by Greg Herren
“There’s no chance it was a mistake?” I asked calmly, placing my hand on Carlo’s leg.
“Dental records are pretty conclusive,” Sheriff Tate replied.
Carlo’s response was measured and cool, with just the right touch of sadness and horror. “I don’t know how I could have possibly made such a terrible mistake.”
“Well, sir, it’s understandable,” the sheriff went on. “The face was pretty messed up, as I recall, and you were expecting it to be him…we all kind of were, to be honest…it made sense, didn’t it? A man had gone missing off the beach and then a body washed up on shore…and it was a pretty bad time for you, sir.” He closed his little notebook and stood up. “It’s going to be hard, sir, to solve this crime after all this time…but we’ll do our best.”
“I would appreciate that, Sheriff.”
“Can you think of anyone who had any reason to want Mr. Burke dead?”
“No, I can’t.” Carlo told the lie as smoothly as if he were telling the truth. “And as you remember, he’d given the servants the day off and he was all alone here at the house.”
Sheriff Tate stood up with a heavy sigh. “I remember it all too well, Mr. Romaniello. I don’t mind telling you I don’t have the slightest idea how to even get started with this. But we’re going to do our best, sir, you can be sure of that. If I have to get help from the state troopers, I will. I won’t rest until we find out the truth.”
“Thank you, Sheriff,” Carlo said and walked him out to the door.
And that was when I remembered there actually was someone who’d been around that night, and knew more than anyone else.
Nell had seen the Rhiannon go out that night, after all.
Chapter Fifteen
I let myself out the back door to Carlo’s office and walked down the gallery steps to the back lawn. The weather had almost completely changed while I as in the office with Carlo—I had no idea how much time had actually passed, but it seemed like an eternity; it seemed like an entirely different day. I laughed at myself and had just a moment of doubt about everything as I stepped off the bottom step.
Knowing what had happened between Carlo and Timothy that day in the studio hadn’t changed the way I felt about Carlo at all. If anything, I loved him more than I had before. I couldn’t imagine how awful it would be to fall in love with someone and marry them—only then to discover they were a completely different person, someone awful who made your life a living hell. I didn’t believe for a moment Carlo had gone out to the studio intending to kill him. It had been an accident, a spur-of-the-moment, heat-of-passion thing—and not something that should ruin the rest of his life.
Who are you to play judge and jury? To decide that Timothy’s death was justifiable?
Dark clouds were blowing in from the sea, and the air felt chilly and damp. The wind was so strong it was an effort to walk against it. I put my head down and kept going. The hedges were swaying, and sand was blowing up from the beach. There was a storm coming—I could see lightning flashes far out to sea, and it was going to be really nasty when it did finally reach land. It was fortunate, I thought, that the cleanup crew had already finished with the yard—they would have had to quit if they hadn’t. The back lawn looked almost normal again—it was like the party had never happened, other than the places where the grass had been leveled and flattened by people walking or dancing. The ball seemed now like it had happened a hundred years ago, in a different time and place. My memories didn’t seem quite real—it was like last night had happened to someone else entirely.
Now that I knew for sure that Carlo really and truly loved me, I had a new lease on my life.
As I walked and fought against the gale force winds, I felt eerily like someone was watching me. So when I reached the beach and the end of the hedge, I turned back to see Carson standing on what I now knew to be Timothy’s balcony. There was now no question in my mind—we would have to fire him for certain. We just can’t have anyone who was so devoted to Timothy still in the house—he definitely is going to have to go.
The thought brought a smile to my face. It wouldn’t be hard to convince Carlo, and I could certainly run the house until we hired someone else. Once we get through this investigation, I thought, I’ll give Carson his notice.
I walked around the end of the hedges and into Nell’s backyard. The wind was picking up sand and blasting it against my skin. It stung, and I hurried away from it until I was about halfway across her lawn. I stopped and looked up at the house. It wasn’t as big or as beautiful as Spindrift, of course—nothing was—but it was still a lovely home. I happened to look up and saw Nell, standing on the widow’s walk at the top of the house. I waved to her and she waved back, and then disappeared. I started walking up to the house, reaching the back deck just as she opened the sliding glass door.
“Come in!” she said over the wind, which was getting even stronger by the moment. “I was wondering if I’d see you today.”
Gratefully, I stepped inside and realized this was the first time Nell had ever allowed me inside her house—we’d always sat on the patio deck.
The room was a den, comfortably furnished with sofas and chairs and tables. The three other walls had built-in bookshelves that ran from the floor all the way up to the ceiling, and each shelf was crammed full with books. Ordinarily, I would have immediately started looking at the titles, but this wasn’t a friendly visit. I could resist my book lover’s urges and leave the books for another day.
“Please, sit.” She switched on another lamp, and sat down on a reclining chair, crossing her legs. She was wearing a navy blue sweatshirt with Hamptons Yacht Club written on the front, and a pair of khaki shorts. Her feet were bare, and as always her thick hair was pulled back into a French braid. She picked up a phone and asked someone to bring a pitcher of iced tea and two glasses to her sitting room. “What brings you out to visit an old woman on such a blustery day?”
I opened my mouth but closed it as the door opened and her maid brought in a tray with a pitcher of tea and two tall glasses. She set them down on the table in between where we were sitting, and Nell waved her hand to dismiss her. She closed the door behind her.
“I need to talk to you about something,” I said, but now that the time had come I didn’t know what to say, or how to even bring it up. She peered at me shrewdly and reached for the pitcher. She filled both glasses and handed one of them to me.
“All right, then. Why don’t you tell me about the ball, while you’re trying to figure out how to ask me what you want to ask me?” She took a drink from her glass and leaned back in her chair while she swallowed it. “It was pretty noisy over there, you know, but when you’re old like me you can pretty much sleep through anything. When I’m tired, I’m tired. My husband used to say I could sleep through a nuclear war if I was tired enough.”
“It was an interesting evening,” I replied, taking a drink from my own glass. My hand was shaking slightly, and I hoped she wouldn’t notice it.
“Midge Huntley called me this morning,” she said with a sly look. “Couldn’t wait to tell me her thoughts about Carlo’s new husband.” She laughed. “Wasn’t very good, I don’t mind telling you.”
My cheeks flushed. “Midge Huntley—”
“Is a nasty old bitch with a mean streak as wide as Long Island, and I told her so right before I hung up on her,” Nell sniffed. “I never liked that woman, but I put up with her to be polite for years. But if she thinks she’s going to call me and say terrible things about you, my young friend, someone I actually care for, she’s got another think coming.” She sniffed again. “She’s got plenty of room to talk. She wasn’t nobody until she fooled Skip Huntley into marrying her in the first place. Little better than a prostitute over in the city, is what she was, and if she don’t want to remember that well, I’ll be more than happy to remind her every once in a while.” Her eyes glittered. “Once a whore, always a whore, I say.”
“Good to know,” I said, raising my glass
as if in a toast to her. She did the same with her glass before taking another sip out of it.
“What’s on your mind? You didn’t come here to ask me about Midge Huntley.” She put her glass back down and pushed her glasses up her nose. “I can see you’ve got something on your mind. Out with it! You don’t have to beat around the bush with me, you know.”
“Nell,” I said carefully, “I felt like I should come over and tell you before the story gets out. I wanted you to hear it from me first.”
Her eyes narrowed, and her face lost all expression. “Hear what first? Out with already.”
I cleared my throat. “Apparently, some fishermen found Timothy’s body a few days ago.”
“I wasn’t aware it had gone missing,” she said, her face still like stone. “I think I’d have heard that someone was stealing bodies from graves. Is that what you’re trying to tell me—there’s a grave robber in the Hamptons?”
“No—no, that’s not it at all.” I took a deep breath. “As it turns out, Nell, apparently Carlo was wrong when he identified that body last year as Timothy’s.” I gave a little shrug. It sounded strange to say it out loud. “He was obviously distraught and not in his right mind. An easy mistake—the body had been damaged by it’s time in the water, you know.”
“Well, isn’t that—interesting,” she replied without any expression in either her tone or her face. “Looks like there’s a nasty storm coming.” She refilled her tea glass and then looked back over at me. “So, the real body has turned up, you said?”
I nodded. “Apparently, you were right all along. Someone killed him, apparently with a blow to the head. Whoever killed him weighted his body and dumped it at sea. A few mornings ago, the body got tangled up in a fisherman’s net, and his skull had been caved in.” I took another deep breath. “So, when you saw the Rhiannon got out that night, it was probably the killer going out to dump Timothy’s body.”
She didn’t answer, and we sat in silence for a while. The wind was now blowing so strongly I could hear it whipping and whistling around the house. I shivered—she had the air-conditioning on, and it was terribly cold inside. I looked back outside and could see the storm was getting closer to shore. I needed to get back to Spindrift before the storm arrived.
But I couldn’t leave until I knew precisely what kind of danger she was to Carlo.
“Midge Huntley wasn’t the only person to call me this morning,” she finally said, her voice impassive. “She wasn’t even the first person to call me, for that matter—Maureen Drury was.” She turned her head and peered at me with those cold eyes. She raised and dropped her shoulders in a slight shrug. “You know her, of course—you used to work for that magazine that publishes her trash.”
I wasn’t even aware I’d been holding my breath until I let it out in a rush.
“I didn’t tell her anything, of course.” Nell shook her head. “I can’t imagine why she thought I would tell her anything even if I knew anything. I guess she thought because a lot of those stupid biddies out here like to tell her things for her articles, I’d be thrilled to talk to her. She no longer thinks so.” She gave me a brittle smile. “In my day, we didn’t talk to the press, and we certainly didn’t talk to the police.”
“What did she think you knew?” My voice was so soft I could barely hear it myself.
“I’m afraid I already knew about Timothy’s body before you told me,” she replied, equally softly. “I also knew that he’d been murdered—but I already knew that before she called. I knew that last year.” She made a face. “But I told that trashy bitch I didn’t know anything. As I said, I do not talk to the press, nor do I talk to the police. What I know, I know, and it’s nobody’s damned business but my own.”
I swallowed. “Nell—”
Her eyes narrowed and she leaned forward.
“How did you know Timothy had been murdered?” I blurted out. “If all you knew for sure was that someone had taken the Rhiannon out to sea that night—it doesn’t necessarily follow that Timothy was murdered. But you told me he had been—how did you know?”
“I told you, I don’t talk to the police.” She stood up and walked over to the door. “Anything I saw that night, my young friend, is my secret to keep.” She cracked a smile. “I’m an old woman, after all, and I do wear glasses. Any lawyer would make mincemeat of me on the stand should I try to identify the man I saw carrying something out to the boat all wrapped up in a sheet.”
My blood froze, and my mouth opened and closed for just a moment.
She reached out and touched the doorknob, and paused, turning back to look at me. “You seemed like such a nice boy when I first met you—and you’ve done nothing since then to change my opinion. You always made time for a lonely old woman—so I told you what I saw, and what I knew. You didn’t make an informed decision when you got married—so I thought you should know. Timothy wasn’t a good person, but I suspect, from the look on your face, that you already knew that.” Her face cracked into a smile. “You don’t need to worry, my friend. All I saw was the boat go out that night—and I’m not even sure about that now. I’m an old lady, of course—it’s entirely possible I may not have the day right, either.” She shrugged. “Was it the same night? Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t.” Her right eye closed in a wink.
The door closed behind her.
I sat there for a few moments, trying to deal with the relief that was washing over me. I hadn’t realized how tense I’d been since I’d left Spindrift to come over here. When I tried to stand up, my legs were wobbly and I had to hold on to the arms of my chair to keep from falling. I took some deep breaths until the sensation passed, and let myself out through the sliding glass door. The storm was getting closer, and the wind was insanely powerful. As I headed down to the beach, I put one hand over my eyes to keep the blowing sand out of my eyes. It felt like the wind was trying to sandpaper my skin right off my bones. I ducked my head and tried to walk faster, fighting the wind for every step I took forward. The waves were crashing against the beach, and when I dared to look up I could see that the sea was angry and gray, the waves higher than I’d ever seen them, whitecaps breaking in the water as far as I could see in the grayness. The water was also washing farther up on the beach than I’d ever seen it before. I shivered because the temperature kept dropping, and finally I reached the edge of the hedge.
I had just managed to make it around the end of the hedge when the storm rolled in. The sky simply opened, and it was like someone had turned a hose on me. Within seconds I was completely soaked, and the raindrops stung as they pelted me. I couldn’t even see two feet in front of me, and the ground was quickly turning to mud underneath my feet. My teeth started chattering, and I decided that the wind was too cold for me to try to make it to all the way across the back lawn to the house. I was completely soaked and freezing, so I decided to run over to the studio. The wind was still blowing as hard as it had been, and I slipped and fell into the wet grass and mud several times. But finally I made it to the studio and opened the door, switching on the overhead lights and stepping inside.
My teeth were still chattering, so I made my way across the room to the other side to the bathroom. I opened the door and found a stack of enormous towels in the linen closet. There was also a blanket on one of the shelves, so I grabbed it as well, and the heavy robe hanging on a hook inside. I stripped off my wet clothes and hung them over the shower curtain rod. I rubbed myself dry with the towel, still shivering, and slipped the white robe on. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
On the left breast pocket of the robe, a letter T was written in red script.
The robe was Timothy’s.
Well, of course it was, I told myself, resisting the urge to take it back off and throw it into the trash. Whose else would it be? This is his studio, after all.
I carried the blanket back into the main room and, my teeth still chattering, headed over to the little kitchen galley. There was still coffee in the canister, and so I filled
the coffeemaker, pouring myself a cup as soon as there was enough in the pot. I closed my shaking hands around it for warmth and walked over to the sofa. I sat down, wrapped the blanket around my legs, and sipped the coffee, its welcoming warmth slowly spreading through my body.
The rain was still pelting down the roof of the little studio, and the wind was still howling outside. This close to the beach, the sound of the crashing waves was so loud I could barely hear myself think. I felt a little strange, and I looked down at the floor in front of the couch.
Was that where Timothy’s body had lain after Carlo killed him?
The thought brought back the goose bumps.
Your husband is a murderer.
“Stop it,” I said out loud, finishing the cup of coffee and heading back to refill it. My stomach growled, and I went through the cabinets looking for something—anything—to eat when I realized I hadn’t had anything since breakfast. The storm certainly didn’t look like it was going to let up any time soon, so I was going to be marooned in the studio for a little while. The cabinets were empty for the most part—there was more coffee, and some bread that had gone stale months earlier, but I did finally manage to find an unopened package of Goldfish crackers. I closed the cabinet doors and walked back over to the couch.
As I walked, I remembered the first time I’d run in Taylor Hudson in here—searching for his medal.
What is the significance of the medal? Sentimentality? I wondered, sitting down on the couch. But Taylor didn’t exactly strike me as the sentimental type—he’d left the country for a year the day after his lifelong friend went missing.
Carlo said Timothy had been buried with it—but Taylor said the funeral director had said he hadn’t been. Of course, Taylor could have lied—but why? For that matter, why would Carlo have lied about burying Timothy with it?
It didn’t make any sense to me, no matter how much I tried to wrap my mind around it. I looked around as I stood there. This would make a nice writing studio. The previous times I’d been in here I’d had such a strong sense of Timothy—but now that I knew the truth about him, it was just a studio. I’d want to get rid of all the furniture in here and redecorate, so that nothing of his was left behind, of course. He might not be a shadow in between Carlo and me anymore, but there was no reason for me to keep his things.