Saturday, November 2, 1957
Harry Steele’s retirement party was held at the Huntting Inn on Main Street. Unlike the Sea Spray, which closed after Labor Day weekend, this venerable establishment—where grub and grog had been dispensed since 1751—stayed open through the fall.
In his own way Steele was an equally venerated institution. He had inaugurated the East Hampton Town police force thirty-four years earlier, and was being given a splendid send-off by what was now a ten-man department, together with many well-wishers from the community and farther afield, including the Fitzgerald family.
“I hope you invited the local criminals to this shindig,” quipped Fitz as he raised his glass in Steele’s honor, “’cause the town is completely unprotected today. All the cops are in this room.”
“Those who say there’s never a policeman around when you want one know exactly where to look,” Steele replied. “I think East Hampton can survive a couple of hours without us, and the place is going to have to get used to not having me around.”
“You’re not leaving town, are you?”
“Oh, no. Me and the missus wouldn’t be happy anywhere else. The kids and the grandkids are here, so I can’t see us pullin’ up stakes. Maybe I’ll get the old Indian goin’ again, give the patrol cars somethin’ to chase in the off season.”
“Make us eat your dust, Chief,” chimed in Earl Finch, recently promoted to sergeant. He greeted the Fitzgeralds warmly, with a Bonac hello to TJ, now nine.
“Howdy, bub. Good t’see you again. I hardly knew you, you’ve grown so.” He turned to Fitz and Nita. “Stayin’ the weekend? If so I hope you’ll come up to us for Sunday lunch. Grace and I would love to have you,” he winked at TJ, “and Sally’s waitin’ to see you. She hasn’t helped solve any more crimes since last summer, but she’s got another litter of pups.” That news got a string of Spanish from TJ, which Nita roughly translated as “Hot diggety!”
Just then TJ saw the Collins family come in. “Hey, Dad,” he asked, “can I go say hi to my buddy Mike?” His father excused him and off he went.
“I like a city fella who doesn’t forget his Bonac buddies,” said Finch. “Finest kind. I’m sure glad you folks can stay over.”
“Alfonso and Ted are putting us up at The Creeks,” said Nita. “Ted and TJ spent the afternoon in the kitchen, whipping up a batch of bread. Our boy is learning some very useful culinary skills.”
“He was my sous-chef for the coq au vin we’re having for dinner tonight,” said Ted, who had arrived on cue. “Mind you, I think we’ll have to hold it over ’til Sunday. No one is going to leave here hungry.” The inn had laid on a lavish buffet, as well as an open bar that put everyone in a nostalgic frame of mind. They couldn’t help but look back on the previous year, and the circumstances that had brought them together.
“Compared to ’fifty-six, your last year on the job must have been like a victory lap,” observed Nita. “Not a single murder since then, so they tell me.”
“Well, legally speaking, the Metzger killing wasn’t murder,” Steele reminded her. “Gerry Weinstock felt so bad about being the one to finger Irving Krasner that he really went to bat for him. He’s not a criminal lawyer, but he recommended a great one—and I think he paid the bill.”
“That’s what I heard,” Fitz interjected. “The guy got Krasner to take a plea of involuntary manslaughter and waive a jury trial. He figured a jury wouldn’t be sympathetic to a guy who killed a refugee from Nazi Germany, even though both he and the victim were Jewish.”
Steele took up the story. “It was a winning strategy, and Krasner’s confession read pretty much like Weinstock had figured it. He thought she was Ruth, and was just trying to get her away from Jackson. Certainly didn’t intend to do her in. In fact he didn’t even realize he’d killed her until he read the Post on the Friday. They picked up the Star story about her being strangled. Considering the circumstances, the judge took it easy on him. So Krasner’s doing only two to five up in Wallkill. Probably be out in less than two if he plays by the rules.”
“And for the rest of his life he’ll have to live with his guilt,” said Fitz. “Sadly, so will his sister. How’s she doing, by the way?”
Ted’s admiration was enthusiastic. “That woman is a survivor! After Irving’s arrest we feared for her sanity. Her close friends rallied ’round and got her through the worst of it. But she pulled herself together after the sentencing and spent the winter in the city taking care of estate business. We thought she might sell the Springs place, with all its unhappy memories, but back she went this summer and just moved right into Jackson’s studio as if it had always been hers.
“Of course it was the smartest thing she could have done. Stake a claim and assert her independence. She hadn’t painted in a year, but starting over in that space—so much bigger than the little bedroom studio she had in the house—it was like a rebirth. You should see the work she did! Big, bright, colorful paintings, just gorgeous, nothing like the gloomy things she was doing before. The ghosts were exorcised. We were flabbergasted.
“On top of that,” Ted continued, “she’s just gotten a huge windfall. Sidney Janis, that super salesman, has persuaded the Metropolitan Museum to pay thirty thousand dollars for a big Pollock called Autumn Rhythm. It set a price record for an American painting. Only a couple of years ago the Modern could have snapped it up for eight thousand, but they didn’t bite. How ironic that it went to the Met, not exactly a bastion of the avant-garde. Back in 1950 Jackson and his pals lodged a public protest against that old mausoleum for not showing modern art—in other words, their art. How’s that for a turnabout? And Lee’s the one who reaps the reward.”
“Well, she deserves it,” said Cile, who had joined the group. “She put up with so much of Pollock’s horseshit—pardon my language—it’s only fair that there really was a pony underneath it.” Her new twist on an old joke got a laugh all around.
Ted had more news. “Guess who else is very pleased with herself these days. Ruth Kligman! No sooner was she back on her feet than she was back on her back, this time under Jackson’s old nemesis, Bill de Kooning. They’ve been scorching the sheets since March, just about the one-year anniversary of her hookup with Jackson. Evidently Ruthie’s sap rises in the spring.”
After many toasts, recaps of highlights from Chief Harry Steele’s long and distinguished career, and wishes for his future health and happiness, the party wound down and the guests began to disburse. Friends and acquaintances from the previous year urged Nita, Fitz, and TJ not to be strangers, and return visits were promised.
“Don’t forget our lunch date tomorrow,” said Finch. “You remember the way, don’t you? Up Fireplace Road to Gardiner, turn left, third on the left.
“And take it easy on that curve. It’s dangerous.”