The Beach House

by James Patterson

  Despite two months of disuse, it started right up. I let it clear its throat, then tooled over to the FDR and left the city. I kept seeing Sammy falling and falling as if he had been up in the air for minutes. The image wouldn't go away. Ever.

  I stopped along the way to call lsabel Giamalva. I told her I might stop by, and Isabel said, "Sure, it's been too long, Jack." Three hours later I was knocking on the door of her modest ranch house, a block and a half off Montauk's Main Street. Sammy's mother was still wearing her black slacks and jacket from her waitressing shift at Gordon's in Amagansett. I tried to pretend it was just a social call, but I was having trouble fooling myself.

  "How were tips?" I asked, and forced myself to look Isabel in the eye.

  "Eh, you know," she said. Isabel was dark haired, petite, small and round in an attractive way. She'd always been good to us — Peter, Sammy, me.

  "People start arriving earlier every year. Except for the pashmina shawls, it could have been a Saturday in August. So who's this Pauline that Mack won't stop raving about?"

  "I guess he's counting on another generation of Mullens, although you'd think by now he'd have had enough. I'll bring her by sometime. You'll like her, too."

  "So what's up, Jack?" she finally said.

  I had no intention of telling Isabel what had happened to her son. What was the point? With Sammy's fake ID and a little luck, maybe she'd never have to know. But I told her I was convinced that whoever killed Peter also killed Sammy. I asked if she ever suspected Sammy and Peter of doing anything wrong.

  "I really didn't," said Isabel. "Does that make me a lousy mom? Sammy was working since he was sixteen and was always such a secretive kid. I figured it had something to do with being gay and wanting to spare me the details, not that I needed sparing. He never introduced me to any of his boyfriends, Jack. I still don't know if he even had a serious one."

  "If he did, I never met him, either, Isabel."

  "You're welcome to look around his room," she said, "but there's not much in it."

  She led me to the end of a short hallway and sat on the bed while I scanned the shelves and the black Formica table that ran the width of the room. Sammy hadn't lived at home for years. The only vivid trace he left was a stack of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar magazines. Beyond that were the skimpy remains of an American high-school education: an old French grammar, an algebra text, copies of A Separate Peace and King Lear.

  The other books were photography manuals. Tucked neatly against the wall were books on portraiture, indoor-and outdoor-lighting techniques, the use of telephoto lenses for photographing wildlife.

  "I didn't know Sammy was a photographer," I said.

  "Yeah. No one did," said Isabel. "It was another thing he kept private. But right up until Peter died he'd come out here one or two evenings a month. Work straight through the night."

  "Here? In your house?"

  "He built a darkroom in the basement. Must have been five years ago. I've been meaning to put an ad in the Star and sell the equipment, but I just can't get myself to do it."

  Chapter 71

  THE LIGHT WOULDN'T GO ON. The fuse in the basement had blown. Isabel hadn't gotten around to replacing it. So she gave me an old tin flashlight before I descended the steep wooden stairs. I aimed the feeble beam around the moldy-smelling room. I could see the shadowy outlines of an old oil burner, a pair of ancient wooden water skis, and a folded-up Ping-Pong table.

  In the midst of these garage-sale remainders, I could make out the darkroom. It ran half the length of one wall and was framed out with two-by-fours and plywood. It was about the size of a large bathroom. A rubber spinning door allowed you to enter and leave without compromising the darkness.

  Inside, I moved the flashlight over the long black matte table. It was covered with gray plastic trays leading to a towering multitiered enlarger.

  Against the wall were jugs of developer and a tall stack of unopened boxes of high-quality printing paper. For some reason, I've hated Kodak since about the time they started doing those warm, smarmy TV ads.

  I sank into the only chair and beamed the flashlight to the wall. It was covered with cheap paneling that had warped from the moisture. Idly running my light along the seam, I could see that the edge on the left was badly worn and jagged. It had probably been pried off and reattached numerous times.

  I slid back the chair and looked under the table. The smell of mold was a lot funkier down there, and the knees of my jeans were soon wet from the shallow puddles.

  Aiming the flashlight with one hand, I tried hard to pry off the paneling with the other. I couldn't get my fingers under the edge.

  In this cramped, unlit space, the slightest maneuvering was awkward. I put the flashlight down and, steadying myself with one hand, reached into my back pocket for my keys.

  I should have just backed out from under the table. As I strained to extricate my keys, a mouse scampered over the back of my hand on the floor. I couldn't even move without falling on my face.

  I managed to pull out the keys and was finally able to pry up the splintered edge enough to get a fingerhold. With a good tug the panel popped off. It exposed a musty space between the footings of the cement foundation.

  I reached into the darkness and my fingers landed on something soft and damp. I pulled my hand away fast. Maybe it was a dead rat, or a squirrel. It grossed me the hell out.

  I aimed the flashlight and could just make out something white. Sucking in a breath, I stuck my hand into the space again.

  This time the sodden object didn't feel like a decaying carcass. It felt more like a soggy cardboard box. I grabbed hold of a corner and carefully pulled it out.

  I carried my treasure with both hands and made my way in the dark to where I knew the table was. It was a Kodak paper box like those against the wall. Slowly lifting off the lid — it was so damp, I was afraid it might fall apart — I put on my flashlight and saw that it was packed to bursting with developed prints.

  On top was a contact sheet crowded with a grid of tiny, seemingly identical images about the size of two postage stamps.

  Running my flashlight over them, I saw that in each frame a naked couple was doing it doggie-style. As the flashlight swept across, my eyes seemed to animate the images until they were rocking against each other like actors in a flickering silent movie.

  I didn't know the red-haired woman on her knees, but I had no trouble recognizing the man behind her on his.

  It was my brother.

  Chapter 72

  I WALKED UP the steep basement stairs like a scared teenager leaving a drugstore with a copy of Penthouse. The pornographic family album was tucked under my arm. Isabel was waiting at the top of the stairs.

  "You all right?" she leaned down and asked. "You look like hell, Jack."

  "It's the chemicals. All I need is a little fresh air." Then I added nonchalantly, "I found some old pictures Sammy took of Peter. I was hoping I could go through them a little more leisurely at home. They stirred up a lot of feelings."

  "Of course, Jack. Keep whatever you like. You don't have to return any of it. But I am going to hold you to your promise of introducing me to Pauline."

  Even before I got out the front door, I was jumping out of my skin. I felt hopped-up and weirded-out. But mostly, I was scared.

  I thought about the break-in last summer at our house. I figured that whoever had caught up with Sammy was looking for the pictures. And they were prepared to torture and kill to get them. I carefully put the pictures into the bag strapped to the bike's fuel tank. Isabel watched me from the kitchen window.

  I raced the quarter mile into town and called Pauline from the first pay phone I saw. "Pauline, don't go back to the apartment," I said. "Go to your sister's. Anywhere. Just don't go there!"

  After I hung up, I parked the bike behind the Shagwong and walked the two blocks to the Memory Motel.

  I got a room in the back, double-locked the doors, and pulled the shades. If the guys who killed S
ammy had spotted me, I might not have much time.

  I began emptying the soggy box, one damp print at a time. At the top of the stack were more contact sheets like the one I had looked at in the basement.

  I peeled off at least twenty before I got to the first eight-by-ten print.

  It showed Peter sitting on the edge of a bed, grimacing unself-consciously into the lens. A fortyish woman straddled him like a jockey.

  I began laying out all the prints, one at a time, until every piece of furniture, every square inch of musty broadloom, and every cracked bathroom tile were covered with Sammy and Peter's brilliant career. The glossy prints, still redolent of the development chemicals, captured twosomes, threesomes, foursomes, and one five-some. There was straight sex and gay sex and bi sex.

  Sammy's work was not amateurish. The lighting was good, the focus sharp, and the camera angles explicit. Sammy had a good eye, and my brother was a talented model. After a while I just couldn't look at any more pictures. I called Pauline on her cell phone. I told her what I'd found and where I was.

  At midnight she arrived, and after a long hug, I showed her Sammy and Peter's greatest hits. For a couple of hours, we drank coffee and studied the pictures. When the shock of the content wore off, we realized we had evidence. We really had something here. Like curators preparing an exhibit, we took notes, made lists, and estimated dates.

  Then we rearranged them chronologically. We started with Peter looking no older than fifteen and ended with shots that couldn't have been taken more than a few weeks before he died.

  In those last few shots, he sat in a hot tub with a gray-haired man and a beautiful blond woman who was topless.

  Barry and Dana Neubauer.

  I guess she really was Daddy's little girl. Believe it or not, it wasn't the photo of Dana and her father that did it to me, though. It was Peter at fourteen and fifteen. He was a sophomore in high school when it started.

  That night the rules changed forever. I called Fenton first, then Hank and Marci. Finally, I called Mack.

  In twenty minutes we were all crowded into the same seedy motel room. Before the sun came up, we'd not only vowed to avenge the death of my brother, we had an idea how we might be able to do it.

  Part Five

  THE TRUTH, AND

  NOTHING BUT

  Chapter 73

  FOR THE AVERAGE single-digit Hamptons millionaire, the start of another summer in paradise is marked by gridlock on Ninety-sixth Street, then a slow crawl on Route 27 and an hour's wait for a twenty-five-dollar pizza at Sam's. For those who fly over the traffic in private planes and helicopters, it starts with the party at the Neubauers' Beach House.

  According to friends of Marci's and Hank's who were part of the vast army of suppliers, Barry Neubauer had written his party planner a blank check. With a week to go, she had already dropped a million dollars. Among other niceties, that buys you David Bouley to stir the sauce, Yo-Yo Ma to scrape his Stradivarius, and the inimitable Johan Johan to cut the flowers and fluff up the bouquets. And there's still enough left for champagne served in chilled, ten-ounce crystal stem glasses; a dozen different kinds of oysters; the deejay of the moment, Samantha Ronson; and a wooden dance floor constructed on the back lawn.

  Pauline and I had spent a little cash, too. To find out who was coming this year, Pauline got back in touch with her old hacker pal. He reinvited himself into the party planner's hard drive and plucked out the guest list.

  Placing last year's list and this year's side by side offered a peek into the interaction of celebrities and socialites. Among the anonymous rich who made up the bulk of the guests, virtually everyone was invited back. But among the boldface celebs, the turnover was 100 percent. Last year's hip-hop emcee had been replaced by this year's Oscar winners. Last year's fashion designer was supplanted by a more current fashionista. Even if you were an artiste whose stock had managed to soar for another twelve months, you still weren't coming back. Invite the riffraff two years in a row and they might start to feel as if they actually belonged. They don't. To the seriously wealthy, celebrities are only a notch above the help.

  As far as I was concerned, the only difference between last year and this year that mattered was that my brother, Peter Rabbit, wouldn't be in the front yard parking cars.

  Chapter 74

  BUT FENTON GIDLEY WAS.

  A week before the party, I sat beside Fenton as he called our fellow townie friend Bobby Hatfield. Bobby has held down the Neubauer party parking franchise for years, so when Fenton told him he hadn't snagged a decent swordfish in months and could use the cash, Bobby gladly added him to the crew.

  On that warm but rainy evening at the end of May, Fenton stood alertly beneath the elegant gold-striped awning that had been hastily erected to offer Barry and Campion's guests dry passage from car to door.

  For Fenton, he was highly presentable. He wore his dress shoes, his best pair of jeans, and one of the two shirts he owns with a collar. He was also freshly shaved, showered, and deodorized. He looked so good, I was tempted to take his picture and send it to his mom.

  In addition to guidance on wardrobe and grooming, I'd given Fenton a quick tutorial on kissing up to the rich, something I'm ashamed to admit I'd shown an innate talent for. It's not so much how quickly you jump to open their doors or how competently you perform your lackey tasks, I explained. Generally, the superrich aren't looking for excessive subservience or even gratitude. That's embarrassing to them. "What they want," I told Fenton, "is for you to be excited. They want to see that your little brush with money is turning you on."

  When Gidley checked in punctually with Hatfield at 7:15 P.M., the first thing he did was examine the guest list. He wanted to make sure that it was the same one he'd studied with me and Pauline and that there were no last-minute cancellations.

  At 8:05 the parade of Audis, Beemers, and Benzes started rolling in. Within an hour most of the 190 guests had made their way through the stately oak doors and out to the lovely tented and lantern-lit flagstone terrace.

  There, waiters and waitresses in fuchsia blazers designed by Comme des Garçons dispensed sushi and vintage champagne. With their elongated, surly good looks, they could have been moonlighting runway models.

  Among the first to arrive was Tricia Powell. Since her perjury at the inquest, Trish's career at Mayflower had taken off. She stepped out of a black Mercedes E430 in a little black Armani dress, stared through Gidley as if he were a smudged pane of glass, and walked inside on Manolo mules.

  Neubauer's lawyer and my former mentor, Bill Montrose, was in the second wave. When Montrose's dark green Jaguar rolled to a stop, Gidley wasn't at the head of the line of valets, but he cut to the front.

  After giving Montrose his ticket, he steered the car off the driveway and down a gentle slope to one of the two moonlit clearings designated for parking. He tucked the car safely in the far corner.

  Before he and his fellow valets took a break, Gidley noted the arrival of several men and women from Sammy's pornographic portfolio. He couldn't help thinking that they looked a lot better with their clothes on.

  Chapter 75

  SARAH JESSICA AND MATTHEW were in attendance. So was Bill, who was staying at Steven's place, without Hillary. Richard was there holding his new baby. It looked as if babies were the hot summer accessory again. Allen was there, and so was Kobe, but not Shaq. Caroline, Patricia, and Billy were there, as well as four principals from The Sopranos.

  At about eleven, just as the festivities began to lose a bit of their magic, Bill Montrose tracked down his hosts. One last heartfelt hug (Barry) and affectionate peck (Campion), and he beat his retreat.

  He worked his way through the resplendent crowd to the rear doors of the house. As soon as Montrose stepped outside, Fenton hopped off the black cast-iron bench beside the driveway and unhooked key number 115 from the board.

  Montrose was still fishing for his half of the parking chit as Gidley approached.

  "No worries, sir," he told
him. "Green Jag, right?"

  Montrose winked. "You're good."

  "I try, sir."

  Gidley hustled back to where he'd parked the Jag only hours before. Whistling the old Johnny Carson show theme, he slid behind the walnut wheel and drove it off the lawn to the front of the house.

  "Lovely car," he told Montrose as he climbed out and accepted his five-buck tip. "Have a terrific night."

  Relieved to be out of there at last, Montrose yanked off his Hermès silk tie. He punched in a number on his car phone. After a short delay of gentle ringing, the voice of his assistant, Laura Richardson, poured from the speaker.

  "Who is it?"

  "Laura, it's me," he said. "I'm leaving the Neubauers' right now. Believe me, you didn't miss a fucking thing."

  "Bullshit, Monty. You're a bad liar, especially for a professional. Everybody was there, right?"

  "Well, I did stand next to Morgan Freeman."

  "Don't tell me. He's five-six and smells funny."

  "Six-three and fragrant."

  "Anyone else?"

  "No one you'd know. Listen, Laura, I can't make it tonight."

  "Big surprise, Monty. What now?"

  "In terms of the divorce settlement and the custody and everything, it's going to look real bad if I'm gone this weekend."

  "You mean it's going to look really bad if they find out you've been screwing your black assistant for three years."

  Montrose held back a yawn. "Laura, do we really have to do this now?"

  "Nope," said Richardson. "You're still the boss."

  "Thanks," said Montrose, "because I can't tell you how shot I feel."

  When he heard the click, he slapped the dashboard in a rage. "Don't you dare hang up on me!" he yelled. "I don't need this shit."

  I took that as my cue to pull off the blanket, sit up in the backseat, and press the barrel of a gun to his neck.

  "I guess this isn't your night, Monty," I said when our eyes met in the mirror.