Beechmont Riffs: A Death in the Village

By Philip Werber

"Beechmont Riffs" is a story based on facts that occurred in a wealthy middle class Westchester community in 1989. Here, in the lap of secure suburban society -- the American ideal-- a horrifying murder took place. When the bodies were found days after the murder, leads were cold and few.
The gripping story of the reaction of the community to the crime, the political effect the crime had on the town's Mayor; and the growing obsession by the police chief sets the stage. Heyward, a post-hippie, baby-boomer self-proclaimed private eye is left to solve the crime and cut the grass.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469148403

Philip Werber

PHILIP WERBER is a writer of award-winning educational and training videos, commercials, and corporate television productions. He has been a teacher, journalist, editor, producer and etc. His productions have been honored at the American Film Festival and the U.S. Film Festival. He currently lives in La Quinta, California, playing golf and smelling the grass.

Book preview

1

She had no business finding out what she found out. It was not something she needed to know and certainly not something she wanted to know. But now she knew it and it wouldn’t go away.

She was sure she had found her place in the world. It was a good place. She had her husband. She had her almost-grown children, off on their own. She had engineered an escape from her own culture and destiny, and found a life, and a country, where a woman could flourish.

This laboratory was her place. She did research that could save lives here. She could save her own life here. It was a safe place, tucked away, out of the madness of the hospital surrounding her. Now somehow, that madness had gotten loose: Rampaging its way through the hospital and killing people. And she couldn’t stop it. Of all the people there, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, she probably had the best chance to stop it. But they never told her about it. She didn’t know about it. And now it was too late. They knew and did nothing. And now she knew and what would she do?

Maybe she would do nothing. She would go home. Home to house filled with charm and grace. Go home to her quiet, perfect neighborhood and her quiet perfect town.

But even there it wouldn’t go away. She wished and wished that it would go away. Just go away.

Lately, she wished a lot of things would go away. She had made her own mistakes recently, and they wouldn’t go away. Now she had found this out, and no matter what, she knew that it, too, would not go away. But never in her wildest imagining, or her most scientific analysis, or her darkest fears, could she guess just how much this would not go away and who would be left to find it out.

2

Heyward was doing his best to hide behind the ancient splintered gazebo which overlooked the green, choppy Long Island Sound. The cool water was filled with multicolored sailboats working the winds of Opening Day of Race Week. Since 1870, wealthy local residents have lined Premium Park to watch their friends and neighbors compete in the most prestigious amateur event on the Eastern shore. It was always a spectacular sight and especially so today with Bill Gamitz, who just sold his media company to Google, at the helm of his newest toy, The Conqueror.

Too bad Heyward couldn’t see it. He always got a kick out of watching his obliviously privileged neighbors acting intensely serious about nothing in particular. Instead, he had to maintain surveillance on Kathleen Gardiner, a slim thirtyish blonde with candy-apple red lips wearing white shorts and a tangerine RL top. Under normal circumstances, she’d be a pleasure to watch, but not on a Race Day. And not when you’re being paid to watch her; then it’s just another part of your job.

Heyward kept a keen eye watching Kathleen watch the sailboats. He was almost in that state of mind where boredom leads to inattention; where you watch someone, but see something far different and think about something even better. That’s why Heyward always hated this part of the job. He knew it would embarrass the hell out him when someone would slip away while he was watching from only a few feet away.

Well, it’s like this, Mr. Client. I followed the suspect throughout New York, Westchester and Greenwich for two weeks, but lost her while I was thinking about the time I was living in Paris and studying at the Sorbonne, and I met this liberated co-ed from Grenoble who was wearing the first see-through blouse I’d ever seen. She was gorgeous and spoke no English. I spoke no French. It was perfect. I just had to show her how radical a good American student could be. He’d had to explain things like this in the past.

Luckily, Heyward wasn’t too far gone to miss seeing the tangerine t-shirt and its appealing occupant moving quickly away from the shore toward a group of rhododendrons with huge purple blossoms. He circled around the gazebo to improve his line of sight. Kathleen was walking toward the road. She looked at her watch.

Heyward moved out into the open and started after the woman. He felt noticeable and out of place. Everyone else was watching the race while he looking the other way. She was now a couple of hundred yards in front of him and moving rapidly. He tried to keep up with her and at the same time not look conspicuous. He had the polo shirt, with a real polo player on it, and worn out boat shoes so he fit right in, but walking against the crowd was not what you’d call keeping a low profile. Fortunately, Kathleen didn’t look back. She was looking at a gold Mercedes slowly turning the corner. The car stopped, Kathleen ran over to it, opened the door and slid in.

Heyward began running toward the Mercedes, all the time knowing he didn’t have a chance to get there before Kathleen, but hoping he’d see the driver. Was it the mystery man he’d been stalking for two weeks now? A moment before he reached the road, the car pulled away. The car accelerated down the road for a few blocks and turned into the raffishly unmanicured grounds of the Manor Yacht Club.

Heyward wasn’t able to see who was in the Mercedes. Damn it. I knew I hated this surveillance stuff. he said. As he ran down the road he was trying to come up with a plan to sneak into the Manor Yacht Club. He knew a professional always needed to have a plan.

3

Chief of Police Chip Mackearny loved Race Week. Although it meant that he and his force of sixteen officers and three detectives had to work weekends and overtime to handle the increased traffic on Shore Road, at least it broke the monotony of day to day law enforcement in Beechmont.

Not that there wasn’t any crime in Beechmont. Beechmont was, as all the local real estate agents cheerfully and endlessly recited, only thirty-eight minutes from Grand Central station. So the upper middle class suburban community had upper middle class suburban crime: Lots of stolen luxury cars, lots of robberies and break-ins at waterfront homes, regular DWI problems at the clubs, and lots of drug-related arrests on the small, personal use level.

In other words, nothing too serious.

As Mayor Verner liked to say, We may have diplomats from Colombia and Peru living here, but not cocaine. Al Pacino may live here, but Scarface doesn’t. He’s in the City, which was also the mayor’s way of telling Chip not to bust too many Beechmont residents or their teenagers.

Chief, I’m heading over to the Harbor to relieve Larry and Fran, patrolman Ben Turner interrupted Chip’s assessment of crime and real politics in the village.

Chip made believe he had been studying the report on last night’s break-in at the Conklin house on Wave Lane. The report was standard stuff. The basement door was jimmied while the family was out; some flat screens, cameras, and cash stolen.

Just enough for the owners to feel uneasy and invaded. More than enough for them to cover their deductible and make a profit with the insurance company. But not enough clues for Chip to hope to catch the bad guys.

Well, they probably weren’t too bad a group of bad guys anyway. If they were pros they would have taken the good silver and jewelry.

Chip mumbled Okay, at the patrolman. Turner was an old-timer, a good twenty-five years older than Mackearny. Turner came from the kind of police officer stock that reminded Mackearny of his father; friendly, honest, happy to stay on the local beat and help old ladys walk across the street. In fact, Mackearny’s dad and Turner served on the force together for many years before Bill Mackearny was killed. Not in the line of duty. He was thrown into the Long Island Sound when an old 24 foot Chris Craft Cabin Cruiser he bought blew an engine. Gasoline marine engines will do those kinds of things every now and then.

Chip Mackearny liked to think he was more like his grandfather, C. William Mackearney, than like his dad. C. William had also been a Beechmont cop, but he was ambitious and became the youngest Beechmont police chief in history. Chip made it just a tad later than his grandfather. Chip always rationalized that the time he spent at John Jay College of Law accounted for the difference. His dad never made it to chief and never seemed to care. His father never seemed to recover from that incident with poor little Liza Klimmer. Maybe it was that incident that killed Bill Mackearny.

Chip flipped the Conklin robbery report onto his desk. There was nothing of interest there, except that the Conklin’s house used to be Lillian Gish’s summer home back in the old days when Beechmont was almost exclusively a resort town for New York’s elite. The women and children would come up all the way Wall Street to escape the city heat, open up their big Victorians by the water and stay for the whole summer. The proper fathers would make the journey on Friday and head back to their banks on Sunday.

The actors, though, would come and go as they pleased. Day or night. Week day or weekend. Occasionally they’d be seen stopping off at D. W. Griffith’s huge movie studio and estate a little further down the Shore Road toward New Rochelle.

C. William had great tales to tell about the wild parties those actors and actresses would have and how the Beechmont police were busy all summer arresting gorgeous girls in their Hong Kong silk slips, drunk behind the wheel of their Packard convertibles. Those were the kind of stories Chip loved to hear from his grandfather whether or not they were true.

Chip decided he’s stop by the Conklin house on his way over to his regular visit to the Surfside Motel. The motel was on the outskirts of the village, just on his side of the border. If it were across the street, the motel would be the next town’s problem. The motel was Beechmont’s one hot spot of trouble and concern.

Even Westchester County, maybe the country’s wealthiest county, had to deal with welfare families. Much to the delight of the Surfside Motel owners, the county put up welfare cases at the motel for two thousand dollars a month per motel room.

To some village residents, it was another example of spreading urban blight, a legacy from New York City. To others, it was a legitimate responsibility that the county and the local community had to accept. To most of the residents, however, it was far worse; it was a direct threat to their property values. To Chip Mackearny and the rest of the Beechmont police force, it was the closest they ever got to real danger.

4

The Manor Yacht Club is a perfect example of that imperfect elegance so favored by older money. It makes you notice and acknowledge it as a place so secure that it doesn’t need you to notice or acknowledge it. It tells you straight out it has nothing to prove.

The YC sprawls along the edge of the shoreline, fearlessly occupying a point that juts out into Long Island Sound. Its members firmly believe that no hurricanes, storms or other mere expressions of nature could ever harm the YC. It just wouldn’t happen. They ’ve been right for more than one hundred and fifty years. The club, like its membership, remains out of harm’s way.

Like the surrounding grounds, the club house is meticulously cared for to look slightly used and uncared for. Heyward was impressed by the massive effort it must take achieve that level of relaxed nonchalance. The club house is a huge yet unassuming Victorian mansion with dramatic waterviews on three sides. Through its massive windows, members can watch their yachts rolling gently in the YC’s protected harbor on one side, look across the Sound to Long Island’s mansions on another side, or turn and watch the racing boats moving south toward New York City. All from the comfort of their club chairs and Scotch and sodas.

Down the road from the main house, members can play tennis on green clay courts, swim in the green tiled pool, or make their way down to the shore to sunbathe on the sandy beach. The beach has become a quaint relic nowadays, victim to medical waste washing up from the Bronx. Some things are even outside the YC’s control.

Into this bastion of elegance and understatement entered Heyward, bedraggled, red-faced, his little polo player almost obliterated by sweat. He implemented his plan immediately. A ten-spot got him past the guard at the gatehouse.

Once inside the YC compound, Heyward began a brisk, efficient casing, starting from the perimeter. First he checked the parking lot and located the gold Merc that picked up Kathleen. He ducked inside the open car door, riffled through the glove box and found an old lipstick, some stale gummy bears, and a bunch of Manilow and Streisand CDs. He checked the CD in the car’s player. Sharon, Lois and Bram’s Elephant Show. Either the driver was a six year old kid, or whoever Kathleen rendezvous with has one. At any rate, this was standard suburban car effluvia. No smoking gun at this particular point in time, Heyward thought, in his Nixonian break-in way.

From the parking lot, Heyward headed toward the YC’s sheltered harbor. He’d check the license plate number out later and at least get one solid clue to justify his existence for the day.

The YC’s docks were only half-filled. Most of the members’ boats were out racing or were out to observe the racing. A few J44s that weren’t racing sat gracefully at dockside. Other sailboats ranging from small 22 footers to 65 foot ocean racers were still tied up. To Heyward’s surprise, even some stinkpots were there. Heyward wasn’t aware that the YC now grudgingly allowed power boats. The times they are a-changing, he hummed to himself. There was no one else to sing to.

The only people Heyward saw were a couple on the deck of a big Hatteras drinking champagne and making believe they were interested in the races. The man was heavy, balding and about fifty. If he weren’t rich, he’d just be a fat, old man. However, he had a great tan, expensive shoes, a gold Rolex and a big boat. It’s the kind of comfortable look of big money that women find attractive. At least, this woman did. She was blonde, blue-eyed and blooded. Past her prime but slender, attractive and carefully dressed. Heyward could tell they were both trying to get her undressed.

Heyward debated hanging around to watch the grand seduction unfold, but his professionalism got in the way. Also, he wasn’t that interested in seeing a skinny, over the hill broad and a fat guy groping their way toward passion, real or calculated. Without their clothes or gold, the scene lost a lot of appeal.

And Heyward had other infidelities to investigate, real or imagined. The far more beautiful Kathleen was somewhere doing something with someone. If he had any hope of meeting his mortgage payment this month, he’d have to be more specific than that. With a lawyer for a client, you were expected to come up with details. Lots of them. The more the better. Heyward was beginning to think it was some kind of personality defect lawyers, as some kind of subspecies of humanity, suffered from: In the details there was God. Or Truth. Or Billable Hours.

Heyward gave wide berth to the Hatteras and made his way across the grass toward the YC’s beach. The YC’s sandy beach contoured along the Sound, flat and open in some places, narrow and mostly hidden in others. From almost any vantage point, however, you could look out over the entertaining light chop of the Sound reflecting crazily in the almost smogless sunlight and see the green, wooded shoreline of Long Island. Heyward knew the beach was almost directly across from the bright green light of West Egg. But none of them realized at the time that the real party was over here, in Westchester, at the Manor Yacht Club.

This beach was a likely place for a romantic interlude, Heyward thought, proud of his intuitive and diagnostic skills. A man and a woman, Kathleen and her lover, hand in hand walking on the beach, furtive, yet made brazen by their lust. Yes! This was the place to have a grand affair. The warm sun making their skin sizzle when they gently touch. Stray wisps of blonde hair brushing his cheek as they whisper up-close, the cool surprise of water splashing their bare feet as a wave creeps up the hot sand; a quick laugh and up-swept turn of her head sending an electric flash down his back. They embrace. He kisses her wet red lips. Her nipples hard and visible. Things intense as that.

Yes! Likely on a beach like this!

But not today, and not with Kathleen and some dubious Gatsby. Instead, all Heyward found on the beach was a classic old distinguished looking drunk visible in a double-breasted blue blazer splattered with gold buttons, probably real gold, with a braided yachting cap on his head, pure white pants, and Italian loafers with little brass anchors. The drunken sailor stood quite still, looking out at the boats racing leeward, his champagne glass raised in a silent salute. Clearly, his ship had come in, but Heyward thought it must have gone out again a long time ago.

Heyward walked up the stone steps leading from the beach to the huge, yellow painted veranda that encircled the YC’s club house. Slatted wooden deck chairs were artfully arranged and sparkled in the sun. Natty members and over-friendly guests placed themselves artfully on and between the furniture. Heyward was certain George Segal had been here and had decided who would stand, who would sit and who would silently laugh, mouth open, in that peculiar rich laughing way; the rich somehow deciding that rich people don’t laugh out loud. Instead they give the appearance of laughing. Maybe it was a kind of Rockefellerian throwback to a decision that frugality of expression was desireable. Or maybe nothing is really funny enough to make rich people laugh.

As Heyward picked his way through the crowd, he wondered which contemporary comedian had the best chance at getting these people to laugh. Certainly, not Richard Pryor, or Robin Williams, or any of those Jewish or Italian guys. Nah, the only one with the slightest chance would be Bob Hope, if he were still alive which he was rumored to be. Heyward gave as much credibility to that as to the Elvis rumors. Elvis and Bob, somewhere in Indiana, singing and telling jokes together.

Inside, the regulars for tea-time were tolerating the less regulars who mingled there during race week. Amiable, low key chatter filled the air. Heyward mingled, chatted and did his best to be look amiable while snooping around looking for some blonde hussy. He was starting to feel frustrated. Where the hell was she already? Heyward was a professional. He should be able to tail an unsuspecting housewife for chrissake.

Heyward needed some air. He didn’t bother checking the upstairs floors. He knew there were administrative offices up there along with the Commodore’s office and some overnight guest rooms for members too drunk to drive to their waterfront Tudors or who have been temporarily kicked out by their spouses. In any case, it would be too tacky, and too risky, for Katherine to be in one of those rooms naked with some member’s member.

He nodded jauntily to the parking attendants out front and swung left toward the swimming pool. Here, a younger, more animated clientele could be found. Children giggled, played and splashed. Au pairs, teenage European beauties, followed the children around trying to keep them under control. Mothers called to their toddlers not to fall, not to run near the pool, above all not to drown. Heyward looked at these mothers, in their late 20’s to late 30’s. Some were knock-outs in little bikinis or sleek one-piece suits that were truly marvels of modern design. They worked hard at getting back into shape after their babies were born and it showed. Worthy of being rich mens’ wives. They joined Gyms, like Bally’s and Body Shapers, where they got to dress up in $300 color-coordinated leotards and tights and dance to the Fat Boys. These outfits accomplished many goals at once, not the least of which was being able to dress up as sexily as possible without getting into situations that might compromise their marriages. These were confident, good looking women who had made unique, individual, hard-won deals with their men over careers, marriage, and motherhood.

Heyward remembered how mothers used to look; how in a strange way, he still wanted them to look. Old, heavyset, maybe gray-haired, certainly not sexy. Mothers should be kindly and caring. They’re not supposed to be the kind of people you’d want to lust after.

Heyward kept his lusting to a minimum. He saw no Kathleen and moved on, stopping only once to watch a tall, perfectly shaped strawberry blonde Swedish teenager tug at the leg band of her red maillot before she dived into the water. He was trying as hard as he could not to become a dirty old man, at least not yet. He was keenly aware it was a struggle he would not win one day.

Behind the pool and the cabanas were tennis courts, racquet ball courts and even a grassy lawn for croquet. No Kathleen. Heyward had looked everywhere, except he knew, where he didn’t want to look; in the separate shingled building that housed the tennis shop, saunas, dressing rooms and men’s and women’s lockers. He had no choice, he had to go although he knew he’d have no cover or pretense if questioned.

A rush of air conditioning hit him when he opened the tennis clubhouse doors. He quickly walked by the pro shop, looking for the men’s lockers. He swung open the door and picked his way through the rows of lockers. Fortunately, there were very few club members around. He nodded, mumbled or avoided those he did encounter. Hayward then checked the sauna and steam rooms only because they were there. He had no expectations of finding Kathleen in a men’s sauna. He was right.

Well, that’s was that. Heyward was finished. If Kathleen was in the women’s locker room, he’d never know. He exited the men’s locker and was on his way out when he heard voices coming from a side room. One soft female voice was just the kind Kathleen would have, Hayward thought. He’d walk by and casually try to look in. As he passed through the hall he paused momentarily at each door. Behind one, he heard the voice that must be Kathleen’s. He turned the door handle. He rationalized that he could always pull a quick exit, excusing himself for being careless enough to enter the wrong room. Weak, but all he had. And, if he did find Kathleen, he wouldn’t need an excuse. Just doin’ my job, Ma’am.

Kathleen was nude and moaning. So was her friend. But her friend was a dark skinned foreign beauty with long black hair and thick eyelashes. And they were both at rest on separate massage tables being worked on by white uniformed women who looked totally bored. Both masseuses noticed Heyward and gave him silent hostile glares. Kathleen and her friend hadn’t noticed him. They remained face down, eyes closed on their tables. Heyward silently closed the door and left.

Back outside, Heyward retreated past the gatehouse without even stopping to wave back at the smiling guard still relishing his unexpected ten dollar windfall.

He slowed to a stop when he was fully out of sight of the Yacht Club. He caught his breath and thought. It was only mid-afternoon, but he’d had enough for one day. He was going to get his car and go home. He wouldn’t even stop off at his office to pick up mail or messages. It was one of those work days best ended before its momentum would continue to pull it downward even further.

5

Most people who knew Russell Heyward thought he was a cynical, stubborn, self-centered son-of-a-bitch. In fact, Heyward like to think of himself that way, too. Except he liked to expand on the description by noting he was a man who had no more illusions left. More than once he’d told friends that, in the words of a writer he’d liked once, his life was really a series of diminishing expectations.

That being the case, how could he be so in love with Claire, his eight year old beauty. How could everything she do affect him so? For the life of him, he couldn’t figure this one out. She touched him. She moved him. Her small, clear voice, describing the simplest of events, penetrated his cynicism. Suddenly, it was more important than anything could be that she felt scared when her teacher yelled at her. Her most innocuous statements could make him almost shudder. Her cries of pain or distress, however minor in reality, caught him short and sent a sliver of fear through him.

She was small, trusting and defenseless. Once, during the Lyme disease scare, he told her not to go into the woods because she could get bitten by deer ticks, she complained to him. How come every animal, the lions, tigers, even bugs, is fiercer than me. I wish I was fierce, My Dad.

She was defenseless, and now he too was defenseless. Heyward recognized all too well his daughter’s vulnerability. He didn’t want her to know how rough things could get. He didn’t want her to know that he knew he couldn’t protect her. Not really. Not in these times. It cut him, sobered him, terrified him, that in one instant of our modern insanity, she could become a victim. Merely a victim. Of a lunatic, sex maniac, child molester, terrorist, drunken driver, mother-raper, father-raper, etc. Some psychotic bastard with a social problem could harm his precious Claire. It happened all the time. It happened in unimaginable ways.

Heyward’s paranoia was balanced by the sheer joy he frequently felt when he spent time with Claire. She was charming, funny, cute, precious. He wished he felt that way about women, he loved his wife but not like this. Heyward had been in love many times, but never with this passion, this long. He kept thinking that this overwhelming love would pass and he’d come to his senses. But as Claire got older, it got worse. He felt Claire’s grip on him more and more. He wondered what was going on. Just how abnormal was this? Was he going to end up becoming a Humbert Humbert? What was this mad love affair?

Meanwhile, to Claire he was My Dad. While her mother was Lena or Mom, Heyward was always, and only My Dad. He had no first name, because he belonged to her alone. She was his Dad someone she could hug and squeeze and kiss, and play with and trust. Someone she could convince to buy her whatever fluffy, stuffed animal caught her attention this week. She loved this gentle, sweet, cuddly My Dad.

Heyward was outside cutting the grass, his Snapper mower making loud, annoying noise, his shirt off, entrenched in his meandering