of as being partly my own since I spent so much time here as a kid.
“Not too good. You?” I say, not even sure who I’m talking at, or why I’m bothering to answer the guy’s stupid question.
An hour after a Montauk volunteer fireman hears the call go out on his police scanner, at least two hundred local folk are milling on the beach below the Wilson estate, and I’m one of them. I haven’t lived out here for a dozen years, but I guess being a Montauk townie isn’t something that ever goes away, because I’m as anxious and scared as my former neighbors.
Above where I’m standing, three ambulances are parked in the dunes, surrounded by the entire East Hampton Police Department.
Over the next ten minutes or so, terrible rumors sweep down the hill like mud slides, confirming or correcting or replacing the names of the dead that people have already heard. Desperate parents call children, rejoicing when they answer, panicking when they don’t. I think of red-haired Mary Catherine streaking across the lawn earlier today, and of how vulnerable parents become the second their child is born.
We have known for hours that all three of the victims are young males, but the police are withholding the names until they can notify the families.
But the people out on the beach know too many of the cops inside the crime scene tape, and when someone gets a call from his brother-in-law up on the hill, we find out that the dead kids are Walco, Rochie, and Feifer. The news hits all of us like a hand grenade.
In the summer there might be ten thousand people living in Montauk, but the number who live here year-round is probably a tenth of that, and at times like this we’re one big family. It’s one of the reasons I left, and one of the things I miss the most. Out here, the person who lives next door is not an indifferent stranger, but a genuine neighbor who actually cares about your life and feels your triumphs and tragedies, and because of that, people are sobbing and shrieking and trying to comfort one another.
The three dead boys were ten years younger than me, and I haven’t spent much time here lately, yet I still know that Walco’s girlfriend is pregnant, and that Rochie’s mother is sick with stomach cancer. Long before Feifer became a surfer stud, I was his babysitter, for God’s sake. I remember that he wouldn’t go to sleep without a bowl of Rice Krispies.
Grief turns to rage as more details of the killings trickle down the hill. All three were shot point-blank between the eyes. All three had rope burns on their wrists. And when the bodies were found, they were piled on top of each other like garbage left at the town dump. We all know enough about these kids to know they weren’t angels. We also know they weren’t criminals. So what the hell happened here tonight?
I turn away from the row of ten-million-dollar beach houses and back to the ambulances. Among the two dozen cops milling around them is a handful of locals who for one reason or another have been allowed to get close to the crime scene.
As I watch, one of these, a large, heavyset man, drapes an arm over the shoulder of a tall, much-thinner man beside him.
Their backs are to me, but I know that the larger man is Jeff Dunleavy, the other his younger brother, Tom, and now I feel a fresh jolt of pain, which I’m ashamed to say has nothing to do with the horrible murder of three sweet-natured Montauk kids.
Chapter 14. Tom
THE CURRENT CROP of East Hampton cops has never had to deal with a horrifying, almost scatological crime scene like this, and it sure shows. There are actually too many cops, too many bodies, and too many emotions, which are all way too close to the surface.
Finally, Van Buren, the youngest detective on the force, stakes off a ten-yard square around the bodies and runs lights down from the court so Forensics can dust for prints and scrape for DNA.
I don’t want to bother Van Buren, so I approach Police Chief Bobby Flaherty, who I’ve known forever.
“Has Feif’s family been told yet?” I ask.
“I’m sending Rust,” he says, nodding toward a rookie cop who looks as green as I must have forty minutes ago.
“Let me do it, Bobby. Okay? They should hear it from somebody they know.”
“It’s not going to help, Tom.”
“I just need a ride back to the marina. To pick up my car.”
The Feifers live by the junior high on a quiet cul-de-sac in one of Montauk’s last year-round neighborhoods. It’s the kind of place where kids can still play baseball in the street without getting run over, and where families like Feif’s chose to raise their kids precisely because they thought they wouldn’t have to worry about some unspeakable thing like this ever happening.
Late as it is, the lights are still on in the den of the house, and I creep up near the picture window, quiet as a burglar.
Vic and Allison Feifer and their teenage daughter, Lisa, share the big, comfortable couch, their faces lit by the TV. A bag from Montauk Video hangs from a nearby chair, and maybe they’re watching a chick flick because old man Feifer’s chin is on his chest, and Ali and Lisa are transfixed, not taking their eyes off the screen even when they dig into the bowl of popcorn on the couch between them.
I know it’s never that simple, but they look like such a nice, contented family.
I take in a deep breath; then I ring the doorbell. I watch Lisa spring off the couch in her pink sweats and white furry house slippers.
Lisa yanks the screen door open, eager to return to her movie. She tows me behind her into the den, not even thinking about the unusualness of such a late visit.
But once I’m standing in front of them, my face gives me away. Allison reaches for my arm, and old man Feif, still rousing himself from when I rang the doorbell, staggers to his stocking feet.
“It’s about Eric,” I say, forcing the words out. “I’m real sorry. They found his body tonight, along with Rochie and Walco, at the Wilson estate on Beach Road. He was murdered. I’m so sorry to have to tell you this.”
They’re only words, but they might as well be bullets. Before they are out of my mouth, Allison’s face has shattered into pieces, and when she looks at her husband, they’re both so devastated all they can offer each other is the shell of who they were just five minutes before.
Chapter 15. Tom
ASK ME HOW long I spent at Feifer’s house, I’d have sworn it was close to an hour. According to my kitchen clock, it was probably less than ten minutes.
Still, it’s all I can do to pull a bottle of whiskey off the shelf and carry it out back, where my pal Wingo is waiting. Wingo knows right away I’m messed up. Instead of begging me to take him for a walk, he lays his jaw on my lap and I pet him like there’s no tomorrow. For three of my friends, there isn’t.
I have a phone in my hand, but I can’t remember why. Oh, yeah,
Unfortunately, I don’t want to call her. I just want to want to call her, in the same way that I want to pretend she’s my girlfriend, even though we both know we’re only killing time.
Wingo’s a dog, not a pal. My girlfriend isn’t really my girlfriend. But the whiskey is the real thing, so I pour out half a glass and gulp it down. Thank God that son of a bitch Dr. Jameson still makes house calls.
I’d feel better if I could cry, but I haven’t cried since I was ten, when my father died. So I take another long gulp and then another, and then instead of thinking about every horrible thing that’s happened today, I find myself thinking about Kate Costello. It’s been ten years since we broke up, and I still think about Kate all the time, especially when something important happens, good or bad. Plus, I saw her tonight out on Beach Road. As always, she looked beautiful, and even under the circumstances, seeing her was a jolt.
