Amagansett (31 page)

Manfred checked himself in the mirror, adjusted his bow tie and removed a fleck of lint from the shoulder of his tuxedo.

He was surprised that nothing in his appearance, his face, betrayed the turmoil inside.

He told himself it would be over soon, but the thought brought little satisfaction. He had been outmaneuvered by a fisherman. Labarde would still be at large and in possession of a considerable amount of money, destined to see out his days in comfort, at their expense. No, there was not a whole lot to be happy about.

The cash had arrived a few hours earlier, Manfred and Richard watching from the house as the black van pulled up by the garage. A dark little man pulled open the doors, the van disappeared inside and the doors were closed again. A few minutes later, the van was gone, taking the body with it. A leather case containing the money had been left beside the wheelbarrow.

With the exchange now sure to go ahead, they needed Gayle out of the way, and Manfred had spent more than an hour persuading her to brave the dinner with him at the Maidstone Club. At the appointed hour, he would slip away, join Richard back at the house, and they would go on together from there. Justin was under instructions to ensure Gayle stayed at the club.

That, at least, was the plan. Richard had assured him it would all be over by midnight. Only, it wouldn’t be. There would be no
conclusion, simply an accommodation with a man who might haunt him for the rest of his life.

Manfred checked himself once more in the mirror then crossed to the Wellington chest. He opened the top drawer and stared at the handgun buried amongst his socks.

Hollis arrived at Mary’s house to find that she was running a little late. She called to him from upstairs saying she’d be down in a minute. A few seconds later, Edward appeared at the top of the stairs. He slid down the banisters and landed beside Hollis.

‘Where’s your gun?’

‘My gun?’

‘Mom says you’re a cop.’

‘That’s right, but I don’t always carry my gun. I’m Tom, by the way.’

‘I’ve got a catapult.’

‘That’s great…Edward, right?’

‘My dad made it for me.’

The emphasis on the word ‘dad’ was clearly intentional.

Their relationship deteriorated rapidly from there. Hollis proved to be an embarrassingly bad shot with a catapult, a source of considerable amusement to Edward, whom he then made the mistake of calling ‘Eddy’. To cap it all, Hollis had to admit he’d never killed anyone, although he was beginning to believe he might have it in him.

He was rescued by Mary, beautiful and fragrant and carrying Edward’s overnight bag and a stuffed bear. ‘Hey, cute teddy,’ said Hollis, eliciting a satisfying scowl from Edward.

Abel and Lucy were waiting for them on the front porch. Lucy was beaming. Even from a distance, Hollis could see why.

‘Lou’s got some news,’ said Abel.

‘
We’ve
got some news,’ said Lucy, shooting him a look then holding up her hand.

It was an emerald, fringed with diamonds.

‘Oh, Lucy…’ said Hollis, taking her in his arms.

‘Congratulations,’ said Mary.

The women drew each other close, the men shook hands before abandoning the formality for a hug.

‘Well done,’ said Hollis to Abel.

‘It’s all your fault.’

‘I’m pleased to hear it.’

Abel took the bag off him and peered inside. ‘Champagne?’

‘Call it a hunch.’

Hollis made a point of not drinking too much over dinner. They sat at the table out back and fought their way through the feast Abel had prepared for them. Lucy told the story of how a friend of hers had spotted Abel in Southampton earlier in the week. Puzzled by this, Lucy had casually asked Abel about his movements that day. When he failed to mention the trip to Southampton, she immediately assumed he was having an affair, and said as much to him. Abel had let her stew in her suspicions, only to propose to her that very afternoon, presenting her with a ring—the one he’d been picking up from the jeweler in Southampton earlier in the week.

They all cleared the table, and Hollis found himself alone with Abel in the kitchen, making coffee.

‘So,’ he said, ‘you’re finally going to take her up the aisle.’

‘What we get up to in the privacy of our bedroom is none of your damn business,’ retorted Abel.

They were still laughing when the phone rang.

‘I guess the word’s out,’ said Abel, heading for the hallway. He returned a few moments later.

‘Tom, it’s for you.’

‘For me?’

‘Conrad Labarde.’

Abel was at his shoulder when he picked up the receiver.

‘Hello.’

‘I’m sorry to interrupt your evening,’ said the Basque.

‘How the hell did you know I was here?’

‘I followed you. Do you have a pen?’

‘No,’ said Hollis, laying the indignation on thick.

‘Then listen carefully.’

He listened. At a certain point he interrupted the Basque. ‘Let me go get a pen,’ he said.

Abel provided the pen and the paper, and Hollis scribbled furiously for more than a minute. Only when he hung up did he realize Lucy and Mary had joined them in the hallway.

‘What is it, Tom?’ asked Lucy.

‘I have to go.’

‘Why? What’s up?’ asked Abel.

Hollis looked at Mary helplessly. ‘I have to.’

‘Go,’ she said. ‘Really. Go.’

‘I need a flashlight.’

‘I’ve got one in the car,’ said Abel.

Nearing the car, Abel said, ‘I lied.’ He opened the door and took his camera from the back seat. ‘I don’t have a flashlight, but I am coming with you.’

‘It’s too dangerous.’

‘Hey, 1943—where was my ass while yours was polishing a chair?’

It was Bob Hartwell’s weekend off. What if he was away? It wasn’t a risk Hollis could afford to take. He might need assistance.

‘You drive,’ said Hollis.

‘Where to?’

‘My place. I need my gun.’

Hollis spelled it out for Abel as best he could in the few minutes it took them to get to his house: Lizzie Jencks, Lillian Wallace, the
Basque, the lack of hard evidence, and the meeting set to take place in just over an hour’s time.

‘Jesus, Tom, no wonder you’ve been acting so weird.’

‘Have I?’

The gun was in the bedroom. He checked the chamber, shoved a fistful of shells into his hip pocket, then he phoned Bob Hartwell.

‘Thank God,’ he said when Hartwell picked up.

Hollis told him to change into something dark and to have his gun and a flashlight ready; he’d pick him up in five minutes. He didn’t tell him why, and Hartwell didn’t ask.

‘Sure thing,’ he said in that low, impassive voice of his.

Conrad capped the fountain pen and replaced it in the chipped mug on the desk. Wandering through to the bedroom, he tugged at the bedspread, straightening it.

Everything in order. Just one last act to perform.

He took the deer trails through the pitch pines north of the highway. He hadn’t walked on Napeague since her death, fearful that the memories would hunt him down. She was everywhere, it was true, but now he drew comfort from her presence: her narrow footprints pressed into the firm sand around him, the fallen branch she had once tripped over, the clearing with the lone tree in the middle, the one she felt so sorry for, shunned by its companions.

Maybe she had seen herself in that tree, standing apart from those around her. Strange that it hadn’t occurred to him before. And as he stared at the twisted little pine, it struck him just how alone she must have felt at the end, during those final moments of her life—the long walk back along the beach to her house, striding in anger beside the water’s edge, angry with him.

She had overreacted; if she had lived to see the new day she would have realized that, she would have understood his hesitancy at her proposal.

It had caught him unawares as they lay intertwined on the damp sheet.

‘Come away with me, Conrad.’

He had grunted, suspended in the sweet limbo between reality and dreams.

‘I mean it. Come away with me.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know. You decide. It doesn’t matter to me.’

‘You mean a vacation?’

‘I mean life.’

‘I have a life.’

‘A new life.’

He swiveled to face her. ‘Why?’

She didn’t reply at first. ‘Because I’m asking.’

‘Is this a test?’

If it was, the look in her eyes suggested he had failed it.

‘I can’t just move away like that.’

Ten minutes later she was gone, still sulking at his challenge to her flight of fancy. At least that’s how he’d read it then.

He saw it differently now.

They had killed her for a reason, they had killed her because they knew what he hadn’t known at the time: that she was about to blow the lid on Lizzie Jencks.

No, there’d been nothing infantile about her anger that day, she was just fraught and scared, poised as she was to risk everything on a matter of principle—family, friends, even him.

How close had she been to sharing the truth with him that last time he saw her alive? Very close, he suspected. And he wondered how things might have turned out if he’d only been more enthusiastic about her talk of a new life, if he’d only offered her the assurance she was looking for, that he would be there for her, come what may.

One thing was for sure—she would have stayed with him that night as they’d planned, and the killer lying in wait for her would have been denied his victim.

Conrad cut off the trail. It was a short walk over the low dunes to the tangle of bearberry bushes.

He dropped to all fours and clawed at the sand with his fingers.
He came upon something hard and rounded and shifted his attentions a little to the left, scooping out a deep hole.

Taking up the whale vertebra he had carried with him from the house, he turned it once in his hands, caressing its familiar contours, then he returned it to its original resting place.

He filled in the hole and patted down the sand.

Hollis led the way, Hartwell behind him, Abel bringing up the rear. Stony Hill Wood was less forbidding at night than it had been during daylight hours when he’d cut through it with Mary. This was partly because he couldn’t see anything—barely the overgrown trail at his feet, even with the aid of Hartwell’s flashlight—but mainly because Abel was clearly far more frightened than himself.

‘Maybe he’s just a guy with a sick sense of humor.’

‘Who?’ asked Hollis.

‘Labarde,’ said Abel. ‘He’s probably sitting at home with his feet up having a good old laugh.’

Hartwell snorted, amused by the notion.

‘Hey, slow down,’ said Abel. ‘Wait for me.’

‘Are you scared?’ asked Hartwell.

‘Damn right I am. I’ve been in enough woods at night to know there’s better places for a man to be.’

Now Hollis felt bad. He had seen Abel’s photos of Hürtgen Forest and it hadn’t even occurred to him.

‘We’re almost there.’

‘You said that half a mile back.’

Hollis stopped. Ahead of him, the ground dipped steeply away. He trained the flashlight on the paper, his scrawled instructions from Labarde.

‘Correction,’ he said. ‘We
are
there.’

They skirted the rim of the depression. It looked like some kind of quarry scooped out of the hillside, long since abandoned and reclaimed by nature. The sides were thick with vegetation, impossible to descend through to the area of clear ground at its heart. The only way to enter was via a dirt track that approached through the trees from the south.

On spotting the track, Abel wondered aloud why they’d just spent twenty minutes pushing their way through the undergrowth from the north. He got his answer a few moments later with the sound of a vehicle. It was moving along in a low gear, the sweep of its headlights plucking the forest out of the night.

‘Over here,’ said Hollis, leading them to a thick screen of bushes. ‘Stay low.’

‘What are we going to do?’ hissed Abel.

‘
You’re
not going to do anything. That was the deal, remember?’

‘Okay, what are
you
going to do?’

‘He didn’t say.’

Labarde had been very specific in every other regard: about where exactly to park the car, where to walk and when to arrive. His timing was a little off, though. According to Hollis’ watch they still had fifteen minutes in hand before anyone showed up.

Hollis recognized the car the moment it crept into the quarry. He’d taken a shaving of paintwork off its rear fender earlier in the week.

It wasn’t possible to make out the faces of the two people inside, but he figured one to be Manfred Wallace. Wondering if he had brought a goon along with him, Hollis found himself unholstering his gun.

The car pulled to a halt, its engine idling, and Hollis shifted his position to get a better view through the undergrowth. Manfred Wallace was the first person to get out of the car. He was followed closely by Richard Wakeley.

The two men huddled together in discussion, then Wakeley got back behind the wheel and turned the car round so that it faced towards the mouth of the quarry.

Hollis, Abel and Hartwell screwed their faces into the dirt, the light raking their hiding place, pinning them down. And that’s how
they remained, anticipating their discovery at any moment, until Labarde arrived.

Only one of the headlights on his truck was working, but it was enough to illuminate the two men waiting for him, to get them squinting.

Hollis crawled to his left, edging closer. He needed to hear what was said.

Labarde took a few steps into the no-man’s land between the vehicles. He had a large buff envelope in his hand.

‘How do we know you’re alone?’ demanded Wakeley.

‘I could ask you the same thing.’

‘Are you armed?’

‘Are you?’

‘No.’

‘And him?’

‘No,’ said Manfred Wallace.

‘Me neither,’ said Labarde as if that settled it. ‘Where’s the money?’

It was some kind of exchange, but what exactly? What was in the envelope?

‘We need to know you’re not armed,’ said Wakeley.

‘The man you sent to kill me made me strip, just to be sure. It didn’t help him, so why don’t we just drop it?’

‘What man?’ asked Wakeley.

Hollis asked himself the same question, his head reeling. Was he really so far behind the field?

‘Think straight,’ said Labarde. ‘If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead by now. I just want my money. Where is it?’

Wakeley removed an attaché case from the rear seat of the car. He handed it to Manfred, who didn’t look too pleased at the prospect of having to draw any closer to Labarde.

‘Open it first.’

Manfred opened the case. From where he was lying on his belly, Hollis couldn’t make out the contents, but Labarde seemed satisfied.

The two men met each other halfway, eyes almost at a level, one dressed in torn twill pants and a cotton shirt, the other in a tuxedo.

‘Don’t be bitter,’ said Labarde. ‘I earned it.’

‘Oh really? How do you figure that?’

‘Manfred…’ It was Wakeley again, a note of caution in his voice.

‘You don’t want to be here,’ said Labarde, ‘but you are. You don’t want me to have it, but I’m going to walk away a rich man.’ He paused. ‘I must have done something right.’

Manfred Wallace’s face twisted into a rictus of pure hatred. ‘Here.’ He thrust the case at Labarde.

‘You mind if I count it?’

‘It’s all there.’

‘You’ll understand if I don’t trust the word of a murderer.’

He placed the case on the ground and began to count the bundles of bills.

Hollis turned to look at Hartwell beside him and only saw then that Abel was gone. He gesticulated. Hartwell shrugged. Shit, thought Hollis. Shit.

‘This is ridiculous,’ said Manfred. ‘Give me the envelope.’

‘Just wait, Manfred.’

‘Tell me something,’ said Labarde. ‘What’s it like to kill your own sister?’

‘Don’t answer that,’ said Wakeley.

‘She loved you, you know that, don’t you?’

‘Just do what you have to do, and we can all go,’ said Wakeley.

‘What the hell.’ Labarde snapped the case shut and got to his feet. ‘If it’s short, I’ll drop by some time for the rest.’

He handed over the envelope. Manfred ripped it open, feeling inside, then peering inside.

‘There’s nothing in here.’ He turned to Wakeley. ‘It’s empty.’

Wakeley stepped forward and examined the envelope. ‘Where’s the document?’

‘What document?’ said Labarde.

‘The one you went to the lawyer about.’

‘The one we talked about on the phone,’ said Wakeley.

Labarde tossed the attaché case to Manfred. ‘There never was one,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just that—it never existed.’

‘I don’t—’ sputtered Manfred.

‘It’s simple. I just thought we should meet. Face to face. That way there’ll be no misunderstanding.’

He took a couple of steps towards Manfred.

‘I want you to know that I’m not going away, not ever, that I’ll dog you for the rest of your life. You better keep one eye over your shoulder, ‘cos that’s where I’ll be. What I do and when I do it, who knows? But I’ll tell you this—it won’t be quick and it won’t be painless.’

‘Come away,’ said Wakeley, taking Manfred by the arm.

Manfred pulled free.

‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ he spat.

‘Get one thing straight, I don’t care what you think of me. You’re not in charge here.’

That’s when Manfred pulled out the handgun. And that’s when Hollis began to understand.

‘Manfred, put that away.’

‘You heard him, put it away.’

Labarde was clearly provoking him; taunting a man just wasn’t his style. Hollis was aware of Hartwell unholstering his gun, about to break cover, and he held him back.

‘No,’ he whispered, his mind racing, the pieces falling into place.

Manfred Wallace had to pull the trigger. That was the point. If he didn’t, nothing had been gained. They hadn’t heard anything that a good defense attorney—and the Wallaces would hire the very best—couldn’t tear apart in a court of law, twisting their testimony into any number of shapes.

Manfred Wallace had to pull the trigger and Labarde had understood it from the very beginning. He had figured that no amount of circumstantial evidence would lead to the downfall of Manfred Wallace, but if he could only get him to commit another crime, another murder…

‘Manfred—’ Wakeley took a step towards Manfred and found himself staring into the barrel of the gun.

‘I can end this now. It’s over. Gone.’

‘You don’t have it in you,’ grinned Labarde.

Manfred spun back, on the point of firing.

‘Tom,’ hissed Hartwell.

‘No.’

They had all been summoned here for a reason, steered and cajoled towards this stage, this amphitheater in the woods, each with his role to play: Labarde to lay down a life he no longer valued; Manfred Wallace to bring about his own ruin; Hollis to bear witness to the killing, no more.

‘Manfred—’ said Wakeley again. And that’s when Manfred fired.

Labarde was jerked to the right by the impact of the bullet. Manfred fired a second time, and the moment he did so, the scene was lit by a blinding white light, the tableau frozen for a split second: Wakeley recoiling, the muzzle flash from the handgun, Labarde seemingly suspended in time and space, but in reality buckling towards the ground.

Manfred Wallace was turning to the source of the flash of light when Hollis and Hartwell burst from the bushes.

‘Police,’ yelled Hollis. ‘Drop the gun. I said, drop the gun!’

It was the shock more than anything that forced the gun from Manfred Wallace’s fingers.

‘On the ground. Now. Both of you!’

As he recovered the weapon, Hollis glanced over at Labarde. He lay face down in the dirt, inert, an arm twisted behind his back.

In a fit of fury, Hollis found himself kicking Manfred Wallace in the side of the chest.

‘Spread your arms and legs.’

‘I—’

‘Shut up!’ snapped Hollis, kicking him again.

The moment was trapped for posterity by Abel as he emerged from his hiding place.