Short Squeeze (27 page)

“I thought it was postmodern architects.”

“For them we’ve reserved a new circle of hell.”

He twisted around on the stepladder and pointed to the ground.

“Could you hand me that hydraulic nailer?” he asked.

“What’s a hydraulic nailer?”

“The thing with the hose attached. Look lively, Swaitkowski. Can’t hold this position forever.”

“Good thing I came along.”

“You’re decent help,” he said when I handed him the nailer. “I can get you steady work.” He popped a dozen nails into the inside curve of the molding. “You could specialize in setting pediments.”

“Easier than setting precedents.”

“That’s right, I forgot. You’re a lawyer.”

He climbed down the ladder.

“How’s the case?” he asked.

“That’s why I’m here. I know more and understand less. I’m in need of clarity.”

“I’m in need of caffeine. Let’s combine the two.”

I drove him to a coffee place nearby. We took coffee and croissants out to a park bench in front of the shop. I briefed him on my time at the library with Ruth Hinsdale, the friendly chat with Eunice, and what I’d learned about Fuzzy, including the conversation at the pizza parlor.

I told him what I thought was clear. That Elizabeth Pontecello was a very intelligent woman living in the company of an army of demons, though she definitely manned the helm at the Pontecellos’. That her personal banker at Harbor Trust had never dealt with Sergey. That all the bank records and legal documents, the will, the tax returns, every scrap of paper we’d come across, was in Betty’s name and handwriting. “And how do you jibe chain-smoking ace poker player with little old lady librarian?” I concluded.

“Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, eidetics gotta memorize,” he said.

“Okay. That clears up everything.”

“That’s the technical description of people with photographic memories. Eidetic,” said Sam. “It means just what you’d think it means. Their brains store and process information as images. A lot of people can do this, but with some, like Betty, they remember damn near everything, in perfect detail. It might sound like an affliction, but for
people like Betty, it’s a compulsion. The more stuff to memorize, the better. I had one of these guys working for me as a chemical engineer, a Pakistani trained in Edinburgh. He didn’t have a lot of imagination, but he could build a polymer plant out of his head. I never saw him without a bag full of technical papers.”

“So what better place to spend your days than a reference library.”

“And your nights at the blackjack table,” he said.

“Counting cards. But they mostly played poker. Texas Hold ’Em. Card counting doesn’t work.”

“It works with blackjack until you’re caught. Which will happen eventually. Then you’re out of the casino forever. Every casino. Her memory still gave her some advantage over the other poker players, but she had another dodge going on there, the oldest one in the book.”

I hated it when Sam made me guess the thing he’d already figured out.

“Goddamn it. Do we have to do this now?”

“Come on, Jackie. Tonic and lime. Looks like a gin and tonic. Establish yourself as a drunk, then stop drinking. The other players don’t take you seriously, don’t hide the tells, the facial expressions and body language that a good player can read like the Sunday paper.”

Betty didn’t just run with the demons, I thought, she was one of them. I remembered the look on Fuzzy’s face when I broke the news of his inheritance. Clearly enough to make me start laughing all over again. I finally got the joke.

I smacked Sam on the arm.

“Betty was a con,” I said.

That’s what she really liked to do, play tricks on the world and everybody in it. I can see her as a little girl, realizing she could do things the other little girls couldn’t imagine doing. But she kept it to herself. It was her secret weapon. She had a lifetime of deception. She could be all these different things because none of them was really
Betty. It must have been particularly satisfying to play one last trick on her overbearing, self-righteous older sister, taking her money when she didn’t even need it.

I dropped Sam off at his job and drove a block to the corner of South Main Street and Gin Lane. If you’re going to find yourself at a crossroads, you might as well do it in style. I pulled the car under the shade of a huge birch tree and started chanting, “Eeny, meeny, miney, mo,” under my breath. When I landed on a choice I didn’t like, I took the other one, and turned up Main Street and headed toward Riverhead and the regional crematorium at Great Lawns Cemetery.

Since I was already in such a great mood, why not spend the rest of the day with the dead?

Though Riverhead isn’t the most beautiful place on the East End, it is the source of fond childhood memories. Back then, you could save a fortune on groceries and regular household products at the Riverhead shopping centers at the edges of town. It was as if they’d created a little outpost of American suburbia within easy driving distance of the Hamptons, just to give us an idea of what the rest of the country had turned into. My mother liked having company, so she always made routine shopping expeditions to Riverhead feel like a special treat.

With that memory along for the ride, I half enjoyed the drive to Great Lawn Cemetery, which was just that: a great big lawn with big old trees and paved walkways and curving roadways and plaques on the ground instead of headstones. I liked the concept, which is why both my parents were there. I hadn’t been back to visit since I’d buried my mother. They were on eternal time, so I thought I could wait a few more years to muster the courage.

The building with the crematorium was at the other end of the grounds. It was another stately colonial building, the architectural
standard of the mortuary industry. The front door was unlocked, which I took as an invitation. Inside was a foyer lined with closed doors and filled with colonial furniture, mostly uncomfortable-looking wooden chairs, and a small pine desk. I buzzed the buzzer on the desk.

Minutes later a young woman emerged from one of the doors. She was slight and pretty, even with a pair of thick glasses and short brown hair cut to accentuate the conservative. She wore a light blue shirt and khaki slacks, not unlike what I was wearing, which we both noticed immediately.

“Well, at least I got the dress code right,” I said, sticking out my hand. “I’m Jackie Swaitkowski, an attorney from Southampton.”

For better or worse, it was always helpful to get the lawyer part out early. Most people find it hard to blow you off without at least finding out what sort of trouble they might be in.

“I’m Sarah Simms, cemetery director. What can I do for you?”

I told her as much of the Edna Jackery story as I could without implicating anyone or implying that I was about to implicate her. This wasn’t easy, but I’d told the story so many different ways by then, it was getting easier.

“So, if I understand,” she said, “pieces of Mrs. Jackery were removed from the body prior to cremation?”

“That’s the long and short of it. I know it was a while ago, but I was wondering if you remember anything about her.”

She was too polite to say something like “Surely you jest,” but the result was the same.

“You must keep records,” I said. “Do you examine the body before it’s cremated?”

“We require it. We run the person through a metal detector and do a hands-on examination. There’s often jewelry that’s been overlooked at the funeral home, and we can’t allow things like pacemakers into the retort. They can actually explode.”

“Into the what?”

“The retort. The cremator furnace. Who did you say you were representing?” she asked.

“The estate,” I said, not specifying which estate. “So this hands-on examination, who does that exactly?”

She smiled at me.

“I do. My family’s in the funeral business. I grew up helping my father with the embalming.”

There’s a bonding experience, I thought.

“But you don’t keep records?”

“I didn’t say that. I just wouldn’t remember any specific person. We serve hundreds a year.”

“But you could look it up?” I asked.

“I could. But I would need the family’s written permission. That is confidential information. Even in death, people have the right to privacy.”

I folded my arms and studied Sarah Simms like Betty Pontecello would, trying to read the tell.

“Would it be more or less pleasant for you if I arranged to have a police detective arrive here before the end of the day with a subpoena?”

“I wouldn’t find that pleasant at all.”

“Me, neither. I’d much rather wait here while you go check your records. Just give me the gist. I don’t have to look at anything.”

“Then I’m sure that’ll be fine,” said Sarah, relieved to have a compromise.

She turned and left the foyer by a different door from the one she used to enter. I sat and waited, my stomach turning into a lead ball as I imagined her looking up Slim Jackery’s phone number and giving him a call. Slim or Alden Winthrop, or Ross Semple.

She came back after only a few minutes.

“Mrs. Jackery had been in a terrible car crash,” she said. “She was disfigured nearly beyond recognition. There were no personal effects
or medical devices. This is what the computer said; I frankly don’t remember the individual. If you have specific questions, you’re likely to learn more by speaking to the Winthrop people again.”

“That’s a splendid idea, Ms. Simms. I think I’ll do exactly that.”

“Mrs. Simms,” she said demurely. “I’m old-fashioned that way.”

On the way back down to Southampton my cell phone rang. It was Harry.

“Where we going today?” he asked.

“You’re a little late for that. It’s already afternoon.”

“I’ve been catching up on paperwork. You?”

“I’ve been chasing dead bodies.” I told him about my trip to the regional crematorium and my conversation with Sarah Simms. He drew the same conclusion I did.

“You have to go to the funeral home again. Not you, exactly. You need to call the police and they need to go to the funeral home.”

There it was again, that little twitch in the pit of my stomach, the one I started to feel two years ago that eventually grew into a giant ball of distress. I didn’t know what it was then, and I still didn’t know, exactly, but at least now I had a theory.

For all his wonderful thoughtfulness, his easygoing, jovial nature, his apparent tolerance of my manifold inadequacies, Harry liked to drive the car. Though hardly a control freak, it was in his nature to control. How else could he move massive quantities of complicated stuff all over the globe, orchestrating it all from a computer in a converted garage?

I’d kept his protective nature at bay after the run-in with the pickup, just barely. It’s not that I didn’t like it. More that I might like it too much, that old fear of losing my sense of self if I got too close to Harry’s gravitational pull. That sense of self might be scattered all over the universe, but at least it belonged to me. All of it. I once gave up
pieces of me to the son of a potato farmer and only through tragic intervention got them all back. I couldn’t lose them again.

“You’re right. Sullivan is mad enough at me already. I’ll see if I can track him down,” I said, though I had no intention of doing so.

“Then you can come see me,” he said. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

“You always do, Harry. That’s one of the things I love about you.”

“Watch it, Jackie. You almost said you love me.”

As usual, right at the moment I felt most like running away from him, I felt a wave of warmth and affection flow over me.

“I do. I love your Harryness.”

“Okay, I’ll take that.”

“But I’m not sure about tonight. Let me call you later.”

“Okay, I’ll take that, too. I’ll be waiting. You know me.”

“I do,” I said to myself after getting off the phone.

I was going to head directly to Alden Winthrop’s office in the main house, but since I was closer to Building Two, with its long lineup of garage bays, I decided to stop there first. I knocked on the side door and waited. Nothing happened, so I let myself in and knocked on the next door. Nothing happened again, so I let myself into the main area.

All the vehicles were there except the pickup. I called Denny’s name a few times without a response. I walked into the corner where he’d set up his living space. It was less of a mess than the last time I was there. The table had been partially wiped clean, and the sheets were pulled up into a loose approximation of a made bed. From closer in, I could see a cubicle created by three movable panels borrowed from the portable ceremony supplies. The panels were covered in posters of a Japanese kickboxer inscrutably named Don Wilson.

Inside the space was a table with a computer. The computer screen was off, but a green light shone on the CPU under the table. I went over and tapped the space bar, and the screen lit up. A dialog box popped
up in the middle, requesting a user name and password. I looked around the garage, holding my breath and listening for sounds of Denny. Hearing nothing, I sat down and stared helplessly at the dialog box. Knowing the statistical odds of the right guess were far greater than the number of tries before the computer’s security system locked it up, I didn’t even try.

I walked down the row of cars to where the one with the canvas cover was parked. I had to untie a drawstring that tucked the cover under the left rear bumper, which took some effort. The string had been knotted into a hard ball, and I had to kneel on the floor to get both hands engaged in untying it. Two busted nails later, I got it loose.

I stood up and pulled the cover over the bumper. The license plate had been removed, making the wide slab of chrome look even wider. I walked around to the front of the car and pulled up the cover. The front fenders were also shaped into big slabs, with right angles top and bottom protruding beyond the grill, in which four round headlights were embedded. I didn’t see anything identifying the model until I flipped the cover up over the hood ornament.

It was a little round piece of chrome, inside of which was the number 300.