Riptide (10 page)

He wondered what their day rate was.

Señora Rosa and her niece pulled out chairs and sat. Both looked like they wished they were anywhere but here.

Señora Rosa gave it one more try. “Meessus Cardiff, she return soon, you talk to her.”

They assured her they would do that, but that right now they appreciated her time and cooperation.

Jackson pulled out his pad and pen and got the ball rolling with simple questions about where the women resided (in a ratty-ass converted garage apartment in Patchogue, judging by the address), how long they had worked for the Cardiffs (eight years for Señora Rosa, and two for her niece, Marisol), and who else resided with the Cardiffs in the house during the summer months.

This brought the first smile of the day to Señora Rosa’s face. “One son, Tyler. I know him since he was this high.” She motioned with one hand slightly above the chrome back of the chair she was seated in. “And now he almost as big as
su padre.”
Beaming, she raised her hand as high as it would go toward the vaulted ceiling.

And then it hit her, you could tell, that Tyler’s height was not going to be measured any longer in terms of where the top of his head reached when he stood next to his
padre.
Her face crumpled.

Marisol whispered something McManus couldn’t make out. A high-school Regents diploma in Spanish, and McManus could recall just about enough of the language to order Mexican takeout.

Whatever the younger woman whispered, it did not have the intended effect of soothing her aunt.

Just the opposite, in fact.

Señora Rosa dissolved into tears, fingering her crucifix with one hand while extracting a rumpled tissue from her pocket with the other, and to tell you the truth, this was, many times, when Frank McManus choked up.

Death was sad.

But Frank had trained himself over the years to use the emotion in the interview process to his advantage.
He couldn’t bring anyone back from the Great Beyond once they crossed over, but if they had been helped across before their natural time—maybe in the form of a one-way ticket on the River Styx Express—Frank McManus sure as hell could figure out whodunit.

“It’s too bad,” he began in an agreeable way.

“Sí, sí.”
Señora Rosa continued to weep. “Very sad.”

Marisol nodded in a somber way while managing, Frank noticed, to remain dry-eyed herself. If you took away the stiff nylon uniform and its unbecoming shade of battleship gray, she would be a looker. And if you undid the tightly coiled bun at the base of her neck, he’d bet anything a long thick mane of shiny dark hair would tumble free. In which case, she would turn heads.

Jason Cardiff had most likely taken note at some point.

McManus’s eyes met Marisol’s, and he saw something similar to what, he imagined, she was reading in his own gaze. Watchful. Cautious. Wary.

Marisol looked away first.

Frank eased into things. “Do you like working here?”

Both women nodded vigorously.

“Oh, yes,” Señora Rosa said, making a sweeping motion with her hand.
“Es
beautiful.”

Frank McManus followed her gesture and nodded. It
was
beautiful, even with dunes the color of new-poured cement from the tropical storm that was churning up the coast from Capes Hatteras to Cod.

“And the Cardiffs? You like them?”

The nodding stopped and there was the merest beat.

“Sí,”
Señora Rosa said quickly.

Marisol stared down at the glass surface of the table.
“Sí,”
she echoed.

“So,” McManus said slowly, “you like them both?”

Señora Rosa frowned. She gave a quick look at her niece, who continued to stare at the glass tabletop.

Marisol and Auntie Rosa were not, apparently, going to do any heavy lifting today. Frank and his partner exchanged glances. McManus leaned forward trying again. “Do you like working for both of them, Mr. and Mrs. Cardiff?”

“Sí.”
Señora Rosa nodded. “Yes, of course.” She allowed her crucifix to fall back onto her chest for emphasis. Frowning, she folded her hands in her lap.

“Sí,”
Marisol echoed.

“And do you get along well with the other employees here?” Frank used a neighborly tone as the women exchanged a quick glance. “Are you friends with Roberto and the men who work outside?”

This hit home. Marisol stiffened at the mention of Roberto’s name.

Señora Rosa’s lower lip came out. She gave a quick glance at her niece and shook her head. “No problem.”

“Right.” Marisol shifted in her seat and kept her glance firmly fixed on the tabletop.

If she’d been wearing a watch, she probably would have made a point of checking it right now.

As it was, her lips tightened, and she brushed away imaginary crumbs from the top of the table.

Frank changed tacks. “Do the Cardiffs have a lot of friends?”

Señora Rosa perked up, and even Marisol seemed to loosen up a bit. This question, apparently, was more to their liking.

“Sí.”
Señora Rosa nodded.

“Do they have friends come over to the house?”

Again, nods. “Parties?”

More nods.

“Do they have a lot of parties?”

“In summer,
sí, muchas fiestas,
” Señora Rosa replied.

“How about night before last?”

The two women glanced at each other.

The place had been trashed when McManus first got here yesterday morning.

“Yes, sir,” Señora Rosa replied.

“Do you know who was here?”

Both women shook their heads.

“No,” said Señora Rosa.

McManus leaned in closer to Marisol, who met his gaze. “And you,” he asked. “Do you have any idea who was here?”

“No, señor,” she said, still shaking her head.
“Yo no sé.”
There was a pause. “The Cardiffs have
muchas fiestas.”

It was true. Jason Cardiff’s blood was loaded with more than alcohol at the time of his death. The medical examiner said preliminary findings indicated Cardiff probably had a fair amount of cocaine and marijuana in his system, and other things besides. Cardiff had been known around the East End as a party boy.

“Any idea who came to Mr. Cardiff’s party the other night?” Frank directed the question at Señora Rosa.

She shook her head. “Sorry.”

Her regret seemed genuine.

“Do you know what his plans were for the night?”

“He met his friend for dinner at the club. Señor Stanton.” Rosa brightened up now that she had, at last, supplied McManus with some information. “Gil Stanton.”

“Gil Stanton. Is he a friend from around here or the
city?”

Señora Rosa glanced at her niece.

“From the city,” Marisol replied. “Gil Stanton is Mr. Cardiff’s attorney.”

Attorney. Not lawyer and definitely not
abogado.
It was an American way of describing that most cherished American relationship, the one between a client and his legal representative.

Ben Jackson glanced up.

He had caught it, too.

“They went to dinner sometimes,” Marisol said with a quick shrug, as though by giving them more information she could retract the fact that she had just revealed she knew much more about the business dealings of the master of the house than she had intended to let on.

Señora Rosa stared straight ahead, twisting her gold wedding band in her lap.

Frank rested one hand on the table so that everything in his body language said this-is-all-good. “So”—he directed his question at Marisol—“Gil Stanton. Do you know what law firm he’s at?”

“No.”

It was a Park Avenue firm. Cardiff’s sister had mentioned it during her visit to the station earlier today.

“Do you know where they went for dinner?” Pamela Cardiff Lofting had been most helpful on that score as well.

“The Dunes.”

The Dunes was a new members-only golf club that catered to the nouveau riche set. There were no dress codes and no admissions committee. It cost one cool million to join.

“Around what time was that?”

“Meester Cardiff leave here around six,” Rosa said.

“Do you know if Mr. Stanton came back here with him after?”

“No.” Both women spoke in unison.

“I don’t think so,” Marisol added. When her eyes met McManus’s, he believed she was telling the truth.

“Do you know if anyone else was here with him that night?”

Señora Rosa stopped toying with her wedding ring.

Marisol shook her head without looking up.

“Anyone at all?” Frank waited, tapping his fingers on the tabletop. He’d bet anything the smudges would be Windexed away before Señora Cardiff returned, or there’d be hell to pay.

Señora Rosa’s response was firm. “No.”

Marisol’s answer came out as no more than a whisper. “No.”

McManus and Jackson exchanged glances.

McManus changed tacks again. “Did you like Mr. Cardiff? Was he a good boss?”

“
Sí
, yes, yes,” Señora Rosa replied, her voice cottony with tears.
“Es muy terrible.”

But it was Marisol he wanted to hear from.

It took the younger woman a moment to raise her eyes, and she reddened when she realized the question was intended for her. “He was a good boss.”

“Did you like him?”

“Sí
, nice man. Good boss,” Señora Rosa said.

“Yes, of course,” Marisol replied.

McManus shifted gears. “What about Mrs. Cardiff?”

“Señora Cardeeff, poor woman,” Señora Rosa burst out. “And her son, now…” Her voice trailed off in a fresh round of tears.

Marisol blinked. “She is a good boss.”

“Easy to work for?”

“Sure.”

“Is she fair?”

The young woman frowned, and her aunt lifted her head.
“¿Qué?”

McManus leaned forward slightly. “I mean, is she a fair boss? Is she good to work for?”

Señora Rosa sniffed.
“Sí,
yes of course.”

Marisol nodded.

“Do they pay you on a regular basis?”

Señora Rosa frowned, and Marisol nodded again.

McManus stated the question another way. “Who gives you money and when?”

“Meester Jason does on Friday,” Señora Rosa replied.

Her niece nodded in agreement.

“Does he ever pay you extra?”

Bingo. His question was greeted with silence. But something passed between the two women, nothing you could see. Blink and you’d miss it. But McManus could tell.

Across the table, Jackson sensed it, too, because he raised an eyebrow. But he kept writing.

They had worked out long ago that it was best for the interview if whoever was taking notes just kept writing. Too much stopping and starting was a distraction and worse, reminded the interviewee that anything they said could be used in Suffolk County’s investigation into the possible commission of a crime.

Most likely, McManus knew, his partner was jotting a list of things he needed to get at Costco early Saturday morning. Ben did the bulk of the Jackson family shopping. Once in a blue moon Frank joined him when he
was running low on soap or paper products.

Ben Jackson, he knew, was listening as intently as he was.

Señora Rosa frowned and shook her head. “No.”

“No,” Marisol said in a quiet voice.

“Never? They don’t pay anything extra?”

Both women shook their heads.

“Not at Christmas?”

There was silence during which the women glanced at each other.

Señora Rosa responded.
“Sí,
at Christmas
un regalo…”
She looked uncertainly at her niece.

“We get extra at Christmas,” Marisol explained.

“Any other time?”

She shook her head quickly.

“What about after a party?”

Marisol looked away.

McManus looked at Señora Rosa. “They gave parties, big parties, right?” He waited.

They both nodded.

“Did they pay you extra to clean up after a big party?”

There was a silence. McManus waited.

Señora Rosa shrugged at last. “No, señor,” she said firmly.

McManus frowned. “Never any extra money?”

Señora Rosa leveled her gaze at McManus as she fingered her crucifix. “No, señor,” she replied.

Marisol stared sullenly down at the center of the dining room table. She looked up. Her dark eyes glinted when she met Frank’s gaze. “No,” she said evenly. “Nothing.”

T
here was something familiar about the man telling his story from the table at the front of the room.

All it took was one smile for Christina to place him. She knew in an instant how his face would move and arrange itself even before it happened.

“I’m Matt,” he said. “And I’m a grateful alcoholic.”

“Hi, Matt,” the group replied, just like in the movies.

This was surreal. Until two seconds ago, she had planned to bolt for the exit once the meeting got under way.

Now, she didn’t dare. She ducked her head, praying she wouldn’t be recognized by the handsome man telling his life story into the microphone, going back to when he was thirteen and began sneaking Scotch from his father’s liquor cabinet and watering the bottles down.

The room roared with laughter.

It was sick.

Familiar pieces began to emerge such as how he got a job bartending while working his way through Hofstra at night. “I made good money, stole from the house, and felt like a big man.” He grinned. “I got a summer share in the Hamptons.”

Christina sank down lower in her chair.
Summer share in the Hamptons.

“I was hanging out with kids who had gone to Ivy League schools, thinking I had it made. I was kidding myself,” he said quietly. “I still remember the beautiful women I met there, girls who knew better than to waste their time with a drunk like me.”

Christina snuck a look at him, and their eyes met.

Close to two decades disappeared in the space of one second.

Those eyes were still blue, the color of a tall sky on a windswept day, lined now with crow’s-feet around a nose that was big, almost hooked. Too ethnic in an Irish way to be movie-star handsome but on him, it all worked.

It always had.

With a jolt she realized Matthew Wallace was even more attractive now, well into his thirties, than she remembered. Now there was something else.

He looked happy.

Matt’s smile broadened. “I have no regrets. Everything I did got me here today. And this”—he placed both hands palms down on the Formica tabletop to make a point—“is the best place for me. I owe everything I have to AA.”

Christina blinked. Memories flooded back of that summer long ago. Sundowner cocktails on a deck overlooking Shinnecock Inlet and the rickety old wooden Ponquogue Bridge they used to fish from. Matt was sweet and good-natured, down-to-earth and affectionate, something Christina didn’t appreciate at the time.

He had big dreams. But they were nothing more than dreams, and Christina Banaczjek had not used her
meager savings to leave Hamtramck, Michigan, behind so she could live on Long Island as a bartender’s wife. Not when she had just met an up-and-coming equities trader named Jason Cardiff.

Christina played it cool on the weekends with Jason that summer, dropping hints she’d had a coming-out party in Grosse Pointe. During the week, she hung out with Matt Wallace and his friends in Hampton Bays.

When Labor Day came, she dumped Matt. He was sweet, but no match for Christina’s ambitions. She’d never seen or heard from him again.

He finished his story. “I love you all, and I want to thank you for keeping me sober today.”

She didn’t have the nerve to look at him when he said that.

The room exploded with applause.

A man at the back yelled, “I love you, too, Matt!”

It was bizarre.

Christina wondered if Matt had turned gay.

A skinny young man no older than Tyler, with bright red hair combed straight up like a rooster’s comb and tattoos lining his arms, yelled, “Thanks for being my sponsor, Matt! You saved my life!”

As the applause continued, Big Stan clapped the kid with the rooster comb on the shoulder, hard enough to knock him off his chair.

Matt Wallace called to him, “Hey, Jake, how much time do you have?”

Jake jumped to his feet like he had just won the lottery. “Forty-three days clean.”

The room turned quiet.

“And that’s one day more than yesterday.” Jake’s voice broke.

To Christina’s horror, he began to cry.

Applause thundered through the room.

Someone yelled. “How’d you do it, Jake?”

Jake swiped at his eyes with one tattooed wrist, his voice low and ragged with emotion. “One day at a time.”

Christina looked away, embarrassed.

There were hoots and hollers and calls of “Go, Jake!”

Tiny elderly Lois bellowed, “Don’t drink even if your ass falls off.”

Peals of laughter rang out.

It was getting weirder by the second.

People tossed dollar bills into straw baskets that were coming around.

Matt stretched his long legs out in front of him. “Who else is counting days?” He scanned the audience. “Christina, how about you?”

Just like that, he spoke her name. But there was something careful in his voice.

Like talking to her, even across a crowded room, might batter his heart all over again.

The way hers felt right now. She opened her mouth, but there was no voice.

The room got very quiet. People turned in their seats to get a better look.

Christina remembered now how she had dumped Matt without any warning. It was cruel. She managed to get her voice working through a mighty effort. “Um.”

The laughter and lighthearted banter of a few moments ago was gone. In its place was a profound silence. Christina wracked her brain trying to come up with an answer to Matt’s question. She remembered puking
into the tiny airsick bag on the god-awful plane ride to Minneapolis, peeing into a cup during her intake exam at rehab. “I, ah…” Christina’s voice faded and, to her horror, the corners of her mouth yanked down. “I’m not sure,” she whispered.

When Matt spoke, his voice held no edge at all. “I’m glad you got here.”

She nodded, miserable.

He smiled, oozing sincerity, which just made her feel worse.

Christina had had the upper hand in their relationship. He had been devoted to her like a puppy dog, once jumping off a bridge late at night into Shinnecock Canal to prove it. Looking back, she was too busy climbing from the wreckage of her so-called childhood to have returned anybody’s love, even a love as pure as his.

Matt Wallace watched her now with the measured gaze of someone trying to decide whether or not to call an ambulance.

Christina winced. She wanted to curl up and die.

Lois patted her arm. “Keep coming back.”

How hateful. “Ten days,” Christina blurted, pieces meshing together in the fog that was drifting through her brain. “I’m pretty sure my last drink was ten days ago.”

“Well, all right,” Matt said.

There was applause, but just a smattering. As though people couldn’t make up their minds whether to believe her, Christina decided. She didn’t blame them. She had left rehab early—not her fault—but if the truth were known, Christina Cardiff did not have a very good track record. Her marriage, over now—not her fault—was on its way out, and had been for a long time. Her
son chose to spend most of his time away from home. And she had no friends to speak of.

So she wasn’t feeling all that strong about quitting cold turkey the way these people had.

“Get a sponsor,” someone yelled.

Christina felt as though she’d been slapped.

Announcements followed about a potluck dinner and God knows what, but Christina wasn’t listening.

When it was over, Jake ran up and threw his arms around her. “You can do it,” he said, smiling like she was his favorite aunt. “Just don’t drink and go to meetings. Stay tight with Lois. She’d make a great sponsor. I’ve got the best one in the world, but you can’t have him ’cause he’s a guy.”

This last remark was intended in part for the benefit of Matt Wallace, who had finished taking congratulations and walked over. He stood, larger than life, smiling like no time had passed.

He grabbed young Jake in a man hug. “Good to see you got another day, kid.”

Jake grinned up at Matt, hero worship all over his face. “I’m giving it my best shot. I’m making meetings every day, and I plan to go to bed sober tonight.” He beamed at Christina. “Matt’s keeping me on the right track.”

“Nope,” Matt said. “You’re doing that for yourself. And you’re keeping me sober while you’re at it.”

Christina blinked. She’d never heard men talk like this.

Now Matt turned his high-wattage smile on her along with those eyes, which were exactly the way she remembered.

Like laser beams into her heart. How could that be,
after all the years and all the living (and dying) that had happened to her?

“How ’bout you, Christina? How are you doing today?”

Coming from someone else, it would have been a straightforward question. Christina’s face collapsed toward center, and a big sob rose in her throat. She knew she looked like shit. Crying wouldn’t help. But she burst into tears anyway.

Matt Wallace dug a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. “It’s clean.”

It took a minute or two for Christina to cry herself out. She mopped at her face after the sobs subsided, pretty sure if Matt had any regrets about being dumped so long ago, he’d be losing them now. She blew her nose, honking long and loud.

Matt Wallace and young Jake watched as if they had all the time in the world.

“I have to get groceries,” she said when she managed to regain control of her voice. “My son is coming.” She hiccuped. “I have no food.” She dissolved into tears again.

Matt Wallace and Jake exchanged a look.

“We’ll go with you,” Matt said quickly.

“Sure.” Jake smiled, revealing a wide gap between his front teeth. “We love Waldbaum’s.”

Finished with their interviews of the Cardiffs’ domestic staff, Detectives Jackson and McManus climbed back into the Crown Vic and headed down the long, winding drive past the lawn that was dotted with landscapers intent on keeping the grass in putting-green shape.

Nobody waved good-bye.

Detective Ben Jackson sighed. “I feel like a mushroom.”

It was an old one, but Frank McManus took the bait. “Why’s that?”

“ ’Cause I work in the dark and get fed nothing but shit.”

“You don’t mean to imply that Señorita Marisol—?”

“Is holding out on us?” Jackson grinned. “Could be,” he said, proceeding to answer his own question. “What do you think? Who do you like?”

Frank let loose a mock-deep sigh. “I hate when you talk about things like this. I really do.”

“I know, dawg.” Jackson gave a solemn nod. “All those years of Catholic school, down the tubes. But give it a try.”

It was a corny routine, but it passed the time.

“There’s something there with Marisol,” McManus offered.

“No question,” Jackson agreed. “We know she was getting it on with Roberto because Christina Cardiff told us so.” He paused. “If you can believe her.”

“Big if,” McManus said.

“But did you see the look on her face?”

McManus nodded to indicate he had.

“I’m thinking maybe there was something with Jason Cardiff, something going on there with Marisol.”

“Could be,” Frank replied. “No love lost between the cleaning women and the lady of the house.”

Ben Jackson snorted. “I’ll say.”

They slowed near the exit.

Roberto Torres paused in his work long enough to watch the gate swing wide, his strong hands wrapped around the worn handle of a spade.

“Catch you one day soon,
hombre,”
Jackson muttered under his breath.

The case was turning out to be more interesting than McManus would have guessed. A lot went on behind the privet hedges at the Cardiff estate. It was a regular ol’
Peyton Place,
in fact. But there you go, Frank McManus reflected. Too much money and too many drugs did not make for a happy home. This was a truth that played out, over and over, in his line of work.

They pulled onto Jonah’s Path, where Happy Dick was in place once more with his camera.

He saluted.

Frank scowled.

They pulled in at the very next drive, one up from the ocean along Jonah’s Path. According to the cleaning ladies, it was the only house on the block that was occupied this week.

“Now this,” Frank said, “is what you picture when you think of a beach house.” A drive consisting of crushed white shells wound past old-growth linden trees to a snug Cape with cedar shingles.

There were hydrangea bushes with blooms the size of soup bowls alongside hollies and rhododendrons that were taller than McManus. All native shrubs, none of that twisting topiary they charged an arm and a leg for at the garden center in Amagansett. The porch was an explosion of color. Everywhere you looked were containers brimming with flowers and vines that trailed in a leafy curtain down past the railings. Ceramic pots of every shape and size were crammed with color. The humid air hung heavy with a perfumed mix of spice and fruit and tang. A wind chime tinkled with the breeze.
A pair of weathered Adirondack chairs competed for space with a collection of garden gnomes.

A flag held by a giant frog fluttered in the onshore breeze.

The place was like one big welcome mat.

The animal that launched itself at Frank was not.

A black Scottie, which McManus had mistaken for a lawn ornament, sprang to life. Its jaws made a snapping sound as it rushed the car.

“What the f-?” Jackson was half-out of the driver’s seat when he reversed direction, yanking the door closed just in time.

The Scottie went up on its hind legs and continued barking its oversized head off.

Frank McManus laughed out loud. Ben Jackson, who was approximately the size and shape of a Giants quarterback, was afraid of dogs.

So was Frank McManus. Dogs, like people, could pick out a cop at fifty paces. “It’s okay,” McManus said, keeping his voice easy breezy for the dog’s benefit. He cracked his door open and attempted to exit the passenger side, taking his time.

The dog dropped back down onto all fours and came around to McManus’s side of the car. The animal wasn’t very big, after all.

“It’s okay, pal,” McManus murmured, reaching down with one hand.

The dog skidded to a halt and cocked its head. A thick fringe of eyebrows covered most of its face, trailing right down into a long black beard.