Dead In The Hamptons (12 page)

How far would she go? I would have asked if I’d thought Ted could give me the answer. Far enough for someone to arrange for her to drown? Someone smart enough not only to set it up, but to fool the cops?

“It’s our turn to go to the dump today,” Phil announced. He had been hovering when I stumbled out of the bedroom and tagged along as I staggered into the bathroom. I did my best to ignore him.

My eyes in the mirror over the sink looked what an amateur would have called bleary. For an old alkie like me, this was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

“We have to sort everything for recycling,” Phil said, “so we should get started right away. I’ve already had breakfast.”

“Thank you for sharing.” I bared my teeth in the mirror and wondered if the minty taste of toothpaste would refresh or nauseate me. “Now go away.”

“You’re my buddy,” he informed me. “It’s on the schedule.”

I began to get the hang of Phil. He had no doubt made up the schedule.

“Oh, go and bag some bottles. Stack some newspapers.” Damn, he already had me thinking about the task. I wasn’t ready to think. “Or if you want to make yourself useful, bring me a cup of coffee.”

The man actually went and did it. Then, while I drifted through the kitchen in slow motion, he went out on the deck and scrubbed garbage cans. Nuts. The smell of ammonia did not improve my Cheerios and blueberries.

Lewis, barefoot and bare-chested, banged open the refrigerator door. I sprayed Cheerios out my nose.

“Sneak up behind me, why don’t you,” I said. “I need a thrill or two with breakfast. If you’re looking for the milk, it’s here.”

Lewis poured himself coffee and stared out at Phil, who had turned a garden hose on his handiwork and was whistling through his teeth.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.

“You gotta keep up with the chores, or the whole house will fall into chaos. These cans stank. We should do this every few days. And some people aren’t sorting. I found smelly stuff— fish scraps and bones— in the paper garbage and tinfoil in with the bottles.”

“Insane,” I told Lewis. “Was he always like this?”

“Only since he got sober,” Lewis said.

“So you did know him before.”

“Oh, yeah. Clea invited him out a few times last summer. She liked variety.”

“An active alcoholic?”

“Believe it or not, he had us all convinced he was a normie. Said Clea was the first woman he’d ever dated who was in a twelve-step program. Didn’t seem to mind the house being dry.”

“So what happened?”

“He got a DWI. She dragged him to a meeting, he decided he was a high-bottom drunk, and he turned into an obsessive-compulsive monster. Though if he wants to scrub the garbage cans, God bless him.”

“Where’s the dump? And do I have to?”

“That’s one chore we have to keep up with. If you can’t stand a twenty-minute ride in a car full of Phil and garbage, you could switch with someone and go another day. But you might as well get it over with.”

“The dump. It’s so country. Do the locals go there to shoot rats?”

“It’s not like that at all. In fact, it’s not called the dump any more. Recycling center. In fact, I may come along. I need to throw out a bunch of Clea’s stuff and a broken chair that’s been sitting on the deck for days.”

“You won’t fit that in Phil’s car.”

“I’ll take my own.”

“If I help you load, can I ride with you?”

“Sure. As long as we give Phil a hand loading up and help him when we get there, he’ll be happy as a clam. More room for garbage.”

The day was crystal clear. I rode shotgun. We headed west on Montauk Highway. Lewis made sure we pulled out of the drive ahead of Phil, so we wouldn’t have to tail his stench all the way to the dump. Phil’s rear seat was piled high with black plastic garbage bags. With his rear view blocked, he’d have to be very careful. The unscented junk in Lewis’s car cleared the wide-open windows. Once we got going, the prevailing scent was fresh cut grass. Seagulls wheeled overhead, going our way. Lewis said they loved the dump.

I stuck my head out the window and looked back.

“Phil’s stuck behind a tractor. Wanna lose him?”

“Better not. He’s only been there once before. I promised I’d show him the way. He’s even more anxious this year.”

“Along with fanatical about garbage. He’s got something to be anxious about, you’ve gotta give him that.”

“I could never understand why she took up with him.”

Lewis’s hands gripped the wheel harder than necessary. I sorted through ways to get him to go on and settled on an encouraging grunt.

“The guy has zero charisma,” he said.

“And Clea had a lot, by all I’ve heard. You knew her well?”

“Clea didn’t drop the seventh veil for anyone.” Lewis chewed on one corner of his lower lip.

“Did you ever sleep with her?” It came out very casual, nicely judged if I say so myself.

“Oh, what the hell. Yeah, it was impossible to be just buddies with Clea. She was steamy as a Turkish bath, and if she offered, you’d be a fool to say no.”

“So you had a thing?”

“I had a thing, a bad one. Clea had one romp among many, just another roll in the hay. The dune grass, if you really want to know.”

It sounded scratchy to me. And sandy. But according to Lewis, Clea made you forget all that.

“Did Karen know?”

“No.” He bit it off so hard I saw tooth marks on his lip. “God, I hope not.”

We both fell silent. A minute later, the car swung into a long road with what looked like a ticket booth at the end.

“I’ve got it.” I reached in my pocket. Offering to pay was something I’d never done drunk.

“We have a sticker.”

Sure enough, the guy at the booth surveyed our front bumper and waved us by.

“What’s that big hill?” I asked.

“Mount Garbage,” Lewis said. “When this was a real dump, people came and hurled their bags over the edge. The seagulls used to have a field day scavenging. When they built the recycling center, they let it grass over. We go this way.”

We pulled up in front of a long shed with a corrugated metal roof. Lewis got out of the car and started unpacking bags and boxes with practiced efficiency. I guess I could have jumped in and given him a hand without waiting to be invited. My instincts hadn’t changed that much yet.

A toot signaled Phil’s arrival. He too immediately got to work.

“Here!” He tossed a giant black plastic sack my way.

I caught it before it knocked me over, but the jolt dislodged the wire twister holding it closed, and a cascade of soda cans clanked merrily around my feet. Oh, great. I flunked Dump.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Phil had to rub it in.

I started chasing the little buggers and flinging them back in the garbage bag. A few eluded me by rolling under Phil’s car. Growling the Serenity Prayer under my breath, I lay down flat and fished them out. Lewis helped. Phil didn’t.

“I think that’s it,” I said finally. “Now where did the twister go?”

“You don’t need it,” Lewis said. “You empty the bag right into the bin.”

I dragged the bag, rattling and bumping, in the direction he pointed. He followed with a load of plastic soda bottles. Both bins were almost full.

“I haven’t seen so many beer cans in one place,” I said, “since I cleared out my apartment after detox.”

“Just dump ’em in and throw the bag away,” Lewis instructed.

Phil came up behind us with another bag of bottles, this batch glass. They clinked as he poured them into the appropriate bin.

“They used to make us separate them by color,” Lewis said. “They keep changing the rules.”

A battered dark green pickup truck pulled up next to us, shaving the flank of Lewis’s car like a matador’s cape. I didn’t recognize the strawberry lady in a baseball cap and big padded gloves until Lewis called out, “Morning, Mrs. Dowling. Beautiful day.”

“Rain this afternoon,” she said as she started swinging well filled garbage bags out of the bed of the truck. She marched into the shed with one in each hand.

We hung back long enough for Lewis to murmur, “I can never tell if the locals are really weather wise or just trying to maintain a reputation.”

“I guess we’ll see this afternoon.” I grabbed an unwieldy bag in each fist and do-si-do’d around Mrs. Dowling coming briskly out. She wasn’t the kind of woman you’d want to whack with a sack of garbage.

Mrs. Dowling drove off just as we finished. I walked over to Phil’s car and peered inside. The back seat still held a couple of boxes of small appliances, beach paraphernalia, and girl stuff like makeup, a mesh laundry bag full of clothing, and a battered suitcase.

“I’ve cleared the trunk,” Phil said. “This is Clea’s stuff.”

“Things like the electric toothbrush,” Lewis said, “can go in the garbage bin. But maybe somebody could use the suitcase. There’s another shed down at the end for items to swap.”

“I don’t know,” Phil said. He sounded uncharacteristically uncertain.

“Karen talked to Clea’s mother on the phone,” Lewis said. “She lives in Florida. She didn’t want it either. And none of this stuff interested the cops.”

While Phil grumbled and Lewis coaxed, I idly picked things up and put them down again. I turned a couple of straw tote bags upside down and shook them. The police must have done the same. Nothing but a little sand fell out. The suitcase was an old plaid canvas model with a couple of rips in it. Everybody used to have at least one of these before the kind with rollers and retractable handles came in.

“Nobody wanted this?” I tugged at the zipper. It had collected a little rust and didn’t want to move.

“It’s the kind of thing you pay two bucks for at a yard sale,” Lewis said, “and are ready to throw out by the time you get home. But you never know. If it’s free, somebody will want it.”

“Not if it won’t open and close,” I said, tugging harder. “Got it!”

Past the stuck point, the zipper slid easily enough.

“I don’t know if this is worth it.” I stuck my nose inside the suitcase and sniffed. “The lining is mildewed.” I ran my hand over the cheap, shiny nylon lining and poked a finger into the elasticized pockets on the side. “Hey! There’s something in here.”

My questing fingers had discovered a flat pocket inside one of the side pockets. Wedged snugly into it was a hard square shape. I drew it out. It was a small black notebook. Before I could open it, Phil snatched it from my hand.

“What the hell—”

“Not so fast!” Lewis’s hand shot out.

Phil held the notebook up above his head. Lewis was taller, but Phil danced away from his long reach.

“If it’s Clea’s, I should get it. It’s none of your business.”

It might be Lewis’s business. The notebook didn’t look new. Clea might have recorded all the details of her love life. On the other hand, she could have used it for shopping lists.

Lewis’s face turned a rich plum color. He clenched not just his fists but his whole body. I could see the muscles bunch in his neck.

“Give it back, you son of a bitch!”

“Like hell I will!” Phil’s skin didn’t change color, but he started to sweat. I could see the droplets spring up on his bald spot.

“Do you want another bloody nose, you bastard?” Lewis roared.

“Why don’t we give it to the cops?” The devil made me do it. They both turned and glared at me.

“No way!”

“Forget it!”

I raised my hands in surrender and backed off a pace.

“Okay, whatever.” I could feel the shit-eating grin on my face. I didn’t want them throwing punches at each other or at me. I’d like to cut a heroic figure stopping them. Too bad I didn’t have Cindy’s moves. What could I say to defuse the situation?

“I wonder how come the cops didn’t find it.” I pitched my voice in a conversational tone. “I thought they checked everything. We sat out on the deck for hours before they let us in.”

“The suitcase wasn’t in her room.” Lewis’s face slowly faded to lavender. “It was in the big closet off the living room, stowed away with some of ours.”

“So maybe they just zipped it open to the stuck point,” I surmised, “and shook it around a little. When nothing fell out, they decided it was empty and not of interest.”

“You may be right.” Lewis pushed the words out reluctantly.

“A fistfight won’t solve anything. We saw that ourselves, right?”

A car door slammed. While I had Lewis’s attention, Phil had made his getaway. He’d abandoned the rest of his garbage.

“Shit!” Lewis turned purple again. “Come back, you little rat fink!”

Phil revved the engine. The exhaust emitted a derisive fart as he wheeled, burning rubber, and sped away.

“Easy does it,” I advised.

The program slogan got through. Lewis took a few deep breaths, pursing his lips and blowing out on the exhale. Whoo, whoo, whoo. I think they teach it in yoga class.

“He’ll go back to the house, anyhow,” I said. “Maybe you can talk to him when you both calm down.”

“It’s only because of what I told you,” Lewis said. “I want to know if she mentioned me.”

“Phil probably feels the same.”

“Do you think he’ll give it to the police?” Lewis looked at me as if I had the answers.

“Why would the cops be interested?” I said. “She drowned.” It seemed prudent not to mention that Jimmy and Barbara and I still thought she’d been murdered. “It might have been filled with negative stuff about him. He’ll probably destroy it.”

Lewis ground his teeth, ready to flare up again.

“I’ve got to see it first.”

“Come on, man, let’s finish up here and go back to the house. We can’t do anything about it now.”

I liked Lewis a lot better than I liked Phil. But I didn’t want to side with either of them. One or the other might be a murderer. Anyhow, Clea was a journalist. Her love life wasn’t the only potentially dangerous information she could have recorded. Scandal, corruption, lies, and secrets were her bread and butter. Even if her notes didn’t point directly to her killer, they might cast a lot of light on various people’s motives. I didn’t want that notebook destroyed unread any more than Phil and Lewis did.

“Bruce! I’m doing laundry!” Barbara’s shadow fell across my face as I lay basking on the deck, a pitcher of lemonade on a low table at my elbow.