A brilliant, admired celebrity lawyer is lost at sea. Was it an accident, a kidnapping, a murder, or an escape? His wife, Judge Sam Partridge, forms a search team of retired legal professionals affectionately called the Old Fellas, who find more than she bargained for. Corporate fraud, the Mafia, and global criminal syndicates emerge to reveal cracks in a picture-perfect life … or so Sam believed.
When the doyenne of Hamptons society is discovered dead at the foot of her staircase, her teacup and saucer were found placed upright next to her body. A perfect landing … or a perfect crime? Never properly investigated in this private and privileged community, her case stuck in the Old Fellas’ craws for years. With the mysterious disappearance and the suspicious death, they are on their first cases.
A sophisticated mystery romance thriller about wealth, deception, loyalty, and the dangerous cost of discovering who people really are … especially those you love.
Similar to The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty and The Boyfriend by Freida McFadden.
Based on Joan Barrett’s award-winning TV series pilot screenplay – Untouchables: Hamptons
EXCERPT
The Untouchables
The club manager dimmed the house and started the projector. A montage rolled across the screen—photographs at home, in other people’s homes, and of other celebrations and good times. Some laughs surfaced, not unkindly. In one picture, Ned poured bubbly into a mountain of flutes while Sam—off to the side, unposed—watched him as she so often did, remaining in his shadow as he basked in celebrity circles and their admiration for his brilliance and agility on their behalf.
When the lights came back, Charles Rothenberg stood straight, square-shouldered, and tall. He was a still-handsome gray-haired man in his late 60s, impeccably dressed in a Savile bespoke blue pinstripe suit with a burgundy, navy, and gold striped silk tie and a coordinated pocket square with a three-peaked fold, appropriately finished with John Lobb highly polished black closed-lace cap-toe Oxfords. Most certainly a sought-after recent divorcee, especially since the tragic death of his ex-wife, Eleanor Rothenberg, the Grande Dame of Hamptons society.
He did not go to the podium, yet he commanded attention. He stayed where he was and spoke in the conversational tone of a man who had delivered eulogies and term sheets with equal success. “Ned was a professional. People use that word as a near-synonym for competent. They’re wrong. It is more than that. To be a professional is to be someone whose work refuses to leave him alone. “Ned was the consummate professional.”
Sam smiled graciously, inwardly struggling to absorb that the mighty Charles Rothenberg possessed the emotional intelligence to recognize and define the psychological nuances of a true professional.
“He took calls on Saturdays because Saturdays called him. He understood the difference between a promise and a contract and the way a promise can stain a man worse when it isn’t written down. I saw him make deals that saved souls and companies, sometimes in that order. He saved us from ourselves more times than we paid him for.”
He paused, as if listening inward. “He also knew boats and the local waters better than most men who brag about such things. He knew when to go out and when to wait. That he went out that day…” He spread both hands, then let them fall. “We miss him.”
Polite, sincere applause—a conflicting co-existence—flowed back to him. Measured admiration and envy.
Sam had never seen Charles in this light, the imperious Charles Rothenberg. She had only known the privileged-from-birth multi-millionaire as a generous benefactor to Hamptons’ charities. Today she saw him as more than just another entitled moneybag looking for charity tax write-offs. This head of the Rothenberg family empire could feel as vulnerable as other mere mortals, occasionally needing to call upon help, and be appreciative to boot.
She was genuinely touched that he exposed that side of himself publicly in a sincere, personal gesture in recognition of Ned’s dedication and loyalty. Qualities in Ned that she also admired and fell in love with. Coming from this least-likely guest, Charles’ words hit home … her heart.
A successful television producer got up next, lean and leathered, with a piercing laugh. He told a story about Ned in Cannes, the global capital of the film industry, his umbrella inside out in a squall, arguing a contract clause under a striped awning like a man haggling over pomegranates. Ned’s friends smiled and chuckled, grateful for his passion that perhaps they’d experienced too. The producer’s wife dabbed the corner of one eye and then glanced around to make sure someone had seen.
Candy Bloom, a local socialite and client, stood. The room noticed. All rooms she entered noticed. Candy made sure of it. She always anchored herself a beat longer than anyone else before stepping into a spotlight; she understood lights and timing.
She was stunning with long blonde locks flowing over her shoulders. Her youthful curvaceous body had perfect posture. She was exquisitely dressed for the occasion in her black Coco Chanel bouclé suit woven with gold threads, favorite gold band bracelets, and gold diamond-studded earrings, coordinated with jewel-buckle-adorned black Manolo Blahnik pumps drawing admirers to her long, made-for-a-fashion-runway legs. Did such outward perfection mirror her interior or mask it?
Candy looked a fraction uncertain as she was passed the mic, and her bracelets settled into silence. She didn’t go to the podium, either. She turned halfway so her profile was to Sam and her gaze to the room.
“Ned was a gentleman,” she began, and Sam wished she had brought a bottle of water to hold, something to keep her hands from curling into themselves.
“He was loyal. He kept his word. He didn’t gossip. And he got things done. When bad things happened, you wanted Ned in the room.”
Candy stopped, searching for more words. She found them and appeared proud, surprised by their softness with a slight smile. “I remember once, I was truly frightened. It doesn’t matter why. I called Ned. I thought I would get a voicemail, and instead I got him, and he said—,” She lowered her lashes. “‘I’m here.’ He didn’t even ask for details at first. He just said, ‘I’m here.’ Later, he asked the questions he needed to ask and did the things he needed to do. But first, he said, ‘I’m here.’” She swallowed. “They were his gifts: his empathy, his generosity, his spontaneity.”
Ted Bloom’s jaw worked a little. He looked at his wife, Candy, then away. The strain of their age gap—and perhaps more—occasionally surfaced. Candy was in her mid-thirties and Ted in his early sixties. He adored her and would do anything for her. She certainly held the power in that relationship, though he brought the money and prestige to it.
Ted was not as fashionable as Candy or his close associate Charles Rothenberg, but he had the presence of a man to be listened to. He was not one for small talk and was more comfortable in larger conversations in corporate boardrooms.
After more stories—a talent agent with a punch line, a paralegal who told his story with less drama than the others, etc.—the bar opened. The club knew how to move a crowd. The bartenders poured ice and clear liquor into heavy crystal; servers carried silver trays, practiced in the art of offering without hovering. The raw bar glistened on crushed ice. Little crab cakes did their work. Outside the west windows, the light cast that late-afternoon lemon yellow hue that flattered even bad landscaping.
Sam moved through the crowd. The receiving line had disintegrated into organic clusters with gravitational pull. She accepted handshakes, air kisses, the choreography of compassion, and stored each face in its file.
A woman with a Spanish title kissed her cheeks. “You must rest now.”
Two men she’d sentenced fifteen years apart—each acquitted later, on appeal—offered the specific nods of men who know judges must be shown respect, whether they like them or not.
Sam excused herself and stepped into the east corridor, where the portraits of previous commodores hung. She pressed her palm against the cool of the wainscoting, closed her eyes, and let one picture unspool:
Ned was on the dock the last time she saw him. She was in the driver’s seat of the Jag, engine idling. He headed toward his prized boat—Continuance—that ridiculous name he’d loved because it reminded him of a child going sledding on an unexpected snow day off from school. As his adult self, when a legal continuance was issued on one of his court cases, he was off to sea on the Continuance like that same child.
He blew her a kiss that last morning, and shouted, “Back early enough for that thingy at the museum. Unless the wind is good.” She rolled her eyes. He laughed, hands wide. “What? I’m honest.”
He walked along the dock, tossed his duffel onto the boat, hopped down, glanced back once more, the way he always did—one last look, as if to rewrite a detail in his mind—then he was just a man on a boat, not Judge Samantha Partridge’s husband, not the celebrated celebrity and corporate lawyer holding secrets of untold global untouchables, whose privacy he safeguarded and legal liabilities he limited.
Ned was the glamorous half of their marriage, late 50s, exceptionally fit and handsome with wavy salt-and-pepper black hair, comfortably sporting charismatic charm and wit. He didn’t have to work at it … he was born with it.
He certainly was liked and admired for his brilliance and legal expertise, if you believed all that was said about him today. But who was this elusive character that just disappeared off the face of the earth a year ago? Without a word or warning to the woman who loved him dearly, and as importantly, to those Sam was about to encounter in her search to find him.
Sam opened her eyes. At the end of the corridor, near the service door where staff slipped between rooms like reputable ghosts, stood a chauffeur with white-flecked black hair whom Sam had noticed earlier. Something about him made her catch her breath. He stood as if guarding a message, his cap brim shadowing half his face. He somehow was aware of her without turning.
She didn’t call. She walked toward him, measured, her mind playing tricks on her. The chauffeur turned, his gaze touching hers. It was not Ned’s. It could have been Ned’s in a mirror in poor lighting on a day when he’d not slept, on a day when he’d smoked that one ghastly French cigarette he permitted himself after a court victory. It was also an entirely different man doing an entirely ordinary job.
“I’m sorry,” Sam meant those two words in more ways than mere language can express. “I thought—” She stopped.
The driver tipped his cap in a gesture from movies. “Ma’am.”
She stood there a beat too long, and then Ethan called her name from the doorway to the bar, tapping his watch in pantomime impatience. She offered the chauffeur a nod, wanting it to say “sorry” and “it’s okay,” then dove back into the commotion.