Entombed (33 page)

"Mike will have all
the time in the world to be sad."

"Then he started
calling the airlines. See what time he could get a flight. Val's
brother called back to talk him out of that."

"Have you stayed with
him the whole time?"

"Most of it. He needed
to go to Val's place. That's the first thing he wanted to do. And he
wanted to go there alone. I thought he needed that."

"I'm sure he did."

"He was up there about
an hour. When he came downstairs he told me he wanted to take a ride,
to drive somewhere. He's got a pocketful of pictures of her and an
armful of her favorite books. I told him he wasn't going anywhere
without me."

"Thank goodness."

"Mike insisted on
taking the wheel and I just let him do it. He went north up the Taconic
Parkway for about an hour and a half, to some little inn where they'd
spent the night once. Just parked in front, got out and walked around
the grounds, without saying a word to me. Then he cut back across
upstate New York to Connecticut, over to New Haven."

Val's architectural
firm had been working on Yale's master plan. He loved to look at the
buildings, the physical structures she had envisioned and created.
"Yeah, they'd been up to the campus together a number of times."

"When we hit I-95 at
five this morning, I assumed we'd be headed south, back to the city.
But he came up this way. They spent a weekend together here, at the
wedding of one of Val's friends, last fall."

"Mercer, I've got an
idea. Jamestown isn't much more than an hour from the ferry. Take him
to the Vineyard. I'll call my caretaker and he can run over and open
the house by the time you get there," I said, calculating the driving
time plus the forty-five-minute boat ride from Woods Hole.

"I don't know, Alex.
He's kind of flailing about. He doesn't know what-"

"Mike loves it there.
And Val liked being there, too. There's a wonderful photograph of her
in one of the guest rooms, from a day we spent at the beach. It's
deserted this time of year. It's the most peaceful place on the face of
the earth-and, well, there's something so spiritual about it. Besides,
he can grieve any way he needs to without anybody getting in his way."

"He doesn't know what
he wants. He's just paralyzed with pain."

I didn't speak for
almost a minute. "I know exactly how he feels, Mercer. You tell him I
said that this is one thing I can help him with."

Mercer and Mike knew
all about Adam Nyman, my fiancé who had died the day before our
Vineyard wedding, driving to reach the island.

"Yeah, but-"

"I can fly up through
Boston and be there by early afternoon. I'm not supposed to be working
today anyway, am I? It would be the perfect medicine for me, too."

"He may fight me on
this, Alex. All I can do is try."

My suit was dirty and
musty, but dry. I was dressed by the time Dr. Schrem arrived and
approved my release. "Give it a few days before you go back to work,"
he said. "Bed rest, plenty of fluids, don't use the painkillers unless
you absolutely need to. Going directly home?"

"Right now," I said.
He didn't know I meant Martha's Vineyard when I said "home."

Officer McCallion had
orders to get an RMP to take me uptown to my apartment. On the way
there, Mercer called to tell me that Mike agreed that some time on my
secluded hilltop in Chilmark might help him deal with the tragedy that
had taken Val's life and so violently disrupted his own.

I changed into jeans
and a sweatshirt. I scrounged around in my dresser drawer for some
cash, ID, and a credit card and called a car service to take me to La
Guardia to catch the shuttle. I made the ten-thrty, landed at Logan
within the hour, and was on a nine-seater Cape Air at noon. There were
only two other passengers on the twin-engine prop plane, and the
February headwinds tossed us around above the low clouds, slowing our
speed so the trip across to the islands took almost fifty minutes.

Unlike the line of
minivans that greeted planeloads of summer commuters, there was only
one taxi awaiting incoming flights from Boston, New Bedford, and
Hyannis. The driver agreed to make a stop while I ran into the
up-island supermarket for some staples, then took me to my home, ten
miles farther west to the most glorious part of the tranquil island.

Mercer heard the van
pull in and came out to meet me.

"Where's Mike?"

"He can't be still.
Got back in the car and drove up to the cliffs, I think. All he's had
in the way of sleep was a twenty-minute nap after we gassed up this
morning."

The red cliffs of
Aquinnah formed the most dramatic vista, high above the western tip of
the island, overlooking the point where the Atlantic Ocean crashed
against the Vineyard Sound. The ancient tribal home of the Wampanoag
Indians, the open land and seemingly endless dunes stretched out to
where the sea met the sky. I knew Mike would find his way up there,
probably trespassing out onto the heights of the fragile clay, to sit
and talk to Val.

"Let's go inside. The
wind is vicious," I said. "Is Vickee okay with this?"

"You have to ask?
Whatever Mike needs-those are my orders."

"I'll just put my
stuff away. Give me five."

I closed the door
behind me in the master bedroom and walked across the room to stare out
at the view. The French doors look out over several acres of gently
rolling hills, bordered by the handsome stone walls that ringed the
entire property. Thick trunks of the sturdy bare trees dotted the
horizon, all the way down to the bright blue choppy waters of Quitsa
Pond and the sandy outline of the Elizabeth Islands' shore.

I had been standing
here when my best friend and my mother broke the news of Adam's death
to me, more than a decade ago. That moment had changed the island for
me forever, and at the very same time made it even more important for
me to savor its unique beauty and restorative power.

I freshened up, put
the groceries away, and helped Mercer stack the logs to start a fire.
It was three in the afternoon when Mike came back to the house.

I waited for him at
the front door and held it open for him.

Mike walked past me,
his jaw clenched and his face drained of all emotion. He touched my
forearm as he whispered the word "Thanks." He had a terrible pallor,
with patches of color only where the wind had whipped his cheeks and
bitten at the surface of his hands for the last couple of hours. His
thick, straight black hair was blown all over his head, and even when
he ran his fingers to smooth it down, it remained out of place.

I followed him into
the kitchen, where he helped himself to a can of soda from the
refrigerator and held one out to me.

"Do you want to talk?"

"Not really," he said.
"There isn't very much anybody can say that I want to hear."

"You know that I
adored-"

"I know."

He walked into the
living room, leaving me leaning against the counter. I went to my
bedroom and made some calls-first to one of Mike's sisters to make sure
the family knew what had happened, then to my friends-in the office and
out-who had come to treasure his friendship.

I grabbed a pair of
gloves for myself and a couple of Yankees caps that were in my closet
and went into the living room, where the guys were sitting.

"Keep the fire
burning, will you, please, Mercer? I'm going to Black Point, Mike. I'd
like you to come with me."

He looked up at the
solid wooden beams in the tall ceiling. Anything to avoid me.

"C'mon. Let's take a
walk." I tossed one of the hats in Mike's lap.

He played with its
brim without saying a word, then lifted it to his head and pulled it
down, dipping it so that he didn't have to make eye contact with me.

"I'll drive," he said.

"Can't do it except in
my old Jeep." He had been with me before to the private beach, more
than a mile off the paved roadway, down a rutted dirt path that was
inaccessible by sedans or sports cars. "My wheels this time."

We drove along South
Road for miles-past sheep farms, a cemetery, and horse pastures-until
we came to the turnoff to Black Point. Mike's head rested against the
window, oblivious to the landscape around him.

There was nothing to
mark the entrance, but I could have found the well-hidden access in my
sleep. I had come here for solace whenever I needed some kind of
comfort. I drove down the quiet road, kicking up dust all the way,
finally reaching the old gate and stepping out to unlock it. I rounded
the bend, scrubby brush giving way to the great expanse of wetlands.
Tall brown grasses waved on the edges of the ice blue pond, backing up
against the dunes, which dropped away to the fierce surf of the
Atlantic.

I got out of the car
and hiked the path alone, climbing the cut to the highest peak and
sitting there, surveying the miles of clean white sand that reached out
in both directions, as far as I could see. The whitecaps on the waves
reminded me how rough the ocean could be, how its angry pounding
against the shoreline seemed almost a reflection of Mike's mood.

The late-afternoon sun
cast my shadow far out onto the sand. When Mike came up behind me
minutes later, it threw his tall outline even farther toward the water
than mine-two long black figures alone in their mourning on an isolated
piece of one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

I had come here with
Nina the day that Adam died-to rage against his loss and to be in a
place where we had always found serenity. With his family, soon after,
I had scattered his ashes offshore at this very spot.

Mike stepped out of
his loafers, took off his socks, and rolled up the legs of his jeans.
The water was colder than I dared think, but I knew he wasn't feeling
very much. For half an hour, he walked the shoreline until he was out
of my sight and when he returned, his eyes were rimmed with red and
swollen with tears.

He stood at the edge
of the tide as it ran out and spoke to me for the first time since we
left the house.

"She never caught a
break. You know how it is? How certain people just carry some kind of
curse with them from the moment they're born? They've got everything to
live for but there's some relentless black cloud hanging right
overhead? That was Val."

"Think what she had
with you this last year. Think what happiness you gave her." I kicked
off my moccasins and walked down to be next to him.

"Happiness? You know
what a struggle it was for her to smile sometimes? You know what a
triumph it was for her to be healthy again? You're sounding like her
father-like all I was to her was the court jester, making sure she had
a reason to laugh every single day she was alive."

"Don't put me in his
category. She told me what you meant to her on every level, and I know
how very much she wanted to marry you."

"I didn't realize she
was that open about it," Mike said, reaching down to pick up a rock. He
pulled back his arm and heaved it into the ocean. "And it was actually
gonna happen, if you can believe it."

"Val used to-"

"Don't say it. I don't
want to talk about her now."

"You
have
to talk about her,
Mike. That's one thing you can still do for her. Talk about her and
think about her every day of your life, from now on for as long as you
live."

He turned and started
walking back down the beach away from me, weaving from exhaustion as he
moved. "It's too rough. I'd rather-"

"Of course it's rough.
That's why you have to make yourself do it. Out loud-to people like me
and like Mercer, who know what you meant to her."

"I think of the
fucking mutts I have to deal with every day of the week. People who
kill and steal and maim for no reason at all. Scumbags who'd just as
soon shoot you between the eyes as turn the other cheek. Bastards who'd
rob and rape their own mothers without thinking twice. Assholes who
skin cats and shoot dogs for sport. Any of them ever die young, Coop?"
Mike was shouting now, trying to make himself heard over the breaking
surf. "Nope. They'll outlive every guy you ever met in a white hat,
every living soul who ever did a good deed for someone else. They've
got something in their genes that not only produces an absolutely pure
strain of evil, but also lets 'em thrive till they're a hundred and
fifty."

Mike stood in frigid
water up to his ankles and threw another couple of rocks far out into
the waves. "That's what consumes me sometimes. All of these shitbirds
who don't deserve to live, they're gonna be here long after we're gone.
And that sweet, smart, strong kid I fell in love with didn't stand a
fucking chance from the get-go."

"You can't-"

"If you're gonna give
me 'life isn't fair,' Coop, don't even open your mouth," he said,
reversing his trail. "They're giving heart transplants to prison
inmates now, you know that? Did you ever hear of anything more fucking
stupid than that? You need a liver or a kidney or a new pair of
eyeballs, you could be up for sainthood alongside Mother Teresa but you
still gotta get in line behind some serial killer in San Quentin or a
pedophile up in Attica."

He leaned over to pick
up a piece of driftwood and began to trace something in the sand. It
was a building, a childlike imitation of a skyscraper. "Can you imagine
what it is to leave a legacy like that, something that you've built
from nothing but your imagination and raw talent? I'd stand in front of
these-these magnificent structures-things that Val had conceived from a
drawing on a piece of paper and then seen through to the final
construction. Do you know how much joy it gave her to create things
like that, things that people will look at and live in and enjoy for
generations?

"Me? I run around
locking up bad guys like it makes a difference to anybody. Like there
isn't gonna be another son of a bitch to come along to fill the vacuum
before I even have the cuffs on tight. Then one of your cowardly
colleagues gives 'em cheap pleas and they're back on the sidewalk a few
years later, sticking needles in their arms and killing anybody that
looks at 'em cross-eyed. Why do we bother? Why do we keep on doing it?"