The Bright Silver Star

CHAPTER 6

The road up to the Devil’s Hopyard State Park was intensely twisty and narrow. Des’s cruiser very nearly scraped the mountain laurel and hemlocks that grew on either side of it as she steered her way toward the falls, the wet pavement steaming in front of her as the sunlight broke through the early morning haze. Already, she had her air conditioning cranked up high. The Hopyard was situated in Dorset’s remote northeast corner. Very few people lived up here. She spotted a farmhouse every once in a while. Mostly she saw only granite ledge and trees, trees, trees.

The road dead-ended at the entrance to the falls, where a uniformed park ranger was waiting for Des next to a green pickup. Due to funding cuts, many of the state parks made do with summer interns, most of them college students. Kathleen Moloney, the trimly built blond who met Des, was exceedingly young and fresh faced.

Des nosed up alongside of the pickup and got out, her hornrimmed glasses immediately fogging up in the warm, humid air. Des had to wipe them dry with the clean white handkerchief that she kept in her back pocket.

One other vehicle, a scraped-up black Jeep Wrangler, was parked there in the ditch next to the gate.

“It’s just awful,” Kathleen said to her over the steady roar of the falls, her voice cracking. “I’ve never seen anything like this. I was making my routine morning swing through the park, you know? I didn’t even know what I was looking at when I first saw him. I swear, I just thought it was a bundle of old clothes.”

“I’m sorry you had to see it,” Des said to her sympathetically. Finding a jumper was definitely pukeworthy.

Des paused to take a closer look at the Jeep. The scrapes werefresh-loose flecks of black paint came right off on her fingers. A mud-splattered cell phone lay on the wet ground a few feet away on the driver’s side. Before she did anything else Des bagged it and stashed it in her trunk. Then she opened the Jeep’s passenger door and poked around inside. She spotted no suicide note. She did find a car rental agreement stuffed in the glove compartment, made out to Tito Molina. She returned it to the glove compartment and closed the Jeep back up.

“Let’s go have us a look, Kathleen, okay? And if you start to feel the least bit funky, just sing out. We don’t have any heroes in this unit.”

The young ranger smiled at her gratefully and ushered her inside the gate on foot, where there was a parking lot adjoined by picnic grounds. At this spot, they were up above the waterfall. “It’s happened before,” she told Des as they walked. “A pair of lovers jumped off together back in the ’80s. And there was a teenaged boy high on drugs a couple of years ago. I was warned. But I still… I wasn’t ready for this.”

“Trust me, no one is,” Des said as they arrived at a guardrail that was posted with a sign: Let the Water Do the Falling. Stay Behind This Point.

“I think I know where he jumped from. We can take a look before we go down, if you’d like. Just watch your step.”

Des followed her over the guardrail and out onto a bare outcropping of rock, stepping carefully. The granite surface was slick and mossy, and the soles of her brogans were not ideal for rock climbing. An empty pint bottle of peppermint schnapps lay there. She eye-balled it to see if he’d left a suicide note rolled up inside of it. He hadn’t. Beyond that, she kept her distance, not wanting to compromise the scene. From where she stood she saw a few spent matches. No muddy shoeprints on the granite. Not that she expected any. The night’s rain would have washed them away.

“You can see him from here.” said Kathleen, crouching near the edge of the outcropping.

Des inched over beside her and peered over the side of the sheergranite face. Mostly, what she saw was the swirling white foam of the river as it came crashing down onto the smooth, shiny gray a hundred feet below. But then her eyes did make out a small patch of color-a figure in an orange T-shirt and blue jeans that lay there down on those rocks.

“Okay, Kathleen, I’ve seen enough.”

They retraced their footsteps back to the guardrail and made their way down a narrow footpath to the base of the falls. It was a steep and demanding descent. The path was not only mucky from the rain but was crisscrossed with exposed tree roots. Des wished she had on hiking boots like the ranger did.

Tito Molina had landed faceup on the boulders that were next to river, his eyes wide open. His arms and legs seemed grotesquely shrunken inside of the T-shirt and jeans he had on. He looked like a small boy dressed in a man’s clothing. His famous, chiseled face had crumpled in upon itself, like a high-rise building after the demolition man has imploded it. Blood and brain matter had oozed out onto the rocks from under his shattered head. The back of his skull seemed to have borne the brunt of the impact, which Des found a bit surprising. So did the direction he was facing-his feet were pointing toward the outcropping that he’d leapt from. She stood there looking at him for a long moment, feeling that old, familiar uptick of her pulse. She hadn’t felt it for a while. Not handing out traffic tickets to obnoxious tourists.

Briefly, her eyes lingered on the T-shirt Tito was wearing. It was a New York Mets 1986 World Series T-shirt, a shirt that she swore she’d seen Mitch wear. In fact, it was one of his prized possessions. Why on earth would Tito Molina be wearing it?

Now she tilted her head back and gazed up, up toward the top of the cliff, which loomed straight overhead. Rooted there in a fissure in the granite face, perhaps ten feet beneath the rock outcropping where they’d found the schnapps bottle, Des could make out a small, hardy cedar tree clinging for life. Tito’s fall had snapped off one of its limbs. The raw wood stood out like exposed bone against the darkness of the stone. She stared at the tree, transfixed, certain that itwas trying to whisper something crucial to the suffering artist deep inside of her. But whatever it was she couldn’t comprehend it. Didn’t speak the right language. Didn’t even know any of the words. Didn’t know. Didn’t know…

“I didn’t move him or anything,” Kathleen said, raising her voice. The roar of the falls was even louder down here. “I couldn’t bring myself to get near him.”

“You did right, Kathleen.”

“I have a tarp in my truck. Should we cover him?”

“We don’t want to go anywhere near him,” said Des. “That’s the medical examiner’s deal. What we do need to do is secure this scene. Are the other entrances to the park open yet?”

“No, I always open this gate first.”

“Well, that’s a help,” she said, knowing full well that once word of this got out the paparazzi would be coming over, around, and through any gate they could find. “I need for you to stand guard over the body while I radio in. No one, but no one, comes near it, okay?”

“I guess so,” she answered, visibly uncomfortable.

“You don’t have to look at him, Kathleen. Just stay here with your back toward him. Anyone gets close, you chase ’em off. I’ll be back with the cavalry just as soon as I can. Can you do that for me?”

The young ranger nodded at her gamely.

“You the man, Kathleen.”

Des hiked back up to her ride and radioed the Troop F Barracks in Westbrook for as many cruisers as they could spare, then the medical examiner’s office for a team of investigators. Based on her own observations, Des also made the decision to reach out to her old unit, the Central District headquarters of the Major Crime Squad in Meriden.

Then it was also up to her to notify the next of kin. As the morning sun broke bright and hot over the trees, she phoned Martine, figuring the news might go down easier if Esme heard it from her mother.

“Martine, we have a situation up here at the Hopyard,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “It’s Tito. We found him at the base of the falls.”

“He’s… dead?” Martine’s voice was a frightened whisper.

“He is. Can you inform Esme?”

“Absolutely. We’ll be up there right away.”

“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”

“She’ll need to see him, Des. She’ll insist. I won’t be able to stop her.”

“I understand. That being the case you might want to bring Chrissie along for the ride.”

“Why would we do that?” Martine asked, her voice turning chilly.

“It’s going to be a total zoo.”

“Yes, you’re absolutely right. I wasn’t even thinking. I’m just so

…” Martine sighed mournfully. “Why would Tito do such a thing? He was so talented and loved. That poor, beautiful boy.”

“Martine, you’d better prepare Esme for something else…”

“What is it, Des?”

“Tito’s not beautiful anymore.”

The first trooper to arrive on the scene established a perimeter by shutting down the narrow Hopyard Road all the way back at Route 82. More cruisers started arriving soon after that. Des directed them to the other park entrances, and sent a trooper down the path on foot to take over for Kathleen. A medical examiner’s van pulled up next and a pair of brisk, efficient investigators in blue jumpsuits hopped out. Des directed them to the body. Then the crime scene technicians started arriving in their cube vans, followed closely by a slicktop with two Major Crime Squad investigators in it.

The investigator behind the wheel was a woman of color. A short, muscle-bound man was riding shotgun. Des knew this man only too well-Rico “Soave” Tedone had been her sergeant back when she was a lieutenant on Major Crimes. Soave was one of the Brass City boys, kid brother of a capo in the state police’s so-called Waterbury mafia. When they’d knifed her, it was Soave who’d wielded the blade. At the time, she had hated him for it. Not that he was a bad person, just immature, a work in progress, a man. Now that Soave was a lieutenant and Des was Dorset’s resident trooper, their relationship had thawed considerably, so much so that when he’d finallygotten around to marrying his high school sweetheart, Tawny, Des had been invited and actually gone to the wedding.

“Yo, Des!” he called to her warmly as he climbed out of the slick-top, flexing his body-builder’s muscles inside of his shiny black suit. He always wore black. Thought it made him look classy. In truth, it made him look like a chauffeur.

“How are you, Rico?”

“Never better,” he said, grinning at her.

Marriage did seem to agree with him. He looked cheerful and relaxed. Possibly even a bit jowly. And he’d finally shaved off his dead caterpillar of a mustache, Des was happy to note, although he had not lost his nervous habit of smoothing it with his thumb and forefinger. Except now all he was smoothing was bare skin.

“What have you got for us, Des?”

“Got you one dead movie actor.”

“He jumped?”

“Very good question, wow man. Happily, I don’t have to answer that. You do.”

Soave’s partner started toward them now, dressed in a sleeveless lime green knit top, tan slacks, and chunky boots that gave her a couple of inches on Soave. She was a good five feet nine and built like a rottweiler with jugs. Huge jugs.

“Now, here’s a meeting I’ve been looking forward to,” Soave said eagerly. “Des Mitry, give it up for my new partner, Yolie Snipes.”

Des had heard about Yolie Snipes on the grapevine. The boys called her Boom Boom because of what she had going on inside of her shirt. She was half-Cuban, half-black, and all player-young, tough and street smart.

“God, this is just such a thrill for me,” Yolie exulted as she pumped Des’s hand. She wore her nails short and painted them purple. Her grip was like iron. “Where I come from you are a legend and it is such an honor to even be on the same investigation as you.” She talked extremely fast and her voice seemed to come all the way up from her diaphragm. “Word, girl, I have been wanting to meet you forever.”

“Glad to know you, Yolie,” Des said, a bit blown away by her motor. Yolie Snipes was a girl in a hurry. She had a latina’s creamy mocha skin and gleaming brown eyes, but her big lips and wide-bottomed bootay spelled sister all the way. So did the braids. She had a thin one-inch scar across her left cheek that looked as if it had been done by a razor, maybe a box cutter. She wore silver studs in her ears, no makeup or lipstick. She was bigged up-had a weight-lifter’s rippling arms. She wore the portrait of a woman’s face tattooed on her left biceps with the initials AC written underneath it.

“Walk this back for us, Des,” Soave said. “You have some concerns about the body?”

“I do, although we all know that this was a man with his share of personal problems. And it certainly plays suicide. Looks as if he drove his Jeep up here late last night, got himself drunk, and threw his bad self off a cliff.”

“Damned crazy fool,” Soave said disapprovingly. “Here’s a young guy pulling down millions, is married to a world-class hottie. Why go and do that?”

“It wasn’t making him happy, Rico.”

“Did you find a note?”

“No, I didn’t. But I did bag his cell.” She popped her trunk and handed it over. “He placed a call on it from right here at around one-thirty.” They could learn the exact time from his cell phone record. “The words he used sounded an awful lot like good-bye.”

Soave glanced at her curiously. “You know who he called?”

“I do. It was Mitch.”

“Who, Berger?” Soave had always been bewildered by Mitch’s presence in her life. “Are you telling me he and Tito Molina were tight?”

“Not exactly. Tito went after him yesterday.”

“Sure, sure, I saw it on the news last night,” Yolie spoke up. “Tito whooped this movie critic’s ass on account of he gave him a bad review.”

“You’re not saying that’s why he killed himself, are you?” Soave asked. “Because Berger hurt his little feelings?”

“No, I don’t believe so,” Des replied, wondering if Mitch was thinking this.

“Well, what did he say to Berger?”

“You can get the exact words from him. He’s waiting to hear from you.”

“Okay, good,” Soave said. “What else have we got?”

“Tito’s ride.” Des pointed out the Jeep’s freshly scraped paint job.

“Could be this happened earlier in the day,” Yolie suggested, kneeling for a better look. “If they phoned in an accident report then the car rental people will have a record of it. Then again, he might have sideswiped somebody on his way up here last night. I’ll see if anyone reported it, maybe canvass those farmhouses down the road. Could be somebody heard him hit a tree or something.”

This was a sharp one, Des observed. Her mind broke down all of the angles in a flash. “There’s an empty bottle of peppermint schnapps up at the top of the cliff. Also some spent matches. I didn’t see anything else.”

“Yolie, why don’t you go have a look?” Soave said. “I’ll check out the body with Des.”

“I’m on it.” Yolie immediately went charging off.

“It’s real slippery up there,” Des called after her. “Watch your step.”

“I always do,” Yolie Snipes responded, smiling at her over her shoulder.

“She’s an eager one, isn’t she?” Des said as she watched her make her way across the parking lot, big bottom shake-shake-shaking. Des could only imagine what was happening to the girl’s front end.

“Twenty-four-seven,” Soave agreed, smoothing his former mustache. “You slap her down, she bounces right back up. That’s Boom Boom. She makes me feel middle-aged, you want to know the truth.”

“Rico, you are middle aged,” Des informed him as they started their way down the footpath to the base of the falls.

“Between us, the wife can’t stand her. Thinks she’s a scheming slut bomb. Not true. This is a good kid. Tawny’s just jealous, you ask me.”

“Does Tawny have any reason to be?”

“Hell no,” Soave said indignantly. “I’m a happily married man. Me and Tawny just put in an offer on our first house. Besides, Boom Boom’s hooked up with my cousin Richie.”

“The one who works Narcotics?”

“The two of them are real tight. You know what they’re calling her up at the Headmaster’s House?” Soave glanced at her slyly. “The next Des Mitry. How do you like that?”

She didn’t. It made her feel like she’d retired to Boca Raton or died.

“I’m telling you, Boom Boom’s the complete package,” he said, stepping his way carefully over the bare roots in the path. “Plus I never have to worry about her drowning.”

Des shot a cold look at him in response.

He immediately reddened. “Sorry, Des, you know how I backslide when I’ve been away from you.”

“I do know that, Rico. But I still keep hoping for a miracle.”

Tito was in the middle of his final photo shoot as they scampered down onto the rocks. The assistant ME was photographing the star from every possible angle before they transported his body to Farmington for the autopsy, which was automatic whenever there was an accidental or unexplained death.

“What a stupid waste,” Soave said, shaking his head at the dead actor disgustedly. “Okay, what are you selling, Des?”

“I’m not selling anything, Rico. I just wanted to point out something about the way he landed.”

“What about it?

“The back of his head took the brunt of the impact. That’s not consistent with a swan dive. He should have landed facedown, not up.”

Soave considered this for a moment, his wheels starting to turn. “So he somersaulted in the air, end over end.”

“If that were the case then his head would be where his feet are. He’s turned completely the wrong way around, Rico.”

“You’re right, he is.” Soave furrowed his brow thoughtfully. “Maybe the water shifted him around after he landed.”

“The man’s dry, and there’s no blood anywhere else. He’s lying right where he hit.”

“So he spiraled in the air. That would explain it. The wind can do that.”

“There was no wind last night.”

“What are you saying, Des?”

“That the position of his body is consistent with someone who was standing with his back to the edge of the cliff and then pitched over backwards. Or got pushed.”

He peered at her, his eyes narrowing. “Still can’t get used to the slow lane, can you? You want back in the game.”

“I am totally fine right where I am, Rico. I just thought I’d share my professional concerns with you before you call it. But if you want to blow me off that’s totally fine by me.”

“Come on, don’t get all huffy.”

“I do not get huffy. I get riled. I get pissed. I get-”

“Whoa, I agree with you, okay?” Soave said, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “It don’t read right. That makes it a suspicious death. And that’s how we’re going to play it.” He ordered the crime scene technicians to proceed with maximum care, and to relay that up top to Yolie. Then they started their way back up the path toward the gate. It was becoming very hot out. Soave was perspiring heavily. “Good catch, Des,” he said, swiping at his face with a handkerchief. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

“You’re very welcome,” she said crisply.

“You’re in a lousy mood this morning, know that?”

“I don’t mean to be, Rico. These are my people. I know them.”

“There’s going to be a major media feeding frenzy, am I right?” he asked, his voice filling with dread.

“There is,” she said, thinking that this was a new sign of maturity on his part. Earlier in his career, he’d been supremely hyped at the prospect of getting his face on television. But now that he’d gonebefore the bright lights a couple of times, he knew just how hot they could get. And had the burn marks to prove it.

“I’m giving them no labels on this one,” he said, steeling himself out loud. “I don’t say suicide. And I for damned sure don’t say murder. Neither of those words comes out of this man’s hole. Not once. All I say is it’s an unexplained death and that we’re still gathering information.”

“They’ll try to get you to confirm that it’s an ‘apparent’ suicide,” Des said. “You say-”

“I say that nothing is ‘apparent’ at this time.”

“Even though they’ll go right ahead and call it that anyway.”

“Damned straight.”

By the time they got back up to the gate the TV news vans were already stacked ten-deep on the shoulder of the road. Cameramen and reporters had swarmed the entrance to the park, shouting questions and demanding answers. The uniformed troopers could barely hold them back.

“How did they get past that roadblock?” Soave wondered.

“They’re like mice, Rico. All they need is a quarter-inch crack of daylight and they’re in.”

Now they heard a car horn blaring. It was Martine’s VW Beetle convertible. She was trying desperately to get through the horde, but couldn’t. Esme finally leaped out of the car a hundred yards short of the gate and ran barefoot the rest of the way. Chrissie Huberman jumped out in hot pursuit. The press people let out a shout. Their cameras rolled.

“I want to see him!” Esme sobbed as she reached Des, the tears streaming down her porcelain cheeks. “I have to!”

“I really wouldn’t do that, honey,” Des said, as Soave stood there gaping at the beautiful young actress.

“Tito, why did you do this?!” she cried out, her stage-trained voice carrying over the roar of the waterfall. “Tito, where are you? TITO?!…” Esme fell to her knees, sobbing hysterically.

Chrissie knelt beside her, tears streaming down her own face, Des noticed.

And that wasn’t all Des noticed. Something new about Esme’s look caught her eye: The actress was sporting a great big fat swollen lip this morning.

Somebody had recently punched Esme Crockett in the mouth.

“Girl, I heard so much about you when I was coming up,” Yolie Snipes gushed from the seat next to her as Des piloted her cruiser back down the narrow Hopyard Road. “First sister to investigate homicides in state history, cover of Connecticut magazine when you were twenty-three-I can’t believe I’m riding in the same car with you.”

“You’re being too kind,” said Des, who was never comfortable with flattery. “Where’d you grow up, Yolie?”

“The Hollow,” she grunted. Frog Hollow was Hartford’s most burned-out ghetto. It was nowhere. “My mom died of an overdose a year after I was born.”

“And your dad?”

“Never even knew who he was. Everyone I came up with was inmate-bound, me included, but my aunt Celia made sure I got out.”

“AC?” asked Des, referring to the portrait on her arm.

Yolie’s face lit up. “That’s right. She kept me together, body and soul, until I got me my four-year ride to Rutgers.”

“You played ball, am I right?”

“It’s all that,” she acknowledged. “My total dream was to play the point for Coach Geno at Storrs. He scouted me, too, but there was no way I was going to beat out Suzy Bird for playing time. Not in this life. So I moved on down the road to Piscataway, played for Coach Vivian. And we scratched and we clawed and we won us a few. Got my degree in criminal justice. Came back home, took the test, and here I am.”

They passed through the roadblock at Route 82, waving to the trooper who was stationed there, and Des started toward the shore now, cruising among the lush green gentlemen’s farms with their fieldstone walls and two hundred-year-old houses set way back under canopies of maple trees.

“I never worked a town like this before,” Yolie confessed, gazing anxiously out her window at the moneyed countryside.

“You’ll do fine. The people here are no different than people anywhere else. They just have longer driveways and better manners.”

“Can I ask you for some advice, sister to sister? It’s about Soave…”

“What about him?”

“He’s a decent man, but my read on him is he won’t be moving up. What I mean is, he’s got the juice but not the smarts. Am I right about that?”

“He’s a good officer,” Des said tactfully. “Don’t underestimate him.”

“I’m not. I’m just, at this point in my career I’m looking to hook up with people who I can learn from. And I’m thinking I’ve gotten just about all I can out of Soave. I don’t mean to sound cold. Just being honest, know what I’m saying?”

“Sure, I do,” said Des, thinking that Soave would probably be reporting to Yolie Snipes in a couple of years.

“I might put in for a transfer to Narcotics,” she went on. “Or maybe the gangs task force. The street’s where I can do the most damage. I know the street. That sound like a smart move to you?”

“It does. Just bear in mind that he’ll be really insulted. He’s thin-skinned.”

“Who, Soave? Shut up!”

“And he does have the juice, like you said. Trust me, you do not want that little man for an enemy. Those Waterbury boys are strictly about family and we are so not related.”

“You saying he’d trash me?”

“I’m saying be careful,” Des replied as she cruised into Dorset’s business district. Big Brook Road was quiet. The vacationers were still in bed. She turned onto Old Shore at the traffic light and headed for Big Sister.

“This Mitch Berger we’re talking to-he’s your boy, right?”

“That’s right.”

“How is that?”

Des glanced at Yolie curiously. “How is what?”

Yolie raised an eyebrow at her. “The pink of things.”

“So far so good.”

“Myself, I’ve never road tested a nonbrother.”

“I thought you and Soave’s cousin Richie…”

“No, we’re just friends. He’d like to get with me, but I’m not playing that game right now. I’m just so damned tired of getting hurt. Word, are they any nicer?”

Des shrugged. “They’re still men.”

“Soave had him a major chubby for you, you know.”

“He told you that?”

“Didn’t have to. I can see it in his eyes whenever he talks about you. And he talks about you a lot.”

“Well, it never went anywhere, if that’s what you were wondering. Strictly his chocolate fantasy-you know how that goes.”

Yolie nodded her braided head. “I am, like, uh-hunh. They all want to find out what it’s like to get with Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. What do they think, that we hang from the chandelier by our ankles?”

“What, you mean you don’t?”

Yolie let out a hoot. “Girl, you’ve got you a bad self. We’re going to be okay.”

“Yolie, I never had any doubts.”

Des turned off Old Shore at the Peck’s Point Nature Preserve. The preserve was open from sunup till sundown. There were footpaths, bike paths, a green meadow that tumbled its way down to the tidal marshes, where the osprey nested. The moisture from the night’s rain shimmered on the tall meadow grass in the morning sunlight.

Yolie gazed out the window with her mouth open, overwhelmed by the serene beauty of the place.

Des had grown so accustomed to it that she forgot sometimes just how spectacular it was. She eased her way slowly along the dirt road, passing a couple of joggers who were out with their dogs. The road ended at the barricaded causeway out to Big Sister Island. Des had a key to raise the barricade. Slowly, she eased across the ricketywooden causeway, seeing Big Sister through Yolie’s eyes as Yolie took in the lighthouse, the historic mansions, the acres of woods and private beach.

“Shut up, girl! No wonder you dig him-man’s got his own private island.”

“It’s not all his.”

“Who is this man?”

“He’s just someone who happens to know everything there is to know about every single movie that’s ever been made in the history of the planet.”

“Sounds like a geek.”

“That he is-but he’s my geek.”

Des pulled up in the gravel driveway outside his cottage. Mitch was on his knees in his vegetable patch, weeding with furious intent. Quirt sat right by his side, keenly interested in every clump of fresh soil Mitch was turning over. The lean orange tabby came running to greet Des when he heard her get out. Rubbed up against her ankle, talking up a storm. She bent over and scratched his chin as Mitch got up off his knees, swiping at his sweaty brow, and ambled toward them.

He looked sad and confused and hurt. In fact, he looked exactly the way he had the very first time Des laid eyes on him, the day he’d found that man’s body buried in this very vegetable garden. The only thing different about him now was his red, swollen jaw.

“Hey, Master Sergeant,” he said to her, his jaw clenched tightly shut. It must have stiffened on him in the night.

“Hey, baby,” she said gently, putting her hand on his rather damp shoulder. What she wanted to do was hold him tight, make it all go away. “Say hello to Sergeant Yolie Snipes-she’s Rico’s new partner.”

“We came to ask you some questions about Tito Molina, Mr. Berger,” Yolie said to him solicitously. “Are you okay with that?”

Mitch was fine with it. “Let’s go inside and get a cold drink. Sorry I sound so funny, Sergeant. I feel just like Al Pacino in the first Godfather after he got punched by Sterling Hayden. Remember that scene in Brando’s study when Michael tells Sonny he’s going to be thetrigger man in the Italian restaurant? The camera moves in on him slooowly as he sits there, commanding the attention of all of the men in the room, and that’s when it dawns on you that he’s the new godfather. Man, that was great moviemaking.”

He shlumped inside the house ahead of them, Yolie pausing to whisper, “Girl, does he talk about movies all the time?”

“Only when he’s awake.”

“You didn’t tell me he was so cute. He squeak when you squeeze him?”

Des smiled at her. “That’s not all he does.”

That morning’s New York newspapers were stacked on Mitch’s desk, the Daily News and Post featuring identical page-one photographs of Tito astride Mitch with his hands around his throat. Already it was old news.

“Have you been getting a lot of calls from reporters?” Des asked him.

“I wouldn’t know. I unplugged the phone after I spoke to you.”

He washed his hands and face in the deep, scarred kitchen sink, then poured each of them a tall glass of iced tea with sprigs of mint from his garden. He handed them around, then flopped down in his one good chair as Des and Yolie took the loveseat. “Whew, it’s sticky as hell out there this morning,” he said, breathing heavily. “I apologize if I smell like a plow horse, but I’m learning that physical work helps me when I’m down.”

“I head straight for the weight room myself,” Yolie spoke up, her head swiveling as she took in the view of the Sound from three different directions. She was, Des observed, very uneasy here in Mitch’s cottage. Also very anxious to make a good impression on the Deacon’s daughter. So anxious she was slouching a tiny bit as she sat there beside Des, just enough so that her immense breasts were less of a temptation for Mitch to stare at. Des knew why-Yolie did not want Des thinking that she’d been waving them in her boyfriend’s face. This was an aware, careful girl. A girl who missed nothing.

“Mitch, we need to talk about that phone call you got from Tito,” Des said, shifting them into business gear.

“Yeah, okay,” he agreed, sipping his iced tea carefully. Some of it dribbled down his chin anyway. “I hadn’t been asleep very long. In fact, it seemed as if he’d just left.”

“Whoa, he was here last night? You didn’t tell me that part.”

“Yeah, he was sitting right here when I got home from the beach club.”

“How did he get out here?”

“He swam out, which should have told me something right away.”

“Why is that, Mr. Berger?” Yolie asked, gulping down some iced tea.

“Call me Mitch, would you? You’re scaring me with that mister stuff.”

She flashed a quick smile at him. “Done, Mitch.”

“The tide was coming in,” he explained. “It’s dangerous. Anyone who tries that can’t be thinking straight.”

“You couldn’t have known what he’d do,” Des told him. “Besides, it’s too soon to say what did happen. We don’t know yet.”

“I should have known,” he repeated stubbornly.

“Did you give him your Mets T-shirt to wear?”

“He sort of borrowed it. I’m never going to see that shirt again, am I?”

“You wouldn’t want it back, believe me.”

“Please tell us what happened when he was here,” said Yolie, politely taking over the inquiry, pad and pen in hand.

“Nothing,” Mitch replied, shrugging. “We talked.”

“It was a friendly talk? You were vibing?”

“We totally were,” Mitch said, his voice filling with regret. “He told me he wanted to make a movie about his father’s life. He said he’d already written most of it. He asked me if I’d mind reading it. I said I’d be happy to.”

“What time did he leave here?”

“Eleven or so.”

“Was he high?”

“You mean on drugs? I don’t think so. He did drink a lot of myscotch, but he was plenty coherent. I offered to give him a ride back to his car. He said he was okay to walk.”

“Where was his car?”

“He left it back at the town beach parking lot.”

“How long does it take to walk there from here?”

“I’ve never timed it, Sergeant. A good half hour, maybe forty-five minutes.”

Yolie jotted this down in her notepad. “That would put him in the parking lot by around midnight?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Did he mention Esme to you?” Des interjected.

“He said she was his princess. He said she should be wearing a tiara and sash.”

“She showed up just now at the falls wearing a fat lip,” Des told him. “Did he say anything about them fighting? That he’d struck her, anything like that?”

“No, not at all. The only negative thing he had to say about Esme was that she sometimes didn’t listen to him. But he wanted her to play his mother in the movie he was writing. He wouldn’t have mentioned that if they were having serious problems, would he?” Mitch paused, sipping his iced tea distractedly. “Tito also wanted some advice from me.”

“What about?” Yolie asked.

“Sergeant, I’ve been asking myself that very same question ever since Des called,” Mitch confessed, running a hand through his curly black hair. “We were talking about his career, okay? There was this movie called Puppy Love that his agent wanted him to do, and Tito really didn’t want to do it. And then he told me he felt trapped. Being a total idiot who doesn’t know how to keep his big mouth shut, I told him that if he was caught up in something he didn’t want to be in that he had the power to get out of it.”

“Sounds fair to me,” Yolie said.

Mitch shook his head at her miserably. “What if he wasn’t talking about his career anymore when he said that? What if he was talkingabout life? Think about it, he’s sitting here, this unstable, deeply disturbed actor… What if he was trying to tell me that he wanted to end it all? Don’t you realize what I did? I gave him the green light. Look at what happened-as soon as left here he drove straight up to the falls and jumped right off a cliff.” Mitch slumped in his chair despondently. “God, I may as well have pushed him.”

“Don’t go there, Mitch,” Des ordered him.

“Can you tell us about this phone call you got from him?” Yolie said.

“I was in bed asleep,” Mitch said hollowly. “He sounded… He was just really down. He said that it was too late. Then he started talking about the hangman. ‘The damage is done. The hangman says it’s time to let her fly.’ That’s from a Neil Young song.”

“Neil Young.” Yolie repeated. “He’s that weird old hippie guy, right?”

Mitch stared at her coldly. “He’s not weird and he’s not old.”

“Do yourself a solid, girl,” Des advised her. “Stay away from pop culture entirely.”

“Mitch, what did you take that to mean?” Yolie pressed on.

“At the time, nothing. But now… now I take it to mean that he was about to commit suicide, don’t you?” Mitch got up out of his chair and went over toward the windows, standing with his back to them for a long moment. When he turned to face them, his eyes had filled with tears. “I’m the last person on earth who spoke to him,” he declared, his voice rising with emotion. “If only I’d said something else, anything else. Maybe the right words would have changed his mind. Maybe he’d still be alive.”

“I repeat,” Des said to him sharply. “Don’t go there!”

“Des, I’m already there! And I don’t know how to deal with it. How do I live with myself from now on? How do I look at myself in mirror every day? I killed him, don’t you get it? I killed Tito Molina!”