I asked Susan for the pass code to the house phone, and I went into the office, but there were no messages for me, only a few from her girlfriends.

Susan joined me in the office and asked me, “Are you expecting a call?”

“I am.”

“Who knows that you’re here?”

“The police, our children, Elizabeth, Mr. and Mrs. Nasim, Anthony Bellarosa, and Felix Mancuso.”

“Who is Felix… oh, yes. I remember him.” She asked me, “Why did you call him?”

“Because of Anthony Bellarosa.”

She shrugged and said, “Do it your way.”

“With your help and cooperation.” I said to her, “I want us to have a security alarm system installed here.”

She let me know, “This house has been standing here for one hundred years without an alarm system, and I don’t intend to put one in now.”

“Well, let’s start locking the doors and windows for a change.”

“I lock them at night.”

My late aunt Cornelia, who lived in a big Victorian house in Locust Valley, never locked doors or windows, except at night, when she remembered. It was a generational thing to some extent, and a statement, which was, “I am not afraid, and I will not let others change the way I have always lived.” I liked that, but it was not reality. We’ve all changed how we live since 9/11, for instance, and we don’t need to like it; we need to do it.

Susan, however, was on this nostalgia trip, trying to re-create her life as it was ten years ago. She’d gotten back her old house, and her old husband, rejoined her clubs, and was thinking about buying our former summer house in East Hampton. You can do a lot with money, but one thing you can’t do is turn back the clock. And if you try, the results are often disappointing, disastrous, or, in this case, dangerous.

With that in mind, I asked her, “Where do you think the shot- gun is?”

“I think it’s in the basement, John. I don’t know. I haven’t unpacked all the boxes since I moved.”

“I’ll look later.”

“Don’t open the box marked, ‘Boyfriends.’”

“Do you keep old boyfriends in a box?”

“Just their ashes.” She promised, “I’ll look later.”

She sat down at the desk, accessed her e-mail, and said, “Here are replies from Edward, Carolyn, and my mother.” She read them and said, “Just confirming… and saying let them know…”

I reminded her, “Your parents think they’re sleeping here.”

“Let’s see how that goes.”

“Susan, they are going to show up in a rental car on your doorstep-”

“Our doorstep, darling.”

“And they will not be happy.”

“Then they can turn around and go somewhere else.”

“I think you should tip them off… maybe a hint. Like, ‘I’m living with a man who I used to be married to.’”

She began hitting the keys and said, “Dear Mom and Dad… I have a boyfriend who looks a lot like… no, how about… For reasons I can’t explain now, I’ve booked you a room at… where?”

“Motel Six in Juneau, Alaska.”

“Help me, John.”

“See if there’s a cottage available at The Creek. You can get them in on your membership. Same with the guest rooms at Seawanhaka.”

She finished the e-mail and said to me, “If I send this, they’ll call and ask why they can’t stay here.”

“Tell them your allowance isn’t covering expenses, and you’ve taken in boarders.”

She shut down the computer without sending the e-mail and said to me, “Let them come here, and we’ll deal with it then.”

“That’s a great idea.” And to get into the proper spirit of this reunion, I said to her, “I’ve rehearsed a happy and upbeat line for when they show up.” I took her by the hand and led her to the front door, opened it, and said, “Here they come, and they’re out of their car.”

“John-”

I stepped outside, threw my arms in the air, and shouted, “Mom! Dad! I’m baaack!”

Susan thought that was funny, but she reminded me, “You’re an idiot.”

We went back to the office, and I found in my wallet the card of Detective Nastasi, and I said to Susan, “I’ll call him.” I dialed his office number, got through to him, and I said, “Detective, this is John Sutter, returning your call.” I hit the speaker button so Susan could listen.

Detective Nastasi said, “Right. Well, you got my message. His wife said he’s out of town.”

I informed him, “Bellarosa said to me on Sunday that he had a busy week because John Gotti was expected to die very soon, and he needed to go to the wake and the funeral.”

“Yeah? Well, Gotti died yesterday afternoon at the prison hospital in the Federal penitentiary in Springfield, Missouri.” He added, “It was in the papers and on the news.”

I replied, “I’ve been out of touch.” I thought about asking him if Jenny Alvarez was still covering the Mafia beat – she might have some inside information – but I thought better of that and said, “Maybe Bellarosa went to Springfield, Missouri.”

“Maybe.” He reported, “I checked with the security guy at the booth there at Alhambra, and the guy says he hasn’t seen Bellarosa since he left yesterday morning, and I just called the booth again and another guy said the same thing.”

“Well, you should know that Bell Security is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bell Enterprises, Inc., whose president, CEO, and principal stockholder is Anthony Bellarosa.”

“No kidding? How about that?” He asked me, “You think that’s a coincidence?”

“Uh… no.”

He laughed, then said, “Actually, I had a friend of mine in the District Attorney’s Squad run a check on Anthony Bellarosa. The file shows Bell Enterprises as his legit company in Rego Park – linen service, restaurant supply, trash carting, limousine service – usual wiseguy stuff.”

I hoped there wasn’t anything there about my new law firm of Sutter, Bellarosa and Roosevelt.

Detective Nastasi assured me, “So, we understand about Bell Security.” He asked me, “How did you know about that?”

“He told me.”

Detective Nastasi had no comment on that and said, “You know, when I spoke to his wife, I got the impression that he really was gone, and I didn’t see the Escalade that’s registered to him. So maybe he did fly to Springfield to be with the family.”

“Maybe you can check on that.”

“Maybe. All right, Mr. Sutter, we’ll keep on this, and as soon as I speak to Bellarosa, I will get back to you. Meantime, since you’re a neighbor, if you see him or hear anything about his whereabouts, give me a call, but don’t go looking for him.”

“I don’t intend to.”

“Good.” He then said, “They tore the mansion down.”

“They did.”

“That was some place. They don’t build them like that anymore.”

“No, they don’t.”

“What do you think those houses go for?”

“I don’t know…” I glanced at Susan, who held up three fingers, and I replied, “About three.”

“No kidding?”

I suggested, “Maybe crime pays.”

He reminded me, “We don’t have a thing on him.”

I was a little annoyed now, so I said, “You need to look harder.”

“Well, that’s the DA’s job, and the Feds.”

Regarding that, I said to him, “As an attorney, I know that the FBI has no jurisdiction in a case of threatening or harassment, but I’m wondering if you should call the Organized Crime Task Force to see if they’re tracking his movements for other reasons.”

He informed me, “The FBI wouldn’t tell me if my ass was on fire.”

“All right… but if they’re watching him for other things, they should know about this, just in case…”

“Okay. I’ll take care of that.”

“Good.”

“Any more suggestions?”

Oddly, I didn’t think he was being sarcastic. I think he was covering his aforementioned ass in case Susan Stanhope Sutter got whacked on his watch. I replied, “I’m sure you’re doing all you can, but I’d appreciate knowing that all the area patrol cars are aware of my complaint.”

“They have been notified.” He added, “When I speak to Bellarosa, I’ll reevaluate the situation and the response.”