"Nothing sexual that first night?" I asked.
"Maybe we made out and stuff. If she thinks that entitled her to anything else, then she's dumber than I thought she was."
"She had your cell number? How'd she get that?"
Kiernan stared at Mike. "Okay, so I gave it to her. Is that a big deal? I got lots of friends. I'm always trying to get people to come downtown, show them the bar. I give it out a lot-maybe more than I should. Look, I don't know what you're after but you're wasting your time."
Kiernan stood up and kicked the chair back behind him.
"Sit down."
"Finish up, Detective. I've got work to do." He put his hands on his hips and seemed to puff up his solid chest.
Mike stood and faced off with Kiernan. "You see Elise Huff a second time? On a Saturday night, two weeks ago?"
"I told you I never went to the Pioneer to meet her."
"And I didn't ask, this time, if you went to the Pioneer, did I? Did she show up at Ruffles? Did you meet her somewhere else? Did you return her calls that night? Sit down, take it easy, and let's go over my questions one by one. There'll still be some talent waiting for you downstairs when I'm done."
"I don't even remember what the girl looks like. I don't think I ever saw her again, to be quite honest with you. You'd have to show me a picture."
"You come to the office with me, it just so happens I can do that," Mike said. "Which would you rather see? Her college yearbook or the autopsy photographs?"
Kiernan Dylan exhaled. His voice was quiet now, and his cheeks reddened. "What autopsy photos? What happened to her?"
"She stayed out pretty late one night, looking for you. That's an answer I figured you had for us."
The rubber band snapped, hitting Kiernan on the chin. He picked up a stapler from the desktop and heaved it against the wall. It ricocheted and smashed several wine glasses that were lined up on a side table.
"There's that Dylan temper," Mike said. "A chip off the old block. You must make your old man proud."
"Shit! You leave my father out of this. You didn't tell me you knew him. What the hell are you looking to do? Shut me down? For what?"
"Just take a minute and pretend that you feel bad about the fact that the girl is dead. Can you do that for me?"
The phone rang.
"Ignore it, kid."
"It's only the intercom. It's Charlie, wanting to know if everything's okay up here."
Mike nodded and Kiernan picked up the receiver. "No problem. I don't need anybody. Take care of Sally for me."
Kiernan lowered his big body back onto the chair. "Where were we?"
"You were going to tell me how bad you feel about Elise."
"Sick to my stomach bad."
"Pleased to hear it. For her or for you?"
"I'm telling you I met her one time."
"Quite an impression you made."
"Everybody was talking about Ruffles that night. The place is doing really well. Kids that used to be all over the Brazen Head are coming downtown now. She wanted to be part of the mix, I guess. She wanted to meet guys, she wanted to have a good time."
"That first night you met Elise," I said, "where was the party?"
"I'm not exactly sure of the address. I went with friends. It was the house of some girl they knew. Her mother and father were away, out of town."
"East Side? West? Downtown? C'mon. Help us with this."
Kiernan looked at me, surprised that I didn't know the basic facts. "It wasn't in Manhattan. I was out at my parents' place for the weekend."
"Where's that?"
"Breezy Point."
I didn't know much about the beach community on the far western Rockaway peninsula of Long Island, in Queens, but Mike would fill me in later.
"So you met Elise out at the beach?" Mike said, picking up the thread. I knew he must be thinking, as I was, of the olive green blanket in which her body had been wrapped, and the sand that Dickie Draper had found in it.
"I met her at somebody's house, okay?"
"A warm summer night, a few cocktails, a walk along the ocean, a little action. No wonder she was chasing you after that. You call her the next day?"
"She called me. Monday." He had picked up another rubber band and was twisting it around his fingers.
"To make a date?"
"I guess."
"Well, isn't that what Elise wanted?"
"She wanted passes to Ruffles. I was handing them out to friends, so they could drink for free the first time they came. And VIP cards to get past the lines."
"But she was interested in you, wasn't she?"
Kiernan shrugged his huge shoulders. The rubber band was twisted so tight around the ends of his fingers that the tips were turning white.
"When did you go to Breezy Point next?" Mike asked.
"I'm back and forth all the time. My folks have had the place since I was a kid. I've always spent summers there."
"You take Elise out with you?"
"No way. She was nothing to me. I told you, I saw her once and that was it."
"Gets crowded out there in the summer, doesn't it?"
"The Point? Yeah."
"I was thinking about your family's house, in particular."
Kiernan didn't know where Mike was going with this. He cocked his head and squinted, his eyebrows rolling into the shape of a fuzzy V.
"What with all those brothers and sisters of yours, your mother-"
"She spends the month in Ireland, with my grandparents."
"Your father, too. But I guess he's had a playmate to keep him company while your mom's gone, then. What's his friend's name? Amber? Isn't it Amber Bristol?"
Kiernan Dylan opened his clenched fists and spread his fingers wide, snapping the band off as he did. He stood up and kicked the drawer of the heavy old oak desk, moving it back almost a foot.
"That bitch has nothing to do with him anymore. You understand that, Detective? Amber won't be back, so you can just leave Jimmy Dylan out of my business. You coming after me? Then leave my father alone.
TWENTY-EIGHT
What do you mean Amber won't be back?" Mike asked. "We're talking about Elise Huff, I thought."
Kiernan had seated himself in the armchair in the corner after Mike calmed him down. If he had read a paper or heard a newscast in the last few weeks, he had missed all of the crime stories or was playing a good game
And I thought you didn't know anything else about her. I'll get back to Elise. Maybe when you listen to the cell phone messages you left her, it'll tweak your memory," Mike said, trying to completely unhinge his subject, jumping around from one sensitive topic to the other.
Elise's cell phone had never been recovered, but from the way Kiernan's legs started bouncing, he didn't want to be reminded of their exchanges
How long have you known Amber? He was caught between the proverbial rock and hard place. He had no reason to think we knew anything about Amber and was clearly blindsided by Mike's reference to her
I've met her a couple of times."
"Where?"
"The Head. I helped my dad run it before we opened down here."
"How long have you known about their relationship?" Kiernan closed his eyes and thought for almost a minute. "What relationship would that be? She was a friend. Everybody likes my dad. Everybody. Then we opened Ruffles, and she'd drop in to say hello sometimes when she was downtown. Mike rolled the desk chair over to sit face-to-face with Kiernan. "Did Amber get booted from the Head?"
"Did she tell you that?"
Mike kept staring at Kiernan.
"Okay, okay. You're asking me. Maybe she did. She couldn't hold her liquor. Kept saying a lot of stupid things. Embarrassing things."
"What did you mean when you said she isn't coming back?"
"She went home. Amber comes from some Podunk town out west. My dad told me-no, no, forget my dad. I guess I heard from my brother Danny or one of the guys who works at the Head that she finally figured out she had no frigging future hanging around waiting for some married man to give it up for her. That totally wasn't happening, get it? It was over."