Night Mares in the Hamptons (33 page)

“But this time I'll do it. Then I'll call your mother.”

“That's really low.”

“Have a good time.”

“Why don't you come with us?” Susan was packing a cooler with beer and sandwiches and fruit. All my groceries from yesterday.

Ty straightened the papers: contracts, deeds, municipal codes, spreadsheets and about twenty more pages of official-looking documents. He gave her a four-letter-word look.

They left, in a hurry.

“What are you going to do today, Willow?” He put the papers back in the manila envelope. “I'll be busy with this stuff for the next week, it looks like. And making a million phone calls.”

“I wish I could help you, but I wouldn't know where to start. As it is, I have a poster, a banner, and a program to design, a course to plan, a book to write, some problem parents to convince, a gambler to ask for the day's number, and a plumber to see about a stopped-up sink.”

“I didn't know you were a gambler.” He looked around the kitchen. “I didn't notice anything not working right either.”

“Joe the plumber is a scryer. If he's back from the hospital, he'll show me where H'tah is. Mrs. Merriwether shares her lucky numbers. She might have another clue for me.”

“You still can't let it go? No matter how long the mares stay away, you want to believe the colt is here?”

“I don't know about the here, or the wanting, but I have to believe he's alive and that I'll find him. Maybe the mares just gave up. Maybe they got called home. I don't know, but I have to keep trying.”

“And you think a plumber and a numerologist are going to help?”

“I don't know what else to try.”

Joe was home, but pretty banged up from jumping out of his truck when it got pushed into the bay. He went over the cliff onto the rocks, but at least he didn't drown. His ex-wife was taking care of him, to her credit, but to her annoyance and his additional misery. She kicked a battered vacuum and said he was sleeping. Besides, she thought the crystal water ball thing was a lot of crap, another way the lazy good-for-nothing avoided work.

Natalie wasn't from Paumanok Harbor, and she didn't live here. Obviously.

“Hey, who's downstairs? I hear voices.”

“Shut up, dickhead. You're supposed to be resting, so you can get the hell out of bed and I can go home.”

“I'd get better faster if I didn't have to listen to you bitching every minute. When you're not tying up my phone with that asshole you married.”

“The only asshole I married drove his van into the ocean.”

“It was the bay, fleabrain, and I was pushed. You lived here three years, and you still don't know the difference.”

“I lived with you for three years, and I still don't know why either.”

Natalie hit the switch on the vacuum and drowned out whatever Joe would have shouted back.

“I don't think the slob vacuumed since I left. You may as well go on up. He's awake, not that you can tell from his brilliant conversation.”

Joe was glad to see me and the bag of scones I brought. “If the bitch could cook, I might have stayed married.”

I wondered why; there was always takeout. Then I remembered Natalie left Joe for another man. His huffing was nothing more than male pride from a guy who was black and blue from his broken nose to his swollen toes.

I explained why I'd come. I showed him a drawing of H'tah and begged for his help.

He had reservations, besides a black eye. “It doesn't always work. And less so the farther away you are from who you're looking for. Sometimes it shows someone you
don't
want to see real bad. Like my ex. It's the wanting that does it, I think. And it won't show location, only the person. I found a lost dog for your mother once, from the water in his bowl. That was easy; the black lab was sitting in front of the bowling alley. I recognized it right away. I ought to, bowling every Wednesday night. The doctors said I couldn't use my shoulder for a week or two. What do you think?”

“I think you should look for a landmark when you see H'tah. A street sign, a house, anything.”

“I don't suppose you have his water bucket or anything?”

Damn, it was back at the ranch. No way was I going back there until the place was bulldozed. “Sorry.”

“I'm a little woozy from the pain pills, so maybe we should wait a couple of days.”

“Do you want the mares to come back?”

He jumped out of bed.

I was ready to try to catch him, but he sprinted toward the bathroom. “You're not hurt that bad?”

“Nah, I just want to aggravate the bitch.”

“Joe, why don't you just find someone to cook and clean while you're recovering? Better yet, why don't you find a nice woman to marry?”

“You available?”

I took his arm in case he really was dizzy. “I can't cook.”

“Damn.”

Joe's house might be shabby, but his master bathroom was right out of H and G: all pickled wood and gleaming white porcelain, with a Jacuzzi and a double sink and a shower big enough for a ménage à trois. The towels and accessories and a thick rug were all seafoam green, with white starfish on them. None of the faucets dripped.

Joe put the stopper in the sink. Then he filled it with water. I waited, picturing H'tah as I'd last seen him, holding his foot at an angle, but standing. Without the snake. Oh, lord, don't let Joe conjure the snake!

Joe stared and stared. I thought maybe he'd gone off in a drugged haze or was overcome by the pain he'd denied. He was holding himself up by leaning on the sink.

“Do you see anything?” I looked over his shoulder and saw a sink full of water, nothing else.

“Yeah, I'm trying to figure what. It's blurry. Maybe because your friend's not a real horse.”

I knew what he meant. “Try harder.”

“It has to be him. White, small, swollen leg.”

“You found him! He's alive?”

“That's hard to tell. Yes, his tail twitched. He's not moving around, though. His nose looks runny.”

“That's not a good sign in a dog.”

“Or a horse, I'd guess.”

“Can you tell where he is so we can find him?”

He studied the water some more, pulling himself farther away from the sink. “It's dark, small, looks like rock. I'd guess he's in a cave.”

A cave? That's what my father warned about. “But we don't have any caves! Find something else!”

“I can only see the horse, 'cause that's what we looked for, the horse and its immediate background. It's not like he's in some living room where someone could identify the furniture or the wallpaper. I can't see anything but the horse and bare dark walls.” He breathed on the water, then swirled his finger around in it. “Nothing else. And it's fading anyway. So am I. Sorry, Willow, I've got to get back in bed before I fall over. The bitch would never let me live it down.”

I helped him back to bed and pulled the sheet up for him.

“Do you think Janie at the beauty parlor might go out with me?”

“It can't hurt to ask.”

“Okay, you can ask her.” He rolled over and started snoring.

Now I had to find a cave. And a date for Joe the Plumber.

First, the Merriwethers.

 

Mr. and Mrs. Merriwether were packing their car, a Mercedes this time. They were leaving for Foxwoods, the casino in Connecticut.

“The roulette wheel is fairly reliable. Not reliable enough to draw attention, but quite profitable. We thought we'd do some fundraising for your young man.” They got in the car, ready to go.

“He's not my anything,” I lied. “But can you give me a number to help me find the colt like you did last time? It's more important than ever.”

Mr. Merriwether started the engine. His wife put her head out the window and shouted, “Twenty. I've been seeing twenty horses all day.”

“But I only need one of them!”

She shrugged, drew her head back into the car, and waved good-bye.

“Good luck!”

“You, too, dear.”

A cave again, and twenty. And the Froelers. I needed all the luck I could get.

T
HERE'S AN EXPRESSION THE LOCALS HAVE: Summer people, some aren't. It's mean and nasty and should never be on bumper stickers, but it is. I know how offensive the saying is because I used to be a summer kid, helping on Grandma Eve's farm since I was old enough to walk. My whole family was from here, but I was still an outsider. They seemed to accept me now that I was useful.

The year-rounders ought to know better than to belittle the golden geese. The locals depend on the tourist trade, not vice versa. The full-timers deposited the money, but still sighed in relief when Labor Day came and the streets and beaches belonged to the home team.

Summer people, some aren't. That was the Froelers in a nutshell. They owned a huge house that sat empty most of the year, associated with the same people they saw in the winter, shopped elsewhere, brought in their own staffs. When they had to hire local workers for their gardens and such, they treated the help like feudal peasants, invisible, not worth speaking to.

The Froelers were rich, self-centered, and snobby. I had to wait ten minutes after explaining who I was and why I was there before they deigned to unlock the entry gate. Then they left me and Little Red outside the front door for another five minutes. Finally, a housekeeper in a white uniform with a black apron came, took one look at Little Red and told me I couldn't bring the dog in the house.

I'd brought the Pomeranian for a couple of reasons. First, I worried he'd destroy my shoes if I left him alone so long, so often, and second, because I wanted to appear nonthreatening. How could anyone not trust a woman carrying a six-pound furball? And yes, I thought Letty would enjoy seeing him, and seeing how a handicapped dog got to do almost anything one with four working legs could do.

“Perhaps I could speak with Mr. or Mrs. Froeler on the patio? I'd particularly like to see Letitia. She invited me to call.”

The uniformed woman wrinkled her nose, told me to wait, and shut the door in my face.

And they wondered why they couldn't get good help.

After another five minutes of waiting in the sun, I heard heavy footsteps behind me on the porch. This had to be Louisa's gorilla, Lewis, the physical trainer and sometime driver. He was big and broad and had shoulder muscles where his neck should have been. He was wearing a muscle Tee and spandex shorts. I was not impressed. Too much of a good thing is not a good thing. He was dark and hairy and he had the puffed-up face of a steroid user. Not that I knew any athletes who cheated, but I'd seen that look on some of Susan's friends at the cancer center.

“This is Miss Letitia's therapy time. She is in the pool. You'll have to come back later.”

He spoke too loudly, too gruffly, too sure of being obeyed. He looked more like a bouncer at a seedy social club than anyone who should be around a little girl. “You left her in the pool by herself?”

He flushed, then turned to walk around the house again. I followed him.

Letty was doing laps in the pool, but stopped when she saw me. She swam to the side, pulled herself out, and waited for Lewis to bring her wheelchair. I was happily surprised she was so strong. Maybe he was doing a good job, after all. No, he was scowling, and he didn't help her up. That might have been good therapy, but it was humiliating for the girl to have to drag herself over to the chair in front of company. I could tell, because she wouldn't look at me.

I hated him.