Carla Neggers - Night’s Landing

Ethan had taken his own private, illicit, midnight tour of the Poe house downriver from the Dunnemores. It hadn’t produced a single thing except a spider bite on his ankle. His search of the Dunnemore house hadn’t produced much more. He’d gone through file cabinets, photo albums, old yearbooks. The father had written plenty of boring papers of his own. The mother was into art.

He’d found Sarah’s locked diary from when she was fifteen but decided he wasn’t low enough to break into it and read it.

But he might yet. He was that goddamn frustrated.

He wasn’t sure what he expected to find in Tennessee. A connection, a hint, a link. Something that explained Charlene’s interest in the Dunnemores. Why she’d contacted Betsy Dunnemore in Amsterdam two days before she was killed. What it had to do with her death.

She’d gone to Amsterdam on her own. On holiday, she’d told her friends and superiors, Euro-style. Ethan had shown up at her base in Germany without notice, found her gone, figured out where she was and headed to Amsterdam to join her. He could track down anyone, so he’d tracked down his ambitious, incredible wife.

He hadn’t considered the importance of her trip until she’d turned up dead. Then he wanted to know everything. Why Amsterdam? What had Char been up to?

Weeks of probing, spying and prowling in Europe had landed him on the Cumberland River in middle Tennessee, playing gardener.

Waiting like a damn fool for answers to fall into his lap.

Ten days ago, he’d bought a ticket back to Amsterdam.

But he hadn’t yet used it. Because Sarah Dunnemore had returned from Scotland. And now her brother had been shot in Central Park.

Suddenly Ethan realized the crickets had stopped chirping.

He set his plate in the sink and went still, listening, aware of the.38 semiautomatic strapped to his ankle under his overalls.

“Mr. Brooker? It’s me, Conroy Fontaine.” The accent was distinctly Southern, the voice amiable, familiar. “Would you mind if I had a word with you?”

Ethan stifled a groan. Just what he needed, a bottom-feeding reporter who liked to pass himself off as a legitimate journalist-historian. Before he could respond, Fontaine was at the door. He was working on an unauthorized, tabloid-style biography of the president. He’d set up shop a couple weeks ago at a cabin he’d rented at a fishing camp farther up river from the Poe house. He was worming his way into Sarah’s good graces, presumably in an attempt to get access to the president and dig up any dirt he could find-not that she was anyone’s fool. As far as Ethan had seen, so far she hadn’t told Fontaine much more than what kind of mint extract she used in her sweet tea punch.

He and Ethan were about the same age, but Conroy Fontaine seemed like a throwback to another generation, pre-World War II, maybe even pre-World War I. He was unfailingly polite and tended to dress in penny loafers with no socks, chinos, polo shirts and a retro Timex watch. He wore rimless glasses and his sandy-colored hair was getting thin on top, but he kept himself in decent shape. Nearly every morning, Ethan would see him up on the road jogging what he said was a six-mile route. He must also pump iron, given his muscle mass, but where he did that, Ethan didn’t know or care.

He opened up the screen door, then remembered his good ol’ boy act. “What can I do for you, Mr. Fontaine?”

“I’m sorry to bother you so late. I’ve been working all day on my book. I didn’t have the radio on. I just heard the news-”

“Yes, sir, it’s an awful situation.”

Conroy shook his head in obvious despair. He had a broad forehead, a strong jaw-not a bad-looking guy. “It’s terrible. Sarah’s gone to New York?”

“She left a short time after she heard about the shooting.”

Fontaine took in a breath. “Good heavens. I simply can’t imagine. The FBI just held a press conference-it was carried by all the news channels. Rob Dunnemore’s still in critical condition, but at least he’s stable. He made it out of surgery. Sarah must be beside herself.”

Ethan noted the familiar way Fontaine talked about Sarah and wondered if they’d struck up a real friendship since she’d arrived back in Night’s Landing. He turned on the tap at the sink and rinsed off his barbecue plate. “She was pretty upset when she left here, Mr. Fontaine.”

“Understandably. Do you know anything? Anything that’s not on the news? Are the parents flying in from Amsterdam? Will Rob be brought down here to recuperate-”

“If I knew anything,” Ethan said, turning from the sink, “I don’t believe I’d tell you. No offense, sir, but you’re a reporter. It’s not my job to blab family business to reporters.”

Conroy’s back stiffened visibly, but he smiled. “No offense taken, but you’re quite wrong about me. If I were the kind of reporter you obviously think I am, I’d be on the phone to CNN right now alerting them to Rob Dunnemore’s connection to the president. But I haven’t done that.”

“No money in it?”

“Name recognition. That would help me with my book when it goes to press.” He sighed, his shoulders sagging. “I’ve never been very good at selling myself. My interest is always the story. This book-I’m doing a responsible job on it. I want it to be respectable. The most difficult part…” He trailed off, avoiding Ethan’s eye. “Sarah. I didn’t expect-” He seemed unable to go on.

“You didn’t expect to want her approval,” Ethan finished for him, then added, matter-of-fact, “She’s a beautiful woman.”

Fontaine still didn’t look at him. He nodded, embarrassed. “That’s right. I want to do my best work on this book. I’d like her respect. I’ve read her dissertation, and I understand the documentary she just finished is stunning. I can’t compete with that kind of scholarship. Of course, her work doesn’t focus on the president. What I’m doing is quite different.”

The guy sounded smitten. Ethan got it, but Sarah Dunnemore was sisterlike material as far as he was concerned. “Look, Mr. Fontaine,” he said, “you don’t have to justify yourself to me. What you do is none of my business. I’ll tell Sarah you dropped by and let you know if I hear anything. Fair enough?”

Fontaine seemed pleased, even relieved. “Thank you. It’s a worrisome situation, isn’t it?”

“Sure is, sir.”

“Sarah…I wonder how long she’ll be up there. If she needs anything-”

“I’ll tell her you offered.”

After Fontaine left, Ethan got a beer out of the refrigerator and walked down to the dock. It was dark out, not much for moon and stars. Chilly. He could fly up to New York. Ask questions, stick his nose where it didn’t belong.

Get arrested.

Bad enough having Conroy Fontaine, would-be presidential biographer, sniffing around Night’s Landing. In New York, Ethan’d be facing scores of hard-nosed, cynical reporters who had space and time to fill with whatever they could fill it with, all of them eager for anything that would spin the Central Park sniper story into a new direction for another day or two of audience-grabbing coverage.

He should have used an alias. Never mind Fontaine and a bunch of national and New York reporters-if the FBI and the marshals fed his name into a computer, God only knows what’d pop out.

“Yeah, well,” Ethan said into the night. “Whatever.”

He finished his beer and went back inside.

Nate woke up irritable and in pain, even before he remembered that his uncle and two sisters were in the next room. He rented an apartment in Queens, upstairs from a New York firefighter he’d met in the aftermath of September 11. Gus had invited him up for lasagna until Antonia intervened and reminded him that Nate had just been shot.