Dead In The Hamptons (18 page)

“They ran a big obit in the
Deeds
.”

“You don’t have to get defensive.”

“I’m not defensive. Do you want to hear this or not?”

Barbara grinned at him. “You’re the one who didn’t answer my question.”

“I’d like to say that we soft-pedaled the sensation of how she died out of respect for a colleague,” Jeff said. “But the truth is, on the East End, south of the highway is news. North of the highway isn’t. At any rate, it has to be spectacular to make the front page of the
Deeds
. From what I’ve heard, they’re treating it as a homicide, but they aren’t a hundred percent sure it was one even now. The autopsy was inconclusive.”

“How do you know? And what do you mean?”

“I told you, I have my sources.” Jeff spooned up ice cream. “She drowned, and they can’t prove she had help.”

“What do you mean about north and south of the highway?”

“South of the highway’s for the rich and the celebrities: what people think of when they hear ‘the Hamptons’.”

“Oh, I see,” Barbara said. “Mansions on the dunes— and high tech beach houses like Oscar’s. North of the highway is regular people, like us. In fact, we’re so far north I never even heard it mattered.”

She opened her mouth to add that south-of-the-highway Oscar and his crowd had treated them like peers. But she stopped herself in time. She didn’t want Jeff wondering how come they were so egalitarian, because the answer lay in the principles of twelve-step programs. Barbara might be guilty of a little boundary crossing now and then, but she knew better than to break her anonymity, or anyone else’s, to a journalist.

“That’s it,” Jeff said. “Something happens north of the highway, it’s just a blip on the hometown radar, like ‘soccer captain breaks a leg’ or ‘local merchant gets DWI.’ Oscar was a player. Real estate is one of the major preoccupations around here, and the environment is another.”

“One of Clea’s old boyfriends told my friend Bruce that she wrote about the environment,” Barbara said.

“She did indeed. Clea was young and ambitious. She wanted to become a world-class investigative journalist.”

“I thought she cared about the environment— the water, the air, the land, the fish, the birds. Wow, when you add it up, it’s amazing how much of that stuff there is out here.”

Jeff threw back his head and guffawed.

“A whole planetful, lady.”

“You know what I meant!” Barbara held her hands up to her hot cheeks, then gave in to his infectious laughter.

“Sure, there’s land and sea and fish,” Jeff said, still smiling. “But not enough, according to the conservationists. Clea did care. Her pieces were good because the issues mattered to her. Oscar wasn’t her only target, you know.”

“Do you think she slept with him to get on the inside track of his development plans? By the way, you never answered my question about you and her.”

“I wouldn’t dare to speculate about why any woman sleeps with any man.” He scraped the last of his ice cream out of the cup. “My hunch? She had more than one agenda.”

“How come you’re not writing anything down?” Barbara asked. “Don’t you use notebooks? So how do you keep track of a conversation like the one we’re having now?”

Jeff sat up straight on the bench. Barbara watched with fascination as he went on alert, the sags and wrinkles smoothing out of his face.

“I use a digital recorder,” he said. “I don’t have it on now because so far, we’ve confined our conversation to what I already know. What made you mention notebooks? Clea used both, did you know that?”

Should she say yes or no? Better not to admit anything. They had to find that notebook.

“You know something,” he said.

Barbara smiled.

“I hardly met Clea before she got killed,” she said. “All I saw her do was eat lobster.” If Bruce and Jimmy refused to search Phil’s room again, she’d do it by herself. She ran her tongue around the perimeter of the cone. The ice cream was beginning to melt. “You said Oscar wasn’t Clea’s only target— you mean when she investigated what developers are doing out here?”

“Ainsworth wasn’t the only prominent developer,” he said. “The rivalry could get pretty fierce. There isn’t an unlimited quantity of open land.”

“That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

“Smart girl,” he said.

“Woman.”

“I’m too old to feel guilty about air bubbles in my political correctness,” he said. “But I tell you what. I’m invited to a big midseason party south of the highway. Want to come along? You can meet some of the rival developers and some of the big-money environmentalists who disagreed with Oscar’s views and disapproved of his influence on the town.”

“I can’t decide which to say first,” Barbara said, “‘I have a boyfriend’ or ‘I have nothing to wear’.”

“You’ve just said ’em both. One of the two gentlemen I met at the house, I assume. The big one or the other one? And if you don’t care what a bunch of rich women who can spot a designer dress without reading the label think, you’ll look fine whatever you wear.”

“The big one is my significant other,” Barbara said, “Jimmy— we’ve been together for a hundred years. The other one, Bruce, is our friend.”

“Bring them along,” he said, throwing out his arm in an expansive gesture.

“I’m a codependent,” Barbara said. “I care what everyone thinks. But I can act as if I don’t for a couple of hours. Would long black polyester and a lot of bling do?”

“Sure. And for the guys, a blue blazer and khaki pants with a decent shirt will pass muster if they’ve got good shoes.”

“Jimmy has the right clothes in the city,” Barbara said. “I don’t know about Bruce, but we’ll think of something. When is it?”

“First week in August. I take it that’s a yes.”

Barbara threw her head back and sucked at the tip of her cone, where the last of the melting ice cream had worn a damp spot rapidly becoming a hole.

“I’m glad you enjoyed your ice cream,” Jeff said. He fished in the hip pocket of his jeans and drew out a slim digital recorder. “Now it’s time for you to tell me all about your experiences finding dead people on the beach. We had a deal.”

“I know,” Barbara said. “Can I have another ice cream?”

“I wish you were coming with us,” I said.

Cindy and I were stocking up on fruits and vegetables at the weekly farmer’s market.

“I’m not the dress-up type.” She was wearing “Beach Blanket Babe” again today.

“Neither am I,” I said. “I’ve been told I don’t have any choice. Are you the dancing type?”

“Not for years. I can just about remember when disco died. Since then, I’ve had other things to do.”

“Like what?” I picked up a giant melon, its rough beige hide warm between my hands, and pressed my thumbs down on its belly button, the way Barbara had ordered me to. It gave a little, a slight springiness, the way she’d said it should. “Look at the size of this cantaloupe.”

“It’s a muskmelon.” She pointed to a hand-lettered sign perched on top of the pyramid of melons. “What are you doing? Feeling it up?”

“Seeing if it’s ripe.”

“That’s not how you tell. Let me smell it.”

She bent her head and sniffed, sticking her nose between my thumbs. Her honey-colored hair, swinging free of its usual pigtails, tickled my wrists and fingers.

“Mmm. Smells ripe to me.”

“Here, hold it a second,” I said.

She held up her hands and I dropped the melon into her palms. That freed my hands. Before she could straighten up, I took her head between my hands. I bounced my thumbs against the spot where she’d have had a round depression if she’d grown on a vine on the end of a stem. Bending close, I breathed in deeply.

“Mmm. Smells like seaweed.”

“I’m a mermaid in disguise. I should get a sweatshirt that says, ‘My other legs are a scaly tail’.”

Impulsively, I planted a kiss on the top of her head. We both jerked back, surprised.

“How many corns do you think we need?” she asked, backing up until she ran into a rustic cart piled high with tasseled ears. Not exactly a smooth segue.

“Barbara said this reporter guy told her there’d be a big spread at the party,” I said, “so don’t count on us for dinner.”

“You’ll miss Mrs. Dowling’s blueberry pies,” she said, pointing to the stand where the farmer’s wife was doing a land office business in baked goods and bunches of flowers.

“I’m tied to the mast with cotton in my ears,” I said with regret. “Barbara won’t go without Jimmy, and Jimmy won’t go without me.”

“What makes me think it goes like that a lot with you guys?”

“Your exceptional insight and perceptiveness.” I trotted after her as she piled local tomatoes, eggplant, and peaches in a giant basket.

“Here.” She thrust a bag of corn at me. “I think that’s it. Come stand on line with me. Tell me what’s so important about this shindig.”

“Barbara’s already swatted me over the head with a newspaper for suggesting she’s in it for the caviar and lobster salad. Jeff Bushwick, the reporter guy, said he’d introduce her to all the real estate honchos and save-the-seafood activists who might have had it in for Oscar.”

“You are amateur-sleuthing, aren’t you?” she marveled. “Why don’t you leave it to the professionals?”

“I wish we could. But they don’t seem to be getting anywhere. The people we’ll meet tonight have motives that could take the pressure off us.”

“You don’t think the cops have already thought of that? Anyhow, a murder investigation isn’t all about motive.”

“Well, that’s the part where we might have an edge. That and alibis. Besides—”

I stopped short, not sure how much I should confide in her.

“Besides, what? Don’t stop now,” she said.

Those last three words rang sweetly in my ears. I cut short the erotic fantasy that sprang to mind. Did I trust her enough to tell her about the notebook? Better not.

“Nothing. Never mind.”

“Come on, Bruce, what?” She heaved the basket of fruit and vegetables onto the counter. “You do know it’s a crime to withhold evidence in a homicide?”

“I don’t have any evidence. I swear. And before you ask, neither do Jimmy and Barbara.”

“Should I believe you?” She pulled a bunch of bills out of her wallet and forked them over. “And two blueberry pies.”

“Yes. Scout’s honor.” I hoisted two heavy shopping bags off the counter. “Are you mad at me?”

“I don’t want to see you get in trouble,” she said.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t meet me a few years ago,” I said. “I did nothing but get in trouble.”

She laughed.

“A few years ago, I’d have been getting in trouble right along with you. I’d have
been
the trouble.” She handed me another filled shopping bag. “Make that three blueberry pies.” To me, she said, “There’s bound to be some left. You might get hungry in the middle of the night.”

The party was okay. It would have been more fun if Cindy had been there. Besides Barbara, the only other girl I knew there was one I had to stay away from: Veuve Clicquot. The Merry Widow had married a guy named Ponsardin since the first time I kissed her, but she could still take my breath away. Too bad my sobriety would go with it. So no champagne. I ate a lot of lobster salad to make it up to myself.

Many ritzy parties in the Hamptons were benefits for one thing or another, charities or political candidates, but this wasn’t. I guess that’s why Jeff Bushwick was able to bring three guests. Tickets for the charity bashes cost hundreds or even thousands. The purely social nature of the event also explained how come environmentalists and developers were rubbing shoulders, if not toasting each other with champagne. Bushwick admitted he was covering the party for his paper, but I think he was also an old flame of the hostess, a three-chinned lady dripping in diamonds that were definitely not cubic zirconia. I saw her flirting and him playing up to her a couple of times. Apart from that, he worked the room like the pro he was. Much of the time, he steered Barbara by the elbow, introducing her to the fat cats and ecomaniacs with motives for killing Oscar. Maybe Clea too, depending on what she’d written or could have written about them. Jimmy and I were on our own.

The band wore tuxes and played a mix of ballroom and get-down music, or at least a dignified facsimile. I waltzed with our hostess, mostly to get a better look at those diamonds. Their fire nearly burned my eyeballs out. I guess high quality gems are like single-malt Scotch or Napoleon brandy. You can’t mistake the real thing. I tried not to stare. I didn’t want her to think I was casing the joint or getting fresh. To tell the truth, I was surprised she agreed to dance with me. But I’m relatively young and not so bad looking. Half the men there were geezers with style that said old money and broken-veined red faces that said, “Hi, I’m an alcoholic.” And I know how to waltz. A girl down in the Village taught me when I was seventeen, young enough so the lessons weren’t what Barbara called state dependent. In other words, I didn’t have to be drunk to remember how. The girl was a runaway debutante with a trust fund who played at being a hippie like Marie Antoinette pretending to be a milkmaid. She’d said knowing how to waltz would give me a big edge with women in the right circumstances.

Jimmy didn’t dance. When I got twirled away from him, he gravitated toward the food tables along the walls. The catering was extreme: guys in chef hats carving giant hams and loins of beef to order. Fifteen minutes later, I spotted him talking with a knot of men, the group farthest from the bar. Jimmy has had a lot of practice avoiding active drunks. I could see him talk as well as listen. Very animated, using his hands, a trick he’d picked up from Barbara. Traditionally, meaning before
Riverdance
, the Irish kept their hands down at their sides even when they danced. The guys he’d clicked with were probably computer people, maybe investors. Jimmy could hold his own in that company. He fit in.

After my courtesy waltz, I ate some more and then insinuated myself into a group of skinny young blondes from Southampton, dancing with one after another when the music changed to something the kids could dance to. They all had tans I bet didn’t stop at their underpants and did their best to shake themselves out of their very short, very low-cut dresses. By the time the last of them had danced herself out and headed for the bar with a flick of her fanny, I had sweat rolling down my face. I wondered if I’d get thrown out for hauling out a red bandanna. Before I could risk such a faux pas, Barbara arrived at my side. She handed me a white linen napkin.