James Patterson - The Beach House

"I guess you've heard about the inquiry," I said.

Her head jerked back, the blond hair flying.

"I can't believe anyone really thinks my family had anything to do with Peter's death. Do you, Jack? What makes you even think Peter was murdered?"

"His body was covered with bruises, Dana. He was beaten on your beach. I wish you'd seen him."

"A lot of people think the storm could have done that."

I still couldn't quite believe Dana had gone completely over to the other side. Still, I knew it would be insane to share any of the hard work Pauline and I had done over the past two months.

"Dana, you weren't around when I really needed you, and I did need you," I told her.

Tears were still running down her cheeks. "I'm sorry, Jack. What do I have to do to prove it to you?"

"You said some things before you left. Then you never called or wrote. Not even a postcard. Now you just show up here?"

She wiped her face. "Jack, let's go someplace. We could get a room. At the Memory. Please, I need to talk to you."

She reached out and put her arms around me. It felt way beyond wrong. I pulled away.

"I'm not going to the Memory, Dana. I think you should leave."

Dana folded her arms and stared at me angrily. The transformation was quite amazing.

"So who is she, Jack? The bitch who was here before?"

"A very good friend. She's helping me with the case. That reminds me, how's Volpi?"

Dana flinched, then jumped up out of her chair. She wasn't sniffling anymore. Now she was just pissed-off. Daddy's little girl was a lot like Daddy.

Once Dana was gone, I went inside the house, passed a sullen Mack watching the Yankees-Red Sox game, and tried to reach Pauline on her cell phone.

Either she'd turned it off or she wouldn't take my call.

I TOOK A GUINNESS out to the front porch and watched the late-departing weekenders head back to the city. Soon the Hamptons would be safe again for dreamy-eyed townies. In the meantime, I sat on the cool flagstone and rewound the evening. What a frigging disaster. I even began to wonder if Dana had known Pauline was there. I wouldn't put it past her.

It was getting late, and watching the passing SUVs was like counting sheep. I was fading a little when a police car screeched around the corner against the westbound traffic.

To my surprise, it turned into our driveway and skidded to a stop. Frank Volpi and a sergeant I didn't recognize hopped out. What the hell?

"Mind if I ask you a couple of questions?" asked Volpi as he reached the porch.

"Does it matter what I think, Frank?"

"Not really. Where have you been tonight?"

"Here. Why?"

"Someone just torched Sammy Giamalva's house to the ground," he said. "Professional. We're pretty sure with him in it."

I felt as if I'd been hit with the kitchen skillet. I thought of the photographs of Sammy in his kitchen – the ones that were dropped off at the Memory. Sammy, with a cigarette in his mouth and a cup of coffee in his hand. It showed a live-wire twenty-three-year-old getting stoked to do something he loved. A portrait of the stylist as a young man.

Then I flashed on the tiny pairs of numbers scribbled in pencil under each photo.

I suddenly realized they were odds, and that Sammy's (6-5) were the shortest.

Volpi was still in my face.

"Is there anyone who can confirm you've been here for the last couple of hours?"

"What is it, Frank, you really think I burned down Sammy's house? With my family gone, I'm turning on my friends?" As mad as I was, it was nothing compared to my panic about the danger I'd put my friends in.

"Mind if Officer Jordan and I have a look around?" Volpi asked.

"Actually, I do," I said, but Jordan was already heading for the garage.

"Hey!" I called. "You can't go in there."

I followed and stood beside him as he pulled up the door and swept his flashlight over the cluttered space. The beam moved slowly over the deep blue sheen of Peter's motorcycle.

"That's one pretty scooter," he said with a smirk. "Almost twenty grand, isn't it?"

"What you're doing here is illegal," I said. "C'mon, huh? Get out of the garage."

He bent to open the immaculate little BMW toolbox. What the hell was he looking for?

I stepped forward and grabbed his arm. "I'd appreciate it if you'd leave right now. Get away from the bike."

Jordan came out of his crouch and jumped into my chest, knocking me back into Frank Volpi, who had followed us into the garage. Volpi immediately grabbed my arms. He let Jordan take it from there.

If the first punch didn't rebreak my almost-healed rib, the second definitely did.

"You're under arrest for interfering with a police investigation and assaulting a police officer," said Volpi. He grinned as he cuffed me and dragged me out to the car. He didn't bother to read me my rights, and I got the message: I didn't have any.

"WAKEE, WAKEE."

A tin cup rattling over steel bars startled me from a dream in which I was trying to save Peter and Sammy. I jumped up and frantically scanned the cell. Then I saw Mack's shit-eating grin, the small grease-stained paper bag under his arm, and the old metal camping cup in his hand, which he must have spent all morning searching for.

"Get out of bed, you lazy so-and-so. I just bailed you out."

"Good to see you, Macklin. And thanks for that little prison-riot vignette."

I threw on my clothes, and Paul Infante, the cop who'd worked the overnight shift, appeared in front of the cell. He extended a key attached to his belt by a long, thin chain, and the big bolt toppled over with an echoing clang. He pulled the heavy door toward him, and I stepped back out into the world.

"Jack 'Hurricane' Mullen," said Macklin, clapping me on the shoulder. "Not even six hours in the East Hampton Hilton could break this man."

"Can it, Macklin."

Upstairs, Infante gave me an envelope with my watch and wallet in it, and I signed a summons pledging to appear in court for interfering with a police investigation. The assault charge had been dropped.

"We should go visit Sammy's mom this afternoon," Mack said somberly. "We're the only ones who know how she feels."

"I suppose they're going to say that was an accident, too," I said. "Maybe a suicide." I described the visit from Volpi and Jordan, how unbelievably brazen and cocky they'd been.

"Can they get away with it?" I asked him.

"Sure. Looks like they just did."

As I pulled out of the driveway, I plucked the bag of Dreesen's doughnuts off Mack's lap. There were three inside – dark, soft, and sprinkled with cinnamon. If it's possible, I think spending my first night in jail made them taste even better,

"So, tell me something," said Mack, snatching the last doughnut before it reached my lips, "you still feel like the man who's going to bring the goddamned system to its knees?"

I WAS ABOUT TO FIND OUT. The inquiry into my brother's death was held in the gymnasium of the Montauk Middle School. They couldn't have picked a worse spot. For years Peter and I used to play Sunday pickup games there. Every Sunday. Walking to my seat with Mack, I could still hear the deep smack of basketballs echoing off the whitewashed cinder block.

As I took a seat, I remembered the very first weekend we ever snuck inside the gym as kids. Fenton got hold of a key, and after stashing our bikes in the woods, we crowded around him as he slipped it into the lock. Miraculously, it fit. We stepped through the small side door into the hushed, voluminous darkness more awed than if we'd just snuck into St. Patrick's Cathedral. Hank found the switch, and the entire trespassed interior, with its gleaming hardwood floor and white fiberglass backboards, lit up like a Technicolor dream.