The Last Refuge sahm-1

by Chris Knopf

  Abby never asked where I’d been. She was never concerned when I failed to show up, or when I worked through evenings and weekends. Her indifference to my presence was one of the things I most appreciated. It gave me the freedom to distract myself with aimless open-air driving, or raging, drunken road trips across Greater New York with my sparring partners from the gym, or obsessive attempts at mastering some arcane scientific principle, or months of near catatonia, in which I’d descend into my own customized well of despair. Through it all Abby tended the house, maintained the proper social connections, shopped and calmly raised our daughter.

  I skated across the years of my marriage like an ice sled—moving at blurred speed, barely touching the surface. The weeks were filled with boiling tension and anxiety, the weekends lost on fatuous conversations and alcohol. Through it all I never once felt like my wife knew who she was married to. As she surrounded us with a gaggle of nitwit acquaintances, I was condemned to an ugly loneliness of the mind.

  I stopped at the cottage to check on Eddie. He was sleeping on the landing at the top of the side-door steps. He wagged his tail without bothering to get up.

  “Calm down there, boy, you’re gonna hurt something.”

  I made a pot of coffee, gathered up my Regina file and spread it out on the porch table. The air was cool, but the coffee kept my fingers warm as I leafed through the papers.

  I was looking at all the words and notes, the real-estate documents and other stuff I’d collected, but it wasn’t registering. I wasn’t really reading, just scanning with my eyes. What I wanted to know wasn’t there, so it felt pointless to look. But I looked anyway, out of habit, an engineer’s obsession with data gathering.

  Eddie made himself comfortable on the bed. I tried to talk it out with him, but he wanted to sleep. All I got was an occasional raised head and a wagging tail. No analysis or conclusions.

  At the bottom of the file were the old photographs I swiped out of the display case at the old WB. One was an eight-by-ten-inch black and white print. The setting was ambiguous, maybe a conference room at the plant, or a meeting room at a local restaurant or hotel. There were about ten men standing shoulder to shoulder. The shot was a little overexposed, and sepia tinted with age, but you could easily make out everyone’s face. I was intrigued by the conformity of their clothes and haircuts, the homogeneity of their skin, the sureness in their eyes.

  On the floor was a banner, mounted on rigid backing so it could stand supported at their feet. It read “WB Bomb Squad.” Then underneath, in much smaller type, “Management Defense Team.”

  The word management caused me to flip it over and look at the back. Neatly penned along the bottom were the names and titles of all the men in the photo. Beginning with Carl Bollard Junior, President and CEO. To his left was Milton Hornsby, Exec. V.P., Chief Financial Officer. All the way at the other end was Robert Sobol, Q.C. Director. A red stamp from the photo processor showed the date to be 1970.

  I looked at the back of the bowling photo, but it was unmarked except for the processor’s stamp with the date, 1972.

  “Attorney Swaitkowski’s office.”

  “You must be Judy.”

  “The same.”

  “Is Jackie around?”

  “She is. You want to talk to her?”

  “I do.”

  “Okay, so give me your number, I’ll have her call you back.”

  “Interesting.”

  “It’s how she likes to do it. She’s got her quirks, but she’s cute, don’t you think?”

  “Cuter than me.”

  “Send me your pictcha. I’ll decide for myself.”

  I gave her my name and number, then hung up and waited for Jackie to call me back, which she did, about ten minutes later.

  “He won’t talk to me,” she said as she came on the line.

  “Who?”

  “Milton Hornsby. I called him a few times, sent over a registered letter, even went and rang his bell. Nothing.”

  “But he was there?”

  “He was there, he just told me to go away. I think it was something like, go away or I’ll have you prosecuted for harassment, or something like that. So I thought, what am I doing here? I was going to call you, but you didn’t give me a number.”

  “What are you doing right now?”

  “Talking to you.”

  “Want to take a ride?”

  “Where we going?”

  “I’m going to Hornsby’s house. I can’t wait anymore. I think it’d be better if you were there. For his sake and mine.”

  “You going to tell me why? No,” she answered for me.

  “He might have fired you, but he’ll want you there when I talk to him, which I’m doing even if I have to yell through the door.”

  “I was actually heading to the courthouse. Can it wait an hour?”

  “I’m going now.”

  “You could use a little more give.”

  “I’m sorry, you’re right. I’ll be at Hornsby’s house in about forty-five minutes. Hope to see you there.”

  “Man.”

  Eddie heard the jingle of keys and ran to the door. I felt like a heel leaving him, but I needed my concentration and Jackie Swaitkowski was distraction enough. I closed the basement door so he couldn’t use the hatch. I needed to know someone in this world was safe, at least for a few hours.

  Forty-five minutes was more than I needed to get to Sag Harbor, but it gave Jackie a little leeway. I took my time heading north on Noyack Road and chose the long way to town, following Long Beach as it curved gracefully around the east side of Noyack Bay.

  The signs of late afternoon were already in the sky. A cluster of thick clouds along the western horizon were lit from below in a soft gold that reminded me of Maxfield Parrish. The water was roughed up by a steady westerly breeze, the air cold and wet coming off the bay, contrasting with the deep color saturation from the lowering sun. Time was running out on the season.

  Construction was underway on the Sag Harbor bridge, so I had to wait in a line of cars before I could cross. That ate up more time than I allotted, so when I finally got to Hornsby’s Jackie was already there. She was standing next to her Toyota pickup, talking on a cell phone. She wore a loose, deconstructed silk jacket, white cotton sweater, a knit wool skirt that stopped well above her knees and heels that extended her legs by a few hundred miles. Her thick blond hair, brushed into large waves, was pulled back from her face with a flowered headband. She wore lipstick that matched her sunglasses, the kind you only find in places like Venice, California. She looked like a million bucks.

  She clicked the cell phone closed as I approached, and said, “Don’t start.”

  “What.”

  “Whatever you were going to say.”

  “About what?”

  She put a hand on her hip and did a little bump.

  “You know, the girly clothes.”

  “I know better. I got sensitivity training.”

  She snorted.

  “There’s money well spent.”

  “Is he here?”

  “Haven’t checked. I honestly just got here. Can you give me something to work with?”

  “Hornsby has something I need to see. I can’t ask for it, because he won’t talk to me. Which makes me want to see it even more.”

  “What?”

  “Hornsby’s the trustee of a trust that owns Bay Side Holdings. That makes the beneficiary the developer. Your ex-client. I need to talk to him. Or them.”

  “I’m not big on trusts, or estates, but I don’t see a connection between rental property and a dead woman.”

  “That’s exactly the point.”

  “What is?”

  “She’s dead.”

  I walked away from her to avoid more questions. I hoped she’d follow.

  Hornsby’s car was still in the driveway. Jackie joined me as I walked up the path and rang the bell.

  “Did he answer the door last time?” I asked her.

  “He
yelled at me to go away. From the inside.”

  I rang it again and called his name. Nothing.

  “Let’s check the back.”

  “Huh?”

  “Last I saw him he was working in his backyard,” I told her as I led her through the arborvitae.

  I yelled his name again as I walked around clusters of crowded shrubbery, through pachysandra and over balls of flowering mums. Jackie followed as best she could in her spiked heels.

  “If I’d known we were on safari—”

  We stood on the small patch of grass at the center of the garden and looked around. She gripped my right bicep with both hands to keep from sinking into the moist soil.

  “Must have flown the coop,” she said.

  “Or he’s hiding inside.”

  I noticed there was a little footpath partially obscured by the draping branches of a big Norway maple, now mostly denuded of it’s bright yellow-orange leaves. I remembered Hornsby heading that way with his wheelbarrow after he told me to get lost.

  “Let’s look back there before I start yelling,” I said.

  “If the cops show, you get your own counsel.”

  The lot was much deeper than it looked, obscured by the dense foliage. The path threaded around bunches of overgrown forsythia, holly and bamboo. Mingled with the pungent odor of rotting leaves was the shoreline smell of Sag Harbor Bay, only a hundred feet away. Low tide.

  The path opened into a clearing. Milton Hornsby was lying in the center on another patch of grass. He was on his back with his legs stuck straight out. He was wearing the same clothes I’d seen him in before, but his face was less recognizable under all the blood. A Smith & Wesson .38 revolver, not unlike Sullivan’s, was in his right hand. The top of his head was mostly gone. It looked like he must have done it lying down, through the mouth. Neater that way. Attached to his chest with a big safety pin was a blood splattered five-by-seven-inch index card.

  “Don’t touch him,” said Jackie, through a clenched fist held to her mouth. “What’s the note say?”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “The note. That’s what it says. ‘Go to hell.’”

  “Famous last words.”

  “Or shipping instructions.”

  “I called to say we were on our way. You and me together. I got his answering machine. Oh, man.”

  The blood was bright red. Fresh.

  “You have your cell phone?” I asked her, but she was already dialing. “Wait,” I said.

  She looked at me wide-eyed.

  “I can’t wait,” she yelled. “I have to call right now.”

  “I want to look in the house.”

  “No.”

  “It’s probably in there.”

  “No can do. That’s an illegal act. Disbarment just for starters.”

  She started dialing.

  “You’re his lawyer.”

  “He fired me. Wouldn’t do it anyway. I like you, Sam, but not that much.”

  “Goddammit.”

  “I can do it later if you give me a chance. Legally. I’ll get permission to examine. To make sure everything’s secure. Right now, we got much bigger fish to fry. Jesus, I can’t believe this.”

  I looked down at Hornsby. And his note.

  “Same to you, you miserable, old …”

  “Hey, hey, hey,” said Jackie, interrupting me and taking my arm again, “don’t knock the dead. Crazy bad luck. Come on, walk me back to the house. I’m gonna get sick.”

  As we walked I listened to her call the police.

  “Sag Harbor have their own cops?” I asked.

  “Of course.”

  “What about the Town?”

  “Depends on the case.”

  When we reached the area behind the house, I checked the back door. Jackie shoved herself between me and the door handle.

  “I swear to God, Sam,” she yelled, pushing on my chest.

  “Take it easy. I’m not going in.”

  She was breathing hard, looking frantic and furious. Seemed like the ideal time to ask for another favor.

  “Could you call the Town cops? Have them relay a message to Officer Joe Sullivan. Tell him what happened—that I’m here with you.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “He’ll want to know.”

  “Friend of yours?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “God knows you could use a few.”

  Ten minutes later the street was full of cops stringing yellow tape and paramedics and investigators snapping on plastic gloves. Blue and white lights flashed from the rooftops of emergency vehicles, causing a strobe effect that made everyone’s movements look stiff and artificial. The distorted blare of cranked up two-way radios and small clumps of startled and curious neighbors completed the familiar scene.

  Jackie and I sat on the tailgate of her pickup truck while a young lady cop took our statements. Jackie went first so she could essentially frame my story for me. Everything she said was true, and plausible, without saying anything we wouldn’t want on the record. It was an impressive performance.

  We were almost finished when Sullivan pulled up in his cruiser.

  “Hi, Joe,” said the lady cop.

  “Hi, Liz. Just dropping by. I know this guy,” he pointed at me.

  “Hi, Joe,” I said. “This is Attorney Jackie Swaitkowski.”

  “Already got a lawyer?”

  Jackie almost leaped off the tailgate in her haste to clarify.

  “No, no, no. We came together on another matter. Officer Grady has all the information.”

  Liz Grady jotted down a few more items then handed her casebook to Sullivan. He read it carefully while we sat there and waited. When he was done he tapped the palm of his hand with the book.

  “So, Sam, you think it was suicide?”

  “Doesn’t look like anything else to me, but I’m no expert.”

  “I mean, you might have a reason to know it’s suicide.”

  “Not for sure, but it’s a pretty safe bet.”

  “Good. Thanks.”

  He put his hand on my shoulder.

  “Hey, Sam, did I tell you I got that thing you were asking about?”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “I do. It’s in my cruiser. Wanna take a look? Don’t go anywhere,” he said to Jackie. “We’ll be right back.”

  Jackie looked at me as if to say, which turnip truck do you think I just fell out of. Officer Grady went off to handle more official business.

  “What the fuck,” said Sullivan when we got to his car.

  “It’s bad,” I said.

  “So it’s not a suicide.”

  “It’s definitely a suicide. That’s what’s bad.”

  “We should investigate.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “So you’re not sure.”

  “I’m sure, but you want confirmation from the medical examiner.”

  “So what’s so bad?”

  “Hornsby’d rather kill himself than talk to me.”

  Sullivan spun half around on his heel.

  “Jesus Christ, what are you saying?”

  “You said you’d give me a couple weeks. It’s only been a couple days.”

  “That was before the dead body.”

  I had trouble arguing with that.

  “I called you right away.”

  He jerked his head at Jackie Swaitkowski.

  “What’s with the mouthpiece?” he asked.

  “She used to work for Hornsby. I thought if she was with me he might open up. That’s all.”

  “I got to know what’s going on.”

  “Okay, forget the two weeks. A couple more days is all I need.”

  “To do what?”

  “I don’t know. I’m working on it.”

  “What’s ‘it’?” he almost shouted at me.

  “Two more days.”

  Sullivan nervously tucked in his shirt and ran both hands through his hair. Trying
to get at least something in his life in proper order.

  “I’m out of my fuckin’ mind.”

  Jackie was a little frosty when we got back to her.

  “He didn’t want to talk in front of Liz.”

  “Right.”

  She was mad at me, but she looked impossibly great sitting there on the tailgate of her beat up old truck. In the midst of all the tensed-up cops and radio noise and otherworldly flashing lights, I had a clear vision of Jackie Swaitkowski, perennially in a state of man trouble. Dead husbands, bad boyfriends, married guys, an endless trail of disappointments, betrayals and thwarted expectations. The good guys will be inadequate, the bad boys destructive, the right ones taken. It won’t be her fault. She’ll just always be too good-looking, or not good-looking enough, too smart, too lazy or too strange.

  “Listen, Joe. It seems to me you ought to take a look in that house before anything’s disturbed. Especially since the back door is unlocked.”

  “I can’t believe it,” said Jackie.

  “If you’re concerned about it, Hornsby’s lawyer here can go with you. Tag along.”

  “I don’t need that,” said Sullivan.

  “No, I think you do. I think you want to ask her to come with you. And while you’re checking around, Jackie can make sure all his files and office stuff are where they ought to be. In case there’s a question later on.”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” said Jackie again.

  “You need to do it pretty soon.”

  Jackie stuck her nose right up to my face. So close I could see she was turning red. She still looked good.

  “Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?”

  “Then you can tell me,” Sullivan said to Jackie.

  “I could tell you, but then you couldn’t do it,” I said to Jackie. “You know what I need.”

  The two of them just stood there and looked at me for a painfully long time. Painful for me, anyway. I could feel all the muscles in my neck and back tighten up and that familiar sensation of a knife being thrust into my right eye. Just like being back at work. The ravages of wanting.