Under Water

by Casey Barrett

  “Howdy,” I said.

  “You drive like shit, young man,” he said.

  He was a big old guy, country strong, as some might say. He was dressed in jeans, work boots, a red flannel shirt. He had large, gnarled hands that did real work for a living, and which were now balled in fists, like he planned to deliver a deserved beat-down before he came to his point.

  “I wasn’t trying to hide,” he said. “There was no need to be cute.”

  “I don’t like being followed,” I told him. “You’re lucky I felt like being cute, not cruel.”

  “A regular big city tough guy.” He grinned through that white beard and showed me a set of decayed yellowed teeth. He had a wad of chewing tobacco wedged in his lower lip. He spit a thick stream of dip juice at my feet.

  “What do you want, old man?”

  “Thought we’d have a talk,” he said.

  “Who are you?”

  “Ernest.” He stuck out one of those gnarled paws. I shook it. His grip swallowed mine. What is it about shaking a giant powerful hand that makes you feel like less of a man? Never mind, I can answer that myself.

  “The caretaker?” I asked. “For the McKays?”

  “My wife and I manage the property, yes.”

  “Your wife’s one hell of a cook,” I told him.

  “That she is,” he said. “Now, about that talk. Could you spare a few minutes? I have some things you’ll want to hear—about the girl you’re looking for.”

  “Lead the way,” I said.

  There is a vaguely sinister air to your average upstate Stewart’s; whispers of meth and despair beneath the fluorescent lights and relentless bargains. I watched a fat denim-covered biker gathering a collection of king-sized Kit Kats and peanut butter cups. He added a thirty-two-ounce Mountain Dew to his bounty of sugar and pushed past me. I lowered my shoulder and pushed back with some aggression. He turned and eyed me with quick accustomed rage, ever ready for a fight. I returned the silent challenge. He considered it, glanced down at his armful of snacks, and muttered, “Watch it” and stalked toward the register. I grabbed a bag of salt-and-vinegar chips and a Bud tallboy, and found Ernest waiting in a booth by the ice cream counter.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Lovely. Why?”

  “You don’t look so good. You were talking to yourself on the way over.”

  “Was I?”

  “You look like you could use some sleep, son.”

  “I’m fine. Got eight deep hours in the McKays’ guesthouse.”

  I cracked the Bud and sipped off the foam while he considered how to begin.

  “I’ve known Madeline her whole life,” he said. “Nina and I have lived on the property ever since Steven McKay bought the place eighteen years ago. Maddie was just a baby, her brother Charlie was in high school. Never got to know Charlie too well, he was always off swimming, then working . . . But Maddie, we got to see her grow up at Owl View. After Steven died, she and Margaret used to spend an awful lot of time there. Almost moved up full-time when Maddie was ten or so.”

  “So I heard.”

  “So you heard,” he said. He looked down at the table, lost in a memory. He scratched at his beard and, after some time, looked back up and met my eyes. “Mr. Darley, I’d like to tell you about something you probably haven’t heard.”

  I sat back and crossed my legs and waited as he gathered himself.

  “Six years ago, there was a tragedy at Owl View,” he began. “A young man died on the property. His name was Patrick Bell. He was thirteen. He was Maddie’s boyfriend.”

  “How old was Madeline when this happened?”

  “About the same, I suppose. It was one of those first summer romances. Very sweet. Nina and I used to take them into town for ice cream, and they’d hold hands in the backseat of the Jeep. That must sound quaint, coming from the city, but upstate there’s more innocence to childhood. There’s less of a rush. It lasts longer. Or at least it did.”

  “How did he die?”

  “Peanuts. The boy was deathly allergic to nuts. Came in contact with them one Sunday afternoon at the house. He didn’t have his EpiPen with him, and we weren’t able to get him to the hospital in time.”

  Ernest was fighting back the emotion of the memory.

  “How did he come in contact with the nuts? I’m guessing everyone was aware of such a serious allergy.”

  “Of course we were. Nina made sure the kitchen was swept clean of every possible offending product. She was scrupulous about it.”

  “Then . . .”

  “Thai takeout,” he said. “Brought from the city.”

  “The kid would have known better than to have leftover pad Thai.”

  “He didn’t eat any of it. It was determined that he must have ingested a trace amount through Madeline. By . . . kissing his girlfriend.”

  “Kiss of death.”

  He glowered at me. “We found the boy by the side of the McKays’ pool, soaking wet, in convulsions. His windpipe had closed off. His face was swollen to grotesque size. It had been a beautiful weekend. The house was full of life. Charlie was making a rare visit, and Teddy Marks was staying with them as well.”

  I remembered his lie about having visited the house just once over the years.

  “It was late in the afternoon,” he remembered. “The adults were having cocktails on the porch, and Maddie came running up the grass from the pool house, screaming in her swimming suit. They’d been playing by the pool all afternoon . . .” He wiped an eye. “We did everything we could to try to save the boy. I drove him to the Kingston ER myself . . . but it was too late.”

  “I’m sorry to hear. That must have been . . .”

  “I’ll never forget Madeline’s response, after we reached him. She stopped screaming, stopped crying altogether, and entered a state of shock. She stood off to the side, her hands clasped together, watching us. Watching us try to save this boy’s life. I never saw her shed another tear. Not after we returned home with the awful news, not even at the funeral. Of course, she stopped coming up to Owl View soon after . . .”

  “Her room,” I said. “When I searched it, it looked like it had been frozen in time—right around that age.”

  “Now you know why,” he said.

  “But why wouldn’t Margaret mention any of this? How could either of them not mention it?”

  “That’s a very good question, Mr. Darley. But I knew they wouldn’t.”

  “Which is why you followed me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t they tell me about it?”

  “It’s as though the tragedy with Patrick Bell was stricken from the record with those folks. From the moment he died, they all seemed determined to forget it. A stubborn mind can shut out anything. Maybe they thought Maddie had been through enough already, losing her father and all, but whatever it was, they dealt with it by pretending it never happened. Besides, I’m sure they would refuse to admit it has any relevance to the current circumstances.”

  “But you think it does.”

  Ernest sipped his coffee, gazed over my shoulder at a pair of bikers staring at us through the windows. Their Harleys roared with empty threat as they pulled off. Tough guy cowards. Ernest looked back to me. He had a courtly air about him, a quiet country wisdom that would stay forever baffled by the pace and madness of city folk. He worked beautiful land and had a good woman at home who could out-cook the finest Michelin-starred chef. His contact with the other side, the urban rich, had been a proud, tragic family drenched in death and success.

  “I often wonder if it was an accident,” he said finally.

  “How so? You said the kid ingested the nuts by kissing Madeline. You think she purposely ate that stuff so she could pass it on to him?”

  “No. Absolutely not. I’m not calling her a murderer, Mr. Darley. That would be . . . that would be, just, impossible.”

  “You’re aware of what happened to Madeline’s latest boyfriend last week, correct?”
<
br />   “To James Fealy, yes, I’m aware. But that was not my implication.”

  “Then what was it?”

  “I wonder if the cause of death—or should I say, the means of death—was correct. Madeline never denied having those leftovers, but she insisted it was hours before he came over, and that she brushed her teeth and wiped away any possible remnants before she had any contact with the boy.”

  “But they still determined that was what did it?”

  “There was no other rational explanation available. The boy’s parents were not wealthy. The Bells are local folk. They did not have the means to pursue any further investigation. They were devastated, and they accepted that nothing was going to bring back their son.”

  “What do you think happened, Ernest?”

  He sat in silence for a long while, a hint of far off fear in his eyes. “That coach,” he said. “Teddy Marks. I’ve never trusted that man . . .”

  Chapter 23

  I’ve never been quite sure why Cass continues to work with me. Just guilt, perhaps. She is the superior investigator; we both know this to be true, yet she appears to prefer her secondary role. Perhaps it’s because she must be the dominant one at all times in her other life. In this she can be the one led along, the follower. Or perhaps it is simply a matter of access. Our clients come to me. They remember my last name, remember my father, have heard the scandalous past and the unsavory present, and with those facts they feel armed with both a kinship and a certain superiority, even in their moments of greatest despair. In Cass, they would not find this. They’d find an unsmiling, disconcertingly powerful woman too able for comfort. We make a good team. I lure them in with my damaged pedigree, while she ensures that their cases actually get solved.

  I was typing up my case notes, looking for some inspiration on the white screen, when she called. Elvis grumbled at the unwanted movement and climbed from my lap.

  “Welcome back,” she said. “How was the country?”

  “Grand.”

  I pictured her pacing her apartment I’d never seen. A dark Victorian lair, I imagined. Thick scarlet drapes and crimson walls and black leather furniture and ancient immovable dressers covered in melted candles, wax pooled at the base in elegant dried mounds on blackened surfaces. She would have prints by Bosch framed on the walls. Or, no, Bosch would be too typical; they would be prints by Albrect Dürer. I heard Lou Reed playing in the background, and my image was complete.

  “Did Marks confess?” she asked.

  “To decades-old indiscretions,” I said. “He was able to rationalize it quite well. Says he was just an immature twenty-something when he fell for the lusty machinations of advanced teenaged girls. Insisted he hasn’t crossed that line in decades, and he denied having anything to do with Madeline.”

  “So he’s a reformed scumbag who can’t be blamed for long-ago statutory rapes? And aside from that, he’s a saint in all this?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You believe him?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “You always had such nice things to say about him, Duck. Like he was the only adult you respected. You never suspected anything?”

  “I was a dumbass kid. Clearly.”

  The song in her background changed to “Dirty Blvd.” I heard Cass sucking on her cigarette. She exhaled and said, “You think he’s been messing with our girl?”

  “He claims he’s never touched her. Acted shocked when I told him about Charlie’s accusation. Sounded a little forced, but maybe I was just looking for some guilt. Honestly, it’s hard to imagine him being attractive to eighteen-year-olds any longer.”

  “Can’t underestimate the daddy issues,” she said.

  “I suppose. And Madeline certainly would seem to have her share. Then there’s the blackmail.”

  “Marks is being blackmailed?”

  I told Cass the rest of it, about the wire transfers and the attacks on his swimmers and his suspicions of John Kosta. Then I told her about my chat with Ernest and the death of young Patrick Bell at Owl View. When I finished I was more confused than when I began, and Cass was pissed.

  “That fucker is dirty,” she said. “No way he’s being blackmailed twenty-five years after the fact just like that. There’s something he’s not telling us.”

  “As I was saying.”

  “What do you remember about this assistant coach, Kosta? Think it could be him?”

  “He was just a likeable, unthreatening guy from what I remember. Everybody loved him. He was the good cop.”

  “You might want to pay him a visit.”

  “I intend to.”

  “And go see Charlie,” she said. “Marks cannot be too happy with him right about now.”

  “He took off back to the city pretty early this morning. Called the accusation a betrayal of the worst sort.”

  “Not if it’s true.”

  If it was true, then where did that place Madeline? Did she threaten to expose the secret—and tear down his entire life? That was more than enough motive for murder. And Marks had killed before, I was sure of that.

  “Listen, about that party,” said Cass. “The Day of the Lord thing. I found out where it is tonight.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “It’s out at another warehouse in Gowanus. Address is 234 Butler, near the end of the canal. Thinking we split it up in two shifts? I’m happy to go tonight, till morning.”

  “Cool, and we can hand off tomorrow at noon—unless you’ve already found her.”

  “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  I set down the phone and returned to rubbing Elvis and staring at my summary. I found myself thinking of Anna Lisko. The remembrance of that morning in her Soho loft sparked a sense of detached longing. Even as she was pressed against me, even inside of her, there was a distance, as if her body were conducting a physical experiment while her mind interpreted the data behind a wall of one-way glass. I decided I liked it that way. Her coldness afterward had given me a kind of comfort. There was nothing to be said until there was something to be done, again.

  Now when I called her number I felt the thrill rising with each ring. She was a woman without affection, and that was not a bad thing. The sweet and the loving offered so little. On the fifth ring she picked up, and I heard her breath first, before she spoke.

  “Hello, Mr. Duck. I wondered when you would call.”

  “You miss me?” I didn’t recognize my own voice. It sounded like a faux-confident teenager batting out of his league.

  She didn’t answer, just breathed into the phone, waiting for my next line.

  “I wondered if you might be free . . . for lunch?”

  “When would you like? Next week I am very busy.”

  “I was thinking today, actually. This afternoon. In, like, an hour?”

  “An hour?”

  More breathy silence, then I heard ice falling into glass, then something being poured. I heard her take a drink. When the glass clinked back down on the counter, she said, “Okay, tell me where.”

  I told her of a Russian place in the East Village called Rosie’s and immediately regretted the choice. She sighed like she knew it, but did not object. An hour and a half later I was sitting there sipping my third ginger-infused vodka with a soggy stack of potato pancakes sitting before me on the table. Rosie’s was a small, cramped space with a farmhouse feel and dim, careless lighting. I had the room to myself, aside from the aging proprietor, presumably Rosie herself, who was acting as bartender, waitress, and chef. She had a wide, sturdy build and short gray hair around a swollen face that hadn’t smiled in years. When Anna entered, the two women regarded each other across the room. Rosie’s manner appeared to soften slightly, like the first thaw of March ice.

  “On s toboy?” she asked.

  “Da.”

  Anna came over and sat without greeting. Something like amusement flickered in her icy blue eyes. “You did not have to choose this restaurant for me,” she said. “They serve vodka everywhere, yo
u know?” Her gaze was unsettling. She waited for me to break eye contact before she allowed herself to do the same.

  “It was the first place to come to mind,” I said.

  “Men. You are so easy, so simple.” She nodded once to herself, filing away more data, and tried out the cold pancakes. She frowned, set down her fork, and called over to Rosie, rattling off Russian that made her smirk, and then, improbably, let out a full belly laugh. The two women finished the inside joke and then regarded me like a new pet. Anna ordered a long string of gibberish, with Rosie taking it all in without taking notes. The only word I understood was vodka.

  The feast that followed was served with a care reserved only for native speakers. A borscht soup, dried herring, spiced lamb kabobs and, of course, caviar; big decadent spoonfuls of the stuff. The vodka was poured like table wine. Rosie set a chilled carafe between us, refilling our glasses at frequent intervals, before taking away the empties and returning with fresh ones. Anna appeared to be enjoying herself, and for the first hour we spoke with the loosening awkwardness of a second date. She showed no effect from the alcohol. I wondered how long I could keep pace. As Rosie cleared the last course and topped off our glasses, a wicked look came to Anna’s eyes.

  “So how was the country?” she asked.

  “Lovely,” I said. “Interesting that Teddy told you about my visit.”

  Anna knocked back her vodka and set the glass back down on the table with the steady-handedness of a surgeon. “Do not flatter yourself,” she said. “I told him you were searching for him that morning at the pool. It was only natural for him to let me know that you had found each other.”

  “What else did he tell you?”

  She inhaled sharply and filled our glasses. “He is my boss,” she said. “Our relationship is very professional. He does not tell me so much about his private life.”

  “Does he ever mention a man named John Kosta?”

  “His old assistant?” She thought about the name for a moment. “A few times, yes. He sounds like very good coach. I think Teddy misses him . . . although I do my best to be a satisfactory replacement.”