Twenty-Five

TWENTY-FIVE

JIMMY CUNNIFF LOVES LIbrARIES so much he's now a board member at the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor. As a kid in the Bronx he spent time at the one in Morris Park to stay out of trouble when his friends weren't.

That seat on the board also has something to do with an old girlfriend who worked in real estate before realizing that Jesus would be back before Jimmy was ever going to propose to her. She moved away and married somebody else, but Jimmy remains on the board.

The annual Friends of Jermain fundraiser is one of the South Fork's social events of the year. Jimmy, Dr. Ben, and I are in the packed auditorium at Pierson High School with people who in season turn up at every event wanting to be seen, hoping to be photographed for Hamptons magazine, and generally congratulating each other for having money to give away to good causes like this one.

That I normally wouldn't have been caught dead—even when I thought that was an appropriate choice of words—at a society event isn't particularly surprising or meaningful to me.

But this is:

The room looks like a who's who from Rob Jacobson's first murder trial.

Rob Jacobson himself is home with his ankle bracelet. It's been a few days since the bail hearing and I haven't spoken to him or my sister, even knowing I'll have to open the lines of communication with both of them eventually.

But Claire Jacobson, Rob's soon-to-be ex, is keeping her distance on the other side of the auditorium. Otis Miller, whom I unintentionally outed during Rob's first trial, is there with his partner. I'm blocked on his name but they're chatting away with Gus Hennessy, Rob's former friend and Claire's onetime lover, who nearly torpedoed us during that first trial.

"The gang's all here," Ben Kalinsky says.

Jimmy snorts. "The Westies were a nicer gang than this."

He points out the event's chairperson, Elise Parsons, who finally outlived her elderly robber-baron husband but still lives for nights like this. Jimmy informs Ben and me that for years the relationship between Rob Jacobson and Elise Parsons has been an open secret in the Hamptons.

"Wouldn't it be easier to talk about who he hasn't slept with?" Ben asks. "Just to streamline things?"

I smile at him and proudly raise a hand.

"Was it still going on with Rob and Elise even after he ended up under house arrest?"

"I heard it ended badly," Jimmy says. "But at least nobody got shot."

Our plan is to stay about an hour. Ben and I are a few minutes away from the opening bid in the live auction and a clean getaway when Elise Parsons heads straight in our direction. The aging debutante is, bless her heart, the whole package: hair, makeup, not a bad body, lots of good Botox, enough jewelry to open a Tiffany pop-up store. She was probably a knockout back in the day. But for the catty life of me, I can't imagine which day that might have been.

"Well," Elise says when she reaches me. "I see the bitch is back."

I keep my smile in place.

"Nice to see you, too, Elise. Usually people get to know me a lot better before they call me that."

"I'm aware why your hideous client is unable to attend," she says. "What's your excuse for being here?"

She does a little toss of her head, hair unmoving, for effect.

"It actually did take nerve for me to show up," I say. "But not for the reason you think."

"You're really going to defend him all over again? Seriously? Just how much of a whore are you?"

Elise looks flushed, voice continuing to rise, as if she's already had too much to drink. Up to now, the event has been relatively sedate, even boring. The auditorium hushes to the unspoken thrill of listening in on a scene like this.

"Elise," Ben says calmly, trying to diffuse an impossible situation. "Please lower your voice."

She doesn't. We're way past that by now.

Suddenly a younger and much prettier version of Elise appears. Known as Ellie, she shares Elise's name.

"Mom," she says, "I heard what you called her. But there's no reason to insult any other whores here tonight."

"Is he screwing you, too, Jane?" her mother asks me, loud enough now for the parking attendants outside to hear. "Everybody on the South Fork thinks so."

I look at Elise Parsons, then her daughter, then back at Elise.

I motion her closer and lower my voice to a near whisper.

"It was you who married Gramps," I say, smiling sweetly at her. "So who's the real whore?"

And with that, the chairperson for Friends of Jermain hauls off and slaps me, the sound so loud it echoes off the polished floor.