Mark Mills - Amagansett

‘Who?’

He nodded at the grave. ‘Lillian Wallace.’

‘Oh yes, almost every week. To visit someone over there.’

She pointed towards the northeast corner of the cemetery.

‘Almost every week,’ she repeated. ‘Always with flowers.’

‘What kind of flowers?’

‘Just…flowers. I don’t know.’

The directness of the question had unsettled her. Why should he care what variety of flowers Lillian Wallace had brought with her?

‘I best be going.’ She shuffled off, casting a suspicious glance over her shoulder as she went. Conrad waited till she was lost to sight on Cooper Lane before making for the northeast corner of the cemetery.

Apart from the names, there was little to distinguish the headstones from one another—a scattering of rough-hewn granite blocks with polished faces. The resting place of the poor. Poor but not forgotten. Flowers adorned many of the graves.

Which one had drawn her here? And why? Who amongst this silent gathering of the dead had she known or cared about enough to warrant her making regular visits?

It didn’t make sense, not unless it was something to do with a member of the household staff. The maid, Rosa, perhaps. They were close, very close, he knew that. Could Rosa have lost a son, a daughter? No, Lillian would have said something to him. He would have known.

He silently hoped that he didn’t stumble upon an innocent explanation. He wanted the reason for her visits to have a bearing on her death. More than that, he needed it.

He had dredged the memories of their times together for clues, but had turned up nothing. The father she feared, the ambitious brother, the sister who had always belittled her, the fiancé who had left her for another woman. Hardly a happy life, but commonplace stories nonetheless, unremarkable. All he had to go on was a faint impression of disquiet in her last weeks, a remoteness that would settle on her face like a veil when she was off her guard. If she hadn’t been more eager than ever to spend time with him, he might have assumed she was having misgivings about their relationship. He certainly now wished that he’d pushed her a lot harder on the matter.

He glanced around, reading off names at random—familiar names, names still carried by the living—but the answer didn’t present itself. There were just too many to choose from.

He fought the frustration building inside him and cleared his head. Think. If she’d left flowers around the time of her death, they would have to be over a week old, well past their prime, dead even. That excluded most of the graves. In fact, it left only a handful of candidates.

He moved slowly between them, dismissing them in turn: a woman some twenty years dead, Edna White’s stillborn daughter, Orville Hatch who had lost both legs to poor circulation before the end. No obvious connection there.

The name on the next headstone stopped him dead in his tracks.

Being a long-lived flower, the lilies had stood up pretty well, though a scattering of petals lay around the rusted metal vase. He approached slowly, crouching down.

One lily for every year of the short life memorialized in the cold granite. Lilies, a symbol of purity and innocence. He knew that from the somber print that used to hang on the landing of their house, the one his stepmother had brought with her when she moved in with them, the one entitled The Annunciation —the Virgin Mary on her knees before the angel, clutching a single lily.

He could sense Lillian’s mind at work, her hand at play. More than that, though, he had a dim recollection of a conversation, an idle question, or so it had seemed at the time: Lillian asking him if he had known Lizzie Jencks.

Yes, had been his reply, but not well. His father had fished with her father once, setting gill nets off the ocean beach.

Young Lizzie, hair the color of copper wire, always so ready to spring a smile on you, her cheery disposition snuffed out late one night on a lonely lane, victim of a hit-and-run driver.

Fourteen

Hollis had never had cause to visit the Maidstone Club before, and the appearance of a police officer was clearly something of a novelty for the members as well. Four of them gathered on the green abutting the parking lot broke off from their golf game and stared as he pulled the patrol car to a halt. Words were exchanged, and a ripple of laughter passed between the men.

The interior of the clubhouse was cool, dark and strangely dank, the moist air heavy with the odor of wood polish. The desk clerk peered over the top of his spectacles as Hollis approached. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said coolly.

‘I’m looking for Anthony Cordwell.’

‘I wouldn’t know if he was here. Members aren’t required to sign in.’

‘And I suppose you can’t leave the front desk to check.’

‘I’m afraid not,’ came the reply, heavy with false regret.

‘Then I guess I’ll just have to take a look around myself.’

He was a few steps shy of the doors leading to the back terrace when his path was blocked by the desk clerk.

‘I’ll see what I can do. If you’d be so good as to wait over there.’ He indicated some club chairs before disappearing.

Hollis lingered at the doors, curious to get a glimpse of the wealthy at play. From its vantage point at the top of the steep grassy slope, the clubhouse offered a wide vista over the swimming-pool complex with its sandy sunning areas, restaurant, bar and dining patio. Beyond, two long runs of cabanas arced through the broken dunes towards the beach like arms reaching out to embrace the ocean. All around, people were gathered beneath striped umbrellas, finishing lunch or sleeping it off. Only a handful of youngsters were braving the sun, frolicking in the pool, diving for hoops.

Hollis felt a little cheated; the Sunday afternoon scene before him was hardly different from those being enacted all over the country, though the setting was surely grander than most.

‘May I help you?’

The gentleman from the front desk had reappeared. He was accompanied by a colleague, a younger man with a thin, reedy voice.

‘I don’t know, can you?’

‘You want to see Anthony Cordwell.’

‘I think we’ve already established that.’

‘Is there a problem?’

‘Not unless you don’t go get him for me.’

Anthony Cordwell had been playing tennis, and judging from his complexion he was being given a run for his money.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said warily.

‘I won’t take up much of your time,’ said Hollis. ‘Though it looks like you could do with the break.’

Hollis was led through to the bar, which to Cordwell’s evident relief was deserted. Cordwell wiped his face with a towel.

‘Couldn’t this have waited?’ he asked.

‘You’re a bright boy. You’ll think of something to tell them.’

Hollis handed him a buff envelope. Of the two photos inside, the first was a close-up of a dress shoe, Cordwell’s name clearly embossed inside. The second showed the shoe beside a hydrangea bush, the Rosens’ defaced front door visible behind, the crude, dripping white Star of David clearly in focus.

‘What is this? Blackmail?’

‘Think of it as a gift.’

Cordwell eyed him suspiciously. ‘And in return…?’

‘I have a few questions, then I’m gone. Those stay.’

‘And the negatives?’

Hollis patted the breast pocket of his uniform. ‘When we’re done talking.’

Cordwell nodded, as if accepting a deal from the Devil himself.

‘Justin Penrose, you know him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well?’

‘As well as anybody, I suppose.’

‘Meaning?’

‘He’s what you might call private. Why?’

‘How long was he with Lillian Wallace?’