House of Secrets - v4 (35 page)

I
t was deemed quicker for Special Agents Taylor and Armstrong to take a chopper out to Brookhaven on Long Island and go over the Suffolk County Homicide Department’s materials on the murder of Joy Resnick there on-site.

Agent Taylor had done the deeming. This was one of the precise areas where the Feds flexed their muscle. Megan hadn’t even put up an argument, something for which Malcolm Bell, for one, was relieved. Detective Lamb was well known for putting up arguments.

The lead investigating officer from the Suffolk County squad had been called in from the field to synopsize his work for Taylor and Armstrong and to answer any of the agents’ questions. Detective Frank Cotton was a taut figure with a gingery mustache and a wind-torn complexion. It was easy to imagine the man jerking a marlin from the deep blue while his buddies crowded around, ready to hand him a Bud. In the two weeks since Joy Resnick’s murder, Cotton and his deputy had interviewed over forty persons. Family, friends, work colleagues of the victim, neighbors in her Park Slope neighborhood, as well as those persons with homes in the proximity of the Shelter Island house where the murder had taken place. The captain of the ferry who was on duty the night of the murder had been questioned, as well as the two-person crew.

There were several boxes of physical evidence. The bloodied sheets. The pillows and pillowcases. Joy Resnick’s dress, her underwear, her shoes. The murder weapon had not been located, but it was presumed to have been an iron pole from the horseshoe set located in the side yard. One of the two poles was missing, and the coroner’s work with the remaining one had led him to an eighty percent certainty that it was identical to the weapon used to bludgeon Joy Resnick to death. The other pole had been bagged and was included along with the other physical evidence.

Fingerprint evidence had proved disappointing. The house had been used by members of the victim’s family, as well as being rented out several times over the year. The place was awash with whorls, but none that could be isolated as having particular significance in the case of the murder. Parts of the house — the bedroom, the kitchen — showed signs of having been wiped down. Joy Resnick’s prints were abundant, but no one really needed fingerprints to prove that Joy Resnick had been in the house. That part everyone knew.

The captain of the ferry reported shuttling the victim over from Greenport early in the evening. He reported to the police that she had remained in her car for the ten-minute crossing, and that he had not noticed whether there were any passengers in the car. Likewise, the two crew members could not say with certainty whether Joy Resnick had been accompanied. One of them thought she’d been alone; the other knew only that he was not certain.

Possibly the most comprehensive story was coming from the sets of footprints on the grass and dirt around the house, though the interpretation of the story was not as clean as the investigators would have liked. Cotton’s forensics consultant had settled on a total of four different sets of footprints, one of the sets being those of the victim. The other three sets of footprints showed movement in the driveway, around the side of the house, and in the back as well. One set appeared to head off in the direction of the trees that bordered the property at the rear. The woods had been scoured, the search yielding a faded orange Frisbee and a deteriorated life vest, also once orange.

Agent Taylor wanted to hear the investigator’s thoughts on the entrance onto and presumed egress from the island of the murderer or murderers. “It’s an island. Have we got three men arriving together on the ferry and three men leaving?”

Cotton answered, “Not to anyone’s memory.”

“How about just two men?”

“Who notices a couple of guys getting on a ferry?”

“So that’s a no,” Taylor said.

“Correct.”

“There’d been sex,” Armstrong said.

Cotton gave him a cool look. “That’s right.”

“Multiple?”

“The ME sees a single act.”

“Pretty woman,” Armstrong said, waving the picture. “Why does only one of our boys get lucky?”

Taylor frowned at his partner, as did Cotton, who replied to the question. “Maybe they drew straws, Mr. Armstrong, I honestly don’t know.”

Agent Taylor was trying hard to work it all out. “Okay, we might have her in bed with someone she’s intending to be in bed with, and then two goons break in. That’s one of our possibles. And if she did go over on the ferry alone, then she met up with her bed partner on the island. He was already there.”

Armstrong spoke up. “Or he hid in the car going over.”

Cotton asked, “Why in the world would he do that?”

“I don’t know. Because he was planning to join his buddies in a little pile-on and didn’t want to be seen in advance with the victim?”

Cotton turned to Agent Taylor. “Is this what I missed by not getting my training at Quantico?”

Armstrong balked. “Look, we’re just trying to lay out all the possibilities, Detective. Two weeks into this thing and I’m not seeing a hell of a lot of progress here in Mayberry. We’ve got to step it up. The clock is ticking on Michelle Foster.”

Taylor snapped at his partner. “Brian!”

The younger agent held his ground. “We don’t have the luxury of time, Tom.”

Cotton didn’t appear to be affected by the agent’s attitude. “That’s fine, Agent Armstrong. I’m with you. Let’s run it down. One. Miss Resnick either went over with her lover in the car or she went over alone and her lover was already on the island. Two. There was no lover at all, just a nasty bunch of gangbangers, and for whatever reason only one of them got the prize. Three. They were already on the island when she got there, went over together or separately, either on the same ferry run or earlier that day or some other day. Or, for that matter, in their own boat. I think that covers it, right? Though since we’d be smart to lay out
all
the possibilities, I suppose they could have come swinging out of the sky. Except we’ve gotten no reports of any helicopter sightings or anyone hearing all that racket they’d make, but hey, you know, it’s possible Uncle Sam has developed himself some sort of stealth helicopter that we rubes here in Mayberry know nothing about.” He held up a hand to stop Armstrong’s protest. “In which case we’ll dispatch some hound dogs to go check out the secret hangars where y’all keep these hellies. That is, if we can get the government to cooperate and let us have a look-see.” He gave the young agent a broad smile. “I suppose this is where you could come in extra handy, friend.”

Armstrong glowered.

Cotton indicated the photograph that was still in the agent’s hand. He also dropped the hayseed accent.

“I’ve got a teenage daughter, Mr. Armstrong. Whoever did all this, I want to see them skinned alive. Okay? You can trust me on that. I’m doing my job, sir.”

The lawmen got back on track. The Feds were especially interested in the interviews that had been conducted with Joy Resnick’s circle. The portrayal was of a capable, dynamic woman. Single, with a seemingly healthy dating life. Nothing kinky. No known risk-taking tendencies. There was nothing in her personal history to raise a red flag. As best anyone knew, she had not been seeing anyone on a regular basis for several months at least. There were no indications that she had been either distracted or worried or moody in the days leading up to her trip out to the island.

“Unless this really is just an unfortunate case of some good old boys getting some serious rocks off, we’re looking for a single assailant with a supersize grudge,” Armstrong said. “Ninety percent of the time, victims know their killers. Someone had it in bad for this lady.”

Cotton appeared on the verge of taking on the agent’s comment, but he let it slide. Taylor declared that he wanted to see the murder site firsthand. He instructed Armstrong to take the list of people interviewed back in Manhattan and to revisit select ones, starting with Joy Resnick’s colleagues at Masters and Weiss. Clearly Armstrong’s questions were to now include the matter of Marion Mann.

“Two of their own have now been murdered. That should be stirring them up more than a little. See if anyone is afraid that they might be next, or has any theories about who a third could be. Look for professional jealousy, anything like that. Detective Lamb is doubtless pumping these people as we speak, so you’ll get some resistance. Focus on anyone who had any part to play at all on the Dracula account, even if it was peripheral.

Dracula was the code name the agents had chosen for Senator Foster. The name had popped into Agent Taylor’s head.

Taylor concluded, “I’ll go walk the scene with the detective here. You go find out why someone has got their pants in a twist about this PR agency. We’ll rendezvous in the city at nine.”

A
gent Taylor and Detective Cotton drove the forty miles east to Greenport and took the ferry over to Shelter Island. It being a Friday afternoon, the ferry’s small deck took its maximum number of vehicles. Maybe a dozen foot passengers from the train also made the short crossing.

The road from the ferry drop rose up into the island’s main village then angled to the east, climbing a narrow serpentine route that bordered the water.

“Pipes Cove,” Cotton said, indicating the blue beneath them. “Technically, Peconic Bay. You like oysters?”

“I’ve had them,” Taylor said. “I can’t say I’ll die if I never have any more.”

“Time was, oysters practically oozed out of the waters down there. Clams, too. And especially scallops. These parts were known for our scallops. The hurricane in thirty-eight wiped out a good third of all the harvests. You never heard of Widow’s Hole?”

The veteran FBI agent laughed. “I’m not touching a line like that.”

“Yeah. Sounds kind of queer at that, doesn’t it? It’s a brand of oyster from these parts. Big and plumpy. All your big restaurants in the city are serving Widow’s Holes.”

“You strike me as a fishing type, Detective,” Taylor said.

Cotton looked over at him. “Is that fancy FBI profiling, or do I just reek of fish?”

“Profiling,” Taylor said. “Though I wouldn’t necessarily call it fancy.”

The winding road ended in a gentle descent down toward a wide inlet. Cotton jerked his thumb out the window next to his head. “The house is up on the very top of that hill. We pretty much switchback to get up there.”

He turned left off the main road. Off to the right, Taylor noted a motel adjacent to the beach. It looked like an okay place to leave the world behind for a few days.

The car moved up the hill along a zigzagging wooded road that ended at the foot of a steep pebble driveway. They moved up the driveway. As the house came into view, Cotton frowned.

“Someone’s here.”

A faded blue Fairlane was parked in front of the house. The landau roof’s years of exposure to the sun were evident in the peeling fabric.

“Looks like someone took a wrong turn in 1969 and ended up here,” Cotton said, pulling up next to the car.

“The scene’s not still secured, is it?” Taylor asked.

“Two weeks in? God, no.”

Taylor remarked, “Nice-looking old place.”

“Yeah, it is, isn’t it? The way I’ve got it, the family has been here for quite a while. The victim’s grandparents bought the place back in the fifties. Half the time it’s rented out. You’ll get a nice nickel, location like this.”

The two got out of the car.

“Stays decent cool up here, even in the summer,” Cotton remarked as they approached the porch. “Your breeze comes right up from the cove, plus you’ve got all this shade. It’s prime turf, to be sure.”

Taylor concurred. “I’d take it.”

The pair went up onto the porch and the detective knocked on the front door. Agent Taylor jammed his hands into his rear pockets and twisted around to survey the view from the porch. Behind him, the front door lock clicked. Cotton began to speak.

“Hello. I’d like—”

As Taylor started back around a second
click
sounded, simultaneous with an explosion. A piece of the back of Detective Cotton’s skull lifted up toward the trees, and the man dropped.

Taylor’s face was slapped with a red mist. A howl formed instantly deep within him. It never even cleared his chest. His hands never left his rear pockets. A second shot was fired point-blank, and Taylor collapsed like a puppet cut free. His body folded indecorously across that of the fallen Suffolk County lawman.

P
aul Jordan frowned as he responded to the doorbell. The reason he was frowning was that there should have been no doorbell. The iron gate at the foot of the driveway was secured, and no one had buzzed up to the house requesting entrance. The others were lingering over their desserts at the table, a tableau of normalcy upon which Whitney Hoyt had insisted.

A woman in a black pantsuit stood on the front step. An abundance of silver-streaked hair was piled and clipped atop her head and a knowing smile was planted on her bright red lips. A green suitcase stood at her side.

“My goodness, if it’s not my dear ghostly past. Hello, Paul.”