Bartholomew 02 - How to Marry a Ghost (10 page)

“Oh, I didn’t need anything,” I began as Dumpster mumbled an apology and shuffled out of the room, ducking as he went through the door.

“He always does that,” said Shotgun, “even when he doesn’t need to, I’ve noticed. I think he must have hit his head once too often when the door wasn’t high enough to accommodate him.”

“He is awfully tall,” I said.

“He was a basketball star, so I understand—at school, when he lived in New York City. He could just reach up and dunk the ball in the net. Hence the name.”

I looked blank.

“Well, okay, it was Dunkster originally.”

Now I was even more confused.

“He
dunked
the ball, you know, slam dunk?” Shotgun raised one of his own long arms in the air and mimed dropping a ball in the net. “So first it was Dunkster and then he told me it got changed to Dumpster when his mother started throwing fits about the state of his bedroom.”

I finally got it and smiled. “It’s a good nickname. Speaking of names—”

“What are you going to call me? Don’t worry, everyone has the same problem. I’m Shotgun to the media and always will be but I’m Kip to my friends. ‘Christopher’ is a bit formal. Could you live with ‘Kip’?”

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“If you’ll call me Lee,” I said. “My name’s Nathalie but it’s the same thing—too formal. What did Bettina call you?” I couldn’t resist asking.

He looked at me in surprise. “She didn’t call me anything. I never met her. Never even spoke to her apart from a few quick phone calls brushing her off.”

“Oh,” I said, “I heard she’d been around here for a week or two.”

“Well, yes, I heard that too and she did talk to Sean. He was pretty anxious that I talk to her but the thing is I never liked the sound of her. I hope she wasn’t one of your greatest friends?”

I shook my head.

“You see, it wasn’t the first time I’d heard about her. She wanted to do a book with me a few years ago and I checked her out with a few people. She sounded altogether too pushy, not my kind of person—and in any case I didn’t want to do a book
then
.

But even recently—when I started thinking seriously about telling my story—I discounted her. I just didn’t realize
how
pushy she was. I told my people to rule her out when we were drawing up a list of possible ghostwriters but that didn’t deter her. She kept asking to meet me and then she came out here and started calling me.”

“Have you told Detective Morrison all this?” I asked Shotgun.

Of course, now that he’d suggested I call him Kip, I found I could only think of him as Shotgun.

“Till I’m blue in the face but he doesn’t believe me.The trouble is I
was
expecting her the night Sean was killed. I thought if I told her face to face that I didn’t want her to write my book, it might actually sink in and I could get rid of her once and for all.”

Be careful what you wish for,
I thought. Someone
had
got rid of her once and for all.

“But I canceled her,” he went on. “I just couldn’t face it. The

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problem was, for some reason, I never told Detective Morrison that the first time he interviewed me and this left him with the impression that I was waiting for her but she never showed up.

Whereas in fact I lied by omission. Purely an oversight. But of course he doesn’t see it that way. Anyway, look, I’m truly sorry you’ve walked into the middle of this.”

“Listen,” I said quickly, “
I’m
the one who’s sorry. I’m only here because my agent told me to come. I’m afraid she’s the same agent Bettina had. I couldn’t believe it when she said you still wanted to do the book. I’ll go now.”

“No.” He was on his feet with his hand out to stop me. “She was right, Miss Ten Percent. I do want to do the book.”

“It’s fifteen percent actually,” I said.

“They’ll bleed you white!” he said with a grim smile. “Anyway, now I’ve made up my mind to do it, I shouldn’t let anything get in my way.There’s a story I really want to tell in this book and I’m not getting any younger. If I put it off any longer, I’ll never do it. Besides”—he turned away from me—“it’ll help take my mind off all of this. Every second I’m alone, I start thinking about Sean. I know I have to mourn but I also know that someday I’m going to have to get past this. The truth is, if you’d agree to start work on the book, you’d be helping me”—he hesitated and looked away for a second—“more than you could possibly know.

“Now what can I get you?” He stood up suddenly and I could see he was embarrassed at having shown me how needy he was.

“Nice cup of tea, coffee? I’ve got a secret stash of Bourbon bis-cuits and Jaffa cakes in the kitchen, or maybe you’d like a Marmite sandwich? We can pretend we’re back in London.”

“That would be great,” I said, “but there’s something I don’t quite understand.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re talking like I already have the job and I know my agent

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has already been discussing terms but don’t you want to ask me a few questions before you make up your mind?”

“I’ve already made up my mind,” he said, smiling now. “Don’t worry, I did my homework.They gave me your name and just like with Bettina, I checked you out too. I called a few people back in England and I liked what I heard. You did an old girlfriend of mine.” He mentioned the name of an actress whose lifestyle book I had helped put together a couple of years ago. “She said you’d be perfect, that you’d be very good for me. And as I just said, I want to get on with the book but look, if you’re having second thoughts, I’d understand completely. Wouldn’t blame you for a second.”

I’d been having second thoughts, all right. And third, fourth, and fifth thoughts. Driving through the woods to his house had terrified me. What if the killer came back one night after the police search had been exhausted and Detective Morrison had pulled his men from the area to work another crime? What if I had to work late here with Shotgun and then drive home alone?

Did I
really
need this job? It wasn’t as if Bettina was still in the running as my rival so what did I have to prove?

But having met him, I knew that I had to tell Shotgun Marriott’s story for him for a very simple reason.

I liked him.

He interested me. I wanted to know how he had managed not to become just another aging rocker, desperately trying to hang on to the image of his glory years. I liked his style. He was wearing a beautiful pale blue linen shirt with the sleeves casually rolled up to the elbow, and a pair of well-cut beige corduroys resting gently on his slim hips with the help of a brown leather belt, Italian and expensive, I guessed, like his shoes. He was a man approaching sixty making no attempt to disguise his age yet he looked both elegant and relaxed.

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I wanted to know about his marriage to the control freak I had met at the Old Stone Market. I wanted to know what his son had been like and why they had led such a separate existence way out here on the East End of Long Island. I wanted to know what had really happened that night a groupie had been found dead in his bedroom and I was sure when he had spoken about “a story” he

“really wanted to tell” he was referring to this.

But most of all I wanted to know about
him
. I realized with a start, having spent only a few minutes in his company, that I wanted to help him.

“I’d love to do your book,” I said. “I can start whenever you want.”

“That’s fabulous!” The slight frown on his face, the only visible sign of the considerable strain he was under, disappeared for a second and he smiled at me in obvious relief. “That really is incredibly kind. Now, follow me to the kitchen while I go and make us a pot of tea.This way.” He guided me through an archway. “The kitchen’s a bit of a trek, I’m afraid. Thank God, the detective’s gone although I fear he’ll be back—and sooner rather than later, I expect. Do you know what his first question was for me when I’d identified Sean’s body?
Why do they call you Shotgun?
My son’s in the morgue, killed with a bullet from a shotgun, and he has to ask that.”

Of course, now that he’d brought it up, I too was curious to know why he was called Shotgun.

“Well, I’m afraid it was because I was a pretty good shot in my youth and the rest of the band found this out,” he said, reading my mind. “They used to unearth details of what they called my posh background and taunt me with them. So when our then manager said we had to come up with a better name for me than Kip Marriott—too wet and weedy for a hell-raising rock ’n’ roll singer apparently—we went for Shotgun. I liked it because it had

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a kind of bluesy feel to it, you know, like Sonny Boy Williamson or Muddy Waters but our manager felt it had sexual connotations and there was a good publicity angle there.”

And did it?
I wondered.

“Anyway, I’m afraid I let Detective Morrison have the sexual version.” He made a face to show what he thought of Evan Morrison. “I rather felt he was the type to appreciate it.”

We had arrived at the kitchen and I was astonished. It was a bit like standing in a dungeon in which someone had placed an industrial-size stove and state-of-the-art stainless-steel appliances and flooded them with pools of recessed lighting. Hanging above the stove, a row of copper pans cast a reddish-brown metallic glint over the area. Several pewter tankards were lined up on the granite countertop.The floor was old flagstones and the walls behind the rows of glass-fronted cabinets also appeared to be stone.

The overall effect may have been a touch gloomy, and I’m never very comfortable in those minimalist kitchens where absolutely nothing is left out on the surface, but it was certainly dramatic. I was wondering where the wooden shelves Dumpster was making were going to go when Shotgun pulled open a tall stainless-steel door to reveal a walk-in larder complete with wall-to-wall pine racking. The way the items were stacked floor-to-ceiling reminded me of Franny’s store. Long planks of pine were propped against the far wall, evidence of Dumpster’s industry.

“Lapsang souchong or PG Tips?” he asked me.

“PG Tips,” I said, “always!”

He laughed. “Great minds think alike. Shortbread from Fort-num and Mason, Bourbons, or ginger nuts? I made the ginger nuts myself.”

“Well, bring them on,” I said. “This is quite a kitchen. I almost feel like I’m standing in a castle. Tell me how you came to find such an English house out here.”

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“I didn’t so much find it as bring it with me,” he said. “And you’ve hit the nail on the head about the castle. I grew up in one and in parts of the house, I’ve tried to re-create it. I’ve even given its name to this house: Mallaby.”

“Did you really grow up in a castle?”

“Well, okay, it wasn’t really a castle but it felt like one. It was a rambling slate manor on the edge of the Yorkshire moors, an old farmhouse with bits added on to it, but it had a tower at one end and there was a wide stream surrounding three-quarters of it that felt like a moat. I always thought of it as a castle.”

“I don’t really know Yorkshire,” I said. “I grew up in London and I’ve lived there ever since.”

“Oh, you’re a ‘townie,’ poor thing.” He was unplugging an electric kettle and pouring boiling water into the teapot. “I’m a country boy, in fact I was a nursling of the moors, filling my little lungs with the bracing air of the north wind every day. It’s probably why I’m drawn to the bleakness of the Atlantic coast here.”

“I didn’t think the Hamptons were supposed to be bleak,” I said.

“Try being here in February,” he said darkly, “which you might well be once you get stuck into my book. Anyway, the house—it started with the central bit. Some tycoon from Ohio built himself a folly—a Norman tower.When I first came out here to look for a place, the real estate brokers couldn’t wait to show it to me because they said it was English. Well, it was no more English than they were but it gave me an idea. I loved the isolation of the property, it was exactly what I was looking for, set way back here in the woods. I thought whatever the tycoon started, I could finish but I knew I’d never be able to re-create an old house by building it.”

“Well, I don’t know how you managed it,” I said, “but this house really does seem old. It feels like it was built hundreds of years ago.”

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“That’s because it was,” he said. “Instead of getting a builder I hired a structural mover.They move houses lock, stock, and barrel from one place to another. We scoured New England and I bought two houses, each over three hundred years old, and then we moved them here and placed them either side of the folly.”

As I followed him out of the kitchen, I was happy to see the strain on his face was lifted, if only temporarily, by his enthusiasm in explaining the house’s restoration to me. In my mind, I started to plan a chapter that would deal with his experiences in putting together his house and then almost immediately I started to wonder how much control he would allow me in the structure of the book. Some subjects allowed me a free rein, others thought they knew exactly how to tell their story. Which they didn’t—

otherwise why would they hire me?

I heard voices up ahead of us. As we emerged from the gloom of the long corridor into the great hall Detective Morrison came toward Shotgun. He wasn’t alone. Behind him were two other cops and through the windows I could see police cars lined up down the drive.

Evan Morrison was holding a shotgun.

I saw Shotgun’s hands clench by his sides but his voice gave no sign of tension.

“Detective Morrison, back so soon?”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Marriott. This shotgun was found yesterday, buried in the sand on the beach just beyond your property. As you will see, it’s a Purdey.”