The Hot Pink Farmhouse

C HAPTER 7

Scareeee… reeee… yeeeeowww…

Mitch was working his way through the chord changes in Hendrix’s lead-in to “Hey, Joe,” an achievement that for him ranked right up there with scaling Everest’s south summit, when the bad news came down.

Scareeee… dee-dowwww…

Playing his Stratocaster had been Mitch’s third choice for how to keep sane after Des went tearing off toward Winston Farms in the pre-dawn darkness. First, he had tried going back to sleep. An entirely logical thing to do. Clemmie certainly had no problem. But Clemmie also had a brain the size of a garbanzo bean. So Mitch got up and tried to channel his nervous energy into his reference book on Westerns-a sidebar on Quirt’s namesake, Quirt Evans, the wounded gunfighter played by John Wayne in The Angel and the Badman, a tidy little 1947 release with Gail Russell and Harry Carey that Witness ripped off some forty years later. But Mitch found he had about as much luck working as he did sleeping. The words on his computer screen were just meaningless squiggles. So he played.

Skchssschaheee… chaheeee…

Mitch had no ear for music. He knew this. But he had the love and he had the power. And, in the immortal words of Meat Loaf, two out of three ain’t bad. So he played, his pair of Fender twin reverb amps cranked up high, one set of toes curled around his wa-wa pedal, the other around his Ibanez tube screamer. He played, his eyes shut, tongue stuck out of the side of his mouth.

Scareeeeeee… reeee…

Until Des finally phoned to tell him it wasn’t Takai who was dead.

“It’s Moose, baby,” she reported grimly. “At least we think it is. Her body’s burned beyond recognition.”

Mitch was so stunned he could barely speak. “Any chance it’s not her?”

“Slim to none.” Des explained to him how Moose had borrowed Takai’s Porsche to go see a beau and never returned. “She’d have to be pulling one of the most elaborate disappearing acts in history. Look, I don’t know if I’ll be able to see you tonight. My time may not be my own for a while.”

“I understand,” he said, hearing the dread in her voice. “Are you okay?”

She fell silent a moment. “I’m interfacing with my old crew from Major Crimes-first time since I put the uni back on. It’s weirder than weird.”

“You’re doing what you want to be doing,” he told her. “That makes you way smarter than they are. Not to mention ten times hotter.”

“Guess I just needed to hear the words,” she said faintly. “Thanks, baby.”

“That’s the second time you’ve called me baby. You never did that before.”

“Do you mind it?”

“The next time we see each other, I’ll show you just how much I mind,” he said to her with tender affection.

But as soon as he hung up the phone Mitch was overcome by feelings of confusion and helplessness. Twelve hours ago he and Moose were feeding Elrod together. And now, through no apparent fault of her own, she was gone. Why? He stood there for a long moment gazing out his windows at a lobsterman in a Boston Whaler as he chugged his way slowly out onto the Sound. Mitch wondered what it would be like to be that man. He wondered what was on his mind right now, at this very second. Then he shook himself and called Lacy.

His editor answered on the first ring. She had just gotten in, but she already sounded alert and sharp as a razor. That was Lacy. “To what do I owe this honor, young Mr. Berger?”

“I had a nice hook on that Cookie Commerce story,” he told her glumly. “Emphasis on the word had.”

“You’re talking about Mary Susan Frye, am I right?”

“Now how on earth did you know that?”

“The first report just came in over the wire,” Lacy answered. “They passed it on to me because of who her father is. What’s going on out there? Talk to me.”

He talked to her. Told her how he had befriended the reclusive Wendell Frye, hearing the immediate uptick of excitement in her voice. Told her about Takai and how she was hooked up with the Brat, who was building houses all over Dorset and offering to donate the land for a big new elementary school. And how his wife, Babette, president of the school board, was the one pushing hardest for it. He told her about how Babette was squared off against the school superintendent, Colin Falconer-the hush-hush cyber-sex scandal, his suicide attempt. He told her about how this battle over Center School wasn’t about a school at all, but over the very soul of a quaint, rural New England village.

As he talked, Mitch began to realize that he was pitching Lacy a story. He hadn’t planned to, but deep down inside he must have wanted to. Why else had he felt the urge to call her?

“Mitch, how does the death of Wendell Frye’s daughter fit into all of this?” she asked when he’d finished filling her in. “How do the pieces fit together? Do they fit together?”

“Lacy, I honestly don’t know. But I’d like to look into it.”

“Go for it. I’ll talk to the magazine and call you back.”

Mitch hung up and reached for a fresh notepad and started jotting down questions that needed answering. Questions like… How much of Dorset had Bruce Leanse actually bought up? What were his real plans? How did the school figure into them? How did Takai?

Now his phone was ringing. He picked it up, thinking it would be Lacy.

“I’m going to kill the son of a bitch who did this to my Moose!” Hangtown roared at him. “You hear me, Big Mitch? With my own two hands!”

“Hangtown, I’m so incredibly sorry-”

“He’s a dead man! Dead!”

“That’s no answer. You’ve got to let the law handle this.”

“But that lieutenant’s a muscle-bound cretin-he’s actually trying to pin it on Jim!”

“Des will keep an eye on things,” Mitch assured him. “Believe me, nothing gets by her. And if there’s anything I can do…”

The old master was silent a moment. “Are you my friend, Big Mitch?”

“You bet.”

“You’ll help me?”

“Just tell me how.”

“Jim and me, we were smoking ourselves some homegrown when Moose was killed. Understand what I’m saying?”

“You were getting stoned together.”

“It helps me with my arthritis pain. Mornings are the worst. I can barely get out of bed. But I can’t tell them we were getting high because it’s a violation of Jim’s parole. They’ll send him back to jail. And, wait, there’s more-Jim still keeps his hand in. Had some dynamite plants growing out behind the cottages this summer. I’ve got pounds of the stuff stashed in my dungeon, Big Mitch, and a state trooper camped on my doorstep at this very minute-” Hangtown broke off, wheezing. “Will you tell Des for me?”

“Tell her what, Hangtown?”

“The truth-that I can vouch for Jim’s whereabouts. That he’s innocent. Only, you’ve got to whisper it in her ear, or they’ll set the dogs loose on him. Can you do that for me?”

“I can. But I can’t guarantee how she’ll respond.”

“She’ll do what’s right,” the old man said with total certainty.

“Hangtown, there’s something else we need to talk about. I just spoke to my editor at the paper-”

“You’re going to write a story about this. Of course you are. I understand.”

“How did you know last night? That I might have to write about you. How did you know?”

“I told you-you get a sense of things when you get to be my age. You lose your friends. The people who you love… they get taken from you. But you do gain that.”

“I won’t quote you. Not unless you want me to.”

“I don’t care, Big Mitch. Don’t care about that stuff anymore. My Moose is gone. My Moose is…” Wendell Frye let out a strangled cry. “Someone just cut my heart out.” Sobbing, he hung up the phone.

Mitch’s own chest felt heavy with grief. Moose’s death was causing him to revisit emotions he hadn’t gone near since he lost Maisie. He didn’t want to go through this. He didn’t want to go to another funeral. He didn’t want to ask himself those awful, painful questions that had no answers, such as: Why does someone vibrant and good get snuffed out before her time while the cruel, the dishonest and the horrible just keep right on using up air and skin until a ripe old age? When he was on the job in a darkened screening room, alone with his notepad, Mitch never had to ponder such unanswerable questions. Hollywood movies steered carefully around them. Hollywood movies steered carefully around anything that made audiences unhappy. But out here in the sunlight, he did have to think about such things. Because if you got involved with people, things happened to those people, and not all of those things were good.

In fact, sometimes it seemed that none of them were.

And so he hopped in his old truck and went rattling over the wooden causeway toward town, where he could begin to deal with it.

First he had to stop at Sheila Enman’s mill house in front of the waterfall on Eight Mile River. She needed to be told. It would be better if she heard it in person.

The old schoolteacher was seated on a plain wooden chair by her kitchen window, her stooped, big-boned body clad in a ragged yellow cardigan and dark green slacks. Her walker-Sheila called it her giddy-up-was parked near at hand.

Mitch enjoyed Sheila Enman immensely. She was a feisty old Yankee who’d lived in her wonderful mill house all of her life. She had great stories to tell, and age hadn’t slowed her mind one bit.

Except today it seemed to have ground to a halt entirely. Gazing out of her window at the waterfall, Sheila was almost like a different person-vacant, remote and despondent. “Selectman Paffin just stopped by,” she said to Mitch in a muted, hollow voice. “Is it true, Mr. Berger? Is she really gone?”

Mitch dropped into the chair next to hers. “I’m afraid so, Mrs. Enman.”

“She had every reason in the world to be stuck-up. Her father’s position and all-Lord knows, Takai is. But not Moose. Never Moose. She was so sweet, so giving…” Sheila pulled a wadded tissue from the rolled-back sleeve of her sweater and dabbed at her eyes. “I must apologize, but I didn’t bake anything for you this morning. I just couldn’t bring myself to.”

“Don’t be sorry about that, Mrs. Enman. Don’t even think about it.”

“But I have such a favor to ask. That is, if you don’t mind…”

“Of course not. Anything.”

“Will you take me with you when you go to her funeral?”

Mitch sighed inwardly and said, “Absolutely. I’ll be happy to.”

Dorset’s town hall was a sober two-story brick building with dignified white columns, a flagpole and a squat bronze monument out front honoring the village’s Civil War dead.

Inside, it smelled of musty carpeting, mothballs and Ben Gay. The office of First Selectman Paffin was just inside the front door. He kept his door open at all times-if anyone had something to say to him, they could simply walk right in. One of those quaint small-town New England customs that Dorset cherished.

Ordinarily, Mitch found town hall to be about as lively as a wax museum. Today, its corridors were buzzing. People dashing in and out of one another’s offices, gathering in doorways for urgent conversations about Moose’s death, their voices animated, eyes shiny. Today, the natural order of things had been knocked utterly off-kilter.

The town clerk’s office, where property deeds were recorded and kept, was all the way down at the end of the hall. Connect the dots, Jim Bolan had urged Mitch. Here were the dots.

The town clerk was a chubby, pink-cheeked grandmother named Jessie Moffit. “Do the troopers have any idea what happened yet, Mr. Berger?” she asked Mitch eagerly.

Which Mitch thought was a bit odd, since he and Jessie had never actually met before. He drew two conclusions from this, just in case he’d harbored any doubts. One was that everyone in Dorset knew him when they saw him, and two was that the new resident trooper was wasting her hard-earned money at the Frederick House. They all knew.

“Not yet,” Mitch replied. “But I’m sure they will.”

The property deeds were kept in a walk-in fireproof vault that looked as if it belonged in Dodge City, stuffed full of gold. Hanging from an inside wall was a U.S. Geological Survey map of Dorset’s wetlands and estuaries. The plot plans were kept in an oversized map book. Jessie found him the map for the area of Connecticut River frontage where Hangtown lived, also the map encompassing Jim Bolan’s old farm and the proposed site for the new elementary school. The deeds were recorded and filed by an index number. To find out a property’s index number he had to look it up in the index book under the deed holder’s name. Which presented a problem since he was trying to learn the deed holder’s name.

Not to worry, clucked Jessie, who sent him down the hall to the assessor’s office to dig up who had been paying taxes on the properties in question. After spending two hours there, combing through surveyer’s map books and grand lists, and another hour back in the vault, Mitch was able to piece together not only who owned the major parcels of undeveloped land surrounding the proposed school site but when they had taken title to them.

Jim Bolan had not exaggerated. Huge chunks of land had changed hands in the past twenty-four months, just under three thousand acres of pasturage and forest in all-a vast amount of land for the precious Connecticut shoreline. The parcels formed a half-mile-wide ribbon between Route 156 and the river, bordered on the north by Uncas Pond and on the south by state forest. The ribbon was a continuous one, with the notable exception of Hangtown’s farm, which was situated right smack-dab in the middle and enjoyed the choicest river frontage.

Jim Bolan’s old farm was now owned by an outfit called Great North Holdings of Toronto, Ontario. Great North also owned two other parcels, 88 acres and 232 acres apiece. Bruce Leanse owned some 400 acres in all. Twenty that he lived on. Ten that were earmarked for the new school. The rest were presently under development as housing sites. Pilgrim Properties of Boston, Massachusetts, had bought three parcels numbering 40 acres, 22 acres and 410 acres. Two more chunks of land, totaling 860 acres, were owned by Lowenthal and Partners of New York City. The remaining 600 acres belonged to Big Sky Development Corporation of Bozeman, Montana.

A good start, Mitch reflected as he emerged, bleary-eyed, from the vault, feeling every inch like Erin Brockovich, minus the push-up bra. Now he’d have to find out who was behind all of these different companies, and what, if anything, they had in common. A journalism school buddy of his was a real estate reporter on the newspaper. In exchange for two seats to the premiere of the new Tom Cruise, she would tell Mitch how to track these people down.

He ran into Dorset’s resident trooper on his way out. She was standing in the doorway of the conference room with her hands on her narrow hips, looking tall, trim and very lovely. “What’s up, Master Sergeant?” he asked, smiling at her.

“Setting up a command center. What are you doing here?”

“I spoke with Lacy this morning. I’m writing a story about this.”

Des’s green eyes widened with surprise. “About Moose?”

“That’s right,” he affirmed, nodding.

She motioned for Mitch to join her in her office. It wasn’t an Emergency Services facility-just a community outreach cubbyhole where she tried to make herself available to the public for an hour every day. The walls were papered with public service posters for handgun safety, spousal abuse and drug prevention. There was a desk and a phone. Otherwise, the office was impersonal and bare.

She sat down at the desk, shaking her head at Mitch when he started to close the door behind them.

He pushed it back open and said, “Her death is just my jumping-off point. It’s really going to be about the changing face of a small New England town. The Leanse invasion, the battle over Center School, the Colin Falconer mess. What I’m searching for is how it all fits together.”

“So you think it does?” she asked, glancing uneasily out at the hall every time someone walked by her door. An awful lot of people did, it seemed.

“Oh, definitely,” Mitch responded. “I don’t believe things like this happen by coincidence. That’s the hallmark of mediocre screenwriting.”

“Um, okay, this is the part where I remind you that we’re talking about real life, not a movie.”

“I may need to interview you. Being the resident trooper and all. Oh, and I’ve got something for you from Hang-town…” Mitch told her what Wendell Frye had said he and Jim were doing when the red Porsche was blown off the road. “He’s hoping you’ll know how to handle it. He seems to feel you will.”

Des sat back in her chair, making a steeple of her long fingers. She never painted her nails. Considered nail polish a frivolous affectation. “I’ll see what I can do. That’s the best I can give you.”

“Is Jim really a suspect?”

“Soave likes him.”

“Soave?” Mitch frowned. “Wasn’t he your sergeant?”

“Man’s got his own sergeant now.”

“Hangtown thinks he’s an oaf. Muscle-bound cretin, to be exact.”

“He’s a competent officer,” Des insisted, refusing to badmouth Soave to an outsider even though the guy had ratted her out to further his own career. She was strangely loyal that way.

“Do you think he’ll arrest Jim?”

“Too soon to say. They’re still collecting crime scene evidence.” Des filled him in on what she knew about the Barrett. “They’ll run a statewide search to see if anyone around here’s got one. Hit the gun dealers and shows, one by one,” she added, looking up again at the sound of footsteps.

These belonged to Bob Paffin, the red-nosed, snowy-haired first selectman, who stood there in her doorway with a jovial grin on his long, horsey face. “Trooper Mitry, I’m sorry to interrupt if you’re having a personal conversation-”

“I’m not,” she said crisply. “Mr. Berger is working on a story for his New York newspaper.”

“Sure, Miss Enman says very nice things about you,” Bob Paffin said, shaking Mitch’s hand. “Awful business, this. Can put a real stain on a place. I hope you’ll be kind to our little town in your story. You’re one of us now.”

“It’s nice of you to say so,” said Mitch, who was well aware that he would never, ever be one of them, not if he lived in Dorset for the next fifty years and served on every board and commission that existed. He was a Jew from New York and he always would be.

“What can I do for you, Bob?” Des asked the first selectman politely.

“I got another call from a merchant this morning about those boys,” Paffin told her. “They spray-painted more of their obscene graffiti last night.”

“Where was it this time?” asked Des, sighing.

“Tyler Brandt’s fish market. I can’t even begin to describe the anatomical filth they drew on that poor fellow’s window…” Paffin shuffled his feet uneasily. “I’d really like to assure the local merchants that you’re making some genuine progress on this. May I tell them that the Mod Squad’s days are numbered? Would that be an appropriate thing to say?”

Des narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m working on it.”

“I’m sure you are,” he said soothingly. “No criticism intended. Everyone is thrilled with the job you’re doing. But it would go a long, long way toward cementing folks’ comfort level with you if you were able to bring these boys to heel-and soon.”

“I am well aware of that,” Des said, raising her voice slightly. Des did not like to be pressured. Mitch had learned this about her. “And I am working on it.”

“Good, good. Well… keep it up.” And with that, Dorset’s first selectman skedaddled back down the hall to his own office.

The two of them sat there in tight silence for a moment. More than anything, Mitch wanted to take her hand and squeeze it, to touch her, feel her. But she had an iron-clad rule against Public Displays of Affection. “You’re having a real problem with Moose’s murder, aren’t you?” he asked her. “Sitting on the sidelines is not exactly your style.”

“That’s something I’ll just have to work through,” she conceded, looking through her eyelashes at him. “How about you? Not like you to seek out a story this raw, is it? I know you wrote about your landlady, but that was different. That happened to you. This didn’t.”

“Yes, it did,” Mitch countered. “That’s what it means to live here-if something happens to one person, it happens to you. You’re involved, whether you want to be or not. I learned a very valuable lesson today, Des.”

“Which is…?”

“When you live in Dorset, everything is personal.”

• • •

Someone was waiting for Mitch at the security gate that blocked public access out to Big Sister Island.

That someone was Takai Frye, who was standing there next to Moose’s old Land Rover trying in vain to buzz his house. A brisk, chilly wind was blowing off the Sound, and Takai wore nothing more than a green silk dress and teetery high-heeled sandals. No jacket or sweater. Not so much as a stitch under her dress, either. Her nipples, hardened by the cold, poked indecently right on through the flimsy silk.

“I was j-just t-trying to buzz you,” she said to him, her teeth chattering.

“Where’s your jacket?” Mitch asked, remembering the beautiful shearling she’d had on yesterday.

“I left it somewhere,” she answered vaguely, shivering. “You’re p-probably wondering what I-I’m doing here.”

“You mean, aside from freezing to death?”

“I’m afraid to be at home, Mitch. Out here, it’s safe.”

“Aren’t the police watching your house?”

She nodded. “But they can’t watch the woods. Or all of father’s secret goddamned passageways. C-can we talk?”

“Absolutely. Hop in.”

Takai grabbed her suede shoulder bag from the front seat of the Land Rover and got in the truck with him. He drove across the causeway and led her inside the cottage. She stood in the center of the living room, gazing somewhat dumbly out at his view. He went and got a pair of heavy wool socks as well as a fisherman’s knit sweater that Des was known to borrow from time to time. He brought these to her and lifted her bag off her shoulder so she could throw the sweater on over her head.

Her bag was surprisingly heavy, and it landed with a metallic thunk when Mitch set it down on the table. He drew back from it, frowning.

Takai showed him what was inside. It was a gun. A small, trim Smith amp; Wesson model called a Ladysmith.

“Is that thing loaded?” he asked her, gulping. He was not comfortable around guns. Guns went off.

“Always,” she said determinedly. “In my job, I sometimes have to be alone in some pretty isolated houses with some pretty strange characters.”

“By characters you mean men.”

“And they get ideas.”

“And you discourage them.”

“No one is going to hurt me.” Takai sat now in his one good chair, kicked off her sandals and crossed her bare legs so she could put on Mitch’s heavy wool socks, thereby affording him a fine view. Her legs were exceptionally long and shapely and smooth. “Not that I’ve ever had to use it, mind you.”

“Do you know how to?”

“What’s to know? You point and click, just like Ameritrade.”

“Are you hungry? Can I get you anything to eat?”

“Not for me, thanks.”

Mitch put coffee on and rummaged around in the fridge for his pot of leftover American chop suey, wondering what it was that she wanted from him. Takai Frye was someone who would always want something. He grabbed a fork and returned to the living room, shoveling hungrily from the pot. “I didn’t have any lunch,” he explained between mouthfuls. “Plus I eat when I’m nervous, which accounts for my appearance.”

She watched him hoover down his cold concoction, frowning prettily. “I’m making you nervous?”

“I would think that you make just about everyone nervous.”

“Now I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted.”

“I’m not trying to insult you, believe me.”

Takai got up out of the chair, all woolly and warm, and padded over toward the windows. “This is a darling cottage. I can see why you’d never want to leave. And the views. God, if a developer ever got his hands on this island…”

Mitch took some kindling out of Hangtown’s old copper bucket and started building a fire in the fireplace. “That can’t happen. It’s been declared a historic landmark, thanks to the lighthouse.”

“How did you manage to get title to it?”

“Friend of the family.”

“It helps to have friends.”

“It sure does.”

“I admire you, Mitch,” Takai said suddenly, smiling at him. “You don’t lead a conventional life. I’ve tried to do that, too, in my own way. I never wanted to be ordinary like… like Moose was. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a teacher. I just… I don’t ever want to be average.”

“You’re not,” Mitch said, watching her carefully. She seemed to be starting the slow, painful process of dealing with her sister’s death. He laid a couple of logs in and lit a match. The fire caught right away, snapping and crackling and lighting up the room with its golden glow. “How do you take your coffee?”

“Black.”

He went in the kitchen and filled two cups, dumping a generous slug of chocolate milk into his. Takai was back in the chair when he returned with them. She took a grateful sip and set hers down on his coffee table, which he’d made by bolting a storm window onto an old rowboat. Clemmie moseyed over for a sniff, thought about testing out Takai’s lap, but opted for the kibble bowl instead.

Takai watched the cat disappear into the kitchen. “I don’t have any friends. All I had was Moose. And now she’s gone and I-” She broke off, her voice choking with emotion. “Whoever did that to her was after me, Mitch. It’s my fault!”

“You didn’t pull the trigger. You’re not responsible for what someone else did.”

“Yes, I am,” she said, her eyes welling up with tears.

Mitch stared at the fire in silence for a moment, wondering once again why she was here. “Any idea who it was?”

“God, take your pick,” she answered bitterly. “Everyone in Dorset despises me. I’m an aggressive, independent woman. I know what I want and I go after it. They don’t like that. They don’t like it at all.”

She wasn’t totally off-base, Mitch considered, remembering the old Bette Davis adage about Hollywood: If a man puts his foot down they call him a strong-willed professional who cares. If a woman does it, they call her a bitch.

“But there is one person in particular…” Takai admitted, reaching for her coffee. “I did something a while back that I’m not very proud of, Mitch. I told the state police that Jim Bolan was growing marijuana on his farm. I did it anonymously. Called them from a pay phone. But ever since it happened, well, Jim’s convinced I’m the one who did it.”

“Why did you?”

Takai shrugged her narrow shoulders inside the chunky sweater. “I knew someone who wanted the property, and I delivered it. Strictly business.”

“Was that someone Bruce Leanse?”

She didn’t respond, just sipped her coffee, clutching the mug tightly in both hands.

Mitch watched her, the purpose of her visit clear to him now. “You want me to pass this information on to the resident trooper, is that it?”

“I’m afraid, Mitch!” she cried out. “What if he was trying to pay me back? What if he comes after me again?”

“It wasn’t Jim,” Mitch assured her. “Your father told me that the two of them were getting high together when it happened.”

“Father’s lying,” Takai said with sudden savagery.

“Why would he do that?”

“Jim’s his hands, that’s why. If they put him away, Father won’t be able to work. And that’s all that matters to him. When it comes to people, forget it. He is beyond cruel. He drove my poor mother to a nervous breakdown with his abusiveness. And when he drank he used to beat her up. She was a sweet, gentle soul. A great beauty. And she ended up all alone out in California, working as a cashier in a Rexall drugstore in Laguna Beach. He wouldn’t give her one cent. What little money she had she got from me. I even had to pay for her funeral.”

“He said her death was very sudden.”

“It doesn’t get any more sudden-she hanged herself,” Takai shot back, her smooth, finely planed cheeks mottling. “And he did everything but kick the chair out from under her feet. As for me

…”

“What about you?”

“He’s never wanted my love, and he’s never given me any in return.” She was fighting back tears now, her chest heaving. “Don’t be taken in by him, Mitch. He’s a monster. He destroys people.”

Mitch went over to the fire and poked at it for a moment. “I’ll pass your information on to Resident Trooper Mitry, if you want. Only, do you honestly think your father would falsely alibi Jim for the murder of his own daughter?”

“Mitch, I don’t know what to think.” Takai got up out of the chair and came over next to him. She wasn’t nearly as tall with her heels off, and looked rather frail in his sweater. “I’m not thinking too clearly right now.”

“Because you’re a little upset,” he said, smelling her musky perfume.

A puddle of tears started forming in her eyes. Mitch was just about to offer her a tissue when she let go-hurled herself right into his arms and began sobbing uncontrollably. He held on to her tightly as she sobbed and she sobbed, her face buried wetly in his flannel shirt. Compared to Des, there wasn’t much to her. She was as delicate as a bird.

“God, I am so sorry,” she snuffled when she was finally cried out.

“Don’t be. It’s good for you.”

“I never do that. I never, ever…” She raised her face to his, startled. “My God, you’re doing it, too.”

“I’m actually famous for my somewhat free-flowing tear ducts,” he confessed, wiping his eyes. “The other New York critics call me the Town Cryer. I even sobbed through the end of The Blair Witch Project.”

She let out a laugh of relief as he fetched a box of Kleenex. When the two of them were done honking like Canada geese, she went over to the window and gazed out at the barn swallows that were swooping down into the cedars beyond the lighthouse. “Moose was my moral compass. Without her, I’ll be lost.”

“No, you won’t.”

She glanced at him, her eyes red and swollen. “You sound so sure.”

“I felt the same way when my wife died-lost. But I got through it. Not over it, but through it. And you will, too. In a lot of ways, it makes you a much richer person.”

“You’re a very sweet man, you know that?”

Mitch winced in pain. “That’s what girls used to say to me in college when they didn’t want to have sex with me.”

“All I meant was I thought you were a bit of a smart aleck when I first met you. Now I realize you’re not. And I really love this sweater,” she added, snuggling inside it.

“Go ahead and wear it home. Consider it a loan.”

“Thank you, I will. In fact, thank you for everything.” She finished the last of her coffee and said, “If there’s ever anything I can do for you…”

“Actually, I could use some help with my story.” Mitch lunged for the heap of plot plans he’d just copied at town hall and hurriedly began spreading the pages out on the floor to form a large map.

“What’s all this?” Takai asked, looking down at them guardedly.

“In the past two years several different development companies have bought up the land surrounding the proposed site of the new school. I was wondering two things,” Mitch said, settling back on his ample haunches. “One, if you brokered any of these sales. And two, if you know anything about these companies.”

“Yes and yes,” she answered promptly.

“Excellent. We’ve got a Pilgrim Properties of Boston, Big Sky Development of Bozeman, Lowenthal and Partners of New York and Great North Holdings of Toronto. What I’m anxious to find out is who actually owns them.”

“Bruce Leanse does. He’s the principal owner of all four companies.”

Mitch stared at her with his mouth open. “What, they’re dummy fronts?”

“No, no, it’s all perfectly aboveboard. Pilgrim’s his New England operation, Big Sky’s his Western subsidiary. Lowenthal is Babette’s maiden name. Great North is a Canadian holding company that gives Bruce a foot in the development door for Prince Edward Island, which he thinks is about to get really hot. For that one, he has a Canadian partner. Has to.”

Mitch peered at the maps intently, scratching his head. “So Bruce Leanse owns all three thousand acres?”

“He does. It’s the single largest tract of undeveloped land in New London County. He bought the parcels under different names because he was afraid the sellers would get wise to him and jack up their asking prices. Common strategy when big developers move into an area. Disney does it all the time.”

“I understand,” said Mitch, who did not understand why Takai was being so candid with him about Bruce Leanse’s plans. After all, the Brat had gone to a great deal of trouble to cover his tracks. Was she so grief-stricken over Moose’s death that she was telling him more than she should? Or was there no longer any need for secrecy?

“What do you get out of this?” he asked her, remembering that Jim had called her Leanse’s “enabler.” “Besides a commission, I mean.”

“Bruce has huge plans. I’m talking about something that will literally reinvent how we live. He’s a visionary, Mitch,” she declared, growing more animated and flushed the more she spoke about Bruce Leanse. “He sees things no one else sees. And he knows how to make them a reality. There will be zoning hurdles, no question. That’s why Babette is running for the zoning commission in February. There will be foot-dragging about the wetlands, the additional traffic-”

“Wait, how much additional traffic?” Mitch broke in.

“But he is totally sensitive to these concerns, and totally sure that this is something Dorset will want to embrace. So am I. It’s our best hope for the future. And I want to be a part of it. I want to be a part of him. That’s what I ‘get’ out of this, Mitch. But if you really want to understand what he’s doing, you should go see him.”

“He’d talk to me about this?”

“Absolutely.”

“What about your family’s land?” Mitch asked her, pointing down to the eight-hundred-acre chunk of prime river frontage that sat smack-dab in the center of Bruce Leanse’s holdings. “What will happen to it?”

“Father’s not stupid. And neither is Greta. She’ll convince him to sell. He’ll have to sell. It’s inevitable.”

“I kind of got the impression he thought Bruce Leanse was Satan.”

“He’s not Satan,” Takai argued. “And nothing is that black or white. You’re a smart man. You should know that.”

“Moose certainly didn’t want to sell.”

“No one wants to sell, Mitch. God, I sure don’t. I wish Dorset could stay exactly the way it is. But it can’t. It’s a living organism. If it doesn’t grow it will die. Look, just talk to Bruce, will you? If you don’t come away convinced, then I’ve misjudged both of you. And I almost never misjudge men…” Now Takai tilted her head at him coquettishly, wetting her pillowy lips. “That wasn’t what I was hoping you’d say. When I asked you if there was anything I could do for you… Tell me, just how tight are you and that trooper?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I was wondering if you could be pried apart.”

“Not even by the Jaws of Life,” he informed her. “You must be very upset or you wouldn’t say something like that.”

“No, I would, Mitch,” she confessed with a regretful sigh. “I’m a consummate bitch-whenever I see a man who someone else has I immediately want him for myself. Especially if the woman’s pretty, which I suppose Trooper Mitry is, in her way.” Takai went and fetched her bag, complete with loaded handgun, and slung it over her shoulder. “I’ve taken up enough of your time. You must have better things to do than play host to a hysterical female.”

“Can I ask you one more thing before you go? And if it’s none of my business just say so.”

“We shared a good, honest cry together. You can ask me anything.”

“Who was Moose’s boyfriend?”

“I have no idea. She never told me.”

“Weren’t you the least bit curious?”

“Not at all. And this will sound horrible, but it’s the truth-I didn’t care who he was because I knew I wouldn’t be the least bit interested in him. We always had different tastes in men, she and I. Except for one time. Just once…” Takai trailed off, a fond, faraway look crossing her lovely face. “But that was a long, long time ago, Mitch. And I was much younger then. We were all much younger then.”

Bruce Leanse ran his Dorset operation out of The Brat, an antique wood-hulled cabin cruiser that he kept tied up at Dunn’s Cove Marina, a deepwater mooring in the Eight Mile River that had access to the Connecticut River and Long Island Sound. The marina was off Route 156 at the end of an unmarked dirt road less than a mile south of the crossroads where Moose Frye had been killed.

It was a small, shabbily exclusive boatyard that catered to the gentlemen farmers who owned the nearby country estates. Here, the boys kept their toys. Yachts, as a rule. Big ones, though none as big as The Brat, which looked like something FDR might have toodled around in. The boatyard was deserted on this weekday afternoon in late October. There was only one car in the gravel parking lot, Bruce Leanse’s shiny black Toyota Land Cruiser.

The developer heard Mitch pull in and came bounding out on deck to greet him, his handshake hard and dry. He had not sounded surprised when Mitch phoned him for an interview. Clearly, he’d already been alerted by Takai. He was dressed in a canary-yellow Patagonia fleece vest over a denim shirt, corduroy trousers and Topsiders. Mitch had seen photographs of Bruce Leanse in the New York tabloids many times over the years, but the pictures did not convey just how robust and self-assured the man was-or how short. Mitch was shocked to discover he towered over him.

“She’s a one-of-a-kind, Mitch,” he responded proudly when Mitch asked him about the boat. “She was built in 1931 for the Connecticut state shellfish commissioner. She’s got a sixty-eight-foot hull made of long-leaf yellow pine on white oak frames. I’ve had her for three years,” he added, Mitch thinking that there was something faintly self-conscious about his dogged used of the nautically correct she.

There was an enclosed wheelhouse. A circular staircase wound its way down to the main saloon, which had interior cupboards of polished Philippine mahogany and banquettes of burgundy leather. A good deal of natural light came from the portholes on either side of the saloon. A built-in teak table served as Bruce’s desk. He had a Power Book, laser printer and fax machine set up there. Papers were heaped everywhere. A fine old Van Morrison recording, Astral Weeks, played softly on his built-in sound system, which Mitch resented. He did not want Bruce Leanse to have good taste in music. He wanted him to be listening to Mariah Carey.

There were three staterooms aft, crew quarters forward. Steam heat, stall showers, all the creature comforts. The galley had a four-burner gas stove, a full oven and refrigerator.

“She runs on a pair of Fairbanks-Morris diesel engines,” Bruce explained, showing Mitch around. “There’s a three-hundred-gallon main tank, a seventy-five-gallon day tank. I can take her to Maine, the Cape, anywhere, except that Babette and Ben both get seasick on her-they can’t stand the diesel fumes. So she’s mostly my floating office. I’m going to hate pulling her for the winter. I always like having a place where I can kick back with my business associates.”

Business associates like Takai Frye, observed Mitch, who could not help but notice her beautiful shearling jacket wrapped around a chair in the main stateroom.

“Can I offer you a beer, Mitch? Or how about some Juniors cheesecake? I had it sent out from the city this morning.”

Mitch’s stomach immediately started rumbling. “You might talk me into that.”

Bruce disappeared into the galley while Mitch poked around in the saloon, the big cruiser rocking gently under his feet. One entire mahogany wall was lined with photos of Bruce Leanse testing life’s limits. There were shots of him rocketing down Alpine ski slopes, scaling remote Tibetan mountaintops, kayaking white-water rapids, shooting big game in Africa.

There were no pictures anywhere on the wall of his wife or son.

He returned now with a slab of cheesecake for Mitch and a frosty Sam Adams for himself. He cleared space for them on the teak table. They sat across from each other.

Mitch dug into the cheesecake, which was excellent. “Do you mind if I tape our conversation?”

“Not at all. I’m going to do the same thing myself.” Bruce flicked off the music and set his own microcassette recorder right next to Mitch’s. “I’ve had some trouble with journalists in the past, Mitch. They decide from the get-go that I’m a rich asshole and then they just go ahead and make up the quotes to prove their point.” He took a sip of his beer, studying Mitch from across the table. “I hope you’re coming to this with an open mind. Because as far as I’m concerned there’s absolutely no reason for us to be adversaries. You and I really have a lot in common, when you stop and think about it.”

Mitch did stop and think about it. Bruce Leanse’s grandfather had been a reviled Lower East Side slumlord, his father a Park Avenue real estate baron who’d spent most of his career and his political capital trying to eliminate rent-stabilized housing in New York City. Mitch was one of those grubby little people who had been raised in a a rent-stabilized apartment. For thirty-six grueling years, his father taught algebra to ghetto kids at Boys and Girls High in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. His mother was school librarian at the predominately Latino Eleanor Roosevelt Middle School in Washington Heights. A lot in common? Not a chance.

In fact, it didn’t even bear thinking about.

“Why do you think reporters have such a negative opinion of you?” he asked Bruce Leanse.

“Because I’m a happy person,” Bruce spoke up boldly. “The press only likes rich, famous people who are in drug rehab or divorce court or jail. But if you have a wonderful wife and family, work that you love, friends whose company you enjoy, then they go after you. Human nature, I guess. They absolutely cannot accept the fact that someone who has it all enjoys having it all.”

Mitch had himself another bite of cheesecake, wondering if the kids at school ever stole Bruce’s lunch money or threw him in the shower with his clothes on. He doubted it. Bruce Leanse was still very much the Brat-a spoiled prince who’d always gotten his way.

Right now, Bruce was reaching for a set of blueprints and unrolling them on the polished teak table, pinning down the corners with leather-bound paperweights. “I am thrilled to have this opportunity to talk to you about my plans for Dorset, Mitch. What we’re doing here is just incredibly exciting. Let’s have a peek, shall we…?”

What Mitch seemed to be looking at was the plot plan for an entire town, each area marked by an oddly understated designation: The Homes, The Stores, The Farm, The Water, The Woods… It seemed to Mitch like something vaguely out of Orwell.

“I want you to do two things for me, Mitch,” Bruce said, launching into a well-grooved sales pitch. “First, I want you to look at the calendar. Can you see what it says? The entire baby boom generation is turning fifty-five. Second, I want you to forget everything you ever knew about continuous living choices.”

“You’re building a retirement village?” Mitch asked him in astonishment.

Bruce shook his head. “Not a chance. I am talking about something entirely new. Let’s face it, the boomers will not want condo colonies. They will not want shuffleboard. Can you see them lining up for the Early Bird dinner special in their lime-green slacks and white shoes? They sure can’t. And neither can I. What I’m looking to do here in Dorset is create a new concept in rural living that they can see-a vibrant, supportive community that revolves around nature. Mitch, I call it The Aerie,” he intoned somewhat grandly, “because it’s a place where eagles nest.”

Now Bruce paused so that Mitch might pay some form of awed tribute to his genius. Mitch did so with a polite smile and nod. He wanted Bruce Leanse to keep talking, not that he thought for one second the man could be stopped.

“The Aerie will be a self-sustaining collective enterprise,” he continued, his eyes growing bright. “A commune, in plain language. Just like back in the sixties, only this time with a Web site and a business plan and a full-time staff of paid professionals who know what the hell they’re doing. When you buy your individual solar-heated cottage in the woods, you’re also buying a share in the collective. There’ll be a bakery, an organic-produce market, a butcher-all selling products raised and processed in The Aerie by retired professionals from all walks of life. Imagine making your own cheese from your own goats, Mitch. Wool clothing made from your very own sheep. Imagine a grist mill. An art studio where you can paint and draw. A spa so you can stay in shape. A full-time medical staff for when you can’t. It will be like the Woodstock fantasy all over again, except this time it’s real.”

Mitch had to admit that Bruce Leanse was one terrific salesman, his enthusiasm both genuine and contagious. From his lips, The Aerie sounded not only possible but downright inevitable. It was as if by wanting his dream to happen, he could make it happen. All you had to do was click the heels of your red shoes together three times and believe.

“And what’s going to happen here?” he asked, pointing to an area of the map labeled The Lodge.

“That’s our profit hub,” Bruce answered quickly, tapping the blueprint with his finger several times for emphasis. “A spa-type luxury retreat, complete with a world-class restaurant featuring our own organically grown foods. Think Canyon Ranch, except you can actually live on the grounds year-round. Think of the millions of baby boomers who are nearing retirement age.” Now he was back into his spiel. “We have to find a place for them. We have to find a new philosophy. The Aerie is it. I see dozens and dozens of Aeries springing up in desirable rural areas all across America, each one of them a sustainable communal enterprise. It’s the future, Mitch, and it starts right here in Dorset. This is my pilot project.”

Mitch peered more closely at the blueprint, trying to get his bearings vis-a-vis the river. “It seems to me that the proposed site of The Lodge is right where Wendell Frye’s farm is.”

“That’s absolutely correct. And your point is…?”

“Well, how significant is his property to the successful completion of your project?”

“Okay, sure. Good question. I’d like to have it. I absolutely would, since much of what surrounds his place is wetlands, which I can’t disturb. That farm of his is a prime building site. However.

…”

“It’s not for sale,” Mitch pointed out.

“Which I totally and completely respect. I don’t run people off of their land, Mitch. I adjust. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my business, it’s that you have to be flexible. Wendell Frye is one of the major artists of this past century. A true giant. You don’t screw around with a guy like that-especially in a small town like this. Worst thing you can possibly do is move into a new place and piss off its leading citizen. That’s bone-headed. Totally suicidal.” Bruce sat back with his hands folded behind his head, grinning at Mitch. “Next question. You must be full of them.”

“How many residents will The Aerie accommodate?”

“Four hundred full-time residents. The spa’s projected to handle a hundred and fifty guests at a time.”

Plus staff. Plus deliveries. That meant a whole lot of cars and trucks coming in and out of what was now a remote area. There was no way narrow little Route 156 could handle that kind of volume, Mitch realized. And no way this wouldn’t completely transform Dorset. Building The Aerie would be like plopping a big factory down right in the middle of the village. Which had to be the real reason why Bruce Leanse had been so careful about buying up the parcels under different names. He hadn’t wanted the townspeople to get wise to what he was doing.

Until now. Now he was suddenly choosing to reveal his plans to Mitch’s newspaper. Why? Because he needed some favorable ink? Or was Moose’s death a factor? Did he hope to gain something from her murder? Had he gained something from her murder?

Actually, Mitch knew a bit about Bruce’s business affairs-he’d spoken to his friend from the real estate section before the interview. From her he had learned that the Brat was leveraged to his eyeballs. Exceedingly cash-poor. Which meant he needed smooth sailing here in Dorset or his financial backers could, and would, break him into small pieces.

Bruce was watching him carefully from across the table, trying to size him up. “I’ll be up-front with you, Mitch,” he said in a confidential voice. “A project of this magnitude is not an easy thing to pull off. Particularly in a wealthy area. Wealth breeds a sense of entitlement. People think they’ve earned the right to keep Dorset the same as it was a hundred years ago. As a result, there are a lot of Bananas around here-that’s developer-speak for Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone. I’ve faced these people before in the Pacific Northwest. The mobbed zoning-board meetings. The petition drives. The lawsuits. With all due respect, they’re less in tune with the real world than my eight-year-old, Ben. They’re just not being practical.”

Mitch said nothing in response. He actively disliked people who thought that clinging to values and ideals was something to be outgrown, like acne. This was how they slept nights, Mitch supposed. They told themselves: I am a grown-up. Anyone who disagrees with me is a child.

“Please don’t get me wrong,” Bruce added hastily, sensing the chill coming from Mitch’s side of the table. “I do understand their concerns. I live here, too. And if you showed up here looking to put in a toxic-waste dump down the road from me, I’d fight you with everything I’ve got. But that’s something that would have a negative environmental impact. The Aerie won’t.”

“But it will have an impact.”

“It absolutely will,” Leanse agreed, draining the last of his Sam Adams. “But in a positive way-by protecting from development more acres of green space than cul-de-sacs and strip malls would. Long-term, this is better for Dorset than traditional development. People need to realize this. They need to be educated. They need to understand that I truly care about Dorset. I’ve tried to reach out to them…”

“By offering to donate the land for the new school?”

“Exactly. I’m a new face in town. I’m trying to make friends.”

“Otherwise, you don’t get your building permits for The Aerie, right?”

Bruce scowled at Mitch. “You said that, I didn’t. And you’d better not try to put those words in my mouth, guy, because I’ve got what I said on tape, word for word. And I said nothing about any quid pro quo. Not to you, and not to them. The parents want a new school. The community needs it. I simply said, ‘Here, take this land.’ ”

“Your wife is head of the school board. How does that factor in?”

“It doesn’t,” he answered sincerely. “Beyond the fact that we’re the kind of people who don’t believe in taking. When we become part of a community, we get involved.”

“Is she an active participant in your business?”

“No, she’s not.”

“What about Takai Frye?”

Bruce stiffened slightly, his nostrils flaring. “Takai Frye has expedited a number of local transactions for me. I’ve often found it helpful to take on a well-connected local individual as my point person.” Now he paused, searching Mitch’s face carefully. “Why do you ask about her?” he wondered.

“Well, for starters, she told me that she’s the one who ratted out Jim Bolan to the state police-so you could snatch up his farm from the bank.”

Bruce grew pale. “She told you that?”

“She thinks it was Jim who tried to kill her this morning. She’s more than a little bit upset, as you can imagine.”

Bruce jumped up out of his seat and began to pace restlessly back and forth, much the way Quirt did when he wanted to be let out to pee. “Look, I’d really rather not discuss Takai any more, Mitch,” he said, running his hands through his short, bristly hair. “Let’s just drop her, okay?” He continued to pace, his jaw muscles clenching. He seemed profoundly agitated. “Unless… That is to say, if you’d be willing to turn off your tape recorder.” He lunged for his own and shut it off. “I’d talk to you about her then, strictly man-to-man. Christ, I’ve got to talk to someone or I-I swear I’ll go postal!”

Mitch immediately shut off his microcassette recorder and sat back in his chair, arms folded across his ample tummy.

“Great…” Leanse heaved the hugest of sighs. “Thanks, guy. I mean that.” He sat back down, taking several slow, deep breaths to calm himself. “The truth is, Takai’s a bit of a problem in my life right now. See, the two of us had a-a romantic relationship. I quickly realized it was a major, major mistake, and I tried to break it off. But she won’t let go of me. I can’t get rid of her. I just can’t!” He fell into miserable silence for a moment before he added, “And now I don’t know what the hell to do.”

Mostly, Mitch found himself wondering why Bruce Leanse was confiding in him this way. Had he no one else to spill his guts to? Someone like, say, a friend? Maybe not.

“How did you know about us, Mitch? You did know, right?”

“That’s her shearling jacket in your stateroom, isn’t it?”

“Dead on,” Bruce affirmed. “She was here with me last evening. Left in a bit of a huff. We… we quarreled. I haven’t always been a good boy, Mitch, and that’s the sad truth. But I wasn’t looking for this. All I wanted when we moved out here was a nice quiet family life. No more tabloid photographers. No more hassles. And, above all, no more sneaking around on Babette. I was really, really trying to turn over a new leaf, okay?”

Mitch nodded, thoroughly aware that he was talking to someone who’d busted a move on Des less than twenty-four hours ago, and was therefore a total snake. But he was not there aboard The Brat to point this out. He was there to listen.

“But then I met Takai. And, Mitch, I’ve never wanted a woman as badly as I want her. I’m talking about ever.” Bruce shot a hungry glance up at the spiral staircase. “I hear the rustle of her nylons on those stairs and I can barely get my pants down fast enough. Half the time we don’t even make it into the stateroom. I’ve torn her dress right off her back, just like some crazed animal. Five minutes later, I want her all over again. And then, in the night, when I’m lying in bed next to my dear wife, I start wanting her all over again. My heart pounds, the sweat pours off me. I-I’ve had to start sleeping in the guest room.” He glanced at Mitch uncomfortably. “You’re probably asking yourself why I don’t just roll over and give Babette a jab

…”

“Well, maybe something like that.”

“It’s not the same,” he insisted. “Babette is a genuinely classy person, a distinguished architect, my soul mate. She went to Harvard, for God’s sake. Do you honestly think I can do to her some of the things I do to Takai?”

“I really wouldn’t know, Bruce.” Nor did he want to.

“Believe me, Mitch, it’s a bad thing to be so out of control. Especially because I can’t even stand the woman. Takai Frye is an astonishingly not nice person. She’s mean, calculating, greedy. I need to break it off. I need my sanity back. Only, she won’t go quietly. I’m her ticket to the big dance, or so she believes. She wants a cushy, high-profile job in my company-or else.”

“She’s threatened you?”

Bruce nodded reluctantly. “Either I give her what she wants or she’ll tell Babette about us. Not only Babette but everyone in town. She’ll trash me with the old guard, Mitch. Turn the zoning and planning people against me. Tie up The Aerie for years and years. And she’d do it, too. She’s that vindictive. I don’t know what to do. I really don’t.”

“Would Babette be surprised?”

“Not in the least,” he answered bitterly. “That’s precisely my problem. The last time this happened, in Boulder two years ago, she told me flat-out she’d leave me if I ever slept around again. And take Ben with her. I cherish what Babette and I have together. I love my son. I don’t want him to spend his whole life thinking his father’s some horny louse. I want him to respect me. I don’t want…” Bruce’s voice cracked with strain. “I don’t want to lose my family, Mitch.”

Nor that comforting illusion that he was a decent human being, Mitch reflected. Bruce needed this illusion about himself. True or not, it kept him going.

“I’m not the one who tried to kill her,” he said to Mitch quietly from across the table. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I’m not,” said Mitch, which wasn’t entirely true. He was thinking that Bruce Leanse was a desperate man whose dream family and dream project were both about to go up in smoke, thanks to Takai Frye. That gave him more than enough reason for wanting her dead. Or maybe Babette had taken matters into her own hands-tried to save her marriage by eliminating the competition. This, too, was possible. Assuming she knew how to fire the humongous Barrett that Des had told him about.

And Mitch was thinking something else. That Takai wasn’t wrong.

She still had every reason in the world to be afraid.