Ice Cap by Chris Knopf Page A

sat there and tossed the ball for Misty, rousing her from her sleep and ignoring Sullivan as he said a second farewell and left Dayna’s office.

 
    7
    Crime on the East End is probably no different from most of the country. It’s mostly petty, stupid stuff committed mostly by people in various states of cognitive disrepair. Aside from the occasional flimflam—a con man posing as a European count, say, fleecing both bankers and benefactors—it’s all the usual stuff. Fistfights over parking spots, kleptomania, secret vendettas gone awry, public urination, purloined Pomeranians, et cetera.
    The only police matter of genuine local interest that winter, and much more interesting to the cops than anyone else, was a string of exotic car thefts. For the last three winters, person or persons unknown were boosting Porsches, Aston Martins, Bentleys, and expensive collectibles like Packards, Morgans, and Cords from where the wealthy had left them in the garages of their summer homes, unneeded in the city and virtually forgotten until the start of the high season.
    This was not a crime wave that engendered an outpouring of public sympathy. Most in town figured the owners were selling the cars to South American drug cartels and claiming the insurance loss. This is the type of loony conspiracy theory indulged in by our locals when discussing the wealthy city people, about whom they knew next to nothing. I knew enough to know city people had far more lucrative and efficient ways of acquiring ill-gotten gains than anything as ridiculous as that.
    So unless it was the peak of the season and celebrities were out and about flashing their summer plumage, the Hamptons rarely attracted the interest of the outside media. The last event to make national news was a car bombing in East Hampton, which everyone assumed at the time was an act of international terrorism. It wasn’t, as it turned out. So the interest quickly died down. Except on my part, since I was there when it happened, getting nearly blown up along with the car.
    As in most places, however, sensational murders were rare, so despite our off-season obscurity, the death of Tad Buczek prompted a call to my office that morning from The New York Times . I hadn’t heard from these folks since the car bombing, so I didn’t completely believe it at first.
    â€œCome again?” I asked.
    â€œRoger Angstrom, New York Times ,” he repeated. “I’m looking for a comment on the Buczek killing. This guy Raffini worked for him, right? Have the police established a motive yet?”
    â€œThere is no motive.”
    â€œThere isn’t?”
    â€œThere’s no motive because Franco didn’t kill him,” I said.
    â€œWhat makes you say that?”
    â€œI’m his defense attorney. I only defend innocent people. And I don’t comment on active cases.”
    â€œYou sort of just did. You said Raffini was innocent.”
    â€œOkay, but that’s as far as I go.”
    â€œI was thinking about driving out there this afternoon. Could you meet with me for a few minutes?”
    â€œProbably not,” I said.
    â€œI’ll have other people’s opinions. You might want a voice if you disagree with what they said.”
    â€œWhy are you interested in this?”
    â€œI’m a crime reporter. It’s what they pay me to do. I write about the innocent and the guilty, but I try to be as fair and accurate as I can. Defense attorneys generally like that.”
    Why does the fear of being manipulated always cause me to spur the manipulator on to greater effort? It’s like I step out of my body and look back at myself diving for the obvious bait.
    â€œWhat little I’ve experienced with the press has rarely featured both ‘fair’ and ‘accurate’ in the same story,” I said.
    â€œThat’s because you’ve never worked with me.”
    â€œWe’d be working together? I thought you