by Chris Knopf
Jackie and Agent Ig were out on the screened-in porch. Jackie was sprawled on the daybed and Ig sat stiffly at the shaky pine table where I ate most of my meals. His face was fresh as a baby’s behind and the dark brown hair revealed when he took off his cap was just long enough to allow a precisely drawn part. You didn’t always get the kind of law enforcement performance you might want from the FBI, but you couldn’t fault the grooming.
“I need to tell you, as I did Miss Swaitkowski, that I can’t discuss any details of the Eldridge bombing,” said Ig, just to get the ball rolling.
“So you’re just here for the view?”
“It’s very nice, Mr. Acquillo.”
“How bout a beer to go with it. Unless you’re on duty”
“Two beers,” said Jackie.
Once he had a beer in front of him, Agent Ig unbuttoned his jacket and sat back, crossing his legs. Discipline gone all to hell.
“But I can speak in generalities. And considering the two of you were the only witnesses, I suppose that’s not entirely inappropriate.”
Try as I might, I could never listen to stuff like that from people wearing business suits. There’s something about official language when it’s all dressed up. Though Ig looked earnest and open faced enough to get away with it. Like the top salesmen I used to know from our company’s mid-western region.
“I told him generalities would be fine,” said Jackie, pointedly.
“Absolutely Engineers hate details. You know, like who did it.”
Agent Ig started to speak, but Jackie cut him off.
“They don’t know.”
“But we’re fairly certain who didn’t,” said Ig, taking a pull on his beer. “No terrorists, no foreign involvement of any kind. Nothing like that. The Bureau’s determined it’s a simple homicide.”
“Not to the dead people.”
“From a national security perspective,” he said flatly.
“How old are you?” I asked him.
Jackie jumped to her feet.
“You got anything to munch on, Sam? Chips or anything?”
“Twenty-eight,” said Ig, without hesitation. “Old enough to know the propriety of certain questions.”
“Then you won’t mind me asking why Ivor Fleming just tried to kill a cop.”
“Sam?”
“Joe Sullivan. Stabbed in the gut. Knocked on the head. Left here in one of my Adirondack chairs. Another hour and he’d be dead.”
Ig didn’t flinch or hesitate. “That’s a question for the local people,” said Ig. “As is anything relating to Mr. Fleming. All of that was referred to the state and local levels.”
“All of what?”
“Matters regarding Mr. Fleming uncovered in the investigation. All referred to local racketeering authorities. Nothing of interest at the federal level.”
“I’m sure as hell interested.”
Jackie stood in front of me so Ig couldn’t see her face and scowled meaningfully.
“Come on, Sam. He’s trying to help. You didn’t tell me about Sullivan.”
“I didn’t want to.”
“Why?”
“It’s getting too dangerous. You said it yourself. We’re way over our heads.”
“He’s certainly right about that, Miss Swaitkowski.”
“Too late,” she said. “You think it was Fleming?”
“Who else?” I told her about my conversation with Sullivan at the diner. And about Amanda’s invitation to the fundraiser and meeting Jonathan’s brother and sister-in-law. And how we found Sullivan on the lawn. I left out a few other details concerning Amanda, in the spirit of sticking to generalities.
“Holy cow, you actually went on a date,” said Jackie. “Probably the first time in your life.”
I looked at our agent.
“Any of this do anything for you, Web? Spark anything?”
“I sympathize with your situation. I do. As I said, any information we had that would help advance the cause we’ve already passed along. It’s now in different hands.”
“Then what’re you doing here?”
“I asked him,” said Jackie, gaily. “I wanted him to meet you.”
“And what about the data on Jonathan’s hard drives?”
“State’s got everything,” said Jackie. “And they aren’t giving it up to me or you, or anybody else.”
Agent Ig leaned forward so he could get in the middle of our conversation. He looked at me.
“I think you’re giving too little significance to what I’m saying.”
“Exactly,” said Jackie.
“Exactly what?”
“The FBI thinks the whole thing is home grown,” said Jackie. “We don’t have to look anywhere else.”
“We’re not looking anywhere else.”
She swatted me on the arm.
“Of course we’re not, because it’s all we have. But this confirms we’re at least in the right neighborhood. I think it’s very helpful,” she added, smiling broadly at cute Agent Web.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Just for clarification,” said Agent Ig, jumping in again, “I’m not saying you should look anywhere. I think for your own safety you should stay as clear as possible from the whole matter.”
“Well I can’t do that now that I know it’s a local thing,” I told him. “I’m head of the neighborhood watch.”
“Am I the only one who wants to eat?” asked Jackie.
“Good idea,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“Not the damn Pequot.”
“Come on, a little fish’ll do you good. Web, you hungry?”
They followed me over to Sag Harbor in a mid-sized Ford that matched the color and ostentation of Ig’s summer suit. Though I really liked seeing him in my rearview mirror. Comforting to know that if anybody tried to shoot me over dinner I had my own FBI agent along to shoot back.
“Dinner for four, Dot, counting Eddie,” I said to Hodges’s daughter when we got to the Pequot.
“Dorothy,” she said, waving at a cluster of empty tables near the back of the restaurant without looking up from her book.
“Why it pays to be a regular,” I said to my party.
“Nice place,” said Agent Ig, admiring the sepulchral gloom that distinguished the Pequot’s interior, accented by dirty brown natural-wood paneling, and dirtier brown tables and chairs, lit by wall-mounted fixtures shaded with red whorehouse globes and a few flickering fluorescents hanging above the bar.
Hodges came out from the kitchen to help get us settled. He wiped his hands on his apron before offering to shake.
“You look better,” he said to Jackie.
“Thanks, I think.”
“This is Webster Ig,” I said, “friend of Jackie’s.”
“Two letters,” Jackie told him. “An I and a G.”
“Feel free to lose the tie, son,” said Hodges. “Been a while since we had a dress code in here.”
“And the fish of the day?” I asked.
“Cooked.”
“Excellent. Cooked all around. And a burger for the pup.”
I spent the rest of the night trying to squeeze more information out of the FBI, while giving up as little as possible to Jackie about my recent night out. The two of us never shared any kind of romantic life, which I think gave her the idea she could nose her way into mine. None of which right at that moment mattered a whit. All I cared about was that I was alive, eating at a friend’s crappy little joint, watching another friend try to flirt through a layer of unhealed plastic surgery, feeling my little mutt pressed up against my leg and, for a moment anyway, not afraid for life, limb or soul.
FIFTEEN
I DIDN’T BOTHER with anything more elaborate than a polo shirt and pair of khakis to go see Joyce Whithers, assuming her to be impervious to the persuasive power of my sole surviving business suit.
The Silver Spoon was in a refurbished Italianate farmhouse set tight to the edge of a working potato farm about a half-mile north of the high
way in Watermill. The approach to the two-story stucco building followed a long sandy drive that afforded an agreeable perspective on the old-world facade. The parking area was completely sheltered beneath a huge pergola on which grew a tangle of native vines meant to simulate Tuscan grapes and wisteria. In the evening a gang of hustling valets in bow ties and black sneakers fielded the flow of imported cars coming in for dinner, the only meal the place served. It was now the middle of the day so I had to park the Grand Prix on my own.
I’d called ahead this time, and brought Eddie for back-up, though I suspected the only creature on the premises approximating a Doberman was Joyce herself. On the phone she took the story of valuating Jonathan’s business without much argument. She said she’d been considering a lawsuit against him to recover some of her losses, though her lawyers had advised her on the difficulty of suing a dead man. I guessed she saw my project as a possible way to pursue Jonathan into the hereafter.
“Are you empowered to discuss a settlement?” she asked, briskly.
“Valuation is the first step in that process,” I told her.
“Then come,” she said, and hung up.
Once inside the restaurant, she wasn’t hard to find—in the middle of the reception area, struggling with a small tree planted in a big clay pot. She wore a pair of baggy denim shorts that fell just past her knees, an untucked men’s dress shirt and tattered running shoes. Her glasses and a Bic pen were stuck up in a wad of thick dark gray hair that looked a month or two past the last brush with a beauty parlor.
I’d been told she was around Hodges’s age, and also widowed, though some time ago. Maybe I could fix them up. They could swap notes on preparing whitefish and the trade-offs of keeping Slim Jims out on the bar or back near the cash register.
She probably didn’t notice me standing there, but didn’t flinch when I grabbed the lip of the pot to help her drag it into an open corner next to the maitre d’ stand.
“Damnable thing,” she said, standing back to appraise the situation.
“Looks good.”
“Not yet. Needs something.”
“A maitre d?”
“Not likely. That fig tree has the greater wit.” She finally looked at me. “And you are?”
“Sam Acquillo. Representing the Eldridge estate.”
She took my hand.
“Whenever I think of the money that person cost me I could just spit. What’s your part in this again?”
“I’m valuating the business for possible sale, or perpetuation under his widow’s ownership.”
“What on earth for?”
“To see if it has any value.”
“It doesn’t.”
“To keep serving a list of happy clients?”
“Not all.”
“So I understand. That’s why I’m here.”
“To see what kind of trouble I’ll cause you.”
“Just to talk.”
She went back over to the little tree and starting fussing with the branches, snapping off delinquents with a deft twist of the hand. Then, without asking my help, she tried again, unsuccessfully, to swivel the heavy clay pot. She moved like a woman who’d been raised to use her hands to get things done. To build, configure and dominate her surroundings. Schooled to value things practical as well as cultural. In times of revolution, a woman prepared to man the artillery, to go down swinging the butt of an empty rifle, honor intact.
Two guys in white kitchen uniforms came in from the outside carrying plastic shopping bags. They looked straight ahead as they passed through the reception area and went through a door I assumed led to the kitchen. They ignored the gray-haired woman grappling with the clay pot and she ignored them.
I let her struggle with the pot until they were gone from view, then reached down and helped her rotate it about twenty degrees.
“It’s not my department, ma’am, but I’m guessing the possibility of litigation would put a damper on plans to reformulate Jonathan’s operation.”
“Not your department?”
“I’m not a lawyer.”
“My husband was, and he’d say you’d be an idiot to try to sell a one-man financial consultancy, especially if all it did was provide a target for people to sue, which he’d certainly take advantage of, as would I.” She stood back to study the results of our latest effort.
“Let’s give it another half a turn,” she said, this time waiting for me to join her.
“Almost,” she said.
“Did you ever talk to any of his other clients? Anyone else who had less than spectacular success?”
“Heavens no,” she said, waving the question away like an annoying insect. She narrowed her eyes at me. I fought the urge to back away toward the door.
“You’re asking because he was killed.”
“Just gauging the mood of the clientele.”
“You said you aren’t a lawyer. Don’t speak like one.”
“Okay bluntness it is. It’s going to be very difficult to reconstitute, much less market, Jonathan’s business given that it was solely dependent on him. Although he did have some proprietary analytical tools that could be marketed under his name or absorbed into some other operation. It’s just the way he departed the scene that makes me question even that strategy. Not fair, maybe, but that’s the irrational world of finance for you. I personally don’t care one way or the other. I just want to learn what his clients are thinking so I can write my report and move on to the next goofed-up situation.”
“That’s better,” she said. “Mercenaries I understand.”
“So, any thoughts?”
“I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you mean. Not that I didn’t mull it as an option, I was so angry. But I couldn’t have, even if I had the means. Which I don’t.”
I tried my best to look embarrassed by the thought.
“No accusations, not at all. I’m just asking your opinion.”
“The lesson learned is never do business with friends, or their children, and definitely not their idiot sons-in-law.”
“Now I’m a little lost,” I said.
She closed her eyes and slowly shook her head.
“I only got involved with him because of Appolonia, poor thing. Walter sat on the Boston Equity board with her father. Lovely people. Old Brookline.”
An image of them all having dinner in Newton with Abby’s parents leapt uninvited into my mind. Luckily Joyce picked that moment to stop torturing the fig tree and lead me over to one of the dining tables, freshly dressed in a bone-colored tablecloth and short vase stuffed with miniature red roses. A tall woman with a severely receding chin and straight, oily blond hair came out of the kitchen and handed Joyce a sheet of paper, I guessed a provisioning inventory. She stood immobile by the table while Joyce put on her glasses and looked it over. She handed the list back without comment, or even a look at the chinless young woman, who left as wordlessly as she arrived.
Joyce took off her glasses again and dropped them on the table, rubbing her tired eyes with the back of her hand. She let out a breath of exasperation.
“I know it’s impossible,” she said. “Even with her parents gone I really couldn’t bring litigation. I know what I said, but Walter would think it unforgivably vulgar to sue a friend’s child. A mentally ill child at that. I’m just so angry about the whole thing. To be made such a fool of.”
“So they must have left her pretty well taken care of, with or without Jonathan’s portfolio.”
“Oh my, yes. Greek shipping. You don’t get any better taken care of than that. I always assumed her husband entered the investment field so he could manage her inheritance. Isn’t that what all these opportunists do? I just hope he did a better job for her than he did for me, the insufferable little numbskull.”
I thought I saw the faintest suggestion of a smirk momentarily pass over her face. I realized she’d caught herself amused by a private joke. A joke on herself. Then it was obvious. The loss for her wasn’t financial. It was the damag
e to her sense of self-reliance. An affront to the posture of invincibility demanded by the people who bred her.
But I was even more taken aback when she reached across the table and touched my forearm with the tips of her dusty, calloused fingers.
“Give the girl a little advice for me, if you will,” she said. “Let the husband’s business die with the husband. It won’t bring him back. Nothing will. Not that I don’t sympathize with how she feels. If Walter wasn’t already dead I’d kill him myself for leaving me.”
Then she tapped my arm again and pulled her hand away.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she said, though without any sign of getting up from her chair. So I thanked her for the help and left her mustering strength for another round with the fig tree, determined as she was to wrestle its leafy little being into utter submission, to better realize its role in her orchestrated existence, irretrievably disrupted by the unscheduled demise of Walter Whithers, for whom the same occasion was probably a blessed relief.
—
Belinda answered the phone.
“Not without the lawyer,” she said.
“Aren’t we past that?”
“His instructions. You remember the number.”
I didn’t, so I had to call information from the pay phone, as far as I knew the last one in Southampton, kept as a profit center in the basement of a burger joint on Job’s Lane. Gabe was eager as always to drop whatever he was doing and run over to Appolonia’s house. A half-hour after talking to him I met him just as he was getting out of a new black Jaguar.
“Quite the collectible,” he said, trying to lean back far enough to take in the full scale of the Grand Prix.
I was going to straighten him out but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. Anyway, he’d already headed into the house, which was good, since it kept something between me and Belinda.
She made us pause in the foyer, then herded us into the living room where Appolonia was already seated, complete with tea tray and a folded-over copy of the Times, exposing a half-completed crossword puzzle done in neat black ink. She wore a plain white cotton shirt with the collar pulled up, black Capri pants and sandals. The AC was turned so low I began to envy Gabe’s suit jacket. Or maybe it was just the abiding chill within Appolonia’s crystal enclosure.