The Murder House

  My right hand sliding down to my sidearm.

  My fingers fitting into the grooves of the grip.

  “Why did you take a piss on the Dahlquist grave, Aiden?”

  “I didn’t. You’re just makin’ excuses so you can come here and kill me.”

  My finger caressing the trigger.

  If I draw my weapon, one of us dies.

  “Aiden, drop the weapon,” I say.

  “No.” One leg moves back, like he’s bracing himself for a shot. “You’re gonna kill me,” he says.

  Maybe both of us die.

  “No, Aiden—”

  And then we both hear it, footsteps to the west. The beam of a flashlight, coming into the backyard.

  “Aiden Willis, put down that goddamn gun.”

  The chief’s voice. Isaac.

  68

  ISAAC SWAGGERS into his office and stands behind his desk. He crosses his arms and leans against the wall, next to the American flag and the flag of the Town of Southampton, blue and maize with a pilgrim in the center. He stares at me for a long time in his police jacket, a sweater underneath and blue jeans.

  I’ve been here a good half hour, stewing in my juices, after Isaac ordered me to the substation.

  “Is Aiden in lockup?” I ask.

  His eyes narrow. “Aiden’s probably in bed now, fast asleep.”

  “You didn’t arrest him?”

  He stares back at me, his eyes shiny with venom. “Are you carrying?”

  Am I carrying? “Yeah, I’m carrying.”

  “Hand over your piece.”

  “Why?”

  Isaac lets out a heavy breath. “Detective, your commanding officer has ordered you to surrender your weapon.”

  I blink. Something flutters through my chest.

  I reach for my sidearm.

  “Slowly,” he says.

  “Isaac, what the fuck?” I set my Glock, grip first, on his desk.

  He picks up the gun, ejects the magazine, catches it in his hand. “You been drinking, Murphy?”

  “No. I haven’t. What’s the chief of police doing out on patrol past midnight?” I ask. “And why are we letting Aiden Willis walk when he was about to shoot me?”

  He plays with his goatee, stares at me, almost amused. Having the upper hand is fun for him.

  “The better question, Murphy, is what the fuck were you doing?”

  Not such a good question for me, though. He told me to stay away from the Ocean Drive murders, my uncle’s murder, anything other than safety issues at Bridgehampton School. So there’s no answer remotely resembling the truth that will exonerate me.

  I give him most of the cemetery story, only I make it seem like I was simply visiting Uncle Lang’s grave, not lying in wait for Aiden.

  “You actually saw Aiden take a piss on a tombstone?”

  Well, no, I didn’t—couldn’t make out the actual act; couldn’t even make out that it was Aiden. But I’m not going to admit that.

  “So I went to his house to ask him about it. And yeah, I looked around his place when he didn’t answer. There are no lights outside, so I used my Maglite. I just walked the perimeter, Isaac.”

  He watches me closely. “You were shining a light into his basement?”

  “Yeah, and you wanna know what I found?”

  “What does Aiden Willis’s basement have to do with him taking a piss on a grave? I mean, assuming he even did that, like you claim. You figured, what, you’d find evidence to support a public urination charge by searching his basement? No. You’re up to something else.”

  I pause. But he has me. What possible bullshit story could I conjure up?

  And besides, I shouldn’t have to bullshit. I’m a cop, investigating a series of murders. When did that become a wrong thing? When did following up on a hunch, just to see where it led, become a capital offense?

  “It was the Dahlquist grave,” I say. “The family that owned the house where Melanie and Zach were—”

  “No. No.” He shakes his head presumptively, like he’s had enough.

  “Some strange shit is going on in this town,” I say, trying to salvage the conversation. “And there’s something about Aiden—”

  “Aiden Willis couldn’t spell his own name if you gave him all the letters,” says Isaac. “And he couldn’t hurt a june bug with a sledgehammer. I’ve known that kid my whole life. That boy is harmless.”

  “He pulled a gun on me tonight, Isaac.”

  “Yeah, and you know what? He had every goddamn right to. A prowler on his property, sneaking into his basement? Landowner’s got that right.”

  “I announced my office.”

  “And maybe he didn’t believe you. What’s he supposed to think, Murphy? Lucky for us, Aiden’s a reasonable man. He’s going to let this be water under the bridge.”

  “Bullshit,” I say, getting my Irish up, getting to my feet. “He knows me. Even if he didn’t at first. I identified myself. Yeah, okay, maybe at first, I can’t blame him. But he knows me, Isaac. I told him who I was and I posed no threat to him at all. And he was still going to shoot me. You’re gonna let him walk?”

  “Hell, yes, I am. A cop of mine, without anything close to probable cause, is looking into a private citizen’s basement window? That’s a lawsuit right there. The department doesn’t need another black eye courtesy of you.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t believe this.”

  “You’re behaving in an erratic, irrational manner, Detective Murphy.”

  My blood goes cold. Magic words, those. The police union’s collective bargaining agreement allows the chief to strip a cop whose behavior is “erratic or irrational.”

  A hint of a smile on Isaac’s face. Oh, he’s been waiting for this moment.

  “Just hear me out first, Isaac, I’m beg—”

  “Detective, turn over your badge.”

  “Isaac, no—”

  “You’re suspended indefinitely,” he says. “I’m stripping you of your police powers. You’re no longer a cop. You come back tomorrow, I’ll give you thirty minutes to clean out your desk.”

  He leans over his desk, his eyes boring into mine, a snarl across his mouth.

  “Now get the fuck out of my police station.”

  69

  THE DIVE Bar’s liquor license cuts off the service of alcohol at two in the morning. That means they have to stop pouring when the little hand hits two, and they can’t let in any new customers.

  It doesn’t mean they can’t hand over a bottle to me at 1:55 a.m. and then watch me drink it for an hour, as they close down the place, turn out most of the lights, turn over the chairs and put them on top of the tables, and mop the floors and wipe down the counters.

  The good news for me is that I’m a regular, so I get this special treatment from Jerry, the bartender and owner.

  The bad news, I suppose, is that I’m a regular.

  “I don’t like to speak ill of my fellow man,” Jerry says to me as he sprays the counter. “But I never much liked Isaac. Worst thing that ever happened to him was getting that badge. Give a guy with an inferiority complex some power and watch out.”

  I look over at him, my eyes heavy and slow, almost dreamy. Almost as if, an hour ago, I didn’t lose the only thing that mattered to me in this world. Almost like that.

  “Fuck Isaac.” My tongue thick, numb. All of me feeling numb.

  “Okay, three a.m.,” Jerry says. “I’m gonna turn into a pumpkin.” He lifts the bottle of Jim Beam, three-quarters empty. “I’ll hold on to the rest for you, Murph. Your private stash. Let me give you a ride home.”

  I surrender the bottle but shake my head.

  “You can’t drive, Murph.”

  “Not gonna drive. I’ll walk. Pick up…pick up my car tomorrow.” I step off the barstool gingerly, get my balance. “Not like I’ll have anything else to do.”

  “Let me give you a ride, Jenna. C’mon.”

  “I’m good. I’m good.”

  The walk will do me
good. Or so I think. I’m about a half hour from here, and the cool air helps clear out some of the fog. My hand brushes against my side for my piece, which of course I had to surrender. Because I’m no longer a cop.

  I’m no longer a cop. It still hasn’t sunk in.

  I’m dizzy and unfocused, my emotions careening wildly from utter despair to bitterness to hot rage, grabbing at clues that don’t add up, like I’m trying to put together a puzzle that’s missing half the pieces.

  The start of a massive headache is pressing against my forehead, between my eyes.

  By the time I approach my street, the inside of my head is screaming at me. But the blood is flowing again, and much of the alcohol’s effect is waning.

  All except the emotional part. With the numbness wearing off, all that’s left is my fear of what’s to come, a life without a badge.

  And sleep, which will end as it always does, with a breathless nightmare.

  I rent the bottom floor of a two-flat, all of four rooms inside—living room with tiny kitchenette, bathroom, and bedroom. Always planned to buy a place once I “settled in,” but I never really settled in, did I? I never got around to making anything about my apartment feel like a real home, nor did I buy an actual home.

  Probably for the best, now.

  When I approach the apartment, I see something underneath the porch light. A figure. A man?

  I draw closer, feel my hand, by instinct, sweep my side for a gun that isn’t there.

  A man, sitting up, resting against the outside wall.

  “Noah?” I say.

  70

  WHEN I take my first step onto the porch, Noah Walker stirs. He was sleeping.

  “Oh, yeah.” He pushes himself up, shakes out the cobwebs. Sweatshirt, jeans, sandals.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Waiting for you,” he says.

  “Same question,” I say, “second time.”

  “I wanted to tell you something.”

  “So tell me.”

  He nods. “I remember now,” he says. “Those girls.”

  “Dede and Annie.”

  “I saw them. I remember them now. They were at the house, 7 Ocean Drive. I think they were squatting there. I was doing some work. I think…patching the lower flat roof. I’m pretty sure it was them. It was five or six years ago, so I’m not positive. They seemed like nice girls. If something happened to them, and I can help…”

  So that’s confirmation. I was pretty sure they’d been staying there—hard to imagine the initials AC and DP scratched on the windowsill were a coincidence—but it’s nice to know for sure.

  He looks up at me. He didn’t have to tell me any of that. His lawyer, in fact, would have told him to keep his mouth shut.

  “It doesn’t matter anymore,” I say. “Go home.”

  He steps in front of me. “It does matter. You’re asking because you think it’s connected. Whoever it was who killed those girls might have killed Melanie.”

  Melanie. Right. He had a relationship with her.

  “I loved her. Yeah, she broke up with me and it hurt. And I moved on. But you don’t stop caring about someone.” He takes a long breath, looks out in the distance. “Y’know, after she died—you guys arrested me right away, and all of a sudden I’m on trial for my life. I never had a chance to…I don’t know.”

  To grieve. To mourn her loss.

  “And then Paige’s suicide…”

  I didn’t even know about that. The woman he was with after Melanie.

  “That happened after I went to prison,” he says. He slowly nods, gains some steam. “Whoever killed Melanie—in my mind? He’s responsible for Paige, too. And a lot of other people, it sounds like. Like those two girls. And your uncle.”

  This is not the time for me to be thinking about that. The fog may have cleared from my head, but my emotions are on the verge of bursting. It’s over for me here in Bridgehampton. Over. I didn’t solve the cases, and I’ll never be a sworn officer again.

  “Let me help you,” he says. “Let me help you find him.”

  “I’m not a cop anymore,” I say. “I’ve lost my badge. I lost everything,” I add, for some reason—whiskey-induced self-pity.

  “You didn’t lose as much as me. And you don’t see me running.”

  I look at him. Still standing tall, after what he’s been through. Wrongly accused of a crime—yes, I believe that in my gut—crucified at Sing Sing by white supremacists he refused to join; losing two women he loved; and still being harassed by our police force. And here he is, volunteering for duty. If it were me, I’d have run from this town as soon as I left prison.

  No, you wouldn’t have. You’re too stubborn.

  Just like Noah.

  That shield that has stood between us, suddenly gone.

  I start to say something but don’t. Everything swimming through me now, all the regret and anger and yearning, that familiar heat filling my body whenever I see him, but none of the typical restraints, all washed away by the alcohol and emotion, and I don’t know if I’m going to burst into tears or—

  Or—

  “I can help you,” Noah says. “I’m not as dumb as I look.”

  “I’m not a cop anymore.”

  He shrugs.

  “Then what do we have to lose?” he says.

  71

  “THE KEY to all this,” says Noah, “is someone who’s been dead for twenty years?”

  “Eighteen,” I say. “And yes.”

  We’re walking the next morning along Main Street, the sun blistering overhead. I skipped my morning run and pounded aspirin and water to ward off my hangover. The adrenaline helps, too. Funny that I feel almost reborn after the pep talk Noah gave me last night—that losing my badge actually has the effect of motivating me to work harder.

  That’s the thing: I may have lost my official authority, not to mention my gun, but I have gained some freedom—now Isaac can’t prevent me from asking questions and probing where I wish.

  I’d just better be careful. Because without said authority, and without said gun, there are limits to how far I can push things.

  Noah follows me into the cemetery, all the way up to the Dahlquist plot.

  “A family of violent, mentally deranged, suicidal men named Holden,” I say. “The first Holden killed, like, twenty or thirty women.”

  “According to that book.” Noah read most of the book after I gave it to him last night. He must not have slept at all. The dark circles under his eyes attest to that fact. “It may not be true.”

  “Doesn’t matter if it’s true. All that matters is that he believes it.”

  “Who?”

  “Our suspect,” I say. “Our killer.”

  Noah looks at the plot, the large memorial, then back at me. “He’s mimicking what the first Holden did a couple hundred years ago? He has some kind of obsession with the family or something?”

  “Very good,” I say. “You’re smarter than you look.”

  “Well, dagnabbit, Ms. Murphy—that makes me happier’n a puppy with two peters. I been a-hankerin’ for your say-so—”

  “All right, enough.”

  “Yes’m, I’m as pleased as a goat in a briar patch, I am.”

  I shake my head. “If it’s okay with you, can we get back to the point now?”

  Noah looks pleased enough with himself, but he turns it off and gets serious again. “Okay, so this guy has a thing for the Dahlquist family. Okay, I get that. But you said this is about the last Holden. The guy who died twenty years ago.”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Okay, whatever, eighteen—you’re talking about Holden the Sixth.”

  “Right. Holden the Sixth.”

  “The guy who died without any heirs,” says Noah. “The guy who said—let me find this.” He reaches into his satchel and pulls out the book, opens to a page he has dog-eared. “The guy who said, ‘The greatest gift I can bequeath mankind is to avoid procreation at all costs.’”

  “Yes,
that guy.”

  “The guy who killed himself by downing two fifths of Jack Daniel’s, popping some pills, then slitting his own throat and tossing the knife out the window.”

  “Yes, that guy,” I agree.

  “The guy who was suspected of raping and assaulting a bunch of women, but the charges never stuck.”

  “Yes, that guy.”

  “The guy who, as far as we know, never committed a single murder.”

  “Yes, that guy.”

  “Not one murder that we know of.”

  “Correct,” I say. “That guy.”

  Noah closes the book. “It all starts with that guy? He had no children, he committed no murders. I mean, he was a bad guy—he raped women, they think—but the guy running around right now isn’t raping anybody. He’s killing them in violent ways.”

  I smirk at him.

  “Am I missing something?” Noah asks.

  “I think you are,” I say. “Our killer is mimicking what the original Holden did. And he’s pretty damn good at it. But the question is why.”

  Noah stares at me, then shrugs. “I have no idea.”

  “I think he feels a sort of obligation,” I say. “He thinks it’s his destiny.”

  Noah opens his hands. “But…why would it be his destiny—”

  His jaw drops.

  I smile at him.

  “Oh,” says Noah. “You think?”

  “I do,” I say. “I think, no matter how much he didn’t want to, Holden the Sixth left behind a son. A son who wants to restart the family tradition.”

  72

  I LEAVE Noah at the cemetery with a research assignment and continue walking up to the turnpike. It’s a little before eleven, so Tasty’s is probably not even open for business yet, which is how I prefer it. Because I’m not here for the delicious scallops.

  The gravel parking lot is almost empty when I walk up to the door. It’s open, so I push through and enter the restaurant. In the back, chefs and servers are busy preparing for the lunch rush, boiling and steaming and chopping, wiping down counters, filling out the chalkboard with today’s selections, shouting to one another in English and Spanish. The smells of garlic and butter make me reconsider whether I’m here for business only.