“You thought wrong, Mitch. Neither Dex nor Maddee is from one of the founding families. To be quote- unquote Dorset you must be a Peck, a Vickers or a Havenhurst. The Farrells are merely wealthy New Yorkers with good social contacts.”
“Whoa, time out. Bertha Peck is a chorus girl from Weirton, right?”
“Right.”
“And no one in Dorset so much as farts without her permission, right?”
“Mitch, no one in Dorset farts, period,” she pointed out, her eyes twinkling at him.
“So how come she’s quote-unquote Dorset and they aren’t?”
“Because she married Guy. Because she’s Bertha. And because Dex behaved despicably.” Bitsy gazed out at the water, her snub nose wrinkling. “My retirement portfolio is worth a fraction of what it once was thanks to that man. He will not be forgiven easily by me or anyone else.”
Mitch rocked back and forth, sipping his tea. “Beth also has some concerns about Kimberly.”
“I can’t imagine why. Kimmy’s a terrific catch for the right young man.”
“I gather she wasn’t the right catch for someone else.”
“Oh, I get it. She’s wondering about Kimmy’s marriage to Connie Cliffe’s boy.”
Mitch knew the name Connie Cliffe. She was a high-end interior designer who had a mansion in the Historic District.
“Surely Beth can’t be holding J. Z. against her,” Bitsy went on. “A lot of us make that sort of mistake when we’re young. Kimmy was barely out of Bennington when she met him. J. Z. was a good ten years older than she. Lordy, he must be forty by now. You’ve no doubt seen him working around the island. He’s the house painter who does my place, Dolly’s…”
Mitch knew whom she meant now. The big, strapping guy with the ponytail who’d been reglazing Bitsy’s windows a few weeks back.
“That marriage lasted less than three months, Mitch. And, believe me, it wasn’t Kimmy’s fault. These things happen.”
“What things happen?”
Bitsy considered her reply carefully. “Connie’s a good friend. She and her husband, Fred, split up when J. Z. was a small boy. She raised him on her own, and that boy… how shall I put this? He was a real stinker, Mitch. The sort of rotten little rich kid who’s always stealing things and getting into fistfights. By the time J. Z. was thirteen, he was into alcohol, marijuana, cocaine. Connie couldn’t handle him. She sent him off to live with his father in New York City. Fred owned an art gallery in Soho, a couple of chic restaurants. He enrolled J. Z. in one of the best private schools. But he had no better luck with the boy than Connie did. J. Z. got himself kicked out of one school after another. Ended up out in New Mexico at a special school for problem kids. Where he did settle down. He even got accepted at Cornell. But he barely lasted a month there before he was back in New York City, working as a roadie for alternative rock bands, which I believe is a polite way of saying he dealt drugs. And used them. He and all of his rich, spoiled friends. They partied day and night, perfectly content to squander the best years of their lives. J. Z. always did well with the girls. He was handsome and wild and a bit dangerous. One night, he and a very pretty Park Avenue heiress totaled her BMW in East Hampton and almost killed someone. She was behind the wheel-and high on cocaine at the time. Went to jail for a year in spite of her daddy’s pull. J. Z. ended up back out here living in Connie’s guest cottage. By then he’d thoroughly fried his brains on drugs. What the kids call a homeschool Ph. D.-as in Permanent Head Damage.”
“How did he and Kimberly hook up?”
“He was helping Courtney Borio paint the Farrells’ house on Turkey Neck. Courtney was a burnout case himself from the Vietnam War. J. Z. went to work for him and, lo and behold, stuck with it. Kimmy was home from Bennington for the summer. The poor girl fell hard for J. Z. Convinced herself that with a little love and understanding, he’d do great things with his life. Dex and Maddee opposed the marriage, naturally. She went ahead with it anyway, naturally. Dex and Maddee bought them the condo in the Captain Chadwick House as a wedding present. That’s how the Farrells came to own it. Gosh knows they couldn’t get in there now if they tried.” Bitsy let out a sigh of regret. “Kimmy and J. Z. didn’t live there for long. She completely washed her hands of him. Took off for Oregon and didn’t come back for years. Connie has never spoken one word to me about why Kimmy cleared out so fast-other than to say it was a private matter. Mind you, that didn’t stop people from gossiping about what really happened.”
“And what was the consensus?”
“That it was something of a sexual nature. Courtney Borio happened to be gay. He had a longtime thing going on with a fellow up in Chester. Anyhow, when Courtney first took J. Z. under his wing there was a lot of whispering that J. Z. might be… so inclined. When Kimmy upped and left him like she did, well, the whisperers thought they knew why. Not that anyone actually knew. But it made for a good, juicy story.”
“What do you think happened, Bitsy?”
“I think J. Z. broke that poor girl’s heart. Don’t ask me how, because I have no idea. But I do know that J. Z.’s a breaker of hearts. He always has been. He can’t help himself. That man can be
… difficult. In fact, some people think that in order to get along with him you have to be able to speak psycho. Not true. But he’s not all there. Still stoned on drugs half of the time, if you ask me.”
“And yet you keep hiring him. Why?”
Bitsy’s blue eyes locked on his and held them. “Because this is Dorset, Mitch. We may not be perfect. Far from it, in fact. But we always take care of our own. Never, ever forget that.”
CHAPTER 4
A narrow dirt road snaked its way through the meadows and tidal marshes of the Peck’s Point Nature Preserve, a peninsula that jutted out into Long Island Sound at the mouth of the Connecticut River. The dirt road ended at a barricade. Beyond it was the narrow, wooden causeway out to Big Sister Island. Des inserted her coded plastic security card to raise the barricade and then eased her cruiser thumpety-thump-bumpety out to the forty acres of Yankee paradise that Mitch was lucky enough to call home. There were five precious old Peck family homes out on Big Sister, not counting his caretaker’s cottage. A decommissioned lighthouse that was the second tallest in New England. A private beach and dock. A tennis court. There was fresh, clean sea air. There was peace.
Quirt, Mitch’s lean, mean outdoor hunter, came darting over to bump her leg with his hard little head as she climbed out of the car. Quirt was one of the two rescued strays she’d convinced Mitch to adopt. Des bent down and stroked him, feeling herself relax for the first time since she’d driven away from the Captain Chadwick House.
She kept a yellow string bikini at Mitch’s that was positively indecent. She went inside the house, kicking off her shiny, black shoes. Peeled off her uni and ankle socks. Put the tiny thing on. She left her horn-rims on the bathroom shelf. Didn’t need them. Didn’t need to worry about her hair either, which she wore short and nubby. She grabbed a towel and started down the sandy path to the beach, feeling the sun-warmed sand between her toes.
Mitch was sitting on the float a hundred feet out, with his feet dangling in the water and a bottle of beer in his hand. The beer cooler sat beside him. He waved to her. Des waded in, then dove underwater and swam toward him, welcoming the water’s delicious coolness all over her body. She surfaced and pulled herself, wet and shiny, up onto the float, stretching her fine self out next to him.
“Sorry, miss, but this is a private float. You’ll have to pay a toll.”
She leaned forward on her elbows and kissed him softly on the mouth. “Will that do?”
“We’ll consider it a modest down payment.”
Mitch pulled a Corona from the cooler and opened it for her. She took it from him, her eyes eating him up. She still could not get over how hard and cut he was. He’d been a flesh prince when she first fell for him-man boobs and all. Not anymore. He was a hunk.
She took a long, grateful drink of her beer, sighing contently. “I have been missing you all day, Armando.” Which was her pet name for him now that doughboy no longer applied.
“Back at you, master sergeant. What took you so long anyhow?”
She told him about Augie, her voice rising with anger as she described the ugly little public scene he’d
