my big aluminum tumbler.
Back within the protection of the screened-in porch I parked myself at the table with the tumbler and a pack of cigarettes. I turned out the light and smoked quietly, looking for signs of something more than indifference from the bay. Some justification for bearing endless witness to the moonstruck water, the black and smoldering sky.
THREE
THE MONDAY AFTER Amanda’s house burned down I was at the corner place in the Village buying a large Viennese cinnamon coffee and a customized croissant stuffed with cheese and Virginia ham. After five years of steady seduction I’d finally established a fragile rapport with the tiny Guatemalan woman who ran the pastry counter. This allowed me to wrangle special orders, managed mostly through the lavish use of terms like
It was half an hour before I had to show up at Joshua Edelstein’s house, so I sat on the teak park bench and pretended the temperature was above freezing. The coffee helped the cause, steaming up in my face and easing down the ham sandwich.
A battleship gray Crown Victoria swung so abruptly into the parking space in front of the bench I almost pulled my feet out of the way. It was Sullivan, resplendent in Yankees cap, tough-cop sunglasses and aftermarket battle wear. He said something into a radio before getting out of the car.
“You like that faggie coffee,” he said, standing in front of the bench with his hands in his jacket pockets.
“You’re blocking my sun.”
“Stay put,” he said and went into the shop, returning soon after with a bagel and a tall cup of his own. Looked like a latte. He sat down next to me, taking up more than half the space.
“I got the prelims on the fire from the County,” he said. “Wasn’t much of a challenge, even for those bozos.”
“Arson.”
“Oh, yeah. Gasoline siphoned out of a step van the finish carpenters had left on the site. The hose was still sticking out of the tank. Filled up a couple of empty compound buckets. Threw it all over the house, then tossed the buckets in the backyard.”
“Didn’t put up a sign that said, Arsonists at work?’”
“Next-door neighbor heard voices right before noticing the big glow. Heard a truck pull away.”
“Heard but didn’t see,” I said.
“Said he was just lying there in bed, trying to sleep. Understandable. No reason to look. You usually don’t know you’re a witness to something until some cop shows up at your door.”
He took a bite of the bagel. Cream cheese oozed out of the middle and tumbled down the front of his camouflage field jacket.
“Not a professional job,” I offered.
“Unless their profession was advertising.”
“P.T. Barnum invented advertising. Said there was a sucker born every minute.”
“These guys weren’t suckers. Smarter than that.”
“Smart?”
“Wore gloves and something on their feet that disguised their footprints. Just looked like blobs in the mud. Almost no sole prints.”
“Booties,” I said, after a moment’s thought.
“Booties?”
“Lightweight, disposable shoe covers. Made of Gore-Tex or Tyvek. Used in ultra-sterile, ultra-pure environments. Like clean rooms, where a single piece of dust can louse up a semiconductor. Or in bioresearch, or drug production.”
“You know this?” Sullivan asked.
“I know about booties. I don’t know if they used them. Just a guess. If they did, you’re right. They’re smart.”
Some more deliberation time passed, which I used to finish off my coffee as a distraction from the envy I was feeling over Sullivan’s chocolate-sprinkled latte.
“They wanted to advertise the act, not the actors,” said Sullivan.
“A summation both trenchant and poetic,” I told him, sincerely.
“I’m gonna assume that wasn’t an insult,” he said, downing the last of his bagel and cream cheese. “Speaking of which,” he said, brushing crumbs off his jacket, “have you talked to Amanda?”
“Had a few insults of her own?”
“After you ran off. She wasn’t happy.”
“Did she hear the discussion with the County people?” I asked.
“Wasn’t supposed to, but yeah. Elbowed her way in. Heard it all.”
“Must have been interesting.”
“Actually shut her up. I figured exhaustion finally got to her. I had Will Ervin escort her back to her house and told him to keep a tight eye on her and her other place.”
“Have any theories?”
“I might ask you the same thing,” he said.
“Nothing worth talking about.”
“In other words, you’re not talking.”
“In other words, if I start talking about it to you in your official capacity, I might be jumping the gun.”
He savored a gentle pull off the top of the latte, smacking his lips like he’d just dipped into Aunt Tillie’s prize-winning apple pie.
“I’m in the mood to try something new this time, Sam. What say you tell me everything you’re thinking now, no matter how half-baked, rather than making me guess until I’m ready to start beating you over the head to get it out of you.”
“No more beating on the head. Doctor’s orders.”
“So I hear,” he said.
“Yeah? From whom?” I asked.
“I’m not ready to talk about that.”
“Christ.”
“Though I might’ve heard a few things one time when I was lifting weights next to a trauma doc. Somebody we both know.”
“Fucking Markham.”
“He said the same crap about me. You’re not the only one who’s had his bean used for batting practice.”
I’d been through some stuff with Joe Sullivan, and truth is, I probably hadn’t been as fair to him as I should have. It was an old habit of mine to keep my lunatic musings to myself until I thought they deserved to be shown the light of day. People misinterpreted that to mean I didn’t think they had worthwhile thoughts of their own. That’s not what I wanted. I just wasn’t done cooking the stew.
“I got into a dumb little dustup with Robbie Milhouser Friday night. Him and a couple of his boys.”
“I know. Judy told me.”
“Hah,” I said. “Who’s withholding now?”
“Ross wanted me to ask if you thought there was a connection between that and Amanda’s fire. Like I wouldn’t have wondered that myself.”
Ross Semple was the Southampton Town Chief of Police. The gripe aside, we both knew he held Sullivan in fairly high regard. The only strike against him being his association with me.
“I’ve got no reason right now to think one way or the other,” I told him. “But it’s a place to start.”
He nodded.
“I’m sure Amanda would get behind that,” he said.
“Who the hell knows.”
“Still not talking, are we?”
