Death Angel

THIRTY-EIGHT

Mike seemed shattered and totally distracted. We walked down the steep incline from the roadway to the secluded path at the foot of the arch.

“It’ll be noon by the time we retrace our steps to your car,” I said. “We can take a break.”

“Why?”

“Because your head isn’t in this.”

“I just let Mercer go off to clean up my mess. What else would you expect?”

“You want to walk to the North Woods?” I asked. “See whether the guys are turning up anything?”

“They know how to find me if they do. Just follow the trail.”

I tried to keep up with Mike, but it was impossible. The path was narrow, with branches and rocks in the way, but we made better time going back than on our exploratory trip through the Ravine, and it was clear to me that he didn’t want our trek to become an intimate walk in the woodlands.

Mike locked the lead pipe in the trunk. Before we got into his car, knowing we had cell service out of the woods in the parking lot, he phoned the squad. The lieutenant had the day off, but Manny Chirico was working. From Mike’s end of the conversation I could tell that Manny knew exactly what the situation was at the Sheep Meadow.

“What’s with Pell?” I asked.

“Still ranting. They’ve cleared the area and given Mercer a vest, and he’s going to work. She’s agreed to talk to him.”

“She likes an audience,” I said. “Where to?”

“Back to the Ramble.”

“Okay. But why?”

“’Cause the powers that be have given up on it. But Raymond Tanner likes it, and Verge knows it well, and Eddie Wicks-well, he’s a crapshoot,” Mike said. “And they tell me it’s got caves, or used to have them. Caves were built into that whole area before they were covered up with boulders.”

“And because it’s so close to the Sheep Meadow, you can get there-to Mercer’s side-in a flash if need be.”

“That, too.”

Mike reversed the car to back out of the parking area and make the long loop west and south around the Park, to reach the lot behind the boathouse at the Lake, where we had entered the Ramble early in the week.

“Feel like talking?” I asked.

“I’m just trying to breathe, Coop.”

“I understand.” After he let me get so close to him on Wednesday night, it didn’t seem possible that the week’s events had conspired to put this much distance between us. But Mike didn’t have a better friend than Mercer Wallace, and I appreciated his deep concern for this dreadful set of circumstances that he had put in motion.

We made the ten-minute ride in silence, the police radio crackling with reports of responses to a variety of locations around the borough. Mike parked the car and we got out, the bright sunlight directly overhead.

I pointed at one of the vendors whose cart was near the entrance to the trail. “Want some lunch?”

“Not hungry.”

I walked over and bought us each a bottle of water, handing one of them to Mike. I drank half of mine as we started up the hill together, leaving the paved path for the rocky road that wound through the Ramble.

As we began our ascent, I noticed that the area was far more populated than the Ravine. There were lots of couples behind us, many of the men shirtless on this early summer day. Young women wore bikini tops or halters. Birders and dog walkers were intent on their missions. Each and every one who passed us by seemed to have a destination as he or she branched off at the forks that appeared at every turn of the way.

“You’re walking with purpose, Detective Chapman,” I said.

“There’s a lot of territory to cover.”

When we reached the top of the hill, Mike turned left, moving south to the Point, which overlooked the Lake and was directly opposite the statue of the Angel of the Waters. This was one of the most remote sections of the Ramble, beloved by birders, and where the Austin sisters had encountered Raymond Tanner.

I had a hard time keeping up with Mike. Despite the shade offered by the dense tree growth in this area, I was sweltering from the oppressive midday heat.

I finally saw him ahead of me, standing on one of the giant boulders left behind by glaciers in another age. Now his purpose became clear: He was trying to get a line of vision to the Sheep Meadow.

“How’d you get up there?” I asked.

“It’s a guy thing, rock climbing. Not good for ballerinas.”

“Give me a hand, will you?”

“I can’t see a damn thing.”

We were both looking across the Lake, right over the graceful arch of the Bow Bridge, where the girl’s body had come to rest. There was way too much foliage at this time of year to see to the Sheep Meadow.

“I’ll drive you over there,” I said. “As long as you just sit in the car with me and don’t do anything foolish.”

Mike flashed me a look as he started to find his way down from the glacial rock.

“Sorry,” I said. “I know you would never do anything to jeopardize Mercer.”

“C’mon. There’s a whole bunch of rock formations to look at. We’ll stay right here.”

For the next two hours, Mike dragged me from one huge pile of boulders to another. We poked and prodded-though it would have been impossible to budge any of the glacial erratics that had been deposited so many centuries ago.

Occasionally we stumbled over cave-like openings, some large enough for a human to crawl into for temporary shelter, but none that brought to life the tales we’d heard of people who lived in them.

At three o’clock, I found a shaded spot next to Willow Rock and rested myself against its cool surface. Mike flipped his cell phone open to call Chirico, but he had no reception, which was as typical in the removes of the Ramble as it had been in the Ravine.

He carried a walkie-talkie in his pants pocket and used that to reach one of the park rangers.

The stand-off with Jessica Pell was still in progress. She wasn’t being aggressive toward Mercer, the ranger said, but clinging to her demand that the commissioner himself appear.

“That’s a relief,” I said. I had taken off my moccasins and was rubbing my feet. “She’ll get worn down.”

“You quitting for the day?”

“Not if you aren’t.”

“Those puppies of yours hurt?”

“Not enough to stop me.”

He put the walkie-talkie back in his pocket and tossed me a protein bar. “Here’s lunch, kid. That ought to hold you until cocktails.”

The path led us deeper into the woods before it twisted to the north. There was a charming array of rustic benches and footbridges as we walked. I was separated from Mike from time to time, usually able to spot the bright aqua color of his collared polo shirt among the green leaves. He’d go off on a trail to explore a dense patch of bushes or to lift a fallen log that lay across a pile of similarly decaying wood.

Ahead of me I could see the Gill, the man-made stream that tumbled through the Ramble, looking as natural as though it had been there since the beginning of time. Its source was a few dozen yards to the north, in the artificial but beautiful Azalea Pond, and it ran down into the Lake below us.

“I’m just going to soak my feet for a few minutes,” I called out to Mike. “Do you think the water in the Gill is safe to drink?”

“Safe as your kitchen sink. Same stuff.”

I was terrifically thirsty. I knew I could refill the empty water bottle I had crammed into my pants pocket. I left the path and spotted a crystal-clear section of the stream at one of its widest points-free of leaves and very tempting to restore me.

I was looking for a grassy slope on which to make my way down to the Gill, but the area on both sides was lined with huge rocks. Gingerly, I sought out the flattest surfaces and began a delicate advance-avoiding the one on which three large turtles were sunbathing. It took me a full minute to get down to the stream, but then I sat not far from the turtles and dipped my empty bottle in the water.

I took off my shoes again and slid forward, dangling my feet in the stream. The only sound I could hear was the noise the water made running over and around the rocks. It was as though I had retreated to another time and place, apart from the violence of the last ten days.

The cool water refreshed me instantly-as both a drinking source and a soothing footbath.

To my right, the stream wandered to a turn in the bend before disappearing up to Azalea Pond. To my left was a pair of perpendicular boulders that stood like silent sentinels, unusual in how even and flush they were compared to all the rocks that had been piled in place beside them.

On the far side of the stream, almost completely concealed by the massive boulders and an overhang of leafy trees, was a sequence of flat rocks, each set back beyond the next like a primitive series of steps in a Mayan ruin.

“Hey, Mike,” I called to him. “Check this out.”

I thought I heard him return a shout to me.

I stood up, leaving my moccasins behind, and carefully made my way into the stream, steadying myself on larger rocks that jutted out from the shallow bed. I got across it, pushed back the limb of the tree that was partially covering the moss-laden staircase, and yelled again, “You’ve got to see these steps.”

I heard him say “What?” or maybe it was “Wait.” In either case, he couldn’t have been far behind me.

I grasped on to a large stone that was perpendicular to the boulders, set almost like a banister beside the steep formations. Step by narrow step I pulled myself up, seeing only dark heavy rocks above me.

When I stood on the fifth of eight stacked stones, I was surprised to find a gap-a space between the layers of horizontal rock that appeared to be about two feet high.

I continued to climb, and when my waist was about even with the gap, I leaned forward and peered into the black space-standing on my tiptoes-so that my upper body was enveloped by the cool, dark atmosphere of the cave.

I thought I could see light inside. I blinked and adjusted my eyes to the inky blackness, trying to determine if the brightness was in fact another opening six or eight feet away from me.

But it wasn’t daylight at all. I began to see a radiance from inside the black hole, something that was shiny and gleamed from within. As I grew accustomed to the dark, I became aware that it was several objects together that were reflecting the bit of sunlight that flickered in over my head, between the tree branches.

I could make out the round lines of a bright silver carousel, and beside that the iconic image of the Angel of the Waters, her topaz decorations shining like cats’ eyes in the dark.

Before I could pull myself out and call to Mike again, a cold hand grabbed me by the back of the neck and smashed my face against the dirt floor of the hidden cave.