The Last Refuge (30 page)

This time I didn’t have a newspaper to give Rosaline when she answered the door. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her clothing was in the same loose, deconstructed style I’d seen her in before. Comfort designed for the long haul. I held my hands up.

“No offering.”

“I think we’re past that,” she said quietly. “Come on in.”

Arnold was in his seat in the living room, asleep. Rosaline put her finger to her lips and led me into a graceful study across the hall. It was walled with overstuffed bookshelves and furnished in early-twentieth-century oak. A pair of brown leather chairs were placed side by side in the middle of the room, each with an ottoman and reading lamp.

“My parents’ inner sanctum.”

“Readers.”

“Never owned a TV.”

“My kind of people.”

“Good. I share the genes. What can I get you?”

“I’m intruding again.”

“You are.” She checked her watch. “Close to cocktail hour. Forces me to offer you a drink.”

“Vodka on the rocks. No fruit.”

“Coming up.”

I sat in the chair and rested my manila folder on my lap. It felt better to have a prop, more official.

“Did the information I gave you do any good?” she asked, coming back with my drink and a large red wine.

“Yeah. Helped a lot.”

“But you want more.”

“After I thank you again for what you did. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Though I’m not sure if you’re the one to ask about this other stuff.”

“Ask.”

“I was thinking about what you said about the Internet.”

She looked a little uneasy.

“I was nosy.”

“Not what you said, but the fact of it. You’re probably a good surfer.”

“What, with all the time I have on my hands?”

“That’s right. You need to tie up that busy brain.”

“Is that what you do?”

“I don’t own a computer. I’ve never seen a website that wasn’t a print out. People did that stuff for me.”

“Mr. Big Shot.”

“I had a PC, but I used it to access technical data from the central servers.”

“So what do you want from me?”

I took a sip of the vodka.

“Nosy work.”

“For pay?”

“For the hell of it.”

We were both jarred by the sound of Arnold calling from the other room.

“Who’s there?” he yelled.

Rosaline put a calming hand over her heart.

“Can usually sleep through an atom bomb.”

She got up and waved to me to come along. Arnold was trying hard to make out who I was. He wasn’t wearing his glasses.

“Sam Acquillo, Daddy. You remember he came to visit last week.”

Arnold put out his hand to shake.

“Sorry to bother you again, sir. I was asking your daughter for a favor.”

“Sure, go ahead,” he said. “I do it all the time.”

He liked to tease her. She liked it, too, only not as much.

“We’re drinking, Daddy. Care to join?”

This sent him into a prolonged deliberation, but he was clearly interested. He looked at the glass in my hand.

“That’s vodka. You want rye on the rocks?” she asked, loudly.

He nodded, as if convinced by a superior argument.

Once we were all set with our drinks I explained to Arnold how I needed Rosaline’s help looking up some things on the Internet.

“She’s the one to ask. Spends a lot of time on that thing,” he said, then he had another thought. “Maybe you could explain something to me.” Rosaline looked like she knew what was coming. “I know you can look up anything you want on the computer, but how did
all that information get in there in the first place? Who put it in there?”

It took him a while to get out the whole question. But not long enough for me to come up with an answer.

“It’s kind of complicated.”

Rosaline was enjoying this.

“Mr. Acquillo supervised hundreds of engineers, Daddy. What could he possibly know about computers?”

“You haven’t told him about shared databases and search engines?”

“He doesn’t know, Daddy. Nobody does. It’s a modern mystery.”

“Phoof,” said Arnold, a sentiment I shared.

“I do have something for you, however,” I told him. “I asked you about Bay Side Holdings and you thought they were a captive. Turns out they were. Part of WB, the old manufacturing plant out there between Oak Point and Jacob’s Neck. Bay Side was WB’s real estate arm.”

“I suspected as much.”

Rosaline looked proud of him.

“I told you he knew his stuff.”

“How well did you know Carl Bollard and Willard Wakeman?” I asked.

He worked on his drink while he pondered.

“I never met Wakeman, he died many years ago. But I knew Carl Bollard well. And his idiot son.”

“Daddy.”

“Not my cup of tea, Carl Junior. A wasteabout. Most people in town were glad to see the place close down, except for the ones working there. Not the right image people thought Southampton should
have, even though it was up there in North Sea. There was a deep harbor there long ago. You could bring a large vessel all the way down from Greenport, which had ships coming in from all over the world.”

“What’s that got to do with Carl Junior?” asked Rosaline, gently keeping him on track.

“He shut it down. Everyone thought it was his fault. Though, in truth, a little outfit like that wasn’t going to make it out here. That sort of plant belongs in New Jersey, for God’s sake, not a resort area like this.”

“You still didn’t like him.”

“My father came to this country with nothing. He had to work like a dog, and so did we. This was the way it was. And this boy is handed everything, and what does he do? He drinks it all away.”

He punctuated every sentence with a knuckle pointed at my chest. You’d think he took lessons from Regina.

“He drives expensive cars and lives in nightclubs. Dishonors his father. All he cares about are the fancy people at the Meadows. As if they would ever accept a boy like that.”

There it was again. The ultimate betrayal. Consorting with City People.

“Carl Senior must have been disappointed.”

“Broke his heart. Every day I thank God for a daughter like Rosaline.”

Her face looked skeptical, but she was clearly pleased.

“Only because I feed him rye on the rocks.”

“So if your agency was retained to manage the Bay Side rentals, in effect you were hired by Carl Senior. He didn’t tell you?”

“Carl Bollard died a few years after the war. His company lasted another twenty years or so. I don’t know what happened to his son. I never met the people who retained the firm. It’s hard for you to understand, but this happened over a very long period of time.”

I’d probably worn him out. That and the rye on the rocks. We both noticed it, and Rosaline gracefully picked up the conversation so Arnold could rest. I spent another hour with them before Rosaline said she had to fix dinner.

“You’re welcome to stay.”

“Nah. I’ve already taken too much of your time.”

“Time we have in abundance. You spoke about a project.”

“I just got a lot from your dad. Maybe enough for now.”

“Really.”

“Though if you learn anything more about Carl Bollard, Junior, I’m interested.”

Her eyes scanned my face.

“You ask a lot for someone who doesn’t give up much in return.”

“I’d tell you more if I knew myself.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I’d tell you more if I knew what was true and what wasn’t.”

“Better.”

She kissed me again as she escorted me out the door. It wasn’t as serious a kiss as the last time, but more confident. Arnold called for her again and she slipped quietly back into the house, a place where time
both advanced and stood still, a paradox that was understood and embraced by the occupants.

The next day I had to do something I didn’t want to do, so I hoped the ride over to Hampton Bays would help me feel better about doing it. It didn’t.

The Town police HQ was just north of Sunrise Highway in an area reminding me of the pine barrens that started in earnest a few miles to the west. I’d called Sullivan on his cell phone and he asked me to come there since he was deskbound for the day doing paperwork. I asked for him when the lady desk sergeant slid open the security glass.

“He said you’d be here,” she said, buzzing me in. “Wait over there.”

I stood in an outer office that had a general purpose feel about it, with safety posters and duty rosters covering the walls and casual debris strewn around the desktops. A bulletin board displayed a crowded gallery of federal fugitives, artist’s sketches and missing children. Also a notice from the Labor Department that gave explicit instructions on how to rat out management for hiring violations. It was partially obscured by a note about one of the cops’ kids selling giftwrap to raise money for the school band.

Sullivan was in full uniform, armed and ready.

“You can’t wear civvies to fill out forms?” I asked him.

“Professional discipline. Improves performance.”

He took me into the main office area, which was predictably filled with glass-walled cubicles and
serious-looking men and women staring at computer screens and talking on the phone. The air was close and composed of gases found only in cheerless administrative offices. Just like the division I ran in White Plains, only more overtly concerned with criminal behavior.

“The chief wanted to say hello when you came in. I’ll see if he’s there.”

“Semple? How come?”

“He helped me wire in the Broadhurst thing. Just wants to meet the Good Samaritan.”

Sullivan led me to the back of the building where Ross Semple had his office. He wasn’t there, but his assistant told us to wait. Sullivan got us both coffee to drink while we waited. Mine was French Vanilla served in a decorative paper cup. Not exactly Dirty Harry. I noticed a full ashtray on Semple’s desk, so I asked Sullivan if I could smoke.

“Your lungs.”

While I smoked and drank coffee, I admired the studied lack of adornment Semple had achieved in his office. Only family photos in a single plastic cube on his desk. In one of the photos the chief wore a shirt featuring random-width vertical stripes and a collar that buttoned above his Adam’s apple. His wife was an equally bad dresser. The kids looked panic-stricken, as if they’d been trapped with their parents for all eternity in the little plastic box.

Semple burst into his office and dropped a stack of files on his desk. He stuck his hand out to me, looking at Sullivan to confirm he had the right man.

“Ross Semple.”

“Sam Acquillo.”

He sat in his chair and pushed it back against a metal credenza, getting himself settled. He had thin, curly brown hair, a high forehead and a small chin. He wore heavy tortoise-framed-glasses that seemed on the verge of sliding off his nose. Like me, the Chief smoked Camel filters, though with a lot more flourish, like the cigarettes were little conductor’s wands used to orchestrate his life. I saw him as a physically weak man with a strong sense of mission and a cynic’s determination.

“How’s it going?” he asked. “County giving you a hard time?”

“Going fine. Haven’t had much to do with the County. Have a hearing coming up that Goodfellow said was
pro forma.
The Town’s been good. I appreciate your help.”

He looked over at Sullivan.

“Joe sold you pretty hard. His beat, I thought, his call.”

“I appreciate it.”

Semple rolled the lit end of his cigarette in the ashtray. He was the type who had a large repertoire of mannerisms continually engaged in releasing excess nervous energy.

“So you’re thinking everything’s routine. About the old girl’s estate.”

“Estate’s a big word for such a little thing.”

“Still has to get done.”

“I think I’ve collected all the information. She’s buried. I found her nephew, Jimmy Maddox. He’s cool with everything. Probably just a few more details. It’ll all be done before they hold a hearing on me doing it.”

Semple nodded.

“And the assault. Still the memory lapse?”

I could feel a slight increase in the room’s air pressure. Sullivan sat there impassively.

“I wish I could do better there. I got my eyes open.”

“Do that,” he said, stamping out the butt and standing up to let us go. “We take everything seriously.”

I believed him.

Sullivan took me through his office so he could pick up a pad, and then led me out to a concrete patio where we could sit at a picnic table and talk in private.

“That was interesting,” I said.

“In case you wonder if I keep my boss informed.”

“Never doubted it.”

“He’s all right, Semple. I wouldn’t want his job.”

I wasn’t sure that was true.

“Don’t say that out loud. They’ll give it to you out of spite.”

“Not management material, unlike yourself.”

He tried to get more comfortable on the picnic table bench. Probably hard to do with all that leather and hardware around his waist.

He pointed at my manila folder.

“Go ahead. I’m all ears.”

“That’s what I want to talk about. What you can hear.”

I really hated the feeling this was giving me. It was making me tense.