MITCH’S IDYLLIC ISLAND PARADISE was different now.
It was no longer secluded. It was no longer peaceful. There was no way it could be. Two local men had been shot dead. The New York Post was now calling Dorset “the murder capital of Connecticut’s Gold Coast.” Inside Edition, the syndicated tabloid news show, had delivered up Big Sister to the entire nation on a platter: “The blue blood is flowing,” declared their breathless correspondent. Dateline, not to be outdone, had unearthed the sordid murder-suicide of Tuck Weems’s parents, complete with grainy thirty-year-old local news footage of troopers with mutton-chop sideburns. Entertainment Tonight had gotten into the act, too, by sniffing out the celebrity angle-Big Sister’s own Jamie Devers.
In fact, there were so many reporters clogging the entrance to the bridge that it was hard for Mitch to get off the island. He ventured out only because he needed groceries. Also a few things at the hardware store, where he found out from Dennis that the villagers bitterly resented how Niles Seymour was being portrayed as one of them by the media-which he was not-while Tuck Weems had been labeled as a low-life, when he was actually a decorated Vietnam vet whose family had lived in Dorset since the early 1800s.
The villagers particularly resented the presence of so many news vans and cameras and microphones. They considered it a gross intrusion on their privacy. In Dorset, the only offense that ranked worse than invading someone’s privacy was selling your land to a developer.
Lacy sent Mitch a tart one-line e-mail message from the office: Still think you can be left alone?
To which Mitch replied: I’m doing my damnedest not to think.
His paper’s Connecticut correspondent phoned him in the hope of getting Mitch’s exclusive firsthand account of how it had felt to dig up Niles Seymour’s body. Mitch didn’t want to talk about it. “Sure, I understand,” the correspondent retorted, thinking Mitch wanted the story for himself. He did not. He wanted no part of it. He didn’t like this real-world invasion. He didn’t like that his photograph had been in all of the newspapers. He thought about going back to the city until the whole mess blew over. But he didn’t want to do that either. So he stayed and tried to work on his book. Only now it seemed hard to get excited about a sagebrush ventriloquist on horseback.
So he was slouched in his easy chair, chasing doggedly after Hendrix’s “Little Wing” on his Stratocaster, when Lieutenant Mitry returned to question him for the second time.
She did not bring her sketch pad. She did not knock. She just stood there in his doorway, smiling at him sweetly. “I learn something new every day, you know that?”
“Oh yeah? What did you learn today?”
“Well, I had no idea that Don Ho ever covered Jimi Hendrix’s songs.”
“Gee. Thank you, large.”
“Hey, don’t get me wrong, Mr. Berger. I hear ‘Tiny Bubbles,’ I go to pieces.”
“I’ll remember that, Lieutenant. Now what can I…?” Mitch trailed off, frowning. “Wait, what was that noise?” he demanded suspiciously.
“What noise?” she said innocently.
“Meowing. I distinctly heard meowing.”
“Oh, that’s Baby Spice,” she said, retrieving a nylon cat carrier from the front porch. There was a small, wide-eyed kitten inside, predominantly gray, and extremely anxious to be let out of jail. “She’s free of worms and ear mites. She’s had all of her shots. And she comes with a certificate for one neutering, free of charge. She’s my best girl. All she needs is somebody to love her.”
“Lieutenant, I told you I wasn’t interested in taking in a stray cat.”
“You sounded wavery.”
“I did not,” Mitch insisted. “Look, I had one when my wife was alive. That was then. I don’t want to go there again, okay?”
“No, it’s not okay. You can’t take it out on the entire cat population that your wife died of cancer.”
Mitch peered at her, startled. He hadn’t told her anything about Maisie’s cancer. She had been checking up on him.
“We’re living in the here and now,” she went on. “This is today. And today Baby Spice needs a home.”
“Did you have to name her Baby Spice? I mean, that’s really nauseating.”
“So I’m not good with names. I know this about myself. Call her Ashley. Call her Heather. Call her any damned name you please. Just take her. You won’t regret it. She’s the sweetest little thing. She’s excellent company. And it’s a proven fact that a cat’s soothing presence helps reduce a man’s blood pressure.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my blood pressure, or at least there wasn’t.”
“Just try her out for a few days, okay?” She was already barging her way upstairs to his room with the carrier. “It doesn’t work out, I’ll take her back. No harm, no foul.”
“You’re really going to do this to me, aren’t you?”
“You’ve got that right.”
“And my feelings don’t enter into it at all?”
“Not one bit,” she affirmed. “Now I’m going to release her up here in your bedroom. They like to get acclimated in a small, contained space. She may stay up here a few days. When she’s feeling ready to come down, she will. I’ve brought you a week’s supply of food. And I’ve got a litter box in my trunk. All we need is some native sand.” Mitch could hear her cooing softly to the kitten now. “Lookie, lookie
… She just loves your bed.”
“How touching.”
The lieutenant charged back downstairs and went into his kitchen to fill a saucer with water.
“Just out of curiosity, do the authorities know about you?”
“I am the authority,” she replied, carrying the saucer back upstairs. Then she returned, empty carrier in hand. “And you may as well know this-when it comes to cats, I am utterly ruthless.”
Mitch did not know what to make of this woman at all. There was something disconcerting about the pale green eyes behind those thick horn-rimmed glasses. Her gaze was so direct, so calm, so lacking in guile or deceit, that he found himself flummoxed by her. Then again, maybe it was just that he had never been alone in a room before with someone who was licensed to carry a loaded semi-automatic weapon. Mitch’s experience with the police was extremely limited. His apartment had been broken into once. That was it. He had never been involved in a serious crime.
The lieutenant had. She tracked down killers for a living. She was obviously tough. She was obviously bright. She was obviously a marshmallow when it came to stray cats. She was also someone who did not like to reveal anything personal about herself. Clearly, she’d been bothered when Mitch had noticed the charcoal under her fingernail. Beyond that, Mitch could not read her. Which would not have been of any great concern to him were it not for two undeniable facts.
Fact number one was that she suddenly seemed to be running his life.
Fact number two was that she was good-looking. She was very good-looking. Her skin was smooth and glowing. Her smile, when she flashed it, did warm, strange things to the lower half of his body. And her figure was positively breathtaking. She was a big woman, at least six feet tall, but lithe and loose-limbed and light on her feet. She also happened to possess one of the top half-dozen cabooses he had ever laid eyes on, right up there with Cyd Charisse, Sheree North and Emily Rosenzweig, the girl who had sat in front of him in tenth-grade Biology at Stuyvesant High. Not that the lieutenant was showing it off. Her clothes were downright mannish. She wore no jewelry either. There was no wedding ring.
She was gazing intently at his right bicep now. It was a warm day and Mitch was wearing the complimentary red T-shirt that had been included in the press kit for Amityville: The Evil Escapes. “What does that mean?” she asked, referring to his Rocky Dies Yellow tattoo.
“It’s the headline from Angels with Dirty Faces.” On her blank look he added, “I guess you’re not into old movies. It’s one of the best films Cagney ever made for Warner Brothers. A true classic. It’s got Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, Pat O’Brien, the Dead End Kids. Direction by Michael Curtiz… What does yours say?”
“My what?”
“Your tattoo.”
“What makes you think I have one?” she demanded.
Mitch shrugged his shoulders.
“It says The Answer,” she responded grudgingly.
“Are you?”
“On my good days.”
“And where do you have it?”
“Somewhere you’ll never, ever see it,” she said, sneezing.
Mitch shook his head at her. “I told you you’d catch a cold.”
“I don’t get colds,” she objected, dabbing at her nose with a tissue. “It’s mold spores. I’m allergic to them.”
“Then we’d better get out of here-this house is mold city.” Mitch flicked off his amp stack and started for the door. “Let’s get you some fresh air.”
“Mr. Berger, I do happen to be here on official business.”
“Uh-huh. Like Baby Spice is official business. C’mon, let’s walk.”
She wavered there uncertainly, her feet set wide apart. Clearly, she was ill at ease on Big Sister.
“Look, I’ll make this easy for you,” he said. “I am taking a walk. If you want to ask me any questions, then I suggest you walk with me. Do you need to use the bathroom before we go?”
“I’m fine, Mr. Berger,” she said curtly.
“I wish you’d call me Mitch. How about Kleenex? Can I get you some more Kleenex?”
“Let’s walk,” she snapped irritably.
They walked, taking one of the narrow paths lined with beach roses down to the beach. It was a bright, beautiful day. The salt air was clean and fresh. Gulls and cormorants soared overhead. But the tide was in and there was almost no dry sand to walk on. Mitch paused to pull off his chunky Mephistos and his sweat socks. Reluctantly, she did the same with her polished black brogans and gray cashmere dress socks. She had, without question, the longest, narrowest feet Mitch had ever seen.
“My God, what size shoe do you wear?”
“Twelve and a half double-A,” she replied, frowning. “Why are you asking?”
“Has anyone ever told you that your feet bear a striking resemblance to a pair of skis?”
“Um, okay, anyone ever tell you that yours look just like piglets?” she shot back. “Fat and pink and hairless?”
“Hold on,” Mitch cautioned. “I think there was a racial subtext to that remark.”
“There was not,” she insisted, nostrils flaring.
“Was.”
“Man, do you ever stop flapping your gums?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. When I’m working I have to be silent for hours and hours at a time.”
She glanced at him, nodding. “Okay, sure. And then as soon as the lights come up the gas just billows right on out of you. Consider me schooled. Next time I question you, Mr. Berger, it’s going to be in the dark.”
“That’s fine by me, just as long as you bring the popcorn. Extra butter, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind one bit,” she said, flashing her smile at him. “I’m not the one who has to look at you with your shirt off.”
They walked, her dreadlocks swinging, her stride uncommonly long. His own was plodding and rather heavy. He had to work to keep up with her.
“You ever date a woman named Torry Mordarski?” she asked him.
“I don’t think so-the name doesn’t ring a bell. How long ago are we talking about?”
“In the past few months.”
“Oh, then it’s definitely no. Why, who is she?”
“Was is the operative verb tense. She was a single mother in Meriden. We found her murdered in the woods up there six weeks ago.”
“And…?”
“And the thirty-eight slug that killed her matches up exactly with the slugs we took out of Niles Seymour and Tuck Weems.”
He glanced at her in surprise. “That wasn’t on the news this morning.”
“We don’t tell them everything. Same way you didn’t tell me everything.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you didn’t mention Mrs. Seymour’s episodes in the night,” the lieutenant said with flinty disapproval.
“I felt it was the family’s job to tell you. Besides, I promised Bud I’d keep it to myself.”
“And you’re a man who can keep a secret.”
“I guess. Never gave it much thought-I don’t get asked very often.”
They plowed their way past the lighthouse in the direction of Big Sister’s private dock. Jamie and Evan were working on their sailboat. Bud was working on his boat as well. Mitch supposed that this was what you did when you had a boat-you worked on it. Especially when you couldn’t leave the island without being assaulted by the media. Mitch waved to them. All three of them waved back, watching him with frank curiosity as he strode past with the lieutenant.
Overhead, a news chopper hovered, filming the island for the evening news. Mitch was beginning to get an idea what it must be like to be a Kennedy.
“So the same person who killed Niles Seymour and Tuck Weems also killed this Torry Mordarski woman?”
“Same weapon. Not necessarily the same person.”
“But probably, right?”
“Most likely.”
“Have you found the weapon?”
“Not yet. We did find one freshly dug hole in the woods near Mrs. Seymour’s house, but all we unearthed was-”
“A dead fox.”
She nodded, peering at him.
“I buried it for Dolly the other day.” Mitch furrowed his brow, confused. “Well, I don’t understand.”
“What don’t you understand?”
“How Torry Mordarski and the two dead men connect up.”
The lieutenant explained it to him. She told him that Torry had been seeing an older man named Stan, an elusive figure who had covered his tracks carefully and was the prime suspect in Torry’s murder. She told him that the description of Stan fit Niles Seymour to a tee-although a coworker who had once caught a glimpse of Stan failed to recognize Seymour from his photo. She told him that Torry Mordarski matched the description of the young woman Bud Havenhurst and Red Peck had seen with Niles Seymour at the Saybrook Point Inn the day before he disappeared. All except for the hair color-Torry had been a blonde, not a redhead. The inn had no record of Niles Seymour or Torry Mordarski having been registered there the night of April 17. But they did have a record of one Angela Becker of Lansing, Michigan, having registered there. She had paid cash for the room, so there was no credit card trail to follow. However, since it was standard hotel policy to photocopy the driver’s license of any guest who chose to pay with cash, the inn did have that on file. And Angela Becker’s driver’s license was a fake. In fact, Angela Becker was a fake. There was no such person living at any such address in Lansing, Michigan. Angela Becker’s age, height, weight and hair color-red-matched the woman who Bud Havenhurst and Red Peck had seen with Seymour. And the photocopy of her driver’s license picture bore a fuzzy resemblance to Torry.
“So you think this Angela Becker person was actually Torry?”
“I do.”
“Why use a fake ID?”
“Not so unusual. Seymour was a married man. They worry about leaving paper trails behind for divorce lawyers to find.”
“I see,” Mitch said thoughtfully. “So if Torry Mordarski was the woman who they saw with Seymour, then that means Seymour was her elusive boyfriend, Stan. And someone got jealous and killed both of them. And then turned around and killed Tuck Weems when Seymour’s body was found. Which makes no sense to me at all. Not unless…” Mitch paused, nodding his head at her. “Okay, now I know where you’re going with this.”
Lieutenant Mitry raised an eyebrow at him. “Where is that?”
“You’re thinking Dolly is the killer. She found out that her husband was having an affair with this young babe up in Meriden. So she lured Torry into the woods and shot her. Then she came home and shot Seymour. Tuck Weems, her loyal family caretaker, helped her bury him. Maybe he even got her the gun, too. Then she wrote the Dear John letter she claimed Seymour left her. Everything would have been fine if I hadn’t dug up the body… Do you know yet how long it was down there?”
“Preliminary reports from the coroner and forensic entomologist estimate four to six weeks. It plays,” she concurred. “Go on.”
“Okay, so now she was afraid Weems might talk. Or maybe he threatened to blackmail her. So she met him out at the beach and killed him to cover her tracks. He was killed there, wasn’t he?”
“He was. And his truck was parked nearby.”
“Then it all fits together neat as can be. All except for one thing.”
“And what’s that?”
“Do you honestly think that nice lady killed three people?”
“I don’t think anything, Mr. Berger. I’m strictly trying to get at the truth.”
“But she gave me permission to dig there!” Mitch argued heatedly. “No way she’d do that if she knew the body was there.”
“Maybe she didn’t know,” the lieutenant countered calmly. “Maybe Weems didn’t tell her where he buried it.”
“But she left his prescription medicines right out there in the open in her bathroom. If she had killed him, if she had wanted it to look like he ran away with another woman, wouldn’t she have destroyed them?”
“I would have,” she conceded. “But that’s just me.”
“Besides, if Dolly did kill him, then where’s all of that money of hers he supposedly absconded with? The man’s not gone. The money is. Who took it? Where is it?”
“We don’t know that yet. We’re still following that particular trail.”
“But she’d still have it, wouldn’t she?” Mitch persisted. “If she were the killer then she wouldn’t be broke, would she? She wouldn’t have needed to rent the carriage house out to me, would she?”
“Those are good questions. I can’t answer them.”
They strode in silence for a moment, Mitch’s chest beginning to heave, his brow streaming perspiration. This woman did not believe in a leisurely stroll. A power walk was more like it.
“What else have you found out?” he asked her, puffing. “That you haven’t given to the media yet, I mean.”
“Mandy Havenhurst has had herself some brushes with the law. It’s on the record. Press will be onto it by tomorrow.”
“What kind of brushes?” Mitch asked curiously.
“Got busted in an upscale St. Louis suburb in 1994 for attempting to murder her live-in boyfriend. Poured kerosene over him while he was asleep and set him on fire.”
“Jesus!”
“Jealous rage, apparently. He suffered extensive second-degree burns, but refused to press charges. Her father paid him off. She cleared out of St. Louis fast and resurfaced in Martha’s Vineyard. Where, in 1996, she rammed her new boyfriend’s Jeep through the sliding-glass doors of his cottage and pinned him and the woman she’d caught him with up against a wall. Same story-no one pressed charges. It would seem,” the lieutenant concluded, “that she doesn’t like it when her man strays on her.”
“I wonder how she feels about Bud being so attentive toward Dolly,” Mitch said, remembering his 3:00 A.M. confrontation with the lawyer in Dolly’s kitchen. “That can’t make her happy.”
“Wouldn’t think so.”
“That’s very interesting,” Mitch said, gasping for breath. Lieutenant Mitry wasn’t even breaking a sweat. “Anything else?”
“We’re beginning to construct a profile of Niles Seymour. And it’s not ultra-flattering. He was your classic career low-life. Always skating right on the edge of the law-selling time-shares in half-built retirement villages, stocks over the phone to unwitting widows. Real boiler-room stuff.”
“Makes you wonder why Dolly fell for him.”
“She was alone and vulnerable. Easy prey for a man who she’d ordinarily know was bad news.”
“This sounds like the voice of personal experience.”
“Well, it’s not,” she snapped, abruptly closing that avenue of conversation.
Nonetheless, Mitch found himself wondering why Lt. Desiree Mitry was speaking with him so candidly. Was this some form of cop game she was playing on him? Was she trying to entrap him into incriminating himself? Was he a prime suspect in her eyes? It hadn’t occurred to him that he might be. But he could imagine no other reason why she was talking with him this way. “Am I on your radar, Lieutenant?”
“My radar?”
“Do I need to start looking for a lawyer?”
“No, I wouldn’t think so.”
“That’s good, because I happen to hate lawyers. They have no moral compass, no sense of personal responsibility, no conscience, no-”
“Before you go any further I should tell you that I used to be married to one.”
“Well, then I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, am I?”
She glanced at him in astonishment. “No, you aren’t,” she said softly.
So her husband had thrown her over for another woman, Mitch surmised. Briefly, they fell silent, Mitch convinced that he was going to suffer a massive heart attack if he tried to keep pace with this tireless gazelle any longer. He pulled up and flopped down on a beached driftwood log, wheezing. “Are you ever going to tell me what I told you?” he asked, squinting up at her.
“Which is what?” Her eyes were scanning the sailboats out on the Sound.
“How you ended up doing what you’re doing.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Graduated from West Point. Got downsized at the end of the Cold War. Went for a master’s degree in criminology. Took the state trooper exam. End of story.”
“You got the highest test score in the history of the state, didn’t you?”
She narrowed her pale green eyes at him suspiciously. “How did you know that?”
“Dunno,” Mitch confessed. “I just did.” Same as he knew that she was holding something back. He wondered what. He wondered why.
“Uh-hunh,” she said doubtfully. “And what else do you know?”
“That you don’t like what you’re doing for a living.”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “What I don’t like, Mr. Berger, is the way you keep doing that
“Doing what?”
“Acting like you know me.”
“It just comes out. Strange things like that happen sometimes between two people. It’s a brain-wave thing. In fact, I happen to know exactly what you’re thinking at this very moment.”
“Which is…?”
“If that somewhat largish white fellow makes one more personal comment about me I’m going to hit him over the head with my Glock so hard he won’t even remember his name.”
“Okay, this time you are way wrong,” she said, smiling at him. “It’s a Sig-Sauer.”
“So I don’t know very much about guns.”
“You’re better off. But keep on busting me and you will get on my bad side.”
“Which means what-I get another cat?”
“It could happen.”
And with that Lieutenant Desiree Mitry resumed walking, her stride even longer and more purposeful than before. She was a good fifty yards away by the time Mitch made it back up onto his feet and started after her.
Bud Havenhurst was fiddling with the trailer hitch on his Range Rover in the courtyard outside of Dolly’s house when the lieutenant drove off in her cruiser. His presence was by no means accidental. He was strictly hanging around there so as to pump Mitch.
“What did she want?” the lawyer asked him with elaborate casualness.
“I’m really not sure,” Mitch answered truthfully.
“Hey, boy, do you play golf?”
“A bit. Why?”
“I wondered if you’d let me drag you out to the club today,” Bud said genially. “We could have a spot of lunch. Play a round. Best place in town to hide out from the press corps.”
“I don’t have any clubs.”
“You can use Seymour’s-they’re in the barn.”
“They’re evidence, aren’t they?”
“Of what?” Bud’s gray eyes twinkled at him playfully. “Is it a date?”
Mitch thought about it, studying Bud Havenhurst carefully. The man’s hearty good cheer seemed forced. He acted rattled and unsteady. He had shaved poorly. Perhaps he had something on his mind. What it was Mitch could not imagine. But he was intrigued.
So he said, “You’re on-just as soon as I check my bed.”
He headed back to his little house and went upstairs, treading softly, to look in on Baby Spice. A truly awful name. He’d have to change it, if he kept her. If he could find her. She was not on the bed, in the bed or under the bed. She was not behind the little dresser where he kept his underwear and socks. That was it for the sleeping loft-there was nowhere else to hide. He called to her gently. Listened for a little squeak of response, a rustling, anything. But there was nothing. Mitch had learned long ago that there’s nothing on the face of the earth that’s harder to find than a cat that doesn’t want to be found. And this one did not.
So he left her in peace, wherever she was. He was curious to see the country club. It was very exclusive. Three recommendations and full board approval exclusive, according to Dennis at the hardware store. Places that hard to get into fascinated Mitch.
He even put on a clean polo shirt.
Not that the Dorset Country Club turned out to be much. Eighteen rather flat, weedy holes. Two tennis courts that no one seemed to be using. A swimming pool that was cracked. A drab, circa-1957 vinyl-sided clubhouse furnished with mismatched plaid sofas and a worn, threadbare rug. There was a card room where a number of retirees were passing the afternoon with their eyes closed and their mouths open. There was a dining room. There was no bar. In lieu of one they had a storage cupboard with lockers where members could keep their private stock under lock and key. They carried it to their tables themselves.
Bud Havenhurst produced a half-empty bottle of twelve-year-old Glenmorangie and poured himself a stiff one. Mitch declined his offer. After taking a long, grateful gulp Bud said, “You would be surprised how many members buy bottom-shelf A and P store-brand whiskey and transfer it into expensive single malt bottles.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Appearances, Mitch,” Bud answered bluntly. “In Dorset, it’s always about appearances.”
There were about forty or fifty members having lunch in the dining room that afternoon. Still, it was so quiet in there that Mitch could hear the gentle clicking of forks against loose dentures from across the room. Nobody stared at Bud or made a fuss. But a number of people did stop by their table to pat the attorney on the shoulder and murmur sympathetic things. All of them asked after Dolly. None of them asked after Mandy.
“What’s good here?” Mitch asked, glancing at the menu.
“Not a thing. In fact…” Bud leaned forward so as to lower his voice to a whisper. His breath smelled sour, as if he were rotting on the inside. “The Friday night New England Boiled Dinner is downright repulsive. To save on overhead we take turns waiting on tables ourselves. Half of the corn on the cob-which is truly the only edible thing-ends up rolling right onto the floor.” He sat back in his chair, gazing down his long narrow nose at Mitch. “That’s your famous Yankee frugality for you. Cheapness is what it really is. I ought to know-I handle their business affairs. These people part with a dime like it’s their last precious asset on earth. And I’m talking about folks who are millionaires many times over. ‘Never touch the principal.’ That’s the credo handed down by every Yankee granddad on his deathbed. And, believe me, these people were raised to respect their elders.”
They ordered club sandwiches and iced teas. Bud helped himself to another scotch, gulping it down nervously. He was decidedly ill at ease. Frightened, even. Mitch wondered why. Was the man afraid that he might be the killer’s next victim?
“I wanted to tell you how much we all appreciate how you’ve respected our privacy, Mitch,” Bud said, his eyes firmly fastened on the tablecloth.
“It’s my privacy, too.”
“Still, I imagine one could make some real money for disclosing family secrets. Cash for trash-that’s what they call it, isn’t it?”
“They do.”
“Yet you’ve resisted that. Been extremely discreet.” Bud cleared his throat. Now his eyes were focused somewhere over Mitch’s left shoulder. “Even with regards to the lieutenant. It’s admirable. We’re all grateful, Mitch.”
The club sandwich lived up to Bud’s advance billing. The toast was cold, the bacon undercooked, the turkey processed. It came with a side order of potato chips. Mitch popped one of these into his mouth. It was stale. He chewed on it, waiting for the lawyer to continue. Mitch was positive this was about more than gratitude.
Bud ignored his own lunch. “There’s something highly confidential I would like to discuss with you, Mitch,” he said in a low, urgent voice. “You see, I am a man in desperate need of help. Can I count on you, Mitch? Can I trust you?”
“Of course. But what’s this all about?”
“Not here,” Bud whispered, glancing furtively around at the other members in the dining room. “Out on the course. We’ll talk out there.” He glanced at his watch. “Our tee time’s in ten minutes. Eat up-if you can.”
The Dorset Country Club’s first hole was a relatively short par four. But the player’s tee shot had to carry over a pond. Which, to Mitch’s point of view, was not very friendly at all. He invited Bud to drive first so he could get in a few extra practice swings. He hadn’t played in over a year. And had taken only a handful of lessons from club pros at the various resort hotels where the various film festivals were held. That was what Mitch generally did to unwind at festivals since he did not gamble, chase women or hang out in bars. He had a wild, unrefined swing. When he connected he really connected. When he did not he really did not.
Bud’s swing, on the other hand, was grooved, compact and accurate. His tee shot carried the water hazard easily and landed smack dab in the middle of the fairway. Not much distance for a man of his size. But no embarrassment either. Safe. That was his game.
Mitch had long ago gotten over the fear of making a fool of himself on the course. He stepped up to the tee. He gripped it. He ripped it. Cleared that water hazard with ease, too-on his fourth try. His first three drives dribbled into the pond and sank without a trace.
“Nice one!” Bud exclaimed when Mitch finally connected. “Straight and true!”
Mitch gathered up Niles Seymour’s bag and marched down the cart path after it. It felt odd to be playing with a dead man’s clubs. Knowing that Seymour’s sweat had dried on the very same hand grip that Mitch was now clutching. He’d even found Seymour’s worn, crusty glove in a side pocket of the bag. Which he’d chosen not to wear. A scorecard was stuffed in there as well. Seymour had shot an 87 his last time out. Mitch wondered if he’d cheated. He figured he had.
The course was deserted. No one was ahead of them or behind them.
As they walked toward their tee shots Bud Havenhurst took a deep breath and blurted out, “It’s about this missing money of Dolly’s, Mitch. Niles had nothing whatsoever to do with it. I did, the truth be told.”
“Exactly what are you telling me here?” Mitch asked him. “You embezzled Dolly’s savings?”
“Absolutely not,” Bud answered vehemently. “I secured them. I had the idea Niles was preparing to leave. When I saw him with that woman, I mean. If a married man is planning to stick around he does not carry on with some babe in public. Not around here he doesn’t. It’s a kind of unwritten rule. Hence, I was deeply, deeply concerned for Dolly’s financial welfare. The man was a naked opportunist-I felt certain he was about to clean her out and run. So, strictly in the interest of shielding her assets, I did something a shade unethical…” He paused now to play his second shot, a 5-iron. Again, he played it safe, laying up just short of the green so as to avoid the sand trap. “I have power of attorney,” he continued. “I have the PINs to her checking and savings accounts. Also a key to her safety deposit box, where the stock certificates were kept. I liquidated everything. And hid it where Niles couldn’t get at it-in my own safety deposit box. That’s where it is at this very moment. Every penny of it. It’s not for me. I swear it’s not. It’s for Dolly. But I did it without her prior knowledge or consent. She doesn’t even know it’s there. And now the state police are looking into it. And I could be disbarred. Christ, I could even go to jail.”
Mitch shanked his own iron shot badly. It didn’t go more than ten yards down the fairway. But he nailed it on his next try. It went streaking straight at the green. It went streaking straight over the green. They resumed walking, Mitch shaking his head. “Why don’t you just tell Dolly? Why didn’t you tell Dolly? The poor woman thinks she’s broke.”
“That’s a fair question, Mitch,” Bud allowed, sticking out his big chin. “In response, I can only say I had a compelling personal reason-Mandy. She’s pathologically jealous of Dolly. And if she were to find out I’ve jeopardized my career for her, well, let’s just put it this way-I don’t want her to find out.”
“Afraid she’ll set you on fire while you sleep?”
The lawyer glanced at him sharply. “Lieutenant Mitry knows about that?”
“She does,” Mitch affirmed. “Doesn’t it bother you-living with a woman who’s so volatile?”
“Mitch, when you get to be my age you won’t ask a question like that,” the lawyer responded, smiling wanly. “You’ll understand that passion is something rare and precious. It was missing from my life for quite a long time. A man will go to great lengths to get it back. Even if that means accepting a bit of… uncertainty. With Mandy, I’ve gotten it back. And I’ve never been happier.”
Mitch wasn’t sure whether he believed him or not. The man baffled him. He had seemed so proper, so responsible. Yet the more Bud talked now, the more unhinged he sounded. In fact, if what he’d said was to be believed, the man was pathologically self-destructive. Was he to be believed? Had he put his career and his second marriage in jeopardy in order to protect Dolly’s assets? Or had he cooked up something far more fiendish-and was now merely trying to spin the truth in such a way that would keep him clear of the murders? Just how clever was this man? How good a liar?
“I repeat,” Mitch said. “Why don’t you just tell Dolly?”
“I’ve told you-because Mandy will find out.”
“Why didn’t you think of that when you did it?”
“I wasn’t exactly expecting Niles to turn up dead, was I?”
“Well, what were you expecting?”
“That he’d turn up in Boca or Vegas or some such hole,” Bud said. “I’d tell Dolly I’d managed to put the squeeze on him to cough up or else-not bothering to go into any details. And that would be it.”
The lawyer used his wedge now to chip onto the green. His ball rolled within eight feet of the cup. If he holed it, he’d make par.
Mitch didn’t see his own ball anywhere. He would have to go hunt for it. “You said you thought I could help you. How? What can I possibly do?”
“I haven’t got long, Mitch,” Bud answered, his voice rising with desperation. “A day at most. The lieutenant is bound to figure it out. And when she does she will lower the boom on me.”
“So why don’t you explain it to her? She seems like a reasonable person.”
“My thought was that if it came from you it might conceivably stay off the books, as it were. Because this can’t go in her official report. If it does I’ll be disbarred. You do understand that, don’t you?”
Mitch stared at the man in disbelief. “You want me to tell her?”
“Well, yes. You two are friends, aren’t you?”
“We are?”
“She’s going for barefoot strolls on the beach with you, isn’t she? I saw you two together this morning. You seemed very tight.”
“She was questioning me, Bud. We were walking on the beach because she’s allergic to the mold in my house. Or so she claimed. I think she has a cold-but that’s beside the point. The point is, you were totally mistaken. We aren’t friends. In fact, I would go so far as to say the lieutenant actively dislikes me.”
Bud’s face dropped. “Christ, now I’ve gone and screwed the pooch. I’ve told you everything.” He ran a hand through his neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper hair, clearly distraught. “Now you have to tell her.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” Mitch shot back, suddenly feeling himself getting sucked in deeper and deeper.
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” Bud said hastily. “Oh, beans, I don’t know what to say, Mitch. I’m completely at sea. You were my best hope.”
Mitch sighed inwardly. I am lost in a foreign language film. I can’t figure out what is going on. I don’t understand these people. “Look, Bud,” he finally said to him. “I honestly think the truth will go down a whole lot better coming from you. But if you really want me to, I’ll tell Lieutenant Mitry for you.”
The lawyer’s face broke into a huge grin. “Thanks, Mitch,” he exulted, pumping his hand gratefully. “You’re the real goods. A true friend. Somehow, I just knew I could count on you.”
It was midafternoon by the time Bud maneuvered his Range Rover through the crowd of media people at Peck Point and back out onto Big Sister.
They had played nine holes. Bud shot himself a respectable 43. Mitch holed out with a sparkling 57.
The resident trooper’s cruiser was parked outside of Dolly’s house. Tal Bliss was helping Dolly and Bitsy unload groceries from the trunk of her old blue Mercedes.
“Anything new, Tal?” Bud asked the big trooper as Mitch hopped out and fetched his borrowed golf bag from the back.
Bliss shook his head. “Just making sure the girls could go about their business.”
“We’ve been shopping,” Bitsy burbled brightly. “And it was not pleasant. Those reporter persons-they just will not take no for an answer.
“Say, aren’t those Niles Seymour’s clubs?” Bliss asked Mitch sharply.
“Why, yes,” Mitch replied. “Bud thought it would be okay if I used them.”
Bliss pondered this disapprovingly, hands on hips. “Is that so?”
“He’s absolutely right, Tal,” Bud said placatingly. “I did.”
“It’s perfectly fine, Tal.” Dolly rested a small hand on the trooper’s sleeve. “Niles no longer has any use for them.”
“Fair enough, Dolly,” Bliss said gently. “If you say so.”
“How are you feeling?” Mitch asked her. Her eyes seemed a bit unfocused. He suspected she was on tranks.
“I shall be fine, Mitch,” Dolly replied. “It was the not knowing- where Niles was, what he was doing. Now that I do know, now that I have some sense of closure, I can begin to…” She broke off, her voice choking with emotion. “I don’t need to tell you the rest, do I, Mitch? You know what it feels like to lose the one you love.”
“Yes, I do,” Mitch said quietly, feeling the trooper’s steely eyes on him. Bliss didn’t seem to like her talking to him so intimately.
“And I did love him,” Dolly added, her voice soaring with defiance.
“Of course, you did,” Bitsy clucked, putting a protective arm around her.
“Everyone assumes I didn’t,” she said bitterly. “Because they didn’t approve. They thought he wasn’t good enough for me. They thought I was a fool. But Niles Seymour talked to me. Niles Seymour listened to me. He made me feel wanted and desired.”
Clearly, all of this was pointed directly at Bud, whose lips immediately tightened. After a brief, awkward silence, the lawyer elected to bail-got back in his Ranger Rover and eased down the driveway toward his own house.
“Poor Tuck, though,” Dolly lamented sadly. “He knew so little joy in his life. And now…”
Bitsy steered her inside. Bliss followed with the groceries.
Mitch deposited the dead man’s clubs back in the barn and strolled home, where he found a hand-lettered invitation taped to his front door:
Jamie Devers and Evan Havenhurst present
A Supper Cruise
A sophisticated comedy in three acts starring Mr. Mitch Berger
Location: The B.S. pier Time: 6:00 this evening
Boating shoes are a must
A reply is not-you wouldn’t dare turn us down!
Well, well. First a lunch invite from Bud. Now this. I am suddenly a very popular fellow on this island, Mitch reflected. What now? What did they want? Maybe they didn’t want anything. Maybe they were just being nice.
There was, of course, only one way to find out.
He cranked up the old Studey and went riding, high and bouncy, over to Old Saybrook for a pair of boating shoes at Nathan’s Country Store, a narrow, old-fashioned general store on Main Street that had worn wooden floorboards and a genuine penny candy counter. It was Barry, the bearded storekeeper, who explained to Mitch why the white-soled Topsiders were a must-ordinary shoes left stubborn black marks on the surface of the deck. This was not something that had ever occurred to Mitch, who also bought himself a pair of green rubber wading boots so he could slog farther out into the tide pools.
Mitch did something else while he was in Old Saybrook. He cruised out past the elegant North Cove waterfront mansions toward Fenwick, the very exclusive colony of shingled summer cottages where Katharine Hepburn was living out her last days. Here, in the shadow of the Old Saybrook lighthouse, Mitch found the Saybrook Point Inn, where Torry Mordarski had spent one night and paid cash. And where Bud Havenhurst and Red Peck had seen her and Niles Seymour breakfasting together. It was a spanking-new, ultra-posh resort hotel with docking facilities for boaters, a restaurant and a health spa. The grounds were immaculate. The brass plates on the lobby doors were polished to a sheen. A community events calendar out front notified passersby of the Lion’s Club breakfast later that week. And discreetly advertised Our famous Sunday brunch-A Shoreline Tradition. The parking lot was crowded with luxury imports and sport utility vehicles from New York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. As Mitch idled there, a well-tailored executive with a briefcase came out and climbed into a fancy black Lexus. Four terribly proper old ladies emerged a moment later, somewhat tittery from a long, liquid lunch. A bellhop brought out someone’s bags, eyeballing Mitch’s dilapidated truck with snooty disapproval.
Mitch moved on, seriously puzzled. It didn’t figure. This was no hideaway. This was no place for a middle-aged married man to stash a young babe. It was a hub of community activity. High profile. High traffic. High class. Why on earth had Seymour brought Torry here? Had the man wanted to be seen with her? Why?
There was still no sign of Baby Spice when he got back. Her litter box had not been used. Her food did not appear to have been touched. It wasn’t until Mitch fetched a sweatshirt out of his dresser that he finally found her-curled up in there among his clean socks, fast asleep. How she got in there he could not imagine-the drawer was only open a crack. She stirred and squeaked hello at him. He picked her up and put her down on the bed. She had a good deal of light brown mixed in with the gray. And her tummy was almost completely white. Big ears, like a bat. And sharp little teeth and claws, he quickly found out.
Mitch stretched out on the bed with her so they could get acquainted. She immediately scampered up onto his chest, exceedingly perky and playful. She pad-padded around, tumbled off, climbed back up, rolled over onto her back with her paws up, daring him to pet her soft white belly. He began wiggling his hand around under the covers. She pounced on it, yowling, and chased it around the bed. As Mitch lay there, playing with her, he began toying idly with a name. Possibly something with a Western bent to commemorate this book. He ran through his favorites. It was not very fruitful. There were no significant women characters to be had in The Magnificent Seven, for example. In fact, there was a paucity of female names, period. Until he got around to My Darling Clementine, John Ford’s 1946 epic about Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. One of the best, in Mitch’s opinion. Brilliant black-and-white photography by Joseph P. MacDonald. Clementine Carter, played by Cathy Downs, was Henry Fonda’s lady love, the nurse who came out from Boston in search of her wayward fiance, Doc Holliday. Clemmie, Doc called her. Clemmie. She was curled up in the crook of Mitch’s neck now, purring like a small motorboat as he petted her. In fact, she was asleep again. She seemed to have two speeds-on and off. She seemed to have a tranquilizing effect, too. Because Mitch soon discovered that his eyes were heavy and his limbs somewhat numb.
Soon, the two of them were out cold together.
There was no sign of Evan and Jamie at the dock when Mitch made his way down there in his new shoes promptly at six. After hanging around a few minutes, he moseyed up to their stone cottage next to the lighthouse. A minivan was parked outside, crammed with furniture. Evan’s Porsche was there, too. The cottage’s front door was wide open. Mitch found the two of them in the kitchen frantically flinging food and drinks into a pair of ice chests.
“Don’t mind us, Mitch, we’re always late,” apologized Evan, who seemed terribly flustered.
The stone cottage was very damp and cold inside. It was also very crowded with antiques. There seemed to be three too many of everything-rocking chairs, weather vanes, end tables, cupboards. Mitch found it almost impossible to fight his way through all of it.
“We’re compulsive buyers,” Jamie explained. “When we run out of space we take things to our store and sell them.”
“I think,” Mitch grunted, squeezing his way around a parson’s bench, “that it may be time.”
Over the fireplace were a number of framed photos of the two of them with their late dachsund, Bobo. The dog’s collar and tags were displayed there. The dog’s bowl was displayed there. And Bobo was displayed there. On the mantel in an ornate silver urn with her name engraved on it. They’d had her cremated.
“Give us ten more minutes,” Evan said to Mitch pleadingly. “Why don’t you check out the view from the lighthouse? The key’s just inside the front door.”
“We have to keep it locked,” Jamie said, “or the acne-encrusted indigenous youth sneak out here at low tide and fornicate up there.”
“Take the lantern, too,” Evan added. “The stairway’s pretty dark.”
Mitch wrestled his way back through the clutter to the front door, where he found the key and the lantern hanging on hooks. The key popped open the padlock on the lighthouse’s massive steel door. The door’s hinges creaked ominously as he flung it open-shades of The Old Dark House with Boris Karloff. Inside, he flicked on the lantern and found himself at the base of a six-story-high corkscrew. He climbed the spiral staircase slowly and steadily, his footsteps echoing in the narrow, cylindrical tower. He was, he realized, getting more than his share of exercise on this particular day. He was panting by the time he got to the lantern room, where its twin thousand-watt lamps had once served to warn seafarers of the treacherous rocks to be found here. But the lamps and lenses and workings had been removed. Now there was only the empty glasswalled chamber, its bare cement floor littered with cigarette butts and marijuana roaches.
And there was the view. What a view it was. A true 360-degree panorama. Mitch stood there, awestruck, drinking it all in. He could see so far up and down the coastline that he could actually make out its shape as it appeared in maps. In front of him, he could practically reach right out and touch Fisher’s Island. Behind him, he could see all the way up the Connecticut River to the old cast-iron bridge at East Haddam. Below him, Big Sister was no more than a lush green meatball in the middle of the sea, a narrow wooden lifeline connecting it to the Point.
Two tiny figures in matching yellow windbreakers were standing at the dock waving their arms up and down at him in some secret semaphore code known only to them. Smiling, Mitch headed back down the corkscrew and joined them, full of appreciative noises.
Their boat was called Bucky’s Revenge. It was a low-slung J-24 racing boat. It had a cabin down below with a galley and space for four people to sleep. Jamie and Evan were in the process of stowing the ice chests down there.
“I’d better warn you,” Mitch cautioned them. “I am the ultimate landlubber.”
“You are not alone, Mitch,” Jamie assured him. “Evan sails the whole boat by himself. All I do is pretend to steer.”
Evan was presently unwrapping the sail bags. First, the bright blue canvas bag around the mainsail, then the green one around the jib.
“Here, put this on,” Jamie said, tossing Mitch an orange life jacket. He wriggled into one himself and yanked on the outboard motor starter. When it was putt-putting convincingly he said, “Okay, we can cast off now.”
“You want me to untie that rope?” asked Mitch.
“Please,” said Evan as he stowed the sail bags down below. “And it’s not a rope, it’s a line.”
“Ignore him when he gets nautical, Mitch,” Jamie advised drily. “I do.”
The line was wrapped around a cleat that was bolted to the dock. Mitch unwound it and jumped back onboard Bucky’s Revenge and they pulled slowly away, bobbing along on the blue water like a rubber duck. It was quite calm, and there was very little breeze.
Evan raised the mainsail while Jamie manned the tiller, edging them away from the mouth of the river eastward in the direction of Long Island’s Orient Point. Mitch huddled in his life jacket watching Evan, who was totally in his element on a sailboat, quick and nimble as a cat. Tying this line. Untying that line. Darting here, darting there. Never wasting a motion. Never losing his balance. It was a pleasure to watch him. There weren’t many other boats out now, just a couple of late-afternoon fishermen. As they moved farther out into the Sound, the water grew choppier and the air began to freshen. Soon, the breeze was downright stiff. The sails began to billow and flap. Evan signaled to Jamie to kill the engine. Jamie did. And they were sailing now, scooting right along in glorious, windborne silence, the J-24 trim and swift and sure.
A serene glow came over Jamie’s face as he hunched there in his life jacket, hand on the tiller. “This is the best time to come out,” he said. “You almost always get a breeze.”
“I guess I can see why you left Los Angeles.”
“I never left, Mitch. My body is here, but my mind is still there. And it always will be.” Jamie had brought along a boombox. He reached down and flicked it on. Now they were cutting through the water to the sounds of “I’m a Believer,” by The Monkees.
“Jaymo, do we have to listen to your oldies crap?” Evan objected.
“That’s the best thing about crap, my young friend. It never goes out of style.” To Mitch, Jamie said, “Did you know that they went with Mickey Dolenz over me at the very last minute?”
“No, I did not.”
“It’s the absolute truth. I had the part. They told me I had it-for twenty-four blissful hours I was actually a Monkee. And then, just like that, I wasn’t. They wanted a new face, was what my agent said. God, I was bitter. It is not easy to be told you’re an old face when you still can’t buy a drink or vote. I was washed up at twenty, Mitch. When I didn’t get The Monkees-that’s when I knew.” He let out a heavy sigh. “That’s also when I started getting heavily into drugs.”
They seemed to be slowing a little now. Evan took over the tiller from Jamie, but to no avail. “The wind’s shifting,” Evan said. “Let’s come about.” He immediately started busying himself with the lines.
“What do I do?” Mitch asked.
“You duck,” Jamie ordered sharply.
Mitch did-just as the boom swung directly over his head.
Soon, they were zipping through the water again.
They were approaching a tiny speck of an island-not much more than a heap of rocks with a light tower on it. Cormorants perched on the tower. There was a crude dock. Jamie steered them directly for it, nudging the sailboat up gently next to the piling. Evan hopped out and tied them to it. Mitch hopped out as well, grateful to have something firm under his feet again.
“Do they mind people docking out here?” he asked Evan.
“Does who mind, Mitch?”
“Whoever owns it.”
“I own it,” Evan said modestly. “This is Little Sister. It became mine when I turned twenty-one.” He glanced around at it a moment, hands on his slim hips. “We camp out here fairly often. Sleep under the stars. It’s just incredibly peaceful. I’d love to build a cabin out here someday.”
They had brought a portable barbeque to grill on. Evan got busy lighting the coals while Jamie uncorked a cold bottle of Sancerre and poured three glasses.
After he had handed them around Jamie lit a cigarette and stretched out on the dock, watching his young lover with a mixture of affection and apprehension. “You may as well know, Mitch, that Evan and I have been spatting. He wasn’t planning to go to Seymour’s funeral. I told him it was fine by me, since I’m not planning to go. Only now he’s decided he will go, out of respect for Dolly. I think he’s being a complete hypocrite. What do you think?”
Mostly, Mitch thought that he did not want to get caught in the middle. “How did you feel about your stepfather?” he asked Evan.
“First of all, I didn’t consider him my stepfather,” Evan replied angrily. “Just some low-life sleaze she was living with. I honestly don’t understand why she married him.”
“Possibly, he was exceedingly well hung,” Jamie suggested.
“Jaymo, that’s my mother you’re talking about,” Evan said indignantly.
“I know, but she is something of a cunning little user, our Dolly,” Jamie observed, puffing on his cigarette. “That helpless act of hers, designed to make every man she meets go four paws up. It amazes me it works. But it does work. Why, I’ll bet she’s even hit on our young friend here.”
“Not really. All she’s done is ask me to open her pimientos for her.”
Jamie let out a huge guffaw. “Let me guess-she was wearing something low-cut at the time. Am I right?”
He was, but Mitch didn’t feel like touching that one in front of Evan. He sat there perched on a rock, sipping his wine and wondering if Jamie was on to something. Was Dolly a scheming manipulator? She certainly did have Bud jumping through flaming hoops for her. Maybe she had persuaded him to raid those accounts for her. Maybe that wasn’t all she’d persuaded him to do. Maybe he had killed for her.
“So spill, you tight-lipped cipher,” Jamie commanded Mitch. “What did Lieutenant Mitry say? Whom does she suspect? Dish, damn it.”
“Well, there’s a third victim. Same gun. Her name was Torry Mordarksi.”
“My God,” Evan gasped.
Mitch looked at him in surprise. “You knew her?”
“No, no.” Evan came over with the wine and refilled their glasses. “But I do remember her murder-it was on the news a few weeks ago. She was real pretty and she had a nice little boy who she was raising by herself. I just thought it was so sad.”
“Where did this one happen?” Jamie asked.
“They found her body in the woods somewhere near Meriden,” Evan replied.
Jamie stiffened. “No way. Niles bragged to me once that he had a girlfriend up in Meriden…”
“He did?” said Evan. “You never told me that.”
“He even went into graphic detail about how she used to suck on his dick,” Jamie went on, his voice rising angrily. “The crude, homophobic bastard wanted to know if I thought a man could ever be as good at it as a woman.” He stubbed out his cigarette, glancing at Evan. “I didn’t say anything to you about it because I thought you’d get upset.”
“Does the lieutenant know about this?” Mitch broke in.
“Absolutely,” Jamie replied. “I told her sergeant person, that short one with the muscles and the fuzzy lip.”
“And…?”
“He didn’t react one bit. But they never do, do they?” Jamie’s eyes gleamed at Mitch intently now. “Let’s not kid each other, Mitch. Does she suspect either one of us?”
Mitch sipped his wine uneasily. It had just occurred to him, with a sinking feeling, that he had not been very smart. Here he was, alone on this deserted island with two of the prime suspects. No one knew they were out here together. If they were to murder him and dump his body overboard into the Sound not a soul would ever know. “She knows that you disliked him. But she gave me no indication that you were at the top of her list.”
Jamie said, “If Bud Havenhurst had one ounce of nerve he’d be her most logical suspect. Hell, he had more reason than any of us to despise Niles. But I just can’t imagine him killing anyone. He hasn’t the cojones.”
Evan poked at the coals. Judged them ready. Put the tuna steaks on the grill, where they immediately began to sizzle. “I agree. Mandy is way more the type. Hot-blooded. High-strung. Tough as nails.”
“Okay, what if Mandy was boinking Niles on the side,” Jamie speculated aloud. “And when she found out that he was two-timing her with Torry, she killed them both.”
“But what about Weems?” Evan wondered. “Why’d she kill Tuck?”
“He found out,” Jamie answered. “Saw her burying the body in the garden.”
“Why bury it in the garden?” Evan persisted.
Jamie had no answer to that one. Stymied, he turned to Mitch.
“Clearly, whoever did it assumed that it wouldn’t be dug up,” Mitch said. “My being there was not part of the original equation. But I do have to admit that the same question has occurred to me. Why the garden? Why not dump Niles out in the Sound somewhere?”
“Bodies have a way of washing ashore,” Jamie pointed out.
“Okay, then why not bury him in the woods?”
“Couldn’t take the chance of transporting him,” Jamie suggested. “He was buried in the garden because he was shot near the garden. Must be.”
“Suggesting he was killed in Dolly’s house,” Mitch mused aloud. “Or in her barn.”
“Or in your carriage house,” Evan added.
Mitch fell silent. That was not a thought he wanted to dwell upon.
“Surely the lieutenant must have someone in mind,” Jamie said to him.
“Judging by the direction her questions were taking,” Mitch said, “it would seem that her leading candidate is Dolly.”
“Not a chance,” Evan said. “My mother is not capable of doing that.”
“No one is, my boy,” Jamie said darkly. “Until they do it. Me, I keep thinking about Red.”
“What about Red?” asked Mitch.
“He logs four flights a month, right? That means he’s gone four days a week, every week. Face it, Red’s got the perfect setup.”
“For what?” Evan asked.
“For a man who’s leading a double life,” Jamie answered.
Mitch frowned at him, puzzled. “You’ve lost me. It’s not as if he has a romantic interest here-Dolly is his own sister.”
“Oh, grow up!” Jamie shot back. “How do you think that blood of theirs got to be so blue?”
“Jaymo, I truly don’t believe what I am hearing from you!” Evan erupted.
“All right, we’ll forget that one,” Jamie conceded grudgingly. “But Red has been known to play the protective big brother. Could be he killed Niles for cheating on Dolly.”
“But why kill the girl?” Mitch asked.
Jamie considered this. “That’s a good question. I don’t know… Unless he was boinking her, too. I mean, let’s get real here-could you imagine being married to Bits?”
“I think she’s a very nice lady.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. But just imagine years and years of that abundant, earthy good cheer. Imagine burying your face between those pillowy white thighs night after night-”
“Jaymo, that’s my aunt you’re talking about!” Evan objected, poking at the tuna. “Hey, I think these are ready, guys. Let’s eat.”
There was a red onion and mango relish for the tuna. There was black bean salad, cole slaw, cornbread. All of it courtesy of Evan. All of it delicious. They ate on paper plates with their legs dangling over the side of the dock. The sun was setting now. Overhead, the sky was streaked with red and purple. The moon was rising. There were, Mitch reflected, worse ways to spend an evening.
“Maybe that niceness thing of Bitsy’s is all an act,” Jamie plowed on. “Maybe she’s the tramp of the century. She’s got plenty of opportunity, what with the kids out of the house and Red gone half of the time. Maybe she’s even a killer. Have you thought of that?”
“You don’t actually believe any of that, do you?” Evan asked him. “I mean, I had no idea you felt this way about her.”
“I don’t,” Jamie assured him with a wave of his hand. “I’m just hypothesizing.”
“Well, if you don’t start behaving yourself Mitch and I will leave you here. Won’t we, Mitch?”
“We will-lashed to the light tower.”
There were homemade brownies for dessert. Jamie disappeared below deck in search of them.
As soon as he did, Evan quickly turned to Mitch. “Mother told me you were locked in your cellar on Monday,” he said in a low, hushed voice.
“Most of the afternoon,” Mitch acknowledged, nodding.
Evan glanced furtively over at the boat, then back at Mitch. “I saw someone’s car parked in Dolly’s courtyard when I pulled in that day…”
“You mean you know who locked me in?”
“Maybe. I thought you might want to know. Who it was, I mean.
“You’re right. I did. I do. Who was it?”
Evan looked over his shoulder at the boat once more. And then, in an urgent whisper, he told Mitch who it was.