Greenwich (21 page)

“Yes, ma'am.”

“I asked Donna to find Josie and she looked through the house. She thought Richard had gone to get Dickie.” She paused. “You're a policeman, so you know about Dickie. He's Richard's son,” she said, still with each sentence broken.

“I do. Take a deep breath and just tell me what happened.”

“I'm trying.”

MacGregor nodded. He waited without pressing her.

“I said she might be in his pool-house office. Donna went out to look and I heard her screaming. Then I ran out to the pool house. At first she wouldn't let me in, she's so good to me, like I was her momma. I pushed past her—” She began to cry again, her body wracked with sobs. MacGregor handed her a tissue and waited.

“Richard's dead.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Is Josie dead?”

“Yes.”

MacGregor sat and waited until the sobbing stopped. “I must ask you some questions, Mrs. Castle.”

“Richard was so good to me.”

MacGregor hated to get emotionally involved in a situation like this. It clouded his judgment. “Do you know a man called Larry?”

She looked at him blankly, saying nothing.

“I repeat, do you know a man called Larry?”

“Larry?”

“Yes.”

She wiped her eyes. MacGregor offered her the cup of coffee, and she took a sip, spilling some of it on her shirt. MacGregor handed her more tissues and took the cup from her shaking hand. “Yes, he comes here. Sometimes for dinner. Sometimes he comes to talk to Richard and they stay in the study.”

“What's his last name?”

She shook her head. “I don't know.”

“But if he comes to dinner, you must know.”

“Richard called him Larry. That's all. Richard once called him names.”

“What names?”

“It was the only time he ever spoke to me about Larry.”

MacGregor realized it was the first time she was away from the present moment, and he took advantage of it. “Tell me his exact words, please.”

“Do you think he killed Richard?”

“I want to hear the exact words your husband spoke to you.”

“Well, something like this: Would you believe that fuckin' son of a bitch was in Congress; no wonder we're in such deep shit. Then Richard told me never to repeat what he said. Now I've broken my promise. I don't talk like that … Richard wasn't really talking to me—he was just so angry.”

“You helped Richard,” MacGregor assured her. “Now, are you absolutely sure he said Congress, not something that sounded like Congress?”

“Yes, Congress. I know what Congress is.”

“Where is Richard's study?”

“There,” she said, pointing to a door at the end of the room.

“I'd like to look around the study. I don't have a warrant, so I need your permission.”

“Will it help?”

“I think so. I also think you should go upstairs to bed, Mrs. Castle. Very soon, there'll be TV crews up here and reporters and a lot of nosy people. We have a policeman and a police car outside, and Detective Seeber will stay here and keep people out, unless you want a doctor or a friend or relative to be with you?”

“I have no relatives,” Sally began, and she was going to add to that, no friends she could call, when she remembered Sister Pat Brody. “Sister Pat Brody at St. Matthew's. If you can reach her, she might come, and maybe you could ask them to let my stepson, Dickie, come home.”

Thirty-seven

A
t about the same time, on this Saturday morning in Greenwich, Ruth and Harold Sellig were at the undertaker's, looking at the face of Dr. Seth Ferguson. Since several parts of his body had been taken from him to help whoever they might help, only his face was visible, and after a minute or so, Ruth turned away. Then they closed the coffin.

“I hate the way we deal with death,” she said to Harold.

“Seth isn't here.”

“Where is he?”

“That's the big unanswered question, isn't it? You go to sleep, where are you?”

“In my bed, Hal. Don't try to comfort me. Dad is gone.”

“Are you sure you want to go through with the cremation?”

“That's what he wanted,” Ruth said. “We have no choice.”

“He loved your mother. He never looked at another woman.”

“Of course he did.”

“Well, you know what I mean. Sure, women loved him; everyone did. It doesn't mean we can't bury the ashes next to your mother.”

“Hal, how long since you went to your parents' graves?”

“Years.”

“I went to my mother's grave once. I went alone. Dad shrugged it off. She's not there, he said. He didn't want to contemplate what the worms left.”

“Odd. You know, he wouldn't bait his hook. I had to do it. That's an odd position for a doctor to take.”

“He wasn't just a doctor. He was—,” Ruth began, but Harold continued.

“He was what a man should be. Unlike you, I've had an intimate acquaintance with death. I saw the body bags in Vietnam lined up as far as you could see.”

“Is that supposed to comfort me?”

They were in their car now, and Harold turned to his wife and asked where she wanted to go.

“Could we take out the boat and sail for a while, Hal? I know that's a strange thing to ask. But he loved the boat. He said to me once that he was happy I had married a man of skills, and I asked him what skills he meant, when I always had to help you put a ribbon in your typewriter; and he said to me, He sails a catboat properly. That's a virtuous skill.”

“Really? Did he say that?”

“He did.”

They had never joined any of the several yacht clubs that lined the Long Island Sound shore of Greenwich. They kept their boat during the winter in the semipublic anchorage at Tod's Point. Summertime, it was anchored offshore at their house, where they had riparian rights. They changed clothes at home, rowed out to their anchorage, climbed into the catboat, and hooked their tiny rowboat onto the buoy. It was almost noon now, and a soft breeze rippled the glowing surface of the sound.

Harold raised the sail, asking whether there was any special place Ruth wanted to go, to which she replied, “Nowhere and everywhere. Just sail.”

She had taken her place at the tiller, and he stretched out on the seat, facing her. “By the way,” he said, “there was an E-mail for us. The monsignor at the church is going to talk about Seth tomorrow morning. We're invited. Eleven o'clock.”

“What church?”

“Saint Matthew's.”

“I've never been to a Catholic service. Do you want to go?”

“Whatever you want,” Harold assured her.

“Have you ever been?”

“Oh, sure. On the carrier we had a priest and services. We also had a minister and a rabbi. Also onshore. With that much killing around, they wanted to make sure the kids had safe subsequent passage, and don't forget, I was writing a history.”

“Which was never published.”

“It will be. Right now, it belongs to the navy. I'm suing them for the rights.”

“That'll be the day.”

“The question is, do you want to go?”

“How do you suppose they know that Dad died?”

“There's a priest at the hospital.”

“All right,” Ruth said, “I'm in your boat. This is the first moment of peace I have had since Dad died. I don't want to say that I won't go to a Catholic church to hear what a priest says about my father. That would be bigotry. So if you want to go, I'll go with you.”

“I do want to go. I had dinner with this priest last night, and the conversation turned to my Greenwich manuscript. The priest hedged his opinion, and a fat little nun there, Sister Brody by name, pushed him about it.”

“What did they say?” Ruth asked.

“Oh, I can't really recall all of it, except that he hedged his approval—which was there, nevertheless—but the nun didn't. I haven't asked you, but what changed your mind about the manuscript?”

“I'm not sure I know. Sitting there in the waiting room last night, it was different. Everything was different. You think about what you would do or be if someone close to you, someone you love and depend on, were to die. I think about you in Vietnam, and what my life would be if you didn't come back.”

“You wouldn't be awakened by my screams in a nightmare.”

“I don't mind being awakened. I can hold you in my arms. It's like holding Oscar in my arms when he was a little boy.”

“Yes,” he agreed sourly. “You're a good soul, Ruthie. All you photographers think you have to be tough as nails, but you're a sweetheart. I'll try to stop dreaming.”

“You can't stop dreaming. But in that waiting room, I had a premonition about Dad! When they took him back to the operating room, I knew it was over. I prayed that it wasn't, but I knew—and I felt perhaps a little bit of what was all around you in Vietnam. Don't Jews believe in an Angel of Death?”

“An Angel of Death, the
Malakh ha-Mavet.
I remember my father speaking about it, and I asked him what kind of an angel represents death, and how can he be an angel?”

“And what did he say, Hal?”

“What he always said about such questions, that someday I'll learn.”

“Did you learn?”

“Maybe, maybe not. You know, it's a funny thing, Ruthie, here we are, a Jew and a Presbyterian, and neither of us believes in God, and sometimes in Vietnam I wished there was a God, so I could cuss him out and express my hatred of him and every one of his stinking religions, and here we are talking about souls and angels. You know—you know something?—Seth had all our doubts, and when I said the same thing to him, he said to me, Why, Hal? God didn't make Vietnam. That was Kennedy and Johnson and Nixon.”

“It was, wasn't it?” Ruth said.

“I guess so.”

“We're almost at Long Island. We should tack. Watch the sail.”

Thirty-eight

T
he cop unlocked the door of the holding cell and said to Dickie, “Come on. You're going home.”

“To what do I owe this act of mercy? Did Dad bail me out?”

“Mr. Manelli dropped the charges.”

“About time. I didn't hurt that kid. I didn't do anything to her.”

“No perp does.”

“How do I get home?” Dickie wanted to know. “Do I walk?”

“No, I'll drive you home.”

It wasn't until they were in the police car on their way, that the cop told Dickie. “Your father's dead, Dickie.”

“My dad's dead? What is this—some kind of dumb joke?”

“He was murdered this morning.”

“What! You're crazy. Who'd murder my dad?”

“That's all I know, Dickie, and I can't talk about it. Captain MacGregor's at your home. He'll tell you what you need to know.”

“What about Sally?”

“Who's Sally?”

“My dad's wife.”

“All I know,” the cop said, “is that your dad was shot and that a maid, name of Josie, was shot, both dead. I'm sorry for you, because I know this is a terrible blow, but it's just all I know. So you'll have to wait until I get you home. I wish I could tell you more. But there's a lock on it.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that nobody at the police station can talk about it.”

Dickie did not weep. Whatever feeling he had for his father, it was overwhelmed by release. Now he was free. He knew his father was a very rich man, and while he had provoked his dad on various occasions, Castle had never threatened to cut him out of his will. He rubbed his eyes and bent his head. He didn't want the cop to report that he had no feelings at all, surprised himself at how little grief he had. He had spent much of the night in the holding cell thinking of how little concern his dad had for him. Well, his dad was gone, and it was none of his doing. It never occurred to him that he was a psychopath, because he hadn't the slightest notion of what a psychopath was, or that he felt no guilt or was incapable of feeling guilt. He had often wished his father dead, and here it had happened. It wasn't, he thought, like his father dying of a heart attack. They'd blame him for that. They always blamed him. The only problem was that bitch, Sally. Why wasn't she included? Suppose his dad had left everything to her? That thought disturbed him.

Meanwhile, sliding over the mysterious paths that information takes, news had spread, and as both noon and the car carrying Dickie approached, two TV trucks and assorted newspaper reporters and curious onlookers had gathered, full of frustration, at the entrance to the Castle driveway. An enterprising reporter had even climbed the stone wall that stretched away on either side of the driveway and had approached the door of the house, only to be hustled back to the gates by Detective Seeber.

There was good reason for these tight precautions. Sitting in Castle's study at his burnished mahogany desk, MacGregor had picked up Castle's telephone and asked the operator to connect him with the chief of the New York City office of the FBI. After claiming police privilege to several connections and several phone patches, he found himself talking to Agent Frederick Gunhill.

MacGregor identified himself, specifying his long background with New York P.D. as a homicide detective, and after MacGregor gave his social security number, date of birth, and his mother's maiden name, Gunhill was ready to listen.

“Here's what we have,” MacGregor said. “This morning, about eight-fifteen or so, two people were shot to death on the estate of Richard Bush Castle, here in Greenwich, Connecticut. One of them was Castle himself, and the other was a housemaid, name of Josie Brown. I arrived at the scene of the crime an hour and a half ago. I made a first cursory examination of the scene, spoke to a second woman employed here as a maid, and then to Sally Castle, wife of the deceased. Meanwhile, going through Castle's date book, I found a notation for this morning. The name Larry, no surname, along with two-five-zero M. As I understand, M for thousands.”