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Eighty-One
Jimmy
THE CLIFFS IN SHADMOOR STATE PARK,Jimmy knows full well, are among the most spectacular landmarks in Montauk, and maybe Jimmy’s favorite, even if he’s never considered himself much of a nature lover. You live out here long enough and the water is the water, from no matter how many different angles you look at it. But this walk along the cliffs is different, stretching from the town beach all the way to an area called Ditch Plains, the cliffs part of a long line of coastal bluffs that runs all the way out to Montauk Point, the only bluffs like them from here to the Caribbean.
It doesn’t take long for Jimmy to determine the view is much better from up here, and up high, than where they found Pat Palmer’s car on the rocky sand at the water’s edge.
There are police boats in the water, Jimmy can see, bobbing in the waves, being thrown around more than a little by the wind.
“But we don’t know if the kid was in the car when it crash-landed,” Jimmy says to the chief, Larry Calabrese.
“What are you saying?” Calabrese asks. “He got the car rolling and then jumped out instead of trading it in?”
Jimmy notices a pinch of tobacco under Larry Calabrese’s lip. The chief turns and spits, with the wind, fortunately.
“It now appears that we got two witnesses who have ended up in the water, and apparently not by choice,” Calabrese says.
“Technically,” Jimmy says, “it’s only one actual witness, because the Palmer kid did a runner before they got a chance to swear him in.”
“Why’d the kid run?”
“He got a call right before he was about to testify that our client raped the Gates girl and then talk about all the payouts to keep everybody quiet.”
“Then Jacobson killed them anyway?” Calabrese says. “How does that work?”
“The thought has occurred.”
They both go back to staring out at the boats in the water—big waves today, wind from the east now becoming a gale. Truly one of the most beautiful places in the whole country, Jimmy thinks.
Unless you look down.
“You know about the rape part and the payoff how?” Calabrese asks.
“Palmer told me after he jumped me one night outside my joint.”
“Interesting way you’ve got of getting a guy to open up.”
Jimmy says, “Before Palmer bolted from the courthouse that day, somebody heard him on the phone saying that none of this shit was worth dying over.”
“Empty boat for Nick Morelli. Empty car today,” Calabrese says. “The boat and car owned by two guys talking very bad shit against the defendant. Now they’re both gone and who benefits? Your client does.”
“Another thought that has occurred.”
They turn and start walking back to where they’ve both left their cars.
“Let me ask you something,” Jimmy says. “How many people do you have to kill to be considered a serial killer?”
Chief Larry Calabrese spits again.
“Three or more,” he says.
Eighty-Two
“THINK OUR CLIENT WILL BEthe one trying to plead the Fifth?” I ask Jimmy.
“Don’t worry, he’ll talk to us,” Jimmy says. “Matter of fact, we might not be able to shut him up.”
“You sound pretty sure of that.”
