The Beach House Read online

"You've put me in an impossible position, Jack. You, or my father."

  "A no-brainer, obviously. Daddy treated you to Europe, right?"

  "Sometimes you don't know what you're talking about, Jack. My father is a wonderful man in many ways. He's great to my mom. He's blindly supported me in anything I've ever tried to do. Plus he's my goddamned dad. What do you want from me?" Her filial loyalty actually made me miss my own father.

  "So, what brings you here tonight?"

  "You," said Dana, staring at me intently. "I missed you even more than I thought I would. You are special, Jack."

  When she touched my arm, I almost jumped.

  "God, you hate me, don't you?" Tears welled in her eyes. "Oh, Jack. Don't you have anything to say to me?"

  "I guess you've heard about the inquiry," I said.

  Her head jerked back, the blond hair flying.

  "I can't believe anyone really thinks my family had anything to do with Peter's death. Do you, Jack? What makes you even think Peter was murdered?"

  "His body was covered with bruises, Dana. He was beaten on your beach. I wish you'd seen him."

  "A lot of people think the storm could have done that."

  I still couldn't quite believe Dana had gone completely over to the other side. Still, I knew it would be insane to share any of the hard work Pauline and I had done over the past two months.

  "Dana, you weren't around when I really needed you, and I did need you," I told her.

  Tears were still running down her cheeks. "I'm sorry, Jack. What do I have to do to prove it to you?"

  "You said some things before you left. Then you never called or wrote. Not even a postcard. Now you just show up here?"

  She wiped her face. "Jack, let's go someplace. We could get a room. At the Memory. Please, I need to talk to you."

  She reached out and put her arms around me. It felt way beyond wrong. I pulled away.

  "I'm not going to the Memory, Dana. I think you should leave."

  Dana folded her arms and stared at me angrily. The transformation was quite amazing.

  "So who is she, Jack? The bitch who was here before?"

  "A very good friend. She's helping me with the case. That reminds me, how's Volpi?"

  Dana flinched, then jumped up out of her chair. She wasn't sniffling anymore. Now she was just pissed-off. Daddy's little girl was a lot like Daddy.

  Once Dana was gone, I went inside the house, passed a sullen Mack watching the Yankees–Red Sox game, and tried to reach Pauline on her cell phone.

  Either she'd turned it off or she wouldn't take my call.

  Chapter 54

  I TOOK A GUINNESS out to the front porch and watched the late-departing weekenders head back to the city. Soon the Hamptons would be safe again for dreamy-eyed townies. In the meantime, I sat on the cool flagstone and rewound the evening. What a frigging disaster. I even began to wonder if Dana had known Pauline was there. I wouldn't put it past her.

  It was getting late, and watching the passing SUVs was like counting sheep. I was fading a little when a police car screeched around the corner against the westbound traffic.

  To my surprise, it turned into our driveway and skidded to a stop. Frank Volpi and a sergeant I didn't recognize hopped out. What the hell?

  "Mind if I ask you a couple of questions?" asked Volpi as he reached the porch.

  "Does it matter what I think, Frank?"

  "Not really. Where have you been tonight?"

  "Here. Why?"

  "Someone just torched Sammy Giamalva's house to the ground," he said. "Professional. We're pretty sure with him in it."

  I felt as if I'd been hit with the kitchen skillet. I thought of the photographs of Sammy in his kitchen — the ones that were dropped off at the Memory. Sammy, with a cigarette in his mouth and a cup of coffee in his hand. It showed a live-wire twenty-three-year-old getting stoked to do something he loved. A portrait of the stylist as a young man.

  Then I flashed on the tiny pairs of numbers scribbled in pencil under each photo.

  I suddenly realized they were odds, and that Sammy's (6–5) were the shortest.

  Volpi was still in my face.

  "Is there anyone who can confirm you've been here for the last couple of hours?"

  "What is it, Frank, you really think I burned down Sammy's house? With my family gone, I'm turning on my friends?" As mad as I was, it was nothing compared to my panic about the danger I'd put my friends in.

  "Mind if Officer Jordan and I have a look around?" Volpi asked.

  "Actually, I do," I said, but Jordan was already heading for the garage.

  "Hey!" I called. "You can't go in there."

  I followed and stood beside him as he pulled up the door and swept his flashlight over the cluttered space. The beam moved slowly over the deep blue sheen of Peter's motorcycle.

  "That's one pretty scooter," he said with a smirk. "Almost twenty grand, isn't it?"

  "What you're doing here is illegal," I said. "C'mon, huh? Get out of the garage."

  He bent to open the immaculate little BMW toolbox. What the hell was he looking for?

  I stepped forward and grabbed his arm. "I'd appreciate it if you'd leave right now. Get away from the bike."

  Jordan came out of his crouch and jumped into my chest, knocking me back into Frank Volpi, who had followed us into the garage. Volpi immediately grabbed my arms. He let Jordan take it from there.

  If the first punch didn't rebreak my almost-healed rib, the second definitely did.

  "You're under arrest for interfering with a police investigation and assaulting a police officer," said Volpi. He grinned as he cuffed me and dragged me out to the car. He didn't bother to read me my rights, and I got the message: I didn't have any.

  Chapter 55

  "WAKEE, WAKEE."

  A tin cup rattling over steel bars startled me from a dream in which I was trying to save Peter and Sammy. I jumped up and frantically scanned the cell. Then I saw Mack's shit-eating grin, the small grease-stained paper bag under his arm, and the old metal camping cup in his hand, which he must have spent all morning searching for.

  "Get out of bed, you lazy so-and-so. I just bailed you out."

  "Good to see you, Macklin. And thanks for that little prison-riot vignette."

  I threw on my clothes, and Paul Infante, the cop who'd worked the overnight shift, appeared in front of the cell. He extended a key attached to his belt by a long, thin chain, and the big bolt toppled over with an echoing clang. He pulled the heavy door toward him, and I stepped back out into the world.

  "Jack 'Hurricane' Mullen," said Macklin, clapping me on the shoulder. "Not even six hours in the East Hampton Hilton could break this man."

  "Can it, Macklin."

  Upstairs, Infante gave me an envelope with my watch and wallet in it, and I signed a summons pledging to appear in court for interfering with a police investigation. The assault charge had been dropped.

  "We should go visit Sammy's mom this afternoon," Mack said somberly. "We're the only ones who know how she feels."

  "I suppose they're going to say that was an accident, too," I said. "Maybe a suicide." I described the visit from Volpi and Jordan, how unbelievably brazen and cocky they'd been.

  "Can they get away with it?" I asked him.

  "Sure. Looks like they just did."

  As I pulled out of the driveway, I plucked the bag of Dreesen's doughnuts off Mack's lap. There were three inside — dark, soft, and sprinkled with cinnamon. If it's possible, I think spending my first night in jail made them taste even better.

  "So, tell me something," said Mack, snatching the last doughnut before it reached my lips, "you still feel like the man who's going to bring the goddamned system to its knees?"

  Chapter 56

  I WAS ABOUT TO FIND OUT. The inquiry into my brother's death was held in the gymnasium of the Montauk Middle School. They couldn't have picked a worse spot. For years Peter and I used to play Sunday pickup games there. Every Sunday. Walking to my
seat with Mack, I could still hear the deep smack of basketballs echoing off the whitewashed cinder block.

  As I took a seat, I remembered the very first weekend we ever snuck inside the gym as kids. Fenton got hold of a key, and after stashing our bikes in the woods, we crowded around him as he slipped it into the lock. Miraculously, it fit. We stepped through the small side door into the hushed, voluminous darkness more awed than if we'd just snuck into St. Patrick's Cathedral. Hank found the switch, and the entire trespassed interior, with its gleaming hardwood floor and white fiberglass backboards, lit up like a Technicolor dream.

  On the morning of the inquest, at least two hundred folding chairs were set up in long rows across the court. The people who sat in them had all been there before, as either graduating students or proud parents, or both.

  Marci had saved Mack and me the last two seats in the front row. I looked around and saw Fenton and Molly, Hank and his wife, an incredible number of friends from town. But not poor Sammy Giamalva, of course. We didn't have to wait very long for the action to begin.

  "Hear ye! Hear ye!" proclaimed the bailiff who had driven up that morning from Riverhead. "All persons having business before the Supreme Court of Suffolk County, please give your attention to the Honorable Judge Robert P. Lillian."

  In his stark black robe, the judge looked like a commencement-day speaker. He entered the gym from the small cafeteria directly behind it and took his elevated seat. Spectatorwise, it may have been a local crowd, but at the business end, the manpower balance tilted heavily in the opposite direction. Sitting shoulder to shoulder at a long, thin table facing the judge were three Nelson, Goodwin and Mickel senior partners, led by none other than Bill Montrose. Sitting behind them, like proud sons, were three of the firm's most promising associates.

  At the opposing table sat twenty-four-year-old assistant district attorney Nadia Alper. And four empty chairs. Alper sucked at a jumbo Coke and jotted notes on a yellow pad.

  "She doesn't even have a cut man," observed Mack.

  Lillian, a short, sturdy man in his late fifties, informed us from his judicial pulpit that although there was no defendant, the daylong inquest would proceed like a juryless trial. Witnesses would be called to testify under oath; limited cross-examination would be permitted as he deemed relevant. In other words, he was God.

  Lillian turned the floor over to Neubauer's legal team, and Montrose summoned one Tricia Powell, a blowsy, dark-haired woman in her twenties.

  I had never seen Powell before, and wondered where she fit in.

  With Montrose's guidance, Tricia Powell testified that she had been a guest at the Neubauers' Memorial Day weekend party. Near the end of the evening she had strolled down to the water.

  "See anyone on your walk?" questioned Montrose.

  "Not until I got to the beach," said Powell. "That's when I saw Peter Mullen."

  I flinched in my seat. This was the first indication in two months that anyone had seen Peter after his dinner break. It sent a ripple of whispers through the gym.

  "What was he doing when you saw him?" asked Montrose.

  "Staring into the waves," said Powell. "He looked sad."

  "Did you know who he was?"

  "No, but I recognized him as the man who had parked my car. Then, of course, I saw his picture in the paper."

  "What happened that night? Tell us exactly what you saw."

  "I smoked a cigarette and started to head back. But as I did, I heard a splash and turned to see Peter Mullen swimming through the waves."

  "Did that strike you as unusual?"

  "Oh, absolutely. Not only because of the size of the waves, but also how cold the water was. I had stuck my toe in and was shocked."

  So was I. This woman, whoever she was, was lying her ass off. I leaned toward Nadia Alper and whispered a quick message.

  When Montrose finished, Alper got up to question Powell.

  "How is it that you know Barry Neubauer?" she asked.

  "We're colleagues," she said, cool as could be. I wanted to go up there and slap her.

  "You're also in the toy business, Ms. Powell?"

  "I work in the Promotions Department at Mayflower Enterprises."

  "In other words, you work for Barry Neubauer."

  "I like to think we're friends, too."

  "I'm sure you will be now," said Nadia Alper.

  The derisive laughter in the gym was cut off by a sharp reprimand from Lillian. "I trust, Ms. Alper, that I will not have to ask you again to refrain from editorial asides."

  She turned back to the witness. "I have a list here of everyone who was invited to the party that evening. Your name isn't on that list, Ms. Powell. Any idea why?"

  "I met Mr. Neubauer at a meeting a couple of days before. He was kind enough to invite me."

  "I see, and what time did you arrive?" asked Nadia.

  "Unfashionably early, I confess. Seven o'clock, maybe five after at the latest. With all the celebrities, I didn't want to miss a minute."

  "And it was Peter Mullen who parked your car?"

  "Yes."

  "You're absolutely positive, Ms. Powell?"

  "Positive. He was . . . memorable."

  Alper went to her desk, grabbed a folder, and approached the bench. "I would like to submit to the court written statements from three of Peter Mullen's coworkers that evening. They state that the deceased got to work at least forty minutes late. Therefore, it was impossible for him to have parked Ms. Powell's or anyone else's car before seven-forty."

  The crowd stirred again. The whispers got louder. People were clearly angry. "Do you have any explanation for this discrepancy, Ms. Powell?" asked the judge.

  "I thought he parked my car, Your Honor. I suppose it's possible I saw him at some other point in the party. He was very good looking. Maybe that's why his face stuck out in my mind."

  There was so much commotion as Nadia Alper returned to her seat that Lillian had to bang his gavel and ask for quiet again.

  "Alper's got some brass," said Mack in my ear. "I'd score that round a draw."

  Chapter 57

  THIS WAS EXCRUCIATING.

  I wanted to be the one handling the cross-examination, objecting to Bill Montrose's every sentence, his blasé attitude, even his goddamned blue cashmere blazer and gunmetal gray slacks. He looked as though he was on his way to the Bath & Tennis Club as soon as this trifling matter was finished.

  Montrose's next witness was Dr. Ishier Jacobson, who had quit his position as Los Angeles County coroner a decade ago when he realized he could do five times as well as an expert witness.

  "Dr. Jacobson, how long did you serve as chief pathologist at Cook Claremont Hospital in Los Angeles?"

  "Twenty-one years, sir."

  "And in that time, Doctor, approximately how many drowning victims were you called upon to examine?"

  "A great many, I'm sorry to say. Los Angeles–area beaches are extremely active and crowded with surfers. In my tenure, I looked into over two hundred drownings."

  Montrose gleamed up at Judge Lillian, then back at Dr. Jacobson.

  "So it is no exaggeration to say that this is an area in which you have an exceptional level of expertise."

  "I believe I've examined more drowning victims than any active pathologist in the United States."

  "And what were your conclusions concerning the death of Peter Mullen?"

  "First of all, that he drowned. Second, that his death was either an accident or a suicide."

  It's not as if I didn't know how easily expert testimony can be purchased. If the client can afford to, he can always fly in a second opinion to forcefully contradict whatever the prosecution is putting out. The injuncture, the lawyer's artifice, just seems a little different when the murder victim is your brother.

  "How do you explain the condition of the body, Dr. Jacobson? Pictures taken of the deceased after he washed ashore indicate that he was badly bruised and there's been speculation that he was beaten."

  "As you
know, a storm was passing through the Hamptons that weekend. In that kind of surf, a badly bruised corpse is the rule, not the exception. I've examined dozens of drowning victims where foul play was never a question. Believe me, they looked at least as battered as Peter Mullen did that night. Some were worse."

  "That's total bullshit," said Hank, leaning over the back of our seats. "This guy is sickening. Bought and paid for."

  Montrose continued with the charade. He was sickening, too. "As you know, I asked you to bring some pictures of previous victims to illustrate this point. Could you share these with the court, Dr. Jacobson?"

  Jacobson held up two pictures, and Montrose, as if he hadn't seen them before, winced. "Both of the surfers were approximately the same age as Mr. Mullen," he said. "As you can see they are almost as badly bruised as Mr. Mullen, and as I recall, the conditions were not nearly as severe."

  Montrose carried the photographs to the judge, who placed them beside the statement he had received from Alper.

  "Is there anything else you found in the records that could shed light on his tragic death?" asked Monty.

  Jacobson nodded. "The autopsy revealed significant traces of marijuana in his bloodstream, as if he had inhaled one or maybe two marijuana cigarettes shortly before entering the water."

  "Your Honor," interrupted Alper, "this shameless effort to taint the reputation of the victim has been going on since he died. When does it stop?"

  "Please, Ms. Alper," said the judge, "sit down and wait your turn."

  "Why might this marijuana be relevant, Dr. Jacobson?" asked Montrose.

  "Recent studies have shown that immediately after using marijuana, the risk of heart failure increases dramatically. Add to that a water temperature in the low fifties, and it becomes a real possibility. I believe that's exactly what happened here."

  "Thank you, Dr. Jacobson. I have no further questions."

  Chapter 58

  THIS WHOLE THING was suddenly too much for me to take. If I had been the DA, I would have cross-examined Dr. Jacobson until he was bleeding from every orifice. I would have asked him to tell the court how many days of expert testimony he had billed Nelson, Goodwin and Mickel in the past five years (forty-eight), what his daily rate ($7,500) and per diem ($300) were, and to name his favorite restaurant in New York (Gotham Bar & Grill, most expensive entrée, veal esplanade, $48).