Beach Road

“Of course I’m not sleeping,” says Macklin as if he’s just been told he hit the Lotto. “At my age you never sleep, unless, that is, you’re trying to stay awake. Kate, it’s so lovely to hear your voice.”

Mack, why did you have to say that? Because now I’m crying and can’t stop. It’s five minutes before I can blurt, “Macklin, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? What are you talking about, darling girl? That’s what unlimited minutes are for.”

That sets off more sobbing. “Macklin, you still there?”

“Yup. Always.”

“So, Mack, I’m thinking of coming out to Montauk for a while and was wondering if that offer about your extra bedroom is still on the table.”

“What do you think, Kate?”

And then I lose it again.

And in the morning I call Jane Anne and Rachel too.

Chapter 53. Tom

BACK IN THE day when an East Hampton billionaire turned fifty, he’d buy his way out of his second marriage, get a Harley and a tattoo, and find a nice twenty-something girl (or boy) who admired him for what he truly was-a very, very rich person.

Now instead of a scooter he can barely ride, maybe he buys a surfboard he can’t ride at all. And instead of a leather jacket, he squeezes into a full-body polyurethane girdle, otherwise known as a wet suit.

I have nothing but respect for real surfers. Feif, for example, was a wicked athlete and a bona fide badass on the water. It’s the middle-aged nouveau surfers I have trouble with, the guys who wander into what used to be perfectly decent dive bars and try to get the ball rolling with that pretentiously simple two-word question: “You surf?”

Still, the surfing craze has been good to my pals. Sometimes Feif made five hundred dollars a day giving lessons, and it’s been manna from heaven for Griffin Stenger, who owns the Amagansett Surf and Bike Shop. Grif tells me that on Saturday mornings the Beach Road crew tries to catch the baby waves that come off the breaker at the end of Georgica Beach. Since the spot is no more than two hundred yards from where Feif, Walco, and Rochie were murdered, and because there’s no point going back to Cold Ground, Inc., till Monday, I’m here to see if one of these ocean gods saw anything the night of the murder.

Saturday morning, I’m out of the house at dawn and waiting at the breaker when the surfer lads start to waddle in.

In the first group, flanked by a burly duo, is Mort Semel, who sold his company to eBay last year for $3 billion.

When I approach him to introduce myself, the two younger, muscular guys drop their boards and get in my face. “Can we help you, sir?”

“I was hoping to talk to Mort for a minute.”

“About what, sir?”

“I’m a lawyer representing a young man accused of committing a murder near here a couple months ago. I know Mr. Semel is a close neighbor of Mr. Wilson’s and often surfs here. I need to find out if he saw or heard anything that night, or knows anyone who did.”

One bodyguard stays with me, the other walks over to Semel, then trots back as if he can’t wait to tell me the good news. “Nope. Mort didn’t see or hear a thing.”

“Oh, yeah. Well, since I came all the way out here, I’d kind of like to ask him myself.”

“Not a good idea.”

“This is not his home,” I say, and my temperature is starting to rise a little. “This is a public beach, asshole. I’m talking to Mort.” I start to walk his way.

Apparently not a good idea either, because now I’m flat on my back in the sand, and the bigger of the two has his foot on my throat.

“Stay down,” he says. “Stay still.”

Chapter 54. Tom

“I GET THE picture,” I say. “I get it, all right?”

But I’m thinking, A surfer with two bodyguards. How rad is that? It’s almost funny, except, as I tried to point out, this is a public beach. Also, I’m lying in the public sand.

So I grab the foot in my face and twist it around like little Linda Blair’s head in The Exorcist. The ankle makes a satisfyingly unnatural sound; then the cartilage around the bully bodyguard’s knee cracks, and a scream comes out of his mouth. I don’t see him fall because I’ve already turned my attention to his colleague, and the two of us pretty much break even until some of the other surfers pull us apart.

Break even might have been a slight exaggeration on my part. When I get back to my car one eye is closed already. And back at my house, a half hour later, there’s some blood in it. But I’d be feeling worse if I let those jerks scare me off my own beach.

Besides, one eye still works fine, so I go back to the notes from my last interview with Dante.

In addition to the aching ribs and the eye, I must have taken a blow to the head, because I swear a woman who looks exactly like Kate Costello just walked into my backyard. The woman in question wears blue jeans, a white Penguin shirt, and black Converse sneakers, and she comes over to where I’m sitting at a wooden table and takes the chair next to mine.

“What happened to you?” she asks.

“A couple of bodyguards.”

“Belonging to whom?”

“Oh, some guy on Beach Road I tried to talk to about the murders this morning.”

Kate wrinkles her nose and sighs. “You haven’t changed, have you?”

“Actually, I have, Kate.”

Then this woman, who I’m pretty sure actually is Kate Costello, says, “I’ve changed my mind. I want to help you defend Dante Halleyville.”

And as I sit there too stunned to reply, she continues, “The thing is, you’ve got to say yes because I quit my job yesterday and moved out here.”

“You know there’s no pay, right? No perks. No medical insurance. Nothing.”

“I’m feeling healthy.”

“So did I when I woke up.”

“Sorry about that.”

“And you’re okay working as an equal with someone who couldn’t even get hired by Walmark, Reid and Blundell?”

And then Kate nearly smiles. “I consider your unworthiness of Walmark, Reid and Blundell an important point in your favor.”

Chapter 55. Kate

HE’S JUST A kid.

A very tall kid who looks frightened.

Those are my first unformed thoughts when Dante Halleyville, bending at the waist so as not to bang his head,