Riptide (5 page)

McManus shuddered. It was hard to believe a guy could be wasted enough or just plain stupid enough to drown in his own pool, but McManus had been on the force for over twenty years. Plenty long enough to believe anything.

“The thing is,” Jackson observed, “she’s not too shook up.”

McManus nodded. Christina Cardiff was clamped shut tight as a clam. Working homicide, they’d seen their share of widows. Therapists and defense lawyers would tell you some folks hold back and do their weeping in private. Everyone grieves in his or her own unique way.

Bullshit.

“True,” McManus said. “Her counselor at rehab said she took the news on the chin.”

“That’s cool for her, I guess.” Jackson arched an eyebrow. “Still, there’s nothing at the scene.”

McManus nodded. “Clean as a whistle.”

“And she was nowhere near the place.”

“True again. She was in Minnesota taking the pledge.”

Jackson chuckled. “The politically correct term is ‘getting sober,’ my friend. And she just inherited one big”—he paused for effect—“big honkin’ pile of cash.”

To the tune of approximately seventeen million dollars, if Jason Cardiff’s
Forbes
ranking was correct. McManus was a big fan of Google. “That she did.”

“Lotta dough.” Jackson whistled. “If it weren’t for Cirie and the kids, I might just have to ask her out.”

McManus, whose ex lived in Florida with his two kids, played along. It was an old routine. “Well, I’m gonna take a number and hang back at the end of the line, my friend. Things didn’t work out so good for bachelor number one.”

Jackson grinned. “That’s probably wise.”

“And there may be a couple of guys in line ahead of me.”

“You never know, dawg. You could be right about that.”

McManus raised an eyebrow. “We’ll see.” It was their job, after all, to figure that out. Old man Cardiff had not come out and accused his daughter-in-law of anything, at least not according to the part of the conversation that had trickled down to McManus and Jackson by way of the Suffolk County assistant district attorney.

In any event, the higher-ups had made it clear they
wanted all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted before any ruling was made as to the cause of Jason Cardiff’s death.

McManus watched for deer in the shadowed forest of pin oak and scrub pine that pressed up against both sides of the road.

This area had never been developed. No signs with gold letters advertising some overrated vineyard, no freshly paved streets named after flowering vines, not even a
U-PICK
sign for strawberries. Nope. This stretch of Montauk was as desolate as it had been when Frank was a kid, passing through in his father’s Ford Fairlane on their way out to trawl for blues each June. The trees grew gnarled and scruffy here, clinging with shallow roots to the sandy topsoil left behind by the Wisconsinan glacier that had scraped through about twenty thousand years ago.

As forests went, the pine barrens of eastern Long Island were not much to look at, but Frank had grown up with them and liked them well enough. Frank McManus was not one to be taken in by a pretty face.

Christina didn’t get a good look at the cops’ business cards until she went through her pocketbook the next day. At which point she gave thanks she hadn’t called Dan Cunningham till after they’d gone.

Printed in tidy block letters next to the same Suffolk County logo she recognized from the medical examiner’s card were two words Christina was certain neither of them had uttered out loud.

Homicide Division.

D
arkness came early, deepening the corners of the yard.

Anxiety swirled through Christina’s mind like the mist blowing in across the dunes, riming the landscape with eerie droplets of silver. She had been dreading this moment since she left rehab this morning. No, her whole life if she thought about it.

Being alone.

Summer sundown was a busy time in the Hamptons, a time for heating up backyard grills, dressing to meet friends for dinner in one of the private clubs or Michelin-starred restaurants that dotted Long Island’s East End.

Happy hour.

Christina thought of the bottles of Grey Goose that took up half the freezer, chilled and waiting.

There should be two cases in the basement, room temperature but ready to be pressed into service if needed.

She tried not to think about it, forced herself to stay put.

A great mournful emptiness, with a bottom and sides as deep and unknown as the ocean, opened around her. Gathering force to suck her away on a black tide.

The dove continued its steady cooing, the sound of a lover calling out and receiving no reply.

Christina felt her mind begin to unravel.

A drink would help.

On the beach, one wave landed harder than the others so the dunes shook, and she imagined the sea rising up to suck her away to an endless black eternity.

The dove fell silent.

Another wave hit.

Christina cried out.

There was no one to hear. She was alone.

Jason had been alone at the end.

How long did it take to drown? Did he know he was going to die? Did her husband, known on Wall Street for his nerves of steel, panic at the end? She pictured him flailing through the water, grabbing for air, coming up empty. How many moments passed? Long enough to realize that Tyler would grow up without him?

She had read once that drowning victims experienced a moment of euphoria at the end, after their lungs had filled with water. But the brief glimpse of Jason’s face in the morgue told her this was a lie.

Jason did not like water. He had confided this to her long ago, when he was in love and shared his secrets, and this, she thought, was what marriage would be. He had almost drowned in Candlewood Lake at a barbecue when he was five, water filling his nose and eyes, losing all sense of which way was up, until he used the last of his strength to push off against the sandy bottom and rise, sputtering and coughing, to the surface. Saving himself.

Christina pictured the pool last night, roiling and heaving as Jason the adult struggled to find his true north. And failed.

She forced herself to look away from the pool. Therein lay madness. “No,” she aloud.

Dan. She needed to see him or at least hear his voice.

She reached for her pocketbook. Sweeping the cops’ business cards inside, she dug past the butterscotch candies Peter had provided for the plane (sweets helped calm the craving for alcohol, he’d said), the folded bits of paper with phone numbers and words of encouragement from her fellow patients at rehab, until her fingers closed around the slim cool surface of her cell phone.

She checked for messages and gave up before they were halfway through. Condolence calls from people wanting to know what the arrangements would be. Two from her sister-in-law in Southampton, including one placed a little while ago with an offer to come by and help.

Her sister-in-law had been to this house just once since they’d bought it. Five Christmases ago, when they were still all pretending to be on good terms. Snooping around in a dreary St. John cashmere suit that showed off her St. Barth’s tan, gripping her highball glass till her skinny knuckles turned white.

Christina hit DELETE.

No calls from Dan.

She called him, using the speed-dial key that was easiest to find even in the dark—*0. The call went straight to voice mail.

“You got Dan’s cell. Leave a message.”

That voice, strong and virile. And alive. On a good day, Dan’s voice heated up her core. On this day it made her fall apart.

“It’s me,” she began. “Dan, I’m in trouble and…I need to see you. Right away.” A sob rose in her throat.
She forced the words out quickly before her voice broke down completely. “I’m home now, on Jonah’s Path. Please call, or please just come. I need…”

There was another beep as his answering service cut her off. Her cell phone became a useless piece of plastic in her hand. She was tempted to hurl it into the pool. She toyed with the idea of throwing herself in along with it, filling her lungs with water and drifting down to the bottom, where she would wait for death.

Like Jason had.

The dove resumed its grieving call.

She needed to move, do something. Anything but sit here and wait to lose her mind.

She looked at the house, dark inside.

The Grey Goose was there in the freezer, a few short steps inside the door.

She couldn’t go in there. Not by herself. Not yet.

The cedar shingles of the house next door rose above the privet hedge. The Brookses. They’d met on friendly terms just once, almost a decade ago. She had a vague memory of them, WASP-y and austere, a
New Republic
writer and his Birkenstock-wearing wife who came to their housewarming party but left before they started the buffet. The cops always showed up at the Cardiffs’ parties after that when the band got too loud, saying only that a concerned neighbor had called.

“Straight out of
American Gothic,”
Jason said once. “All they need is a fucking pitchfork.”

If their cars happened to pass on the short stretch of lane they shared, Christina busied herself with something on the dashboard or at most dipped her head in a tight nod.

A studio executive owned the house directly across
the way. They lived in Bel Air, coming out just once a year to escape the “June gloom” of LA. But it was August, and the house was empty.

Christina didn’t know anyone else. She had friends, of course, one from college who lived in Morristown and would be at her own summer place right now down at the Jersey shore with her three kids and her dog. Hours, if not days, away from rearranging her life to get here for Christina.

There was Clarke, her hairdresser from the city, who had a weekend half share at a group house in Quogue. But today was only Wednesday, and Christina had no idea if this was one of Clarke’s weekends.

She was almost desperate enough to call Jason’s sister.

But not quite.

Peter had told them in rehab he hadn’t realized how small his world had become until he landed in jail on Christmas Eve and couldn’t think of anyone to call besides his dealer. “My world,” he said, “had shrunk to the size of a barstool.”

In the end, Christina decided to take a drive.

She could lose herself in the traffic that clogged Montauk Highway this time of year, pretending there was someplace she needed to be.

She grabbed her keys and cell phone, placing one more call to Dan to tell him where she’d be. The call went straight to voice mail again, which meant he had switched his phone off.

She remembered an afternoon in early summer. They had sipped margaritas and had sex in the pool house. Dan insisted she go on top, urging her on and on, until droplets of sweat flew off her. He wiped a finger across her nipples and licked it clean.

Christina had never felt so sexy.

Dan had ignored his cell phone until they were good and finished. When it rang for the third time, he checked caller ID, holding the phone in one hand and keeping a firm hold on Christina’s ass with the other.

He snorted. “My boss.” He switched the phone off and let it drop to the floor, grabbing Christina’s buttocks now in both hands and tightening his grip. “I never pick up when I’m in the middle of a good fuck.”

Christina dialed again now, groaning out loud when it went straight to voice mail again.
What was he doing?
Jealousy seeped into her gut like an injection of hot lava. They had never said they were exclusive. How could they? But they had played a game after they made love each time. He started it, a fact that thrilled her, growling into her hair when they finished. “If we were together, we’d do this every day.” The game changed over time. “If we were together,” became “If we lived together,” became “If we had a place in Florida,” and how they would live, how they would work.

Where was he?

Christina hit speed dial once, twice, and finally left a message. “Dan, please. I, ah, it’s me again. I need to see you. Tonight, if possible. It doesn’t matter how late. Please come by the house. Something’s wrong, everything’s wrong…” She lost her words as a sob rose up into the back of her throat. “It’s, ah, Wednesday night, and I’m in the Hamptons and—”

The machine beeped, cutting her off again.

“Oh, my God,” she cried aloud, angry now. Her message sounded desperate and pathetic, like she was losing her mind.

She called again, vowing to keep her voice strong this
time. “Dan, I need to see you. Everything’s a mess. I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Her voice climbed into the high, desperate pitch. Into the zone of crazy homeless women who screamed at people walking past in Central Park. Christina didn’t care. “I might do something really bad. I need to see you. Tonight.”

The answering service beeped again, cutting her off.

If Dan cared about her at all, even if he had started seeing someone else while she was gone, he would call.

Satisfied for the moment, Christina flipped her phone shut, double-checking to make sure it was still on in case Dan called.

She headed for the garage.

An opaque plastic bag, rumpled and sealed tight with an official-looking paper pasted across the top, was lying on the ground just inside the brick wall of the backyard.

She knew what it contained.

Jason’s swim trunks.

The only things he was wearing when he died. The ME had given it to the cops that afternoon, after sliding a manila envelope across the desk at her containing Jason’s wedding band and Rolex watch.

Detective McManus had brought the bag back here and, after receiving no reply from Christina, set it down just inside the gate on his way out.

She picked it up now. Gingerly, as though it contained a poisonous snake. She tossed it into the shadows at the back of the three-car garage.

Her Mercedes sedan was still parked exactly where she’d left it nine days ago, next to Jason’s coupe and the old Suburban, which they used just once each summer for the big move out from the city.

She climbed in, and the Mercedes started right up.

The simple act of heading out the drive with the windows down took away some of her claustrophobia.

The gate swung open on its sensor.

She caught a flash of movement and jammed on the brakes, thinking it was a deer.

But the man leaping at her car was no deer.

He came so close to the window she could smell his stale breath.

Christina screamed.

White strobes blinded her.

Christina was certain she was about to be carjacked.

But the man made no attempt to open her door. He was working the camera around his neck, snapping away with a powerful flash.

Her fear turned to anger as she realized he was paparazzo, like the guys who turned up for opening night of the Bridgehampton Classic. Christina always checked the next issue of
Dan’s Papers,
loving the attention, hoping she’d look good in her dress.

But this was different. He was here to dig up dirt on Jason, on her, on their family.

“Fuck you,” she snarled.

“Christina!” Her vision cleared enough to see that he was tall with lanky blond hair, worn jeans, and a vest. “Do you really believe your husband drowned by accident?” He had an English accent. Straight out of central casting.

“Fuck you,” she yelled again, fumbling for the shift.

“Was it an overdose? Did he have a problem with substance abuse?”

“Asshole!”

He continued snapping away.

“How’s your son handling this?”

Christina slammed the car into reverse, lifted her foot from the brake, and gunned it, glancing in the rearview mirror in time to see the metal gates swinging closed behind her.

She hit the brakes again, a moment too late.

The Mercedes collided with the gates in a screech of metal on metal.

“Yeow!” The photographer yelled at the top of his lungs.

Christina yelped, covering her mouth with her hands.

The photographer continued to snap away. “Easy there, tiger!”

He was making a game of this.

She fumbled for the remote to the gate while the paparazzo kept up a stream of questions.

“Talk to me, sweet. How are you getting on, my love?”

She gave him the finger and backed through the gate when it opened again at last, gunning the Mercedes through in a spray of gravel.

The photographer howled and jumped back, clutching his foot.

Christina screamed in horror.

But he was laughing.

She backed away up the drive as fast as she dared.

The gate swung shut, its iron scrollwork battered and tilting at a crazy angle.

The Brit with stringy hair dropped his camera at last so it came to rest on the strap around his neck.

She wished it would strangle him.

“I’m here if you change your mind,” he called.

“Fuck you,” Christina said once more, revving her car up the gravel drive. She was too shaky to attempt to pull back inside the garage, so she turned off the engine and sat.

What she wanted more than anything was to rest her forehead on the steering wheel and have a good cry, but she didn’t dare. If she started now, she would never stop.

Instead, she collected her pocketbook and cell phone and headed inside. At the moment there was no alternative.

She climbed the steps and crossed the concrete porch. The house was massive, constructed of white concrete and glass, and had replaced the tiny Cape that had been here before. She unlocked the front door, custom-designed of leaded glass.

Inside, the house smelled of the lavender aromatherapy products she insisted the housekeepers use mixed with the briny smell of the Atlantic and something else. Stale cigarette smoke and beer.