Death Hampton Page 2
Jericho was having fun. He knew the guy couldn’t really follow his words, but he sure as hell knew Jericho had busted him.
“The only thing we need to find now,” Jericho went on, “is the tool you used to break in through the window. Golly, this is sounding like CSI East Hampton.”
Coach Conforti tried a smile but it turned into a grimace.
“Now let’s see —” Jericho said, looking around. He noticed a rack with about twenty baseball bats. He walked over to them.
“I’m sure one of these bats will have some glass shards or splinters in it. Are you gonna make me examine each one? Why not make it easier on both of us and show me which bat you used?”
The coach’s face was covered with sweat. His mouth moved a few times before he got any words out.
“Please, please, Officer,” he said. “Gimme a break, huh? I... I got a family. Two kids...”
“Why’d you do it, Virgil?”
In a shaky voice, the coach explained. Fundamentals, he said, are the key to winning football games. You can’t teach fundamentals without proper equipment, and his gear was ready for the junk heap. He’d requested new stuff, but the East Hampton Town Board turned him down, citing budgetary constraints.
Then it turned out the high school’s soccer team, tennis team, even the goddamn girl’s fencing team had gotten brand new equipment.
“They’re always dumpin’ on football,” Conforti complained, “‘cause these two wimpy ladies on the Board disapprove of contact sports. That’s bullshit. Football is the all-American game.”
“Then I came up with this plan,” he said. “I figured the insurance company would pay for replacing the dummies and sled pads, and at least my guys would have a fighting chance. All I wanted to do was level the playing field.”
Jericho listened sympathetically. He had played tight end for Central High in Maspeth, Queens (at age seventeen he already had the size and speed: 6-2, 230, 4.8) so he understood the passion of a football coach.
After hearing Virgil’s pleas, Jericho didn’t have the heart to bust the poor bastard. But he couldn’t let him get off scot-free.
“I understand your motive, Coach,” he said sternly, “but you broke the law. We can’t have that, can we?”
“I... guess not.”
“How much did you think the insurance company would pay?”
“I dunno. I guess the replacement value of whatever got busted.”
“Which is?”
“Well... let’s see. Three dummies—say four hundred bucks. A four man blocking sled—about a thousand.”
“Okay, let’s say fifteen hundred, including the window.”
Virgil nodded.
“Tell ya what,” Jericho said. “I’ll let you off on one condition. You make a contribution of five hundred dollars to my favorite charity.”
Jericho smiled at the coach, who saw he was being solicited for a bribe.
“And that would be...” Virgil said knowingly.
“Doctors Without Borders,“ Jericho said. ”They’re MDs who’ll go anywhere in the world to help poor people who need care. They won the Nobel Peace Prize a few years back.”
“Oh. Oh, sure.”
“Send them a check for five hundred. They’re located in Manhattan, look them up online. When the canceled check comes back, bring it to me at the station house. I’m Detective Jericho, like in the Battle. Got it?”
Coach Conforti nodded gratefully. “Yes. Detective Jericho. Geez, I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You better not mess up. I see that check next month or you’ll be dropping the soap at Riker’s.”
“You have my word.”
“From now on, Coach,” he said as he walked to the door, “Better stick to blocking and tackling. Breaking and entering just ain’t your thing.”
CHAPTER 4
Susannah was reading the New York Times on the deck when she heard Burt’s feet clumping up the wooden stairway. He appeared, carrying his Polo shirt and fishing gear. He took off his baseball cap, revealing his coal-black, obviously dyed, black hair. He did the coloring job himself with Just For Men gel, out of paranoid vanity, he didn’t even trust a hair stylist to keep his secret.
“Fishing was dreadful,” he complained. “Damn rip tide is so strong even the stripers can’t swim through it. Guy at the tackle shop told me the current is moving at five feet per second when the rip is —”
A chirping version of Beethoven’s Für Elise emanated from his tackle box. He took out his Blackberry.
“Yeah, Quinn,” he growled to his lawyer.
“Jesus, that fucking Landmarks Commission,” Burt shouted. “Look, I can’t come in today, I’ve got a meeting out here at the North Fork Bank. Yeah, refinancing. But I’ll fly in tomorrow. Meet you at the FS bar at five and we’ll figure it out. Right.”
Burt punched the End button on his phone and plopped down in a hammock suspended on a zinc-coated steel frame. He sat there, rocking to and fro.
“We have to talk,” he said firmly.
She didn’t respond.
“About last night.”
She said nothing.
“Susannah, I’m afraid you’re failing badly in your wifely duties. We had an understanding—”
The pent-up anger burst out of her. “Yes, we had an understanding: that I’d give you companionship. You never said anything about your ridiculous sexual games.”
“We’re not having that discussion again. Sexual role playing is common in modern day marriages.”
“Look, I didn’t mind your little playful fantasies at first. I wanted to please you. But that rape thing last night was going way too far.”
“You agreed to it.”
“Reluctantly. And I shouldn’t have,” she said forcefully. “But from now on, Burt, know this: I will no longer take part in your fantasy sex life.”
“Like hell you won’t,” Burt shouted. “I take care of your needs, and you must take care of mine.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to be a slave to your every whim.”
“I don’t like your tone, Sweetie.”
“And I don’t like being degraded by your sick—”
Burt stood up and whacked her across the face. Back handed, hard.
He’d never hit her before.
She stared at her husband. Her fusion of terror, rage, and hatred stunned Susannah. He became once again the Intruder from the night before, a cruel brute against whom she had no defense, only the hope of survival through passivity.
“Now be a good girl and get me a cup of coffee,” he said. “I didn’t sleep well last night—thanks to you—and I’ve got to be alert at my meeting with the bank today.”
Burt stretched out in the hammock and closed his eyes. His large body, now cradled in the nylon hammock cords, swung slowly back and forth. Susannah watched as his hirsute chest and plump belly rose and fell. She let her gaze wander to the bulge of his hateful genitals, then up to his thinning, dyed shoe polish black hair.
“While you’re up, Sweetie” he said without opening his eyes, “toast me a Pop-Tart.”
She gave him a look of fury, turned and went into the house. As the door slammed behind her, it was suddenly clear what she had to do.
CHAPTER 5
The rebuilt 1967 silver Piper Super Cub flashed in the sunlight as it flew eastward at 500 feet over the Montauk town beach at Kirk’s Landing. The single-engine aircraft strained against the banner it was towing, advertising “Kowabunga Disko — Party! Party! Party! North Sea Road, Southampton.” The pilot, Jessie Russell, looked down at the few sunbathers on the beach at the Briney Breezes motel. It was after Labor Day, and the summer crowds were gone.
Jessie’s face was dark and weathered, his hooked nose and prominent cheekbones indicating he was Native American. He was, in fact, a Shinnecock Indian, raised on the poverty-stricken 800-acre reservation near Southampton.
Around Jessie’s neck hung a Nikon F3 camera with a high-powered telephoto lens.
Just ahead was Montauk Point. Atop its rocky hill Jessie had a great view of the chocolate-brown and white lighthouse, jutting up 110 feet into the air. Its dome-shaped top, with a circular platform beneath it, once prompted Jessie’s pal Norm Blechner to say it looked like a phallic symbol. Jessie said it looked more like a pecker.
Jessie switched on his radio and called to the ground station in the hangar at East Hampton Airport, his home base. When he reported his position he did not say MONtauk. He said MonTAUK, accenting the second syllable, the way the people in the Montauk (MonTAUKet) tribe pronounced it. Not that Jessie gave a rat’s ass about Native American culture. It was just how he learned to say it as a kid.
“Beaches are pretty empty, Norm,” he said into the headset mic, “But there’s busloads of tourists at the lighthouse. I figure weekends’ll be good, and if the weather holds, I’ll be towin’ banner till mid-October.” In the off-season Jessie worked part-time as a handy man at the Sea Crest motel, which, as he put it, sucked.
He flicked off the radio, banked right, and swung out over the Atlantic. A wind shear caught the banner and Jessie reflexively eased the yoke back, pitching the little Piper toward the sky. He could feel the pressure on the yoke as the banner sank down, then rose again, flapping in the fluctuating air currents.
About two miles offshore was a flotilla of sport fishing and party boats, with anglers casting their lines into the foamy water, churned by bluefish in a feeding frenzy. The humans were hauling in the bluefish, as the knife-toothed blues were devouring schools of menhaden; above them, the gulls joined in the food chain, gliding and diving, picking up bits of rent herring flesh.
Farther out, Jessie could see the shark charters trailing foul smelling bunker chum in their wakes, trolling for makos, grays, hulking threshers, and even bigger monsters of the deep. Jessie felt a shiver of fear as he pictured the polyurethane model of the 3,427-pound great white hanging from a hook at the Montauk Viking Fleet dock, which shark hunter Frank Mundus had caught with rod and reel. Jessie was phobic about sharks, and the possibility of someday having to ditch in these waters terrified him. That’s why he’d never go up in questionable weather. Never.
He was approaching False Point, so named because before the lighthouse was built sailors approaching from Block Island Sound often mistook it for the larger promontory. Jessie reduced power and descended to 250 feet. Then, after trimming the plane for level flight so his hands would be free, he popped open the cockpit’s side window. He wanted to get a closer look at an isolated beach house that had become an obsession with him this past summer.
It was because of Blondie. There was this blond babe who sometimes sunned herself on the deck. She was built like a brick shithouse, and he was dying to get a muff shot, or at least a tit shot. But so far, no luck. He’d seen her laying out in her birthday suit several times, usually around noon, but always on her stomach. Sure, he could have gotten her ass but that wasn’t his thing; it was tits or muff or nothing. Still, it was just a matter of time. One day he’d fly by and there she’d be, buck naked on her back, with her bare boobs and shaved pubes, and bingo! he’d have his pic.
He removed the lens cap from his 600mm telephoto and peered through the viewfinder. The long lens extended out into the air stream, directing a welcome blast of fresh air into Jessie’s face. Blondie was nowhere to be found.
He did see Rich Fuck, the guy Jessie figured was Blondie’s husband. He was sunning his fat-ass body in a hammock. Sometimes he’d seen Rich Fuck surfcasting nearby. With a fancy beach house, a Lamborghini and Bimmer in the driveway, and a babe like that, he had to be worth mega millions.
One of these days, Jessie swore to himself, he’d get that muff shot of Rich Fuck’s wife, and then maybe he could blackmail the guy, threaten to send Blondie’s picture to Hef or TMZ or Larry Flynt (if there was a little pink in the shot). Wouldn’t that be somethin’?
Jessie’d had that fantasy a lot during the summer. Once he even drove past the beach house to see if there was a name on the mailbox. There was no name, only the initials BLC.
CHAPTER 6
Susannah felt emotionally paralyzed as she drove to Gosden Dock Fish Market. She was certainly in no mood to cook that night, so she got some take-out fish and chips. All afternoon she’d relived Burt’s violent behavior. The slap to her face hadn’t left much of a mark, and she only felt the pain when she touched it. But she kept touching it, as a reminder of how bad her situation had become.
At dinner, Burt was rattling on about his business problems. Susannah knew about his plan to build a luxury apartment building in the Bay Ridge section of the Brooklyn waterfront. She also knew it was opposed by a group of artists who lived in nearby lofts and feared the scheme would lead to gentrification and rent hikes.
When she first heard about it, she voiced sympathy for the artists, but Burt bristled, so she shut up.
Now he was telling her about the six abandoned row houses he’d acquired to complete the land parcel.
“Those dip-shit artists have petitioned the Landmarks Commission to grant the row houses landmark status. Today they got some judge to issue a restraining order till the matter can be adjudicated. You believe that crap?”
Susannah answered with a non sequitur: “I want to talk about what happened this afternoon.”
“I’m discussing my business. I could lose everything. This concerns you as much as— ”
“What concerns me most is that you hit me.”
Her eyes showed a resolve he’d never seen before. She raised her voice. “That’s totally unacceptable.”
Burt hesitated before he responded.
“All right,” he said. “It won’t happen again,”
“You’re damn right it won’t.”
“I promise you. It won’t happen again,” he repeated reassuringly. Then his voice turned harsh with menace. “As long as you do as you’re told.”
My God, she thought, he’s gone off the deep end.
“This isn’t working,” she said.
“Beg pardon?”
She looked at him steadily.
“I’m leaving you, Burt.”
“Don't be silly.
“I can’t live like this any more.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“There’s nothing you can— ”
He cut her off. “I would definitely advise against it.”
“I’m not asking for your advice.”
“You won’t get a penny.”
“I can always wait tables.”
“Your father. He’ll die without my money.”
“He’s on life support. It’ll happen soon anyway.”
Burt moistened his lips and massaged his eyes.
“Let me put it this way,” he said in measured tones. “It would be a mistake for you to leave, because—I’m sure it will bring you bad luck. You know what happened to my first wife.”
“She died of heart disease.”
“Well, yes, in the sense that her heart did stop. But it was actually a karmic thing. As Swami Vivekanda taught: when a bird is alive, it eats ants. When the bird is dead, the ants eat the bird. In other words — what goes around comes around. Carol tried to leave me and her death was the cyclical consequence of her behavior.”
“Oh, come on.”
“No. No. No. No,” Burt said. “Misfortune strikes people when they act dishonorably. Don’t you see? There is a penalty that must be paid. And you can’t avoid paying it. Am I making myself clear?”
Fear grabbed at Susannah.
“Tell me you see the wisdom of my advice,” Burt went on.
She didn’t answer.
“Ah. I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “You’ll leave first chance you get. Go someplace. Just disappear. But it won’t work, Sweetie. You will be found. You can never escape your karma.”
She looked at him in disbelief.
“Anyway,” he went on, “Do you really want to spend the rest of your life on the run, fleeing the inevitable?”
He paused and took a sip of wine.
“Besides,” he said casually, “if you leave, you’ll have to be gravely concerned about your mother, dear Ethel — because then she’ll have to pay for your transgressions. Sins of the daughter, so to speak.”
He got up.
“Clearly the best course of action for you is to stay here, turn over a new leaf and be, simply put, a good wife.”
Susannah looked at him, stunned.
“I’ve got a lot of work to do tonight,” he said. “I’m going to my study now, and then early to bed.”
He crossed to the door and stopped.
“Oh, and I’ll need you to drive me to the airport tomorrow at nine — the Lambo’s transmission is acting up again.”
“I have to work tomorrow,” she said. Her voice sounded strange, robotic.
“You don’t have to be at your class till noon. If we leave at 8:00 you’ll make it back in plenty of time.”
He turned and left the room.
Susannah’s spirits sagged. She’d always considered herself an independent woman. Now she faced a life of servitude, totally dependent on the whims of a man who was a monster. There seemed to be no way out.