The Beach House

"No, Barry. You're a murdering scumbag. Frank Volpi was good enough to confirm that last night. You can't buy your way out of this, asshole!"

I realized I had gone over the edge. Neubauer's face twisted into the same pre-ejaculatory grimace recorded in some of the pictures. Then he spoke in a freaky whisper. "I liked fucking your brother, Jack. Peter was one of my all-time favorite pieces of ass! Particularly when he was thirteen, okay, Mullen?"

I was leaning on the ladder and Neubauer was straddling the metal track in the floor less than two feet away. The track led straight to his groin. All I had to do was grab the ladder and push hard, but I grabbed control of myself. I wasn't going to let him return to the courtroom looking beaten-up or abused.

"I already know what you did to my brother," I finally said. "That's why we're here. And it's going to cost you a lot more than money, Barry."

"Let's get back to work," said Mack. "It's not polite to keep a hundred million people waiting, and if nothing else, we Mullens have our ma

Chapter 103

STELLA FITZHARDING didn't fit the profile of a third wife of a New York-Palm Beach billionaire. She was not young or blond or augmented. She was a former professor of Romance languages at the small midwestern college to which her husband had given millions to get his name on the library. If she was embarrassed by her appearance in the graphic display on the wall, she didn't show it. The first time she had screwed my brother, he was fourteen years old.

"Mrs. Fitzharding," I said once she'd been sworn in, "I have the feeling you've seen these photographs before. Is that true?"

Stella Fitzharding frowned but nodded.

"Peter had been using them to blackmail us for two years," she said.

"How much did you pay him?" I asked.

"Five thousand dollars a month? Seventy-five hundred? I forget exactly, but I remember it was the same amount we pay our gardener." She seemed bored by my questions. Bear with me, Stella. It will pick up soon.

"Didn't you complain to Barry Neubauer?"

"We might have, except that we found the whole experience of getting blackmailed so deliriously theatrical and, I don't know… noir. As soon as the pictures got dropped at our back door, we'd grab them and rush into the den, where we'd pore over them the way other folk look at themselves smiling in front of Old Faithful. It was a game we played. Your brother knew that, Jack. It was a game for him, too."

I wanted to go after her, but I held everything inside.

"Who did you make the payments to?" I asked.

She pointed to the witness table. "Detective Frank Volpi was the messenger boy."

Volpi sat there very calmly. Then he gave Stella the finger.

"So you paid the monthly fee to Detective Volpi?"

"Yes. But when the merger of Mayflower Enterprises and Bjorn Boontaag was a

"So what did you think when my brother's body washed up on the beach?"

"That he had played a dangerous game – and lost," said Stella Fitzharding. "Just like you are, and just like you will."

Chapter 104

"I CALL DETECTIVE FRANK VOLPI."

Volpi didn't move. I wasn't surprised. In fact, I had expected it to happen with more of the witnesses.

"I can question you from here, Detective, if you would prefer?"

"I'm still not going to answer your questions, Jack."

"Well, let me try just one."

"Suit yourself."

"Do you remember the talk we had last night, Detective?" I asked.

Volpi sat there impassively.

"Let me refresh your memory, Detective. I'm referring to the conversation in which you said that Barry Neubauer had two of his goons murder my brother on the beach a year ago."

"Objection!" yelled Montrose.

"Sustained!" yelled Mack. "Mrs. Stevenson, please delete these last two questions from the record."

"I apologize, Your Honor," I said. "The People have no further questions."

"Nice work, Jack," said Volpi from his seat.

Chapter 105

WE BROKE FOR LUNCH and returned promptly after forty-five minutes. I couldn't eat, mostly because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to keep anything down.

The witness I was about to call represented the kind of risk any really good trial lawyer is cautioned not to take. I felt I had no choice. It was time to find out if I was a good judge of human nature, and also if I was any kind of lawyer.

I took a deep breath.

"Campion Neubauer," I said.

A hush fell over the room. Campion slowly got up and walked forward. She looked back at the other witnesses, as if expecting one of them to throw her a lifeline.

Bill Montrose immediately rose from his seat. "Absolutely not! Mrs. Neubauer is currently undergoing treatment for chronic depression. She's been unable to take her medication since this ordeal began."

I looked at Campion, who had already sat down in the witness chair. "How are you feeling?" I asked her. "You okay with this?"

She nodded. "I'm fine, Jack. Actually, I want to say something."

"Not that it means anything to you," shouted Neubauer from his seat, "but the law prohibits forcing a wife to testify against her husband!"

"The so-called spousal privilege," responded Macklin, "can be asserted by either spouse for their own protection. But the privilege only protects statements made by one spouse to another, not the underlying facts. You may testify, Mrs. Neubauer."

A thin smile broke across Campion's lips. I had known her for a long time and had seen her change from a beautiful, free-spirited woman to an extremely bitter one. That was part of the reason I was taking a chance with her now.

"Not to worry, darling," she said to her husband. "No one's forcing me to testify against you. I'm here of my own free will."

After Gidley swore in Campion, I asked if she would go with me to examine a few of the photographs on the wall. She did as I asked.

I pointed to a woman apparently reaching climax in the third picture in the row. "Who is that?" I asked.

"Stella Fitzharding. She's a freak."

"And this younger woman on her knees?"

"Tricia Powell. The young businesswoman doing so well in Special Events at my husband's company."

"And poured between the two of them, my brother, Peter, who was certainly no saint."

Campion shook her head. "No, but he never hurt anybody. And everyone did love Peter."

"That's comforting," I said.

I walked her down the line of photos. I pointed.

"Peter again," Campion said.

"How old would you say Peter was when this picture was shot?"

"I don't know – maybe fifteen."

"No older than that?" I asked.

"No. I don't think so. Jack, you have to believe this – I had no idea this was happening in my house. Not at first anyway. I'm sorry. I apologize to you and your family."

"I'm sorry, too, Campion."

We proceeded down the row. "In each of these next half dozen shots spa

"That would be my husband, Barry Neubauer," she said, and pointed to the man grabbing the arms of an old beach chair as tightly as he held Peter in the photos.

We skipped several shots, then stopped together in front of the last photograph in the series.

In it Peter and Barry were joined by a third middle-aged man, wearing a studded dog collar hooked to an industrial-strength leash. "The man on all fours," I said. "I'm almost positive I've seen him before."

"Undoubtedly," said Campion. "He's Robert Crassweller, Junior, the attorney general of the United States."