“I’m waiting to find out for sure. Sullivan’s arranged for the County coroner to do an autopsy. The death certificate just says accidental drowning. I mean, what is that?”
“Hm.”
“Maybe I’ve been alone in that cottage too long.”
“You weren’t alone. You had Regina.”
“And Eddie. I got a dog.”
“I’ll have an associate do a little research on Bay Side Holdings.”
“That’s not why I’m telling you this.”
“I know. It’s no trouble.”
Burton Lewis owned a forty-eight-story building in lower Manhattan and all two thousand of the lawyers who worked inside. I guess it wouldn’t be any trouble.
“All I wanted was to knock things around a little.”
“It would be good for your soul to allow me to help.”
That might be true, but it was going to wreak havoc with the rest of me. But that was my fault. I knew I needed the help. Every form of refuge has its price.
“I could use the help. I appreciate it.”
“I know you do. While you’re at it, give me Regina’s Social Security number and I’ll see if we can uncover other assets.”
After that we caught up on the state of professional basketball, discussed plans for adding a library as a separate building on the property, the mechanical status of my Grand Prix and his Country Squire, and a case he’d recently helped bring before the Supreme Court. He kept the conversation focused on himself, which I appreciated.
It was late when I got back to the cottage. There was a note from Amanda pinned to my door.
“I’m going on a girls’ night out tomorrow night. The Playhouse in Bridgehampton. From nine till whenever. If somebody I know just happens to be there too I can apologize again and this time he
It was too late to untangle any more confused impulses or reaffirm secret pledges I’d made to myself. It was time to go to sleep so I could dream about bathtubs and flying fists, and being too late to pick up my daughter at school, or losing her in a crowded shopping mall, having been too distracted to realize I’d let go of her tiny hand.
The next morning I made a bucket of coffee and smoked my first cigarette before calling Sullivan. I was sitting on the screened-in porch so I could watch Eddie run around in the yard. Somehow he knew how to stay within my property lines, out of the street and away from Regina’s. Even when he jumped off the breakwater down to the pebble beach he stayed within the boundaries. He didn’t like to swim, but he loved to run through the water at about belly height, looking for plastic bottles or dead fish, which he’d put in a pile on shore. It’s hard to say if he achieved anything of lasting value, his air of determined purpose notwithstanding.
I got Sullivan on his cell phone like he told me to.
“Yeah, well, it’s interesting,” said Sullivan, his voice rising just enough above the car noise.
“How so.”
“The cause of death was a traumatic blow to the posterior region of the head—don’t you love that, ‘traumatic’? I guess it was fucking traumatic if it killed her.”
“And?”
“And, it could have been caused by hitting the tub, or it could’ve been somethin’ else. ‘The actual size and concentration of the contusion is not inconsistent with the subject’s head impacting the porcelain surface of the bathtub as the result of a fall, though this does not rule out the possibility of the cause being the striking surface of a broad, blunt object.’ There was no water in her lungs, which isn’t unusual, either. Or other injuries. Nothing under her nails that didn’t belong there, no sign of struggle at all. So, basically, they think she just fell backwards and hit her head.”
“I found her face down. How did she get face down if she cracked the back of her head?”
“The report says you could still be conscious after a blow like this. You get disoriented, you might try to stand up, you pass out, you fall face down.”
“Why not just conclude that it wasn’t from falling in the tub.”
“They aren’t looking for anything else. They’re looking for an explanation for her being face down after falling in the tub and hitting the back of her head.”
“What do you think?”
“I think they’re full of crap.”
I never liked talking on the phone. You can’t see the other guy’s face, can’t judge what he’s really thinking. I took a gulp of the coffee that was cooling down in my mug.
“You think somebody hit her.”
“I didn’t say that. I’m just not happy about the disposition of the body. Just like I never bought that crap about Kennedy lurching forward after getting hit straight on with a bullet. I’m sorry, if I shoot you in the forehead, you’re going backwards. If you smack your head after falling over backwards in the bathtub, you float on your back, not on your stomach.”
“Was there anything else?”
“That’s all I know. That she could’ve been killed by some flat heavy object.”
“Like a two-by-four.”
“Nah, I asked that. Wood leaves a different kind of imprint. They’ve seen lots of those.”
“So you asked.”
“I did. I figured a cast iron fry pan.”
“You did? How come?”
“I’ve seen it before. Women like ’em. About the only thing heavy with a handle they’re used to picking up. Always within reach.”
“You asked them if she could’ve been hit with a frying pan?” I was impressed.
“Yeah, and they said yeah. That’d fit the bill perfect. Heavy, flat, except it wouldn’t leave nothing behind.”
“Too bad.”
“Except maybe a little carbon from her gas stove.”
“Really.”
“Which would wash off in the bathtub.”
“Right.”
“Except they found a tiny residue in her hair.”
“Really?” I said, even more impressed.
“The lab guys can do some amazing shit these days.”
“So what does it mean?”
“Nothing, just curious.”
“You can’t match it with one of her fry pans?”
“Nah. Carbon’s carbon. She could’ve washed a pan, then scratched her head and left a trace. It’s really tiny.”
“So you’re satisfied.”
“I didn’t say that either.”
“You’re suspicious.”
“I am a little, yeah. But that don’t mean shit around here. I start talking like you and Chief Semple would have my ass.”
“I guess I don’t understand cops.”
“Don’t start bustin’ on cops. Nobody likes to go back over something they figured was a done deal.”
“I didn’t mean that. I just don’t get the process.”
“For now, the process is you get the old lady planted. I’ll get you a copy of the autopsy report.”
“Okay. I appreciate it.”
