Behind her, Angus said without a trace of doubt, “Caddy, if you left him alone in an empty room with a gun and a box of bullets, he’d pawn them. And turn up in a year in Cape Town or Brasília with a whole new raft of Harvard-hugger friends and a whole new string of rich women who haven’t heard his excuses yet.”
Hope and Caroline just looked at each other. Hope could see the grief and anger in Caroline’s eyes, hurt in so many ways by this conversation that Hope couldn’t even count them. And she was far less convinced than Angus that Caroline was wrong.
* * *
Maggie’s hunch about the E-ZPass records went nowhere. There was no record of Florence’s car on the Taconic at the right dates and times. But Phillips said, when Bark’s spirits sagged at the news, “It’s easy enough to pop those suckers off the windshield. Let’s see if Hollister’s E-ZPass made the trip.”
This also required some time to sort out, since at first NY State Motor Vehicles could not find that Hugo Hollister had an E-ZPass, or even a car. Phillips said, “See about in his wife’s name.” That rang the bell. Registered to Caroline Hollister were an Audi sedan, a Mercedes-Benz SUV, and a vintage Maserati. All had E-ZPasses. But there was still no record of payments on the relevant days.
Bark and Phillips looked at each other. “He could have stayed off the toll roads. Would have, in fact, if this thing was premeditated.”
“Shit.”
“He had to have taken Florence’s car. Once she turned up missing, we scoured the town for that car. His own could be parked anywhere and not excite suspicion.”
“We need to find someone who saw Florence’s car in Hatfield over those two days, and we need to find some proof that Florence was there. Road trip tomorrow? If we can place the car there, we’ll get a forensics team in to scour the place.”
“I’ll pick you up at seven,” said Phillips.
But that night there was a breakthrough on the Scarsdale case. A man stopped for a broken taillight in Glens Falls, New York, proved to be drunk and extremely disorderly, not to mention unwashed and half starved, and the Saturday night special in his sock matched the ballistics of one of the weapons used in the break-in. One way or another, as Phillips and Bark had the prisoner transferred to them and then went to work on him to find out where his partner in crime was, where the stolen goods were, and where he’d been since the attack, it would be days before they were able to return to the cooling trail leading to Hugo Hollister.
Chapter 22
Friday, May 15
Hugo, barbered and polished and wearing a new summer-weight cashmere jacket from Paul Stuart, stood to greet his wife as she followed the dining room captain to join him at their table at the new Tribeca epicurean mecca on White Street. The restaurant had recently held a soft opening in the form of a $10,000-a-plate dinner for President Obama, and it had caused a sensation among food snobs. Reservations were impossible to get, but Hugo knew the chef-owner. He’d explained all this to Caroline last week and again this morning. He hoped it had registered. Caroline had had to postpone a committee meeting to join him, and it was important to him that the evening be a success.
“You look delicious,” he said to her, kissing the cheek she offered. “And that’s a new scent for you—what is it?” He didn’t like it when people wore fragrance at dinner, especially not when the food was important, but when you came right down to it, Caroline wasn’t very sensitive. Fortunately, Hugo was a forgiving soul. He had to be.
“Something I found in Lily’s bathroom. I’m out of Joy,” Caroline said. “Tell me about this place again? It’s a nightmare getting down here. The cab got lost three times.”
He began yet another iteration of why it was a coup that he’d gotten a table, but she was looking at the menu and again, didn’t seem to be listening. When at last they had ordered cocktails, he took her hand and said, “Your pinfeathers are all ruffled. What’s the matter?”
Caroline drew a deep breath, sighed, and smiled, and seemed to refocus on the here and now.
“Oh, I’m worried about Lily. And Angus has been annoying me. For a change.”
“Tell me,” murmured Hugo sympathetically. He always enjoyed a good Angus-bashing.
“He’s pressing me to give a major gift to the ASPCA, and he just won’t understand that it isn’t a good time,” she said.
“He never seems to remember that you have your own causes.”
“It’s not that; I completely agree on this one, but you remember, I moved a lot of money out of my IRA into a Roth, for Lily, to try to get her evened up with her siblings, and my tax bill is just stupendous this year. My banker says if I spend one extra penny he’ll call the trustees. One of whom is Angus, of course.” She made a face.
The cocktails arrived. After the ritual of smelling and tasting and passing judgment, Hugo said casually, “This must have slipped my mind, the wroth thing. Tell me again?”
“You know. The IRA is tax-deferred until you start to spend it; for a Roth IRA, you pay the tax when the money goes in, so it will be tax-free on the other end, for whoever inherits. So I haven’t an extra sou. Someday Lily will thank me, except I’ll be dead. And except that ‘thank you’ doesn’t seem to be in her vocabulary these days.”
The waiter arrived and took their food orders. Hugo was unusually fussy, asking what the chef recommended and wanting half portions of things so he could taste more dishes. The waiter bowed and scraped. When they were alone again, he said, “Do you really think it’s a good idea to leave her so much? She already has enough to ruin her.”
Caroline looked at him. “Well I must have thought so, or I wouldn’t have done it. Why, don’t you?”
“No, yes, I just-just-just . . . I don’t want you to beggar yourself.”
Caroline laughed. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Why, is this dinner about money?”
Hugo looked wounded. “Sweetie, of course not. I’ve just been missing you.”
For the rest of dinner, he seemed jangled, even coming close to overturning his wineglass as he twisted on his chair to signal their waiter, to say that although he had been assured—twice—that there was no cilantro in his soup, there definitely was. The waiter apologized and asked if he would accept instead a portion of the sautéed foie gras, which was prepared very simply, with no herbs at all. Caroline on the other hand seemed to enjoy the meal and the evening very much, and appeared genuinely sorry the next morning that she couldn’t go with him to Hatfield for the weekend.
Chapter 23
Tuesday, May 19
Phillips and Bark were delayed on the morning of May 19 by a GPS snafu. Just outside of Hatfield their device directed them up a suspiciously unkempt woods road that narrowed until they reached a sign saying private property; keep out. Below it, another sign, hand-lettered on cardboard, said your gps is wrong, and it certainly was. Good God, Bark thought. What hope was there, really, for self-driving cars?
Phillips backed gingerly down the way she had come, hoping not to skid off the mush of pine needles and loose gravel into the boggy woods at either side of the track. When she was able to turn around they drove back to the village and Bark went into the post office to ask for directions.
When he got back into the car, he said, “She told me how to get there, and then she said, ‘The excitement’s about over, though.’”
Phillips looked at him and said, “Don’t tell me.” Bark just shrugged, and gave her the directions.
As they drove up the neatly tended drive of Glimmer Glen Farm, they could see from afar that the excitement was indeed over, although the fire trucks were still there. Before them stood a smartly appointed farmhouse-like residence, white with gray shutters and trim, up-to-the-minute skylights and windows, and an extension that Phillips guessed was the new eat-in kitchen with a screened porch dining/living room for summer days. That’s what it would be if it was hers, anyway. She was quite a consumer of shelter magazines.
There was no garage or car barn at the house. Beyond the main house
was a guesthouse or something, plus a swimming pool with what looked like an equipment shed and changing rooms. These they glimpsed, noting it would all have to be investigated; for now their business was with the smoking black mess across the lawn beyond the pool. The firefighters were still playing hoses on it, waterlogging any possible remaining hot spots. Partial blackened walls still stood to about shoulder height in places. Some of the roof could be recognized where it had fallen in on all that was below. Because he knew what he was looking for, Bark could just see a squashed and blackened bit of metal the size of an omelet pan that he guessed was what remained of the Maserati.
They had left their car in front of the house and walked down to the disaster site. A firefighter with smoke-blackened skin leaned against a hose truck with her helmet off, drinking vitamin water from a plastic bottle. On the fender of the truck sat the man they were looking for. He was in pajamas and a blue dressing gown and he clearly hadn’t looked at a mirror since before daylight. His hair stood up in tufts, as if he had just gotten out of bed. His face was gray with fatigue and streaked from tears.
“Hugo Hollister?” Phillips said.
Hugo looked up. His blue-gray eyes were bloodshot and he broadcast a mixture of bewilderment and despair. His expression said, How could this be happening? Who are you? Can you help?
“Detective Phillips, White Plains. This is Detective Bark. We were at the service for Florence Meagher?”
Hugo climbed to his feet and shook their hands, still looking dazed and uncomprehending. “Related to Jed?” he said to Bark.
“Jed who?”
Hugo shook his head. “Nothing, sorry.”
“Who’s Jed?”
“Jed Bark. A famous art framer. Never mind.”
Phillips noticed that his feet were bare. They were long and narrow and bluish white, as if he had been out here a long time and they were freezing. The nails needed clipping. Strangers’ bare feet creeped her out.
“What happened here?” Bark asked him.
Hugo turned toward the wreckage and looked at it, a small wrinkle of bewilderment between his eyebrows, as if he’d been struggling with that question for some time.
“I was asleep and I heard a . . . heard a boom. A boom, and I felt the building shake. I went to the window and I saw this, like, a fireball blazing up out of the studio.”
“You were sleeping where?”
He gestured toward the house. “In my bedroom. I ran outside and I . . . I . . . I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, it didn’t seem real, but it was so loud . . . so I ran back and called 9-1-1.”
“And as far as you know, what caused the fireball?”
“They seem to think something blew up. Maybe the water heater? Ask them.” With his shoulder he indicated the firefighters with the hoses.
“I will. How was the building heated, Mr. Hollister?”
“Baseboard. Electric. And I have—had—a woodstove.”
“And what other appliances were in there?”
“Gas range. Gas water heater. Microwave. Coffee machine.”
“And what was the building used for?”
Hugo Hollister started to cry. He put his hand over his face and wept, his shoulders shaking. Neither detective moved. After a while he took some deep breaths and took a lump of used tissue from his pocket and tried to wipe his nose with it.
“Ah . . . sorry,” he said. “It was my principal place of business. I’m an art dealer. And collector. I had my whole inventory here, except for a few pieces in the house, here and in New York. All my records, correspondence. My library. Mementos . . . a lifetime. My whole career.”
He took some deep breaths, and they were relieved to see that his crying jag seemed to have passed.
“Did you do art restoration here?” Bark asked.
“What? Oh, no. No. I have professionals do that.”
“So you don’t store any flammables in the studio?”
Hugo stood still, seemingly looking inward, struggling with some emotion. Then he said, “Besides art, I had a vintage car. I’d had it completely restored.” He put a hand over his mouth, as if he thought he might come apart again, but he didn’t.
“Was it drivable, this car?”
“Oh yes.”
“And you did drive it?”
“Yes. Only in perfect weather of course.”
“So it was filled with gas and oil.”
“Probably not filled with. But it ran.”
“And was this car valuable, Mr. Hollister?”
Bark could see a glint of unholy pride flash in his expression.
“Very,” he said. “It was a Maserati, Berlinetta, ’54. Very rare.”
“It must be quite a blow, losing a thing like that.”
Hugo nodded, but said, “It’s not a human life or anything. Thank god no one was hurt. I just had my daughter here with some friends, the other weekend. It could have happened when they were here. God, they could have been in the building.”
The two detectives stood quietly, looking concerned, hoping the silence would make him uncomfortable.
“It was a dream of mine, that car,” he said. “I had an uncle who had one when I was a kid.”
The detectives left him and went to the firefighters. They showed their badges and said to the nearest one, “Talk to you?”
A very young man turned to them. His huge boots and waterproof overalls and the various kinds of equipment hanging from his belt made him monumental, though his pipe-stem neck suggested he was slight inside his regalia.
“You probly want Jerry,” he said. “He’s the chief. Hey, Jerry!”
An older firefighter with a day-old beard who’d been leaning against the front end of the lead engine doing some paperwork put his clipboard aside and came to join them.
Bark said, “Looks as if it was intense. Any idea what caused it?”
“It was a hot one,” Jerry agreed. “Hydrocarbons plus a lot of wood and paper. It went up so fast it’s hard to tell much about where it started or why, the blaze just ate everything.”
“The owner said he thought something like the water heater blew up.”
“Could have. Faulty installation or something. I suppose it could be.”
“He had a car in there,” said Bark.
“Yeah, we saw that just before the roof fell in. Didn’t help matters.”
“So you don’t have any idea what caused the explosion? If it was an explosion?”
“Not yet. I imagine the insurance guys will be all over it, we’ll know more in a couple of days. He said his inventory was worth four or five mill.”
“When you have an idea, would you get in touch?”
“Got a card?”
Bark gave Jerry his card, and Jerry went back to his clipboard.
Hugo Hollister was still sitting where they’d left him. “We need to look around the rest of the property,” said Phillips. Hugo just looked up at her as if he didn’t exactly speak English.
“Okay with you?”
“Sure,” he said, as if he couldn’t think why they’d want to but didn’t care one way or the other.
They walked over to the pool. A plastic cover was unrolled over the water, keeping out flying debris like leaves and insects and now ashy detritus. Five or six chaise longues with turquoise upholstery stood on the bluestone apron around the pool. Two small changing rooms made of cedar or redwood stood opposite the low and high diving boards. Behind that was a bunker-like structure within which machinery hummed. Bark looked in. The machinery filled the space except for some chlorine supplies and a long-handled net for skimming things out of the water. A couple of bathing suits in various sizes hung from pegs in the changing rooms, and there was a long low storage chest with an unlocked padlock hanging from the hasp. Inside the box Phillips found inflatables, web mitts and flippers, a couple of face masks, kickboards and pool noodles. Nothing that didn’t belong, no storage spaces surprisingly empty.
They went on to the guesthouse that stood between
the pool and the main house. It had a terrace outside with a picnic table and benches, and a vast outdoor grill under a fitted cover. Phillips took the cover off.
“I always wanted one of these,” Bark said.
“Propane tank is missing,” said Phillips.
“Stored somewhere for the season, maybe. We’ll ask.” He made a note.
Inside, the guesthouse looked exactly as it had when Lily and her friends had left it. There was a tennis sock lying under the breakfast table, and a pair of bikini underpants with polka dots partly hidden behind a cushion on the sofa. Milk was spoiling in the refrigerator, and there were pizza boxes in a stack on the counter, as if someone thought that putting them in one place was the same as cleaning up. Recyclable cans and bottles were all in a special blue can in the corner; at least they gave some thought to the environment. The trash was filled with empty ice cream cartons.
Upstairs there was a master bedroom with a king-size bed, and a small dark bedroom with twin beds. The twin beds in the middle room had been stripped; they found the sheets in a hamper in the hall bathroom. The king-size bed was unmade, and the hamper in the master bath was full of teenage-girl clothes they assumed to be Lily’s. The bathrooms were a monument to the number of different hair and skin products that could be considered necessary to one’s happiness. There was aspirin and Midol in the cabinets, and an old prescription vial of Xanax in Lily’s name. It looked untouched.
They walked up to the main house. They walked all the way around the outside before going in, considering lines of sight. At the far end outside what must have been the original kitchen, there was a vegetable and flower garden. In a shed they hadn’t seen when they arrived they found gardening tools, rough shelves for bags of potting soil, fertilizer, and bug sprays, and a small riding lawn mower. Bark stood looking around for long minutes after Phillips had exhausted her curiosity. Eventually he said, “Wouldn’t you expect to see a gas can here for the lawn mower?”
The Affliction Page 29