Beach Wedding(50)

Darren Ross took his arms out from underneath his T-shirt and took a deep breath.

“Staff usually stayed in the guesthouse, but there were guests over that weekend, so they had us down in the basement. We were all day-drinking at the concert along with everyone else, so Jeff MacBay and I headed back around seven or so and crashed. I’m not sure what time it was when I woke up hungover and thirsty like you wouldn’t believe. We weren’t supposed to go into the kitchen after hours when the Suttons were there, but I’d done it before, so I snuck upstairs.”

He sighed.

“I was in the kitchen about to pull open the fridge when I heard the sound. I really didn’t think anything of it because it didn’t sound like a gunshot. It was just two clicks no louder than a stapler maybe or someone snapping their fingers. Maybe even less than that. Even so, I walked to the door. The kitchen had a swinging door with kind of a porthole in it like you see in a restaurant, so I took a peek.

“That’s when I saw him holding the gun in the dining room doorway. He had his head down, and he was unscrewing something long off the front of it, which had to be the silencer, right?”

“Who did you see?”

“It was Disenzo,” he said. “It was Mark Disenzo.”

“No way,” I said.

“You’re sure? It wasn’t too dark that early?” Courtney said.

“It’s a glass house,” Darren said. “The sun wasn’t up yet but the sky was lit. I saw him plain as day.”

“Then what happened?”

“Then I saw Hailey arrive next to him and they said something to each other I couldn’t hear, and then they both left,” Ross said.



67

The next two days were some of the best I had spent at the house since we’d gotten there. We swam in the ocean and boogie boarded. There was a Disney night for the kids in the immense basement theater. My brother Finn’s wife, Stephanie, and my sister Erin’s son Billy shared the same birthday and we celebrated on the beach with ice cream cake and the construction of an epic sandcastle. It reminded me of the old days and our treehouse fort.

I really got a chance to speak to everyone, to get to know my family as adults. How much they loved their kids, how hard they all worked. I got to watch my mother as a grandmother, how thoughtful she was and patient.

Obviously, my incredibly good mood hadn’t fallen from the sky. It was because we had it wrapped up. All my research and sniffing around had paid off in spades.

Disenzo really had done it. With Hailey’s approval and assistance. And we could prove it. Ross was going to testify to the whole thing.

Hailey really was going down once and for all and there was no way, no how, for even a corrupt district attorney to stop it.

Because of my thorough satisfaction and happy anticipation at these facts, when, two days later on Monday after breakfast, I received a phone call on my cell phone, I was very reluctant to pick it up.

When I saw it was a New York City 212 area code, I figured, why bother? We had plenty to go forward now. Enough with the case. It was time to participate in the family again and pitch in.

But in the end, I relented.

“Hello?” I said as I finally thumbed the Accept button.

“May I speak to Terence Rourke?”

“Can I ask who’s calling?”

“It’s Father Holm. Robert Holm.”

“Father,” I said, smiling, remembering the fireplug priest. “What can I do for you?”

“I’ve done nothing except think about Noah’s case since you left. So much so that I reached out to somebody. Somebody much more intimately involved in Noah’s death than me.”

“Is that right?” I said, wondering who he could be talking about.

“The good news is they said that they would love to talk to you. If you’re still interested.”

“Who is this somebody?” I finally said.

“Julian Sutton,” Father Holm said.

“Noah’s son?” I said, almost dropping the phone.

“Yes,” Father Holm said. “Noah’s son.”



68

Julian Sutton’s apartment was at One West Sixty-Seventh Street, a stone’s throw from Central Park.

It was an amazing prewar Tudor structure with a doorman and a sunken cream marble lobby and hand-painted murals. As the doorman announced my presence to Julian the next morning while I stood in its lobby, I saw that above the Gothic wrought-iron elevator doors, it even had those little half-moon indicators from black-and-white movies that moved like a hand on a clock to show the elevator’s progress.

Julian’s apartment wasn’t just on the eleventh floor, I saw as I stepped out. It was the eleventh floor. A smiling friendly Filipino maid was waiting by the alcove’s only door.

Once inside, I was immediately blown away by the apartment’s incredible double-height ceilings and windows. A spiral staircase in a corner led up to a catwalk paneled with brimming bookcases.

“Thanks for coming, Mr. Rourke,” Julian Sutton said suddenly from behind me.

Julian was shorter and stockier than his father, Noah, but had the same great California blond hair and looks. In his rumpled chambray shirt rolled up to the elbows and old faded jeans, there was an artistic air about him.

“Let’s sit by the window,” he said, leading me past a photography studio set up in a corner with light stands and a black velvet background.