Long Way Down (16 page)

F
or once, the traffic behaved. I pushed the little rental until it was on the verge of lifting off, bouncing over every seam on the highway.

“Virgil, I’m on my way out to talk to security at Haley’s house.” I had my iPhone plugs in with the little microphone built into the wire.

“Who is this?”

Sometimes the mic worked better than others. I pulled the wire around in front of my mouth, wondering if this still counted as “hands-free.”

“It’s Jason Stafford. I need you to do something for me.”

“You sound terrible.”

“It’s just a cold.”

“How’s Haley?”

“A bit of a shipwreck. He answered some questions, some of them a bit vaguely, but he was adamant he didn’t do it.”

“
Did
he do it? What do you think?”

“I’ll know more after I talk to security out at the house. But I think he’s got a chance at pointing the finger elsewhere. While I’m
out here, have one of your people check on Charles Penn. Where was he last night between, say, nine and midnight?”

“I can’t just call up Chuck Penn and ask him where he was when Selena Haley was getting murdered.”

“No. I was hoping you could be a touch more subtle than that. Give it some thought.”

I clicked off before he thought of any more reasons why he couldn’t do it. I stopped at a drugstore on the way and loaded up on cough drops and tissues, pretty much guaranteeing that I would start getting better immediately and not need any of it. I sucked on a mentholated Ricola and put a few more in my pocket.

There was a mashed mound of gray and black fur at the side of the road, a quarter mile or so before the turn to Haley’s house. Raccoon. We’d have them occasionally in Montauk. They would find a way to scramble over the fence, defecate in the pool and all over the slate walk, and screech horribly at each other—whether in anger or in lust, I had no idea. They always made me wish I owned a shotgun and had the heart to use it.

—

“Jenkins!” I yelled
at the disembodied voice at the gate. “It’s Stafford. Let me in.”

“Who do you wish to see?” the implacable voice said.

“Is this Carl Jenkins?”

“You wish to speak with Mr. Jenkins?”

“Listen up, sport. I’m a bit rushed. Tell Jenkins that Jason Stafford is here, then let me in. I’ll give you three minutes before I drive through the gate. It’s a rental, so I’m not afraid to try.”

“One minute.”

He was as good as his word. The gate started moving and an older, tougher voice came from the invisible speakers. “Take the first right. I’m down at the guardhouse.”

—

The guardhouse was
obviously what would have been called the gatekeeper’s cottage in times long gone by. It was a whimsical concoction of deeply slanted slate roofs, a crenellated square tower, lead-paned windows, and a heavy wooden door that I half expected to lower down on chains, rather than swing open on wrought iron hinges.

A heavyset man in a khaki uniform and a Sam Browne belt, with a holstered black Glock on one side and a handheld radio on the other, greeted me at the door. It was the man I had seen riding the golf cart on my first visit. Without the mirrored sunglasses, his eyes looked watery and a little sad.

“I’m Jenkins. Mr. Haley called. No need to push your way in, you were expected.”

“It’s an old habit.” That would have to do for an apology. Impatience is not always a bad trait for a trader. A bit of push is often needed to get something done—and expected. But it doesn’t always travel well to the outside world.

Inside, the cottage had been reduced to an architectural style more akin to functional minimalism. There was nothing quaint about it. The walls and ceiling were a neutral gray—the gray you would expect to find on an aircraft carrier. Two metal desks faced a wall of television monitors. The images changed every ten seconds, showing different views of the property and the lab from varying heights and perspectives both indoors and out. Computer keyboards—one on each desk—were there to override the automatic changes.

A younger man, almost painfully overmuscled, wearing a similar khaki uniform with the same accoutrements, sat at the far desk. He looked away from the monitors and gave me a quick nod of acknowledgment. Not exactly hostile, but not far from it, either.

“I was in the can,” Jenkins said, sounding only slightly aggrieved.

TMI. “Show me your system and tell me anything you can about last night.”

Two hundred forty cameras located at various points around the property and in the buildings gave a continuous feed to a bank of computers. The system was wireless, which occasionally caused problems due to severe weather, electronic interference, or even sunspot activity. The images were reviewed by a filter program. All images with no movement were immediately sent to a trash file that was automatically dumped. All images that showed movement of any kind went through a second filter to remove leaves falling, rain or snow, wind blowing treetops, and animate objects too small or too slow to be deemed a threat, like squirrels or birds. Everything else was reviewed by a human eye.

“That’s the biggest part of the day. Going over the tapes. There are deer on the property. We pick them up all the time. But the only time we hit save is when there is something unusual.”

“Show me.”

He opened a file. “Here’s Mrs. Haley arriving yesterday. That’s unusual in itself. She doesn’t get out here very often.”

I watched as a light-colored Porsche convertible stopped at the gate and paused. It was almost dark and a light mist was falling. A moment later, the gate swung back and the car proceeded.

“How did she open the gate? Did anyone speak to her?”

“We don’t need to. There’s a code for Mr. and Mrs. Haley. Fay, the housekeeper, gets one, too. And me. Oh, and Mr. Haley’s secretary. My staff. A couple of the senior technicians at the lab, in case they’re working early or late. Each one is different, so we can keep track of who’s on the grounds.”

And any one of whom could have shared their code with another party. No matter how good the technology, it still required humans to operate it—and make exceptions to each and every rule.
And Haley’s belief that only four people had a code each day was a fond delusion.

Jenkins was still talking. “The codes change every day. It’s set up as an app. You plug in the eight digits on a smartphone and the gate opens.”

The lock was about as effective at keeping out the unwanted as a doorknob.

“So that could have been anyone in her car. You never saw her face.”

“That’s the way she wanted it.”

“Did she ever give the code out? I mean to friends or delivery people.”

He looked uncomfortable. “When we first installed the system. Mr. Haley spoke to her about it.”

I took that as a yes. “Finish about last night.”

He raced through the file, stopping again a minute later. “Here’s Mr. Haley leaving.” The bottom of the screen had the time and date. A few minutes after ten, a black sedan exited the gate. Though it was lit from a spotlight above, it was hard to make out the make or model. It was raining harder, and the car splashed through a small puddle as it turned out onto the main road.

“And how do you know that’s him?”

“That’s his car.”

It was most likely his car, but you couldn’t have proved it by the images that I was looking at.

“All right. Keep going.”

“An hour later.” Headlights flickered in the darkness and a large automobile turned into the drive. The overhead spotlight went on, revealing the distinctive front grille of a Rolls-Royce. There was a vague shape behind the wheel, but whether man, woman, or chimpanzee, it was impossible to see. The gate opened.

“Whose code did he use?”

“Mr. Haley’s.”

“Now, that’s very interesting.”

“The police thought so.”

“They would. Can you get the license plate?”

“Not from this angle. The camera can get it, but the light’s too high.”

“Why not lower the light?”

“It would blind the driver.”

“Really?”

“According to Mrs. Haley.”

“What do you say?”

“I say it’s her house. The camera picks up all the license plates during the day. There’s not much traffic at night. Mostly Mr. Haley. Sometimes one of the lab techs stays late, but not many people coming in.”

“They don’t have guests? Parties? No one stops by to say hello?”

“Mrs. Haley is hardly ever here. Mr. Haley is either working or out on his boat.”

“Back to the files. Who else have you got coming in?”

“No one. We’ve got the Rolls leaving an hour or so later and that’s it, until the police arrived.”

“When was that?”

“First car arrived at eleven forty-two. The shift supervisor called them at eleven thirty-five.”

“Nice fast response time.”

“They don’t skimp on police in this part of the world.”

“Who found the body?”

“The shift supervisor. He was going through the evening’s files before end of shift and found a glitch.”

“What was that?”

“The cameras along the cliff were all in and out of service for a
couple of hours. It could have just been the weather, but he went out to check.”

“He climbed down those stairs in that weather?”

“He had to. There’s three cameras right along there. All three were on and seemed to be working, but we were getting no signal.”

“Sounds a bit convenient that those cameras were all out while this was going on.”

“Maybe,” he said, unconvinced. “The wireless reacts to weather. Any weather. Rain, snow, lightning, even big winds. Also sunspots and solar flares. I’m waiting for it to start reacting to the phases of the moon.”

“Are there any lights down there?”

“He had his flashlight.”

“Still, I’d say he’s lucky to have found her. Rain. Pitch-black out.”

“An hour later and the body would have been washed out on the tide.”

“And no one heard anything? The shot, I mean.”

“Fay told the police she heard a man and woman arguing, but then thought it could have been the television. Her apartment is at the far end of the house. Unless the Gruccis were setting off a major fireworks show, she wouldn’t have heard a thing.”

“Let’s go back for a bit. The car that came in after Haley left. The Rolls. You must have other film of it.”

“Not film. It’s all digital.”

“Files, then.” I bit off a more exasperated reply. “Show me.”

Most of the images were nothing more than an indistinct blur of a black shape moving over a black landscape. The car bypassed the turnoff for the lab and went straight to the house. The front entrance was well lit by an overhead lamp, suspended from a chain and a wrought iron fixture, and two wall sconces that bracketed the front
door. But the car pulled past the doorway and stopped in the graveled turnaround just beyond. The rear door opened.

“So, someone drove him here,” I said.

“The police asked about that. I don’t know who it could be. The Haleys don’t have a chauffeur. Or a Rolls, for that matter.”

The man was tall and broad-shouldered—it
could
have been Haley. He was wearing a floppy broad-brimmed hat and had a waterproof poncho wrapped around him. He began walking toward the house.

“Can you zoom in on him? Is there a shot of his face?”

“Nope.” He demonstrated. “You see? He knows he’s on camera. He keeps his head at an angle. Now watch.”

The man veered away from the front entrance and the light and walked around to the side of the house.

“See? He either knows where the cameras are located or . . .” He trailed off.

“Or?”

He shook his head. “I’ve got no ‘or.’ He knows.”

“Is there more?”

“One sec.” He switched to another viewpoint. “I’ll show you.”

This time the camera was in back of the man as he walked along a stone pathway. A light came on over another door as he approached. Someone had been waiting for him. Expecting him. The door opened.

“That’s Mrs. Haley. You’ll see her in just a moment.”

I did. She stepped into the light. She was holding a stemmed wineglass and looked as though she had emptied it more than a couple of times already. She waved toward the man in that
Hurry up
way that you do when the other party seems to be taking his time and the heavens are pouring down on you both. The man entered the house and the door closed behind him.

“Do you have more? Can we see him inside?”

“Cameras in the big house? No. That’s definitely out-of-bounds. We can monitor all the entrances, but Mrs. Haley wouldn’t let us do anything more than update the alarm system. She did not want cameras watching her in her own home.”

I thought of the cameras at the Ansonia. Discreet. Camouflaged in the molding in the lobby, or hidden behind the mirrored ceiling in the elevator. I had no problem with them. Then I imagined them inside my apartment.

“I can see her point of view,” was all I said. “Is there more?”

“Nothing until this.”

The tall figure reappeared, emerging from the black night behind the house, head inclined against the rain. He passed under the camera and Jenkins switched viewpoints again. The man got back into the Rolls and it drove out of the picture.

“Where did he come from? Not the same door?”

“No. That path leads around to the rear of the house overlooking the cliff. The cameras were on and off all night. I’d guess he came out onto the porch and down.”

“Could he have been coming from the steps to the beach?”

Jenkins nodded sadly. “If the police can show that that’s Haley, it puts him at the murder scene at the right time.”

It could have been Haley. It could also have been Penn. Or any other tall man with broad shoulders.

“Is it the right time? When did the housekeeper say she heard the argument?”

“Well, she said it was a bit later, but she’s not a hundred percent.”

He typed again. Black on black appeared. Again the flicker of approaching headlights, this time from behind the camera. It was the front gate again. It swung open and the spotlight went on. The Rolls rolled through and out of the picture.