Entombed (30 page)

Mike was as startled
as I. "Guidi? Gino Guidi?"

"You know him?"

"I've heard the name,"
Mike said. "Investment banker-is that the one?"

"Bronx boy makes good,
Mr. Chapman. That's our Gino Guidi."

30

"I didn't see his name
on the list," Mike said, unfolding the copy of the Raven Society
membership for a second look.

"No. You won't find it
there," Zeldin said. "You probably know him from the business pages of
the newspapers. He's made a fortune on Wall Street, but luckily for us
he chairs the board of the Bronx Historical Society. They oversee the
management of the cottage."

"He's into Poe, too?"

"Not that I'm aware
of, Detective. I've met him at a few fund-raising events here at the
conservatory, but we've never talked about literature."

Mike winked at me. "On
second thought, what's half an hour? You wanna see the place?"

If a visit to Poe's
home hadn't whetted his appetite, the Guidi connection had.

"Why don't you stop
for some coffee in our cafeteria? Your car is parked right near there.
The cottage isn't normally open for tours until one o'clock on
weekdays. I'll make sure they send someone over to show you around.
Mind you, Mr. Chapman, it's a tiny, little place-I don't imagine it
would take you five minutes to walk through, even if you tried to
stretch it."

Phelps dropped us in
front of the Garden Café and the three of us went in to nurse a
cup of coffee, chart the next few days' work, and await Zeldin's call.
Fifty minutes later he rang me on my cell to say that we were expected.

At eleven-thirty, we
drove away from the Botanical Gardens and headed to the intersection of
the Grand Concourse and Kings-bridge Road. The eighteenth-century farms
that once graced the area had given way to elegant apartment buildings
in the early twentieth century, and were now replaced by grim-looking
tenements whose doors and windows were covered with the roll-down metal
gratings so omnipresent in Third World countries. Waves of immigrants
had peopled this neighborhood on their way to more successful, suburban
lives. Now all the printed signs were written in Spanish, from pepito's
payayas to miguel's fritas, and watched over by a giant billboard with
the beaming smile of J. Lo in her latest, tightest jeans.

Just off the
Concourse, completely surrounded by wrought-iron fencing, was a small
oasis about the length of two city blocks. At the far end was a round
gazebo and an attractive open bandshell with eight tall columns
supporting a green copper roof. Next to that was a playground, with
slides and structures for kids to climb on, painted a bright scarlet,
cheerful against the dull gray facade of the buildings across the way.

We left the car at a
meter, next to an opening in the gate. A square city plaque labeled the
landmark, with the familiar maple leaf logo of the Parks Department
below the words: poe park. Beside it hung a frame with the enlarged
script signature of the writer.

I walked ahead of Mike
and stood on the blacktop path. I was face-to-face with a building that
was a complete anachronism in the middle of this urban jungle. It was a
tiny white cottage that had once stood here alone as a farmhouse. Now
its simple wooden frame, slim porch, dark green shutters, and the
little shed that was attached to its side looked lost in time among the
asphalt and brick of the surrounding streets.

The door opened and a
young woman waved to us from the top of the steps. "Welcome to Poe
Cottage," she said, introducing herself as Kathleen Bailey as we
approached and greeted her. "C'mon inside."

I entered directly
into the first room, which was the kitchen, no bigger than ten feet
square. Restored to appear as it did at the time Poe lived here, the
cramped space held a cupboard and wood-burning stove, an antique wall
clock, and chairs with a table set for a meal-as though we might be
joined by the poet any minute.

"Make yourselves
comfortable," she said, as I unzipped my jacket and unwrapped the heavy
scarf that was around my neck.

Bailey began her
story. "This is the house that Edgar Poe rented in 1846, so that he
could bring his wife, Virginia, here, in hopes the fresh country air
would improve her health. It's actually thirteen miles north of what
was considered New York City then, in the village of Fordham, and all
the surrounding land was an apple orchard."

"The house was built
on this spot?" Mike asked.

"At the time the house
was across the street, down near the bandshell, on the far side of the
avenue. It was the former police commissioner of New York-Teddy
Roosevelt-who decided to preserve Poe's home and move it to this site
in 1913. It was the place Poe lived in for three years, and when he
died later on, in Baltimore, he was on his way back here to this
cottage."

I ducked my head and
followed Kathleen Bailey to the next room, slightly larger and a bit
more formal. It had a great hearth, bordered in a colonial blue paint,
with a gilded mirror hanging beside the window and a rocking chair in
front of the fireplace. Against the wall was a small desk with two
candles on top of it along with an open book.

"This is obviously the
parlor, and the room in which Poe worked."

"Do you know what he
wrote while he lived here?" I asked.

"Many of the things,
yes," she said. "I suppose you know that Virginia died here, quite
tragically, within the first year after they arrived."

Mike whispered in my
ear, "She would have been better off in a pediatric hospital."

Mercer asked Bailey,
"How old was she?"

"Only twenty-five.
Pulmonary consumption is what they called it then. Tuberculosis. Some
of Poe's most famous poems were crafted at that very desk in front of
you-'Annabel Lee,' 'Ulalume,' 'The Bells.'"

I thought of these
familiar rhymes, each portraying themes of a man's enduring love for a
woman who had died.

She was a child and
I was a child,

In this kingdom by
the sea…

The wind came out
of a cloud, chilling and

Killing my Annabel
Lee.

"And this," she said,
stepping back so I could look over the half-door that opened into a
tiny room that held only a single bed, with a small round table and
chair beside it, "this is actually the bedroom in which Virginia died."

Stark and almost bare,
the room was smaller than any jail cell I had ever seen. It was
depressing to contemplate the last days of Virginia's young life, and
far easier to understand the great melancholy that enveloped the poet
while she lay dying.

"There's not even a
fireplace," I said. "How could she have possibly made it through the
winter in here?"

"There are letters
from friends who visited the Poes during those months. Edgar used to
wrap her in his coat under the thin coverlet and sheets. The bitter
cold certainly must have hastened her death."

Behind me, in a
corner, was a duplicate of the bronze bust of Poe that stood in the
Hall of Fame. Mike pointed to a scroll on the wall next to the statue
that listed the names of the Bronx natives who supported the
preservation of the cottage. Gino Guidi's was at the top in bold
letters. There were only several others I recognized who had achieved
prominence beyond the neighborhood: from fashionistas like Ralph Lauren
and Calvin Klein to leaders of the bench and bar, like Justin Feldman,
Roger Hayes, and the Roberts brothers-George and Burton.

Opposite the half-door
was a very narrow staircase that wound up to the second floor.

"You'll have to go up
one at a time," Bailey said. "Three of you won't fit there."

I ascended first, to
see two more little rooms-one in which Poe slept when he wasn't keeping
vigil by his bride's bed, and the other in which Virginia's mother
lived, first with the couple, and then after both had died. These
quarters had low, sloping ceilings and only the light from an eyebrow
window that looked out to the park. I held on to the railing and backed
down the stairs. Mike and Mercer were waiting at the front door, and I
walked toward them behind our knowledgeable guide.

"So despite his
success," I asked Bailey, "they were still quite poor, weren't they?"

"Desperately poor,"
she said. "There's a letter he wrote to a friend in which he complained
of living in such dreadful poverty here that he had no money for shoes
or-"

Her words were cut
short by a bloodcurdling scream that seemed to come from the far end of
the park.

"Help me! Help!" I
heard. The voice sounded like that of a child or adolescent.

Mike and Mercer
stepped outside and Kathleen Bailey was down the steps immediately
behind them, running toward the playground, where four or five people
were gathering at the scene of the commotion. I stopped on the porch
for a few seconds, debating whether or not to leave the cottage open
and unguarded.

Passersby clustered on
the sidewalk, some moving in the same direction as Mike and Mercer,
while others withdrew with their children, disappearing down the side
streets.

I walked several more
steps down the path and fixed myself at the gate, so that I could keep
one eye on the house while watching the melee, still available if the
guys wanted my help.

Suddenly, before
Mercer got to the playground, I saw an older kid dash from behind the
swings, race around the bandshell, and cut out across Kingsbridge Road
into the traffic.

"Get him!" the voice
screamed again.

I stood on my tiptoes
to see whether Mike and Mercer had reached the small crowd at the far
end of the park. It was too late for me to turn and look when I finally
heard the noise behind me. Everything went black as I felt a crushing
blow against the back of my head.

31

The pain was so
intense that when I regained consciousness, I couldn't bear to open my
eyes. I tried to inhale and give air to my aching brain, but there was
something in my mouth that I gagged on as soon as I drew breath.

My pain was dwarfed by
fear. I was in a box, smaller than a coffin. I didn't need to look. I
could feel the wooden boards beneath my back, close to my arms on each
side, and knew there was not enough space above me to allow me to pick
up my head.

Panic prevented me
from doing what I needed to do most- regulate my breathing and conserve
whatever oxygen there was available.

Slowly, I opened one
eye. A sharp pang sliced across my forehead, forging little lightning
streaks in my line of sight. There was a board above me-several
boards-and between them were slats through which the gray daylight
filtered in.

I wasn't underground.
I wasn't buried in the earth. I tried to eliminate those two horrors
that had frightened me the most.

I sniffed the air as I
breathed in. The odor was dank and moist and the wood beneath me was
wet and cold.

I closed my eyes again
and watched as the lightning streaks dissolved into yellowish blobs
that floated back and forth across my eyelids.

Ordinary street noises
seemed close by. Automobile traffic and honking horns, then police
sirens too far away to be useful to me. I could hear voices of women-a
group of women-speaking in Spanish but walking away from whatever
sidewalk was near my temporary coffin.

Voices again. This
time it sounded like men, coming from the opposite direction. It was
Mercer Wallace, calling my name, opening and closing doors as he did. I
must still be somewhere within Poe Cottage.

Surely he and Mike
would think of the poet's bizarre tales of premature burial, one of
which had launched us on this hunt for a killer. The "dull, quick
sound" of my own heart beating-like that of the telltale one-seemed
deafening to me. Surely they would figure to look everywhere for me
before leaving and locking up the sad little house. How did Poe
describe that telltale noise that haunted the murderer? Like the "sound
a watch makes when enveloped in cotton."

Voices came closer,
and footsteps on pavement, too. I was on my back; my arms had been
folded behind me and loosely restrained-probably with my woolen
scarf-my hands beneath my thighs. The walls of my confinement
restricted me, and I couldn't free my hands, which were tingling from
the lack of circulation. I moved my right leg to try to bring my knee
up to knock against the floorboard above me. But the space was tight
and I could only lift it an inch or two. It rubbed against the wood but
made no noise.

The pounding on the
back of my brain was intense. My neck strained as I raised my head,
knocking the crown of it against the boards. My hair cushioned the
contact and it seemed to me even less audible than my heartbeat.

"What's in here?"

It was Mike's voice,
and I almost laughed with relief at how ridiculous I had been to panic
with my two friends only yards away.

"Just the root
cellar," Kathleen Bailey answered. "Nothing."

Of course I had
noticed the slanted roof of the small addition that was off to the
right of the cottage entrance. It had a door that faced the rear
street, where we had circled around before parking the car. It seemed
no larger than a dollhouse. No wonder there were boards on either side
of me, too. They supported the uneven flooring as the ground beneath
sloped down the short incline.

I saw more light as a
door opened above me and to the side. I grunted and groaned against my
gag but the sound was too muffled and the voices of Mike and Kathleen
masked my own weak effort to be heard. Whoever had opened the door and
looked in for a brief moment had closed it again and turned the latch.

"She's just dumb
enough to have taken off after that kid if she saw him running out of
the park," Mike said. "Let me talk to the guy in the RMP and see if
they have her at the station house."