DUSK SOFTENED THE SKY as we pulled out of Maidstone and drove down Further Lane, one of the town's toniest addresses. It's the kind of street where a $5 million house stands out for its modesty. Only West End Road, with Georgica Pond and estates like Quelle Barn and Grey Gardens, rivals it.
"Outside Detroit," said Pauline, "in Birmingham and Auburn Hills, there are some posh enclaves where the auto execs and Pistons and Red Wings live, but it's nothing compared with this. When I was a kid, we used to go out to Birmingham to look at the Christmas lights."
"Nobody has any idea how over the top and ridiculous it gets out here. These people buy ten-million-dollar houses and then tear them down."
One mansion blended into the next, and as tasteful as the homes were, there was something odd about the neighborhood. It looked colorized, a very upscale suburbia, with Ferraris instead of station wagons, and every messy trace of children airbrushed out.
"Strange times we live in," I said. "Everyone believes they're just a couple of breaks from being rich. I think it's something they put in the water."
"I buy Lotto tickets every week," said Pauline. "And I drink bottled water."
The conversation drifted back to Peter's murder and the investigation.
"Actually, I called all of my friends off the case," I told her.
"Why did you do that, Jack?"
I told Pauline what had happened to Fenton on his boat, how Hank had gotten fired, and that Marci and Molly had been followed.
Pauline merely nodded. "Remember what I told you about the big leagues, young Jack."
"I'm twenty-eight, Pauline."
"Uh-huh," she said, nodding. Then she reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a small revolver. "Ever shoot anybody? Ever get shot at?"
"Did you?" I asked her.
"I already told you. I'm from Detroit."
I watched Pauline's merry eyes concentrating on the road and her hair whipping around in the breeze, and I realized the only honest thing for me to do was to shut up and smile. Because sitting next to Pauline was making me happy. Simple as that.
"Stay for dinner," I said, "and I'll introduce you to Sam's Pizza. On a good day, it's right up there with John's and Lombardi's."
"High praise, but I have to get back. Maybe another time."
"Artichokes and bacon, the yin and yang of pizza toppings?"
"You're persistent."
"Actually, when it comes to women, I tend to discourage pretty easily."
"Maybe it's time you get over that."
Chapter 37
MY BIKE – I guess it's mine now – was still parked in front of the house. After Pauline dropped me off, I stood beside it and watched the orange taillights of her car recede toward Manhattan.
It felt too early to hunker down for the night. And I was a little hurt that Pauline had turned down my invitation for dinner. I liked her, and I thought she liked me. Of course, I'd thought that Dana was rather fond of me, too. So with no particular place to go, and no one to go there with, I threw a leg over the Beemer and pointed it west.
Just beyond town, I turned onto Old Montauk Highway, a well-traveled road full of roller-coaster humps and dips, which had offered Peter and me our first taste of genital titillation. We'd dubbed it "the Weenie Road " because if you're going fast enough as you crest the hills, that's where you feel it.
That night I thought of both Peter and Pauline when I twisted back the throttle and caught some air. Long live the Weenie Road, I thought.
Too soon, I was back on 27, ripping past condo time-shares and trendy restaurants. Every time I got on the bike I was getting a little better at it, learning how to lean into turns, mastering the rhythm of clutch lever and throttle. Maybe a little of Peter was rubbing off.
When I swerved off 27 onto Bluff Road, it occurred to me that I was probably following the same route that Peter had on his last night. It didn't feel like a coincidence.
The Neubauer estate was less than a quarter mile up the road. When I saw the open gates, I braked unconsciously and swerved between them. A hundred yards later I cut the engine and the lights. Then I coasted down the gentle grade toward the beach.
I stashed the bike in the thick brush of the last dune, took off my sneakers, and sat on the cool sand just out of reach of the tide.
Everything about the scene echoed the night they brought me to look at Peter's body. The moonlight had the same powerful wattage. The surf was about as high and as loud.
As I pondered the scene, the tide slithered up the beach and grabbed my heel. I recoiled in shock. No one who wasn't covered in white fur would go swimming in the middle of the night in that.
Next thing I knew, I was stripping off my clothes, bellowing like a madman, and running headlong toward the surf.
No one would go in the water without a really good reason – would they?
Could Peter have done it? Then seemed like as good a time as any to find out.
The water was frightening, bone-aching cold, and it was a full month warmer than when Peter had supposedly drowned. In three steps, my feet and lower legs hurt. But I kept running through the slop of the first wave. I dove under the collapsing crest of the next.
In a kind of shock I swam furiously from the shore, counting out thirty strokes. When I stopped, I was well past the breakers. The safety of the beach looked a mile away.
For what felt like minutes but was probably less than thirty seconds, I bobbed in the moonlit swells. I took deep, slow breaths, and my body adjusted somewhat to the cold.
Peter wouldn't have done this. Hell, no. Peter hated to be cold… besides, Peter loved Peter.
I could control my breathing, but I couldn't control my brain. I was up to my neck in the big black ocean, getting scared.
I began to swim back toward the beach as desperately as I'd left it. Halfway there, numbed by the merciless cold, I let myself slip too far forward on a curling breaker.
Suddenly the ocean fell away and I was tumbling in black space. I felt a beat of terror-filled nothingness. I kept reaching out. Then the waves swept me back again. I was lost in a black swirl. I felt as if I were being buried alive. I couldn't breathe. Over and over again the waves pounded me like falling concrete from a collapsing building. They beat me against the shell-covered floor.
Somehow I remembered that you have to stop fighting back. I grabbed my nose and concentrated on holding my breath. Seconds later, I resurfaced, wildly gulping air.
I wasn't prepared for the second wave. It was smaller, but it was the one that really nailed me. I took a lungful of water clown with me. If I hadn't thought about all the shit Mack would have had to listen to about my killing myself, too, I might have given up. The waves seemed to have taken on a life of their own. They felt like half a dozen battering rams. I hung on, one second at a time, until the ocean finally spat me out and I crawled onto the beach.
Even though Jane Davis had told me my brother didn't drown, I had to prove it to myself.
I guess I had. Peter hadn't gone swimming that night. My brother had been murdered.
Part Three. THE INQUEST
Chapter 38
VERY EARLY on a Monday morning in August, I rolled over in my Montauk bed and sighed contentedly. Once in a blue moon, Mack gets it into his head to make a "proper breakfast," and all it took was one semiconscious breath to know that downstairs Mack was knee deep in it.
I scrambled down the stairs and found him hunched over the stove. His attention was focused on the four gas-burning rings. His arms were moving as furiously as Toscanini's when conducting on the stage of Carnegie Hall.