Blend’s coffee buyer, and therefore my business partner. As I already mentioned, during our marriage, in addition to becoming a drug addict, he’d also been a serial cheater who’d had less trouble giving up the cocaine than a variety of “inconsequential female conquests,” as he put it. The inconsequential was supposed to have been enough of an excuse for me to forgive him. It wasn’t.)
In any event, Matt recently accused me of having a Nancy Drew compulsion. He claimed it was a wish fulfillment impulse carried over from all the mystery novels I’d read in my formative years. He asserted this was my own personal version of an adrenaline rush.
Maybe Matt was right. Maybe he wasn’t. One thing I knew, however, coming out here to have a look around was my choice, whether smart or stupid. That’s why I kept my destination from David, Madame, Joy, and the rest of the crew. At this point in my life, I was through letting other people’s doubts, fears, and worries make my choices for me. And, anyway, there was a very logical reason why I was out here—
Because the police weren’t.
Thunder rumbled again and I felt moisture suffuse the air. The scent of sea salt was strong now as I moved along. My ultimate destination was the back of the mansion, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to sweep the grounds as I went.
I wasn’t sure what I was trying to spot in my Maglite beam—pretty much anything suspicious before the rain or wind had a chance to drench it or blow it away. Maybe something out of place…like a piece of clothing or a dropped personal item. (A stray hunting rifle was probably too much to ask.)
As I came to the end of the mansion’s front facade and started moving around the corner of the south wing, I found myself observing how much work had gone into the stunning grounds, from the fully-grown topiaries and blazing blossoms to the gigantic shade trees. According to David, none of it had been here a few short years ago, just scrub grass, weeds, and rocks.
This acreage had originally been part of a larger estate. When the owner died, the estate was broken in two. David bought the land with one goal in mind: to make his brand new Otium cum Dignitate look like something Stanford White might have left to a great-grandson.
Apparently, this was one of the latest Hamptons trends: using a variety of tricks to make a brand new mansion look like a weathered heirloom that you’d just inherited. David settled on the Shingle Style, which was a popular Hamptons design in recent years precisely because it was all the rage in late-nineteenth-century New England.
Frankly, after my own modest study of historical styles, from Beaux Arts to Bauhaus, it was hard to believe that today’s structural designers weren’t banging their heads against the wall in frustration. Instead of giving them the chance to create something wholly new, the Hamptons’ new money was forcing them to recast the all-over-shingle idea for the third time in three centuries, and in supremely larger versions—sort of like architectural deja vu supersized.
David’s approach was extreme but not atypical. Once he’d bought the property, a pneumatically inflated dome had been set up so that his construction crew could work through the winter months. The vast bi-level sundeck alone had cost a half-million because the architectural firm had hired a restoration contractor to scour the country for cedar planks that had been uniformly weathered like those of an “old money” beach house.
To encourage the growth of moss, mixtures of yogurt and buttermilk had been smeared onto the gray fieldstone foundation. Super-fine mud, dredged from a Maryland bay, had been rubbed onto the shingles to give them a worn look. And in the spring, fully-grown plants had been imported to establish grounds that looked as if they’d been thriving for decades. Deep green topiaries, blue hydrangeas, and beds of burnt-orange and crimson tulips had been planted around the building.
Using a super-speedy type of horticulture called “ivy implantation,” the gardener had even affixed thick coats of English ivy up the mansion’s sides, giving it a decades-old look before the front tire of David’s Jag even touched the driveway.
David’s absolute pride and joy, however, were his trees—hundred-year-old oaks and sycamores from upstate and weeping willows from south Jersey. These beauties had been pulled from their original roots and shipped on huge flatbeds (root balls wrapped for replanting) so instant shade would be available