'Well, I eat here a lot.'
'I repeat. I'd say you know her.' The waiter appeared. 'I'll have a gimlet, then your New York sirloin, well done.'
'Yes, ma'am.'
'I mean burnt, so well done the chef objects.'
'Before we start,' I said, 'I want to make sure you understand the situation, my situation.'
Martha considered me. How many messy problems had she dealt with in a life? City dwellers, especially New Yorkers, tend to underestimate the sophistication of country people. She gave me a humoring little nod. 'Mr. Marceno thinks something untoward is buried on his land,' she began, her voice confident and analytical, 'based on the fact that local police discovered the former owner of the property, Jay Rainey, and his attorney, you, on that land hours after the deal was done. He is also suspicious because there appeared to be a lot of heavy bulldozer work done the afternoon of the closing.'
'There's also-' I stopped. Better to listen first.
'Mr. Marceno is apparently not aware of the fact, not yet anyway, that Herschel Jones was found dead of a heart attack on his bulldozer that same night on the adjoining property. Mr. Jones was known to do work for Jay Rainey and his family for many years. He was a good man, loved by all. The police were called by another man-'
'Poppy,' I said.
'Yes-'
Colin Harrison
The Havana Room
'Who is your nephew.'
That I knew this was a surprise to her. 'I'm afraid that's true,' she said after a moment's consideration. 'Poppy called the police to report Herschel's death. He had a long history of heart disease, four heart attacks in the last few years, and the local doctor who signed the death certificate happened also to have seen him a few weeks earlier when he came into the emergency room with a scare, and had specifically warned him against heavy labor, or working in the cold. Herschel should've told Jay this. But Jay never should've sent him out into that cold.'
'I don't think he did.'
Martha held up her hand. 'Because the body had been frozen solid, the family was advised to have him cremated, which they did. Am I right so far? Is this the topic under discussion?'
I nodded.
'The problem is that Jay is being hounded by Mr. Marceno?'
I wondered if I should tell her about H.J. and his friendly limo riders. Not necessarily. 'Mr. Marceno is putting a lot of pressure on Jay and on me. I'm having trouble finding Jay. I don't want to talk to Marceno, not yet anyway. You yourself said on the phone that it didn't seem to be much trouble to dig up a bit of sand. But now you're ready to talk to me?'
'Yes.'
'Do you know what's out there, what Herschel was covering up?'
'No.'
'You're sure?'
'Positive.'
'Then why're you here?'
'Because I realized that you and Jay have no idea what you're up against.'
'A Chilean winemaker with deep pockets who wants to get a foothold on the fabulous North Fork of Long Island, no?'
'Yes, but also no.'
'I don't get it, Martha.'
She shook her head and appeared resigned to having to provide me a remedial education. She opened her bag and pulled out a tax survey map. 'This is the area around Jay's land,' she said. 'These tracts aren't labeled or named but I know who owns them. Now look.'
The map showed the land between Long Island Sound and the north road, and looked like this:
Then she labeled the lots, and it looked like this:
'Okay,' she said, 'let's talk about each of these properties. The old estate piece has some nice high bluffs, some roll to the land. It was once owned by the Reeves family, very nice people, and then they sold it. Not much has happened to it. In the sixties there was a commune there and they all lived in the old barn and tried to make goat cheese. Well, you know what happened.'
'What?'
'All the girls got pregnant and the boys grew beards and they found out that the world doesn't need any more bad goat cheese.'
I smiled. But Martha Hallock stared grimly at me. 'Foolishness, Mr. Wyeth- the world runs on it. When it comes to real estate, foolishness makes things happen. More important than money, actually. Then the piece was bought by some fellow from North Carolina who said it was perfect for a golf course. He'd developed a dozen of them. Paid too much, but the development rights remained intact. I sold it to him. He had the surveys done, he got the approvals, which last ten years. Those ten years expire in eighteen months, by the way. As for him, he had trouble in the stock market, was in no position to develop. Okay, now, this large tract, Sea Gull Vineyards- terrible name for a vineyard, makes you think of bird poop in your wine- they, the Hoyts, planted one of the first vineyards out here, and their vines are now very good. Good vines with a bad name. Needs a new name. The development rights were sold to the county ten or fifteen years ago. You can only farm it. But Mrs. Hoyt got multiple sclerosis and her husband became depressed and the place started going downhill. Now then, next to it, to the east, is Jay's land. This little strip was a set-aside for the farm housing, separately deeded. You can see that it's a beautiful run, straight from the north road to the water. Mostly level, with a good well set back from the ocean, nice land. It was in his family a long time, came through the father's side. Remember it's in the middle of our map, it's the keystone property. Over here on the inlet is the preserve. It used to be part of the piece that was owned by Jay's family. It's beautiful but unfarmable. Marshes and lovely birds. You can catch crabs in a little rowboat. The land was deeded to New York State back in 1965 or '66. The way the deed was set up, the owner of the adjacent piece, Jay's piece, has a right-of-way along a dirt road from one property to the other. Remember that. Whoever owns Jay's piece has sole legal access to the water through here. In other words, access to the marshes and so on, but also to-'
'There's probably a little beach.'
'Yes, a beautiful little sandy beach just on the tip of the inlet. Very private. Backed by a stand of Norfolk pines planted a hundred years ago. One of the nicest beaches on the Sound, totally private.'
'Jay never mentioned that.'
'He probably didn't care much about it.' She pointed to the little inlet called Crabber's Cove. 'Surrounded by luxury houses. Serviced by one dead-end road. Large lots, mostly two acres. The subdivision was done in the early eighties and the lots sold for maybe ninety thousand back then.'
'What would they be now?'
'Oh, at least four hundred thousand.'
'Wow.'
'That's the way it goes, Mr. Wyeth, up, sideways, then up again. Now, look here.' She pointed at the property marked Boatyard. 'This was owned by Kyle Lorton, who came home so dirty his wife made him wash off in the yard with a hose. Naked. You could see it from the road. His rear end looked like an old apple left out in the sun. So did his front end, for that matter. Kyle's business was lobster boats. That's what he did. He was no good with regular people. That's why lobster-men liked him. He was dirty and smelled and had black teeth and could fix anything.'
'The lobsters are gone, though.'
'That's right. Giuliani, your old mayor, who pretended he wasn't as bald as my knee, sprayed poison all over New York City for West Nile virus.'
'Which turned out to be basically harmless.'
