The Bright Silver Star (21 page)

“Kinder and gentler is not my style.”

“I’m not saying it should be. Do what works for you. Keep the funk alive. Just keep an eye on your subject’s temperature gauge, too. Know when to back off.”

“Yeah, I can be a raw dog sometimes,” Yolie admitted, nodding her head. “Especially when I’m uptight. I mean, she’s so famous and all. Only, why did she say that to me about my cheek?”

“She’s an actress. Everything in her world is make-believe. Pay no attention. You’re doing fine.”

“Real?”

“Real.”

“Big thanks,” Yolie said gratefully. “Ready to go?”

“Go where?” asked Des, frowning.

“Interviews. Soave wants you along, since you know the people.”

“Okay, sure.” Des started back inside, then stopped. “Oh, hey, you didn’t give up anything to the tabloids yesterday about Mitch, did you?”

“Who, me?” Yolie let out a huge laugh. “Not even. Soave won’t let me anywhere near the press. ‘One voice, one message,’ he always says. Between us, I think Tawny’s on the receiving end of a big happy whenever that little man sees himself on television. Why are you asking?”

“Just curious,” Des said, smiling at her. “Come on, girl. Let’s do Dorset.”

C
HAPTER 9

I
T WAS SUCH A
sultry, sticky morning that there wasn’t even a breath of breeze out on Big Sister. Mitch could barely make out the Old Saybrook Lighthouse through the haze as he stood at his windows, drinking his morning coffee and listening to the shrill whine of the cicadas in the trees. The Plum Island workboat was chugging its way out, the Sound as calm as a bathtub. But no summer yachtsmen were setting out for a day’s sail. There was no point in leaving the boatyard when the weather was like this.

He hadn’t slept well. For one thing, Clemmie was way unhappy about him traipsing off to New York that way. She made her displeasure known by bounding across his bed like a playful faun every half hour all night long. In Clemmie World, this was known as payback.

Not that Mitch would have been able to sleep anyway. Not after he’d made the mistake of checking the Web sites of the New York tabloids to see what they’d be featuring about Tito’s death in their morning editions.

Garbage, that’s what.

Snide quotes from unnamed sources implicating him in Tito Molina’s death. Dirty hints that he knew more than he’d let on, possibly even had something to do with it. . . .
Obviously, the authorities want to learn everything they can from him . . .
. Why on earth did someone, anyone, think he was holding out? Mitch didn’t have the slightest idea. But he did find it deeply, deeply disturbing. Despite his own best efforts, he was being turned into a featured player in this ongoing media sideshow . . . .
And costarring chubby, good-natured Mitch Berger as the thinking man’s Kato Kaelin . . .
And now he had no control over what was happening to him. Zero. None.

And so he’d tossed and he’d turned all night long as the ceiling fan stirred the warm, steamy air around his sleeping loft and Clemmie periodically leaped across his stomach, yowling. And he was up well before dawn, getting shaved and dressed. Naturally, as soon as he started stirring Clemmie curled up in his chair and went fast to sleep, one paw over her eyes to block out the rising sun.

Mitch didn’t log on to his computer. He didn’t want to read any more stories connecting him to Tito’s death. He didn’t even want to look at his own story about Tito in this morning’s paper.

What he wanted was to get his life back.

He was looking forward to his daily hike with the Mesmers. He could use a good honest dose of Dodge Crockett’s upbeat reassurance, Will Durslag’s croissants and quiet strength, even Jeff Wachtell and his kvetching.

But there was no Dodge waiting there in the haze when he trudged his way across the causeway with his birdwatcher’s glasses— just big Will and little Jeff.

“Hey, man, we missed you yesterday,” Jeff called to him cheerfully.

“I had to wait around for the police.”

“Do they seriously consider you a suspect?”

“I seriously don’t know. But I didn’t push Tito off any cliff.”

“We all know that,” Will assured him, standing there with his knapsack filled with fresh-baked goodies. “Real nice article you wrote about him, Mitch.”

“Thanks, Will,” Mitch said, peering down the misty path in search of Dodge. “Don’t tell me our captain’s actually late.”

“Maybe Dodger ought to buy himself a wristwatch,” Jeff cracked.

“Sure, let’s chip in and get him one,” Mitch joined in, still trying to fathom the concept of the little guy and Martine naked together. He couldn’t imagine what went through Jeff’s mind every morning as he walked along next to Dodge, stride for stride, knowing that he was shtupping the man’s tall, blond beauty of a wife behind his back. How did he feel—gleeful, superior, guilty, all of these things?

“Dodge is
never
late,” Will said, frowning. “I don’t know where he is.”

“He must be tied up with Esme this morning,” Mitch said. “Don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t,” Will said. “When I talked to him on the phone last night he said Martine was going to stay with her for a few days, and that he’d see us out here in the morning.”

“So something came up,” Jeff said. “Come on, men, let’s march. I’ve got a full morning of unpacking ahead of me.”

Will didn’t budge. “If something came up he would have called me,” he said stubbornly. Will always carried a cell phone on their walks in case Donna needed to reach him. He pulled it out of his back pocket and punched in Dodge’s number and waited as it rang, an intent expression on his face. “Machine,” he grunted, shaking his head. He left no message. “This is really not like Dodge, I’m telling you.”

Mitch studied Will curiously. “Do you have a feeling something’s wrong?”

“I really don’t know,” Will said with obvious concern. “But he
was
all by himself last night.”

“Does he have a health problem that we don’t know about?” Jeff asked. “A heart condition or something?”

“Hell no,” Will responded. “He’s in great shape.”

“Then what’s the big deal?”

“I just think we should go take a look, that’s all. Make sure he’s okay.”

“If that’s what you want,” Mitch said. “You know him best.”

“Well, I think you guys are wasting your time,” Jeff argued. “This is the only break I get all day. Me, I’m going to walk our walk.” And with that he marched off down the path, toes pointed outward in an exceedingly ducklike fashion.

They took Mitch’s truck, Mitch helping himself to a warm croissant as he eased his way down Peck’s Point’s rutted dirt path to Old Shore Road. Will bounced along next to him, big and broad shouldered, his lean face etched with worry as he gazed out the windshield at the road. Mitch found himself wondering why. What did Will know that he wasn’t sharing?

“I think I’ve figured out your secret,” Mitch said, munching.

“My secret? . . .” Will seemed startled.

“Your great-tasting croissants. I know how you do it.”

Now Will’s face broke into a lopsided grin. “Okay, Mitch, take your best shot.”

“Butter,” he declared.

“What about butter?”

“My theory is that when something tastes really, really good it generally has something to do with extra butter. A whole lot of extra butter. Would you say I’m right or wrong?”

“Mitch, you are not wrong,” Will conceded, laughing.

“You see?” Mitch exclaimed triumphantly. “I knew it.”

The Crocketts lived on ten acres of lush green meadow and marshland overlooking the Connecticut River on Turkey Neck Road, an exclusive little lane that twisted its way along a narrow peninsula off of Old Shore Road. The land had been in Dodge’s family for many generations. Mile Creek ran along the edge of the property, which was enclosed by fieldstone walls that dated back to the 1820s, when the land was first cleared for farming.

As Mitch pulled in at their driveway, Will asked him to stop so he could hop out and see if Dodge had retrieved that morning’s
Wall Street Journal
from their mailbox. Dodge had. Then Will climbed back in the Studey, gazing down the long gravel drive at their rambling, natural-shingled house. Long ago, it had started out as a modest summer bungalow. Then it had been winterized. Then modernized. Then added on to—a music room for Dodge’s piano, an office, a gourmet kitchen with French doors that opened onto a blue-stone terrace overlooking the tidal marshes.

“My dad used to plow this driveway when it snowed,” Will said, slamming his door shut behind him. “I’d come with him sometimes. It was always early in the morning, freezing cold. God, I loved those mornings. He had an old truck like this one, and the heater never worked.”

“This one doesn’t work either,” Mitch said to him encouragingly.
He enjoyed hearing Will’s Rockwellesque remembrances of his youth.

“One year, when I was twelve, two feet of pure white powder fell overnight,” Will recalled fondly as they rumbled up the drive toward the house. “It was a bright blue morning, and when we got here there was this snowman, must have been twelve feet high, standing right in front of the house. Dodge had built it for Esme in the night. She was tiny then, three or four. It had a carrot for a nose, coals for eyes, a scarf, hat, the whole nine yards. Most amazing thing I’d ever seen. Even my dad couldn’t get over it. H-He died just a few months after that, cancer of the pancreas. Went real fast. The amazing thing is I’ve been down this driveway a million times since then, but every single time I pull in here I flash right to that morning, that snowman, riding next to my dad in that cold truck.” Will hesitated, glancing shyly over at Mitch. “Do you ever do that—live inside of your memory that way?”

“God, yes. There are certain street corners in the West Village, every time I see them I think of Maisie and start to mist up. There are restaurants I haven’t gone back to since she died. Fire Island is off-limits. The Mohonk Mountain House up in New Paltz is flat-out haunted, so is Tuscany, where we spent our honeymoon. Hell, I almost had to give up our apartment.”

“But you didn’t, right?”

“No, I did something much smarter than that—I came to this place. That’s how I met Des. And you and Dodge.”

“Dodge is a rock. If it hadn’t been for him, I’d never have made it after my dad died. Martine, too. I owe both of them so much.”

Will obviously cared deeply about the Crocketts, Mitch reflected. So why had Dodge glowered at him that way on the beach? And if they’d been so good and kind to Will, why had Bitsy Peck called the two of them cannibals?

The garage door was open, Dodge’s diesel wagon parked inside. Mitch pulled up by the front porch and killed the engine. It was very quiet, so quiet he could hear the flapping of gull wings overhead.

“Want to ring the bell?” he asked Will as they got out.

“Let’s check around back. They usually leave the kitchen door unlocked.”

A wrought-iron dining table and chairs were set up out on the terrace to take maximum advantage of its view of the tranquil tidal marshes. A juice glass and coffee cup, both emptied of their contents, sat there on the table. So did the
Wall Street Journal,
a set of car keys, a pair of sunglasses, Dodge’s birdwatching binoculars, Dodge’s sun hat . . . everything but Dodge.

“This is really weird,” Will said fretfully, trying the French door to the kitchen. It was locked. “I don’t like this at all.”

They put their noses to the glass, shielding their eyes against the sun’s glare with their hands.

Will let out a gasp. “Oh no . . .”

Dodge was sprawled out on the tile floor behind the kitchen’s center island. Mitch could make out only the lower part of his body—his hiking shoes and shins. But he could definitely hear faint whimpers of pain coming from in there.

“Better call nine-one-one, Will.”

Will had other ideas—he threw his big shoulder against the glass door with all of his might and shattered the whole damned frame. As the lock gave way he stormed inside, Mitch on his heels. But what they barged in on was not Dodge writhing in pain on the floor.

Because Dodge was not alone.

He was going at it with someone there on the kitchen floor, his hiking shorts bunched down at his knees. The naked woman was slender and pale and appeared to be quite young, although frankly Mitch couldn’t tell much about her because she had a canvas gunny sack over her head, the drawstring pulled tight across her throat. The whimpers that they’d heard were hers. She was pinned there beneath Dodge on her hands and knees, her wrists lashed together around a leg of the massive maple chopping block next to the stove.

As Mitch and Will burst inside Dodge tumbled back against the counter in surprise, reaching for a dish towel to cover himself. He lay
there, his chest heaving, sweat pouring from him as Mitch and Will stood there with their mouths open, too flabbergasted to speak.

“W-We phoned,” Will finally stammered dumbly. “When you didn’t answer we got concerned.”

“No reason to be,” Dodge assured him with remarkable calm. “Another opportunity presented itself this morning, that’s all. What with me bunking alone and all.”

From the floor next to the chopping block, the woman bucked and strained against her wrist restraints, moaning incoherently inside of that gunny sack over her head. Mitch stood there, shuddering with revulsion. He felt as if he’d just walked in on a porn film that had been custom-tailored for ranking members of the Gestapo.

“There’s nothing unusual going on here, men,” Dodge pointed out, in response to Mitch’s look of sheer horror. “Just two adults having consensual sex.”

What Mitch wanted to do was run right out the door. Go straight home and wash out his brain with soap and water. But he didn’t. Instead, he crossed the kitchen floor and knelt next to the woman, who was so slender her ribs and vertebrae were plainly visible.

She recoiled in animal fright when he touched her.

“Sshh, it’s okay,” he whispered, gently removing the bag from over her head.

Her eyes were wild with panic and she was gagging for air—some kind of black material had been stuffed into her mouth. Her panties, Mitch discovered as he reached in and pulled them out. She immediately began gulping down huge lungfuls of air, her breathing rapid and ragged. Mitch dug his pocketknife out of his shorts and cut through the leather cord that bound her hands together. Her thin cotton summer dress lay in a heap next to her on the floor. Mitch helped her on with it.