Beach Road
Page 10
“What happened to you?” she asks.
“A couple of bodyguards.”
“Belonging to whom?”
“Oh, some guy on Beach Road I tried to talk to about the murders this morning.”
Kate wrinkles her nose and sighs. “You haven’t changed, have you?”
“Actually, I have, Kate.”
Then this woman, who I’m pretty sure actually is Kate Costello, says, “I’ve changed my mind. I want to help you defend Dante Halleyville.”
And as I sit there too stunned to reply, she continues, “The thing is, you’ve got to say yes because I quit my job yesterday and moved out here.”
“You know there’s no pay, right? No perks. No medical insurance. Nothing.”
“I’m feeling healthy.”
“So did I when I woke up.”
“Sorry about that.”
“And you’re okay working as an equal with someone who couldn’t even get hired by Walmark, Reid and Blundell?”
And then Kate nearly smiles. “I consider your unworthiness of Walmark, Reid and Blundell an important point in your favor.”
Chapter 55
Kate
HE’S JUST A kid.
A very tall kid who looks frightened.
Those are my first unformed thoughts when Dante Halleyville, bending at the waist so as not to bang his head, steps into the tiny attorney’s room where Tom and I are waiting. Now I’m thinking that it’s one thing for an eighteen-year-old to hold his own with men on a basketball court but another to do it at a fifteen-hundred-man maximum-security jail. And Dante’s eyes definitely reveal he’s as terrified as my kid, or your kid, or any kid would be who suddenly found himself locked up in this terrible place.
“I’ve got good news,” says Tom. “This is Kate Costello. Kate is a top New York lawyer. She’s just taken temporary leave from her job at a major firm to help with your case.”
Dante, who has already gotten way too much bad news, only grimaces. “You’re not backing out on me, are you, Tom?”
“No way,” says Tom, straining to make himself understood better. “Defending you is all I’m doing and all I will be doing until you’re out of here. But now you’ve got yourself a legal team—a shaky ex-jock and an A-list attorney. And Kate is from Montauk, so she’s local too,” he says, reaching out for Dante’s hand. “It’s all good, Dante.”
Dante grabs for Tom’s hand and they embrace, and then Dante very shyly makes eye contact with me for the first time.
“Thanks, Kate. I appreciate it.”
“It’s good to meet you, Dante,” I say, and already feel more invested in this case than any I’ve handled in the last few years. Very strange, but true.
The first thing Tom and I do is talk with Dante about the murder of Michael Walker. He’s close to tears when he tells us about his friend, and it’s difficult to believe he had anything to do with the killing. Still, I’ve met some very convincing liars and con artists in my day, and Dante Halleyville has everything to lose.
“I got another piece of good news,” says Tom. “I tracked down the guy who was at the basketball court that night—a Cuban named Manny Rodriguez. We couldn’t talk for long, but he told me he saw something that night, something heavy. And now that I know where he works, it won’t be hard to find him again.”
As Dante’s young face brightens slightly, I can see all the courage that’s been required to keep it together in this place, and my heart goes out to him. I think, I like this kid. So will the right jury.
“How are you holding up?” I ask.
“It’s kind of rough,” says Dante slowly, “and some people can’t take it. Last night, about three in the morning, these bells go off and a shout comes over the intercom: ‘Hang-up in cell eight!’ That’s what they say when an inmate tries to hang himself, and it happens so often the guards carry a special tool on their belts to cut them down.
“I’m in block nine, across the way, so I see the guard race into a cell and cut some guy down from where he’s hanging. I don’t know if they got him in time. I don’t think so.”
I haven’t read through the materials yet, but Tom and I stay with Dante all afternoon to keep him company and give him a chance to get to know me a little. I tell him about cases I’ve worked on and why I got sick of it, and Tom recounts some NBA lowlights—like the night Michael Jordan dunked the ball off his head. “I wanted to ask the ref to stop the game and give me the ball,” says Tom, “but I didn’t think it would go over too well with my coach.”
Dante cracks up, and for a second I catch a glimpse of his smile, which is so pure it’s heartbreaking. But at six, when our time is up, his face clouds over again. It feels awful to leave him here.
It’s after eight when we get back to Montauk, but Tom wants to show me the office. Our office. He grabs the newspapers lying on the first step and leads me up a steep, creaking staircase. His attic space—with dormer walls slanting down on both sides so he can only stand up straight in half of it—is a far cry from Walmark, Reid and Blundell, but I kind of like it. It feels like rooms I had in college. Hopeful and genuine, like starting over.
“As I’m sure you’ve noticed,” says Tom, “every piece in the room is original IKEA.”
Tom leafs through the Times while I look around. “Remember,” he says, “when I used to just read the Sports? Now all I read is the Metro section. It’s the only part that seems connected to anything I under—”
He stops midsentence—and looks as though he’s been kicked in the stomach.
“What? What’s the matter?” I say, and walk around to look for myself.
Near the top of the page is a picture of a sidewalk in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Candles have been set out and lit in front of a makeshift shrine, an attempt to mark and protest one more pointless street killing in the neighborhood.
Beneath the picture is a story with the headline HIP-HOP FEUD CLAIMS ANOTHER VICTIM.
The name of the vic is right there in the first paragraph, staring up at both of us—Manny Rodriguez.
Chapter 56
Tom
I AM QUICKLY learning that misery does love company. And let’s hope two lawyers without a chance in hell are better than one.
When Kate and I pull into the lot behind East Hampton High School, all that’s left of the sudden November dusk is a violet smudge in a desolate sky. We park behind the gym and wait, doing our best to ignore the awkward reunion feeling of sitting next to each other in pretty much the exact spot where we met almost twenty years before.
“It’s like déjà vu all over again,” I finally say, and regret it immediately.
“Still quoting Yogi,” says Kate.
“Only when it’s absolutely appropriate.”
A parade of students, all looking ridiculously young, pushes through the rear doors of the gym, and each drives off in one of the cars or SUVs parked or idling in the lot.
“Where’s our girl?” Kate asks.
“Don’t know. Our luck, she has the flu.”
“Our luck, she was run over by a semi this morning.”
At six thirty, when only a couple of cars are left, Lisa Feifer—Eric’s kid sister—steps through the door into the chilly air. Like her brother, Lisa is thin and graceful, the star on the girls’ state-championship lacrosse team. She moves across the empty lot with the relaxed shuffle of a spent athlete.
As she drops her gym bag on the roof of her old Jeep and unlocks the door, Kate and I get out of our car.
“We can’t waste time feeling sorry for ourselves about Rodriguez.” Kate had told me that first thing in the morning when she walked into the office. By then she had already read through my interviews with Dante and thought there were several areas worth pursuing. “It’s not our job to find out who actually killed Feifer, Walco, Rochie, and Walker. But it would sure help if we could steer the jury somewhere else. We’ve definitely got to find out more about the deceased.”
“You mean, dig up dirt on the dead?”
“Certain people are already pissed off.”
“So be it.”
I know Kate’s right, and I like the concept of unmerciful action on our part, but when Lisa Feifer turns around and sees us coming toward her, she looks at us as if we’re muggers, or worse.
“Hi there, Lisa,” says Kate, in a voice that manages to sound natural. “Can we talk to you for a minute?”
“About what?”
“Eric,” says Kate. “You know that we’re representing Dante Halleyville.”
“How messed up is that? You were his babysitter. Now you’re defending the guy who put a bullet between his eyes.”
“If we thought there was any chance Dante killed your brother, or Rochie, or Walco, we wouldn’t be doing this.”
“Bullshit.”
“And if you know anything dangerous that Eric might have been involved in you’ve got to tell us. If you don’t, Lisa, you’re just helping his real murderer get away with it.”
“No, that’s what you’re doing,” says Lisa, pushing past us and getting into her car. If we hadn’t jumped back, she probably would have run us over as she tore out of the lot.
“So be it,” I say.
“Very good.” Kate nods. “You’re a fast learner.”
Chapter 57
Tom
DIGGING FOR DIRT on your old pals in a town like Montauk is a lot easier said than done though.
Walco’s father slams the door in our face. Rochie’s brother grabs a shotgun and gives us thirty seconds to get off his property. And Feifer’s mom, a sweet woman who volunteers three days a week at the Montauk Public Library, unleashes a stream of curses foul and vicious enough to earn the approval of Dante’s most hardened fellow inmates over at Riverhead.
We get the same obscene kiss-off from Feifer, Walco, and Rochie’s old friends and coworkers. Even ex-girlfriends, whose hearts had been stomped on by the victims, become ferociously protective of their memory at the sight of us.
Dante thinks being represented by locals is helping him, but right now it’s a hindrance, because to townies our decision has made the whole thing personal. Just acknowledging Kate or me on the street is viewed as giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
Being treated like a pariah is harder on me than it is on Kate. She hasn’t lived here for years, and working at Walmark, Reid and Blundell has thickened her skin.
But the lack of progress frays her nerves, and after a week and little to show for our efforts, my cramped dormer office has lost its charm. Same goes for the absurdly loud creaking stairs leading to the chiropractor next door. I, on the other hand, kind of like having Kate around. It gives me confidence. Makes the whole thing feel real.
Another visitor to the chiropractor and Kate yells out, “This is like working in a theme-park haunted house.”
“I’ll get you coffee,” I say.
It’s a half-hour round trip to the nearest deli whose owners are unlikely to poison us, so I’ve brought my antique Mr. Coffee from home. But even the time-honored combination of caffeine and desperation doesn’t seem to be working anymore.
“We need to find an outsider,” Kate finally says. “Somebody who grew up here but never fit in.”
“You mean, other than the two of us?”
“Somebody has to be willing to talk to us, Tom. C’mon, think. Who’s our Deep Throat?”
I think about her question for a bit. “How about Sean?” I finally say.
“He was a friend of all three of those guys. Plus he’s a lifeguard, for God’s sake. I was thinking of a little more of an outcast.”
“He’s not a social pariah, Kate. But he’s got the guts to go against the flow. People talk to Sean. He could have heard something.”
“You think you’d have better luck talking to him alone?”
I shake my head. “Actually, I think you’d have a better chance, me being his uncle and everything. Plus, he probably has a crush on you.”
Kate screws up her face. “What makes you think that?”
“I don’t know. Why wouldn’t he?”
Chapter 58
Kate
L.I. SOUNDS, WHERE Tom’s nephew Sean has been working since the lifeguard chairs came down, is one of the few stores still open in East Hampton, and it’s not clear why to me.
At nine that night, there are exactly two people in the brightly lit, narrow space. Sean is up front by the register, as his one potential customer browses the aisles. Sean’s a good-looking kid with long blond hair. Actually, he looks more like Tom than Jeff.
I glance around the store. Sounds will always have a special place in my heart. Until they built the mall in Bridgehampton, it was the only record store for thirty miles. With posters of Hendrix, Dylan, and Lennon up on the walls and a staff of zealots preaching about the eternal difference between Good and Awful music, it felt as serious as stepping into a church.
Sean smiles in welcome as I step into the light. He puts on a spacey CD I don’t recognize.
The other customer, a tall, skinny guy with wire-rimmed glasses, glances at me then looks away. Nothing changes. He’s pushing fifty but has the self-conscious slouch of an eighteen-year-old. The guy is working the back of the alphabet, so I start on the other end and move happily from AC/DC to the Clash to Fleetwood Mac.
When he leaves, I take a reissue of Rumors up to the register.
“Classic,” says Sean.
“You approve? I was sure you’d think it was too girly and lame.”
“What are you talking about, Kate? I was playing it an hour ago. Me and the cross-eyed cat couldn’t get enough of it.”
“Also, the title seemed kind of appropriate,” I say.
“You lost me.”
“You know, have you heard any?”
Sean seems a little disappointed, but I’m not sure if it’s the subject matter or my attempt at humor.
“Is that really why you’re here?”
“It is, Sean.”
“You mean information about Feifer, Walco, and Rochie?” asks Sean.
“Or anything that might help explain why someone would want to kill them.”
“Even if I did—I’m not sure I’d tell you.”
“Because people told you not to.”
Sean looks at me as if I just insulted him in the worst possible way. “I could care less about that bullshit. But these dudes were my pals, and they’re not here to defend themselves.”
“We’re just trying to figure out who killed them, Sean. If you’re a friend, I’d think you want to know too.”
“Spare me the lecture, Kate,” says Sean. But then he flashes one of those gracious Dunleavy smiles. “So you going to buy this CD, or you loitering?”
“I’m buying.”
I take my CD out to a dark bench a couple doors down and claw at the cellophane as I take in the elegant street and cool, fragrant air. East Hampton is one of the prettiest towns you’ll ever see. It’s the people who can be ugly sometimes.
Beside the bench is a mailbox. Looking closely, I see I’m not the only Sounds customer to make this their first stop. The blue surface is covered with hundreds of tiny little peeled-off CD titles, and now Rumors is part of the graffiti montage.
Rumors is even better than I remembered, and when I get to Mack’s place, I sit in the car in the driveway until I’ve heard the whole thing.
When I finally go inside, Mack is snoring on the living room couch, and my beeping cell doesn’t faze him at all.
It’s Sean, and he’s whispering. “I have heard something, Kate, and from people I trust—which is that in the last few weeks, Feif, Walco, and Rochie were all hitting the pipe. This summer, crack was all the rage out here, particularly on Beach Road. Supposedly, all three of the
m got into it. Once you hit the pipe, you can go from zero to a hundred in a weekend. That’s what I know. So how’d you like the CD?”
“Great. Thanks. For everything, Sean.”
I hang up and look over at my sleeping host. Grateful that Mack still hasn’t stirred, I pull the blanket up to his chin and head upstairs.
So they say the dead boys were hitting the pipe. I wonder if it’s true.
Chapter 59
Tom
THE CALL FROM my nephew Sean seems to break the frustrating logjam on the case, because the very next afternoon, eighteen-year-old Jarvis Maloney climbs the creaking stairs to our office. He is the first visitor we’ve had in a week, and Wingo is beside himself, not to mention all over Jarvis.
“I’ve got something that might not mean anything,” he says. “But Coach told me I should tell you about it right away.”
Every summer, the village of East Hampton shows its appreciation for the influx of free-spending visitors by siccing a teenage army of meter maids on them. Dressed in brown pants and white shirts, they hump up and down Main Street chalking tires, reading dates on registration and inspection stickers, writing tickets, and basically printing money for the town. Jarvis, a jug-headed high school senior, who also happens to play noseguard for the East Hampton High School football team, was a member of last summer’s infantry, and once we get Wingo off him, he shares what’s on his mind.
“About nine o’clock on the Saturday night that Feifer, Walco, and Rochie were murdered, I ticketed a car at Georgica Beach. Actually, I wrote two tickets—one for not having a valid 2003 beach sticker and another for the missing emissions sticker. Only reason it stuck in my mind was the car—a maroon nine-eleven with seven hundred miles on the odometer.
“The next day, I’m shooting the breeze with my buddy who works the early shift. We had a little competition about who ticketed the sweetest car, and I throw out the Porsche. He says he ticketed it too, at the same spot, early the next morning. That means it was sitting there all night, right next to where the bodies were found. Like I said, it probably doesn’t mean a thing, but Coach says I should tell you.”