I held out my hand for another cookie. As she gave it to me, I asked: “Who was in the guest bedroom today with Sy Spencer?”
“What?” She looked startled.
“Someone used the guest bedroom.”
“Besides Mr. Spencer?”
“Yes.”
“Really? I have no idea, Steve. You know, he and Lindsay Keefe were living together. But they’re in the master suite.
What makes you think someone was in the guest bedroom?”
I took another bite of the cookie. “Just some indications,”
I answered. “Did you hear anyone upstairs?”
“Only Mr. Spencer. He was here all afternoon, packing to go to Los Angeles, on the phone. He had been supposed to leave this morning, but then he had to go over to the movie set, so I guess he was changing a few plans.”
“No one with him?”
“No.” She thought for an instant and then added: “I mean, I won’t cross my heart and hope to die, MAGIC HOUR / 39
because to tell you the truth, you can count the times on one hand that I’ve been on the second floor of this house. But as far as I know, he was alone.”
“Where was Rosa?”
“She cleans and does a laundry every morning, then goes home for the afternoon…she has a little girl. Takes whatever ironing. She comes back about six, to tidy up from my cooking—scours pots, damp mops the floor, takes out trash, that sort of thing. Then she stays through dinner and does the dishes and sets the table for breakfast.”
“Mrs. Robertson, I don’t want to embarrass you, but in a police investigation we have to ask some pretty direct questions.”
“Go ahead.”
“Was there any indication that Mr. Spencer had sexual relations in any other room beside the master bedroom?”
“I go home after dinner. So for all I know, he could be making hay in the sauna or in the screening room or in the wine cellar. All I can vouch for is not in my kitchen, because I would know in two seconds flat. Nobody, not the boss, not God himself, is allowed to mess with my kitchen. Got that, Steve?”
“Got it.”
“Good.”
Local cops—in this case the Southampton Village P.D.—secure the perimeter of a crime scene. One of them, a gangly kid my grandmother would have called a long drink of water, came into the tent on the far side of the pool where we were inhaling Marian Robertson’s sandwiches. He called out: “Is there a Steve Brady on duty tonight?” I put down my mug of coffee. “A guy’s out front. Real shook up about the murder.
Says he’s your brother.”
So I went over to Ray Carbone to tell him about 40 / SUSAN ISAACS
Easton’s connection to Sy, even though I had to interrupt Carbone while he was lifting up a triangle of sandwich and eyeing it suspiciously, clearly having deduced that it was, in fact, pâté. “Can we talk outside for a minute?” I asked. He slid the sandwich back on the platter.
The green-and-white-striped tent we’d been in was a three-sided thing. I guess it was either for changing, if you were an exhibitionist, or for just lying out of the sun and wind. It was about ten feet away from the shallow end of the pool, a perfect distance for a police snack—far enough from the crime scene so that you wouldn’t have to pretend Sy’s body was a scatter rug while you were woofing down his food.
“Listen, Ray, my brother—his name is Easton—he’s out front. He wants to see me.”
“Let him come back, take a look,” said Carbone. In the shadow of Sy Spencer’s house, he’d suddenly become Long Island’s most gracious host. He even did a be-my-guest sweep with his arm. Then he added: “Easton?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of a name is Easton?”
“My mother’s from this Yank family up in Sag Harbor. It was her maiden name. They do things like that.”
“I thought you were Irish.”
“My father was Irish. About my brother—”
“What does he do?”
“A little bit of everything. Classy stuff.”
“Like what?”
“He sold Jaguars. I bought mine from him. Then he sold expensive real estate. Worked in a bunch of hot-shit boutiques around here.”
“Sounds as if he never settled into a defined role. How come?”
“I’m a borderline personality myself. How the hell MAGIC HOUR / 41
should I know what’s wrong with anybody else?” Over in the tent, the men were still swarming around the table laden with Sy’s food. “Ray, put a lid on the psychoanalysis for now. I want to get this over with. It has to do with the case.”
“The case? Your brother?”
“Yeah. I mentioned the connection when Headquarters called, but I forgot to tell you. Easton was working for Sy.
Listen, about three, four months ago he was out of a job: not exactly news. Anyway, he heard about how Sy was going to be making a big part of Starry Night in East Hampton, so he wangled an invitation to some jazzy charity party. To make a long story short, he got introduced to Sy and made a big pitch about how he’d been born and raised here and knew everybody and could be helpful. Sy liked him and hired him to be a kind of liaison with the locals—I guess to spread a little money around and keep things happy and get things ready for filming. He did so well that Sy kept him on for the movie.”
“Any problems?”
“No. It was really working out. That’s the shitty thing; my brother finally seemed to have found something he was enthusiastic about, plus something he was actually good at. Sy had even made him one of the assistant producers, with his name right up there. Not at the beginning, but at the end when you see all those names. Anyway, sooner or later someone will be taking his statement. I’m just letting you know about him because the department’s so big on all that ethics crap.”
“Well, maybe let Robby take it.” I guess he saw my face.
“Steve, Robby’s not a bad kid.
