were the naked branches of a sycamore tree and a few high clouds dusting the pale blue sky. The wall between the top of his credenza and the bottom of the window was covered with scrap paper in a wide assortment of shapes and colors— some partially crumpled, some half-shredded—stuck to the wall with multicolored pushpins. Typed memos, handwritten notes, grainy Xeroxes of mug sheets and stolen vehicles. Mixed in were kids’ drawings of houses, flowers and police cars, probably created a long time ago, judging by the faded paper and the framed photos of teenagers propped up against the wall.
“You know where you put your running shoes, though, I’m bettin’,” said Ross.
“I guess.”
“Good.”
“So is this what we’re chatting about? My exercise routine?”
Ross allowed himself a twitchy little smile. I’d known him for about three years, if you can really know someone who’s mostly asking you questions and looking at you like he thinks you’re lying to him. We went to Southampton High School at about the same time, so I might’ve known him then, but I didn’t think so. I didn’t have a lot of friends in those days. Actually only one that I could remember. Wouldn’t have been Ross Semple.
“I need your opinion,” he said.
“Okay.”
“What do you think of Robbie Milhouser?”
“Never seen him jog.”
“As a person.”
“An asshole.”
“How much of an asshole?”
“Significant,” I said. “A significant asshole. Though you didn’t need me to tell you that.” “I hear the feeling was mutual.”
“Like I said, an asshole. Just like his old man.”
“You didn’t see him last night?” Ross asked.
“Haven’t seen him in a while.”
“You saw him a few days ago. I guess that’s a while.”
“At the restaurant,” I said, “if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s where you got into it. The two of you.”
“That wasn’t anything. Just a lot of stupid talk.”
“Not how I heard it,” said Ross.
“People exaggerate.”
“Sullivan told me you’re afraid of getting hit. Something wrong with your head.”
“You like getting hit?”
“Nobody hits me. I’m the Chief of Police,” he said, laughing through his nose. Ross had a good sense of humor, judging by the way he laughed at his own jokes, which was the only way you could judge it.
“So what’s with Robbie Milhouser?” I asked. “What’d he do?”
“So you never saw him after that thing at the restaurant?”
“I don’t think so, though you seem to know more about it than I do.”
Ross twirled his cigarette around in the air, watching the resulting curls of smoke rise toward the ceiling.
“You and Burton Lewis still getting along?” he asked.
“Saw him last week. I remember it. Vividly.”
“And the blonde girl. Polack. She’s a lawyer, too.”
“Jackie Swaitkowski. She’s my official lawyer. Burton’s just a pal of mine. Paid her a dollar once to retain her services. For the record, she’s Irish. Maiden name’s O’Dwyer.”
“She keep that dollar?”
Ross didn’t have an easy job. The Town of Southampton covered a lot of geography and it wasn’t all about big houses on the beach like Joshua Edelstein’s. Or drunken group rentals or predators who came out of the City in the summer to feast on the herds of the innocent and overfunded. He had his share of local hard cases and screw- ups to deal with. People like Robbie Milhouser.
“You didn’t tell me,” I said.
“What?”
“Milhouser. What’d he do?”
“Got his head opened up and his brains mashed into brain puree.”
He nodded when he said that, as if holding up both sides of the conversation. Then he threw me one of his awkward grins and drank some more of his coffee.
“Dead?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah. Thoroughly.”
“Killed?”
“Yup.”
“Who did it?”
The goofy grin he was wearing tightened up across his face. And then disappeared completely.
“If you confess right now it’d save us both a lot of trouble,” he said.
He took his cigarette out of his mouth and held it between his thumb and index finger the way Nazi generals would do in old war movies. I don’t think he did it for effect. He just never knew what to do with his hands.
“That’s funny,” I told him. “Seeing if I still have a sense of humor?”
Ross’s face softened a little at that.
“No, Sam, we all know you got one of those. The question on the table is whether you have a sense of revenge.”
I noticed the sawdust on my jeans. It must have been kicked out of the chop box earlier. It was sprinkling down on the battered industrial carpet in Ross’s office. I remembered the piece of molding I was about to install on Joshua Edelstein’s widow’s walk when Ross pulled me off the job. It was stuck in place with only a single nail. With a stiffening breeze it would likely peel off and go cartwheeling down the beach. A thought more disturbing than warranted by the potential consequences. To calm myself I sat back in my chair and dug another Camel out of my coat pocket.
“You actually want me to say I had nothing to do with this?” I asked him.
He smiled at that, his face softening even further.
“Hell no, Sam. I know you’re gonna say that. I want to hear you explain
“Didn’t know I was that entertaining.”
“I wish I was entertaining. Maybe if I had a better sense of humor,” said Ross, sitting back himself. “A good joke always cracks me up. But I can’t tell a joke to save my life.”
“Nothing cracks me up,” I said. “Must be a deficiency of character.”
“Humor isn’t what you say. It’s what you leave out.”
“Didn’t know they had Shakespeare at the police academy.”
“Master’s in lit crit. Cornell. Don’t ask me to explain.”
“I’m not asking you to do anything, Ross. Except lay off this thing with Robbie Milhouser,” I told him.
“The one you called an asshole.”
“I might call you an asshole. Doesn’t mean I’d kill you. I don’t kill people. Even for a good laugh.”
Ross’s face ignited into another of his oversized, ersatz grins.
“We both know that’s not true. The killing part. Not the ha-ha part.”
He reached into a drawer and pulled out a pair of photographs. One was a mug shot of a young black man, the other a color portrait of a middle-aged white guy.
“Darrin Eavanston and Robert Sobol. Remember them?”
I leaned over to look, then sat back again.
