Bad blood

15

I had cleared security for the nine-thirty flight from La Guardia to Martha’s Vineyard. It was Friday morning-still no update from Mike-and although I had looked forward to my friend Joan Stafford’s wedding for several months, it was hard to think about anything except the events of the last twenty-four hours.

Most of the passengers in the lounge were watching the television monitor that was mounted on the wall. The same reporter who had covered the tunnel-explosion story, Julie Kirsch, was now on location on a thickly wooded hillside in Valhalla, the Westchester suburb in which Kensico was located.

“Too early to know yet,” Kirsch said, in response to a question that the anchor had posed. “New York City police officials have been working through the night with local authorities to get answers to some of those questions, but there’s just no way to say whether the two incidents are connected.”

Glancing at her notes, Kirsch went on, “While the threat of biological and chemical terrorism has been of great concern to the government, most experts are telling us today that the risk of individuals succeeding at some kind of deadly mass dissemination is quite small.”

“Why is that, Julie?” the studio voice interrupted.

“Simply because of the enormous volume of water that flows into the city from upstate. The counterterrorist agents I’ve talked to this morning agree that the toxic effect of the chemical would most likely be diluted by the billions of gallons before any real harm was done. I’d like to take the viewers back to the news of the grim discovery made inside the tunnel in Manhattan yesterday.”

Most likely were not the two most encouraging words I’d rely on before drinking from the tap in my apartment anytime soon.

Julie Kirsch’s cross-examiner pressed for more detail. “Before you do, would you tell us exactly what kind of agent might be used for such a chemical attack? We all recall the deadly sarin gas in Tokyo.”

“Well, I’ve been asked not to alarm our viewers unnecessarily,” she said, hesitating before she went on. “For example, one gram of typhoid culture dropped into a water system would have an impact roughly equal to forty pounds of potassium cyanide. Or, a person drinking a few sips of untreated water from a reservoir this size that had been contaminated by Salmonella typhi would become deathly ill.”

I was grateful when the U.S. Airways gate agent interrupted the news program with her boarding announcement.

The fifty-minute flight over Long Island Sound on the cloudless morning offered spectacular views of the seascape that was so familiar to me from years of commuting to my favorite retreat-the coastline of the North Fork, Montauk Point, the short hop to Block Island, and the descent to the Vineyard as the forty-two-seat turboprop crossed Cuttyhunk and circled the cliffs of Aquinnah.

My caretaker had parked my convertible at the airport, and I put the top down for the short ride to my home. The path curved alongside the bike trails that cut through the forests of West Tisbury, then climbed the gently winding slopes of Chilmark, lined with stone walls that had been built hundreds of years ago to separate each farmer’s land from the next.

I was so pleased to be hosting the wedding for Joan and Jim, even though it was a bittersweet reminder that my own engagement had ended so tragically shortly after I’d graduated from law school. Once it wouldn’t have been possible for me to think of standing on the site where Adam and I were to have been married and celebrating someone else’s happiness. But in the last couple of years, I had found solace and strength in great friendships, and fortitude from the experiences of the women who entrusted their lives to me every day that I went to work.

I parked next to the barn, pausing before going into the house, looking out over the meadow and the sea, a view that never failed to restore my spirit.

The answering machine was choked with messages. I kicked off my shoes, opened the French doors that led to the deck, and sat on the steps surrounded by pale blue hydrangea bushes while I played them back.

“It’s me. We got here last night. Call me the very minute you get in.” Joan’s voice was as vibrant as she herself had been ever since Jim had proposed.

Her second message asked whether I had room at my house for one extra guest, a friend of Jim’s who had, at the last minute, decided to make the trip from Europe.

There were the voices of the caterers and the florist, well-meaning mutual friends who didn’t want to miss any of the events that Joan had planned for the weekend, the photographer who was going to shoot the ceremony, and the captain whom Jim had hired to take his friends shark-fishing in the afternoon. An update from Max, at the office, was sandwiched in the middle.

The final call had come in moments before I arrived. My beloved college roommate and best friend, Nina Baum, had phoned as she boarded the 8 a.m. flight from Los Angeles to Boston. I hadn’t seen her in months, and as with Joan, I could confide in her about everything that was going on-or not going on-in my life. Nina confirmed that she’d make the connection to Cape Air and be with us by the time dinner ended. Her husband had a screenplay in production and couldn’t accompany her after all.

The phone rang as I walked into the kitchen to check the decorations and floral arrangements that had been set around all the rooms of the house.

“Why haven’t you called me?” Joan asked.

“I’ve only been here five minutes.”

“Do you believe this is happening?”

“I’m beginning to. Do you?”

“If I don’t drive Jim out of town first. I’ve got to come over. The poor guy is trying to write an article about an Iraqi insurgent who beheaded four hostages today, and between the spectacular view from our room and my constant chatter, he may just put himself on the next ferry off-island. Can you make him marry me in absentia?”

Jim Hageville-the groom-was an expert on foreign affairs whose syndicated column was the first opinion piece with which most intelligent readers started their day. Joan was an accomplished playwright and novelist who split her time between their homes in Washington and New York. She was known as well in both places for her salonlike dinner parties-mixing intellectuals, politicians, writers, and old friends like Nina and me-and for staying impossibly au courant on the social crimes of the rich and famous with whom she had been raised, while I covered the street-crime beat.

“Are you at the Outermost?” I asked, referring to the inn at which she and Jim were staying. “Come right now. I’ll put some coffee on.”

“Did you get my message about Luc?”

“Who’s Luc?”

“Jim’s friend. Maybe I forgot to tell you his name. Anyway, there are three weddings on the island this weekend-not a hotel room to be had. I’m desperate to find him a place.”

“Of course he can stay here, if he doesn’t mind being surrounded by women. Nina’s in the big guest room, Lynn and Cathy have the suite at the top of the stairs, so Luc can have the little bedroom overlooking the garden.” It was the room I’d been saving in case I had convinced Mike and Mercer to change their minds.

“I think he’d rather fancy those odds. What a relief, Alex. He won’t get in until tomorrow, I don’t think. Be there in ten minutes, okay?”

I called Laura and she reassured me that the office was quiet. I filled the coffeepot and took the portable phone out on the deck.

I dialed Mike’s cell. He picked up on the second ring, so I knew he was neither in the water tunnel nor attending an autopsy. “What’s new from the chapel of love?” he asked.

“Joan’s wired. Very excited, as she should be. She’s on her way over and I’m going to try to distract her for the rest of the day. Tell me about last night?”

“Pretty scary scenario to see how close people can get to those reservoirs. These two guys they picked up are tough. Couldn’t get squat out of them.”

“You think they’re connected to the blast in the city, too?”

“I’m fresh out of crystal balls, sweetheart. Westchester’s holding them on a trespassing charge for now, while we try to sort it all out. And your trial slows down another step.”

“Why?”

“Duke Quillian’s funeral is set for Monday. Canonical law-can’t be done on Sunday and there just wasn’t any way for the family to get it together for tomorrow.”

“So I lose another day? How do you know? The judge’s secretary hasn’t even called Laura yet.”

“Lieutenant Peterson got the notification from the Corrections Department. Gave me the detail for two take-out orders. He’s letting your perp go for a visit to the wake on Saturday afternoon. Just the family-no outsiders. Back to the Tombs. Then we’ve got to take him to the funeral on Monday morning. Church and cemetery.”

“In shackles, I hope.”

“Temper, temper, Coop. That’s a photo op you don’t want your jurors to have-the graveside shot of the grieving brother in cuffs and leg-irons.”

“Well, doesn’t the lieutenant think somebody from the squad ought to be interviewing these siblings we didn’t even know Brendan Quillian had?”

“Nothing your buddy Lem Howell didn’t think of first. Not one of the Quillians has any interest in answering our questions. The only thing they claim is that little brother Brendan has been estranged from all of them for years.”

“Did they give a reason for that?”

“Suppose you take care of what you’re supposed to do this weekend and I’ll try to have all these answers by Monday.”

“I don’t get to nudge you about one more thing?” I asked.

“Shoot.”

“Lawrence Pritchard. The engineer who was fired from the water project for taking kickbacks. I know you were peeved at George Golden yesterday, but you’ve got to talk to someone about exactly what that involved.”

“Relax, blondie. Reset your coffeepot with decaf for a change. Get off the high-octane juice, okay? Teddy O’Malley has the skinny on that. It all happened when Duke Quillian was the union rep three years back. A bribery scheme that Pritchard tried to engineer with one of the bureaucrats. Not good for the union, so he and Duke went head-to-head on it.”

“But Max checked with the rackets bureau this afternoon,” I said. “There was never an indictment-not even any record of an investigation.”

“Bronx County, Coop. Battaglia never got his hands on this one.”

A large portion of the tunnel construction was completed in the Bronx before work had even gotten under way in Manhattan. I should have thought of that myself. “And Duke never cooperated?”

“Cat got his tongue. Might have had something to do with the fact that Lawrence Pritchard threatened to put big Duke’s lights out if he ever squealed. Maybe that’s why Brendan Quillian wants to find him.”