Nelson DeMille - The Gate House

“Understandably so. Let me walk you out.”

We walked out to the forecourt. The night was clear and balmy, and there were a million stars overhead.

Mr. Mancuso said to Susan, “I hear from Detective Jones that you were very smart and very brave.”

Susan, forgetting or ignoring what I told her about justifiable homicide, replied, “I was very stupid. He wasn’t going to kill us. He said that about six times. This was not blood for blood. He wanted to humiliate us and to make our lives hell.” She took a deep breath and said to him, but really to me, “I could have just let him rape me, and it would have been over. But I risked my life, and John’s life, to kill him.”

That, as Mr. Mancuso and I both knew, was an incriminating statement, but he liked us and he felt some responsibility for what had happened, so he said, “I’m sure you did believe that your life was in danger, Mrs. Sutter, and you did the right thing by shooting him.”

Susan, still wanting to get this off her chest, said, “If he’d wanted to kill me for what I did to his father, I would understand that… an eye for an eye… but… he wanted to kill our souls, and I could not allow that.”

Mr. Mancuso thought about that, then said, “I understand, but… well… maybe I would have done the same thing.”

He walked us to the Taurus and said, “By the way, the medical examiner told me that Bellarosa was still alive when the EMS arrived, but before they could administer any emergency care, he died.”

I exercised my right to remain silent on that subject.

Mr. Mancuso continued, “It appears… well, the ME said that it looked like the wound had clotted, but… the clot in his chest somehow broke, and he re-bled. Hemorrhaged.” He looked at me and asked, “So… I was wondering if you’d tried to administer any first aid – as you did with Frank Bellarosa – and if perhaps you’d inadvertently caused a re-bleed?”

Mr. Mancuso, I assumed, was tipping me off that there could be some questions later regarding the medical examiner’s report on the cause of death. I mentally thanked him for this and replied, “I did what I had to do.” I clarified that and said, “I called 9-1- 1.”

So we left it there, and if Mr. Mancuso thought I’d intervened to speed up Anthony Bellarosa’s death, he didn’t say it. I did, however, hope that he understood it.

There didn’t seem to be anything more to say on these subjects, so we all shook hands, and Susan and I got into the car and drove down the long, dark driveway.

The gatehouse was lit, and there were police cars outside the door and news vans on the street. The gates were open, and I drove through them, out of Stanhope Hall, and onto Grace Lane.

We did not return to Stanhope Hall, but spent a week in the cottage at The Creek, speaking to friends and family by phone, but not meeting with anyone. We also made ourselves available to Detective Jones for some follow-up questions. Susan had no trouble identifying Tony Rosini, whom she’d known ten years ago, and he was charged with a number of Class A felonies, including kidnapping, that would put him in prison for a period that could be measured in geological time.

Detective Jones had questioned me about the medical examiner’s autopsy report – specifically, regarding if I knew how Anthony Bellarosa’s wound, which had clotted so nicely, had reopened, leaving pieces of the clot around the wound and other pieces embedded deep in the wound. He said, “As if someone had shoved something into the wound.”

I found that hard to believe, or even to understand, and replied, “I have no medical training – except some basic first aid in the Army – so I can’t answer that question.”

He didn’t seem entirely satisfied with my reply, but he did say, “I think the grand jury will return a verdict of justifiable homicide.”

To which I replied, “What else could they possibly conclude?”

After a week at The Creek, I booked us at Gurney’s Inn in Montauk Point.

On our first night there, we walked along the beach, east toward the Montauk Point Lighthouse in the distance. There weren’t many people on the beach at midnight, but a group of young people had built a driftwood fire in the sand, and a few hardy fishermen were out in the surf, casting for bluefish.

The moon was in the southwestern sky, and a wide river of moonlight illuminated the ocean and cast a silvery glow across the beach. There was a nice sea breeze skimming across the water, kicking up whitecaps and carrying with it the smell of salt air and the sound of the surf against the shore.

Susan and I held hands and walked barefoot over the white sand, not saying anything, just listening to the sea.

We climbed a small sand dune and sat facing the ocean. Out on the horizon, I could see the lights of cargo ships and tankers, looking like small cities floating on the water.

We sat there for a long time, then Susan asked me, “Are we still getting married?”

“Am I still getting my yacht?”

She smiled and said, “Of course. After our wedding, we’ll sail to England with the children and clean out your flat. Then… we’ll send Edward and Carolyn home by plane.”

“Then what?”

“Can we sail around the world together?”

“We can.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Does it matter?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

I said to her, “It’s a transformative experience.”

“Good. I need to be transformed.” She put her arm around me and asked, “Where do you want to live for the rest of our lives?”

“I think we’ll know the place when we see it.”

“You’ll love Hilton Head.”

I smiled and replied, “I just might.” Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. I asked her, “Will you miss New York? Stanhope Hall?”

“I suppose I will – it’s part of me. But we both have good memories of where we grew up, fell in love, got married, raised our children, and… our life together. And when we come here to visit, we can think of ourselves as time travelers who’ve gone back to a wonderful time and place in our lives, and we’ll make believe we’re young again and that we have our whole lives ahead of us.”

“Well, we are young, and we do have our whole lives ahead of us.”

She hugged me tight and said, “It’s wonderful to have you back.”

I looked at the Montauk Lighthouse and remembered when I’d sailed away from here ten years ago. I had no idea where I was going, or if I was ever coming back. And it didn’t matter – because in my mind, and in my heart, Susan had been with me every day at sea. I spoke to her often, and I believed, wherever she was, she knew I was thinking of her.

I showed her the world, in my mind, and we watched the stars together, weathered bad storms together, and sailed into safe harbors together – we even walked the streets of London together. She’d never really left my side for ten years, so this was not a reunion, because we had never been apart, and this voyage we were about to take would be our second together.

And if Fate had already decided that we would not return from the sea, then that was all right. Every journey has to end, and the end of the journey is always called Home.

As in all my novels, I’ve called on friends and acquaintances to assist me with technical details, professional jargon, and all the other bits and pieces of information that a novelist needs, but can’t get from a book or the Internet.

First, thanks to my very old friend U.S. Airways Captain (retired) Thomas Block, contributing editor and columnist for many aviation magazines, and co-author with me of Mayday , and author of six other novels; Tom is a great researcher, and as a novelist himself, he understands what’s needed to give fiction the ring of truth.