Entombed

33

"Where are you?" I asked Mercer. "Can you talk?"

"Yeah. I just stepped out of the car when my phone rang. Mike's out cold. He fell asleep about fifteen minutes ago. What time is it?"

"Almost eight o'clock. What happened? Where-"

"Val's brother called Mike on his cell phone. I had gone to the other room to put my head down for an hour or so-must have come in around twelve. This ski business, you know about it?"

"Val talked about it a bit. A helicopter flies them out somewhere in the wilderness, drops them on top of a mountain. Pure powder, that kind of thing. Experts only."

"Yeah, well, one of the dangers is that those uncharted runs can be pretty unstable," Mercer said, pausing. "The group of them jumping, or something the chopper did letting them down, set off some kind of cataclysmic reaction."

"She fell, is that what did it?"

"Three of them, Alex, they went off into a crevasse. The snow shifted and exposed an enormous break in the surface. Val and two others just-just went over the edge. Her brother was in the pack behind them. He watched it happen."

I thought of the courage with which Valerie Jacobsen had fought to conquer the cancer that had ravaged her body, only to lose her life to a treacherous sport.

"This happened yesterday?"

"The day before. It took them twenty-four hours to recover the bodies."

"And Mike only got the call last night? What are those people thinking? Don't they have any idea how much he loves her?"

"His fix on it? He's sure Val's parents didn't want him out there. I don't think they knew how serious the relationship was. He thinks they just didn't want to know."

"The funeral?"

"First thing this morning. Nine o'clock, in Palo Alto. Family only. He couldn't have gotten there in time if he wanted to. Maybe they planned it that way."

I always thought it was one of the things the Jewish religion dealt with best. Don't sit with the body in a room for a week. Get the burial done before the next day's sundown and then get on with the grieving. It was so at odds with the practices Mike had grown up with in the Catholic Church, and so foreign to his personal experience.

"There's going to be a memorial service in two weeks, according to the brother," Mercer said. "I'm telling you, Alex, Mike's in a blind rage. He doesn't know who to lash out at."

"Where are you?"

"That's a good question," Mercer said. "Ever hear of Jamestown, Rhode Island?"

"Sure, right over the bridge from Newport. Why?"

"We're parked behind a gas station here," Mercer answered softly. "We've been jackassing all over the place since we left Manhattan. It's like he's trying to find a piece of Val, something concrete to hang on to. I can't explain it any better than that."

"But there?"

"When his phone vibrated, he left your room so he wouldn't wake you up. Of course, he had no idea who was calling or why. He came in and woke me up-must have been just after he got the news."

"What'd he do?"

"He-he was just out of control. He was angry-he knew he had to get out of the hospital before he turned the place upside down. I'd say he was more furious than he was sad."

"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?"

He knew the answers as well as I did. There was no reason for me to speak.

Mike turned and climbed up to the top of the dune, sitting down in the middle of the path that led down the other side. He stared out at the distant horizon, the seamless line between the ocean and the sky. "I understand why you come back to this place."

I slowly moved up toward him, trying to get a foothold in the shifting sand.

"I used to look at you, back when we first started working together," Mike said. "I'd heard about-about what happened to Adam from the guy you shared an office with. I used to look at you and wonder how you handled the grief at that young age, when you seemed to have everything else going for you. I used to try to figure out how you got up in the morning and got on with your life. I didn't know why you gave a damn about all the needy derelicts who showed up on your doorstep, why you cared about helping any of them when you could have slammed the door behind you and walked away from it all."

"You think I didn't wallow in my own self-pity for months? You think the thoughts I had were any different than what you're going through this very minute?"

I reached out my hand and Mike extended his, to pull me up next to him.

"You didn't want to close your eyes in the hospital because you were afraid of your dreams, your nightmares," he said. "Me? I wouldn't mind dreaming. The dreaming's gonna be all I have left. It's knowing that every time I wake up and open my eyes, my first thought will be Val, my first image will be that broken little body that fought so hard to make it."

I stood behind him, my hands on his shoulders. He didn't brush them away, so I squatted and began to gently knead them.

"How long, Coop? You got a smart answer for everything. You got an answer for that, for how long it takes?"

"Longer than you can even begin to imagine," I said. I talked to him about emptiness and unfairness and profound unhappiness. I told him about the darkest thoughts I had confronted and the hardest things I ever had to do in the face of my despair.

"And it stops? You're gonna tell me that someday this pain just stops?"

"It's going to be with you forever, Mike. Just like you said. Before your eyes open in the morning-every single morning- you'll be stabbed in the heart by some memory of Val the second you're even conscious. The first moment you have a thought, it's going to be Val," I said, pausing and backing away a bit. "And then one day-maybe eight months, maybe a year from now-you'll wake up one day and you'll think of something you forgot to do the night before, someone you have to call about a case, some problem you promised to take care of for your mother. Some really trivial thing."

I stood up, ready to turn and go. The sun had almost disappeared and the temperature was dropping.

"That's the day you're going to hate yourself most-the first time something sneaks into your consciousness before Val does. You'll be angrier at the world than you are right now. Mad at yourself, too, for letting it creep in there. But then it will happen again, more and more often. And each time it does you'll despise yourself for betraying Val's memory with such insignificant thoughts. Until some very distant day, inconceivable now, when the memories assume a balance of some kind, when they bring pleasure with them almost as often as they cause pain."

"That doesn't seem possible to me," Mike said, standing and brushing the sand off the seat of his jeans. "I don't think I can deal with it."

"Nobody does. Nobody wants to."

"You come out here to be near him, don't you? You feel closer to Adam when you're here."

I didn't answer.

"The heavens, the ocean, sand for as far as the eye can see-and not another person around," he said. "Makes you pretty conscious of your own mortality."

He reached into his pocket, removed a black velvet pouch, and handed it to me.

"Open it. Go ahead."

I untied the drawstring and turned it upside down in my hand. Out slipped a diamond ring-a slim gold band with a small brilliant stone in a classic round setting.

"It's very beautiful," I said, holding it up and watching the gem sparkle, reflecting against the shimmering surface of the water. "Did Val-?"

"Nope. A surprise," Mike said. "Valentine's Day. I had it up on a shelf in her bedroom closet that she couldn't reach."

No wonder he'd been so short of money these past two months.

He took the ring from me and loped down the dune toward the edge of the water. I called out after him but I knew there was no way to stop him. I watched as Mike waded into the frigid surf, drew back his arm, and hurled Val's ring into the riptide that was sucking the waves out to sea.