“All right. Thank you for staying on this.”

“You have a good day, and regards to Mrs. Sutter.”

“Thank you.”

I hung up and looked at Susan, who was sitting now in a club chair perusing a magazine, and she said, “I think he’s in Missouri with the Gotti family, so we don’t need to think about this for a while.”

“Right.” Unfortunately, that’s not the way it worked. Sally Da-da was out of the state when he’d tried to have Frank whacked. This was not the kind of work that a don or a capo did himself; that’s why it was called a contract. And that’s why when the contract was fulfilled, the guy who put it out was on the beach in Florida.

And that was why you needed to keep your enemies close; because when you didn’t know where they were, they became more dangerous.

Susan said to me, “Come with me to Locust Valley. I need some wine and liquor, and I want to do some food shopping. I’ll let you pick out a granola you like.”

I actually wanted to wait for Mancuso’s call, and to look for the shotgun, but I thought I should go with her, so I said, “All right. Sounds like fun.”

“Shopping for anything with you is far from fun.”

On the subject of dating or remarrying your ex-wife, my friend also said, “They’ve got your name, rank, and serial number from the last time they captured you.”

Well, that was very cynical, but the upside was that the reunited couple could dispense with the long, stressful, best-behavior courtship.

We got into the Lexus, and Susan wanted to drive. She said to me, “We should get rid of your rental car.”

“I need a car.”

“Buy one.”

“Susan, sweetheart, I have no money and no credit in this country.”

“Really? Well, I do.”

“How much do you think your father would give me to go back to England?”

“One hundred thousand. That’s his standard offer for unacceptable men.”

“I wish I’d known that when we were dating.”

“In your case, he’d double that.”

“I’ll split it with you.”

As we approached the gatehouse, we saw Elizabeth outside, so Susan stopped, and Elizabeth came over to the car and leaned in my window. She was wearing the same lilac scent as the other night. Susan said to her, “Why don’t you join us for dinner tonight? That will help get your mind off things.”

Elizabeth replied, “Thank you, but I want to get back to Fair Haven.”

Susan said, “I understand. But if you change your mind, we’ll be at The Creek about seven P.M.”

That was the first I knew that Susan wasn’t cooking, and that was a relief, though maybe in the last ten years she’d learned what all those things were for in the kitchen. On the other hand, I was not happy to hear that we were going to The Creek.

Elizabeth turned to me and said, “I have a case of crabapple jelly for you.”

“Thank you.”

She said to Susan, “That’s John’s fee for handling the estate.”

I thought Susan was going to say, “No wonder he’s broke.” But instead, she said to Elizabeth, “If you just want to come by the club for a quick drink, call.”

“Thank you.”

And off we went to Locust Valley. I said to Susan, “I don’t really want to go to The Creek.”

She replied, “Let’s get it over with.”

“How can I refuse an invitation like that?”

“You know what I mean.”

I thought about it, then replied, “All right. It could be fun. Maybe Althea Gwynn will be there.”

We drove into Locust Valley and stopped first at the wine and liquor store, then at the supermarket, where we ran into a few women Susan knew, and even a few I knew. We did the supermarket-aisle chat each time, and only one woman, Beatrice Browne, a.k.a. “Bee-bee,” said something provocative. She said to me, “I’m surprised you’re back, John.”

To which I replied, “I’m surprised you’re still here.”

Bee-bee didn’t know quite how to take that, so she put her cart into gear and moved off.

Susan advised me, “You’re just supposed to say, ‘It’s wonderful to be back.’”

“It’s wonderful to be back.”

“Don’t respond directly to a goading statement or a loaded question.”

“It’s wonderful to be back.”

Susan moved on to fruits and vegetables, and within thirty minutes we were back in the car. As we loaded the cargo space, she asked me, “Is there anything else you need? Toiletries? Pharmacy?”

“It’s wonderful to be back.”

She let out a sigh, got behind the wheel, and we headed home.

On the way, she said to me, “I’d like you to call your mother today.”

“If I call her, I can’t tell her we’re together because she may call your parents.”

“Ask her not to.” She continued, “She needs to know that her son is now living with his ex-wife. And she needs to know that before my parents know it, and before the funeral.”

“Where do these rules come from?”

“Common sense and common courtesy.”

“What would Emily Post say?”

“She’d say to do what your prospective bride tells you to do.”

“It’s wonderful to be back.”

Susan reached out, pinched my cheek, and said, “It’s wonderful to have you back.”

Back at the guest cottage, we unloaded the Lexus, then Susan suggested, “Let’s take a run up to the Sound.”

I replied, “I have a lot of things to do here in my new office, and I need to organize my sock drawer.”

“Good idea. I’ll only be about an hour.”

I said to her, “I don’t want you running on Grace Lane or anywhere off the property.”

“John-”

“Run on the estate property.” I reminded her, “Not everyone has a two-hundred-acre estate to run on. Maybe I’ll join you later.”

She seemed a little annoyed and said, “I didn’t realize I was going to be bossed around so much.”

That made two of us, but I replied, “Just humor me.”

“I always do. All right, I’ll see you in about an hour.”

“Take your cell phone and call me, or I’ll call you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And no shorts.”

She smiled, went upstairs to change, and I went into my office and saw that the file and storage boxes were now stacked against a wall, along with a case of crabapple jelly.

I also saw that the message light on the phone was blinking, and I retrieved the only message, which said, “John Sutter, this is Felix Mancuso returning your call.” He gave me a cell phone number, which I wrote on the back of Detective Nastasi’s card, then I erased the message.

To kill some time until Susan left, I looked around my old office, recalling too many late nights spent here at the desk, trying to solve other people’s tax or estate problems, most of which they’d created themselves.

Hanging above the couch was a new addition to the office – three of Susan’s oil paintings of locally famous ruins: the chapel of Laurelton Hall, Louis C. Tiffany’s art nouveau mansion; some stone pillars of what remained of Meudon, an eighty-room palace that had been a replica of Meudon Palace outside of Paris; and the colonnade of a place called Knollwood, which had once been the home of a fellow named Zog, the last king of Albania, reminding me that Mr. Nasim was not the first foreigner who’d bought a piece of the Gold Coast, nor would he be the last.

As I looked at the paintings, I was reminded that Susan truly had some talent, and I wondered why she’d stopped painting. Maybe, I thought, it had something to do with her last effort, Alhambra, and all the bad memories associated with that housewarming gift to the Bellarosas. And this, of course, reminded me of my vandalism in Anthony’s den. I’ll bet that pissed him off when he saw it. And I’ll bet Sigmund Freud would have fun explaining to me my destructive behavior – and he might conclude that, aside from my own unhappy associations with that painting, I was also subconsciously trying to draw Anthony’s attention and wrath away from Susan and toward myself. Well, Sigmund, it wasn’t so subconscious.