The Beach House Read online

  "Ten years, until I quit."

  "How were you viewed by the firm?"

  "I received five promotions during my ten years. I was given performance bonuses each year that exceeded the target bonus by at least one hundred percent. Mr. Montrose himself told me that I was the best investigator that he had worked with in his twenty-five years of practice."

  I couldn't help but smile as Montrose squirmed in his seat.

  "Now, Ms. Grabowski, what if any role have you played in the investigation of this case?"

  "Well, I've done the usual background checks, talked to potential witnesses, collected documents. . . ."

  "Directing your attention to Thursday, the third of May, did you meet with counsel at the Memory Motel?"

  "Yes, I did."

  "What, if anything, did you find there?"

  "I found Sammy Giamalva's private collection of photographs. I examined several dozen black-and-white prints."

  Now it was about to begin.

  I moved in slow motion . . . extracting the photographs inch by inch.

  "Ms. Grabowski, are these the photographs?"

  "Yes."

  "Are they in the same condition today as the day you first saw them?"

  "Yes."

  "Your Honor, the People offer People's Exhibit C, thirteen eight-by-twelve black-and-white print photographs."

  Montrose screamed, "Objection!"

  Macklin waved him off. "Overruled. This is relevant evidence that has been authenticated by a qualified witness. I'll allow it."

  I held the first photograph with its back to the room and carefully examined it. It still made me sick.

  Then I walked to the wall and taped the photograph beside the cover of the Boontaag Christmas catalog. Only when I was satisfied that it was securely attached to the wall, and not the slightest bit askew, did I step aside.

  I let Molly zoom in and lock off in tight focus.

  The first thing that hit anyone who viewed the photograph was the lurid intensity of the lighting. Even in this well-lit room it burned like neon in the night. It was the kind of light that is pumped into operating rooms and morgues. It froze every vein and follicle and blemish in a nightmarish hyperreality.

  Matching the harsh intensity of the lighting were the crazed expressions of the two men and one woman, and the heat of the action itself. They were crowded together at the center of the print as if the woman were on fire and the men were huddling around her for warmth.

  Only after adjusting to the glare would anyone notice that the woman between the two men was Stella Fitzharding. The man sodomizing her was Barry Neubauer, and the man on his back beneath her was my brother.

  Chapter 102

  THE BLACK-AND-WHITE PHOTOGRAPH jolted the room like a powerfully concussive blast that leaves those in the vicinity damaged but unbloodied. It was Neubauer who broke the silence. "Goddamned bastard!" he shouted.

  Montrose bellowed, "Objection! Objection! Objection!" as if his client's cry had tripped a mechanical alarm in his throat.

  Their ruckus set off Macklin. He was mad, and it showed. "I'll gag the whole room if you don't pipe down. This is evidence, and it's certainly relevant. I'll allow it."

  Only when quiet had been restored did I return to the painstaking task of hanging more photos. Reminding myself to take my time to "build the boat," I spent the next five minutes taping up pictures of Peter and various partners. All together I put up thirteen, a pornographer's dirty dozen and just about the saddest family album I've ever seen.

  Although there were occasional cameos by unidentified guests, the core troupe remained constant: Barry and Peter, Stella and Tom — the Neubauers' best friends. We definitely had the right people in the room. They had been doing my brother since he was a kid.

  There's no denying the disconcerting power of hardcore pornography. After each photograph was secured to the wall, Molly zoomed in for a close-up. She held it for a full ten seconds.

  "Turn off the camera!" screamed Neubauer. "Stop it now!"

  "Could the prosecutor and I approach the bench?" asked Bill Montrose after speaking to Neubauer. When Mack waved us forward, Montrose said, "Mr. Neubauer has a proposal he believes could end these proceedings. He's asked me to pass it on."

  "The People aren't interested," I said flatly.

  "What is it?" asked Macklin.

  "My client insists on presenting it himself. In private."

  "There is nothing of value he can offer this court," I told Macklin. "Let's move on."

  Montrose repeated his request to Macklin. "All he wants is ninety seconds, Your Honor. Surely you can spare us that — in the interest of fairness, or whatever the hell this is supposed to represent."

  "This court is recessed for two minutes," announced Macklin. "Give the networks a chance to sell some beer."

  He motioned for Gidley, then led all four of us into a library equipped with a running track and a ladder to get to the high shelves. Of course, there were no books.

  Being in the same room with Neubauer, even with his hands cuffed, was unsettling. He was close to a rage state. He wasn't used to not getting his way. His eyes were dilated, and his nostrils flared. He gave off a feral, vinegary odor that was hard to take.

  "Ten million dollars!" said Neubauer as soon as the door shut behind him. "And none of us will cooperate in any criminal proceedings against you, your grandfather, or your friends."

  "That's your proposal, Mr. Neubauer?" asked Macklin.

  "Ten million dollars," he repeated, "in cash deposited into an account in your name in Grand Cayman in the Bahamas. Plus, no one in your group spends any time in jail. You have my word on it. Now would somebody take off these cuffs? I want to get out of here. You got what you wanted. You won!"

  "We aren't interested in your money," I said flatly.

  Neubauer flicked his head at me dismissively. "A couple of years ago," he said, "some of my guests got a little carried away. A hooker fell off my yacht. It cost me five hundred thousand dollars. Now another whore has died, and I want to settle my account again. I am a man who pays his debts."

  "No, Barry. You're a murdering scumbag. Frank Volpi was good enough to confirm that last night. You can't buy your way out of this, asshole!"

  I realized I had gone over the edge. Neubauer's face twisted into the same pre-ejaculatory grimace recorded in some of the pictures. Then he spoke in a freaky whisper. "I liked fucking your brother, Jack. Peter was one of my all-time favorite pieces of ass! Particularly when he was thirteen, okay, Mullen?"

  I was leaning on the ladder and Neubauer was straddling the metal track in the floor less than two feet away. The track led straight to his groin. All I had to do was grab the ladder and push hard, but I grabbed control of myself. I wasn't going to let him return to the courtroom looking beaten-up or abused.

  "I already know what you did to my brother," I finally said. "That's why we're here. And it's going to cost you a lot more than money, Barry."

  "Let's get back to work," said Mack. "It's not polite to keep a hundred million people waiting, and if nothing else, we Mullens have our manners."

  Chapter 103

  STELLA FITZHARDING didn't fit the profile of a third wife of a New York–Palm Beach billionaire. She was not young or blond or augmented. She was a former professor of Romance languages at the small midwestern college to which her husband had given millions to get his name on the library. If she was embarrassed by her appearance in the graphic display on the wall, she didn't show it. The first time she had screwed my brother, he was fourteen years old.

  "Mrs. Fitzharding," I said once she'd been sworn in, "I have the feeling you've seen these photographs before. Is that true?"

  Stella Fitzharding frowned but nodded.

  "Peter had been using them to blackmail us for two years," she said.

  "How much did you pay him?" I asked.

  "Five thousand dollars a month? Seventy-five hundred? I forget exactly, but I remember it was the same amount we pay our ga
rdener." She seemed bored by my questions. Bear with me, Stella. It will pick up soon.

  "Didn't you complain to Barry Neubauer?"

  "We might have, except that we found the whole experience of getting blackmailed so deliciously theatrical and, I don't know . . . noir. As soon as the pictures got dropped at our back door, we'd grab them and rush into the den, where we'd pore over them the way other folk look at themselves smiling in front of Old Faithful. It was a game we played. Your brother knew that, Jack. It was a game for him, too."

  I wanted to go after her, but I held everything inside.

  "Who did you make the payments to?" I asked.

  She pointed to the witness table. "Detective Frank Volpi was the messenger boy."

  Volpi sat there very calmly. Then he gave Stella the finger.

  "So you paid the monthly fee to Detective Volpi?"

  "Yes. But when the merger of Mayflower Enterprises and Bjorn Boontaag was announced, Peter suddenly realized how damaging the pictures could be. Instead of a few thousand, he wanted millions."

  "So what did you think when my brother's body washed up on the beach?"

  "That he had played a dangerous game — and lost," said Stella Fitzharding. "Just like you are, and just like you will."

  Chapter 104

  "I CALL DETECTIVE FRANK VOLPI."

  Volpi didn't move. I wasn't surprised. In fact, I had expected it to happen with more of the witnesses.

  "I can question you from here, Detective, if you would prefer?"

  "I'm still not going to answer your questions, Jack."

  "Well, let me try just one."

  "Suit yourself."

  "Do you remember the talk we had last night, Detective?" I asked.

  Volpi sat there impassively.

  "Let me refresh your memory, Detective. I'm referring to the conversation in which you said that Barry Neubauer had two of his goons murder my brother on the beach a year ago."

  "Objection!" yelled Montrose.

  "Sustained!" yelled Mack. "Mrs. Stevenson, please delete these last two questions from the record."

  "I apologize, Your Honor," I said. "The People have no further questions."

  "Nice work, Jack," said Volpi from his seat.

  Chapter 105

  WE BROKE FOR LUNCH and returned promptly after forty-five minutes. I couldn't eat, mostly because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to keep anything down.

  The witness I was about to call represented the kind of risk any really good trial lawyer is cautioned not to take. I felt I had no choice. It was time to find out if I was a good judge of human nature, and also if I was any kind of lawyer.

  I took a deep breath.

  "Campion Neubauer," I said.

  A hush fell over the room. Campion slowly got up and walked forward. She looked back at the other witnesses, as if expecting one of them to throw her a lifeline.

  Bill Montrose immediately rose from his seat. "Absolutely not! Mrs. Neubauer is currently undergoing treatment for chronic depression. She's been unable to take her medication since this ordeal began."

  I looked at Campion, who had already sat down in the witness chair. "How are you feeling?" I asked her. "You okay with this?"

  She nodded. "I'm fine, Jack. Actually, I want to say something."

  "Not that it means anything to you," shouted Neubauer from his seat, "but the law prohibits forcing a wife to testify against her husband!"

  "The so-called spousal privilege," responded Macklin, "can be asserted by either spouse for their own protection. But the privilege only protects statements made by one spouse to another, not the underlying facts. You may testify, Mrs. Neubauer."

  A thin smile broke across Campion's lips. I had known her for a long time and had seen her change from a beautiful, free-spirited woman to an extremely bitter one. That was part of the reason I was taking a chance with her now.

  "Not to worry, darling," she said to her husband. "No one's forcing me to testify against you. I'm here of my own free will."

  After Gidley swore in Campion, I asked if she would go with me to examine a few of the photographs on the wall. She did as I asked.

  I pointed to a woman apparently reaching climax in the third picture in the row. "Who is that?" I asked.

  "Stella Fitzharding. She's a freak."

  "And this younger woman on her knees?"

  "Tricia Powell. The young businesswoman doing so well in Special Events at my husband's company."

  "And poured between the two of them, my brother, Peter, who was certainly no saint."

  Campion shook her head. "No, but he never hurt anybody. And everyone did love Peter."

  "That's comforting," I said.

  I walked her down the line of photos. I pointed.

  "Peter again," Campion said.

  "How old would you say Peter was when this picture was shot?"

  "I don't know — maybe fifteen."

  "No older than that?" I asked.

  "No. I don't think so. Jack, you have to believe this — I had no idea this was happening in my house. Not at first anyway. I'm sorry. I apologize to you and your family."

  "I'm sorry, too, Campion."

  We proceeded down the row. "In each of these next half dozen shots spanning five years, my brother, who in the earliest pictures is no more than fifteen, is being mounted by a much older man."

  "That would be my husband, Barry Neubauer," she said, and pointed to the man grabbing the arms of an old beach chair as tightly as he held Peter in the photos.

  We skipped several shots, then stopped together in front of the last photograph in the series.

  In it Peter and Barry were joined by a third middle-aged man, wearing a studded dog collar hooked to an industrial-strength leash. "The man on all fours," I said. "I'm almost positive I've seen him before."

  "Undoubtedly," said Campion. "He's Robert Crassweller, Junior, the attorney general of the United States."

  Chapter 106

  I ESCORTED CAMPION back to the witness chair. Suddenly she looked younger and more relaxed. She'd even stopped glancing over at Barry for approval, or disapproval. Or whatever it was she got from him.

  "You still okay?" I asked.

  "I'm fine. Let's keep going."

  I gestured toward the wall of photographs.

  "Other than the faces and bodies, Campion, is there anything else you recognize in the pictures?"

  "The rooms. The pictures were all shot at our house. The house I grew up in. The beach house my family has owned for nearly a hundred years."

  "Different rooms or the same one?" I asked.

  "Mostly different."

  "One thing I can't quite figure out," I said, "is where the photographer hid."

  "It depends on the shot, but there are any number of places. Lots of nooks and crannies. It's a huge old house."

  "But how would the photographer know where to hide and be able to get himself there again and again without being detected?"

  There was a crash behind me, and when I twisted to face it, Neubauer, having destroyed the card table with his full-stretch lunge, was crawling across the floor toward his wife. As Fenton and Hank pounced on him, a black tomahawk flew across the room, leaving a nasty black mark on the wall six inches from Campion's head. It was Stella Fitzharding's left shoe.

  "Your husband and friend seem quite certain you were the one helping the blackmailers, Mrs. Neubauer," I said. Unscathed by either attack, Campion sat on the stand as calmly as when she arrived.

  "I was," she said.

  "You were blackmailing your own husband, Mrs. Neubauer?" I asked. "But as controlling partner of Mayflower Enterprises, you had more to lose than he did."

  "I guess we would have to agree, Jack, that there are some things more important than money. At first I merely wanted to document it," Campion explained. "Have a record of what was going on in a house that has been in my family for a century. But then I couldn't resist the thought of watching my husband squirm."

  "Peter didn't
know about the blackmailing, did he?"

  "He never would have gone along with it. He didn't hate Barry enough. Peter didn't hate anyone except himself. That was his loveliest flaw."

  "Wouldn't it have been easier to simply divorce your husband?"

  "Easier perhaps, but definitely not safer. As you've noticed by now, when Barry gets upset, people start washing up onshore."

  I covered my mouth with a hand and took in a breath. Then I asked my next question, a big one. "Isn't that why you needed pictures even more incriminating than the ones up on the wall, Campion?"

  Her back stiffened. "I'm not sure I follow," she said, nervously fingering the black crystal amulet on her necklace.

  I moved in closer to Campion. "I think you do. It's one thing catching Barry having illicit sex with young boys and girls. But if, for example, you had pictures of him committing murder? Isn't that why you set up Peter?"

  "I didn't know Barry was going to kill Peter that night. How could I?"

  "Of course you did. You just told us — 'when Barry gets upset, people start washing up onshore.' In fact, you sent Sammy to cover the murder."

  "But there are no pictures!" she pleaded. "I don't have any pictures!"

  I held up an envelope.

  "But I do, Campion. I have the pictures right here."

  Chapter 107

  ALL OF THE COURTROOM TECHNIQUES I'd tried so hard to master through the winter and spring deserted me in a frantic, anxious rush. I quickly opened the envelope instead of milking the moment for what it was worth. My heart was pumping. All my senses were razor-sharp. I held several photographs from the envelope in my fist.

  I riffled through the photographs, then slapped them up on the wall with the others. They were probably the last seven shots Sammy had ever taken, and in a terrible way they were his masterpieces.

  Each was printed horizontally on nineteen-by-twenty-two paper and was as black and murky as Sammy's pornography was bright. Taped to the wall in a dark jagged row, they looked less like photographs than expressionist paintings swirling violently with rage and fear and death.

  Like so much of the pornography, the action was three-on-one. But the lust was now replaced by fury, the pelvic thrusts by whaling fists and feet.