turned.
‘It’s best,’ he said.
Hollis was too far away to hear the specifics of the exchange. At a certain moment, the Basque must have mentioned Hollis, because everyone glanced over at him. Not long after, the young fisherman with the beard became agitated, raising his voice. With a dismissive sweep of his arm, he turned on his heel.
He had taken all of two steps when the Basque placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. The younger man spun back, swinging a roundhouse as he did so. More shocking, though, was the speed of the big man’s reaction. He stepped inside the arc of the punch so that it fell harmlessly against his shoulder and in the same movement he pushed his assailant in the face with the open palm of his hand, so that he fell back on to the sand.
The Basque clamped a foot on the other’s chest and held out a hand. The younger man rummaged in his pocket and handed something over. Only then did the Basque remove his foot and step away.
He wandered back over and placed a pair of pearl stud earrings in Hollis’ hand. ‘What happens now?’ he asked.
‘The Medical Examiner’s on his way from Hauppauge. They’ll take her away.’
‘They’ll bog down on the beach. We should move her to the landing.’
Hollis nodded.
An hour later the Suffolk County Chief Medical Examiner and his two assistants arrived at the beach landing in an unmarked van. Dr Cornelius Hobbs was a stout, brisk man with gold-rimmed spectacles and a hairpiece that made little attempt to disguise itself as such. Jet black, its curling fringes flapped wildly in the breeze like a young bird struggling to take wing.
‘Deputy Hollis?’ he asked, not waiting for a reply. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got, shall we?’
His voice was pinched, nasal. Sinuses, thought Hollis, a welcome affliction for someone in his line of work.
The woman’s body had been placed on the bed of the Basque’s Model A. Without any consideration for the handful of onlookers, Hobbs seized the end of the tarpaulin and yanked it off.
‘Mmmmmmm,’ he mused, lowering his voice as he turned to Hollis. ‘A fine figure of a woman. I believe a little mouth-to-mouth is called for. You never know, Hollis, you just never know.’ Like many of the medical examiners Hollis had known in the past, Dr Cornelius Hobbs clearly enjoyed proclaiming his own ease when confronted with a corpse. He was still chuckling to himself as he used the trailer hitch to clamber up on to the back of the truck.
The Basque appeared at the side of the vehicle. ‘A little more respect, I think.’
There was nothing censorious in his tone. Had there been, maybe Hobbs would have reacted differently; as it was, he simply frowned. ‘Don’t I know you?’
‘Not sure I’ve ever had the pleasure.’
The reply brought a thin smile to Hollis’ lips.
The woman’s body was loaded into the van on a gurney by the two assistants. Hobbs closed the doors and turned to Hollis.
‘They never learn.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Hollis.
‘The sea’s no friend of ours. Third drowning this week.’
Here we go, thought Hollis.
‘Had a lad down Mecox way, city people, father a banker. The boy gets accepted by West Point, has his friends up for the weekend to celebrate, big party on the beach. Swam for his college. Wasn’t drunk, his blood tested clean. Sharks had themselves a nibble before he washed up.’ He nodded towards the van. ‘No, don’t get much cleaner than that.’
‘How long do you reckon?’
‘From the rigor … less than twenty-four hours. You’ll have the autopsy report tomorrow, afternoon at the latest.’
‘I need a photo. For identification.’
‘Of course you do.’
‘Today would be good.’
‘Today, today, all I ever hear.’ Nevertheless, he clicked his fingers at one of his assistants. ‘Snap her.’
Clutching two four-by-five film holders, Hollis watched as the van pulled away. Almost immediately the spectators started to dissipate. The Basque was rolling a cigarette by the Model A; the Kemp boy appeared to have left already. Hollis strolled over.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘For the earrings.’
‘I figured it was important.’
‘Yeah?’
‘How many women you know go swimming in their jewelry?’
Damn right, thought Hollis.
‘What do you mean?’ he said.
The Basque eyed him flatly, then slipped the rolled cigarette between his lips and lit it with a steel Zippo.
‘Army issue?’ asked Hollis, nodding at the lighter.
‘See you around, Deputy.’
The Basque climbed behind the wheel of the Model A, fired the engine and pulled away. Hollis stood watching the vehicle, the trailer dancing over the ruts, until it turned east on to Bluff Road and was lost to view.
Three
Unable to justify a full-time photographer, the East Hampton Town Police Department subcontracted the work to a local man, Abel Cole. The sign in the window of his narrow shop next to Edwards Theater on Main Street read: Portraits, Christenings, Weddings. ‘And Bar Mitzvahs’ had been added beneath in a different shade of ink.
Many wealthy Jews from New York had built houses in the more exclusive beachside areas of town in the years preceding the war. They experienced little or no prejudice from the locals, who looked on all ‘people from away’ as aliens, but if they expected their peers to leave their bigotry behind them in the city they were sorely mistaken.
The Maidstone Club, the sine qua non of social acceptability for the wealthy summer colonists, showed no signs of removing its ban on Jewish members. As a Jew, you could own a lavish mansion overlooking the manicured fairways of the Maidstone’s links course, but if you wished to actually play golf you had to travel west to Wainscott.
Hollis had witnessed at first hand anti-Jewish sentiments, or at any rate their aftermath – a Star of David daubed in white paint on the front door of a Colonial-style residence belonging to a family called the Rosens.
It had been a sorry introduction to East Hampton for Hollis, occurring just two weeks after he’d taken up his position as Deputy Chief. A stark and malicious act, it was also quite unnecessary, since a large brass Star of David was already attached to the lintel above the door, nailed there by the Rosens when they had moved into their new home.
A search of the front garden had uncovered a size-10 patent leather dress-shoe speckled with white paint in a clump of hydrangeas – a discovery that Hollis had kept
