Crocus Valley was a quaint hamlet to the northeast of Glen Cove on the North Shore of Long Island. It proudly displayed its rustic trappings to strangers passing through, but only in an effort to cloak the smell of money. You weren’t apt to see Jags and BMWs out on the street like you might in Sands Point or Great Neck. That’s not to say residents of this little piece of heaven didn’t drive luxury automobiles. Quite the opposite was true. The people of Crocus Valley had that Waspy humility and false sense of good taste to park them around back.
Thomas Geary’s digs weren’t hard to find, as his property line was only a chip and a putt away from the twelfth hole of the Lonesome Piper Country Club. If I got the chance I’d have to sneak a peek to see if the out-of- bounds stakes were made of solid gold. The Gearys’ was a white country manor surrounded by corral-type fencing. I could see stables in the distance, and I recalled Constance talking about her love of riding. A semicircular driveway led up to the front portico. The minimum lots in this neck of the woods were five acres. My guess was the Gearys’ property more than doubled that.
I parked in front. Although the wine business afforded me the luxury of no longer driving a rolling advertisement for AAA membership, there was little danger of the good-taste police citing my host. By the time I made it onto the porch, Geary was standing in the front-door jamb. The sight of him dressed in jeans and riding boots and holding a Manhattan was priceless.
“Come in,” he said, dispensing with his put-on manners.
I followed him into a big study. Here there was a grand piano, naturally, a harp in one corner, a wet bar, and expensive but muted furniture. There was a trophy cabinet filled to the max with medals, ribbons, cups, statuettes, etc. All bore Connie’s name and were for excellence in music or riding. There was a rustic fireplace with a maw bigger than my garage door. Since I hadn’t seen another car outside, I figured maybe Brightman had parked in the fireplace.
“Jesus, Constance won all these,” I said, just to say something.
Geary frowned. He seemed not in the mood for small talk. “Ah, a man with the flare for the self- evident.”
“Feel free to fire my ass anytime you want.”
His expression said he liked that better. He still didn’t offer me a drink or further conversation.
“I thought you might want to know there’s somebody else poking around about Brightman and Moira Heaton’s disappearance. He’s already been to the cops and he’s paid off Moira’s father not to talk to anyone else. I also kinda get the impression he’s no fan of your boy Brightman.”
“Wit is being rather a pain in the ass. Will you join me?” he asked, holding up his drink.
“A beer, if you’ve got any. So you know Wit?”
“Bass Ale or Michelob?”
“Mick.”
“Yes, Moe,” Geary said, handing me a bottle, “everyone of breeding and means knows Wit. He’s a bit of a hanger-on. He has the right pedigree, but the wrong banker. If you understand my meaning. He used to be fun back in the day, a life-of-the-party sort; funny, biting, and bitchy. Amusing to have around, but ever since … Well, he’s become tiresome.”
“Since his grandson was-”
“Yes, since then. But try not to alienate him. He could actually be quite useful. When you get to the bottom of Miss Heaton’s unfortunate disappearance, Fenn’s name could add credibility. And speaking of that, how is the investigation going?”
“It’s too early to tell, but someone left this for me.” I showed him the limerick. “The cops think Brightman’s guilty, you know.”
“Yes,” he agreed, “but guilty of what?”
“Whatever.”
He handed the card back to me. “Atrocious writing.”
“You and Wit agree on something.”
A car pulled up the bluestone driveway. “That would be Steven,” Geary said. “Let us greet him and get this interview of yours over with. After you.”
Ooh, the code-enforcement people weren’t going to like this. Brightman had parked his Mercedes right behind me.
He was about five years my senior, my brother Aaron’s age, slender and four or five inches short of six feet. He wore a yellow golf shirt, loose black slacks, deck shoes, and a rich tan. A real man of the people. He was classically handsome, with an angular jaw, a straight nose, hazel eyes, brownish red hair, and an easy smile. Strangely enough, he did have that kind of young Jack Kennedy mojo.
He ambled up to me and extended his hand, looking me straight in the eyes. “You must be Moe. I’m Steven Brightman. Tom, could you give us a few minutes?”
Okay, now I got it. Brightman had the gift. Without doing much of anything, he had made me feel like I was the most important person in the metropolitan area. It was like that inexplicable movie-star thing. Some of the greatest actors in the world came off flat on film. Whereas people on the set could never understand Marilyn Monroe’s magic. The camera, they say, either loves you or it doesn’t. With politicians it was the ability to connect with the crowd itself and individuals in the crowd at the same time.
“Let’s walk,” he said, and guided me around the back of the house in the direction of the stables. “So, I hear you want to talk to me.”
“Did you kill Moira Heaton?”
“No.”
Right answer. No prevarication. No
“Were you having an affair with her?”
He hesitated. “Technically, no, I wasn’t.”
I tried rattling his cage a little. “But you had slept with her?”
“Twice, yes.”
Right answer. Again, there was no
“She wasn’t much to look at,” he went on, “but she was still a very attractive young woman.”
“I hope I get a chance to find out for myself,” I said, not really believing it. “Where?”
“Once in the office. Once at a motel under assumed names, obviously. It was good between us, but we both understood that it couldn’t go anywhere. It had ended months before she vanished.”
“When?”
“That August.”
“But you weren’t married then.”
“Not then, no,” he admitted. “A condition I have happily since rectified.”
“So why end it?”
“Actually, it was Moira who put an end to things. Politics were her passion, not politicians. I suspect once she got over the thrill of it, she wanted to get back to the real world. In the end, I think I was more attracted to her than she to me. Have you ever been curious or fantasized about sleeping with a black woman or a Chinese girl or any sort of specific type of woman? When you finally fulfill your fantasy, you get beyond it. It was like that for Moira with me.”
“Do the cops know?”
“They don’t. I’m afraid that I did lie about that one aspect of our relationship.”
I laughed. “Don’t worry about it. They probably didn’t believe you. I wouldn’t've believed you either. We cops can be such distrustful pricks. But just because you slept with her doesn’t mean you killed her.”
“Is that your opinion or theirs?”
“It’s not theirs. You’re a politician. They’re not fond of you on general principal. And me, I’m still making up my mind.”
“That’s fair. Do you think she’s-”
“-dead?” I finished the question. “Yeah, I think she’s dead.”
“I’ve always thought so as well. Moira was such a responsible person, so dedicated. She wouldn’t just run off. When she didn’t turn up after the first several days, I …”
