Beach Road (15 page)

Tom
WHETHER IN DOWNTOWN Baghdad or downtown East Hampton, a burned-out shell of a car is a
riveting sight, even if the smoking remains are yours. For a while, Kate, Wingo, and I stare at it, transfixed.
When it gets chilly, we retreat to Sam’s again, where we have a pair of Maker’s Marks on the rocks, and I
give Clarence a call.

“A bunch of rednecks out here,” says Clarence when we return to the scene and he sees what’s left of my
once-trendy convertible.

Then we all pile into his big yellow wagon, and he gives us a lift to Mack’s place in Montauk.

“Tom loved that old car,” Kate says to him, “but he hardly seems fazed at all. I’ve got to admit, I’m
almost impressed.”

“Hey, it’s just a car.

A thing,
” I say, pandering for a little more of Kate’s respect.

The truth is, even I’m surprised by how little I care about the car. More than that, seeing it smoking in the
lot made me feel kind of righteous.

Once we’re on the road, Clarence is somber, and his face and posture still bear the terrible effect of Dante’s
arrest and the upcoming trial.

“Clarence, it may not look like it,” I say, “but things are turning our way.”
“How you figure that?”
“Those magazines burning on my front seat are filled with stories that are going to help us win this case.
Even my car is going to make a great picture and will open people’s eyes to what’s happening out here.”
But nothing I say registers on Clarence’s face. It’s as if whatever optimism he has been able to muster and
cling to over the course of a hard lifetime has been exposed as bunk.

On this Monday night in January, the Ditch Plains neighborhood is quiet and dark. Not Mack’s place,
though! It’s lit up like a Christmas tree, and when we pull up, Mack stands in the doorway in his raggy
plaid bathrobe. Two police cars are just leaving.

“Oh, no!” cries Kate, and jumps out of the car. But Mack, who’s got his walking stick in one hand and a
scotch in the other, won’t hear of it.

“It’s nothing at all, darling girl,” he says. “Just a pebble through the window. At my age, I’m grateful for
whatever attention I can get.”
Despite Mack’s protests, I insist on leaving Wingo with the two of them. A sweet-natured pooch who hasn’t
met a face he didn’t want to lick isn’t much of a watchdog, but at least he’ll make some noise.

Then I get back into the car with Clarence. “You hear that shite Mack was saying to Kate on the porch,” I
say with my best Irish brogue. “No big deal, darlin’ girl. Just a pebble. It’s the same shameless tripe I was
saying about my car ten minutes ago. That son of a bitch is after my girl, Clarence, and we’ve got the
same strategy.”
“You better keep an eye on the old goat,” says Clarence, almost smiling. “I hear he’s been stockpiling
Viagra. Buys it over the Internet in bulk.”
“That’s not even close to being funny.”

Tom

I DON’T LIKE leaving Kate at Mack’s, but she insisted she’ll be okay, that
they’ll
be okay. The thing is, I wish that Kate would stay with me tonight. I’ve felt that way for a while, and
it’s driving me a little crazy, but especially after what’s just happened.

It feels strange to enter my house and not hear Wingo scamper on down the long, dark hallway, to not hear
the jangle of his collar against his metal bowl or his tongue slurping up water.

Along with the dogless quiet is a faint metallic odor I can’t quite identify. Unpleasant, like dried sweat.
Maybe it’s me. It’s been a long day.

I follow the hallway into the kitchen, grab a beer, and stare through the sliding glass doors at my backyard.
I still don’t care that much about my car, but the intensity of the town’s hatred toward Kate and me is
getting me down, particularly because I realize it’s never going away.

I’ve got two choices: the couch and some cathode rays, or the vertical pleasures of a hot shower. I opt for
the shower, and as I walk back to my bedroom, that same metallic scent stops me in the hall.

This time it’s even stronger, so I guess it can’t be me.

Then I realize what it is. It’s the smell of fear, and then a floorboard creaks, there’s an urgent rustle of
fabric and a rush of movement, and a large fist hits me square in the face.

Blood pours out of my nose, and the force of the punch throws me into whoever is standing behind me. He
hits me too. My elbow digs a grunt out of the bastard, and the next half minute is the red-hot chaos of
flying fists, elbows, and knees. This is my house, my hall, and even outnumbered, I like my chances, right
up till the moment I start to go down.

I’m on the ground taking kicks to the head and ribs when a voice cuts through the pain. “That’s enough, I
said! That’s enough.”
But I can’t say for sure if I’m hearing it, or thinking it, or praying it.

Kate
WITH THE RUCKUS Wingo is raising in my car, it’s hardly necessary, but I grab the wrought-iron ring and
deliver three hard raps to Tom’s front door.

It’s eight in the morning, so Tom has to be in the house, but neither Wingo’s barking nor my steady
banging gets a response. I’m guessing he’s in the shower.

A towing service has dropped off what’s left of Tom’s car in the driveway, and Wingo and I walk around
the burned-out shell to the backyard.

The sliding doors off the patio are locked, but I can see inside the house well enough. A living room chair
has been knocked over. So has a bookcase.

I dial Tom’s cell and get his voice mail, and I’m starting to panic, when on the far side of the house, Wingo
barks as if he’s treed a fox.

I race over and find him howling at a small shed off the kitchen.

The door has been left open. Inside are two tattered folding chairs and a musty beach umbrella. I call
Tom’s cell again, with no more luck than the first time.

I hadn’t told Tom I was going to pick him up, so instead of breaking in, or calling the police just yet, I cling
to the hope that he arranged a ride with Clarence. I shove Wingo back in the car and race toward our
office in Montauk.

With everything going on in my head, and the steep early morning sun in my eyes, I very nearly hit a
cyclist pedaling furiously along the shoulder of the road.

Only when Wingo yelps deliriously and tugs at my sleeve do I see in the rearview mirror that the man on
the bike is Tom. I brake to a stop, then back up in a hurry.

My relief is enormous, but it only lasts as long as it takes me to see his face. One eye is completely shut, the
other raw purple. There are welts and cuts on his neck and ear, and a jagged gash over one eyebrow.

“Two guys were waiting for me when I got home,” says Tom. “I mean,
four
guys.”

“You call the police?”
“Didn’t see the point. Like Mack said, it was more symbolic than anything.”
“It’s not a good idea to get hit in the head like this every couple of months. Concussions can be dangerous,
Tom.”
“Tom? Is that my name?”
“That’s not funny.”
“No, it’s pretty funny.”
“It is pretty funny actually.”
“I’m getting better with age, Kate, admit it.”
“You left yourself a lot of room for improvement.”
I stop at Barnes Pharmacy for disinfectants and sterile pads, tape and bandages. Back at the office, we
clean the cuts. I do my best to remind myself that this is a slippery slope and that I didn’t take this case to
hook up with Tom Dunleavy one more time. But beneath it all, I guess I’m just a sap, because I’m also
wondering how smart it is to hold a grudge against someone based on how they acted when they were
twenty-two, and if there isn’t a statute of limitations on bad behavior.

Tom
AT THE OFFICE the next day, Kate writes up some interviews we did around the apartment where Dante
was hiding out in New York City. Meanwhile, I pull the file on the .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol found
behind the diner the night Dante turned himself in. In some ways, it’s the prosecution’s most persuasive
piece of evidence.

So how can we use it?

The file includes five black-and-white, eight-by-ten photographs of the weapon, and I lay them on the
table. According to Suffolk County Forensics, there was one set of prints on the handle, and they’re a
perfect match for Michael Walker; ballistics tests prove the weapon was used to kill all four victims. But
Dante swears he’s never seen the gun before.

“It’s not even close,” Dante told me in that first long, grueling session in Riverhead. “Michael’s gun was
small, cheap, a Saturday-night special. This is a real gun. Twice the size and a different color. You were
there, bro.”
It’s true. I was standing right next to Walker as he held the gun to Feif’s head, and if anyone could
accurately describe the revolver, it should be me. But I never looked at it, made a point of not looking at it
actually, and that’s why I was able to get him to put the thing down. I pretended the gun didn’t exist, that
we were just two reasonable guys having a conversation on a Saturday morning.

But it’s the
circumstances
by which the gun was found that are particularly suspect. “If Dante kills Michael in Brooklyn when
they say he does,” I say, half to Kate, half to myself, “he had plenty of time to get rid of the murder
weapon. He can dump it in Bed-Stuy somewhere, or toss it in the East River. Instead he hangs on to it
so he can throw it away at the last minute behind a diner in Southampton?”

“What’s the name on the police report?” asks Kate.

“I don’t recognize it,” I say, trying to read the signature on the bottom. “Looks like
Lincoln.

The first name begins with an
h.

Harry, maybe.”

Tom
THE DESK SERGEANT tells me the officer’s name is Lindgren, not Lincoln, first name Hugo, and he’s
working nights this week.

After locking up our office, Kate and I head to the barracklike station house and loiter by the back door,
hoping to catch Lindgren as he arrives for his shift.

After being up for the last twenty hours, there’s not much left in me. Actually, I’m burned to a crisp, but
I’m still not sharing that info with my partner.

“After we’re through here,” I say, stretching my legs and glancing at my Casio, “I think old Wingo and I
are going to take ourselves a little run. Help us fall asleep.”
“Tom, you’re so full of shit it’s frightening.”
“Nothing ambitious, an easy fifteen, sixteen miles in the sand with boots on.”
An old Jeep rolls in, and a former friend of mine named John Poulis hops out. Then Mike Caruso, another
former friend, shows up on his Honda. At this point “former” describes most of my friends, and both cops
stare through us as if we’re made of glass.

The next car into the lot is a shiny silver Datsun Z.

“Pretty sporty for thirty-four grand a year,” I say.

“How do you know how much he makes?” asks Kate.

“Let’s just say that if the admissions director of St. John’s Law School hadn’t been a hoops fan, I might be
arriving for work myself right now.

“Officer Lindgren?” I call out, and the stocky brown-haired man stops in his tracks. “Could we talk to you
a couple minutes?”
“That’s all I got. I’m late already.”
I do the introductions, and then Kate takes over.

“That anonymous call that came in about the gun,” asks Kate, “did it go directly to you or the main
switchboard?”
“Directly to me,” says Lindgren.

“Is that normal? For an anonymous tip to be directed at a specific officer?”
“How should I know what’s normal? What are you getting at?”
“I’m trying to prepare a case for my client, Officer Lindgren. It’s pretty standard stuff. Why are you getting
all defensive? What’s the problem here? Am I missing something?”
Watching Kate effortlessly rattle Lindgren’s cage will definitely go on our highlight film for today.

“What I mean is,” she continues, “isn’t it odd that a caller who knows who he’s talking to would be so
anxious to conceal his identity?”
Lindgren adjusts his tone from combative to condescending. “Not at all. The caller is doing something
frightening-getting involved in a murder case and potentially making dangerous enemies. That’s why
every police department in America has an anonymous hotline.”
“But the caller didn’t use the anonymous hotline. He called you directly.”
“Maybe he’d seen me around. Maybe he felt more comfortable calling me. Who the hell knows? Anyway,
kids, that’s all I got time for. Some people have to work for a living.”

“So the caller was a man,” says Kate. “You said
he.

”

“Did I?” says Lindgren, and practically walks through us into the back of the police station.

Five minutes later-when Kate drops me off at my place-a silver Mini Cooper is parked behind
what’s left of my XKE. As I hop out of Kate’s car, the driver gets out of the Mini.

Now what?

He’s about twenty-five, Indian or maybe Pakistani, and, if it’s the kind of detail that interests you,
ridiculously handsome.

“I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience,” says the visitor, who introduces himself as Amin. “I’ve been
sent by my employer to deliver an invitation to each of you, and lucky day for me, I’ve found both of you
at once.”
“How’d you know who we are?”
“Everyone knows you two, Mr. Dunleavy.”
Amin presents us with two envelopes made out of the paper equivalent of, I don’t know, maybe cashmere.
Our names are scrawled across them in dark-green script.

“Can I ask the name of your employer?”
“Of course,” says Amin with a practiced deadpan. “Steven Spielberg.”

Loco
IF THE BW is going to keep me waiting every time we get together to talk business, I’ve got to do the same
to the folks working under me. How else will they know where they stand in the pecking order.

So even though I see Officer Lindgren on the bench behind the East Deck Motel, I circle the block and let
the cop cool his heels. That’s what the BW does to me, right?