Black Swan (21 page)

    "You don't know what made him run off. Maybe it was them."

    "And why would that be?" he asked, whether he really wanted to know, or knew already and wanted confirmation, was a hard call. I couldn't help him either way.

    "Beats me, but you can't ignore a simple correlation."

    "There's nothing simple about Axel."

    "Or you," I said. There was a lot I wanted him to tell me, but I didn't know how hard to push. He was still ostensibly in charge of the place, and without Anika's contrivances, I knew I wouldn't get too far. "None of this is any of my business, and you can tell me to shut up and go away anytime you want, but I gotta ask you one question."

    He neither agreed nor disagreed, so I kept going.

"Why do you want to help those jamokes with N-Spock

5.0 when they treated you like such crap?"

    "You seem to think you know something about my business affairs."

    "Two can play the Google game," I said. "There's a lot out there, and I can guess what isn't."

    This amused him.

    "I wouldn't be so sure about that," he said. "And you're right, it isn't any of your business," he added, though not as harshly as the words would suggest.

    Anika came into the room. She examined our faces, as if to glean from there the topic of our conversation.

    "No luck?" she asked me.

    I shook my head.

    "But I did meet Desi Arness. And Sacco and Vanzetti, the best trained anarchists on record."

    She arched her eyebrows.

    "Oh? And what did they have to offer?" she asked.

    "Nothing useful. I hear you outbid Desi for the Swan."

    "That was easy," said Fey, "his heart wasn't in it. He already owns most of the island, anyway. They're better off with at least one landmark out of his hands."

    "But it was all friendly," I said.

    "Oh, sure," said Anika, before her father could answer. "We want to get along with everybody."

    I didn't think I'd learn more from Fey at that point, and Anika wouldn't speak freely in front of him, so I had to settle for small talk before excusing myself and going back outside. The storm had caused the trees to lose some of their color, but it still looked like autumn—the red, yellow and orange tones deepening as the sun headed toward the horizon. And felt like autumn, with erratic bursts of the northwesterly slipping the chill air under my windbreaker and burning my cheeks.

    I'd returned the key to the station wagon, so I decided to walk to the western end of the island to check on the arrival of the replacement Fishers Island State Police force.

    I went directly to the ferry office, which was back in operation. A piece of plywood covered the broken windowpane. Behind the ticket counter sat a woman with a thick head of frizzy red hair, parted in the middle and brushed down to her shoulders. Her face, too old for the hair, was high-cheekboned with an angular nose and pointed chin.

    "So you're back in business," I said.

    "Never should've been out, but yes. We are. With reduced runs. Here."

    She slid a computer print-out of the temporary schedule across the counter.

    "Do you know if there's a state cop back on duty?"

    She turned around and looked toward the barracks, as if she could see through the walls.

    "There should be, Lord knows. We could call."

    She picked up a phone and dialed a number read off a piece of paper taped to the counter.

    "I just wanted to see if someone was here," she said into the phone. "I'm calling from the ferry office."

    She nodded a few times, then looked about to get off when I asked if I could talk to the person on the other end of the phone. She gave up the receiver with some reluctance.

    "Not too long," she said. "That's our only line."

    "Officer, this is Sam Acquillo," I said into the phone.

    "Stay where you are," said a deep male voice. "I'll pick you up."

    I didn't know what being picked up implied, but I was committed. I thanked the red-haired woman and went outside to wait. In a few minutes Poole's cruiser pulled up, driven by a young guy in a New York State trooper's uniform. He had very clear brown skin and a close-cropped mat of black hair. When he got out of the car I saw he was about

my height, but had a few inches on me at the shoulders. His handshake telegraphed plenty of reserve power. A pair of round, thin black-framed glasses perched on the end of his nose.

    He introduced himself as Ashton Kinuei.

    "Glad you finally got here," I said.

    "Just an hour ago. We launched as soon as the marine bureau got the okay. Still a bit bumpy. Trooper Poole sends her regards."

    He told me she was going into surgery to repair the damage inside her mouth, but was otherwise in recovery mode. He asked me if I knew who did it.

    "No idea," I said. "But I can tell you what I do know."

    We sat in the cruiser while I briefed him on everything I could remember, leaving out the altercation with the two security meatballs. I had no idea how that one would go, but I was hoping professional embarrassment over getting their asses kicked and the fact that they'd attacked me outside the club would keep it under wraps. Though the one guy's missing sidearm might take some explaining.

    Kinuei typed steadily on a small laptop while I talked, interrupting with apologies to clarify a point or to spell a name. I felt the repressed grip of anxiety loosen from around my heart as I listened to his calm, deliberate manner. I thought at that moment, all will be well.

    "You have a series of events and impressions here," he said, "but no beliefs or conclusions. Anything you're not sharing?"

    He looked up from his tiny computer over the top of his glasses.

    "I'm an engineer. We're congenitally committed to empirical reasoning. Sure, I have some guesses. But I can't support them with anything more than a hunch. And my experience with police investigations is to keep my hunches to myself until there's at least a shred of corroboration."

    "I'm told you've had more than your share of that type of experience. From both sides of the equation."

    "Yes, sir. Which I hope only supports my approach."

    He went back to his laptop and tapped out a few more lines. He wasn't a small guy, but his fingers were long and lean, and he typed like a jazz pianist. I waited.

    "You have friends in interesting places," he said, then looked over at me again, his expression both amused and filled with admonition. "I don't care."

    "Me, neither," I told him. "I just wanted to get somebody out here. The whole situation's got me a little nerved out."

    "So about the barracks' ordnance . . ."

    I reached in the pocket of my windbreaker.

    "Here's Glock one," I said, tossing it on the seat. "I hid the other. The Remington's out of reach for a little while. I'll get 'em back to you as soon as I can. No worries on that. I hate guns."

    "I'm sure you will," he said, expressing both warning and conviction.

    He drove me back to the Swan where I introduced him to Anika and Christian Fey, who had mixed reactions. Fey nearly beamed with relief, Anika stood back, her jagged smile at half-mast. I felt sorry that they had to go through another grilling, this time with added content, but they couldn't expect the cop to be a mind-reader. As I listened to them, it became clear that Ashton Kinuei was more than a grade above the already well-trained New York State trooper. Erudition sweated off his carefully articulated sentences.

    When the interview drifted into technical esoterica, he didn't blink. After a half-hour survey of contemporary software development processes and protocols, including a brief diversion into the pros and cons of fifth generation programming language, from both technological and sociological perspectives, Kinuei said, "I will need to speak to Mr. Hammon and Mr. 't Hooft. Are they available?"

    "They're out sightseeing," said Fey. "I expect them back for dinner."

    "You'd be amazed at how much you can see in four square miles," I said.

    "They're also looking for my son," said Fey.

    "Any intellectual property disputes relating to your company's software is out of my jurisdiction," said Kinuei. "Unless it connects to the death of Mr. Sanderfreud. Should I be pursuing that avenue of inquiry?" he asked Fey, his face a wall of professional remove.

    Both Feys took longer than they should have to respond. Finally Anika said, "We don't know what happened to Myron. I thought that's what the police were supposed to figure out."

    Kinuei was pleased by that.

    "We are, ma'am. I appreciate the reminder."

    We waited around together for Hammon and 't Hooft to show, but eventually Kinuei cashed it in. He asked the Feys to have them call or stop by the barracks when they had a chance. He said to remind them they couldn't leave by ferry without him knowing it, so to save any fuss, to just make contact.

    I walked him out to his car.

    "Who are you really," I asked.

    He looked over at me as we walked across the parking lot.

    "Assistant District Attorney, Eastern Suffolk County. On loan to the state police, where I did five years while putting myself through law school, so no disrespecting the qualifications."

    "Not me. I'm all respect. So what do you think?" I added after a pause.

    "Never heard so much bullshit in my whole life. Correct that. I've heard worse bullshit, just from stupider people."

    "I'm sorry to hear that. I so much wanted to believe," I said.

    "This is no longer your problem," he said. "No sense hanging around."

    "Everybody's so concerned about my senses."

    "Though if you want to hang around, I can't stop you."

    "We need to find that kid," I said.

    "Since he's eighteen, he's not a kid and we don't have to find him until he becomes a missing person, which presents a far higher standard as to what constitutes missing."

    "But we're still going to look for him," I said, using the royal 'we' to imply that included him.

    "We are," he said.

    When we reached the cruiser, I asked him one more question.

    "What's your gut say? What do you think is going on?"

    He thought about it.

    "Whenever there's stupid big money involved, it dis- torts things. Can't jump to conclusions like you would in a routine case, where all the players are either poor or ignorant or both."

    My regard for Ashton Kinuei went up another notch. It compelled me to say, "Don't let the sleepy little backwater thing fool you. This island's got some teeth."

    He dropped into the cruiser, fiddled with the electronics on the dashboard, then rolled down the window and slammed the door.

    "Gettin' me back that shotgun would be a comfort," he said, before turning on to the road and disappearing into the freshly failing light.

followed my nose through the breakwater, past a pair of private buoys, then using the little flashlight I always kept in my back pocket, found the entrance to my secret anchorage. A few minutes later I lit up the long white hull of the
Carpe
Mañana.

    As I killed the motor and drifted up to the stern I could hear a familiar bark. Lights flashed on over the cockpit and the forepeak.

    When I cut the motor and drifted into the transom, I yelled, "Don't shoot. It's me. Sam."

    "How do you know I won't shoot anyway?" Amanda yelled from somewhere below.

    As I grabbed a stanchion in an effort to steady myself, Eddie appeared above, hopping on his front legs, his face in full grin, tongue out.

    "Hey man," I said, reaching up to scrunch around a designated spot behind his ears.

    I secured the dinghy and scrambled up the swim ladder. I was unsteady climbing into the cockpit, so Eddie nearly bowled me over trying to say hello. I told him to knock it off, which only encouraged him.