Roy looked at her then back at me as we talked.
“I wonder what could mess it up,” I said.
“Roy would have to somehow fall out of favor with the prison authorities.”
“By doing something in here?” I asked.
“Or causing something out there,” said Jackie.
“Or maybe something from the past might re-emerge,” I said. “Maybe just enough to put a crimp in the proceedings.”
If Roy was turning pale you couldn’t tell under the prison pallor. In fact, you couldn’t tell what he was thinking or feeling at all. He just looked at me in silence, crumpling his hat. Then his face lit up with a grotesque simulation of a smile.
“Wouldn’t that just be a kick in the ass, huh Sam? Golly, what a mess that would be.”
I looked over at Jackie. She was the one turning pale.
“But none of that’s going to happen, Roy,” she said, calmly. “So there’s nothing to worry about.”
“I’m not worried,” he said quietly. “I have every confidence in you. Everything will go according to plan.”
“Well, then, that’s that,” he added, his half grin planted back on his face. “Sorry I can’t help with this Milhouser thing. I didn’t know he was a friend of yours,” he said to me. “When they catch the guy who did it, he won’t be coming here. Rap like that is strictly maximum security. You don’t even want to think about that kind of time. I have lots of new friends who’ve been there. And they have friends, too. They’ll be sure to give Robbie’s killer a fine reception.”
Then he stood up abruptly.
“You’ll have to alert the guard I’m ready,” he said. “If I touch that door I’m liable to get a stick up my ass.”
Jackie did as he asked, and he left after a goodbye handshake. His hand was dry as a bone, his grip surprisingly
strong. Roy had apparently been seeing a lot of the gym, probably for the first time in his life.
Jackie was silent as we worked our way back through the security gauntlet on the way to the car. She waited while I let Eddie pee and sniff-search the parking lot. She was staring out the window when we got back.
It wasn’t until we were on the highway that either of us felt like talking.
“Holy crap, Sam,” she said. “What have we wrought?”
It was generous of her to say ‘we’ when I was the one who engineered Roy’s downfall. I was the one who forced him into the fraud rap and spared him prosecution for the murder of a couple little old ladies.
I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t what I found. The fleshy, terrified and remorseful Roy Battiston disappeared into the penal system and was replaced by something else. A vindication of the old canard—that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
Or was that the real Roy Battiston, his outer layer of obsequiousness stripped away with the fat, revealing the true nature beneath?
He knew what we could do to him, and he didn’t care. Or worse, might even welcome it, counting on the collateral damage.
There was no more threatening Roy Battiston. No more leverage.
I recognized what it was. There’s nothing you can do to a man who has nothing to lose.
——
“Somebody named Dan Ned is looking for you,” said Jackie, looking up from her cell phone.
“That’s Dan
and
Ned. Heroes of the DEC.”
“They left a number. Do you want to call?”
“Sure.”
She dialed the number and handed me the phone. Dan picked up.
“This is Sam Acquillo,” I said. “Calling from the Throgs Neck Bridge.”
“Did you know Ned’s a genius?” Dan asked.
“I wouldn’t dispute it.”
“We poked holes in that site all the way from the south gate to the north fence.”
“The one facing the lagoon,” I said.
“Yeah. There’s a stretch of ground that runs between the fence and the water. About thirty feet wide and three hundred feet long, curved like a crescent. It’s so overgrown you’d think it’s at the same elevation, but it’s not. There’re no topographicals on the site map, but on a hunch Ned pulled one off the Web. The crown is about fifteen feet above sea level.”
“No kidding. It must have been a defense against high water, storm surges.”
“Probably, since it’s made out of stone,” said Dan.
“Really.”
“Yeah, but here’s the kicker.”
“It’s hollow.”
“Oh yeah. Honeycombed more like it. We used the radar to find the cavities. We counted three in symmetrical succession running east to west. My guess the pattern holds the whole length of the embankment. It’s old, probably from the earliest days of operation. Ned thinks it supported the docks and served as a holding area for cargo going in and out. That close to the lagoon it would have to be raised. The water table’s barely eight feet down.”
It was getting hard to hear what he was saying with Jackie chirping at me from the other side of the Grand Prix.
“Hold it a second,” I said to Dan.
“What is it?” she asked again.
“They found the cellars at the WB plant.”
“Wow. What’s in them?”
“I bet if I can hear him speak I’ll find that out.”
“So why are you talking to me?” she said.
I went back to Dan.
“So, what’s in them?”
“That’s why I’m calling you. I think you and Ms. Anselma and her attorney ought to be there when we open them up. Call it half courtesy, half cover our asses.”
“Okay. Where are you now?”
“I’m at our office in Stony Brook. We came up here to download our data into the central servers and make some sketch maps out of the radar images. Gives us a rough guide to dig the holes.”
“I’d like to see them.”
“You’re actually not that far away,” he said. “We’ll be here for a while. Come on over.”
He gave me directions to the office, located at the Stony Brook SUNY campus. Jackie reminded me to check in with Ross before nightfall to confirm I was back where I was supposed to be.
“You don’t want to know about the cellars?” I asked.
“I do. Even though it’s none of my business.”
“Okay. We’ll get back in time.”
Ten minutes down the LIE Eddie requested we stop. We got on the service road and found a weedy lot. I kept an eye out for broken glass while Eddie hand-picked the ideal spot. Jackie came along to bug me about Roy Battiston.
“Do you think he really didn’t know Robbie was dead?” she asked.
“If he knew Patrick Getty, he knew for sure. Even if he didn’t, somebody from home would have told him. For all I know he subscribes to
The Southampton Chronicle.”
“Why pretend otherwise?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“So he also has to know you’re the accused.”
“Sure.”
“So if he’s not talking, what did we learn by going up there?” she asked.
All I knew was that Roy had told us a lot, we just didn’t know yet what it was. Jackie hated when I said stuff like that, but it was the truth. It was forcing me to re-examine the whole bag of assumptions I’d been gathering and coalescing in my mind. I never liked hashing these thing out in public, at least until I was ready. In short, I needed time to think. So I told her a convenient half-truth.
“I don’t know.”
I think she half-believed me.
The trip to Stony Brook took less than an hour. It was a big campus, more like a park with large buildings. The DEC office fit right in.
Like Hungerford, they had our names on a list. I hadn’t felt so official in years.
“I called Dan. He’ll come out to get you,” said the guard.
We were blessed with Dan and Ned, both of whom were happy to make Jackie’s acquaintance.
“Jackie’s my lawyer,” I told them.
“You gonna be there for the big opening?” asked Dan.
“No, I’m helping Sam on a slightly different matter,” she said. “I’m just along for the ride.”
“Nice for us,” said Dan, ushering us through the warren of
DEC offices, laboratories and tech rooms filled with colorful cartography and brilliant displays on liquid-crystal monitors, manned by wholesome-looking people wearing T-shirts and athletic sandals, the men mostly bearded, the women indifferent to decoration aside from a discreet pearl in the lip or diamond on the nostril.
Dan’s office looked like it used to be a conference room, with a big oak-veneer table laden with stacks of papers and drawings encircling a small work surface. I liked the feel of it, almost enough to feel a slight pull of envy, which I quickly repressed.
“So, here’s what we made up,” said Dan, spreading a black-and-white printout about the size of an average blueprint on the table. It was a simple tracing of the original site plan with the cellars sketched in along the northern side, just as Dan had described. They’d used a drawing program to fill in some detail on the first three cellars at the east end, indicating stonework and possible entryways based on the old elevations.
“If the pattern holds there’s room for up to eight of these storage cellars,” said Ned. “There’s evidence that they’re interconnected, so I suggest we start at the east end and go from there. X marks the spot.” He pointed to a box labeled “likely entryway.”
“Whatever you say, Ned. You’ve been right so far,” I said. His circular face formed a professional smile.
“We’ll bring lights and cameras along with some test kits. You can bring your own cameras if you want. We’ll also have spare protective boots. I don’t think there’s a call for hazmat. As you point out, there’s no evidence of contamination in the lagoon, which is hard up against these enclosures.”
We spent time going over the planned approach, what they would do and what they wanted me and Amanda to
take care of. It was good to focus on logistics—a good distraction from the greater implications. Throughout, Jackie maintained a studied reticence, occasionally clearing her throat or tapping the table. The only thing left was to schedule the day.
“I’ve left messages for Amanda and Burton Lewis, her lawyer,” I told them as we retraced our steps back through the building. “I’ll likely know by tomorrow.”
“As soon as you can,” said Dan. “Be another check in the cooperation column.”
Ned and Jackie were leading the way, actively engaged in social chatter. Dan was giving me a traveling description of the various offices and working rooms. We were near the entrance when he said, “Here’s where the Regional Director lives. And next door is the Assistant Regional Director. I don’t know if he’s got an assistant, but it wouldn’t surprise me.”
On cue, the Assistant Regional Director opened his door, pausing for us to pass by. I looked over at him standing there next to his nameplate on the wall. Dan almost ran into me when I stopped and put out my hand.
“Zack,” I said. “Zack Horowitz.”
Zack looked taken aback, but shook my hand.
“I’m Sam Acquillo. You obviously don’t remember me.”
“Sorry, can’t say that I do.”
“I’m from Southampton,” I said.
He still looked at me blankly.
“I used to work there, but it’s been a long time.”
“Yes it has. It’s really great to see you.”
He smiled at me good-naturedly.
“I’m glad to hear it, but I still don’t remember seeing you.”
“That’s okay. I forget everything, too. Don’t worry about it.”
By this time Jackie noticed we’d dropped out of the parade and had come back with Ned in tow.
“Sam?”
“It’s nothing,” I said, getting underway again. “I just bothered some guy I thought I recognized
“The Assistant Regional Director,” said Dan. “Good guy. I like him a lot better than you-know-who.”
“Does he drive a giant SUV? All black and chrome?”
“That wouldn’t be too environmentally PC, would it? Nah, he’s got a Beemer Z3. Quite the sport.”
“Definitely not the same guy. Kind of embarrassing.”
Dan and Ned walked us all the way back to the car, so Eddie had a chance to say hello before committing a bit of himself to the environment of the Department of Environmental Conservation.
“Nice,” said Jackie.
I spent the rest of the ride back to Southampton deciphering for Jackie everything she’d witnessed at the DEC office. It was payback for keeping her mouth shut and her nose out of the conversations.
When we crossed the Town line I headed back up to Sag Harbor, where we had dinner with Hodges and Dorothy at the Pequot.
For them it was a simple meal, for me a type of last supper. Or maybe just a welcome distraction, depending on how the next few days would turn out, which version of the truth would emerge from the tangle of potentials, the competing sets of assumptions, all paradigms—shifting and otherwise— up for grabs.
“H
OW DID
I
GET STUCK
coordinating this ground-opening ceremony?” Jackie complained over the phone, which rang as I was on my way to the outdoor shower. “I’ve got nothing to do with this thing.”
“You’re the one with the modern communications capability.”
“Modern last century. How can a former head of R&D be such a Luddite? Or maybe the answer’s in the question.”
“The real question is when are we getting together.”
“Twelve noon. Bring a sandwich.”
I was happy with the timing. It gave me a chance to call Joe Sullivan to see if he could meet me before that. He suggested the diner in Hampton Bays, a chance to stock up on a year’s worth of trans fats and triglycerides. The day was bright and clear, making the trip south a good opportunity to take in the fresh growth on the oaks and maples and catch
the occasional ornamental bush looking like a pink cotton ball or lavender sachet.
The white narcissus were reaching their peak, rising proudly above beds of viny groundcover lapping at their feet. Passing Hawk Pond the water was a blue steel, pestered by the cool northwesterly that had been with us all spring.
The diner was full of tradesmen diverted from the exodus that flowed in every morning from the west. There were a lot of older guys there, more Anglo than Spanish, foremen and contractors who could afford to get on the job later in the morning. Guys with swollen hands and bellies pushing through suspenders, with swordfish embroidered on their baseball caps and cell phones on their belts instead of hammer holsters.