Empire of Dirt

By James McCormack

A highly dsysfunctional family arrives in Long Islands trendy Hamptons for their annual summer reunion. After a wild night of partying, the family matriarch, Harriett Aubrey Grace, is found dead in the basement, the victim of a horrible accident or a terrible crime. Through the eyes of the estates caretaker, Connelly, the reader relives Harrietts succesful yet sad life and investigates her suspicious death and the sordid list of relatives that might be responsible for the crime. Connelly teams up with Harrietts long estranged but beautiful daughter, Tush, and the duo rush headlong into a murky family history fraught with malevolence and perversion and their own combustible attraction nearly leads them to the brink of disaster. Bravery, heroism, love, hate, jealousy, rage and despair are only some of what the reader uncovers exploring Harrietts empire, an empire that in the end proves to be little more than a pile of dirt.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9781456710255

James McCormack

James McCormack, author of Double Bogey and Murder at the Cappucino Cup, lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with his wife and three daughters. He spends much of his time testing his skills on the golf courses of this beautiful region. An avid painter, writer and golfer, he enjoys the company of good friends and family, appreciates a well-told story, a humorous joke, a spectacular sunset, and well-aged Scotch. As Cappucino Cup goes to press he is working diligently on his next novel, a love story for the ages. Stay tuned!

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Table of Contents

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Epilogue

Prologue

Friday, August 29, 2004

The last ambulance pulled away from the old mansion, lights flashing in the august dusk splashing waves of red and white illumination across the big driveway, the grass and shrubs of the massive front yard and across the row of tulip trees that ran the length of the driveway giving the place its name. Two state trooper vehicles remained in front of the house, the police inside taking the last of the statements and looking over the scene for any bits of evidence they may have missed. Not that there was any mystery to what had just occurred. A roomful of people had watched the whole thing play out over the last hours of the afternoon and into the evening. Some who’d been in the room were now in the ambulances leaving the property, heading not to the hospital but to the morgue. Two others were in handcuffs, probably already in the Trooper’s barracks in Riverhead. The cops were done with me. I’d told them everything I could, everything I knew of the last few days, all the shameful, harmful and terrible things that had transpired and what I knew of the why. It was hard telling and I felt exhausted. Blood splattered my shirt and slacks and my arm and shoulder felt numb with excruciating pain. The detective told me I could go but not to leave the state without notifying the police. Procedure, he assured me, nothing more. I had no plans to leave the state just yet but I’d be damn glad to be leaving this place as soon as I could. I tucked the kid away in my apartment above the garage, making sure she’d fallen asleep after her terrible ordeal. I locked the small apartment behind me and took the wooden staircase down to the path alongside the back of the big house and past the tremendous wooden deck that ran the length of the mansion’s rear. I walked along the pavement stones I had covered countless times over the past seventeen years, past the spacious gardens and out towards the beach. I kicked off the old pair of moccasins on my feet, stepping barefoot into the sand, still warm from the day’s sun. It felt good underneath me, grainy and damp and soft between my toes. I meandered slowly down to the waters edge, the crashing of the rhythmic waves beckoning me closer, pulling me towards the hypnotic majesty of the sea. Night was moving relentlessly across the sky, the last streaks of gray and dusty blue behind me, ahead only the darkness of the ocean and the unknown. I stood with my feet in the water, cool but not cold, the tide washing in against my jeans but I barely noticed. A soft breeze came off the water, salty and fragrant and damp. I bent and scooped a handful of the salty Atlantic into my hands, splashing the water across my face, holding the coolness of it against my eyes and my forehead and the back of my neck. I was not in shock. But I felt like a man waking from a short rest, confused and muddled, unsure of the ability to distinguish my dreams from reality, unable to shake the cobwebs from my brain. The last few hours had been the most intense of my life. For some amount of time, how much I could not say, many lives hung in the balance. And once the danger thought passed, a shock and surprise erupted, rocking me to the core. Lives were lost in more ways then one. Futures snuffed out and for others rearranged in what could only be a far more difficult way. For me, a personal loss of something so fleeting it may never have been mine at all.

I began walking along the waters edge, looking back towards the big house, the one beyond the dunes, the large gray structure with its back to the beach all alight on this tragic night, a beacon to despair. Three dead, another injured, two in jail and a family destroyed, that was the score by my count. Not that it had ever been a family in the truest sense of the words. Still, all blood and now all bloodied. Although some might consider me a central figure in the tragedy played out over the past few hours, I was in all honesty a mere bit player, a footnote, an observer over the longer period in question. I had a unique vantage point of this dysfunctional lot and perhaps I should not have been so surprised by the calamitous conclusion to their most recent reunion. Hadn’t they always been self-centered and angry and jealous and mean and filled with hatred? Well, maybe not all, especially not her. Hadn’t they come to this quaint and beautiful place to visit one of my most favorite people just to serve their own pleasure, to address their own agendas and in the end, to pursue their own personal gain? Hadn’t that desire for personal gain lit the fuse that would lead to this evening’s terrible combustion? Yes, certainly it had. But in fact the whole horrible affair was in the long time coming. Like a disease lying dormant in the body, a cancer if you will, given time and the proper set of circumstances, disaster will strike. The terror of this night began long ago. Part of it I witnessed and part of it I’d learned of and part of it I will never know. But let me tell you what I do know of this awful and tragic night. Let me start with the beginning, or at least with the beginning of the end.

One

Tuesday, August 26, 2004

It was a perfect day for a funeral, a little humid but clear, the sky a milky shade of blue azure. The smell of the ocean came in on the easterly wind providing little relief from the high temperature. The tiny cemetery perched on a hill sat alongside the seashore and the sound of the waves crashing on the beach made it difficult to hear the preacher’s words as he said the final prayers over the casket of Harriett Aubrey Grace, age eighty-two, mother of three, grandmother to five more. I was standing in the back of the small gathering of friends and family huddled loosely together, each apparently disinterested in the ramblings of the cleric. I fit neither in the category of friend nor family. I think most of those gathered for the burial considered me hired help, although I would have hoped for a better verdict from the guest of honor. Who knows, the old lady was hard to read sometimes and hard to live with part of the time but I think in the end she would have said something like, That’s Connelly , he’s my man Friday, leave him be. And that is what I was, Harriett Grace’s man Friday. Chauffeur, gardener, sometimes cook and bottle washer, bartender, handy man and fetcher, occasional confidant and friend, my role had constantly changed and evolved over the past seventeen years but more about that later. For now, last respects were to be paid and finally the mumbling priest or bishop or whatever Lutheran’s call their medicine men had shut up and moved aside. Harriett’s older son, Carson, slid into the breach, shouting above the wind, speaking glowingly of his mother’s life, her dedication to the town of Hampton Hills, her volunteer work with the Ladies Auxiliary, her talents in gardening and watercolors, her commitment to family and her indomitable spirit of independence. About a third of what he said had any merit but what could be expected from a hideous fraud who visited the old lady once every twelve months, twice maybe in a good year. The rest of the assembly grew restless with his dreary monologue but it took Carson another ten minutes to get the message. He concluded by inviting the small group back to Harriett’s home for a light lunch and cocktails. His eyes wandered over the crowd and I got the feeling he was looking for people to exclude. His eyes found my own but when I held his gaze firmly he just nodded, as if to reluctantly confirm my own personal invitation. Carson and I enjoyed little more than a passing acquaintance but I think qualifications were present for mutual dislike. On this day however, everyone kept the stiff upper lip and genteel manners so precious to the deceased. We filed quietly past the Old Girl’s casket, some dropping a flower on the box, others a clump of dirt. When my turn came I gently placed my palm on the coffin, quietly reciting the twenty-third psalm. I walked away with a small smile on my face knowing Harriett was lurking somewhere in the netherworld, hotly contesting my feigned piety and complaining bitterly about my choice of prayer. I could see the old broad with a whiskey sour in her hand, pointing a crooked finger in my direction, I shall not want, Connelly? Bullshit, you’re like every man I ever met, you want everything you can get your damn hands on and when you get it, you’ll want something else! And then she would swallow a long sip of her drink and cackle in the most irritating manner. Still, as I walked slowly back to my car I could not believe Harriett Grace was dead. If anything Carson said was true it was the part about her fierce independence. She would proudly announce to anyone willing to listen, I don’t need anyone, not a damn one of you! Then she would find me hovering somewhere in the background and tell me to go get her a cup of coffee or the newspaper or if it was the bewitching hour, a well made cocktail and a plate of olives and crackers!

But in all honesty, the woman appeared to need no one other then someone to bring her things. At eighty-two years she seemed the epitome of good health, low cholesterol, perfect blood pressure, strong and steady heartbeat, no indications of cancer or heart disease, able to still ride her bike around the sandy streets of her home on Long Island’s south shore and to swim for twenty minutes in the ocean, weather and waves permitting. She had grudgingly surrendered her driver’s license five years before when she blew through a stop sign and got pulled over by a state trooper. She denied the infraction and left her attorney with a lengthy string of expletives regarding the arresting officer but agreed to drive no more if the penalty would be waived. After all, she had me and I looked upon it as a blessing, job security! So she needed someone to fetch things and someone to drive her around town, but other than that the woman was a rock. She needed no one, not family, not friends, although she had some of both, she needed no priest or any religion, no party or any affiliation, no bridge partner, no book club, no knitting circle or lunch group or any of the dozens of things older people do for company, comfort and conversation. She read voraciously, stayed on top of current events to the shame of her college aged grandchildren, worked and understood the intricacies of the internet and could hold her own in a financial discussion with a room full of bankers. She was as sharp as a needle, as deep as the ocean, as healthy as a horse and now, as dead as the proverbial door nail! I couldn’t believe it.

I pulled my car into the sandy stretch of road that ran alongside the Grace property, figuring it best to leave the long, gravel lined drive to the immediate family. Last thing I needed was Carson crawling up my ass because I usurped his soon to be inherited parking spot. I hustled inside the big, rambling mansion, making straight away for the dining room. It was empty and gratefully I set to one of the chores I always find relaxing and in a strange way, very satisfying. Wiping down the long oaken bar that ran the length of the wall opposite the dining table, buffing it to a glossy shine, I began setting up the bottles of whiskey, spirits, wine and mixes, various fruits and olives, glasses of a wide variety and the necessary bar tools – bottle openers, paring knife, cork screw, ice tongs and the like required for the coming onslaught. For a man who had not had an alcoholic beverage in many years, the process of setting up the bar was at once strangely thrilling and in some ways a small victory of restraint. And the well stocked and organized bar added to the classic ambiance of the room. And a great room it was. Or had been. Like most of the small mansion – named Tulip in its hey-day for the lovely and tremendous Tulip trees lining the long driveway – it had seen better days. The room, one of eighteen in the house, was very large, easily sixty feet long and nearly as wide. Fourteen foot ceilings allowed for a row of ceiling to floor windows at the back of the room providing an astonishing view of the lovely, large gardens behind the house and the majestic Atlantic only a stone’s throw from the end of the spacious yard. Huge double doors of mostly crystal glass led out onto a wide porch spanning the entire width of the mansion’s back and the spacious deck boast a wide number and array of rocking chairs, porch swings and recliners to sit upon and contemplate the rhythm of the surf. I opened the doors letting in a fresh, salty breeze and felt the sun dance warmly across my face and arms. Turning back inside, I scanned the big room. Its interior was dominated by a great table of solid oak at its center, cut I imagined from the same ancient trees as the bar. Above the table dangled an enormous chandelier of cut glass and the slight ocean breeze caused the huge candelabrum to sway almost imperceptibly over the room. I often wondered if the damn thing might one day come crashing down on those assembled for dining although large crowds had been all but non existent in my tenure at Tulip. Save for the annual family reunion, if it could be called such a thing, Harriett’s visitors were rare and large groups highly uncommon. Minor signs of age could be seen in the great room if one looked carefully enough. Although I did my best to keep up with the place, Harriett often dismissed proposed improvements and repairs as costly or unnecessary. I often had to suggest important projects numerous times before I would gain her consent. She was not frugal or cheap in any way. Harriett preferred her wealth, however great that was I did not know, be used for the benefit of the greater community as a whole. Only my continuous nagging would gain approvals for new roofing, better windows, repaired pipes and better electrical service. Over time she had come to trust my judgment in these matters but I was judicious in my suggestions. Smudgy brown water stains marred the beauty of the fine cherry wood moldings beneath the high ceilings, one of the first warning signs that made me lobby for replacing the roof, and the once fine teak floors, a dark and uniform selection by Harriett’s father long ago, now bore scuffed and worn patches near the doors, in front of the fireplace and around the table where countless chairs had been pulled in and pushed out over the years. The still beautiful fieldstone fireplace showed a number of wide gaps where cement had given way and the stones directly above the hearth testified to the charcoal stains of half a century of fires. Still it was a great room, one of the Old Lady’s favorites. Over the years, she’d eaten most of her meals in this big room, all alone save the company of myself on occasion and her black cocker-spaniel who went by the unusual moniker of Six. His predecessor, another black cocker had of course been named Five. Apparently, prior to my arrival in nineteen eighty-seven, Four, Three, Two and One had kept Miss Grace company in this big drafty room over the past decades. Six had been the one to discover Harriett Grace’s body, still and lifeless at the foot of the long flight of stairs leading from the kitchen to the basement below. To my knowledge, Harriett hadn’t been down those stairs in sixty odd years. In all my time at Tulip, I had heard her mention the basement only once or twice. There were a good number of things bothering me about my benefactor’s death and where she died was presently at the top of the list.

With the bar set up and the chairs and tables properly arranged, I made my way into the kitchen hoping to check on the catering prior to the appearance of the family and small group of townspeople and acquaintances. To my slight surprise I found Deidre, the spry, young Irish lass who worked for Shore Gourmet Foods, digging in the refrigerator and balancing a large number of plates and bowls on her thin, delicate arms.

So you are here, I greeted her, stating the obvious.

Surely, she replied in her lyrical brogue. Deidre was an attractive young lady somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five years of age but I never had the nerve to ask for clarification. She was illegal from Donegal and about as reliable as the weather. I know this bunch will be filling their faces like a pack of Kilkenny swine so I brought plenty of everything including the fecking caviar creepy Mr. Carson prefers. The obvious disregard Diedre felt for Harriett’s son reminded me again of the man’s general repugnance. I guess t’was you placed the order, Connelly? she asked knowingly. Harriett used the caterers a few times a year, mostly for small charity functions she hosted at Tulip and always when the family came for their annual summer visit. Most had arrived four or fives days ago, the previous weekend. Harriett had Shore Gourmet Foods cater the arrival banquet the previous Saturday, the night she died. Enough here to feed all of Belfast, Deidre remarked.

Well, I am glad you’re here, I replied softly. The crowd should be arriving momentarily. Mostly family and a few of the neighbors and maybe a handful from the town, including the priest or whatever the hell they call him. No more than thirty would be my guess. Lay it all out on the table inside and if you need any help give me a call, I am going to get some ice and finish up with the bar.

Deidre nodded in a knowing way. The bar will be much more important with this crowd than anything they’ll put on a plate, she offered with a disgusted sigh. I still can’t believe the old lady is gone, she added sadly. Me and Mrs. Grace had our moments but mostly we got along fine. She was always very generous to me, Connelly, you know? I nodded in agreement and then making certain we were still alone asked her about the previous Saturday night.

Did you notice anything unusual the last time you were here, Deidre? Anything that might explain what happened, why she would have fallen down that stairwell? I looked over towards the basement door and Deidre’s eyes followed my own. She shrugged uncomfortably.

Nothing other than the general nonsense that always comes with this lot, she said softly. Lots of drinking and yelling and too damn many of them with their grabby hands. I looked at her with mild surprise and she explained. Especially the boys – that Chandler is the worse, pathetic is what he is. The venom in her tone concerned me and I looked up to see an angry tilt to her chin. Although a little flighty, I’d never know the young woman to be hostile or to exaggerate.

Is everything alright? I asked. Did something happen?

She grit her teeth, continuing to prepare the food, piling plates high with assorted salads, cold cuts, sautéed shrimp, mixed olives and imported cheeses. A plate of caviar and crackers held her focus and then she looked at me and shrugged. Nothing really, maybe just a little more than the usual, she said softly. They get a little grabby when they have a snoot full. Mr. Graham likes to run his hand along me bottom now and then but Chandler, he scares me. He likes to press up against me while I’m doing the dishes or carrying a tray, anytime I got my hands full. Thinks I like it, he does, arsehole. And his little pal Victor is no prize either, more than once he’s had his hands where they have no business. ‘Oh! Sorry!’ He claims with that shit-eating grin of his.

The news from Deidre came as no surprise. I knew the family was at best dysfunctional and some of the stories Harriett had told me over the years lent credence to Deidre’s tale. When did this happen?

She shrugged again, her dark hair falling in front of her face, hiding her slight embarrassment. S’been happening for a while, every year when they come in. But most recently the other night, on the night, well, on the night Mrs. Grace went to see her maker.

And they’d been drinking? I asked, Chandler and Victor?

Seemed all of them were drinking, the whole damn lot of ‘em. And maybe some had been smoking a little something too, she replied with a nod. They were acting like a bunch of jackasses during dinner and then some of them went for a walk. When they got back the two of them, Chandler and Victor, stayed in the kitchen taking turns grabbing my arse. I had to threaten to call their Grandmother to get them to stop and even then they didn’t seem too concerned. I wish now I had said something to Mrs. Grace but I didn’t want to make any trouble. The way things turned out, I wish I had.

Why’s that? I asked.

Just so she’d of known what complete idiots she had for grandsons and maybe she’d of kept her distance. The two of them were bothering the hell out of the old lady too. They went into the sitting room when she was in there reading and I could hear them ranting and raving all kinds of nonsense. Her patience was wearing thin with them, she told them more than once to leave her be. But they just kept up their stupidity, singing filthy songs and telling Mrs. Grace she should get up and dance. I think Mr. Carson tried to make them stop but after a while he gave up and went upstairs. Then I left. I wanted to get the hell out of here before the two of them started in on me again. Now I feel pretty bad about that. I should have stayed at least until Mrs. Grace went in to bed. But I just wanted to go.

I gave the Irish waif a gentle hug and told her to buck up. Not your fault, Deidre, nobody’s fault. The old lady fell down the stairs and cracked her head open. It was her time to go and she went.

Deidre looked at me coolly with her lovely blue eyes and shook her head slightly from side to side. Maybe Mr. Connelly, maybe. I just have a bad feeling about what happened and I wish I had stayed.

I told you a hundred times Deidre, my name is just Connelly. The Mister belongs to my father. Now let me get to finishing up with the bar or they’ll be hell to pay. If you need any help with the food give me a shout. We’ll talk more later. I fetched two buckets of ice and then hurried back into the big room to make sure I had everything in order. I quickly inventoried all the liquors and wines, noting again only the best of everything. As I organized the juices, tonic, seltzer, lemons, limes, olives and other compliments, I thought about what