Excerpt: Precious Friends: Murder in Sag Harbor (Angelo Perrotta Mysteries #3) by Frank Spinelli
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The Most Precious Friends Hide the Darkest Secrets
"In the Hamptons, interlopers are as ubiquitous as deer ticks. The only way to remove one is to apply steady, even pressure on the head and pull."
JB Pulaski, a tenured sociology professor, thought surviving cancer was his greatest battle. Now, desperate to save his crumbling marriage, he retreats to his Sag Harbor summer home with his philandering husband Mike and teenage son Emilio.
Instead, he finds humiliation.
When Mike begins a public affair with Italian pianist Gianni Cuomo, JB becomes the summer's most whispered-about scandal—the cuckolded husband everyone pities but no one respects. But when Gianni is found murdered at an exclusive costume party, pity transforms into suspicion, and JB becomes the prime suspect.
Behind the gated driveways and manicured lawns lies a world where appearances are everything and loyalty is currency. As the investigation closes in, JB must confront not only a conspiracy designed to destroy him, but the darkness he's spent a lifetime suppressing. With his son's future hanging in the balance and his own violent impulses emerging, JB discovers that in the Hamptons, the most dangerous predators wear the most beautiful masks.
Book 3 in the Angelo Perrotta Mysteries—a standalone psychological thriller
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Chapter One
JB Pulaski had never thought about confessing to murder before. But watching his husband Mike grinding against their young Latino guest—the performative spectacle of it, the deliberate boundary-crossing—JB decided tonight might be the perfect time to try.
The Latino’s name was Dan Vega, and he was housesitting for JB’s best friend, Rakesh, while he vacationed in Puerto Vallarta for three weeks. One more week, JB reminded himself. Seven more days until Danheads back to Miami.
If Dan wasn’t planning on returning home, JB didn’t doubt that he would become Mike’s number one stray. All night JB heard the whispering of “Who’s that,” and “What’s his name?”
Dan’s light-brown eyes, mocha complexion, and glistening dark curls had snared everyone’s attention. What JB despised most was the way Mike danced after one too many cocktails. The way his body transformed from composed to predatory the moment he spotted a new conquest.
Dancing, like sipping cocktails and engaging in small talk, was an unavoidable ritual of socializing out east—cultural lubricants intertwined as naturally as Montauk oysters and mignonette. Social gatherings in the Hamptons often represented a collision between the banal and the vapid.
How could anyone survive a conversation about the audacity of new money erecting tasteless McMansions in Bridgehampton, the Sisyphean parking nightmare at Main Beach, the comparative outrage of farm stand heirloom tomato prices, the culinary pretensions of Nick & Toni’s new chef—or life in general—without a stiff drink in hand?
JB’s eyes focused on the conga line snaking past him with Mike leading the way. Mike looked over his shoulder at Dan, his smile about to crack his face in half. They were so close they were practically conjoined. Just then, Dan must have said something stunningly obscene because Mike threw his head back, whinnying that braying laugh he reserved for random handsome men who said anything remotely funny.
The luau was in full swing around him—thirty guests in floral print shirts and vibrant sarongs. A juxtaposition of older, rich gays plus a smattering of their favorite jewel-encrusted fag hags and assorted, corporate fruit flies, swimming amongst the young, poor, and hopeful. A tableau of desperation masked as festivity. Social events such as this occurred only in those precious few months that spanned from Memorial Day until Labor Day.
The conga line dissolved, and there was Dan, shifting nervously in the hallway of JB’s Sag Harbor home.“How are you, JB?”
It wasn’t so much a bizarre question as a bizarre time to ask it. This ritualistic probing around was typically accomplished in the first few moments of a conversation; wooden planks laid down in a bridge that would lead to friendship or in this case, away from it.
“I want to tell you two things,” Dan continued with sudden enthusiasm. “Rakesh called today and asked if I could stay on another week. Apparently, Andy’s mother is sick, and they’re going straight to Tampa to visit her.” He burst into laughter, doubling over. “I was thinking Rakesh and Andy could never go straight anywhere.”
Mike had a knack for finding strays like Dan—clingy, silly, and juvenile. Adult men who acted younger than their age. Men who held maturity at arm’s length, deferring it with fluttering lashes, shrugging accountability with pouty lips. What was it about this gay generation that let them play perpetual adolescent when JB had younger students who were mature beyond their years?
“And the second thing?” JB pressed.
“Oh yeah, the second thing is, I want to say how cool you are for letting me hang with Mike. Some husbands get salty but you’re not, right? Anyway, I just wanted to say, I think you’re cool as F, and kind of sexy in your own way.”
It hit JB then, even though he already knew. They’re fucking. Of course they were. He’d been down this road before. This was the part where Mike’s strays checked in with the husband to make sure their feelings were intact. Dan didn’t dare burn bridges, especially ones that led to the Hamptons.
“I see no reason to be uncool,” JB said. “Life is too short. If I was upset with someone, I’d simply kill them.”
The left side of Dan’s mouth slid into a twitchy smile. “Kill?”
“Do you recall the Sag Harbor murders?” JB asked.
“Jamie and Tom?Of course, I remember. I house-sat for them a month before they were found dead last summer.”
“Oh, that’s right,” JB said as though it had slipped his mind.
“You killed Jamie and Tom?”
“Uh-huh.”
Dan’s smile grew smaller. “You’re fucking with me.” He forced a laugh, which may well have been a hiccup.
“I’m not kidding.” JB’s eyes sharpened. “Mike was part of a throuple. That is what you kids call a threesome nowadays, correct?”
“Throuple?”
“The murdered couple plus Mike. They were a throuple. Except they had grown too attached to Mike. He may have told you this story, so I apologize if you’re hearing it again. It wasn’t that I cared all that much, me being cool as F and all, but it was their personalities that drove me insane.”
A server came by and proffered a pewter tray of mini ahi tuna tostadas with little sugared orchids.
“Thank you.” JB chewed, exposing all his teeth to Dan.
“You’re trying to scare me.” Dan chuckled, but JB saw the wheels churning. The question must be swirling in the poor boy’s head: why is he confessing to murder?
“I don’t think I am.” Finally, JB was having fun at his own party. “Not that it matters.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Is it so unbelievable?” JB waited, but Dan never responded. “I think you do believe me. Again, not that it matters.”
Silence followed. JB attempted to hide the smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“I don’t think it’s funny to joke about murdered friends,” Dan said.
“They weren’t friends of mine. I wouldn’t murder my friends. What could be more uncool?”
“Of Mike’s, then.”
“That makes all the difference in the world.”
“Still, it’s not funny.” Dan turned to leave.
“I’ll try to do better next time, but do me a favor, Dan…mum’s the word about the murders. Mike doesn’t know.”
Dan appeared dazed as he walked away. JB watched him hurry across the living room and exit the front door without saying goodbye to Mike.
JB headed for the bar to order a celebratory Scotch. Dan would wake up tomorrow still thinking he had been the victim of JB’s prank, though he would be wondering a little, too. Enough to ask a few people some questions about JB’s attitude toward his husband’s extramarital activities.
At forty-eight, Joseph Byron Pulaski—JB to the select few he allowed close—cut an imposing figure: six-foot-four of lean, sinewy strength meticulously maintained through disciplined keto, punishing leg routines, intermittent fasting, and hot yoga sessions that left him drenched but centered. These weren’t simply vanity projects but necessary fortifications against what he called “life’s relentless assault.”
Tonight’s assault came in the form of a Hawaiian luau—a godforsaken party JB had agreed to cohost only after Mike’s poisonous dart of gossip two weeks prior: “Word on the street is that we’re always the guests—never the hosts. People are starting to whisper if you’re one of those controlling husbands who hates having people in his home.”
Through the refracted bottom of his tumbler, JB observed the assembled guests as a trio of multiracial Ken dolls greeted them with leis and passed canapés adorned with pineapple slices and syrupy cherries. The servers wore uniforms handpicked by Mike: Hawaiian shirts and matching shorts—green, yellow, and red—bought a size too small.
JB’s attention drifted to the wall behind the bartender—a gallery of moments curated over seventeen years. There was the party at Rakesh’s, where JB and Mike had first declared their exclusivity: Mike, luminous and golden, his hair like a halo of sunlight. A wedding photo of JB and Mike in pristine white tuxedos, champagne flutes raised in a salute, and there, clutching JB’s leg, was Emilio—their adopted son—completing a portrait of hard-won happiness.
When had he last felt such joy?
The weight of fatherhood had crushed Mike initially. JB understood—Mike didn’t see parenthood as a milestone, but as yet another grim signpost on the slippery winding road toward death. But Emilio had changed everything for JB. Their son brought such happiness to his life, a bright spot in what had become an increasingly dark landscape.
That shadow had descended precisely fourteen months ago, in Angelo Perrotta’s medical office. Elevated PSA levels. The words “prostate cancer” spoken with the clinical detachment of a weather report. JB had known the awful truth before the biopsy confirmed it.
Almost immediately, Mike splintered from the man JB had met in a bar on Christmas night. Mike, six years JB’s junior, had always viewed aging as an affliction he couldn’t bear to confront. JB’s cancer pushed him over the edge. In the days that followed, Mike’s mood turned rancid. He skulked around the house with a drink in his hand, neglecting Emilio and unwilling to manage the household.
Then came the knock that changed everything.
Mike had met Jamie Friend and Tom Fitzsimmons at the gym—Miami residents who’d come to Sag Harbor to escape the heat, only to land in hot water with JB when they began an affair with his husband. Lean with thick hair curling beneath his trucker cap, Jamie stood in their doorway like the beginning of bad vintage porn. Tom, shorter and symmetrical, possessed all the telltale signs of an aging queen waging a failing war against Father Time: Botox, skin burnished by tanning beds, blindingly white veneers, and the unmistakable artifice of hair plugs.
In that moment, JB understood with crushing clarity: Mike had found someone—or rather, two someones—to occupy his time while JB underwent cancer treatment.
Mike’s affair with the couple had lasted two months. Two months of JB undergoing the worst experience of his life, moving into the bedroom above the garage, ostensibly because he didn’t want Mike to see the urine bag strapped to his. The truth was more complex—JB had moved out in a magnanimous gesture to prove he was evolved enough to handle Mike’s infidelity. How pathetic and sexless he’d felt, such a far cry from the man he was before the chemo and radiation when sex was as vital as oxygen.
JB recalled with peculiar relish the last time he’d seen Jamie and Tom. Mike had invited them for dinner last August. Jamie had focused his attention on JB, bragging about the potential deal their houseguest had brokered with a Mexican billionaire—in return, they’d agreed to make him a partner.
“That is the dumbest business decision I have ever heard,” JB had said, standing to refresh his drink. “You should be more judicious about the kinds of people you get in bed with. How well do you know this houseguest? Throw him a few bucks. Call it a finder’s fee, but if you ask me, don’t make him a partner.”
Three weeks later, that couple was found dead in their garage.
Apparent double suicide. Carbon monoxide poisoning. Their bodies sprawled in the front seat of their idling Mercedes G-Wagon.
JB had experienced a certain decadent delight when he heard the news.
Someone tugged on JB’s arm, interrupting his dark contemplation. It was his doctor and good friend, Angelo Perrotta. “Great party.” He had offered JB that exact compliment ten minutes earlier.
“Are you not having a good time?”JB asked.
Angelo shuddered as though he’d accidentally belched at a formal dinner party. “What? Of course. Why do you ask?”
“You seem overly attentive like I’m your pregnant wife. Don’t worry. I’ll let you know when my water breaks.”
Angelo offered a confused expression, then chuckled. “You’re such a kidder.”
“That I am.”
“Jason and I are heading out.” Angelo paused before adding, “For what it’s worth I think you’re incredibly patient.”
JB thought that if Angelo continued, he’d ruin everything by laughing in his face. Instead, he spoke directly in Angelo’s ear. “I’m not as good as you think. I have evil inside me. I squash it down so no one can see it.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Go home.”
An awkward void opened once Angelo walked away. JB stepped outside to clear his head. He realized Angelo hadn’t asked him about Dan. Hadn’t commented on how cute he was, or asked anything about him at all. Not like all the other wide-eyed, teeth-baring guests stealing voracious glances at JB, silently hoping for a catfight.
“What are you doing out here?” Mike asked.
“Taking a break from all the fun.”
“Have you seen Dan?”
JB smiled more than he had the entire evening. “No, I have not.”
“Did you say anything to him?”
JB stared directly into Mike’s eyes. “I don’t recall.”
“I saw you talking to him,” Mike insisted. “What were you two talking about?”
“My garden,or was that with Angelo?”
Mike tottered slightly as he stepped closer, and JB took his elbow to steady him. “I know you must have said something because Dan left without saying goodbye.”
“Are you sure you didn’t say anything to offend him?” JB countered. “Looks like someone may have been overserved tonight.”
Mike hesitated, thinking. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Would you like me to fix you a cup of coffee?” JB suggested as he rubbed Mike’s shoulders. “I’m happy to do it.”
“I hope I didn’t say or do anything to offend Dan.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” JB insisted. “Now, go back to your party. I’ll fix you a cup of coffee.”
JB stood on the porch a few moments longer, observing this human reef of symbiotic relationships. Dan would be arriving at Rakesh’s house by now. JB wondered if he’d frightened him. Dan would be thinking, what if JB had killed Jamie and Tom? Maybe that’s why he’s so odd. He’s a murderer.
That gave JB great comfort.
In the distance, he could hear Mike’s laughter echoing from inside the house, already searching for his next conquest. JB had learned something valuable tonight: the truth, when wielded properly, could be the most effective lie of all.
He had to be careful not to reveal too much of it.
Frank Spinelli is a New York physician and author of the Angelo Perrotta Mystery series. He has appeared on ABC News, NBC Nightly News, and MTV. A resident of Sag Harbor, he lives with his incredibly patient husband and their four-legged adopted son in a house where the neighbors are just close enough to hear you scream—if they're paying attention.
AUTHOR WEBSITE (live link): www.frankspinelli.com
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