James Patterson: The Beach House

I rubbed my eyes. That's when I saw that Dana was gone. There was a note taped to the lamp: "Jack, I didn't want to wake you. Thanks for letting me stay. It meant a lot to me. I miss you already. Love, Dana." She was smart and beautiful, and I was lucky to have her. It's just that I was having a little trouble feeling lucky that morning.

I walked gingerly downstairs and took my place at the kitchen table with two grieving old men in bathrobes. We weren't a pretty sight.

"Dana's gone."

"I had coffee with her," said Mack. "She was crying a lot."

I looked at my father, and there was almost no reaction. One look at him in the morning light and it was clear to me he'd never be the same. It was as if he had aged twenty years overnight.

Mack seemed as steady as ever, almost stronger, as if fortified by the tragic turn of events. "I'll make you some eggs," he said, springing from his chair.

It's not that my grandfather wasn't devastated by Peter's death. If anything, Peter had been his favorite. But to my grandfather, life, for better or worse, is a holy war, and he was girding himself for another battle.

He peeled off five pieces of bacon and dropped them in a cast-iron skillet as old and gnarly as he was. Soon the room was filled with greasy music.

That morning I realized that my father had never really gotten over the death of my mother. His heart wasn't in his construction company, and he had no desire to chase the biggest building boom in Hamptons history. He watched his fellow tradesmen move from pickups to Tahoes and leave him in the dust. Not that he cared.

My grandfather, on the other hand, had actually gained momentum as he got older. After retiring as an ironworker in his early sixties, he spent a summer reading and farting around. Then he went back to school and became a paralegal. In the past twenty years he had become something of a legend in courtrooms and firms all over the eastern half of Long Island. A lot of people believed he knew the law better than most circuit judges. He insisted that this wasn't nearly as impressive as it sounded.

His love of the law was half the reason I was at Columbia, and he was immensely proud I'd come that far. Sharing a couple of pints with him at the Shagwong included the repeated embarrassment of his introducing me as "the most overeducated Mullen in the history of Ireland and America." I could see by the way he looked at me that morning, however, that he considered all that hypothetical schoolboy stuff compared to this.

"There is no way Peter killed himself," I said. "Volpi is a moron."

"Or doesn't give a shit," said Mack.

To my father, the issue of how Peter died was almost moot. His last moments would have been less terrifying if it was suicide. To Macklin, it was everything.

"The kid got laid more than God. Why would he kill himself?"

Mack broke three eggs on top of the bacon and let them sizzle sunny-side up. When they started to blacken around the edges, he skillfully worked a spatula under it all and flipped the whole thing without spilling a yellow drop. He let it fry for another thirty seconds before sliding the whole greasy construct onto my plate.

It was approaching summer, but this was cold, blustery, off-season food. It was exactly what I needed. After three cups of black coffee, I pushed my chair from the table and announced that I was going to talk to Volpi.

"You want me to come with you?"

"No, thanks, Mack."

"Well, don't do anything stupid. Keep your head. You hear me, Jack?"

"Listen to him," said my father, "the bleeding voice of reason."

For a second, I almost thought he was going to smile.

SOMEONE MUST HAVE DRIVEN Peter's motorcycle to the house during the night. It sat in the driveway like a giant lizard warming itself in the sun. It was typical of Peter to go into hock for a rolling sculpture. Even if we got a fair price for it, we'd owe the bank a couple of thousand. But I had to admit, it was a thing of beauty, and the license plate got a smile out of me: 4NIC8. Yep, that was Peter.

I climbed into the old black pickup with mullen construction painted on the door and drove to the small brick building on 27 that houses the East Hampton Police Department. I parked next to Frank Volpi's black Jeep.

Tommy Harrison was the sergeant at the desk. He shook my hand and told me how sorry he was about Peter. "I liked your brother a lot, Jack."

"That's what I'm here to talk to Volpi about."

Harrison went back to get Volpi, then returned a couple of minutes later with a sheepish expression.

"The detective is a lot busier than I thought. He thinks he'll be tied up all afternoon."

"If it's okay, Tommy, I'll wait. It's important."

Forty minutes later the desk sergeant told me the same thing. I walked outside. Then I entered the headquarters of the East Hampton Police Department one more time. Through the back door.

Volpi's office was halfway down the hall. I didn't bother to knock.

The detective looked up from a Post spread out on his lap. The foam of his latte covered the tips of his mustache. In East Hampton even the cops sip cappuccinos.

"No rest for the weary, huh, Frank?"

"I take enough shit in this town without having to take more from you. Get the hell out of here! Get lost."

"Give me one reason why Peter would go swimming in the middle of his shift, then I'll let you get back to 'Page Six' and your mocha blend."

"I already told you. Because he was a stoned-out little punk."

"And why would he kill himself? Peter had it all going for him."

"Because his best girl was screwing his best friend; because he was having a bad hair day; because he was tired of hearing what a saint his older brother was. You wanted one reason. You got three. Now go away!"

"That's it, Frank? Accident, suicide – who cares? Case closed."

"Sounds pretty good to me."

"When are you going to stop acting like a rent-a-cop for the rich, Frank?"

He jumped out of his chair, stuck his face in mine, grabbed my shirt, and pushed me hard against the wall. "I should kick your ass right now, you piece of shit."

I didn't delude myself about Volpi's ability to back up his words, but the way I felt, maybe then wasn't the best day to get in the ring with me. Even Volpi sensed it. He released his grip and sat down.

"Go home, Jack. Your brother was a good guy. Everybody liked Rabbit, including me. But he drowned."

"Bullshit! That's total crap, and you know it. Frank, if you're not interested in looking into this case, I'm sure the press will be. Considering all the boldface types at the party that night, Newsday will be interested. And the Daily News. Maybe the high and mighty New York Times.'"

Volpi's face hardened. "You really don't want to do that."

"Why not? What am I missing here?"

"Trust me on this one. You just don't. Leave it alone, Jack."

I WAS FEELING A LITTLE NUTS, so I drove back out to the scene of the crime. The surf was down considerably, and it was still too rough for my brother to have considered swimming in it. Then I checked in on my father and grandfather. They were doing so bad, they were both in bed by 9:30. Dana had left a couple of messages for me.

I didn't get to the Memory Motel until after ten. By then almost every charter member of our highly exclusive club of born-and-bred townies was crowding a small round table at the rear of the bar.

Let me introduce you.

At the back of the table, under a chipped mirror, was Fenton Gidley. Fenton grew up four houses down from us, and we'd been best friends since before we learned how to walk. At six-three and 245 pounds, Fenton was a little bigger than he had been back then. He was offered a boxful of scholarships to play college football – Hofstra, Syracuse, even Ohio State. He took over his old man's fishing boat instead, heading out alone from Montauk Point for days at a time to hunt giant swordfish and tuna, which he sold to the Japanese.