James Patterson: Murder House

I should stop drinking. My thoughts are swimming and my mood is darkening. I’m still not sure I made the right move, coming to the Hamptons. I could have found something else to do in Manhattan, or I could have tried to find another big city and start over, even if I had to start at the bottom rung again on patrol. But my uncle the chief made me an offer, and nobody else was knocking down my door.

“Shit,” I say, the word slow and heavy on my tongue. I check my watch, and it’s nearing six o’clock in the evening. I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast, and my stomach is hollowed out and churning. (Some might argue that’s an apt summary of my life, too.)

“Whatever, man. Whatever! You know I’m good for it! How long I been comin’ here?”

The small outburst comes from the guy at the end of the bar, whom I’ve managed not to notice since I’ve been here. Or maybe he just arrived. My brain isn’t hitting on all cylinders right now.

He’s dressed the same way he was today at Melanie Phillips’s funeral, a dark T-shirt that I might otherwise use to wipe my kitchen counter, a green ball cap turned backward, his long, strawlike hair popping out on both sides and covering his ears.

“Jerry,” I say to the bartender. That’s a good bartender name, Jerry . “Put his beer on my tab.”

Jerry, a portly guy with a big round head and a green apron, gives me a crosswise look. I nod and he shrugs, pulling on the lever to fill Aiden Willis’s mug with a Budweiser he couldn’t afford.

Aiden’s deep-set eyes move in my direction. He doesn’t say anything. There may be a glint of recognition, if he noticed me at the cemetery. My biggest flaw as a cop is my bright-red hair. When I was undercover for a year and a half and didn’t want to be memorable, I dyed it black.

I go back to my Pinot, trying to remind myself that I’m off duty but wondering if Aiden the cemetery caretaker will come over. When I glance back up a few minutes later, Aiden is still looking at me, his beer untouched. He doesn’t acknowledge me in any way, just stares with those raccoon eyes. But even his stare isn’t really a stare. His eyes move about, wandering aimlessly, always returning to me but never staying on me.

My cell phone buzzes, a text message. Ten mins away. R U at home? , the message reads. My hesitation to respond surprises me, but there it is. Always trust your gut, my father used to say. Sometimes it’s all you have .

Well, Pop, I had a gut feeling about Noah Walker, and look where that got me.

I type in the address of the bar and hit Send. I look back to the corner of the bar, where Aiden’s mug remains full of beer, but Aiden himself is gone.

I’m into my next glass, which now puts me at about five too many, if anyone’s counting, when the door of the place pops open and a lot of people’s chins rise. I don’t even need to turn around to know it’s Matty, who would stick out in this place like an oil stain on cotton. A moment later, an arm comes over my shoulder and playfully around my neck. His cologne greets me next, before his face is against mine. This is where I’m supposed to swoon with unbridled delight.

“Hey, gorgeous. What’s with the depressing-bar thing?”

Matty Queenan is a Wall Street investor with a job I can’t really describe because I’ve never really understood all the financial hocus-pocus these guys pull. All I really understand is that it’s a game without rules: You pick a winner for your clients, then bet on them to lose behind their backs, and if everything goes to shit, the little guy will get screwed but the government will bail you out.

“Want a drink?” I ask Matty.

“Here? No. Let’s go someplace decent.”

I look at Jerry, who pretends he didn’t hear what Matty just said.

“Seriously, Murphy. This place is a dump. I’m going to need a tetanus shot—”

“Keep your voice down.” I’m standing now, whispering harshly in his ear. “People can hear you. You’re being rude.”

He takes me by the arm, but I pull away. “Jerry,” I say, “I apologize for my rude friend, and please buy everyone a round on me.” I slap a fifty on the bar, having already paid for my other drinks, and get some applause for the gesture along with some hard stares in my boyfriend’s direction.

I hear my cell phone ring in my purse, but I’m too hacked off to do anything but storm out of the place, Matty not far behind.

“What’s with the asshole routine?” I say to Matty as soon as I’m back in the sweltering heat outside.

“What’s with being half in the bag before I show up? What’s with hanging out in a seedy dive like that?”

I turn to look at my boyfriend of eleven months, the first two of which we spent together when I lived in the city, the last nine of which have been long-distance. I probably am a little tipsier than I should be, but he didn’t even call and let me know he was coming until a few hours ago, when he was already on his way. That’s Matty for you, always on his own schedule, just assuming I’ll drop everything and jump into his arms when he shows up.

Okay, to be fair, it’s not like I was working on my doctoral thesis or trying to end world hunger when he called.

I turn back to him. Matty looks like a Wall Street guy even when he dresses down, in an Armani sport coat, silk shirt, and expensive trousers, with Ferragamo shoes that would consume an entire paycheck of mine, his long hair slicked back. He’s got the looks, no doubt. His confidence, more than anything, drew me to him when we met — guess where — at a bar in Midtown.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he says, moving to me. “I like you when you’re tipsy.”

I push his hands away. “Those people in there are nice folks. You insulted them.”

He thinks for a moment, then puts a hand on his chest. “Then I will march back in there and give a bar-wide apology. Will that make Jenna happy?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, instead raising his arm and checking his watch. “I just decided something,” he says.

I guess I’m supposed to ask what. A few one-liners leap to mind.

“I just decided that this place is bad for you. You don’t belong here. Just seeing you in the bar seals it. You need the city, kiddo. This place is depressing you.”

“Manhattan would depress me,” I say, even though in some ways, there’s no place I’d rather be. There’s no place like it in the world. But I got to know it through a cop’s eyes, and seeing it otherwise now would be like a cruel joke every day.

“Well, we need to figure something out,” he says as we reach his Beemer, fire-engine red with a beige interior. “This commute is a bitch.”

“It’ll be better after Labor Day, when the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts take off.”

“Talk about depressing,” he says as he uses his remote to pop the locks. “Summer’s the only time this place is interesting. Hey,” he says as I open the passenger door.

“Hey what?”

He nods at me. “Are you going to change? We’re going to Quist.”

For the first time, I take an inventory of myself. I’m wearing a sleeveless white blouse, blue jeans, and low heels. But even the nicest places — and Quist is the nicest, a hotel restaurant opened by some celebrity chef — have a pretty relaxed dress code in the summer.

“Let’s swing by your place,” he says. “Wear that lavender dress I bought you. Then you’ll be turning heads.”

“But I won’t turn heads in this?”

He chuckles at his faux pas. “C’mon, you know what I mean. We’re going to a five-star restaurant. You really want to look like that?”

I hike my purse back over my shoulder and remember my cell phone, the call I missed a moment ago. I pull out my iPhone and see that the call came from “Uncle Langdon,” which I really should change to “Chief James” now.