Entombed

46

"Ratiocination, my dear Coop. Edgar Poe would have delighted in your use of it."

Mike Chapman was leaning against a bookshelf in the basement of the snuff mill, surrounded by ravens of every shape and size.

My shotgun volleys had rallied several pairs of police officers in the direction from which I had come running. Two intercepted me on the roadway and took me into their patrol car. They brought me back to Zeldin's office, the place from which Mike and Mercer had been tracking the search mission.

"Once I saw Phelps outside the door of his cottage paying off one of the kids, it all started to come together. It was a gang of teenagers who had assaulted Aaron Kittredge when he tried to visit here almost ten years ago. Phelps must have feared, then, that he might be spotted. He didn't want to risk an accidental encounter with someone who could link him to his other life. It was kids who hit me over the head, and who tried to-to bury me." I paused to take a deep breath. "Who put me under the floorboards at Poe Cottage."

Mercer refilled my water glass. "And the same kids-Sinclair Phelps's roving band of bad boys-who mistook Ellen Gunsher for you in the conservatory."

"He could have lived out the rest of his life here, undisturbed, if no one had been able to connect him to Aurora Tait. Or to Emily Upshaw," Mike said, folding his paperwork in quarters and tucking the pages in his blazer pocket. "Or to his own miserable past."

"Did you guys find Zeldin?" I asked. "Do you think he knew anything about Phelps?"

"He's all fired up, Coop. We even got him out of the wheelchair tonight, pompous old stiff that he is. I think he was in the dark about Phelps. I mean, he knew that the little hoodlums did all the groundskeeper's dirty work, but I don't think he figured murder. When Ellen was attacked, he got himself out of there like a rocket, but he phoned Phelps to call off his boys. If Zeldin had known, he might have let Phelps into the Raven Society," Mike said.

I looked over at him to see whether he was joking. "You still think that's a prerequisite for membership?"

"I think Edgar himself would have liked it that way, don't you? I intend to find out."

The brick coffin had been inadvertently opened and everything Phelps thought had been entombed with Aurora Tait had begun to spill out.

"Where are you going?" I asked Mike, who had turned his back to me and was walking toward the door.

"Just lie there and mope as long as you want, kid. Let somebody else handle your big case for you. If you hadn't run off into the woods, you'd have heard the good news."

"What?"

"Hugo Maswana. The DNA's a match. Annika's family is going to stay with her another week so you can put together a lineup and arraign him on the indictment. Substitute his name for John Doe."

I tossed back my head and stared up at the ceiling. For almost five years I'd been trying to put that bastard out of business.

"That means the ambassador is waiving diplomatic immunity?" I asked Mercer.

"No such luck. It means you've got to get back in the ring and fight him, Coop. Then you got to get Noah Tormey to sit down with Amelia Brandon-his daughter. She took the bus back home, but she's entitled to some answers."

"So am I."

"What's stumping the normally know-it-all prosecutor?" Mike asked.

"When did Phelps have time to set up the attack on me at the cottage?"

"He must have heard Zeldin make the offer to call Gino Guidi's office to get us in. We sat in the coffee shop for almost an hour waiting for clearance. That gave him plenty of time to do it."

"But what were they going to do when they came-?"

"Idle thoughts. You don't want to go there," Mike said. "Anyway, it would have distracted us from any bad business at the gardens. It would have looked like a mugging in a tough neighborhood. Who knows where we would have found you."

He continued on his way to the door, waving a hand. "I'll give you a call, Mercer."

"We're not done," I said, standing and rattling a porcelain bust of the great poet as my elbow struck against the side table.

"Oh, yeah? I am. The Upshaw murder is solved. How does it go in Clue? It was Colonel Mustard, in the conservatory, with the knife. Case closed."

"The arrest, Mike. You've got to stay to get all the facts from me so you can take Phelps to his arraignment."

"Make yourselves comfortable. Stick around for the next meeting of the Raven Society." He pointed at Mercer. "Detective Wallace is taking the collar."

I looked from Mercer to Mike. "But it's a homicide. It's your case."

"Not this time."

"Why not?" I could see that I was losing him. He was tired and distracted, running his fingers through his thick, dark hair and resting his arm on the mantel over the fireplace.

"Police brutality."

"What are you talking about?"

"Phelps stands up-if he can-in front of the judge tomorrow morning. He'll be a full turban job, his shattered skull packaged in layers of bandage and gauze wrap."

"Yeah, but I'm the one who hit him."

"Some court-appointed asshole looking for his Clarence Darrow moment sees my name as the arresting officer and spots his opportunity. Makes me the dupe, stringing my personal life into the middle of the mess. 'Detective Chapman went over the edge this time, Your Honor. He's lost control of himself, taken it out on my client.' Asks for all kinds of privileges for the murderer with the cracked cranium. Maybe even gets him bail for medical treatment. I'm not in the game, kid. I'm outta here."

"Don't be ridiculous. I had to hurt Phelps to save my own life."

"That'll be the footnote after the trial, Coop. Right now, nobody'll believe it was anything except excessive force by a homicide cop who's got no focus at the moment. You're not the one who stands next to this scumbag at the arraignment-one of us dumb dicks does that. I'm not giving the tabloids the chance to bring Val…" Mike's voice trailed off. "To make this frigging case personal."

I tried to maneuver myself to stand in Mike's way but he sidestepped me and kept walking. "They'll blame Mercer for it. You don't want that, do you?"

"The gentle giant? Nah. They won't play the race card. Nobody thinks he'd hurt a fly. It's me they'd be gunning for."

"Nobody's going to let you be held responsible for Phelps's injuries."

"Alex Cooper used her glutes and pecs instead of her brains to bring a guy down? I'm not being the patsy for you tonight."

"Why, Mike? I disappointed you?"

He turned back from the doorway of the snuff mill. "Yeah, Coop. You did. Too bad you didn't finish the job tonight. One less shitbird for the State of New York to house and feed for another forty years. One less miserable excuse for a human being to suck the life out of every appeal and excuse in the book. You should have hit him harder when you had the chance."

No need saying I didn't believe Mike meant those things. I knew he did.

Mercer had his notepad ready. "Let's get back to it, Alex."

The front door was open and Mike was silhouetted in its frame. Behind him was a phalanx of department cars with bubble flashers on their hoods surrounding the quiet house, casting red streaks of light against the backdrop of the dark forest.

"Tomorrow? Want to have dinner with me, Mike?"

He stopped to answer. "I barely have the strength to get myself through the night. I can't help you this time, Coop. I just can't do it."

I heard Lieutenant Peterson's voice in the front yard, ordering one of the men to escort Mike's car out the gate on the far side of the gardens to avoid the reporters and cameramen waiting at the nearest exit.

I started through the doorway to go after Mike. There was something else I wanted to tell him. I had a need to make some kind of physical contact with him as badly as I wanted him to embrace me.

"We've got work to do, Alex," Mercer said, clamping a strong hand on my shoulder to hold me in place.

I looked up at him, ready to plead my case, but he gave no ground. I turned away from the flashing lights, let him close the door behind us, and walked back to sit in the armchair, surrounded by Poe's dark birds.

Mercer pulled up a stool opposite me and stroked my head until I lifted my eyes to look at him. "Let the man go, Alex. Just let him go."