A Bookmarked Death (12 page)

He blinked at me. “They didn’t. They’re in the Arraignments Part every day. Today they just got more than they were expecting. Be thankful News 12 has bigger fish to fry.”

As we crossed the parking lot, I held tight to Judge Cooperman’s assessment of the weakness of the case, as weak, I hoped, as the elderly man tottering across the parking lot supported by two attendants.

“Let’s get some coffee and we can talk about what’s next,” Stanton said.

Next?
Could there be something worse? A black cloud shower-capped the sky. I knew the prosecutor had threatened to strengthen the case, but what more was there to find?

“There’s a diner, the Starlight, nearly in the village,” Stanton told us. “Just turn left when you pull out and keep going till you see it.”

“But what else could
happen
?” I demanded.

“We’ll talk.”

Back in the van, I collapsed against the driver’s seat.
Safe.
We were safe. We could still leave Long Island, drive and drive until no one could ever find us. “Thank God they let you go,” I gasped.

“For now.”

“But what else can they find? Except . . .”

“Except?” His head whipped around.

“You know.” I cranked the ignition too fast; it made a squawking protest. “Nobody knows that you’ve been to that house before. On vacation with Ethan.”

“What are you talking about? That was almost thirty years ago! I told you, I couldn’t even find it again. What the judge said was true. I had no idea that they were out there last week.”

I sighed, holding the steering wheel. There was nobody left to tell them about those long-ago vacations. Whoever might have known—Ethan, Sheila, the elder Crosleys—were dead now. “But how did they know you went to Rhode Island in April?”

“That’s easy enough. Someone from Brown probably told them. Or his neighbor from across the street who I talked to afterward.”

“But the neighbor was the one who told you Ethan and Sheila had already left for Barbados. So that’s good—isn’t it?”

“Go on. Stanton’s waiting.”

I backed the van slowly out of the space. “I was hoping the judge would dismiss the case due to lack of evidence.” Praying, even. “If only he had!”

“Yeah, but there’s always the boots.”

Those damn boots.

Chapter Twenty-Three

A
S
SOON
AS
I dropped Colin off at the university and got back to the house, I called Hannah and Jane to let them know that things were still fine, that we would be heading up for Hannah’s graduation on Saturday as planned. Neither girl answered her phone so I left voice mails.

Stanton hadn’t had anything earth-shattering to say. He was more interested in recapping what had happened, in accepting our praise for how well he had done for Colin—even though I felt privately that the credit belonged to the judge. On the other hand, it hadn’t hurt to have someone of Stanton’s stature representing us. He explained that the case would now go to a grand jury, which could take several weeks.

Jane called back that night. Talking to her heartened me enough to call Jason in Santa Fe and tell him the whole story. I didn’t expect much sympathy from him, given his estrangement from Colin. But Jason was outraged. “They can’t do that to Dad,” he protested. “The whole thing’s nuts!”

“I know.”

“What planet are they operating from? How can they think anyone like him could kill people?”

“I don’t know, but I wish you were here.” I hadn’t meant to say that. I wanted the children to be free to pursue whatever they wanted in life without making them feel guilty. “I miss you.”

A pause. “But I
like
it out here, Ma. I have friends. There’s even a gallery that thinks my art is interesting.”

“You’re so far away.”

“I’ll come back if anything happens. I was just home in March. Two months ago!”

“I know.”

Jason had not been an easy child to raise, dyslexic and uninterested in academics. He had fixated on computer games and horror movies, creating artwork showing aliens attacking each other in clashing colors that made Colin wince. But my life felt emptier without Jason close by. My instinct was to huddle the wagons together for safety. What if something happened to
him
so far away? I needed everyone in one place so I could protect them.

Why hadn’t Hannah called me back?

I still hadn’t heard from her next morning. I knew I had to look at
Newsday
, but I made coffee and ate a bowl of granola with blueberries first. Then I moved into the living room and turned on my laptop. I didn’t even have to scroll down the page before I encountered myself, looking older with my hair pulled back. Stanton, Colin, and I all looked serious, as if in the middle of a mission. At least the paper hadn’t unearthed an earlier unrelated photo of us grinning like idiots.

The story was slanted to create as much drama as possible, and did not even mention Judge Cooperman‘s scathing assessment of the evidence. Most of the account focused on what had happened to Ethan and Sheila and showed a small picture of them at a gala New England event. They
were
smiling, and their smiles only added to the poignancy of their deaths.

Then the reporter told me something that the police hadn’t. Earlier on the evening that they died, Ethan and Sheila had eaten at the John Dory Inn in Southampton. That dinner was the last charge they made on their American Express card.

I stared at the screen. How had
Newsday
had gotten a copy of their credit card activity? From what I knew of Carew, she would never have released that information. I reminded myself that in our electronic age, newspapers had their own ways of getting information, their own “experts.”
Newsday
no doubt knew other things I needed to know. What time the Crosleys had left the restaurant, for instance, and whether they had met anyone there. How they had spent their final hours. Did the paper have a way of hacking into police files?

I made a note of the reporter’s name—was he the one with the tortoiseshell glasses, or the sandy-haired man with freckles?—and pushed the “Contact Us” link, writing down the phone number as well.

I stopped myself right there. It was too crazy, the wife of a murder suspect talking to a reporter. But I only had to ask him one question, though he was in a position to know other things as well. I was sure the answer was something he already knew from researching the story.

Contacting a
Newsday
reporter was not as difficult as calling the mayor. Louis Benat was on the phone right away.

“Lou Benat.” He sounded rested, ready to spend the day upsetting other people’s lives.

“Hi, this is Delhi Laine. Colin Fitzhugh’s wife? I think I saw you in court yesterday.” Was this the stupidest thing I had ever done?

“Yes, right! What can I do for you?” He sounded as if a sack of winning lottery tickets had just been dumped on his desk.

“I read your story this morning about the Crosleys’ dinner at the John Dory Inn. I was wondering how much the bill came to.”

“You mean how much they paid for dinner?” He did not sound as if that was the question he was expecting. “I could find out. For a consideration.”

Here we go.
“What kind of consideration?”

“Well, we could start with an interview. How it feels to have your husband kill someone. The details about the Crosleys kidnapping your daughter. I could find zilch on that. Where did it happen?” He talked fast, as if he feared being hung up on before he could finish what he had to say.

For good reason. My rush of outrage was disproportionate to the mild spring day outside. I muttered, “Sorry I bothered you,” and pressed end call.

The phone rang immediately and I picked it up, ready to tell him he was offensive beyond belief. “Do you always—”

“Yeah, I know. I come on too strong. But I really want to talk to you.” He turned it into a pickup line.

“I’m not interested. I only wanted some simple information that I can get from the restaurant anyway.” I couldn’t imagine how.

“Why would you want to know that? I think you had a deeper reason for calling me. You want the world to know the truth.”

Did I? What if I told him my theory that someone other than the Crosleys had died in the fire and he was able to help me find out what had really happened? How could I have thought he would give me any information without quid pro quo? No one did anything without payback. But if it meant Colin would not have to go to trial or be convicted . . .

“What’s important about what they ate for dinner?” he wheedled.

“I’m not sure.”

“You think it will help your husband’s defense? Did he eat dinner with them before he set the fire?”

Reporters, like booksellers, were not
all
insufferable, but this one was close to the top. “My husband was never
in
Southampton. If you’d listened to the judge you’d know they have no case.”

“So why are you pursuing it?”

Fair question. “Because I want to know what really happened.” It occurred to me then that I knew something important he didn’t. It had not been reported anywhere that the bodies had been burned to disfigurement before the house fire was even set. The police had not released that information to the media and none of them had thought to ask about it.

The judge had referred to the time lapse between the Crosleys’ death and the fire, but it had not been in the newspaper story.

“I bet I know lots of things you don’t,” Louis Benat teased.

“I’ll bet you do.”

“I’ll trade.”

“This isn’t a junior high sleepover.”
I let Shaun Daniels feel me up under my sweater
. “I’ll tell you what: If I find out anything earth-shattering, you’ll be the first to know. That’s all I have to trade.” I was ready to end the call when he said, “It came to $523 with tip. Are you surprised?”

“Yes.”

“Your husband didn’t tell you?”

“For the record. My husband was at a retirement dinner in Stony Brook with over two hundred witnesses. Confirmed by the police.”

“Okay, but what does that kind of money tell you?”

“That they were eating with other people and picked up the check.”

“Yeah.” He sounded thoughtful. “Why didn’t I think of that? I just figured they were drinking expensive wine or something.”

You need to get out more. Even wealthy people don’t run up that kind of bill for a casual night out.

“If they were eating with other people, why didn’t those people come forward after the fire?” he asked. “Why didn’t they go to the police?”

“You don’t know that they didn’t. But maybe they didn’t think the dinner had anything to do with what happened later.”
Maybe they’re dead.

“Rich people think they’re above the law,” he pronounced.

Oversimplify much? How could I have ever been tempted to sign him on?

“So you’re going to keep me posted.” He sounded as if he didn’t believe me.

“I said I would.”

“Okay, but tell me this: How come the police aren’t blaming
you
?”

I broke the connection.

Chapter Twenty-Four

I
T
WAS
TOO
early to go to the John Dory Inn. I called Hannah and left a message reminding her that we would get to the house where she was living on Saturday around lunchtime, then made myself go over and open the carton of sale books I had bought last week. The train into summer was pulling out of the station, and I had not yet jumped on board. Estate and book sales were increasing just as Internet sales slowed down for the summer. I should already be researching the ads and checking with Marty about the best upcoming sales. I promised myself that after the weekend at Cornell I would settle down.

As if . . .

But I had no choice. The small salary I received from Marty for managing Port Lewis Books would hardly be enough if the worst happened: if Colin’s court costs wiped out our savings and he lost his position at the university.

We wouldn’t even have a place to live. Once Colin was no longer on the faculty, we would not be eligible to rent this university-owned farmhouse. It would be the end of having the barn to store my books and work out of. Thank God that Jane and Hannah were finished with college. I could even be grateful that Jason was insisting he would never go back.

I pulled open the carton flaps. Inside were more signed art catalogs from the Hamptons. I had been saving them up to savor the way you would an unopened box of chocolates. I carefully removed several and brought them back to my worktable. The first one I looked at was a Robert Motherwell catalog from a 1980s exhibition, inscribed by the artist to a friend. Yes! I let myself look at the others; the earliest was a Thomas Hart Benton. I researched and described them, feeling the old pleasure, though I was still jittery from yesterday in court.

I also knew that I had to go back to Southampton. I had been warned away, but Carew’s threat had all the force of a sock on a windless day.

Still not time to go out there yet. At noon I closed up the barn and went back to the house to make a grilled cheese sandwich. Then I went downtown to Port Lewis Books.

B
ECAUSE
IT
WAS
early in the week, I thought Marty might be there, phoning collectors and gloating over his newest acquisitions. But as I parked in the residents’ lot, I remembered that he was at a book auction in Manhattan. A book auction I could have attended if my life hadn’t been so chaotic—and I’d had Marty’s money.

When I opened the bookshop door, the overhead bell sounded and Susie looked up from behind the counter. Her face was still flushed with new hormones, but her eyes were sad. So Paul had not come around yet. “Delhi. Hi!”

I crossed over to her quickly. “How are you?” I kept my voice too low for the customer in the room with us to hear, a man in his seventies whom I recognized by his fashionable white mustache. He was a retired physics professor from the university who loved World War II books. Our eyes met and I gave him a wave.

“I’m okay,” Susie whispered gamely. “Paul doesn’t want me to have an abortion, after all.”

“Well, good! That’s something to be happy about, isn’t it?” My feelings about abortion were complicated, but I was sure that for Susie it would lead to years of regret.

She fiddled with the sales pad. “He wants me to have the baby. But—” She couldn’t go on.

“But
what
?”

“I can’t tell anyone. I promised.”

“You can tell me. I’ve already heard it all.”

“Have you? You think so?” She didn’t sound scornful, not exactly, but there was an edge of challenge there. “Well, listen to this. Paul says you can get a lot of money for a healthy white newborn. Enough to get our business going.”

“What?” So much for not being shocked. “What is he thinking? You can’t list babies on eBay!”

“I know that. Do you think I don’t know that? But he knows these people, a couple who’s been trying to adopt a baby forever, and have gotten frustrated. They both work, they could afford . . . to pay a lot. He says we could have our own baby in a few years.”

“Susie, that’s crazy.”
No, he’s crazy.
I thought of Paul Pevney, tall and skinny with his mop of curly hair and granny glasses. He looked like someone who belonged on a college campus and I had been surprised when he had taken the job at Home Depot, though I knew they had needed money quickly. The way he loaded up books at sales had made him seem obsessed, but this went far beyond that. “He does know it’s against the law. To buy babies.”

“Delhi, it isn’t like that.” She sounded as if she were trying to convince herself. “This is something private. He says it would be like—you know—me being a surrogate mother. I’d be making someone else happy.” Her eyes, behind pale blue-framed glasses, had begun to blur with tears.

“Never mind making someone else happy! You have to make
you
happy. Your baby belongs with you. This isn’t about letting someone go in front of you in the checkout line.”

“But what am I going to do? If I don’t have him . . . Listen, Delhi, I was this big dope in high school, I was fat, I knew that no one would ever want to marry me. But Paul did. He loves me the way I am!”

Even pregnant?

“He says people do this all the time. At least”—she stared down her stomach, which was starting to gently mound—“this way the baby would still be alive.” She gave a laugh with little humor in it. “It’s kind of sweet, the way he’s encouraging me to take vitamins and eat right. To do everything to make sure the baby’s healthy.”

That seemed more monstrous than anything else she had said. “When is the baby due?”

“Around Christmas.” And then her face melted like a wax mask. The idea that she would have to give up her baby during the holidays reached her as nothing else could. She opened her mouth and began to keen like a child who has seen her pet run over.

The retired professor leaped up from the wing chair. “What’s wrong—can I help?”

“No, it’s fine,” I told him, motioning him back into his chair with my hand. I had moved around the counter and was holding Susie now. “She’s just upset.”

He lifted his eyebrows at me, but returned to his seat.

I stayed on at the shop talking to Susie, insisting on bringing her tea from the Whaler’s Arms next door. I moved her back into the small office, where for the first few minutes, all she could do was press her hands against her stomach and sob.

“No one’s going to make you give your baby away,” I kept repeating. “I’ll be here. And you can always go home.”

“But Paul—”

“It’s his baby too. He’ll come around.”

I hoped that was true.

B
ACK
IN
MY
van, I was still shaken as I checked my iPhone. Nothing from Hannah yet. A stab of unease. She was no doubt busy with graduation preparations, but she had always been a communicator, forwarding every adorable cat or dog photo that popped up on her screen. She was the one who had introduced me to Grumpy Cat and other animal videos. I told myself that it had only been since yesterday that I had not heard from her. Right now she was probably at the animal hospital where she had interned. She would be working there for the summer, and could continue to live in her off-campus housing.

Should I try her at the animal hospital? As soon as I made two other calls, I would. I asked Siri for the information and she connected me.

Next I phoned my sister, Patience, hoping she was still at their beach home in Southampton. Once the weather was nice, she didn’t always return to Manhattan during the week with Ben and the girls. She owned her own high-powered accounting firm that dealt only in corporate accounts and could work from wherever she pleased.

“Hi, Delhi.” Her voice was neutral; her interest in hearing from her twin was tempered by caution about what had inspired me to call. I never called anyone just to chat.

“Hey, Pat. I’m glad you’re out here. Are you by yourself?”

“Of course. School’s not over yet for the girls, but I have a garden tour committee tomorrow so I stayed.”

“Perfect! Do you want to have dinner with me tonight at the John Dory?”

“The John Dory Inn in town? Can you afford it?”

“No.”

She sighed.

“It would be early. Around six?”

“Why so early? And why does it have to be there? I know some better places.”

“It has to be there.”

“Am I allowed to ask why?”

“You don’t read
Newsday
?”

“You know I don’t.”

“Well, find today’s paper online. And then meet me.”

“Wait, Delhi! What part do I read? You know you can’t just show up at the John Dory without a reservation.”

A mother and daughter passed me on the sidewalk eating ice cream, so close to my window I could tell that the flavor was mint chocolate chip
. Call Hannah.

“Just go to the Web site, you’ll see right away. And we do have a reservation. That’s why we’re eating early.”

I asked Siri for animal hospitals in Ithaca since I didn’t know the name of the one where Hannah worked. Siri produced eight, none of which stirred a memory response. Hannah could just as easily be based one or two towns over, in a town whose name I didn’t even know.

No, I’d try her at home tonight. I was sure she was fine, but I couldn’t forget Elisa’s warning.

I’m okay. Be careful.