Entombed

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.