"You're in luck, sir. I think I know the location of Mr. Pants," I whispered as I took aim from the kitchen doorway.
"Where's that?" Eddie said.
At the last second, Trent, who had been bent over, laughing, stood up straight, his head tilted slightly like a deer at a cracked twig.
"RIGHT BEHIND YOU!" I yelled as loudly as I could.
Eddie dropped the phone as Trent screamed. Before they could breathe again, I let them have it.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Am I getting you jokers wet?" I said, dousing them with the Super Soaker's twin barrels.
Trent got the worst of it, by far. He looked like I'd poured a bucket of water over his head by the time he squirmed away, screaming.
"What in the name of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph?" Mary Catherine said as she came running from upstairs.
"They started it this time, I swear," I said as I hid the water gun behind my back.
Chapter 84
AFTER I SWAMPED OUT THE KITCHEN, I decided to put death on hold and give Mary a break, so I took the kids down to the beach.
There must have been a storm coming or one out at sea, because the water was particularly choppy. Some of the blue-gray Atlantic waves were as high as five feet. Tall enough for some pale surfers to be out there among the shore fishermen's lines.
There were at least a dozen cops and firemen and phone guys hanging ten Queens-style. New York City was the last place most people would think of as a place to surf, but you could pull it off, once you figured out how to fit the board on the A train.
I sat on the shore, watching the little guys goof in the shallows, shoveling for sand crabs with their heels the way I'd shown them. I remembered being a kid doing the same thing with all my cousins.
One time, I remembered, a couch-a bright '70s-orange couch-washed up with a breaker, like a floor model from an underwater Ethan Allen. I also remembered pausing to watch the Concorde head out of Kennedy for Europe. You didn't watch it so much as stand in awe of it, trying not to wet yourself once you caught the high, terrifying, bone-rumbling scream of its supersonic engine.
When I turned to watch the swimming "bad teens," as Chrissy and I called the older kids, I saw that Seamus was out with them. At one point, the septuagenarian actually stood on a boogie board. For about a millisecond. He somersaulted once and almost again in the air as a wave swatted his skinny butt into Davy Jones's locker. The lifeguard went batty, blowing his whistle. A moment later, Seamus broke the surface with his hands in the air like a victorious prizefighter.
I couldn't stop laughing. You can't hurt a fool.
I signaled Seamus ashore to do the babysitting in order to show him how it was done. Which was odd, since I had absolutely no idea. I goofed on the boogie board for a while until the ocean stole it.
Instead of fretting, I decided to surf the way God intended with my just awesome bod NYC freestyle. That is, until an evil wave tried to make off with my Hawaiian jams. I managed to retrieve them with a last-ditch hook of my right foot.
"Mr. Pants, indeed," I mumbled, tightly retying the string.
"Trouble?" someone said.
When I looked up, my jaw dropped almost as hard as my pants just had.
Mary Catherine had decided to join us, after all. In a bikini. A new red bikini, I noticed. I knew all of Mary's swimwear, and the article she was almost not wearing was definitely new. As a detective, I was trained to pay attention to details.
I tried to be nonchalant, as if my nanny showing up dressed like a Maxim pinup girl was about as exciting as waiting for the crosstown bus.
"Trouble?" she repeated as she brushed past me, all blond and tan and thin scallops of red.
She disappeared into a wave a moment later. Heading back for Ireland, with my luck. She very well might have been a mermaid returning to sea.
"Just breathing," I finally said.
Chapter 85
A COUPLE OF HOURS of saltwater frolic later, I was back at the grindstone in my outdoor office. I was still barefoot, of course, and my hair was still wet, but I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt now and had replaced my beer with a massive mug of French vanilla coffee.
Even with the caffeine kick, it took me a while to ramp up. I had to work to get some indelible images out of my head first. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw water sluicing off Mary's back, her beautiful face laughing as she lay on the towel beside me, her eyes closed, her tan cheek powdered with sand.
Magical visions every one, the hardest of all to shake.
To linger on such things was fraught with danger, I knew. A massive land mine of buried feelings had built up since my wife had died, and thinking about Mary Catherine in this manner was like taking a jog right through the middle of it. I did it, anyway. Of course I did. Every cop is at least a little bit suicidal.
Hard as it was, eventually I had to get down to brass tacks. I rubbed my eyes for a few minutes, putting back on the armor, and guzzled some coffee. Then I flipped the murder folder open and re-entered the land of the dead.
I read over everything meticulously. What I was most interested in was the connection between Berger and Apt. What had drawn them to each other? Was it a cult thing, like Emily had suggested? Could just two people qualify as a cult?
Mary Catherine came out after a while and refilled my mug. She'd gotten changed as well, unfortunately.
"You didn't have to do that," I said, smiling. "I appreciate you keeping the savages at bay. Speaking of which, why is it so quiet?"
"The older guys went to a fireworks show, and Seamus took the peewees to miniature golf. They'll bring back pizza."
"We're alone? Heck, what are we waiting for?" I said, starting to stand. "I'll get the beers, and you take a seat."
She put her hand on my chest.
"Not so fast, slacker. I got the kids out of here so you could have some peace and quiet. You need to work. You need to catch whoever it is you're chasing, and take off the rest of this dwindling vacation for real. At this point, I want to catch him just so you can have a break. It feels like I'm at work just looking at you."
"Why are you so nice to me?" I said.
Mary Catherine's smile lit up the back porch.
"You know, that's funny. I keep asking myself the same question," she said.
I reluctantly went back to my wretched reading. As I pored over the case files, I was again struck with regret over not being able to keep Berger's death out of the press. If Apt really was brainwashed, we could have used it to somehow lure him in.
But had we lost it after all? I suddenly wondered. What if we set up some sort of memorial service? Maybe something in Central Park, across the street from his building. A chance for all his friends and family, if he had any, to pay their respects.
I heard the phone in the kitchen a few minutes later. I didn't want to know who it was. The commissioner, probably. Someone in a position of authority, without a doubt, ready to dole out more responsibility or more punishment. I wanted neither.
It turned out I was wrong. It was actually worse.
"It's that woman from the FBI," Mary Catherine called out coldly from the back door.
I sat up as if I'd just been busted doing something.
"Uh," I said. I forgot I had given her the number of the beach house just in case my cell battery died.
"Take the call, Mike," Mary Catherine said. "She's practically drooling on the other end. 'Is Michael there? Can I speak to him, please? Is this Mary Catherine?' "
"Hello?" I said, back in the kitchen.
"I hope I'm not bothering you, Mike."
"Pity the thought," I said. "What's up, Emily?"