“It doesn’t matter now anyhow, Katiti.” She obviously disagreed as her tangle of curls bobbed, disapprovingly, from side to side. Finally Josh added, “Let’s just say it had something to do with extracurricular activity and a quick way to pay back my student loan.”
“I didn’t think you chose Ear, Nose, and Throat out of the goodness of your heart.”
“He’s very well-respected in the field.” Katiti sat defiantly upright.
“I’m sure he is.” Loch had had about enough of this sparring back and forth with husband and wife.
“I’ve been clean for ten years, detective. You can’t buy a house like this and toot up.”
“I made him quit.”
Loch had just been thinking that she had probably done the opposite—she was the kind of woman who could drive a man to drink and drug—but he didn’t make any comments. “What time did you leave?”
“Leave?”
“75 Main.” Loch loved catching suspects off guard by recalling statements they had made minutes earlier out of context and registering their reaction. From Katiti’s look of panic, he knew whatever time they said they left would be a fabrication.
“Was it about two, sweetheart?”
“We’ll check,” Gary reminded them. “Are you sure?”
“I’m not positive about the time. It was at least an hour after midnight.” Josh looked at his wife as if to make sure the time was correct. “Wait, I think it was later.” She nodded in agreement, then switched her legs around so the left one was crossed underneath her instead of the right.
It was the way she moved that made Lochwood think it—the smooth fluidity of her limbs, as if she were floating above, rather than sitting on the couch. “Have you ever worked out at the Pilates studio in Sag Harbor?” he asked.
“No, why do you ask?” She stared so steadily at him without blinking that for a moment he wasn’t sure if she was lying or not. He did not trust her, no matter what she said.
“Just curious.”
“You are referring to Beka’s studio?”
Loch nodded his answer.
“Beka and my wife were not close friends, Detective Brennen,” Josh reminded him.
“It was Edilio’s studio, too,” Gary added.
“Of course, I forgot they ran it together.”
Loch doubted that, and said as much. Josh Shapiro did not answer; instead, his wife jumped into the verbal foray.
“I go to a different Pilates trainer in East Hampton. One who’s certified and has the legal right to use the term Pilates.”
“Ah, the lawsuit,” Gary muttered.
“It’s quite the legal battle in the dance world,” Katiti informed them. “Old-school against new. They were going to be deposed in a few weeks.”
“Who?”
“Beka and Edilio.”
“That’s news to me,” Loch lied.
She looked pleased with herself. “A class-action countersuit against using the copyrighted name. Have you checked out the defendant in that case? Maybe he’s your murderer!”
“Is copyright-infringement reason for murder?” Gary asked her.
“Anything can be a reason for murder nowadays,” she said triumphantly.
“But why kill Gabe? He had nothing to do with the studio.”
“You’re the detectives, but I bet it is the lawsuit and has nothing to do with Todd. I can’t believe Devon would waste valuable departmental time reading through old files like that. I told you she was up to something, Josh.”
“Class-action suits don’t usually result in the murder of all the plaintiffs,” Loch pointed out. “There’d be quite a number of people to x out if that were the case.”
She fidgeted instead of replying, then tilted her chin up and, looking like a modern day Nefertiti, gazed out the window. “You don’t think our lives are in danger, do you? I mean, what is this, And Then There Were None? What if this is about Todd?”
“This is real life, Mrs. Shapiro, not fiction. I doubt you’re in any danger.” Although, if there was anyone he would have liked to see murdered, it would have been her. He couldn’t stand women who pussy-whipped their husbands; worse, he couldn’t stand husbands who allowed it. Her fawnlike eyes expanded to deer-in-the-headlights size as she stared at Josh, then Loch.
“You’ll be safe,” Loch assured her. “If anything else comes to you, please don’t hesitate to call …”
Josh opened the front door for them, and much to Lochwood’s surprise, Aileen was standing there in front of them, holding a leash with a dog attached to the end of it.
“Brennen, Gary,” she greeted coyly.
“Aileen, I was just wondering when I was going to see you again.” Gary stepped forward, not as afraid of this dog. “So, you know the Shapiros?”
“Aileen knows everyone,” Josh told him.
“Except you.” Aileen winked at Gary.
“Well, we’ll just have to change that, won’t we?” Gary smiled back at her.
Their flirting was making Loch feel sick. He had had a feeling when he introduced them that he’d unleashed a monster, but he wasn’t sure who was worse, his partner or Devon’s roommate.
“How was the reunion? Everyone have fun?” Aileen asked Josh and Katiti, as she made the dog sit and await further instruction.
“Why didn’t you go?” Gary asked.
“I wasn’t invited.”
“Leenie’s too good for us,” Josh said, as Katiti rummaged through her purse.
Aileen handed Josh the lead. “He was good. Not acting out like he usually does. I told you he does better when you’re out here. Don’t spoil him, Katiti. I’ll be back next week.”
“We’ll pay you then.” Katiti must have seen the ire in Aileen’s eyes, for she added callously, “I’m sorry. All I have are hundreds.”
Aileen smiled too sweetly. Loch smothered his own grin, and they walked back down the drive together to Aileen’s car.
“Can you believe her? She’s got more money than God and can’t pay me on time. Me, who lives from check to check. And they never tip.” Aileen scoffed. “Beka set it up. Man, was that a mistake, but friends are friends. They think they’re helping me out. But who needs help like that? It’s not like I’m a charity case!”
“No, you’re not,” Loch confirmed.
“I got some charity for you. Why don’t you and me go out sometime?” Gary asked suddenly.
She looked at him, pleasantly surprised, and jerked her chin in the air, sort of tough and sort of fragile. “You got my number, same as Devon’s. Call me.” She waved as she started her VW Rabbit and rolled down the window to yell, “See ya’s! I gotta get my next dog. Holidays are hell!” Loch could not have agreed more.
Gary watched her move down the drive with an admiring tilt of his head.
“You’re such a wolf, DeBritzi.”
“I’m not.”
“You are, but you know what they say about Sag Harbor girls?”
“No, tell me.”
“Well …” They got in the car and headed toward the Halsey farm on Daniels Lane.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The good merchant hides his possessions well and appears to have nothing.
—ZEN PHRASE
Loch had never met Devon’s parents and entered the Halsey household for the first time in the company of his partner, not Devon. It did, however, seem strangely apropos that he should finally meet them while investigating a case. He introduced himself and his partner to the Halsey and Imamura families, then was welcomed into the kitchen where a fire crackled on the hearth. Lochwood felt his heart warm as he sat at a large wooden table built by none other than the monk, Hans. Evan Halsey told the detectives proudly, “Hans and me go way back to the ’60s. He was a wild man.”
“So were you, Ev,” Lelia reminded her husband.
Above their heads copper pots and pans and bunches of herbs hung from exposed beams next to friendly cobwebs. The stone fireplace had an old wrought-iron kettle holder in it t
hat had once been used for cooking, and the chairs squeaked as they settled into the wood—every object in the room had to be at least a hundred years old, including the ghosts (if Devon’s stories were correct). Everything about the Halsey’s bespoke history; Lochwood could feel the weight of it around them.
Her mother was as fiery and lovely as her daughter; her tresses had a redder tone to them than Devon’s, but she had the same slope of a nose, the same smoldering eyes. Their eyes. Their eyes reminded him of the winter Atlantic with a nor’easter stirring up its depths, a steellike strength beneath their flash of blue. He wondered if her passions ran as deep as Devon’s, and could not help but watch this woman who seemed to foretell Devon’s stature in twenty years. His heart stilled in her presence, as if in glimpsing Devon’s future-self he was seeing his own. Would they be together in twenty years? Were they one of those couples?
Evan Halsey was not the distinguished gentleman-farmer Loch had expected but a craggy-faced seaman with gently crinkling eyes. He could see his daughter in the man, but it was not the facial features or stance that told him they were related—it was the package, a strength of spirit, that reminded him of Devon. The stories she had told him of her father made sense when he looked at the man’s face—here was someone who would fight for justice, could be brutally honest, and would rather hold sand in his hands than a drink. His daughter had the same qualities.
Evan Halsey shook Loch’s hand heartily, and by the firmness in his grip Lochwood knew he was being sized up. In turn, Loch studied Devon’s father without being obvious and, for the first time since he was a young detective, hoped he could live up to another man’s expectations. He liked Evan Halsey immediately and wondered if they would ever walk across the twenty acres the family still owned and talk about their years in the service—Vietnam for Loch, Korea for Evan.
“We spoke on the phone. I’m Detective Brennen.” He introduced himself to Bismarck and Bertram. Bert gave a small bow, but it seemed to be more of a reflex than a gesture of respect.
“I’m Bismarck Imamura,” the taller of the two gentlemen said, as he shook Loch’s hand without the slightest dip or incline in his posture. “This is Bert.”
They sat back down at the kitchen table. They were in their sixties and sat with folded hands and straight backs, staring at Gary and Loch, the shock of sudden death covering their faces and eyes like a living shroud.
The fire popped and fizzled in the stone fireplace and Loch allowed the comforting sound of the burning wood to fill the room before beginning. “We’re in the middle of this investigation and I can’t offer you any answers yet, but I feel fairly certain in saying Beka did not kill Gabe.”
“She didn’t do it,” Bertram said, slapping Bismarck on the arm. “I told you she didn’t kill him, Biz. You and your scenarios.”
“I was going to kill him if she didn’t.”
“Why is that?” Gary asked.
“He was as faithful as an un-neutered dog.” Bertram cleared his throat. “In other words, he’d fuck anything that stood still long enough. Excuse me, Lelia, but it’s true.”
“Don’t I know it. Beka told me what a hound he was, but I don’t think she expected much more from him,” Devon’s mother told them.
“Beka said she was leaving him and coming home for New Year’s?”
“Yeah-yeah, but she was always changing her plans. Busy girl, our Becky.”
“You raised her after her parents died?” Lochwood was trying to be as gentle as possible.
“I’m her legal guardian,” Bismarck said. “Her mother’s brother.”
“And Bertram?”
“Oh, we’re married. Not that it matters in this country.”
“Such a shame,” Lelia commented, “to be together for as long as Ev and me and not have it legal.”
“Uh-huh,” Lochwood tried to agree, and hoped the surprise didn’t register on his face, but it just wasn’t the sort of thing one expected from their generation.
“No one thinks we’re gay,” Bertram assured him, his eyes twinkling as he began to speak more freely. “You know, people actually think Japanese people aren’t gay! We have Kabuki theater but no faggots! Right!”
“We sent Beka away to high school so she wouldn’t have to deal with the stigma of having two male parents,” Bertram told them. “We wanted her to have a normal teenage-hood. You know how mean kids can be. On the mainland, everyone thought we were brothers and both her uncles. No one at her private school knew about our relationship.”
“Devon knew,” Lelia reminded Bismarck.
“Devon didn’t care.”
“What about Gabe?” Loch asked.
“I knew Gabe was a fruit the first time I met him and I told Beka to stay away,” Bismarck said.
The politically incorrect statement jarred Loch, but he figured Bismarck could call Gabe a fruit since Bismarck was one, too.
“He was bi, Biz. There’s a difference.” Bertram patted his partner’s knee.
“Not that much difference. Why couldn’t Beka find someone like you? She was a pearl. A gift.” Bismarck began to cry. “Maybe she was more comfortable with bi men than straight men. Maybe it was our fault.” Bertram and Lelia reached for Bismarck at the same time.
“It wasn’t.” Lelia took his hand. “Beka loved you both, more than anyone. She told me she couldn’t wait to get to Oahu and blow up 200,000 firecrackers outside your house.”
Lochwood looked at Lelia expectantly. “When did she tell you that?”
“Last week. Just because she and Devon weren’t speaking doesn’t mean Beka didn’t come talk to me. We were friends. She didn’t have a mother so she adopted me by default, and I loved her like a daughter.”
“Does Devon know you spoke with Beka?” Loch asked.
“Devon hasn’t even returned my calls from last week.”
“Did Beka tell you anything about what she was planning?”
“I knew she was thinking about moving back to Hawaii. If something else came up, she didn’t tell me,” Lelia said sadly.
“Any ideas?” Gary sat on the edge of his seat. The chair objected with a loud crack.
She shook her head. “You’ve got the talking chair. We think it’s haunted. We mostly talked about you and Devon, Lochwood.” The fire was suddenly making the room feel extremely hot.
Loch pulled at his collar and nodded his head as assuringly as possible, but the lack of information was frustrating and he wanted to get back on the trail. “Did she say anything else that day? It doesn’t matter if it’s important or not to you; it might be to us.”
“I told her to call Dev and work things out because no one should let a grudge follow them into a New Year. I guess Beka never got hold of her.”
“I wish she’d never married him,” Bismarck said sadly.
“We just can’t imagine life without Beka,” added Bertram.
They all looked at Lochwood, dependent on his next move but unable to give him any more assistance than their prayers. “We have to go.” He stood up abruptly. “I’m sorry, but we have a lot more work to do tonight. Thank you for your help.”
Gary scrambled to his feet, trying not to upset the chair he was sitting on, and placed it carefully back against the table.
“We’ll catch who did this, don’t you worry,” Gary assured Beka’s uncles.
“Devon’s supposed to be here any minute,” Lelia said.
“We can’t wait. We’ll see her later.” Lochwood spontaneously kissed Lelia’s cheek, then headed out of the farmhouse door.
Halfway to the car he heard the sound of a throat clearing behind him. Loch turned around to face Evan Halsey as Gary scuttled away to the safety of the car. “Do you know what one acre of this land is worth? Values are all screwed up nowadays. It’s all about money. Except for Dev; she likes making a difference.” The man’s eyes bore into Lochwood’s. “Don’t take her lightly, detective. You screw up, it’ll be your loss. Not hers. Yours.” He didn’t point at him, or threaten
him with any gestures; he stared out past Lochwood to the horizon and did not wait for a reply. The last glimpse Loch had of Evan Halsey, he was walking out across his potato fields, his Mackintosh open and flapping behind him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The cold kills you with cold, the heat kills you with heat.
—ZEN PHRASE
Devon gazed nostalgically out the window of her car as she neared the family farmhouse. The final hints of day were casting ever-lengthening shadows over the last half-dozen potato fields in the neighborhood, and a lone pheasant strutted across the rough rows of brokendown corn, seeking stray kernels in the fallow winter ground. She had not grown up on this farm, but her father had, and she knew how painful it was for him to watch his childhood world change. This was country that had held out against nor’easters and drought, but the blight of chateaus which had descended upon the land was worse than a slew of natural disasters.
The mansions were encroaching upon all that her family loved and held dear. People who could care less about the delicate earth heaved concrete foundations upon the sand and paid town officials under the table for approval of Waco, Texas—like compounds, as if life itself were a danger to be shielded against. The architects of these monstrosities of poor taste refused to acknowledge the fragile ecosystem upon which they built, and instead of placing houses up on pillars, as once had been standard for beachfront property, they ignored the sea and constructed monuments to their egos which engulfed and eroded the dunes that had once acted as a natural barrier to the tides of change.
She could see him in his fields, walking against the wind as the fog began to roll in from the sea, looking as rugged and strong-willed as ever. Devon knew her Dad’s thoughts were full of treachery and mayhem. The rape of Sagaponack had become Evan Halsey’s obsession, and, while not a religious man, he regularly prayed for a big nor’easter, like the one in ’65, to take away the barrier houses and return Left Left Pond, now renamed Peter’s Pond by map surveyors, to its original size. Devon knew her father’s dream was to see the kettleholes consume the larger houses in one large slurping belch that would return the once-gentle marshes to the egrets, osprey, and Baymen.
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