There was a lot of blood, but otherwise the corpse looked as tidy as the room, formally composed, like a carving on top of a medieval sepulcher.
All of which I absorbed a few minutes after walking into the room. Though I was drawn by more important observations. The jet black hair, the rich, reddish brown complexion, the apparent epicanthus.
The beautiful face of Iku Kinjo.
There was never any question about what I had to do next.
I unlocked the front door on my way outside where I flipped open my cell phone and called Sullivan. I disposed of my beloved skeleton key and rubber gloves the same way I’d taken care of the gun. As the phone rang I forced myself to recall everything I’d done in the last half hour.
“Sam Acquillo,” said Sullivan, the master of caller ID.
“I need you to get here first,” I said.
“Where?” he said the word slowly, already getting the import.
I gave him the address.
“I know Vedders. What are you doing there?”
“Time is important at a murder scene, right?”
“Yeah,” he said, again stretching out the word.
“So let’s talk when you get here. Bring everything and everybody you got. You’re going to need it.”
“Shit, Sam. What the fuck.”
“Like I said, try to get here ahead of the crowd. I like Will Ervin, but I don’t want to explain myself to a beat cop.”
“I’m already moving,” said Sullivan. “I’ll call you from the car.”
Time managed to slow enough for me to get a grip on my brain. It wasn’t the specific situation I had to worry about. It was all the specific situations that had come before. These things have a tendency to pile up. When the pile gets big enough you attract the interest of law enforcement. It’s understandable. All they’re doing is working the odds. I’d been able to beat those odds so far, but I knew statistical probability as well as the next engineer with a minor in physics from MIT.
When Sullivan called I described the scene as well as I could.
“And what are you doing there?” he asked again, his tone rhetorical.
“Looking for Robert Dobson. It’s his rental. He told me to stop by anytime. I wanted to ask him a few more questions, so I took him up on his offer. When I got here I knocked on the door and thought I heard someone call to come in. The door was unlocked, so I did. I walked around the place calling for whoever I thought had called to me. I thought I heard a sound coming from the lower level, so I went down there and discovered the body.”
“You need to get that hearing checked out. Along with your brain. Hearing voices is an indicator.”
“Good advice. I’ve had a history of that sort of thing. Can we talk about the important stuff now?” I asked.
“More important than keeping your ass out of jail?”
“Actually, yeah. Somebody’s daughter is dead. This is now your thing, too. We have a situation.”
“I hate that word. Situation.”
I sat on the ground and lit a cigarette, one of the three I’d brought along for the day. It seemed an appropriate use of rations. My nervous system had been geared up for lurking around Bobby’s rental, but not for finding a dead body. Least of all Iku Kinjo.
God forgive me, my reflex thought was of my own daughter, about Iku’s age, and in my mind far more vulnerable than the hard-driving management consultant. I willed those thoughts back into their special chamber and forced a more immediate issue to the fore.
George Donovan.
I knew I had to tell him, and the sooner the better. Preferably right at that instant before the world was flooded with cops, voyeurs and reporters. I really didn’t want to do it. Not on a cell phone. Even if I could reach him on the first shot, which was unlikely.
Do I leave a message?
I gave myself time to finish the cigarette, then I dialed his number.
“Hello there,” he said, to my surprise and regret. “Kind of an awkward time. Can I call you right back?”
“No. We need to talk now. With nobody around.”
“I see. Hold on a second.”
I could hear the sound of his hand muffling the phone and some indistinct conversation. A minute later he was back.
“You’re sounding serious,” he said.
“I’ve got news,” I said. “The worst news.”
“Oh, God.”
I didn’t know how he’d want to hear it, so I just told it straight.
“She’s been murdered. I found her myself a few minutes ago. In Southampton, just a mile or two from my house. The cops are on the way.”
He made a sound that might have been the word “why.” So I tried to answer.
“I don’t know why, or by who. She was stabbed. Pretty recently. I found her in the house rented by Robert Dobson.”
“The boyfriend,” said Donovan.
“Maybe her boyfriend. I’m not so sure. Listen, George,” I said before he could answer, “I’m sorry. I really am. It’s a terrible thing.”
Now it was more obvious that he was crying. I just sat there and listened to those unnatural, animal sounds.
“I better go,” he finally forced out. “I’ve got a half dozen people waiting outside my door. Call me tonight when you know more. We have to talk.”
Then he hung up.
I heard the first sirens coming in quickly from the south. I lit the second cigarette and leaned up against a tree. As I sat there the cloud cover gave way. The sun lit up the oak trees above my head and splattered puddles of light on the ground, casting a hard glare on the hoods of the flashing police cruisers as they swarmed into the little pond-side neighborhood, its reclusive anonymity a forgotten thing.
NINE
WHEN SULLIVAN ARRIVED at Robert Dobson’s group rental he sat on the ground next to me and said it was time to catch Ross up. I knew that. Sullivan was too far out on a limb. I also needed to preserve some elbow room, especially now. The situation was way too complicated to get into a war with the cops.
So I put the call in to Jackie Swaitkowski, who was thrilled as always to hear we were on deck for a visit with the Southampton Town Police.
I’ve always had a deeper respect for law enforcement than our historical relationship would suggest. I know they have a hard job. I couldn’t do it. I don’t have the patience or the presence of mind. Or the focus.
What I’ve done to reconcile my beliefs with my behavior is make friends with cops and lawyers, thereby benefiting from both their wisdom and their largesse. While doing almost nothing to reciprocate.
An imbalance I most earnestly pledged to rectify, someday, as I sat with Jackie Swaitkowski in a windowless white room at a banged-up conference table.
Jackie was wearing a men’s button-down collar shirt with a bolo tie under a khaki suit, and a pair of cowboy boots. Lonesome lawyer of the high plains.
I was going to ask her if she had Trigger tied up outside, but decided it was better to stay friends, at least until we got through with Ross Semple and Lionel Veckstrom, the Chief of Police and the Chief of Detectives, respectively, who were sitting on the other side of the table.
Both had tried on more than one occasion to carve me up and serve me fricasseed to the wolves. Still, Ross I liked. Veckstrom, not at all.
“You’re in here so much we’re thinking of naming a new wing in your honor,” said Ross, lighting us both a
