I turned away from her and went up the stairs alone. On each landing, I tried the door to the offices, but they were all locked.
On the third-floor landing, I heard footsteps behind me and drew my.38. I waited at the back of the landing and saw Beth turn the corner. She looked up at me.
I said to her, "This is my felony. I don't need an accomplice."
She replied, "The door was broken in. We're investigating."
"That's what I said."
We continued up the stairs together.
On the fourth floor, the executive offices, the door was also locked. This didn't mean there was no one there-these fire exit doors could be locked on this side, but would have to open out from the other side. I banged on the steel door and kept banging.
Beth said, "John, I don't think anyone's in-"
"I hope not."
I ran up to the fifth floor and she followed. Again, I tried the knob, but it was locked.
Beth asked, "Is this his apartment?"
"Yes." In a glass case on the wall was the mandatory steel-cut fire ax and a fire extinguisher. I took the extinguisher from the wall smashed the glass, and extracted the ax. The noise of the breaking glass echoed up and down the stairs.
Beth almost screamed, " What are you doing?"
I pushed her back and swung the ax at the doorknob, which came right off, but the locking mechanism held. A few more swings opened the steel around the mechanism, and a final blow caused the door to swing inward.
I took a few deep breaths. My lung felt funny, as though I might have re-opened something that had taken a long time to close.
"John, listen to me-"
"Quiet. Listen for footsteps." I pulled my piece from under my poncho, and she did the same. We stood motionless, and I peered into the doorway I'd just opened. Blocking my view into Tobin's apartment was a Japanese silk screen which hid the steel door from Mr. Tobin's delicate eyes. The apartment was dark and quiet.
I still had the ax in my left hand, and I pitched it through the door at the silk screen, which toppled over, revealing a large living room and dining room combination.
Beth whispered, "We can't go in there."
"We have to go in there. Someone smashed the door open. There're burglars somewhere."
The noise we'd made so far was loud enough to attract anyone who was around, but I didn't hear anything. I had to assume that the rear door was alarmed, but the storm had probably set off dozens of alarms all over the North Fork to various central station monitors. In any case, we could handle the cops if they showed up-in fact, we were the cops.
I moved into the living room, my piece held in both hands, swinging in an arc from left to midpoint. Beth did the same from right to midpoint. She said, "John, this is not a good idea. Just calm down. I know you're upset, and I don't blame you, but you can't do this. We're going to back out of here and-"
"Quiet." I called out, "Mr. Tobin! Are you home, sir? You have visitors."
There was no reply. I went farther into the living room, which was lit only by the dark sky outside the big arched windows and by light filtering in from two big skylights in the twelve-foot-high ceiling. Beth slowly followed.
It was quite a place, as you can imagine-the living room was a semicircle with the round wall on the north. The other half of the tower, the south half, was divided into an open kitchen, which I could see into, and a bedroom that occupied the southwest quarter of the circle. The bedroom door was open, and I peered inside. I was satisfied that we were alone, or if Tobin was here, he was hiding under the bed or in a closet, scared witless.
I looked around the living room. In the gray light, I could see that the decor was sort of light-and-airy modern, to match the mood of a tower suite. The walls were decorated with watercolors that depicted local scenes which I recognized-Plum Island Lighthouse, Horton Point Lighthouse, some seascapes, a few ye olde shingled houses, and even the General Wayne Inn. I said, "Nice digs."
"Very nice."
"A fella could get lucky with the ladies up here."
No response from Ms. Penrose.
I moved to one of the windows facing north and watched the storm raging outside. I could see that some of the vines were down, and I imagined that the grapes that had not yet been picked were past ready now and would be taken by the wind.
Beth, sticking to my script, said, "There are no burglars here. We should leave and report that we found evidence of a break-in here."
"Good idea. I'll just make sure the perp fled." I gave her my keys. "Go sit in the Jeep. I'll be right down."
She hesitated, then said, "I'm going to move the Jeep to the parking lot. I'll wait fifteen minutes. No longer."
"Okay." I turned away from her and went into the bedroom.
This was a little more plush and soft, the room where God's gift to women carried the champagne bottles. In fact, there was a champagne stand and bucket near the bed. I'd be lying if I said I couldn't picture Emma in the bed with Mr. Wino. But that didn't matter anymore. She was dead, and he soon would be.
To the left was a big bathroom, multihead shower, Jacuzzi, bidet, the whole works. Yes, life had been good to Fredric Tobin, until he started spending more than he was making. It occurred to me that this storm would have wiped him out without a transfusion of gold.
There was a desk in the bedroom, and I pulled it apart, but I didn't find anything incriminating or useful.
I spent the next ten or so minutes tearing the place apart. Back in the living room, I found a locked closet and broke open the door with the fire ax, but the big walk-in closet seemed to contain only a sterling silver dinner service, some linens and crystal, a glass-doored wine refrigerator, a cigar humidor, and other necessities of the good life, including a large collection of video porn.
I ripped the closet apart including the wine refrigerator, and again found nothing.
I walked around the living room with the fire ax in my hand, searching for whatever, and also working off a little frustration by smashing things with the ax.
There was a wall unit, or entertainment center, as they're called, with a TV, VCR, CD player, and all that, plus a few shelves of books. I took this apart, too, shaking out the books and tossing them aside.
Then something caught my eye. In a gold frame, about the size of a book, was an old parchment. I picked it up and turned it into the dim light from the window. It was a faded ink-sketched map with some writing on the bottom. I took it into the kitchen and laid it down on the counter near one of those plug-in emergency lights that gave off a weak glow. I opened the frame and pulled out the parchment, which had ragged edges. I could see what it was now-a section of shoreline and a small inlet. The writing was really difficult, and I wished Emma was here to help.
At first, I thought the map might be of a piece of the Plum Island shore, but there were no inlets on Plum Island, only the harbor, which looked much different than what I could see on this map.
I then considered that this sketch might be of Mattituck Inlet, where Captain Kidd's Trees were, but there seemed to be little or no resemblance to the inlet I'd seen on my road atlas and in person. There was a third possibility, which was the bluffs or ledges, though again, I could see no similarity between that shoreline, which was very straight, and the one on this map, which was curved and showed an inlet.
Finally, I decided it had no meaning other than an old parchment that Tobin had decided to frame as a decoration. Right? Wrong. I kept staring at it, trying now to make out the faint words-then I saw two words I could read; they said, Founders Landing.
Now that I was oriented, I could see that this was in fact a map of about a quarter mile of coastline that took in Founders Landing, an unnamed inlet, and what today was the property of Fredric Tobin.
The writing on the bottom was obviously directions, and I could see numbers and made out the word "Oak."
I heard a noise in the living room and drew my piece.