Head Wounds

FOUR

THE NEXT MORNING I was four stories above the Atlantic Ocean trimming out Joshua Edelstein’s widow’s walk, toe-nailing the turned spindles and attaching custom molding under the handrails, and occasionally stopping to watch the offshore breeze push the swells up into little cliffs before breaking into clean, tubular curls, throwing off plumes of spray lit up by the sun rising over the eastern horizon.

From that vantage point you could see the estate section of Southampton Village, from Wickapogue to the Gracefield Tennis Club. Since it was the beginning of April most of the big houses were unoccupied, though busy with painters, cleaners, landscapers and crews working on irrigation systems.

It felt good to be working outside in the early morning sun, even though the breeze was the same northwesterly that had been icing down Long Island for the last four months. If you kept moving you could pretend it wasn’t as cold as it really was.

Frank Entwhistle had built Joshua a big house, over 10,000 square feet, so it took a lot of moldings, baseboards, and window and door trim to fill it up. I didn’t have to install it all myself; Frank could bring in a whole finish crew for a job this big. I just had to do my part and stay clear of Frank’s efforts to promote me to foreman of the crew. I’d already done my bit in management, once running a corporate division of about four thousand people. None of them were finish carpenters, as far as I knew, but the experience had blunted my enthusiasm for management.

I liked Joshua Edelstein, but I didn’t know why he wanted a house this big, though maybe I would if I could afford one. I did, however, approve of his widow’s walk. I’d definitely have one of those if I could. My cottage on the bay was only a single story. Maybe I could build a separate tower, or a tree house in the Norway maples that lined the back of the property. Achieve a loftier perspective.

Absorbed as I was in the view of the ocean, I didn’t immediately notice the police cruiser working its way toward Joshua’s house through the bordering neighborhood. My attention was caught by the big white number painted on the car’s black roof. Then I realized it was a Southampton Town cop, which surprised me. Southampton Village, a subdivision of the Town, had its own police force.

The cruiser rolled into Joshua’s muddy front yard and parked among the fleet of pickups and vans belonging to Frank’s crew and subcontractors. Frank was there himself, supervising the final stages of construction of what was the biggest house he’d ever built. Not many of the local builders got a shot at the really big jobs, so Frank saw it as an important demonstration. He walked over to the cruiser and leaned against the driver’s side door. He talked for a few minutes, then looked up at me, shading his eyes against the glare off the ocean.

Two men got out of the car and looked toward where Frank was pointing. I waved when I realized one of them was Ross Semple. I didn’t recognize the other cop. Ross waved for me to come down.

I unsnapped the compressor hose off the back of my pneumatic nailer so I could bring it with me. Tools like that had a tendency to grow little legs on a big job like this, full of guys from Up Island you may or may not see again. I’d owned it for a while and liked the way it fit my hand.

Ross rarely looked you in the eye when he talked to you, and even when he did it was hard to tell because his glasses were so thick. He had a cigarette going, as he always did, stuck between the fingers of his right hand. He put it in his mouth when we shook hands.

“Sam.”

“Ross. You’re up early.”

“With the roosters, baby. Every day.”

Even at ground level I still didn’t recognize his escort, a uniformed patrolman. He stood back a few paces with his hand resting easily on the holster holding his service weapon. I didn’t introduce myself. He didn’t seem to mind.

“Sullivan told me you were working this job,” said Ross.

I looked around for Frank, but he’d left before I got down there. A pair of electricians running outdoor cable down a shallow trench for a post light stole curious glances. A cop car on a job site wasn’t all that common a sight.

“Sorry I missed him,” I said, looking over at the uniformed cop.

“I let him beg off,” said Ross. “He didn’t want his name on the collar. If that’s what this is.”

Ross flicked the half-burned cigarette into the mud. He felt all around his shirt and pants for the next one, eventually digging a crumpled pack out of the last possible pocket. It wasn’t a very graceful move. Nothing Ross did was very graceful.

“Collar?”

“Arrest.”

“I know what a collar is. Who’s getting collared?”

“Nobody, if you just follow me back to the station.”

I understood now why Frank hadn’t hung around. Ross wanted to speak to me in private. The uniformed escort stood still as a centurion. Ross leaned back against the fender of the cruiser and crossed his arms. Then uncrossed them. Then crossed them again. He looked out toward the ocean, squinting his eyes.

“Gonna be a nice day,” he said. “’Bout goddamn time.”

I pulled out one of my own cigarettes, which Ross lit for me after another prolonged search for his lighter. I’d been trying to hold off until after lunch, but all the smoke coming from the Chief had undermined my resolve.

“Am I allowed to ask why?” I asked.

Ross squeezed together his lips and shook his head.

“Nope. That’d make it harder for me. Better it’s like, ‘Sam, old buddy, I’d really like to have a chat with you some time.’ And you say, ‘Why sure, Ross, why don’t I come on over to the station right away?’”

I nodded toward my Pontiac.

“Can I drive my own car?”

“Sure. We’ll follow you. Bring whatever you want off the job. Don’t know how long it’ll take.”

I unbuckled my tool belt and stuffed it with a Phillips head screwdriver, a pair of pliers and a nail set that had found their way into my back pockets.

“Sullivan told me that big old car’s a lot faster than it looks,” said Ross.

“Not as fast as your cruiser,” I told him. “Maybe off the line, but not the same top end.”

“So you won’t be tempted to play Smokey and the Bandit.”

As if there was any place to run to. Technically the South Fork was an island, with only two bridges crossing the Shinnecock Canal. Your only other getaway was the ferry to Shelter Island. Not an ideal escape strategy.

“No reason for any of that, Ross. I’m just coming in for a chat.”

The uniformed cop walked me over to the Grand Prix and watched me stow the tool belt and power nailer in the yawning trunk. He maintained an even distance, outside my reach, but close enough to get his gun out and fully engaged. I’d learned about that procedure years ago, the last time I’d been politely asked to come in for a chat with law enforcement.

It took about half an hour to drive over to the station. It would have been less, but with a patrol car filling my rearview the whole way I felt compelled to stay under the speed limit. Stupid, really. What were they going to do? Pull me over and give me a ticket?

Janet Orlovsky was at the front desk behind a big pane of bulletproof Plexiglas. Before buzzing us in, she studied us carefully, in case people were impersonating the Chief of Police and one of his patrolmen. She glowered at me, which didn’t mean anything. She always did. She assumed I’d done something she wouldn’t like and she just hadn’t discovered yet what it was. My old man used to take the same approach.

The cops and administrative people sitting at desks or standing around file cabinets watched our little parade weave its way to the back of the squad room, where Ross had his office. Somewhere along the way the uniform dropped out.

Ross closed the door behind us and took off his nylon wind-breaker. I sat in one of the two chairs in front of his desk.

“Frank must be getting close to wrapping that place up,” said Ross, getting comfortable in his chair, pushing back into the overloaded credenza.

“Getting there.”

“We radioed Sullivan on the way in. Still busy over at the crime scene.”

“Looks great in his civvies,” I said.

“Yeah, sort of like General MacArthur.”

“What kind of crime scene we talking about?” I asked him.

He leaned forward again and rolled the chair up tight to the desk.

“Did I forget to ask if you wanted coffee?”

“Coffee’d be great.”

He left for a while and came back with two heavy china mugs with the seal of the Town of Southampton stamped on the side. The coffee was good—tasted like the hazelnut/ French vanilla blend you got from the corner place in the Village. I was tempted to ask for a croissant, or a cheese Danish.

“So you haven’t heard,” said Ross, back behind his desk again.

“Something going on? I don’t usually listen to the morning news. Gives me a headache.”

“Somebody told me you go jogging after work.”

“Sometimes. Less recently. I’ve been getting plenty of exercise on the job. Nice of you to take an interest, though, Ross.”

“Lady in your neighborhood said you might’ve been out running last night. Late.”

“Funny time to jog.”

“That’s what I thought.”

He sat back in that abrupt, maladroit way he had and drew heavily on his cigarette. I lit one of my own to keep him company. The windows behind his desk were raised so the sill was just above his head. All you could see were the naked branches of a sycamore tree and a few high clouds dusting the pale blue sky. The wall between the top of his credenza and the bottom of the window was covered with scrap paper in a wide assortment of shapes and colors— some partially crumpled, some half-shredded—stuck to the wall with multicolored pushpins. Typed memos, handwritten notes, grainy Xeroxes of mug sheets and stolen vehicles. Mixed in were kids’ drawings of houses, flowers and police cars, probably created a long time ago, judging by the faded paper and the framed photos of teenagers propped up against the wall.

“You know where you put your running shoes, though, I’m bettin’,” said Ross.

“I guess.”

“Good.”

“So is this what we’re chatting about? My exercise routine?”

Ross allowed himself a twitchy little smile. I’d known him for about three years, if you can really know someone who’s mostly asking you questions and looking at you like he thinks you’re lying to him. We went to Southampton High School at about the same time, so I might’ve known him then, but I didn’t think so. I didn’t have a lot of friends in those days. Actually only one that I could remember. Wouldn’t have been Ross Semple.

“I need your opinion,” he said.

“Okay.”

“What do you think of Robbie Milhouser?”

“Never seen him jog.”

“As a person.”

“An asshole.”

“How much of an asshole?”

“Significant,” I said. “A significant asshole. Though you didn’t need me to tell you that.” “I hear the feeling was mutual.”

“Like I said, an asshole. Just like his old man.”

“You didn’t see him last night?” Ross asked.

“Haven’t seen him in a while.”

“You saw him a few days ago. I guess that’s a while.”

“At the restaurant,” I said, “if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s where you got into it. The two of you.”

“That wasn’t anything. Just a lot of stupid talk.”

“Not how I heard it,” said Ross.

“People exaggerate.”

“Sullivan told me you’re afraid of getting hit. Something wrong with your head.”

“You like getting hit?”

“Nobody hits me. I’m the Chief of Police,” he said, laughing through his nose. Ross had a good sense of humor, judging by the way he laughed at his own jokes, which was the only way you could judge it.

“So what’s with Robbie Milhouser?” I asked. “What’d he do?”

“So you never saw him after that thing at the restaurant?”

“I don’t think so, though you seem to know more about it than I do.”

Ross twirled his cigarette around in the air, watching the resulting curls of smoke rise toward the ceiling.

“You and Burton Lewis still getting along?” he asked.

“Saw him last week. I remember it. Vividly.”

“And the blonde girl. Polack. She’s a lawyer, too.”

“Jackie Swaitkowski. She’s my official lawyer. Burton’s just a pal of mine. Paid her a dollar once to retain her services. For the record, she’s Irish. Maiden name’s O’Dwyer.”

“She keep that dollar?”

Ross didn’t have an easy job. The Town of Southampton covered a lot of geography and it wasn’t all about big houses on the beach like Joshua Edelstein’s. Or drunken group rentals or predators who came out of the City in the summer to feast on the herds of the innocent and overfunded. He had his share of local hard cases and screw-ups to deal with. People like Robbie Milhouser.

“You didn’t tell me,” I said.

“What?”

“Milhouser. What’d he do?”

“Got his head opened up and his brains mashed into brain puree.”

He nodded when he said that, as if holding up both sides of the conversation. Then he threw me one of his awkward grins and drank some more of his coffee.

“Dead?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. Thoroughly.”

“Killed?”

“Yup.”

“Who did it?”

The goofy grin he was wearing tightened up across his face. And then disappeared completely.

“If you confess right now it’d save us both a lot of trouble,” he said.

He took his cigarette out of his mouth and held it between his thumb and index finger the way Nazi generals would do in old war movies. I don’t think he did it for effect. He just never knew what to do with his hands.

“That’s funny,” I told him. “Seeing if I still have a sense of humor?”

Ross’s face softened a little at that.

“No, Sam, we all know you got one of those. The question on the table is whether you have a sense of revenge.”

I noticed the sawdust on my jeans. It must have been kicked out of the chop box earlier. It was sprinkling down on the battered industrial carpet in Ross’s office. I remembered the piece of molding I was about to install on Joshua Edelstein’s widow’s walk when Ross pulled me off the job. It was stuck in place with only a single nail. With a stiffening breeze it would likely peel off and go cartwheeling down the beach. A thought more disturbing than warranted by the potential consequences. To calm myself I sat back in my chair and dug another Camel out of my coat pocket.

“You actually want me to say I had nothing to do with this?” I asked him.

He smiled at that, his face softening even further.

“Hell no, Sam. I know you’re gonna say that. I want to hear you explain why you had nothing to do with it. That’ll be worth hearing.”

“Didn’t know I was that entertaining.”

“I wish I was entertaining. Maybe if I had a better sense of humor,” said Ross, sitting back himself. “A good joke always cracks me up. But I can’t tell a joke to save my life.”

“Nothing cracks me up,” I said. “Must be a deficiency of character.”

“Humor isn’t what you say. It’s what you leave out.”

“Brevity is the soul of wit.”

“And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,” said Ross, using his cigarette to punctuate the emphasis on each syllable, a flourish of his own.

“Didn’t know they had Shakespeare at the police academy.”

“Master’s in lit crit. Cornell. Don’t ask me to explain.”

“I’m not asking you to do anything, Ross. Except lay off this thing with Robbie Milhouser,” I told him.

“The one you called an asshole.”

“I might call you an asshole. Doesn’t mean I’d kill you. I don’t kill people. Even for a good laugh.”

Ross’s face ignited into another of his oversized, ersatz grins.

“We both know that’s not true. The killing part. Not the ha-ha part.”

He reached into a drawer and pulled out a pair of photographs. One was a mug shot of a young black man, the other a color portrait of a middle-aged white guy.

“Darrin Eavanston and Robert Sobol. Remember them?”

I leaned over to look, then sat back again.

“I remember they were both shot to death. At different times. Both ruled accidental.”

“There’s a difference between a ruling and the truth.”

“Not to me,” I said.

“There is to me. If you killed them.”

I didn’t see much point in responding to that. Even without the advice of counsel.

“Should I be seeing if Jackie’s free for the morning?” I asked.

“Not as long as we’re just talking here.”

“If that’s what we’re still doing.”

Ross lit another cigarette off the stub of the one he’d half-smoked. Then he nodded.

“That’s all we’re doing,” said Ross. “Shouldn’t make you nervous. An innocent man has nothing to be nervous about.”

“Lots of things make me nervous. Loud noises, lousy drivers, good intentions. The world’s loaded with hazards, even when you have nerves of steel.”

“Did you know I did ten years in Homicide in the City?” he asked me, genuinely curious.

“I didn’t. I thought you put in your whole time in Southampton.”

“While you were living large in Connecticut, rollin’ in corporate perks, I was swimming in a proverbial sewer of depravity and despair.”

“I’m glad I missed that proverb,” I told him.

“Didn’t like it. Not one little bit. Scared all the time. Every day dead bodies and nasty killers. They’re a type, you know. A sub species.”

“Really.”

“Yeah. That’s what I decided. Wired different.”

“Head full of twisted pairs,” I said.

He liked that.

“See, that’s the kind of joke I like. I wish I could do that.”

“So you did some genetic research. Identified this subspecies.”

“Nothing clinical,” said Ross. “Just observation. And a little reading.” He poked his cigarette at my face. “They tell you it’s in the eyes. And the attitude. Confident. But a little paranoid. And a hair-trigger temper that goes off over nothing. All calm and normal and then, bam, in your face.”

“Maybe you should’ve taken abnormal psych. Probably had that at Cornell, too.”

“Or maybe mechanical engineering. Like you had at MIT. Pretty fancy training for a carpenter.”

“Lot of the same principles. Not as much of a paycheck.”

He seemed to like that, too. It began to feel like I was only there to provide entertainment. Some diversion from his daily routine. It occurred to me that he was bored. That his brain was itching for a little engagement, something to put a load on the circuitry.

“Look, Ross,” I said, “you’re the only one here making any money with all this talk. I can only make it on the job. So you need to either tell me what sort of dance we’re dancing, or let me get back to work.”

He sat way back and gripped the arms of his chair as if to stop them from wrapping around his chest.

“Sure, Sam. Go,” he said, magnanimously. “Sorry to take you away from the job. Which I’m assuming you’ll be on for another few weeks.”

“Something like that.”

“No vacations planned?” he asked.

“No. I never go anywhere. No reason to.”

That pleased him.

“Good,” he said. “That’ll help.”

“Help what?”

“To know where you are.”

I left him sitting at his desk, watching me leave, his eyeballs fixed on the back of my skull. I’d only made it halfway through the open squad room when Sullivan came in from the other side. He had his sunglasses on, but you could still see the frown underneath. He had a Southampton Town Police baseball cap on his head and his shield hanging around his neck. Under his arm was a plastic bag, stapled shut with an official-looking tag covered in numbers and text scribbled with a magic marker.

“What the hell, Sam,” he said to me by way of greeting.

“Ask your boss. He’s the one who dragged me in here.”

“You give a statement?”

“Why would I have to do that?” I asked him. “You gonna tell me what’s going on?”

The men and women distributed around the squad room looked up from their computer screens and over the tops of their cubicles—unabashed curiosity a foible of the professionally vigilant.

Sullivan switched the plastic bag from one armpit to the other. When he did I could see what he was carrying—a heavy construction stapler, the kind you swung into the work like a hammer. It had an orange handle.

“Look familiar?” he asked me.

“I got one. Used it to install the fiberglass in my addition.”

“Somebody used this one to staple Robbie Milhouser’s scalp to his brain.”

“Not in the design specs, but adaptable to the purpose,” I said.

“We found it in the dune grass lining the Peconic. Easy tossing distance from Robbie’s body. Lousy with forensics. Hair stuck in the mechanism. Smooth handle. Still has a plastic UPC sticker. Very traceable. We’ll know who bought it, where and when. Big Brother, he’s watchin’, man.”

“Then have Big Brother tell Ross to get off my ass.”

“Can’t do that,” he said. “I’m recused.”

“You can’t be recused if you’re investigating the scene, Joe.”

“Okay, not fully. I mean from talking about you. Or talking to you, for that matter. I’m only dealing with the facts.”

“You’re talking to me now.”

“Not for long. Veckstrom’s the lead guy. Lionel Veckstrom. Ten years in plainclothes. I got, what, ten months? Even if I didn’t know you, Veckstrom’s the lead guy.”

“Give him my congratulations.”

“Not one to fuck with, Sam. I’m not joking with you.”

“That’s good. I never joke.”

He held up the plastic bag.

“I’m not gonna find anything to not like on this, am I?”

“Maybe a little rust,” I said, trying to see the tool through the plastic bag.

“Right. Laugh all the way to life without parole,” he said, then brushed past me, which was good because I really wanted to get out of there and back to the job site to retrieve what was left of the workday. I patted his bulky shoulder as he slid by and headed for the door. Officer Orlovsky watched grimly as she buzzed me back into the outside world.

On the way back to the Edelstein job I stopped for coffee at the corner place and used the pay phone. Jackie Swaitkowski didn’t answer, but I left her a message. I was getting used to talking to machines. I didn’t have one myself, but I sympathized with the principle. I never liked the imperative of a ringing phone.

On the way back to the car, I saw a heavy-lidded guy with a two-day beard and a young woman park their black Range Rover dangerously close to the Grand Prix. I waited for the woman to get out, which she was only able to do by wedging her door hard against the side panel of my car and squeezing herself through the narrow space. She was wearing a purple leather jacket, skintight blue jeans and spiked heels. She didn’t notice me watching until she was at the sidewalk.

“Can you ba-leeve the soize of that stupid thing?” she asked me, looking back at the Grand Prix.

I had noticed that before, but the sheer inertial force of the ten-ton door was brought home to me as I slammed it into the Range Rover a dozen times to make a big enough indentation to allow me to slide onto the driver’s seat entirely unimpeded. I don’t know why Detroit thought they needed such heavy-gauge sheet metal in those days, but it did come in handy sometimes.

I reckoned all it would take was a little number two steel wool to rub the black paint off the edge of the door to be good as new.

I didn’t bother checking in with Frank when I got back on the job. I knew what I had to do, and he didn’t care about anything but me getting done in time for the painters.

I took another week to finish the interior and exterior trim. Then all that was left was some custom woodwork on a pair of built-in cabinets and a fancy mantelpiece designed by the architect and therefore impossible to buy from a manufacturer. I had a month to build it, and Frank was more than willing to let me do the whole thing in the shop in my basement. A joyful thing for a guy who never took vacations, and who liked to stay near home to be available for intermittent police interrogations.