“Remind me why we’re here, Detective Murphy,” says my partner, Isaac Marks.
“I’m paying my respects.”
“You didn’t know Melanie,” he says.
True enough. I don’t know anyone around here. Once upon a time, my family came here every summer, a good three-week stretch straddling June and July, to stay with Uncle Langdon and Aunt Chloe. My memories of those summers—beaches and boat rides and fishing off the docks—end at age seven.
For some reason I never knew, my family stopped coming after that. Until nine months ago when I joined the force, I hadn’t set foot in the Hamptons for eighteen years.
“I’m working on my suntan,” I say.
“Not to mention,” says Isaac, ignoring my remark, “that we already have our bad guy in custody.”
Also true. We arrested Noah Walker yesterday. He’ll get a bond hearing tomorrow, but there’s no way the judge is going to bond him out on a double murder.
“And might I further add,” says Isaac, “that this isn’t even your case.”
Right again. I volunteered to lead the team arresting Noah, but I wasn’t given the case. In fact, the chief—my aforementioned uncle Langdon—is handling the matter personally. The town, especially the hoity-toity millionaires along the beach, just about busted a collective gut when the celebrity agent Zach Stern was brutally murdered in their scenic little hamlet. It’s the kind of case that could cost the chief his job, if he isn’t careful. I’m told the town supervisor has been calling him on the hour for updates.
So why am I here, at a funeral for someone I don’t know, on a case that isn’t mine? Because I’m bored. Because since I left the NYPD, I haven’t seen any action. And because I’ve handled more homicides in eight years on the force than all of these cops in Bridgehampton put together. Translation: I wanted the case, and I was a little displeased when I didn’t get it.
“Who’s that?” I ask, gesturing across the way to an odd-looking man in a green cap, with long stringy hair and ratty clothes. Deep-set, creepy eyes that seem to wander. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, unable to stay still.
Isaac pushes down his sunglasses to get a better look. “Oh, that’s Aiden Willis,” he says. “He works for the church. Probably dug Melanie’s grave.”
“Looks like he slept in it first.”
Isaac likes that. “Seriously, Murphy. You’re looking for suspects? With all you know about this case, which is diddly-squat, you don’t like Noah Walker for the murders?”
“I’m not saying that,” I answer.
“You’re not denying it, either.”
I consider that. He’s right, of course. What the hell do I know about Noah Walker or the evidence against him? He may not have jumped out at me as someone who’d just committed a brutal double murder, but when do public faces ever match private misdeeds? I once busted a second-grade schoolteacher who was selling heroin to the high school kids. And a candy striper who was boning the corpses in the basement of the hospital. You never know people. And I’d known Noah Walker for all of thirty minutes.
“Go home,” says Isaac. “Go work out—”
Already did this morning.
“—or see the ocean—”
I’ve seen it already. It’s a really big body of water.
“—or have a drink.”
Yeah, a glass of wine might be in my future. But first, I’m going to take a quick detour. A detour that could probably get me in a lot of trouble.
AS THE FUNERAL for Melanie Phillips ends, I say goodbye to my partner, Detective Isaac Marks, without telling him where I’m going. He doesn’t need to know, and I don’t know if he’d keep the information to himself. I’m not yet sure where his loyalties lie, and I’m not going to make the same mistake I made with the NYPD.
I decide to walk, heading south from the cemetery toward the Atlantic. I always underestimate the distance to the ocean, but it’s a nice day for a walk, even if a little steamy. And I enjoy the houses just south of Main Street along this road, the white-trimmed Cape Cods with cedar shingles whose colors have grown richer with age from all the precipitation that comes with proximity to the ocean. Some are bigger, some are newer, but these houses generally look the same, which I find both comforting and a little creepy.
As I get closer to the ocean, the plots of land get wider, the houses get bigger, and the privacy shrubs flanking them get taller. I stop when I reach shrubbery that’s a good ten feet high. I know I’ve found the place because the majestic wrought-iron gates at the end of the driveway, which are slightly parted, are adorned with black-and-yellow tape that says CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS.