Free Head Wounds by Chris Knopf Page B

providing room and board to another worthless miscreant.
    Jackie was also eager to get out of there, so we got to follow the leggy blonde up the long aisle. As we walked along, Jackie saw where I was looking and gave me another hard smack on the arm.
    “Un-goddamn-
believable
,” she said.
    ——
    After we left the parking lot Jackie wanted to talk about the evidence against me, examining in detail the content and style of the prosecutor’s delivery. I tried to pay attention, but all I really wanted to do was have a cigarette and feel the wind blasting in through the yawning window of the Grand Prix.
    “You’re not listening to me, are you?” she said finally. “I’m listening. I’m also thinking. I can do two things at once.”
    “I’m glad you’re so dismissive of the case against you,” she said. “That gives the competing advocates clearly delineated positions.”
    “They have to tell you about everything they got, right? Not allowed to spring any shit?”
    “It’s called discovery. We get to see their dirty details, we don’t have to show them ours. The only problem is it doesn’t take effect until after an indictment is handed up. Before that, it’s a confidential police investigation.”
    “I just want to know the set I’m working with.”
    “Set of what?”
    “Operating conditions. The parameters. Engineering talk. Not on the English curriculum.”
    “You’re already thinking something you’re not sharing with me. We can’t have that this time, Sam. Don’t do that to me.”
    “Okay. Then you can come along.”
    “Come along where?”
    “To the scene of the crime.”
    After she was finished giving me all the reasons why we had to clear it with the DA’s office, I got Jackie to give up her cell phone so I could call Joe Sullivan. He was also in his car, heading over to Bridgehampton, where a horse farm had reported a break-in.
    “Just took riding gear, saddles and stirrups. Not the horses themselves,” he said.
    “Probably not as easy to fence a horse.”
    “Don’t put it past these bozos.”
    “Say Joe, any reason why I can’t go over to that job site where Robbie got killed?”
    “I can’t talk to you about the case. You know that.”
    “So in other words, no problem.”
    “We’re not having this conversation.”
    “Excellent. Thanks.”
    I hung up the phone and tossed it back to Jackie. “He said it was fine.”
    It was a good day for a drive. The sun was out and making things warmer, both the temperature and color of the light.
    Buds were bursting into little flowers on the trees and ornamental shrubs and the pin oaks were finally shedding their leathery brown leaves, yielding to the yellow-green nubs that would be fresh growth by late May. I turned off Montauk Highway at Southampton College and traveled north over the railroad tracks and through the Shinnecock Hills Golf Course, where the PGA occasionally held the U.S. Open. Must be a proud moment for the Indians living south of there on a reservation about the size of the golf course. I passed some of the tiny inlets and harbors that sculpted the bay shore and formed the grassy pools from which the more entrepreneurial of the persistently poor pulled a sizeable share of their daily calories.
    I slowed the car considerably when we reached Bay Edge Drive. A ‘67 Grand Prix isn’t much good on sand. I alternately hugged opposite sides of the road to clear ruts and avoid scraping the exhaust system off the undercarriage. I’d installed aftermarket shock absorbers to reduce the car’s natural seagoing effect, though the stiffer suspension made for a less-than-creamy ride over the gutted surface. Jackie patted around the door and headliner in search of a handhold, eventually wedging herself into the seat with her feet pushed against the dashboard.
    “Let me know when you’re going to stop so I can puke out the door,” she said.
    “Almost there.”
    Robbie’s project was on a narrow two-acre lot that was solid woods