random-width vertical stripes and a collar that buttoned above his Adam’s apple. His wife was an equally bad dresser. The kids looked panic-stricken, as if they’d been trapped with their parents for all eternity in the little plastic box.
Semple burst into his office and dropped a stack of files on his desk. He stuck his hand out to me, looking at Sullivan to confirm he had the right man.
“Ross Semple.”
“Sam Acquillo.”
He sat in his chair and pushed it back against a metal credenza, getting himself settled. He had thin, curly brown hair, a high forehead and a small chin. He wore heavy tortoise-framed-glasses that seemed on the verge of sliding off his nose. Like me, the Chief smoked Camel filters, though with a lot more flourish, like the cigarettes were little conductor’s wands used to orchestrate his life. I saw him as a physically weak man with a strong sense of mission and a cynic’s determination.
“How’s it going?” he asked. “County giving you a hard time?”
“Going fine. Haven’t had much to do with the County. Have a hearing coming up that Goodfellow said was
He looked over at Sullivan.
“Joe sold you pretty hard. His beat, I thought, his call.”
“I appreciate it.”
Semple rolled the lit end of his cigarette in the ashtray. He was the type who had a large repertoire of mannerisms continually engaged in releasing excess nervous energy.
“So you’re thinking everything’s routine. About the old girl’s estate.”
“Estate’s a big word for such a little thing.”
“Still has to get done.”
“I think I’ve collected all the information. She’s buried. I found her nephew, Jimmy Maddox. He’s cool with everything. Probably just a few more details. It’ll all be done before they hold a hearing on me doing it.”
Semple nodded.
“And the assault. Still the memory lapse?”
I could feel a slight increase in the room’s air pressure. Sullivan sat there impassively.
“I wish I could do better there. I got my eyes open.”
“Do that,” he said, stamping out the butt and standing up to let us go. “We take everything seriously.”
I believed him.
Sullivan took me through his office so he could pick up a pad, and then led me out to a concrete patio where we could sit at a picnic table and talk in private.
“That was interesting,” I said.
“In case you wonder if I keep my boss informed.”
“Never doubted it.”
“He’s all right, Semple. I wouldn’t want his job.”
I wasn’t sure that was true.
“Don’t say that out loud. They’ll give it to you out of spite.”
“Not management material, unlike yourself.”
He tried to get more comfortable on the picnic table bench. Probably hard to do with all that leather and hardware around his waist.
He pointed at my manila folder.
“Go ahead. I’m all ears.”
“That’s what I want to talk about. What you can hear.”
I really hated the feeling this was giving me. It was making me tense.
“Don’t forget,” he said, “you’re the one that was all over me about this.”
“I know.” I took a breath. “Look, I don’t know how things work here, but I bet you’re obliged to act on anything you genuinely believe is police business.”
“That’s how it works.”
“You also told me once there’s a real criminal investigation, you’re out of it.”
“Basically.”
Making lists is an engineer’s habit. When I moved into the cottage I made up a short list in my head of all the things I never wanted again. Near the top of the list was wanting itself. I never wanted to want, to hope for, to wish, to have anything more than a vague expectation that could ever be thwarted again. I didn’t want to care enough to want.
“If you ask me to tell you what I’m thinking, I’ll have to tell you, because I promised I would. Once I start talking, there’s no going back. And what I have to say will take us both out of it in pretty short order.”
“Then you have to start talking.”
I took another deep breath.
“I’m not ready yet.”
“Not ready.”
“I need a little time. Not a lot. I’m asking you not to push it right now.”
“You called me.”
“I promised I’d talk to you. We’re talking.”
“I knew you were trouble.”
“What do you say?”
Sullivan looked really unhappy. I didn’t blame him.
“You heard Semple in there. Holding out on him is not an option.”
“What’s to hold out? We’re just talking here.”
“That’s what this is? It feels like fuckin’ Alice in Wonderland.”
“I’m stuck here. You been square with me all along. I want to be square with you, but that creates other dilemmas that I’m hoping to avoid for a little while. Just a few weeks, max. I’m asking you to trust me. Even if you have no reason to.”
“Jesus Christ,” he said, shaking his head as he leaned back and put his hands on his hips. A little lift in my guts told me he was about to cave.
“I won’t let this come back at you,” I said.
“That ain’t up to you.”
“I’ll keep it on me. I’ve got nothing to lose.”
“Except your ass, which I promise I’ll kick from here to forever if this fucks up in my face. Brain damage or not.”
I’d lied to him about the bear, but I couldn’t do it again. Now I didn’t have to, at least for a while. I was glad for that. It was another item on my list, maybe holding down the top spot. No more things to feel guilty about. That was a whole separate file, already bulging.
I left Sullivan before he could change his mind and drove back to Oak Point to look after Eddie. He could get in and out of the house through the basement hatch, but I hadn’t left out any food. If I didn’t get there soon he’d start foraging in the wetlands. I didn’t want him developing a taste for cormorant.
I kept the phone I found when I moved into the cottage, my mother’s old-fashioned black rotary Western Electric that was hard-wired through a little hole in the switch plate. My sister had badgered her to get touchtone, but she couldn’t be bothered. Neither could I. Nowadays there isn’t much you can do with a rotary besides call a number and hope you get a human being. So I was glad to hear the disembodied voice that answered the phones at Litski, Goethles and Johnson in New York City say I could wait for a human to emerge.
The phone played Vivaldi while I waited. The corporate standard.
“May I help you?”
“Can I speak to Hunter Johnson, please,” I said, after giving my name.
“Does he know what this is in reference to?”
“No. Tell him it’s about Bay Side Holdings in Sag Harbor.”
I had to wait about five minutes for him to come on the line. I didn’t mind. I liked Vivaldi.
