The Water's Edge

by Daniel Judson

  Miller learned where in Sag Harbor Abby and her lover lived but refrained from ever going there to get a look at the man, to glimpse a happy Abby, happy in a way Miller had been unable to provide, happy in the way she had always wanted. Now, of course, in Miller’s mind, the man was everything Miller wasn’t. Whether that was the case or not didn’t really matter. Miller wasn’t sure how exactly Abby had come to learn the truth about her lover, but after six months or so the older man with money and all the time in the world to give turned out to be a not-yet-divorced man with nothing but dwindling credit and crushing debt. A man on the run from a life he had grown tired of. The security Abby thought she had found—the security, Miller knew, she sought from all the men she loved—turned out to be anything but secure, so she fled in the middle of the night, just as she had fled Miller. Miller half-hoped that she would show up at his door, but she never did. This was in the summertime, and she simply disappeared into the crowd, into the anonymity of summer shares and off-the-books work. Eventually Miller learned that she had found a job as, of all things, a housepainter. Rumor had it that she was involved, to some degree or another, with her boss, and as much for her as for himself, Miller checked up on that man, found some things he didn’t like. It had taken him a while to piece the man’s past together, follow it to the one place he didn’t want it to go, the one place Miller couldn’t go, but by the time he had all the information he needed, and before he could even decide what exactly to do with it, Abby had moved on again. Miller didn’t know what had happened to make her flee, worried for several long nights that some harm had come to her through her boss, but then she turned up on his radar again, working as a bartender out in Montauk, living with yet another man. When that relationship eventually failed, Abby disappeared once again, this time, it seemed, for good. No rumors about her, no reported glimpses of her, no trail. Miller kept his ears and eyes open, read all the local papers looking for a mention of her, or a mention of some unidentified Jane Doe recently found by the police. Nothing, not even a whisper. A part of Miller saw this period as his chance to forget about her, put his foolish choice, the choice that had made her leave, behind him. But try as he might, there wasn’t a day, then and now, that he didn’t wonder what had happened to her, where she had gone, who she was with now. There wasn’t a day when he didn’t say her name aloud at least once, half the time without even realizing he had until he heard himself speak.

  Now, though, suddenly, after all this time, he not only had a lead to her but the knowledge that she might be in danger. Miller could feel his heart in his throat and a surge in his legs that made sitting there and waiting an almost unbearable thing to do.

  Finally he heard a car come to a stop outside on the street below, then a car door close. At last Barton was here. The downstairs door opened and closed, and then Miller heard her climbing the steep stairs to his apartment door. A light knock, and then she entered. They were family, she didn’t usually even bother to knock, but it had been a while since she visited, a while since either was anything more than an absence in their respective lives.

  Miller was standing, ready to go, his heart like a clenched fist. Barton walked through the kitchen to the wide entranceway of his large living room. Miller got the sense almost immediately that they wouldn’t be rushing out the door, that Barton needed to tell him something first.

  “What?” he said.

  “I’ve been thinking that maybe you shouldn’t get involved in this, Tommy. That you’re too involved, you know? Maybe you should leave this up to Ricky and me.”

  “We’re wasting time, Kay.”

  “I’m not sure I like any of this.”

  “It’s Abby, Kay. You can’t possibly expect me to just sit here and do nothing.”

  “You’re not responsible, Tommy. You have to know that. You’re not responsible for all the bad luck she ran into after she left you. She’s a grown woman, she makes her own choices. Bad choices, in her case. But you can’t save people, not from themselves.”

  “I’m not trying to save her from herself. If she’s in trouble—real trouble—I want to help her.”

  “I just don’t want you to get hurt, Tommy. She’s maybe not the person she used to be. You might even find out she wasn’t ever the person you thought she was.”

  “Do you know something you’re not telling me, Kay?”

  Barton didn’t answer. She waited a moment, then said, “The address Spadaro gave me is where the second victim’s girlfriend, Romano’s girlfriend, lived. It seems that your Abby has gotten very adept at covering her tracks.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Barton shrugged. “She’s a ghost. Off the grid.”

  “Then how does Spadaro know that she was going out with Michaels?”

  “He wouldn’t say over the phone. But I have the feeling that Ricky has been doing some moonlighting.”

  “What kind of moonlighting?”

  “I have a feeling he’s been keeping an eye on this, whatever this is exactly, for a while.”

  “But why would he be doing that? He’s just a uniformed cop.”

  “He’s a uniformed cop with ambitions to be more, and a strong dislike for the chief. Whatever is going on, Tommy, it didn’t start tonight.”

  “It seems we have some catching up to do. All the more reason for us to hurry, don’t you think?”

  “Hurry and do what exactly?”

  “Maybe Romano’s girlfriend and Abby were friends. If so, then it’s possible there’s something in her place that would lead us to Abby. We find Abby, maybe we can begin to piece everything together.”

  “Like I said, are you sure you want to do that?”

  “Do I have a choice? If Roffman is up to something, I need to know what it is.”

  “I don’t think you’re seeing where this might be going, Tommy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think your eagerness to find Abby has you blinded to something.”

  “To what?”

  “Roffman has a weakness for adoring young women. You know that.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “Someone taught Abby how to hide her tracks. Maybe it was someone who had something to gain from her knowing how to hide her tracks.”

  Miller looked at her for a moment. “You think Abby and Roffman are involved?”

  “It would explain Spadaro knowing what he knows about her. About someone who’s obviously so determined to be make herself hard to find. If he’s been following Roffman in his spare time, keeping tabs on him, and if Roffman and Abby were having a secret affair, then that would explain Spadaro knowing what he knows.”

  “But I thought Abby was with Michaels, according to Spadaro?”

  “A small-time criminal. A dumb kid, by all accounts. Not exactly the father figure type she’s been hooking up with since you guys split.”

  Miller could think of nothing to say, nothing to do. He just stood there, stunned into dumbness. His heart, so active a moment ago, felt like a dead weight in his chest.

  “What were the odds, you know?” Barton said after a moment. “My ex and your ex ending up together. Who could have done that math?”

  “I just don’t see it, Kay,” Miller murmured. It took all the air in his lungs just to get those six words out.

  Barton took a step toward him, entering the large living room. “Let me ask you a question,” she said. “Those four-year-old business cards of yours, did you ever give one to Abby? Did she maybe take one with her when she left?”

  Again, Miller could say nothing.

  “Maybe I’m all wrong,” Barton offered. “Maybe your Abby has nothing to do with Roffman. I just thought you needed to know what I was thinking. I just needed you to know going in that you might not be happy with what we find out.”

  “It’s not about being happy, Kay.”

  Barton nodded. “Love rarely is, it seems. That’s why I get my love in pill form these days.”

  Miller looked at her then. He’d known
her longer than anyone—anyone who was still around, still alive. So many people gone, so many people dead. The last two souls on a dwindling frontier, the two of them, in an abandoned place. It was, this he had to admit, both a good and a bad thing. She’d seen him at his worst, as a troubled young man, then had seen him at his best, a man taking on the troubles of others, trying to help, trying to do good, to make up. He was neither person now, and here was Barton, witnessing that, too. Was this the reason for his part in letting their friendship ebb? Was it as simple as him seeing her see him and somehow being defined by that?

  It was easier to be no one in the presence of no one.

  In her oversized military surplus parka, Barton seemed to Miller, despite the fact that she was older than he, like some kid lost in hand-me-downs. She’d shed so much weight since quitting the force, not that she’d had any to spare. With it, certainly, had gone much of her strength, her power. Once, surprisingly strong, wiry. Now, thin, on the verge of frail. Was this what she had been trying to hide from? Trying not to face it by not facing him, seeing him see her, a woman faded into uselessness?

  “I need this,” Miller said. “If I hadn’t . . . abandoned Abby, she wouldn’t be where she is now.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “No, I do. Please, Kay. We have to assume we don’t have long before the cops find out that the victims had girlfriends. If we’re going to do this, we need to do this now.”

  “It means breaking the law, you know that, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought you didn’t do that.”

  “It wasn’t ever about Abby before.”

  Barton looked at him, thought about that. She never would have thought that either of their lives could come to this—she a clerk at a liquor store, he a landlord, both of them popping pills, one to feel nothing, the other, something. Who were they in the scheme of things? What would it matter to anyone if either or both of them just ceased to be?

  “You maybe have amnesty, but I don’t,” Barton said. “If we get caught, I’m going to jail. Considering my relationship with everyone in the department, I’d rather that didn’t happen. I’d rather not have to stand there at their mercy with my hands cuffed behind me.”

  “Then let’s make sure we don’t get caught.”

  She looked at him once more, this time through squinted eyes. Doubtful but, too, a little curious.

  “And how exactly are we going to do that?”

  “Let me show you,” Miller said.

  He told Barton to leave her parka because she was known by it, had been seen wearing it by a lot of people in town for a long time. From his bedroom closet he removed a black leather jacket, a gift from him to Abby that she had left behind the night she took off. His reason for hanging on to it was, of course, obvious. Barton put the jacket on; it fit as though it had been cut especially for her. For himself Miller grabbed a dark raincoat that he had found in the thrift shop in town and hadn’t worn in years, and an insulated vest to wear beneath it. From a footlocker at the bottom of the closet he dug out two pairs of rubber galoshes and two dark baseball hats. Barton could see that there were several more pairs of galoshes inside the footlocker. Miller grabbed two pairs of cotton work gloves, then one final item before closing and locking the locker. As they left his bedroom, Barton glimpsed the unknown item just before Miller slipped it into the pocket of his raincoat. It was a Brockhage pick gun, a device locksmiths used to pick tumbler locks quickly.

  In his kitchen, from a cabinet beneath a counter, he removed a box containing a large salad bowl. He took the bowl from the box, then carried the empty box into his living room, got a roll of bright red Christmas wrapping paper from the closet there and proceeded to wrap the box with it. Barton watched him, saying nothing. When he was done, they left his apartment together, Miller carrying the wrapped-up empty box with him.

  The address provided by Spadaro was a cottage near Conscience Point, out in North Sea. Barton insisted that she do the driving, but Miller would agree to that only if they took his pickup. That made sense, considering Roffman’s promise to Miller that his men would be looking the other way for the next day. He wasn’t likely to be pressed to explain the presence of his vehicle anywhere, and even if he were, he was Tommy Miller, known for showing up in places he shouldn’t.

  On the way to North Sea, passing through patches of dense fog, neither Barton nor Miller spoke. Quiet, each lost in their thoughts for minutes at a time, just as Miller’s pickup was now and then lost to the curtain of grainy white that crossed in front of them, surrounded them. Barton had never been on this side of an investigation before—Miller’s side—and so she had no idea at all what the next hour might bring. As a cop she had been bound by laws and rules, remained bound by them even when she began to realize that many of the men around her weren’t. Not that she was an angel, of course—her affair with Roffman was wrong, there was just no way around that, and every now and then, when he needed them for a case he was working on, she provided Miller with copies of police reports, coroner reports, crime scene reports. Still, those infractions aside—in the name of love, she told herself, always in the name of love—she had never strayed far from the pledge she had taken the day she was given her badge. Tonight was, then, new for her. Heading to a private residence to break in before the authorities arrived. A step into a foreign world. It was, of course, new for Miller, too. Back when he had a license to protect, he had been bound by a strict code of conduct, a code he had set for himself and clung to like a zealot to holy doctrine. Unwaveringly righteous, that was his way, though she had always forgiven him for that, had always understood that this was who he was, who he had to be. But now that he was no longer a private investigator with a license to protect, and she was no longer a cop bound by a pledge, just how far over the line would they be willing to go? Was this breaking and entering an exception out of necessity, or was it merely the start of something more?

  But as concerned about all that as Barton was, what occupied her thoughts most as they neared Conscience Point was the question of how much to heart Miller would take the notion of amnesty. Knowing him as she did, if she had ever wanted to set him up for some kind of fall, freeing him from the consequences of his actions and dangling the woman who haunts his dreams in front of him would certainly be one way to go. How much, Barton wondered, did Roffman know about Miller? How much had she herself told Roffman during the course of their affair?

  Romano’s girlfriend’s place was a small single-story cottage set on a narrow lot in a neighborhood crowded with small single-story cottages set on narrow lots. As was the case with many of the areas on the outskirts of town, there were no streetlights lining this road. As they approached the cottage Barton slowed, but Miller told her to continue past and park several houses down. Once she did, they slipped their galoshes on over their shoes, put on their baseball hats, bills low, and the cotton work gloves. Miller then handed the empty box to Barton. She now understood what it was for—to any one of the neighbors who may have been looking, she and Miller would appear as nothing more than a couple bearing a gift, arriving for some late-night party. Barton felt an odd exhilaration, a rush she could only describe as a mix of appreciation and pride. As minor a detail as the present might be, the guy knew his stuff, that much was certain. She stepped out of Miller’s truck and, shoulder to shoulder, they made their way casually toward the cottage. Halfway there, to complete the illusion, Miller reached down and took Barton’s hand, held it as they walked the rest of the way. This was the first touch Barton had felt in a long, long time. She barely even felt her own touch these days, thanks to the Lexapro. The urge to come came infrequently, and when it did, the result was hard-sought and less than earthshaking. Miller’s hand, though, was warm, his grip strong. A male’s touch. It seemed both familiar and alien. Still, this intimacy, however much for show it was, was enough to send a chill through her, to cause goose bumps to rise along her thin arms. Her reaction—a sudden break in a dul
l but real tranquility, the kind of tranquility only a state-of-the-art drug can provide—caught her a little off guard.

  There was a light on inside the cottage, somewhere toward the back of it, Barton could see that. They followed the brief sidewalk and climbed the three steps up to the porch, approaching the door. Barton wasn’t sure what exactly would happen next. Would Miller knock while they stood like a couple on the porch? What would they do if the door was answered? And if it wasn’t answered, how long would he wait before he picked the lock?

  In the end, none of these questions mattered. The front door was closed, but not all the way, not to the point where the catch had slipped into the notch. Lightly, Miller pushed on the door with the knuckle of his middle finger. That was enough to send the door back an inch or so. He waited a second, listening, then pushed the door again, this time with all five tips of his gloved fingers. The door swung open a few feet, enough for them to glimpse inside.

  It was as if a violent storm had moved through the interior of the cottage. Everything that Barton and Miller could see had been turned upside down, maybe even more than once. It was nothing short of chaos.

  Miller slipped inside, Barton following closely. Her heart was racing. Miller remained just a few feet from the door for a moment, was once again listening. Barton listened, too. The only light on was in the kitchen, at the back of the cottage. It spilled down the narrow hallway and into this front room.

  “Stay here,” Miller said quietly. He walked across the living room, stepping over a coffee table that had been turned onto its side, making his way around a couch that looked as if it had been dropped from a height. He paused at this end of the hallway, listened again, then started down, stopping halfway to look in the bathroom to his left. After a moment he continued past it, looked into the lighted kitchen, then came back down the hallway, returning to the living room. He walked to the entrances to the two bedrooms, looked inside each. Finally, he looked back at Barton, nodded an all clear. She stepped away from the door, looking down at the wreckage at her feet.