Greenwich

by Howard Fast

  “Well, Sally, you know the salt was still there. But it had changed its form, and suddenly I realized what my mother was saying to me. Only the form of the salt had changed.”

  Sally had listened to the story intently, her brow furrowed, and after Sister Brody had finished, Sally was silent for a long moment, and then, almost shyly, she smiled.

  A beautiful smile, Sister Brody decided, wondering whether she, as a child, had smiled that same way when she first heard this explanation from her mother.

  “It’s only a story, Sally. But sometimes a story can open a whole new way of thinking.”

  “I know.”

  They sat in silence for a little while, Sister Brody debating whether she should open the question of baptism once again. Sally had displayed no sense of being the heir to Castle’s fortune. Now, very hesitantly, she asked Sister Brody, “Can I come to your church tomorrow?”

  “Of course.”

  “When shall I come?”

  “There’s a mass at eleven o’clock in the morning, where Monsignor Donovan will deliver the homily.”

  “What is a homily?”

  “A sermon, more or less.”

  “Oh, yes. I understand.” Sally hesitated.

  Misunderstanding her hesitation, Sister Brody assured her that she would be under no obligation if she came. “Anyone can come, Sally. You don’t have to be Catholic.”

  “I know. It’s something else, but I’ve taken so much of your time already.”

  “I have all the time in the world.”

  “Well, you know, now I have a lot of money. Richard told me that most of his estate would belong to me after his death, except for a trust fund for Dickie. He was very rich. Now I’m all alone in this big house, and when Dickie has his trust fund, he’ll take off. He wants that desperately, and he talks about it all the time. I don’t want all that money or this big house. I want to help people who don’t have money or food. Will you be my friend? Will you help me with the money?”

  “I will always be your friend,” Sister Brody said, putting the accent on the word always. “But as for the money, you are a mature woman, Sally. You have a lawyer. You will know what to do with your money—all in good time.”

  Driving back to the church, Sister Brody sighed, thinking, Maybe I did it right, maybe not. I think I was right.

  Forty

  It was four o’clock in the afternoon when FBI Agent Gun-hill arrived at the Castle place, and with him was a Mr. Frillbee, of the Justice Department. Gunhill was a tall, gaunt man who appeared to see nothing in the world as amusing or odd. He was in his forties, Frillbee a decade older. Both wore suits of light twill and Panama-type straw hats. MacGregor introduced them to Sally, and both of them expressed formal regrets for the death of her husband.

  “We’d like the use of your husband’s study for the next hour or so,” MacGregor said, explaining, “There are certain matters of his work in Washington that we must clear up.”

  “Of course. I can give you coffee and sandwiches.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” MacGregor said. “Very kind of you.”

  “If you should change your mind, there’s a hot and cold beverage dispenser in his study.”

  “Thank you.”

  Once seated in the study, Frillbee observed, “Castle lived well.”

  “State of the art in this part of Greenwich,” MacGregor said.

  “She’s a beauty,” Gunhill said. His accusatory stare at Sally might have been beyond his control, MacGregor decided.

  “What does she know?” Frillbee asked.

  “Nothing, as far as I can determine. I pulled out of her the memory of once having heard Castle refer to Larry, as he called him, as a congressman.”

  “That’s disturbing.”

  A cold chill came over MacGregor. Frillbee’s round face reminded the policeman of Kenneth Starr.

  “I hear you were a homicide lieutenant with the NYPD.”

  MacGregor could have said that it was long enough to see everything in the way of dirt and deceit and corruption that any human being could see anywhere, but instead he simply replied, “I served my time and did my job and took my pension.”

  Frillbee did most of the talking. “And now you are CID in Greenwich?”

  “It’s a quiet place.”

  “We checked you out. You have a good record. Why didn’t you make captain?”

  “I didn’t take,” MacGregor said.

  “Never?”

  MacGregor shrugged. “I don’t want to sound saintly. I just covered my ass the only way I knew. I didn’t take.”

  “Do you know what we’re up against?”

  “Some. I can make some guesses. I’d rather hear it from you.”

  “All right. Larry was the nickname of Latterbe Johnson. Evidently, he drove up here this morning to talk with Castle. Whether something went wrong in their talk or whether it was his plan all along or whether it was the result of being interrupted by the black woman, we don’t know. Probably, we’ll never know. However, this much we do know, that subpoenas have been issued for three men by a congressional subcommittee of the House, investigating the murder of six Jesuit priests and a Catholic bishop in El Salvador. It was a very dirty business. Castle’s subpoena was to be served this afternoon. The two other subpoenas have been served in Washington, or service was attempted, I must say. They were to be served to Larry and a man named Hugh Drummond.

  “Yesterday, Larry—we’ll call him that—rented a suite in the Waldorf in New York. Drummond joined him there sometime today. Larry rented a car at seven this morning, with the identification of a CIA operative, stolen identification. Evidently, Larry had visited Castle a number of times in the past, and he had given Larry money. This time, Larry came away with a quarter of a million in cash. When Larry returned he met with Drummond at the Waldorf suite. They got into an argument, and they’re both dead. As if that were not enough complication, Drummond, a former chief of staff at the White House and a powerful lawyer in Washington, had just announced his candidacy for governor of his state. So that’s what we have—three subpoenas, three killings.”

  The slightest of smiles crossed MacGregor’s lips. “I thought I had seen everything,” MacGregor said softly.

  “Nobody’s seen everything, MacGregor. We have a pile of dirt at the worst possible time, with Clinton up to his neck in shit with his women. We had to make quick decisions. Drummond’s body is on the way to Washington, and we have an undertaker there who’ll cooperate.

  “He died of a heart attack. Larry was shot by an intruder. It sliced his carotid artery, so there’s enough blood to cover Drummond’s bleeding. But the way it stands, the ball is in your court.”

  And MacGregor thought, If I go along? I have a good wife, I have three kids, I have two grandchildren, and what happens if I don’t go along? There are no more heroes. I paid my dues.

  “And what are you asking for?”

  “An open-end investigation. No perp. Some lunatic walked into that pool house and shot both of them. A simple robbery. Castle kept money in his pool-house office. Cash. Just a simple robbery, an investigation that goes on for a couple of years and then just fades away. You’ll be doing a service to your country. If you need money—”

  His thought was, Fuck you—both of you bastards!

  But he said, “I go along with you—with one caveat.” MacGregor liked the word. A cop was supposed to be ignorant.

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ll take care of this end, and since you’ve been through my record, you know my word is good. Nothing happens to Castle’s wife, Sally.”

  “And if she talks?”

  “I’ll take care of that. She won’t talk.”

  The two government men looked at each other, and then Frillbee nodded. “We’ll shake hands on that,” he said, wrinkling his lips thinly.

  MacGregor responded to Frillbee’s wrinkled lips. “Let me put it plainly,” MacGregor said. “I don’t like this stinking dance of d
eath, but I’ll go along every step of the way. But if Sally Castle dies, accident or otherwise, I’ll blow this whole pot of bullshit to hell. Is that understood?”

  There was a long moment of silence, and then Frillbee said shortly, “Understood.”

  Forty-one

  Unexpectedly, early on Saturday, Muffy’s husband had returned from Brazil, and by noon, word of Castle’s death was seeping through the Back Country of Greenwich. While Muffy was disappointed by the early and somewhat unexpected return of her husband, it was not an entirely unfavorable event. She shed no tears for Castle’s death, but the only tears Muffy had shed since her marriage began were tears of utter frustration.

  Her husband was five years older than Castle, and his libido had long been replaced by a fruitless lust for money. His earnings came to some two hundred thousand dollars a year, but with three children in good colleges, he was always in debt. He managed to pay the installments on the huge mortgage he carried on his house, but after leasing his two Mercedes, there was never enough money left to make a month in the black. He was an investment banker, as were so many of his neighbors, but he had neither the brains nor the personality of Richard Castle. The result was a sour and unhappy man.

  Muffy loved the casual manner in which Castle had slipped her two or three hundred dollars after each tryst in New York or in her house when she was alone in her house, which was often enough. She knew that money was meaningless to Castle and that he could have had any number of younger and more attractive women had he so desired. She had gone through a face-lift, a tummy tuck, and two but-tock tucks; and she had decided that her large, bony frame gave him something that his pretty wife did not provide. He had paid for all of these operations without a quiver or a retort, which made Muffy feel that she was something more in his life than an expensive hooker, even though once he had ejaculated he got out of her house in a quick fifteen minutes. Her husband, Matt, was too absorbed in his own problems to question her story that the surgery was paid for by their medical policy. She kept the records.

  But Castle was gone, and Muffy was here, and she was never one to weep over spilled milk. The game had changed, but the substance was still there. Muffy was a good cook. Tonight she prepared her husband’s favorite dinner, a delicately roasted standing rib of beef, pink in the center, scalloped potatoes and tiny garden peas, and a bottle of good Merlot. The truth of their relationship was that Matt valued her, and he had neither the will nor the money to start afresh with a new wife; and Muffy was good-looking, if not beautiful. If he suspected her dalliance with Castle, he simply put it out of his mind. She was two inches taller than her husband, and he no longer regarded her as a sexual object.

  At dinner that Saturday night, they spoke about the night before, and Matt echoed her surprise at the presence of the two Catholic clerics. “That’s crazy,” Matt said. “They’re not Catholic. Why the hell would they have a couple of priests?”

  “The woman’s a nun, Matt,” she gently corrected him.

  “Still the same. Do you suppose Sally’s going Catholic?”

  “That’s something I want to discuss with you. Richard was worth well over two hundred million.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of course, I’m sure,” Muffy replied, feeling no need to explain why she felt so sure. When it came to their circle of acquaintances, Matt always took her word about wealth and marriage and similar matters.

  “And he took home better than two million—that’s right, two million—out of his work.”

  “Not where he’s going,” Matt said, a note of triumph in his voice.

  “Yes, he’s dead, poor man. I hear the thug who did it shot away most of his head. But right now, Matt, that idiot wife of his stands to inherit almost all of what he had.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I don’t kid about such things,” Muffy assured him.

  “And what about Dickie?”

  “The way I heard, Dickie gets a twenty-million-dollar trust fund, which should yield him at least a few hundred thousand in yearly income, which is plenty for that brat. Sally gets the rest. Can you imagine—that stupid, worthless Valley Girl with that kind of money!”

  Matt did not ask Muffy how she knew the details of Castle’s bequests; he simply accepted it as part of her knowledge of what so many people in the Back Country had and what they spent.

  “That’s very nice money,” Matt admitted.

  “That’s all you have to say?”

  “What else?” Matt wondered.

  “If I put a pot of gold in front of you, would you have enough sense to pick it up?” she demanded, barely able to keep the contempt out of her voice.

  “Come on,” Matt said. “I’m tired. Don’t go into one of your tirades about my being poor.”

  “All right, honey. I know how hard you work. But what does Sally do with that money? She doesn’t know a stock from a bond. She can’t handle this alone. She has to have a financial advisor, and from what I hear, a good financial advisor can get as much as five percent. Think about that.”

  The Merlot was gone, and Muffy went to the bar to open another bottle. When she returned and poured the wine, Matt’s face had lit up. “Why not?” he said. “Why not indeed? I’ve known Richard for a dozen years. He was always very decent to me. Sally always seemed to like us—as much as you could ever tell what that dumb broad was thinking. She once asked me what a trust was. She thought it meant that you trusted someone. Are you sure Richard didn’t put most of it in trust for Sally?”

  “He always intended to, but he was too busy making it. He once said, Let it grow. But I’m not worried about that. What’s our next step? What do we do?”

  “Have you spoken to Sally yet?”

  “No. I was waiting. I was trying to think of the best approach.”

  “There is no best approach, baby. Just call her right now and tell her how our hearts go out to her. Tell her we’re her friends, her close friends. Tell her that we’re ready to do anything for her. Invite her to dinner. She can’t fry an egg and she knows what a good cook you are. Tell her you’ll give her free cooking lessons. Tell her—”

  “Matt, don’t run away with it!” Muffy said sharply. “I know what to say to her.”

  “Don’t talk about money.”

  “Of course not. I’m not stupid.”

  They went into the living room, each with a glass of wine to celebrate action. Matt sipped his wine. Muffy dialed Sally’s number.

  “My dear, my dear, poor, suffering Sally. How my heart goes out to you! Matt came home today, and we were both in tears … Yes, what a loss, what a terrible loss. We want you to come for dinner tomorrow, you mustn’t be alone.”

  At the Castle home, Sally listened to this. When she made no reply, Muffy went on speaking. Still silence. Then, at last, Sally took a deep breath and said, “Thank you, Muffy. Thank Matt. He has a good heart.” Once again, Sally took a long pause and said, “As for eating in your house, Muffy, I would die of starvation first, and something else, Muffy”—Sally’s voice rose to an ear-splitting shout—“Muffy, fuck you!”

  Then Sally put down the telephone and whispered, “God forgive me. I promised you, Richard, that I would never use those words again, but I didn’t know what else to say.”

  Muffy put down the telephone and turned slowly to her husband.

  “Did I hear her say fuck you?” he asked. Muffy stared at him without replying.

  “Will you goddamn answer me! Did I hear her say fuck you?”

  “Yes, Matt, that’s what the little bitch said.”

  “How long have you been fucking Richard Castle?”

  “Just watch your tongue, Matt.”

  “How long!”

  “Drop dead, Matt.”

  “It’s over now! It’s finally over!” He rose, walked to her, and flung what was left in his wineglass in her face. Then he raised his right hand to strike her. Muffy caught his wrist and snapped, “Don’t try that, Matt, or I’ll break your godd
amn arm. I’m no candidate for a battered wife.” Then she pushed him away. “You dumb bastard, Richard would have left me millions. He was just waiting for you to drink yourself to death.”

  Matt staggered a bit, almost fell, and then pulled himself upright. Swaying with forlorn dignity, he walked out of the house and into the cool June night.

  Forty-two

  Sister Brody tapped at the door of the monsignor’s study. “Come in,” he said. She barely heard his voice, but she was sure he said to come in. His door was never locked.

  For Sister Brody, who was of Irish people herself, blue eyes and light hair, the expression “black Irish” had a specific meaning. She had always felt that they were different, of a more ancient earth-rooted race, with their lean faces and dark eyes and black hair. Donovan was black Irish—moody, turned in upon himself, lean to the point of emaciation, yet he ate well and had great energy. Through all that she had witnessed during her years of service, she had maintained a certain gaiety, as if she contained a spirit that could surmount any horror. Donovan was different, and that perhaps was why, working at the same church, they were drawn together. She approached him without the reverence that the other church workers showed him. If she were not a nun, she might have admitted to herself that she was in love with him, but she was a nun and well past forty, and so to some degree she mothered him and he turned to her and sometimes spoke to her of things he left unspoken in confession.

  “I drove out to see Sally Castle. I spent an hour with her,” the nun said.

  “Yes. How is she taking all this?”

  Sister Brody dropped into a chair beside the monsignor’s desk.

  He sat behind the desk, which was piled with books and papers, leaving room only for a small crucifix.

  Sister Brody shook her head. “I don’t know. She appeared to be unusually calm. I don’t know what was between her and her husband.”