Mark Mills - Amagansett

‘I can take you over there if you like.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘To see the fisherman.’ It would be a good excuse to meet the big Basque again, survey his world, get more of a sense of the man.

‘It’s okay, I’m sure I can find my own way.’

She left, stepping lightly across the lawn, her long, narrow feet leaving impressions in the spongy grass.

Hollis returned to the house to find the florist and her assistant gone. George and Manfred Wallace were seated with Wakeley at the table on the terrace. All three nursed glasses of chilled white wine while Rosa moved around them, arranging cutlery.

‘I don’t suppose you’re allowed to,’ said Manfred, meaning the wine.

‘Maybe a glass of water.’

Rosa poured him a glass from a pitcher. No one spoke while he downed it, the silence oppressive, each gulp resounding in his ears.

‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘The Press.’

George Wallace frowned. ‘What about them?’

‘We’ll do our best to keep them at bay, but with limited resources…’

‘It’s a good point. Richard?’

‘I’ll get on to it,’ said Wakeley.

Hollis drained the rest of the water and placed the empty glass on the table. ‘I’ll be in touch in a few days once everything’s arranged.’ He turned to Rosa. ‘Thanks for the water.’

She met his look with something approaching defiance, enjoying the protection of her employer. This only confirmed his suspicions. She feared him, not in the way that many feared a police officer—irrationally, believing that the uniform somehow conferred on him the power to see into the dark caverns of their conscience. No, he had rumbled her in the kitchen, creeping up on her like that, surprising her. The momentary flash of apprehension in her eyes had betrayed her. She definitely knew more than she was letting on.

As he strolled around the side of the house, his mind was racing, filtering impressions. He could dismiss the gardener for now. Rosa had displayed no telling signs of unease when he’d sprung the subject of the old man on her. Whatever her secret, it was unlikely she shared it with—what was his name?—Derek, yes, Derek Watson.

He climbed into the patrol car, lit a cigarette, and added the name to his memo pad along with that of Richard Wakeley. It was an old habit. Names on a page obliged you to consider connections your mind might normally pass over, like deciphering a crossword anagram by writing the letters in a circle.

Watson and Wakeley side by side. It was an unlikely association, but you never knew, not till the affair had played itself out.

Hollis slowed as he passed the Clinton Academy, but his courage failed him at the last and he drove on down Main Street. Fifty yards along he was given the opportunity to reconsider.

Mary Calder was walking toward the center of town, stepping through the dappled shade cast by the tall elms. He drove past her then swung the wheel, carving a long turn and pulling up at the verge.

‘Maybe I’m mistaken,’ said Mary, ‘but wasn’t that an illegal maneuver?’

‘Was it?’

‘Bylaw 18, I think you’ll find.’

Shit, maybe he’d misjudged their last exchange; there was still no trace of a smile.

‘I’m on official police business,’ he said.

‘Oh?’

‘In pursuit of a suspect.’

She held up her hands in mock surrender. ‘I demand to see my lawyer.’ And there it was—the smile—clutching at his breast.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Home,’ she said. ‘For lunch.’

‘You want a ride?’

She glanced around her. ‘What ever will people say?’

‘You’re right. It’s more than your reputation’s worth.’

She laughed.

‘What?’

‘Well, you obviously know nothing about my reputation.’

True. He didn’t.

‘All right,’ she said suddenly, as if surprised by her decision. She crossed to the other side of the car and climbed into the passenger seat.

‘Where do you live?’

‘Three Mile Harbor Road.’

‘It’ll mean making another illegal maneuver.’

‘Not if you head up Dayton Lane there.’

This time she wasn’t joking.

The house was set some distance back from the road down a cinder track. It was a large, squat two-story farmhouse with a shed-roof extension on the side and two end-wall chimneys jutting from the shingled roof. Behind it stood a barn, dwarfed by an enormous tree with a dark crown. Beyond lay a paddock—a neat square of pasture hacked out of the dense oak woods and enclosed by a white post-and-rail fence.

‘A farm,’ said Hollis, pulling the patrol car to a halt.

‘That’s very observant of you.’

‘So where are all the animals?’

‘Well, there’s a truculent old goose called Eugene, but he takes a nap about now—lucky for you. He doesn’t like strangers.’

‘And your dog?’

She hesitated before replying. ‘She’s with my son. He’s staying with his father.’

Ah, thought Hollis, that is news; two big pieces of news, in fact.

‘Now I’m offended,’ said Mary.

‘How’s that?’

‘You really haven’t checked up on me, have you?’

He had done a bad job of concealing his surprise, and an awkward silence settled around them.

‘Thanks for the ride,’ said Mary, getting out of the car.

Hollis felt bad. He wanted to make amends for his reaction, to tell her that he didn’t care, but he couldn’t find the words.

‘Do you always drive so slow?’ she asked.

It was a fair question. He had meandered through the maze of roads north of Main Street, crawling along, the needle barely nudging fifteen miles an hour. He had asked her about the LVIS summer fair, less than three weeks off now, and she had pattered away indulgently.

‘I was enjoying myself.’ No lie there, he hadn’t wanted it to end, the low hum of the engine, her voice washing around him.

‘Well, if you’re lucky, next time we meet I’ll fill you in on the rummage drive we’ve got planned for September.’

He laughed, relieved that he’d been able to turn the situation around.

She was halfway to the side door when he called after her.

‘Mary.’

She turned back.

‘The times you saw Lillian Wallace down at the beach, was she ever with anyone?’

She weighed the question for a moment. ‘Once. About a month ago. There was a man, a young man, tall, rangy. Why?’

‘Blond?’

‘No. Auburn hair.’

Well, that excluded the brother, Manfred, but it hardly narrowed the field of lanky young men who moved in the elevated circles of the Maidstone Club. Only an hour before he had seen two such specimens at the Wallaces’ house, friends of Gayle.

‘Why do you ask?’

‘It’s nothing,’ he shrugged. ‘Are you going to the funeral?’

‘I think so.’

‘I’ll see you there. Chief Milligan’s got me on traffic duty.’

Her eyes held his for a moment. ‘Don’t let him get you down,’ she said. ‘He’s just a big old blowhard.’

Hollis laughed.

‘What?’

‘I don’t know. Yes, I suppose he is, isn’t he?’

Driving away, his thoughts returned to the scene he’d glimpsed at the Wallaces’ swimming pool—the young couple romping in the water, the other couple observing from the shade, Gayle stretched out in the sun, all limbs, her face shaded by the brim of her straw hat.

People dealt with grief in different ways, but somehow he couldn’t see himself lounging by a swimming pool just four days after his dead sister had been plucked from the ocean in a fisherman’s net.

Ten

Conrad uncoiled. The cane rod bowed under the strain then whipped through the air, the reel singing as the lead weight arced high up over the surf into the flat water beyond.