Susan returned and said, “The Sutters are only drinking tonight.”

“The Sutters are my kind of people.”

We sat gazing at the sparkling water and the land across the bay, and the sky, and the boats, now with their running lights on, headed for their moorings as the sky darkened.

I looked out on the east lawn, and I said to her, “That’s where we met. Right where the wedding tent was pitched.”

“That’s so sweet of you to remember,” she said, but then suggested, “I think, though, it was closer to the porch here. I was coming out of the clubhouse and you were going in.”

“That’s right. I had to go to the bathroom.”

“That’s so romantic.”

“Well… anyway, I saw you – actually, I’d seen you earlier and tried to find out if you were with anyone, or if anyone knew who you were.” I added, “Well, I guess I’ve told you this.”

“Tell me again.”

So I related the story of my stalking, and my discovery that she wasn’t with a date, and that she was a Stanhope, and fabulously wealthy, which of course meant nothing at all to me because I was so captivated by her beauty and her self-assured manner, and so forth. Someone should have tipped me off that her parents were dreadful people, but I wasn’t looking to get married; I was looking to get… well, laid.

Anyway, I got that, plus got married, and also got her parents as a punishment for my original dishonorable intentions.

I said to Susan, “Thinking back on it, that line I used was divine inspiration.”

“And what line was that, John?”

“You remember. I said, regarding the bride… what was her first name…? Anyway, I said she was a Guest at her own wedding. Remember?”

Susan sat quietly for a second, then informed me, “That was the third time I’d heard that line that night.”

“No.”

“And I swore that the next man who said that to me, I would tell him he was an idiot.”

“Really?”

“Really. And that was you.”

“Well… I thought it was funny. And you laughed.”

“I did laugh. And that’s how I knew you were special.”

“I’m glad you laughed.” I added, “You were the first woman that night who did.”

The waitress came by with two more dark and stormies, and also a platter of crudités, and a platter of shrimp, which I guess Susan had ordered.

So we sat there, drank, talked, and watched the sun go down.

At sunset, colors were sounded and the cannon on the lawn boomed, and everyone stood silently and faced the flag as it was lowered.

The color guard folded the flag and carried it away, and Susan said to me, “Remember this day.”

“Until I die.”

“Me, too.”

Susan and I woke up in the same bed, and it took us a few minutes to adjust to this sleeping arrangement after ten years. Thankfully, I didn’t call her by another woman’s name, and she got my name right on the first try, but it was a little disorienting at 6:00 A.M.

Within half an hour, however, we’d slipped back into our old morning routines and dressed and went downstairs.

After a hearty lumberjack breakfast of yogurt, granola, and fish oil capsules, I announced to her, “We are going to the police station, and you are going to file a complaint.”

She didn’t respond, so I stood and said, “Let’s do that now.”

She remained seated and replied, “He hasn’t actually threatened me.”

“He has.”

She glanced at me, then stood and got her handbag. I put on my blue blazer, and we left the house and got into her Lexus.

I headed south toward the Second Precinct of the Nassau County Police Department, which was about a half-hour drive from Stanhope Hall, and half a world away.

It had been the detectives from this precinct who’d initially responded to the FBI’s report, ten years ago, of a shooting at Alhambra, and I assumed there might still be people there who remembered the incident. How could they forget it? So we’d get the attention we needed, though perhaps not the attention we wanted, considering that the FBI hijacked the case from the state, and the U.S. Justice Department gave Susan a pass on the murder.

Well, maybe the county police were over it by now, and this complaint would give them an opportunity to ask questions of Mr. Anthony Bellarosa, heir to his father’s evil empire.

Anyway, it was another beautiful, sunny day, and if it wasn’t for this cloud hanging over us, our future would be as bright as the sky.

I glanced at Susan and saw she seemed withdrawn. I said to her, “This won’t be pleasant, but as your attorney and future husband, I feel this is a necessary precaution.”

She didn’t reply. Maybe she thought that I was pushing the past in her face, but I wasn’t. I was, however, addressing the consequence of what she’d done ten years ago, and she, too, needed to address that.

I gave her a short briefing on what to expect, and what to say, but she didn’t seem to be listening. I myself had little experience with making a complaint to the police, and I really wasn’t certain exactly what would happen, but as an attorney, I could figure it out when I got there.

Susan slid a CD into the player, and we drove on, listening to Wagner blasting out of a dozen speakers.

We approached the village of Woodbury, and I spotted the sign for the Second Precinct station house. I turned right off Jericho Turnpike, then left into a side parking lot marked for visitors, popped Richard Wagner out of the CD player, and said to Susan, “This may take an hour or more. Then we’re done.”

She asked me, “Will the police go to see him?”

I replied, “Yes, they will.”

She didn’t seem happy about that, so I said, “It’s just standard procedure. To get his side of it.” But in truth, the detectives who followed up on this complaint were, as I said, going to take the opportunity to give Anthony Bellarosa a hard time and, more importantly, to deliver an unambiguous warning to him and tell him he was under the eye. And if luck was really with us, he’d say something incriminating, and they’d have cause to arrest him. But even if they didn’t arrest him, Anthony would be one pissed-off paesano, which was probably Susan’s concern. Well, he was already pissed off, and now he needed to be put on notice.

We got out of the car and walked around to the front. The precinct house was a one-story brick colonial-style structure with white trim and shutters, and it reminded me of the Friendly’s ice cream restaurant that we had just passed. We walked through the front door into a vestibule that led into a public reception area.

There was a long counter on the far side of the room, manned by two uniformed officers. As we approached, the younger of the two officers, whose name tag read Anderson, eyeballed Susan, then turned his attention to me and asked, “How can I help you?”

I said, “We’re here to file a complaint.”

“Okay. What kind of complaint?”

I replied, “A physical threat directed at this woman.”

He looked at Susan again and asked her, “Who made this threat?”

She replied, “A neighbor.”

I expanded on that and said, “The neighbor is a man named Anthony Bellarosa, who may be involved in organized crime.”

“Yeah? How do you know that?”

Apparently Officer Anderson wasn’t familiar with that name, and I knew that Anthony Bellarosa kept a very low profile, so I replied, “He is the son of Frank Bellarosa.”

The young officer still didn’t seem to know the name and said, “Okay. And who are you?”

“I am this lady’s attorney.”

That seemed to get his attention, and he sized up the situation, noting, I’m sure, our clothing and prep school accents, and he probably concluded that this could be something interesting. Interesting was not his department, so he turned around and asked the higher-ranking officer at the desk behind him, “Hey, Lieutenant – you ever hear of a wiseguy named Anthony Bellarosa?”