Nantucket Nights (8 page)

Paul scowled at her, unamused. “So you estimate that the woman we’re looking for drank a third of this bottle?”

Kayla looked at Val. Val was asleep with her eyes open. “Not a third. Just a couple of glasses.”

“Two glasses?” he asked.

“Two or three,” Kayla said.

“And how much did you have?” he asked. “This is a huge bottle.”

“Does it matter, Paul?” Raoul asked. “They come out here every year to have some champagne and go for a swim. Celebrate the end of summer. That’s all this was.”

“I’m not insinuating anything else,” Paul said. “But I like to know what I’m dealing with. There’s a big difference between a swimming woman and an intoxicated swimming woman. A big difference.”

A young policeman whom Kayla didn’t recognize approached Paul with a handful of glass shards he’d gathered from the shoreline. The remnants of the champagne glasses.

“Don’t get excited,” Kayla said. “Those are our glasses. I threw them in the water.”

Paul picked up a piece of glass and turned it in the moonlight. “Was this before or after Ms. Riley disappeared?”

“After,” Kayla said.

“So it wasn’t as if you had a fight with Ms. Riley before she decided to go swimming?”

Kayla disliked the way Paul said the words “go swimming.” He said them like they were a euphemism for something else. “No,” she said.

Paul gave the piece of glass back to the young policeman, who was wearing surgical gloves. The coast guard boat moved farther out, and the WaveRunners zipped back and forth closer to shore. Jack Montalbano watched them, smoking a cigarette.

“Why aren’t they diving?” Kayla asked. “Jack, why aren’t they diving?”

“They’re looking above the surface right now,” Jack said. “They’ll dive only if they have to.”

Paul’s walkie-talkie rasped, and Kayla heard the sound of a helicopter.

“Coast guard sent a copter,” Paul Henry said. He sounded impressed.

The coast guard helicopter had a searchlight that swept over the water like the eyes of God. Paul Henry squinted at it, the tendons of his neck stretched tight.

“That baby has a sensor that detects body heat above the water,” he said. “The helicopter will locate her, Kayla. You can bet on it.”

They waited while the helicopter circled the area. At one point it was so far away that Kayla lost track of it, and her stomach turned at the thought of Antoinette all the way
out there.
Everything keeled to one side like a capsizing boat. Kayla vomited in the sand—the champagne, the lobsters, one stinky, lumpy mess. How had this
happened?
She wanted to hit reverse, rewind, she wanted to rewrite the way the evening had gone. One moment all of them were safe, the next moment not. Raoul patted her back and gave her a towel to wipe her mouth. Paul Henry handed her a thermos of cold water, which was so unexpectedly beautiful and welcome, tears came to her eyes. She drank nearly the whole thing, letting it drip down her chin. Raoul smoothed her hair.

“Ssshhh, it’s okay.”

But, of course, it wasn’t okay. The helicopter was out of sight, the rescue boat a mere blip on the horizon, and then the WaveRunners pulled onto shore and the riders climbed off, shaking their heads.

“She’s not out there anywhere, boss,” one of the riders told Jack Montalbano. “Do you want us to dive?”

Jack answered them facing the water, so Kayla didn’t hear his response. He pointed thirty or forty yards out and the riders climbed back on the WaveRunners taking masks and snorkels with them.
Out looking for Bob
—that was what the fire department called it when they were searching for a body. Kayla couldn’t bring herself to tell Raoul the worst part—that, seconds before Antoinette danced away, Kayla had accused Antoinette of sleeping with him. Kayla added to her list of things that money couldn’t buy. It couldn’t buy words back once they were spoken; it couldn’t buy her best friend back from the dark ocean.

Kayla woke when she heard the helicopter hammering toward them. She was still sitting on the bumper of the Trooper, crushed up against Raoul, who stared at the helicopter as it approached. The Suburbans were parked nearby, but now the men who had formerly been all action sat in the sand or stood with their hands dangling at their sides. Waiting. Then Paul Henry got static over his walkie-talkie, and he moved away as he listened to the report. He looked their way once, and Kayla’s heart fluttered with optimism. But his slumping shoulders suggested defeat. He spoke into his walkie-talkie and slowly headed back to them.

“They’re not picking her up with the heat sensor,” Paul told them. “They want to start a recovery mission.”

“What does that mean?” Kayla asked.

Paul tucked his hands into his armpits so that his arms made an
X
across his chest. “It’s been almost four hours already, Kayla. The general consensus is that if she entered the water at the time and place you said she did, they would have found her by now. Since the coast guard hasn’t located her yet, it means something very unusual has happened.”

“She’s dead,” Val said, emerging from the car, her face eerily blank and zombielike. “What they’re telling us, Kayla, is that they think she’s dead and they’re not going to spend any more time and money trying to rescue her. She’s a woman, and a black woman at that. Now, if it were a white male out there, if it were a
policeman
or a
fireman
out there, you can bet things would be different.” She pointed her finger at Paul, and in doing so, she teetered like a drunk. “You, buddy, are looking at a lawsuit.”

“What if it were your wife?” Kayla asked Paul. “Would you call off the rescue? What if it were your daughter?”

“Calm down, ladies. The pilot just asked me if it’s possible this woman’s not out there at all. It’s highly unlikely that if she entered the water at the time you said she did, that our men wouldn’t have picked her up on the radar. The coast guard uses mathematics, Kayla. They know where to look. They also know how long a person can survive in waters like these. I promise you, if they thought Ms. Riley were alive out there, it would still be a rescue mission.”

“She’s dead,” Val said.

“Is there any chance your friend swam down the beach instead of out?” Paul asked. “You said she lives in Polpis. Is there any chance she headed home?”

“Why would she do
that?
” Val asked. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“You ladies have had a lot to drink,” Paul said.  “And this thing about her
dancing,
well, it sounds odd to me, like she was kidding around or something. Maybe she swam down shore and climbed out, and you never even saw her.”

“Ridiculous,” Val said.

“Where does she live?” Paul asked. “We’ll check her house.”

Kayla told him the address; then she said, “Can we come with you?”

 “This is turning into police business,” Paul said.

“Paul,” Kayla said. “Please. She’s our best friend. We’ve known her for twenty years.”

“Okay,” he said.

Kayla climbed into the Trooper, but Val stood in the sand with a strange look on her face.

“I’m going to ride with Raoul,” Val said. “I want to talk to him about something. Is that okay with you, Raoul?”

Raoul tossed his keys in the air and caught them. “Sure thing. Hop in. We’ll see you at the house, sweetie,” he said to Kayla. “Think positive.”

“I’ll try,” Kayla said. A pesky jealousy gnawed at her heart. Why should Val ride with Raoul? Kayla thought about the warm cab of Raoul’s truck, Raoul fresh from bed, and Val sitting next to him with just a towel wrapped around her waist. Val’s linen pants were in the back of the Trooper, along with her ridiculously expensive Italian sandals. She was riding next to Kayla’s husband half naked. Val wasn’t afraid to cheat on her husband; she was fucking Jacob Anderson. Anger, jealousy, and fear surged through Kayla, and she almost slammed into Raoul’s back bumper.

Why did Val want to talk to him? Was she going to tell him what Kayla said before Antoinette entered the water? Here were other things that money couldn’t buy: loyalty from your best friend or your husband or your wife.

Their caravan pulled down Antoinette’s long dirt driveway: Raoul and Val in the truck, Kayla in the Trooper, Paul and his partner in a police Suburban. When Kayla saw the cottage, her heart soared. Every light in the place was on, the front door was wide open. Antoinette was home! Kayla jumped out of the Trooper and ran to Raoul, reclaimed him.

“Oh, thank God,” she said. She tugged on Raoul’s arm like one of the kids:
Love me, love me best. Forget what Val has told you and love me. I’m not a murderer after all.
“Thank God.”

“Let Paul go in first,” Raoul said quietly.

Val pulled Kayla toward the open front door. “I can’t believe this,” she said. “She left us on Great Point thinking she was dead. Now I
am
going to kill her. Antoinette!”

Paul Henry and his partner brushed by them; the partner had his hand on his gun. Kayla didn’t even know Nantucket policemen carried guns, but this guy carried surgical gloves and a gun.

“Stand back, ladies,” he said. He peered inside the open door. “Oh, baby.”

Paul Henry looked in over his shoulder. “Uh-oh. Whoa.” He knocked on the door frame. “Ms. Riley? Ms. Riley, it’s Paul Henry with the Nantucket Police Department. Are you in there?”

“What’s going on?” Val said. Her bottom half was still swathed in just a beach towel, and Kayla had an urge to tell her to put on her pants.

Raoul stayed in the driveway, studying the outside of the house. At first Kayla thought he was admiring his handiwork in the moonlight The house had only four rooms, but it was one of his favorite designs. Huge living area, huge kitchen, huge bathroom, huge bedroom. High ceilings, big windows, lots of custom touches. He once told her he could stare at his houses for hours, the same way she had watched enthralled as the children slept when they were babies.

“She’s not in there,” he said.

“Raoul?”

He shook his head. “She’s not in there, Kayla. What does Paul say?”

Paul and his partner had just taken their first steps through the front door into the living room. Val was close behind them, and Kayla was a few steps behind Val. When Val poked her head in the door, she screamed.

Antoinette, hanging from the exposed beams?

Antoinette, lying in a pool of blood?

“What is it?” Kayla asked, afraid to move.

“Ms. Riley?” Paul Henry called out.

Kayla looked through the front door.

The place had been torn apart. Antoinette’s things were everywhere. The floppy beige cushions of her sofa were strewn about, her books had been swept off her built-in shelves, the hand-dipped candles that she ordered from Woodstock, New York, had been snapped in half. Her Norfolk pine lay on its side. Bottles of Stag’s Leap chardonnay were scattered across the floor like bowling pins.

“Oh, dear God.” Kayla took a step inside, but Paul Henry raised his hand.

“Don’t move,” he said. “This really is police business now, Kayla. Is it safe to assume this place didn’t look this way when Ms. Riley left this evening?”

“We didn’t come inside,” Kayla said. She turned to Val, who was back to wearing her wide-eyed, doped-up expression. “Did we, Val?”

Val shook her head.

“So it
could
have looked like this,” Paul Henry’s partner said. He put his surgical gloves on before he started picking things up. “For all we know, Ms. Riley could have made this mess
herself.
Meaning she was in a certain frame of mind when she headed to the beach.” Every light in the house was on—the in-ceiling track lighting, the Tiffany lamps, the lights in the kitchen and the bathroom. Antoinette hated lightbulbs. She preferred sunlight, candlelight

“These lights weren’t on when we picked Antoinette up,” Kayla said. “Someone else has been here.”

“Is anything missing?” Val said. “Was she robbed? You might as well let us look around because we’re the only ones who will be able to tell you.”

“The TV is missing,” Paul Henry said. He nodded at the big square blank spot in Antoinette’s built-in shelves.

“Antoinette doesn’t own a TV,” Kayla said. “Val’s right. You should let us in.”

The partner glowered at them.
“Don’t touch anything,”
he said. “And you,” he nodded at Val. “Put on shoes.”

“They’re in the back of my car,” Kayla said. “Along with your pants.”

Val disappeared to dress. Raoul remained in the driveway, but now he was drawing patterns in the dirt with his feet. He kicked up clouds of dust.

“Antoinette is still missing,” Kayla said.

“Yes,” he said.

Kayla and Val moved through the house behind Paul Henry and his partner, whose name Kayla learned was Detective Dean Simpson—an actual detective here on Nantucket!—ogling the mess. They found Antoinette’s checkbook and wallet hidden deep in a pile of clothing that had been dumped out of the drawers onto her bed. The checks were all accounted for on the register and there was cash, $227, in the wallet. Detective Simpson dusted the handles of the dresser drawer for fingerprints. They were all of a sudden in the middle of a
crime scene.
Kayla tried to remember what Antoinette had been like at the beach. She had been in a good mood, Kayla thought, although maybe a little nervous about her daughter. But then there was the confession she was going to make. What was the confession?

They entered the bathroom. Everything from the medicine cabinet had been thrown onto the floor or into the toilet. “This could have been a person looking for drugs,” the detective declared. He picked up the prescription bottles.

Kayla yanked Val into the kitchen. “All right. Tell me what you think. Did Antoinette come back here and make this mess herself?”

“Why would she do that?” Val asked.

“Maybe she
wanted
to disappear,” Kayla said. “Maybe she wanted to ditch the daughter.”

“Speaking of the daughter,” Val said. She pointed to a note on the fridge—a cocktail napkin smeared with blue ink:
L., Cape Air, noon Sat.
“That’s in a matter of hours. We’re going to have a lot of explaining to do.”