, he knew that, he’d nailed the boards in place himself not even a year before.

This only left the main doors, slightly ajar, the tall crack of inviting light. He made his way over, alert, strongly suspecting he was treading a path expected of him.

Nothing, though, prepared him for what he saw through the gap in the doors.

Rollo was lashed to a chair near the base of one of the main supports. He was gagged and his chin rested on his chest. For a terrible moment Conrad thought he was dead, but Rollo raised his head and glanced around, wild-eyed, struggling with his bonds, only to slump again in defeat.

Whoever was present must be somewhere behind Rollo, lurking in the shadows. This didn’t help Conrad much. He would have to enter regardless.

He tucked the handgun into the back of his waistband, pulling his shirt down over it, then eased the doors open a fraction.

‘Come in, Mr Labarde.’

Rollo’s head snapped up, his desperate eyes fixing on Conrad. Conrad fought to stay calm: mustn’t let his anger cloud his actions.

‘I haven’t got all night,’ said the voice from the shadows.

Conrad pulled open the doors and stepped inside.

‘Move to the other end of the barn.’

Conrad did as instructed, skirting the long workbench that ran down the center of the building beneath the whaleboat suspended in the rafters.

‘Put your gun on the table.’

‘I’m not armed.’

‘Then you won’t mind stripping down.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me.’

Conrad began unbuttoning his shirt.

‘You should know I have a gun aimed at the back of your friend’s head.’

As he eased the shirt off his shoulders and down his arms, Conrad pulled the gun from his waistband, letting it fall to the ground in the shirt.

‘Turn around,’ said the voice. ‘Now the pants.’

Conrad loosened his belt and dropped his pants.

‘And the underwear.’

Conrad did as instructed. ‘Like I said, I’m not armed.’

‘Take off your shoes.’

Conrad undid the laces and pulled off his boots, concealing the gutting knife in his pants as he stepped out of them.

‘Now toss everything over there by the door.’

Conrad bundled the clothes and boots up tightly so the weapons wouldn’t spill out. Not that it would have mattered. At that distance, they’d play no further part in what was about to happen.

‘Turn around.’

Conrad stood naked, facing Rollo down the other end of the workbench. ‘It’ll be all right,’ he said to his friend, only starting to believe his words as his eyes settled on a hand ax lying within reach on the workbench.

There was movement in the shadows behind Rollo, and a man stepped into the light. It was the same man who had followed him to Sag Harbor, though somehow he had looked taller behind the wheel of the black sedan. The long-barreled handgun was leveled at the center of Conrad’s chest.

‘I’ll get straight to the point,’ said the man. ‘You’ve got something I want, and I’ve got something you want.’ He rested a hand on Rollo’s shoulder.

‘Who are you?’

‘It doesn’t matter. What matters is the document, the one you went to the lawyer about.’

‘What lawyer?’

The man placed the end of the barrel in Rollo’s ear.

‘Don’t mess with me.’

Conrad stared into Rollo’s terrified eyes. Then it came to him—one slender chance.

‘Well, I guess this is what you call a Nantucket sleigh ride,’ he said.

‘A what?’

‘Rollo knows what I mean, don’t you, Rollo?’ said Conrad, willing him to understand. There was a flicker of confusion in Rollo’s eyes, then he raised them to the whaleboat overhead.

The man cocked the hammer of the gun. ‘Say goodbye to the half-wit.’

‘Don’t. You don’t understand. I know you followed me to Sag Harbor.’

‘That’s clear now, isn’t it?’

‘I know you carried on down to the waterfront when I turned into Union Street. I know you then drove up Main Street. And I know I crossed right in front of your car.’

It was enough to unsettle the man. ‘It’s a good try,’ he said.

‘I knew you were coming here.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Tell that to the two cops waiting outside.’

The man’s eyes narrowed almost to a squint.

‘I’m here to offer you a deal,’ said Conrad.

‘No.’ The man shook his head. ‘You’re bluffing.’

‘Deputy Chief Hollis,’ shouted Conrad, ‘I think it’s time you showed yourself.’

The man’s eyes flicked involuntarily to the barn doors.

Conrad made his move, lunging at the ax on the workbench, spinning back and burying the head in the wood of the support behind him, cutting the rope and rolling aside in the same movement.

He had expected the man to fire; he hadn’t expected him to miss. As the severed rope whipped through the block and tackle supporting the whaleboat, Rollo toppled his chair to the left.

The whaleboat crashed on to the workbench, its bow poleaxing the man. Conrad didn’t wait to assess the damage. He came out of the roll, seized a lance from among the clutter of whaling gear stacked against the wall and spun back.

Remarkably, the man was getting to his feet. His right arm hung limp and useless from its shoulder joint, but his left hand was already bringing the gun to bear on Conrad.

Conrad let fly with the lance—his stance, the action, those of their boyhood games, the endless whale rallies enacted with Rollo and Billy. He didn’t have to think, the past came willingly to his aid.

The lance caught the man in the midriff, low down and to the side, the steel point passing straight through him. Both his hands instinctively went to the wooden shaft protruding from his belly and the gun fell to the floor. He recognized his mistake almost immediately, lunging for the gun.

Conrad kicked him in the side of the head as his fingers closed around the butt.

Recovering the gun, he backed away towards Rollo, who was struggling on the ground, twisting his head vainly to see what was happening.

‘It’s me,’ said Conrad. He pulled the gag down over Rollo’s chin. ‘You okay?’

Rollo nodded. Conrad bounded over to his clothes, recovered the gutting knife and cut the ropes binding Rollo’s arms and ankles to the chair.

‘Conrad…’

‘Shhhh, it’s okay, it’s over.’ Rollo was shaking as Conrad helped him to his feet, and Conrad held him tight in case his legs buckled beneath him. They stared at the man lying skewered on the floor.