The Gate House

by Nelson DeMille

  “And did you think about me?”

  “I did. I honestly did. Every day, and every night.”

  “So what stopped you from setting a course for home?”

  There were a lot of answers to that question—anger, pride, spite, and the total freedom of being a self-exiled man without a country or a job. But, to Susan, I said, “When I know, I’ll let you know.”

  We stretched out in the lounge chairs and watched the sky, then fell asleep under the stars.

  Through my sleep, I heard the ocean, felt the sea breeze, and smelled the salt air, and I dreamed I was back at sea. But this time, Susan was with me.

  PART III

  The Present is the living sum-total of the Past.

  — Thomas Carlyle “Characteristics”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  The next morning, Tuesday, was partly cloudy, and after a run on the beach and a soul-nourishing spa breakfast, we headed home to Lattingtown and Stanhope Hall. This is a drive of about two hours, and during that time we spoke a little about the last ten years, trying to fill in some of what Susan referred to as “the lost years.” Also lost and missing was any mention of significant or insignificant others, so there were some gaps in the historical record. Sort of like black holes. She did remind me, however, “Call Samantha.”

  I thought about asking her when, where, and how she and Frank Bellarosa first hooked up, but she wouldn’t like that question. Also, I realized that this was not bothering me any longer, so maybe I was really getting over it, and getting on with it.

  I pulled into the gates of Stanhope Hall, and we noticed a moving van parked to the side of the gatehouse. I also saw Elizabeth’s SUV, so I pulled over, and Susan and I got out and went inside the gatehouse.

  Elizabeth, in jeans and a T-shirt, was in the foyer, supervising the move. She saw us and said, “Good morning. I stopped by the guest cottage to tell you I was going to clean out the house, but you weren’t home.” She added, “I thought it would be a good idea to just get this done, so we don’t have to negotiate for time with Nasim after the funeral.” She then looked at me and said, “John, I hope I’m not kicking you out.”

  Well, no, but you are burning my bridges, and now I can’t come back here when the Stanhopes arrive.

  “John?”

  “No. I’m finished with the house.”

  “That’s what you said.” Elizabeth offered, “The movers will take all your boxes and files to the guest cottage, if you’d like.”

  “Thank you,” I said before she mentioned her previous offer to store me and my files in her house.

  Susan asked Elizabeth, “How is your mother doing?”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “The same.” She added, “I know the end is near, and I can’t believe it . . . but I’ve accepted it.” She looked around the gatehouse and said, “They were here for over sixty years . . . and now . . . well, life goes on.” She said to Susan, “I asked John if Nasim would consider selling the house, but Nasim wants it for himself.” She pointed out, “We could have been neighbors again.”

  Susan replied, in what sounded like a sincere tone, “That would have been wonderful.” She informed Elizabeth, “I was going to have my cleaning lady do some work, and I’m sorry if John left a mess.”

  John wanted to say that Elizabeth left more of a mess than John left, but John knows when to keep his mouth shut.

  Elizabeth assured Susan, “Oh, don’t worry about it. I’m out of here, and Nasim can do what he wants.” She informed us, “He drove by before, and I told him that he could have the house as of now.” She looked at her lawyer and asked, “All right?”

  I replied, “You’re the executrix.”

  She continued, “He knew from his wife’s conversation with Susan that you’d reunited and were living together in the guest cottage.” She added, “He wishes you both luck and happiness.”

  Susan said, “That’s very nice.”

  Well, Mr. Nasim could now put security people in the gatehouse, though I would advise him not to use Bell Security. Also, he was probably wondering how this new development would impact on his goal of getting Susan to sell. Maybe I should tell Nasim that we, too, had security problems, and I had a shotgun, so we could join forces and provide supporting fire in case of an attack.

  Susan interrupted my strategic thinking and said to Elizabeth, “By the way, we haven’t told my parents yet that we’ve reunited. So, if you communicate with them, please don’t mention it.”

  Elizabeth replied, “I understand.”

  Susan added, “Same with John’s mother, and Father Hunnings.”

  “I won’t mention it to a soul.”

  “Thank you.” Susan asked, “Do you mind if I go get my camera and take some photos before everything is moved out?”

  Elizabeth informed her, “I’ve already done that, and I’ll send you copies.” She said, “This was the only home I ever knew growing up, and I’m going to miss all the memories that used to come back when I visited Mom.” She glanced at me and smiled, and I thought she was going to tell Susan about her memory of having an adolescent crush on me. But Elizabeth is not a troublemaker, and she concluded, “They were good times when we were all here at Stanhope Hall.”

  Susan, who is a sensitive soul, gave Elizabeth a big hug, and they both got misty-eyed.

  I never know what to do when women get emotional—do I join in?

  The ladies got themselves back together, and Susan said to Elizabeth, “If we’re not home, the movers can leave the boxes in my office. John’s office.” She added, “The door is unlocked.”

  Elizabeth replied, “I’ll supervise that.” She reminded me, “I still have that letter that Mom wrote to you, but I don’t feel right about giving it to you until she passes.”

  I assured her, “That’s the right thing to do,” though I didn’t think Ethel was going to rally, sit up in bed, and ask, “Can I see that letter again?”

  We chatted for a few more minutes, then Susan and I got back in her Lexus, and Susan asked me, “What letter?”

  “Ethel wrote me a letter, to be delivered upon her death.”

  “Really? What do you think is in the letter?”

  “Her recipe for crabapple jelly.”

  “Be serious.”

  I continued up the tree-lined drive toward the guest cottage and replied, “I don’t know, but we don’t have long to find out.”

  Back at the guest cottage, we unloaded our new clothes and spent half an hour getting me more settled in than I’d been. I was actually starting to feel like I was home again, and it was a good feeling.

  I asked Susan for the pass code to the house phone, and I went into the office, but there were no messages for me, only a few from her girlfriends.

  Susan joined me in the office and asked me, “Are you expecting a call?”

  “I am.”

  “Who knows that you’re here?”

  “The police, our children, Elizabeth, Mr. and Mrs. Nasim, Anthony Bellarosa, and Felix Mancuso.”

  “Who is Felix . . . oh, yes. I remember him.” She asked me, “Why did you call him?”

  “Because of Anthony Bellarosa.”

  She shrugged and said, “Do it your way.”

  “With your help and cooperation.” I said to her, “I want us to have a security alarm system installed here.”

  She let me know, “This house has been standing here for one hundred years without an alarm system, and I don’t intend to put one in now.”

  “Well, let’s start locking the doors and windows for a change.”

  “I lock them at night.”

  My late aunt Cornelia, who lived in a big Victorian house in Locust Valley, never locked doors or windows, except at night, when she remembered. It was a generational thing to some extent, and a statement, which was, “I am not afraid, and I will not let others change the way I have always lived.” I liked that, but it was not reality. We’ve all changed how we live since 9/11, for instance, and we don’t need to like
it; we need to do it.

  Susan, however, was on this nostalgia trip, trying to re-create her life as it was ten years ago. She’d gotten back her old house, and her old husband, rejoined her clubs, and was thinking about buying our former summer house in East Hampton. You can do a lot with money, but one thing you can’t do is turn back the clock. And if you try, the results are often disappointing, disastrous, or, in this case, dangerous.

  With that in mind, I asked her, “Where do you think the shot- gun is?”

  “I think it’s in the basement, John. I don’t know. I haven’t unpacked all the boxes since I moved.”

  “I’ll look later.”

  “Don’t open the box marked, ‘Boyfriends.’”

  “Do you keep old boyfriends in a box?”

  “Just their ashes.” She promised, “I’ll look later.”

  She sat down at the desk, accessed her e-mail, and said, “Here are replies from Edward, Carolyn, and my mother.” She read them and said, “Just confirming . . . and saying let them know . . .”

  I reminded her, “Your parents think they’re sleeping here.”

  “Let’s see how that goes.”

  “Susan, they are going to show up in a rental car on your doorstep—”

  “Our doorstep, darling.”

  “And they will not be happy.”

  “Then they can turn around and go somewhere else.”

  “I think you should tip them off . . . maybe a hint. Like, ‘I’m living with a man who I used to be married to.’”

  She began hitting the keys and said, “Dear Mom and Dad . . . I have a boyfriend who looks a lot like . . . no, how about . . . For reasons I can’t explain now, I’ve booked you a room at . . . where?”

  “Motel Six in Juneau, Alaska.”

  “Help me, John.”

  “See if there’s a cottage available at The Creek. You can get them in on your membership. Same with the guest rooms at Seawanhaka.”

  She finished the e-mail and said to me, “If I send this, they’ll call and ask why they can’t stay here.”

  “Tell them your allowance isn’t covering expenses, and you’ve taken in boarders.”

  She shut down the computer without sending the e-mail and said to me, “Let them come here, and we’ll deal with it then.”

  “That’s a great idea.” And to get into the proper spirit of this reunion, I said to her, “I’ve rehearsed a happy and upbeat line for when they show up.” I took her by the hand and led her to the front door, opened it, and said, “Here they come, and they’re out of their car.”

  “John—”

  I stepped outside, threw my arms in the air, and shouted, “Mom! Dad! I’m baaack!”

  Susan thought that was funny, but she reminded me, “You’re an idiot.”

  We went back to the office, and I found in my wallet the card of Detective Nastasi, and I said to Susan, “I’ll call him.” I dialed his office number, got through to him, and I said, “Detective, this is John Sutter, returning your call.” I hit the speaker button so Susan could listen.

  Detective Nastasi said, “Right. Well, you got my message. His wife said he’s out of town.”

  I informed him, “Bellarosa said to me on Sunday that he had a busy week because John Gotti was expected to die very soon, and he needed to go to the wake and the funeral.”

  “Yeah? Well, Gotti died yesterday afternoon at the prison hospital in the Federal penitentiary in Springfield, Missouri.” He added, “It was in the papers and on the news.”

  I replied, “I’ve been out of touch.” I thought about asking him if Jenny Alvarez was still covering the Mafia beat—she might have some inside information—but I thought better of that and said, “Maybe Bellarosa went to Springfield, Missouri.”

  “Maybe.” He reported, “I checked with the security guy at the booth there at Alhambra, and the guy says he hasn’t seen Bellarosa since he left yesterday morning, and I just called the booth again and another guy said the same thing.”

  “Well, you should know that Bell Security is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bell Enterprises, Inc., whose president, CEO, and principal stockholder is Anthony Bellarosa.”

  “No kidding? How about that?” He asked me, “You think that’s a coincidence?”

  “Uh . . . no.”

  He laughed, then said, “Actually, I had a friend of mine in the District Attorney’s Squad run a check on Anthony Bellarosa. The file shows Bell Enterprises as his legit company in Rego Park—linen service, restaurant supply, trash carting, limousine service—usual wiseguy stuff.”

  I hoped there wasn’t anything there about my new law firm of Sutter, Bellarosa and Roosevelt.

  Detective Nastasi assured me, “So, we understand about Bell Security.” He asked me, “How did you know about that?”

  “He told me.”

  Detective Nastasi had no comment on that and said, “You know, when I spoke to his wife, I got the impression that he really was gone, and I didn’t see the Escalade that’s registered to him. So maybe he did fly to Springfield to be with the family.”

  “Maybe you can check on that.”

  “Maybe. All right, Mr. Sutter, we’ll keep on this, and as soon as I speak to Bellarosa, I will get back to you. Meantime, since you’re a neighbor, if you see him or hear anything about his whereabouts, give me a call, but don’t go looking for him.”

  “I don’t intend to.”

  “Good.” He then said, “They tore the mansion down.”

  “They did.”

  “That was some place. They don’t build them like that anymore.”

  “No, they don’t.”

  “What do you think those houses go for?”

  “I don’t know . . .” I glanced at Susan, who held up three fingers, and I replied, “About three.”

  “No kidding?”

  I suggested, “Maybe crime pays.”

  He reminded me, “We don’t have a thing on him.”

  I was a little annoyed now, so I said, “You need to look harder.”

  “Well, that’s the DA’s job, and the Feds.”

  Regarding that, I said to him, “As an attorney, I know that the FBI has no jurisdiction in a case of threatening or harassment, but I’m wondering if you should call the Organized Crime Task Force to see if they’re tracking his movements for other reasons.”

  He informed me, “The FBI wouldn’t tell me if my ass was on fire.”

  “All right . . . but if they’re watching him for other things, they should know about this, just in case . . .”

  “Okay. I’ll take care of that.”

  “Good.”

  “Any more suggestions?”

  Oddly, I didn’t think he was being sarcastic. I think he was covering his aforementioned ass in case Susan Stanhope Sutter got whacked on his watch. I replied, “I’m sure you’re doing all you can, but I’d appreciate knowing that all the area patrol cars are aware of my complaint.”

  “They have been notified.” He added, “When I speak to Bellarosa, I’ll reevaluate the situation and the response.”

  “All right. Thank you for staying on this.”

  “You have a good day, and regards to Mrs. Sutter.”

  “Thank you.”

  I hung up and looked at Susan, who was sitting now in a club chair perusing a magazine, and she said, “I think he’s in Missouri with the Gotti family, so we don’t need to think about this for a while.”

  “Right.” Unfortunately, that’s not the way it worked. Sally Da-da was out of the state when he’d tried to have Frank whacked. This was not the kind of work that a don or a capo did himself; that’s why it was called a contract. And that’s why when the contract was fulfilled, the guy who put it out was on the beach in Florida.

  And that was why you needed to keep your enemies close; because when you didn’t know where they were, they became more dangerous.

  Susan said to me, “Come with me to Locust Valley. I need some wine and liquor, and I want to do some food shopping. I’
ll let you pick out a granola you like.”

  I actually wanted to wait for Mancuso’s call, and to look for the shotgun, but I thought I should go with her, so I said, “All right. Sounds like fun.”

  “Shopping for anything with you is far from fun.”

  On the subject of dating or remarrying your ex-wife, my friend also said, “They’ve got your name, rank, and serial number from the last time they captured you.”

  Well, that was very cynical, but the upside was that the reunited couple could dispense with the long, stressful, best-behavior courtship.

  We got into the Lexus, and Susan wanted to drive. She said to me, “We should get rid of your rental car.”

  “I need a car.”

  “Buy one.”

  “Susan, sweetheart, I have no money and no credit in this country.”

  “Really? Well, I do.”

  “How much do you think your father would give me to go back to England?”

  “One hundred thousand. That’s his standard offer for unacceptable men.”

  “I wish I’d known that when we were dating.”

  “In your case, he’d double that.”

  “I’ll split it with you.”

  As we approached the gatehouse, we saw Elizabeth outside, so Susan stopped, and Elizabeth came over to the car and leaned in my window. She was wearing the same lilac scent as the other night. Susan said to her, “Why don’t you join us for dinner tonight? That will help get your mind off things.”

  Elizabeth replied, “Thank you, but I want to get back to Fair Haven.”

  Susan said, “I understand. But if you change your mind, we’ll be at The Creek about seven P.M.”

  That was the first I knew that Susan wasn’t cooking, and that was a relief, though maybe in the last ten years she’d learned what all those things were for in the kitchen. On the other hand, I was not happy to hear that we were going to The Creek.

  Elizabeth turned to me and said, “I have a case of crabapple jelly for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  She said to Susan, “That’s John’s fee for handling the estate.”