“You don’t want to know about the cellars?” I asked.
“I do. Even though it’s none of my business.”
“Okay. We’ll get back in time.”
Ten minutes down the LIE Eddie requested we stop. We got on the service road and found a weedy lot. I kept an eye out for broken glass while Eddie hand-picked the ideal spot. Jackie came along to bug me about Roy Battiston.
“Do you think he really didn’t know Robbie was dead?” she asked.
“If he knew Patrick Getty, he knew for sure. Even if he didn’t, somebody from home would have told him. For all I know he subscribes to
“Why pretend otherwise?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“So he also has to know you’re the accused.”
“Sure.”
“So if he’s not talking, what did we learn by going up there?” she asked.
All I knew was that Roy had told us a lot, we just didn’t know yet what it was. Jackie hated when I said stuff like that, but it was the truth. It was forcing me to re-examine the whole bag of assumptions I’d been gathering and coalescing in my mind. I never liked hashing these thing out in public, at least until I was ready. In short, I needed time to think. So I told her a convenient half-truth.
“I don’t know.”
I think she half-believed me.
The trip to Stony Brook took less than an hour. It was a big campus, more like a park with large buildings. The DEC office fit right in.
Like Hungerford, they had our names on a list. I hadn’t felt so official in years.
“I called Dan. He’ll come out to get you,” said the guard.
We were blessed with Dan and Ned, both of whom were happy to make Jackie’s acquaintance.
“Jackie’s my lawyer,” I told them.
“You gonna be there for the big opening?” asked Dan.
“No, I’m helping Sam on a slightly different matter,” she said. “I’m just along for the ride.”
“Nice for us,” said Dan, ushering us through the warren of DEC offices, laboratories and tech rooms filled with colorful cartography and brilliant displays on liquid-crystal monitors, manned by wholesome-looking people wearing T-shirts and athletic sandals, the men mostly bearded, the women indifferent to decoration aside from a discreet pearl in the lip or diamond on the nostril.
Dan’s office looked like it used to be a conference room, with a big oak-veneer table laden with stacks of papers and drawings encircling a small work surface. I liked the feel of it, almost enough to feel a slight pull of envy, which I quickly repressed.
“So, here’s what we made up,” said Dan, spreading a black-and-white printout about the size of an average blueprint on the table. It was a simple tracing of the original site plan with the cellars sketched in along the northern side, just as Dan had described. They’d used a drawing program to fill in some detail on the first three cellars at the east end, indicating stonework and possible entryways based on the old elevations.
“If the pattern holds there’s room for up to eight of these storage cellars,” said Ned. “There’s evidence that they’re interconnected, so I suggest we start at the east end and go from there. X marks the spot.” He pointed to a box labeled “likely entryway.”
“Whatever you say, Ned. You’ve been right so far,” I said. His circular face formed a professional smile.
“We’ll bring lights and cameras along with some test kits. You can bring your own cameras if you want. We’ll also have spare protective boots. I don’t think there’s a call for hazmat. As you point out, there’s no evidence of contamination in the lagoon, which is hard up against these enclosures.”
We spent time going over the planned approach, what they would do and what they wanted me and Amanda to take care of. It was good to focus on logistics—a good distraction from the greater implications. Throughout, Jackie maintained a studied reticence, occasionally clearing her throat or tapping the table. The only thing left was to schedule the day.
“I’ve left messages for Amanda and Burton Lewis, her lawyer,” I told them as we retraced our steps back through the building. “I’ll likely know by tomorrow.”
“As soon as you can,” said Dan. “Be another check in the cooperation column.”
Ned and Jackie were leading the way, actively engaged in social chatter. Dan was giving me a traveling description of the various offices and working rooms. We were near the entrance when he said, “Here’s where the Regional Director lives. And next door is the Assistant Regional Director. I don’t know if he’s got an assistant, but it wouldn’t surprise me.”
On cue, the Assistant Regional Director opened his door, pausing for us to pass by. I looked over at him standing there next to his nameplate on the wall. Dan almost ran into me when I stopped and put out my hand.
“Zack,” I said. “Zack Horowitz.”
Zack looked taken aback, but shook my hand.
“I’m Sam Acquillo. You obviously don’t remember me.”
“Sorry, can’t say that I do.”
“I’m from Southampton,” I said.
He still looked at me blankly.
“I used to work there, but it’s been a long time.”
“Yes it has. It’s really great to see you.”
He smiled at me good-naturedly.
“I’m glad to hear it, but I still don’t remember seeing you.”
“That’s okay. I forget everything, too. Don’t worry about it.”
By this time Jackie noticed we’d dropped out of the parade and had come back with Ned in tow.
“Sam?”
“It’s nothing,” I said, getting underway again. “I just bothered some guy I thought I recognized
“The Assistant Regional Director,” said Dan. “Good guy. I like him a lot better than you-know-who.”
“Does he drive a giant SUV? All black and chrome?”
“That wouldn’t be too environmentally PC, would it? Nah, he’s got a Beemer Z3. Quite the sport.”
“Definitely not the same guy. Kind of embarrassing.”
Dan and Ned walked us all the way back to the car, so Eddie had a chance to say hello before committing a bit of himself to the environment of the Department of Environmental Conservation.
“Nice,” said Jackie.
I spent the rest of the ride back to Southampton deciphering for Jackie everything she’d witnessed at the DEC office. It was payback for keeping her mouth shut and her nose out of the conversations.
When we crossed the Town line I headed back up to Sag Harbor, where we had dinner with Hodges and Dorothy at the Pequot.
For them it was a simple meal, for me a type of last supper. Or maybe just a welcome distraction, depending on how the next few days would turn out, which version of the truth would emerge from the tangle of potentials, the competing sets of assumptions, all paradigms—shifting and otherwise— up for grabs.
TWENTY-THREE
“HOW DID I GET STUCK coordinating this ground-opening ceremony?” Jackie complained over the phone, which rang as I was on my way to the outdoor shower. “I’ve got nothing to do with this thing.”
“You’re the one with the modern communications capability.”
“Modern last century. How can a former head of R&D be such a Luddite? Or maybe the answer’s in the question.”
“The real question is when are we getting together.”
“Twelve noon. Bring a sandwich.”
I was happy with the timing. It gave me a chance to call Joe Sullivan to see if he could meet me before that.
