Amagansett

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?
‘Rosa Cossedu,’ said Milligan, reading off a name from the notes in front of him.
‘Yes. Routine stuff.’
‘Anyone else?’
Shit, thought Hollis, he knows.
‘Her ex-fiancé. Julian…something.’
‘Penrose. And it’s Justin.’
‘Right.’
Milligan had bought it. If Hollis couldn’t even recall the name, then that conversation must also have been routine.
‘And the purpose of these discussions?’
‘I was just trying to establish Miss Wallace’s state of mind, eliminate the possibility of suicide.’
‘Maybe I’m wrong,’ said Milligan, ‘but hasn’t the coroner’s inquest already returned its verdict?’
‘Yes.’
‘Accidental drowning.’
‘Like I say, sir, it was just routine.’
‘By the book.’
‘Right.’
‘Well, sometimes you got to put that book of yours aside.’ Milligan was quite calm, his self-importance leaving no place for anger. ‘You missed something, Hollis. Labarde was seeing Lillian
Wallace.’
‘Seeing…?’
‘Seeing. Screwing. The maid knew all along.’
‘I don’t understand.’
But he did, he just needed time to assimilate the news. It explained Rosa’s nervousness when he’d pushed her on the matter of her mistress’s bed, which hadn’t been slept in. He had read her right, she’d been holding out on him, but this realization gave him little satisfaction, for he’d utterly failed to grasp the true nature of the Basque’s involvement.
‘What’s there to understand?’ asked Milligan.
What had he thought, that the big fisherman was playing at the amateur sleuth, doing his bit for local law enforcement? Christ, had he grown so blind in the last year?
‘Hollis?’
‘Is it relevant? I mean…to the question of her death?’
‘It’s relevant, Hollis, to the fact that Labarde has been harassing the Wallaces. The girl’s brother, Manfred, he was round here earlier raising a stink.’
‘Harassing?’
‘Hartwell’s bringing him in.’
‘Bringing him in?’
‘What is it with the goddamn echo in here?’ said Milligan. ‘Yes, bringing him in. The Wallaces are worried. So would you be if you’d read these.’
He tossed a couple of files across the desk.
‘They’re Labarde’s military records. The guy’s a f*cking fruitcake.’
Hollis read the files in the privacy of his office. He felt bad, soiled. No one had the right to peer into the depths of a man’s soul uninvited.
The Basque clearly felt the same way. The reports by the English psychiatrist were peppered with references to the patient’s stubborn resistance to discussion. The doctor’s building frustration leapt off the page. At least he seemed to care. There were several mentions in the handwritten notes of the brother, Antton, and his death some years before the war; but again, it was a line of discussion Labarde had refused to co-operate with.
Statements by fellow soldiers pointed to a marked deterioration in his state of mind following the First Special Service Force’s assignment to southern France. There was a detailed account of an assault by the 2nd Regiment on a German position on the ?le du Levant, wherever that was. Ironically, in the light of what happened next, Labarde’s growing recklessness and disregard for his own life had only won him more accolades.
Labarde claimed to recall nothing of the incident near the Italian border that had ended his war and almost his life, but there were enough other testimonials to piece together the sequence of events. Labarde had been out scouting German positions in the mountains just back from the coast when some kind of fire-fight had erupted and he’d called in an artillery barrage. When the rest of his squad arrived on the scene, they found him badly wounded by shrapnel, barely alive. The Germans were all dead—from gunshot wounds. It was possible that other Germans had retreated before the barrage hit, but there was a chilling statement from a lieutenant that suggested otherwise. He had been watching from across the valley through his field glasses, and he described how he’d seen Labarde climb to the top of a large rock on the spur and just stand there in the open, facing the incoming shells. Everything pointed to Labarde killing the Germans then calling in the barrage—right on top of himself.
Hollis closed the files and lit a cigarette. He had heard of men losing it in combat—shell-shock, battle fatigue—catchphrases known to all. But this seemed different, more like a gradual heaping up of war, pressing down on a man, buckling him slowly. He reached for parallels in his own life, but there were none. What had he ever really seen that came close, what had he ever really done?
It was a sobering realization. He tamped out his cigarette and stared at the wall clock, the second hand ticking interminably by, hammering out the inescapable truth: he had lost the initiative, events had outrun him in the last few days while he’d been dallying around with Mary, at the mercy of his own lust like some overheated schoolboy.
Voices in the squad room brought him round. He entered as Chief Milligan was ushering the Basque into his office. Hollis caught the Basque’s eye, but there was no sign of recognition.
‘What’s going on, Tom?’ asked Bob Hartwell.
‘I’ll tell you later,’ he said, entering Milligan’s office.
His earlier display of ignorance, stupidity even, had earned him the right to watch the great man at work.
Milligan went in hard, way too hard. There was no teasing, no coaxing, no insinuation designed to unsettle; he just slapped it on the table like a side of meat.
‘I’m not sure I know what you’re saying,’ was the Basque’s response.
‘I’m not saying anything, I’m asking.’
‘You mean, why did I keep quiet about my involvement with Lillian Wallace?’
‘What else do you think I mean?’
‘Probably the same reason she didn’t mention it to anyone.’
‘But she did—to the maid.’
‘They were very close,’ said the Basque.
Hollis was beginning to understand how the English psychiatrist must have felt.
‘I’m waiting for your answer,’ said Milligan.
‘I guess I think what happened between us wasn’t anybody else’s business but ours. I still don’t. That’s my answer. Will it do?’
‘Don’t you get smart with me, son. You’re the subject of a formal complaint.’
‘By who?’
‘Manfred Wallace.’
‘Oh,’ said the Basque indifferently. ‘You mind?’ He pulled his tobacco pouch from the pocket of his pants. Milligan gestured impatiently that it was okay, then he launched into an account of a fishing trip the previous weekend. It was the first Hollis had heard of it.
‘There was some tension, yes,’ said the Basque.
‘He’s accusing you of intimidation.’
‘He screwed up. He could have killed someone with a keg.’
‘A keg?’
‘We were swordfishing,’ said the Basque, as if that explained everything, knowing full well that it didn’t.
Milligan was floundering now, but he had a trump left to play. Holding it back was the only thing he’d done right.
‘That’s all fine, Mr Labarde, except for the small matter of your war record.’
The Basque visibly stiffened. Milligan allowed the silence to linger.
‘If you’ve got a problem with Manfred Wallace I’d say he has cause for concern. Wouldn’t you, if you were me?’
The Basque lit his cigarette with the Zippo. ‘I can’t imagine,’ he said, ‘what it’s like to be you.’
Milligan’s eyes narrowed. ‘You watch yourself.’
‘It was a long time ago,’ said the Basque.
‘Two years?’ Milligan glanced at Hollis. ‘You think that’s a long time?’
The last thing Hollis wanted was to be drawn into the exchange, but both men were waiting on his reply.
‘It’s more like three years,’ he said.
Words for which he would be made to suffer later.
‘Two, three…ten,’ said Milligan, leaning forward in his chair. ‘You leave the Wallaces well alone. I don’t want you anywhere near them, you hear me?’
‘I hear you.’
Milligan looked at Hollis and nodded towards the door: get him out of here.
Hollis followed the Basque down the stairs and out of the building. The sunlight was spilling into Newtown Lane.
‘I had nothing to do with that,’ said Hollis.
‘I figured as much.’
‘I’ll run you back.’
‘I’ll walk.’
He walked at a pace most men ran at, with a long easy stride. Hollis felt foolish hurrying along beside him, dodging the pedestrians.
‘It’s him, isn’t it—Manfred Wallace?’
‘Is it?’
‘He knows you’re on to him. He’s trying to head you off.’
‘Is he?’
‘Talk to me.’
‘Why?’
‘’Cos you did before.’
‘I was wrong to.’
‘You need me. What are you going to do, put a bullet in his head?’
The Basque drew to a halt, his cold gray eyes fastening on Hollis. ‘Now why would I want to do that?’ he asked. ‘Killing’s easy.’
From anyone else it would have sounded like an empty boast, but Hollis had read the files and the words chilled him. He was being closed out, and it was a moment before he figured a way to penetrate the Basque’s guard.
‘Just tell me one thing. Were you in her room the day she died?’
He could see the Basque battling with his curiosity.
‘Why?’
‘Because someone was. A man.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The toilet seat in her bathroom…it was raised.’
‘It wasn’t me.’
‘Then that’s where they were waiting for her.’
Hollis had run through the last moments of Lillian Wallace’s life many times in his head, armed with information only he possessed. Now he was proposing to share those insights—an opportunity he figured the Basque was unlikely to pass up.
And he didn’t.
‘That offer of a ride still stand?’
They drove in silence until they reached the village limits, then Hollis began to speak. He explained that there’d been no visible signs of a struggle on Lillian’s body, which suggested she’d been incapacitated in some way. Chloroform was a possibility. Some small residue of the drug would show up in an autopsy, but only if you were searching for it, which the Medical Examiner hadn’t been. One possible scenario, the most credible one, was that Lillian had been drugged in her room, dressed in her swimsuit, carried to the swimming pool and drowned. He explained that the autopsy was inconclusive regarding the sand in her lungs. The proper test hadn’t been conducted. Only an exhumation and another autopsy would prove the theory, and that was out of the question right now.
The Basque stared out of the window while Hollis spoke, the muscles in his jaw clenching as he listened.
‘They drowned her in the pool and dumped her body in the ocean later that night, didn’t they?’ said Hollis.
‘They?’
Something in the Basque’s voice hinted at a greater knowledge.
‘They…he—you tell me.’
‘There was just the one.’
‘How do you know?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Manfred Wallace?’
‘What do you think?’
‘A professional,’ said Hollis. His mind turned to the bull-necked thug on duty in front of the church the day of the funeral, but he dismissed the idea. It was unlikely they’d thrust the killer into the limelight like that.
They had reached Amagansett by now and were heading east on Main Street.
‘You can drop me here.’
Hollis slowed, but didn’t pull over. To stop would mean ending the conversation.
‘I’ve got things to do,’ said the Basque firmly.
Hollis pulled to a halt beside the Presbyterian church and turned the engine off.
‘Why?’ asked Hollis.
‘Why what?’
‘Why kill her?’ The question hanging over the investigation from the very first—the motive.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Sure you do,’ said Hollis. He offered the Basque a cigarette—a delaying tactic—but he declined. ‘Tell me what you’re thinking. I can help.’
‘You’re wrong.’
‘I’m helping already. If I shared what I knew with Milligan, you’d be a suspect. Maybe that’s what they were hoping.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Is it? You keep quiet about your relationship with Lillian, that’s already pretty suspicious. She’s rich, you’re not, different worlds, she wanted to end the affair, you fought…“Isn’t that how it happened, Mr Labarde? In fact, where were you on the night in question, Mr Labarde?”’ He paused. ‘Any lawyer worth his salt would have a field day with it. It was a neat move of his, going to Milligan. Unless you have evidence. He figures you haven’t, or he wouldn’t have done it. Do you?’
The Basque sat for a moment, his hand on the door lever. ‘Like I said, there’s nothing you can do.’ He unfolded himself from the patrol car.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Hollis, ‘about Lillian.’
The Basque eyed him, judging the sincerity of the words, then he said, ‘She was a good person. She deserved a longer life.’ He shut the car door, but hesitated, stooping and peering through the open window. ‘Lizzie Jencks,’ he said.
Lizzie Jencks. The rag doll in the hedgerow.
‘What about her?’ asked Hollis.
But the Basque was gone.