Stranger on the Shore Read online

  He walked quickly, eyes raking the blue shadows cast by the lights at the base of the trees, mentally formulating the questions he wanted to ask Jarrett the following day. Trying to think of the questions he wanted to ask, anyway. He kept getting distracted by thoughts of Pierce Mather.

  Why had Mather been at the house? Had he simply been there to size up Griff? At whose behest? To what purpose? Or was he a frequent dinner guest? He had certainly seemed very much at home. Almost like a member of the family.

  He didn’t wear a wedding ring. Maybe he was interested in Chloe?

  But no. Griff had received no impression that there was any kind of sexual chemistry—no chemistry at all—between Mather and Chloe.

  If there had been chemistry, it had been between Mather and himself. Bad chemistry. Natural antipathy. Whatever his reason for being there that night, clearly Mather was suspicious of Griff, clearly thought the book was a bad idea. Maybe that was to be expected from a lawyer. It seemed to be a universal opinion. With the exception of Jarrett, all the Arlingtons seemed to think the book was a bad idea. And Griff could understand that, could see it from their perspective. Asking questions was going to stir up a lot of painful memories for everyone.

  He came out of the tunnel of trees, and the night air was sweet and fresh, laced with the salty scent of the sea. He had left one of the downstairs lamps burning in the cottage, and the bright light threw long bullet shapes across the lawn.

  Movement caught his attention. Griff’s gaze traveled to the pallid shape of the bridge and his heart seemed to stop.

  Someone stood on the bridge.

  A tall, dark, unmoving silhouette was positioned at the midway point on the bridge.

  Even as Griff tried to explain away the shadow, reassure himself it was just a trick of the moonlight, the figure moved, raised a hand in brief greeting.

  “It’s Pierce,” a deep voice called over the rush of the stream. “I wanted a word.”

  Relief had the funny effect of weakening Griff’s knees. What the hell had he imagined? Brian’s kidnapper was lurking on his doorstep, ready to do anything to keep him from writing this book? Ridiculous. Too much imagination was right.

  “It’s kind of late for a social call, isn’t it?” Griff said as he neared the bridge, hoping Mather hadn’t noticed his paralyzed pause.

  “Not unless you go to bed at nine o’clock. Anyway, I think it’s time you and I had a chat.”

  “About what?” Griff’s steps on the wooden slats of the bridge were waking the swans. There was a lot of fluttering and hissing and soft whistles in the reeds, though no birds took flight.

  Pierce leaned casually against the balustrade, arms folded. His moonlit face looked as coldly perfect as one of the blank-eyed statues along the garden path.

  His voice was even as he replied, “About why you’re not going to write that book.”

  Chapter Four

  “Why am I not going to write this book?” Griff stopped walking when he was still a couple of yards from Pierce. It was not that he was afraid of Pierce, but there was no denying the other man put him on guard.

  “Three reasons.”

  “Which are?” Griff tried to match Pierce’s crisp tone.

  “First, it would irresponsible and unethical to write such a book.”

  “I don’t agree. Second?”

  “No reputable publisher will print such a book.”

  “You obviously don’t know anything about publishing.”

  Pierce’s smile was as white and chilly as the moonlight. “I don’t need to. I know everything about filing injunctions. Third, and of most interest to you, I will pay you not to publish this book. And it’ll be more than this book would earn you, even if you did manage to get it published. We’ll call it a kill fee.”

  A kill fee? Pierce had been doing his homework. Griff forgot about trying to seem equally cool and businesslike. “Why? What’s your problem with this book? What is it you think I’m going to find out?”

  “I don’t think you’re going to find anything out. I think all you’re going to do is cause a lot of grief to people I care about.”

  “You don’t know anything about me. You sure as heck don’t know what kind of book I’m going to write.”

  “I know enough.”

  That utter certainty had Griff practically stuttering his outrage. “Is that so? It must be great to be all knowing. And all powerful too, I guess. But you got this part wrong. I’m not going to take your kill fee and I am going to write this book. I’m going to be as respectful and sensitive as I can, but I’m writing it. If you’re serious about stopping me then the person you need to have this conversation with is Mr. Arlington.”

  Pierce didn’t reply, and Griff said shortly, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” Pierce said.

  The very quietness of his voice sent unease rippling down Griff’s spine. He said, “Well, I make a lot of mistakes, but I don’t think writing this book is one of them. Someone is going to write this book, so why not me?”

  “I can think of several reasons. Starting with the fact that you’re unqualified.”

  That was direct. He had to give Pierce credit for not beating around the bush.

  “Okay. I appreciate your honesty, but I disagree. And if you’ll excuse me, I’ve had a long day.”

  He had to nerve himself to walk up to—and past—Pierce. He didn’t imagine handsome, sophisticated Pierce would resort to fisticuffs or shove him off the bridge, but there was no denying that tension and hostility ringed Pierce like a force field. At least he thought that peculiar energy, awareness was tension and hostility. Tension and hostility were part of it. Griff brushed by Pierce, uncomfortably aware of that spicy, sexy aftershave and Pierce’s hard, unfriendly gaze.

  Pierce said nothing and Griff kept walking. The wooden slats creaked loudly beneath his feet.

  “Do you know why you received authorization to write this book?” Pierce asked suddenly.

  Griff stopped and turned. “No.”

  Pierce’s face was in shade now. He was just a shadow on the bridge behind Griff. “We’ve been approached plenty of times, and by authors with a lot more impressive credentials than yours.”

  “I believe it.”

  “Why then do you think Jarrett decided to throw open the doors to a nobody cub reporter from Milwaukee?”

  Cub reporter? Nobody? It was increasingly tough to keep his temper with the arrogant ass, especially since Pierce was clearly trying to provoke him, but Griff hung on. “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”

  “Because you look like Matthew did at your age.”

  When Griff didn’t respond—couldn’t think of a response—Pierce said, “That’s right. You got the job because you remind that grief-stricken old man of his dead son. As you vultures always ask, how does that make you feel, Mr. Hadley?”

  One thing you learned as a reporter was not to take antipathy for the job you had to do as a personal attack. Some times were easier than others. Griffin finally found his voice. “It makes me feel like I have a responsibility to help bring some closure to Mr. Arlington. Since he was kind enough to take a chance on me. Good night, Mr. Mather.”

  He turned and walked the rest of the way across the bridge. He didn’t let himself look back and when he had finished fumbling with the lock to the guest cottage, he stepped inside and closed the door firmly.

  * * *

  Usually that kind of hostile exchange would have had him lying awake reliving every word, thinking of everything he should have said, second-guessing what he had said. But he was tired from his long, long drive and the bed was very comfortable. The light through the pink-and-blue glass globe of the lamp by his bed was rosy-soft and soothing, the linens smelled pleasantly fresh as thou
gh they’d dried in the sunlit sea breeze, and he could see the stars outside his bedroom window. So many stars. Was it his imagination or were they especially bright and shiny stars in this corner of the sky—as though the parlor maids had just finished giving them a good dusting?

  He was here. He had made it. It was really going to happen. He was really going to write his book. Griff was smiling as his eyelids grew heavier and heavier...

  He woke once with the echo of music in his ears. He listened closely, but now there was nothing to hear. Just the normal night sounds, the sounds of a house settling.

  He must have dreamed it. The melody was clear in his mind, so clear he could have hummed it, but he didn’t recognize it. It probably wasn’t a real melody at all, and in the morning it would be forgotten anyway...

  And it was forgotten. The next morning he couldn’t remember a single note. If the music had come from the main house, someone had been blasting the stereo through open windows in the dead of night, and that was hard to imagine. But there was nowhere else the music could have come from. So he had imagined it.

  Despite Jarrett’s invitation to have his meals at the house, Griff opted for a glass of orange juice and a bowl of cornflakes in the cottage. Seeing that someone had taken the time to stock his pantry, it would have been wasteful not to use these supplies. Plus he wanted to organize his plan of attack. He had to make the most of this week. He didn’t want to get distracted by chitchat over the smoked salmon and Earl Grey. Or whatever the Arlingtons ate for breakfast. Probably not cornflakes.

  Today he was really just getting his bearings. He was supposed go through photographs and whatever other papers the Arlingtons had supplied. Tomorrow he had an appointment with the Nassau police after meeting with Benjamin Copper, who had covered the story for the Oyster Bay Runner. On Wednesday he was planning to interview Odell Johnson in Sing Sing prison. That was the big one. No one other than law enforcement and his lawyer had ever interviewed Johnson before, and Griff was hopeful that after all this time Johnson might be willing to talk. Twenty years was a long time to keep a secret.

  After Wednesday he had the rest of his stay to follow up on interviews and hunt down additional leads. It was going to be a very busy week. And that was just the way Griff liked it.

  When he was done with breakfast, Griff grabbed his notebook and camera and made the trek across the bridge and up the green hillside. Leaving the archway of trees, he decided to check out the sunken garden where the party had taken place the night of Brian’s kidnapping.

  Winden House’s sunken garden was directly influenced by the “Italian” garden at Hever Castle in England—which had itself been influenced by the popular formal court gardens of the Renaissance and Romantic era. Coincidently, Hever had been commissioned by an American; previous owner William Waldorf Astor had required a fresh air gallery for all his Italian sculptures. Winden House’s comparatively skimpy fifty acres of formal garden included tall hedges forming elaborate mazes, a copse of white plum trees called the “Fairy Wood,” terraces of rose gardens, elegant ponds and fountains, museum-worthy statuary and lush mounds of nonnative plantings.

  Ridiculous, in a word.

  Ridiculous, but undeniably beautiful. The smell of cut grass mingled with the profuse perfume of roses and other flowers. The formal urns and architectural features reminded Griff of Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee—except this all belonged to one family rather than being shared and appreciated by everyone.

  Griff pulled his camera out and took a few shots of Nels Newland on the lowest terrace level of the garden, pruning rose bushes. There were no doubt better pictures of the garden, but Griff thought the image of bent and bowed Nels laboring in the gigantic, empty maze made a statement.

  He put his camera away and went down the moss-stained steps to where Nels was working.

  “Morning!” Griff called.

  Newland grunted without turning his head.

  Griff was not easily put off. He said, “This is a beautiful garden.”

  Newland nodded, unimpressed with the cheery approach.

  Griff surveyed the interconnecting garden rooms. He had been wrong about one thing. From here it wasn’t possible to see the walkway from the house leading into the tunnel of trees. The hedges and stone walls were too tall. So someone could have whisked Brian down the path that night. The only danger of discovery would have come from guests walking to and from the house to the garden. Guests and servants. Once someone reached the dark tunnel of trees, the chances of discovery were nil.

  With everyone in the garden—or moving back and forth from the kitchen to the garden—the house had been essentially empty. The police favored the theory that Brian had been carried out the front door to a waiting getaway car. So many vehicles were coming and going that night, parked along the drive and crowded in the courtyard, that one more would have been all but invisible. It would have taken nerves of steel to carry the kid out the front door like that, but it was a shorter trek than carrying him out the back of the house and all the way down to the rear of the estate and the sea.

  If Griff was planning this kind of crime, he’d have gone for the back exit because it offered more options for escape if things went wrong. But however it had been done, the crime was an audacious one, so maybe worrying about alternate escape routes hadn’t been part of the kidnapper’s thinking.

  Griff snapped a couple of photos of the barrier made by vegetation and turned back to Newland, who was steadily ignoring him. “I like roses. You’ve got some of the nicest I’ve seen in a long time.”

  Nothing from Newland.

  “Is that white one Alba Semi-Plena?” Griff pointed to an eight-foot climber with milk-white flowers and golden stamens.

  Newland threw him a sideways look and unbent enough to say, “White Rose of York, that’s right. It blooms once a year.”

  “Spring or summer,” Griff agreed. “My mother used to grow roses. Heirloom roses were her favorite.”

  Newland eyed him thoughtfully.

  Griff turned slowly, taking in the green and blooming levels of the garden. “It must take a pretty good-sized staff to maintain the grounds of a place this big.”

  Newland straightened. Or at least straightened as much as his curved back allowed. “In the old days we had a small army. Now it’s just me and a couple of local boys on the weekends.”

  “Why is that?”

  Newland gave him a dour look. “The Arlingtons haven’t fallen on hard times, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Griff grinned. “I wasn’t suggesting anything. For all I know there’s a brand new trend in gardening, like Miss Arlington’s food movement.”

  Newland’s heavy face twisted as though he was in pain, but then he snorted, and Griff realized it was amusement he was struggling with. “I told Miss Muriel if she wants to grow her own beets and carrots, she’s going to have to hire more help.”

  Griff nodded. “I guess you don’t generally have a lot of contact with the family?”

  “Enough.” Newland returned to pruning roses with brisk, decisive chops.

  Griff studied the wall of tall hedges, which provided both a sound barrier and an effective screen. “This is where the party was held the night Brian was kidnapped, right? They put a dance floor out in the center of the green there?”

  “That’s right.”

  “A Midsummer’s Night Dream. That was the theme. Like the play.”

  “Wouldn’t know. I don’t go to plays.”

  “Me neither. We had that one in school though. Did the garden look then like it does now?”

  “Yep.”

  “The hedges were as tall as they are today?”

  “Pretty much. Coupla new rose bushes over there by the obelisk.” Newland pointed out a pair of pink and coral tea roses well on their way to engulfing a ten-foot wrought-
iron structure.

  “You’ve got a good memory.” Griff asked, “Did you know Odell Johnson?”

  “I knew him.”

  “What did you think of him?”

  “I didn’t think anything of him.”

  “Were you surprised when he was arrested for kidnapping Brian?”

  “Surprised?” Newland sounded indignant. “Sure, I was surprised. Anyone would have been surprised. It’s not like the Arlingtons would have knowingly hired someone capable of that.”

  “Was there any doubt in your mind that Johnson was guilty?”

  Newland took another whack at the yellow rose bush. “No.”

  “Did you know that Johnson continues to this day to claim he’s innocent?”

  “Well, they all do, don’t they? Criminals?”

  “I guess they do, yeah.” Griff studied Newland’s shuttered expression. “Who did hire him?”

  Newland’s heavy head turned and he stared at Griff without comprehension.

  “Who did the actual hiring? Not Jarrett Arlington, I assume? Was it Miss Arlington?”

  “The Arlingtons don’t do the hiring and firing.” Newland scoffed at the very idea. “Mr. Tuppalo. He was the butler back then and he hired Johnson when the old chauffeur left. After Tuppalo retired, the Arlingtons decided they didn’t need a butler anymore. Not like the old days when the house was always full of guests. It’s pretty quiet around here now. Just the family mostly. Nothing Mrs. Truscott can’t manage.”

  Griff vaguely recalled Mr. Tuppalo from the old news reports. He was one of those ancient family retainer types and had not come under suspicion in the police inquiry. At least, not that the papers had picked up. “How well did Mr. Tuppalo know Johnson?”

  “He didn’t know him at all. Johnson wasn’t from around these parts.”