Silent Mercy

FIFTY-FOUR

I took the gag off Chat Grant’s mouth and untied her hands and feet. She wrapped her arms so tightly around my neck that I thought she’d never let go.

“Don’t try to talk,” I said, stroking her matted hair. “There’s no need to say anything.”

There would be hours and hours of debriefing after she was treated at a hospital.

Mike was limping around the hole, about twenty feet by forty. Zukov seemed to have passed out — maybe his body had gone into shock from the blood loss — and Mike had bound his legs together. He wasn’t going anywhere, but neither were we.

“His arm?…” I started to ask. I had meant to disable the madman, not to sever his hand.

“Don’t go soft on me, blondie. You took a healthy bite out of him, but you didn’t get the whole thing. I don’t think he’ll put the word ‘flying’ in front of his name anymore.”

“Let’s have your jacket,” I said, reaching out for it as Mike removed it.

“How come you didn’t warn me about this place?” he asked.

I wrapped his blazer, with its shredded sleeves, around Chat and we kept her huddled in a corner, trying to warm her up.

“It wasn’t a hole last time I was here. I think it’s the foundation of the old laundry building,” I said.

“But what’s that big old ruin you were describing?”

“I had forgotten all about it. In the 1870s, long before the leper colony was built, a professor from Harvard started an institution here. Built a home and a laboratory and a boathouse. The Anderson School of Natural History. That must have been the ruins of the Anderson mansion — much grander than the leper colony ever was.”

“One of the haunted houses?”

“Exactly. I’m sure my brothers will delight in telling us about it,” I said. “How’s the leg?”

“I’m likely to do a trapeze act before Zukov is.”

Both of us were pacing back and forth — Mike nursing a mild limp — grateful that the fog was lifting and counting on help to get to us soon.

It was about four thirty in the morning when I heard voices. Mike answered first. “Come this way! Can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear.” I didn’t know who responded, but I was elated that a team was on their way.

Within minutes, four uniformed Coast Guardsmen were standing over us, and beside them was Maggie Rubey Lynch.

“That’s Mike Chapman,” she said with a smile. “And Alex Cooper.”

“You’re a woman of your word, Captain Lynch,” Mike said.

“Well, I promised an armada, but all I came up with was a flotilla. Best I could do on short notice.”

“I’m still buying the drinks if you get us out of here,” Mike said, blowing her a kiss. “Can you get Ms. Grant up first, guys? She needs medical attention.”

“We’ve got four more men on the boat. Two are on their way with a stretcher. Looks like you solved this problem yourselves,” one of them said, pointing at Zukov.

“For the moment, we have. She gets the first stretcher. I’ve got a tourniquet around his arm, but it’s a big bleed.”

“Helicopter’s on the way. We just airlifted the four crewmen from the trawler.”

“So that situation has a happy ending too,” Mike said.

We waited with Chat until the guardsmen lowered a portable ladder into the space of the old foundation. “You think you can climb up that?” one asked. “We’ll ride you the rest of the trip.”

The dazed young woman told them she could, and slowly made her way up the rungs to the top. She collapsed onto the stretcher and two burly guardsmen prepared to carry her off.

I was next up the ladder, with Mike behind me. I took one of Chat’s hands, reminding her that she was going to be fine, and that she needed to concentrate on getting herself better in the next few days. I was sure that Faith would be flown up to her sister’s bedside at Mass General, the Boston hospital that was a short hop from these islands.

She clung to me until we heard the welcome sound of the chopper blades hovering over the island. The sky was lightening, and I could see a grassy field that would make an easy landing pad for the helicopter.

Once Chat Grant was airborne, the crew worked on rigging another stretcher to lift the unconscious Zukov out of the hole in the ground. The second chopper was on its way for him.

“You two ready to head back to the Cape?” Captain Lynch asked.

“I’ve got a better idea,” I said to Mike. “Come with me to the Vineyard. It’s what — Saturday morning? Let’s just chill for the weekend.”

“You look more worried about hacking at Zukov than saving Chat’s life. Of course I’ll go with you, just to order your priorities if nothing else. Make sure your head’s on straight.”

“Maggie, will you take us there?”

“Sure. You can explain to all the impatient Vineyarders why the newspapers are coming over so late today.”

“I’m in,” Mike said. “Commissioner Scully will be looking for my scalp.”

“Yours?” I said. “I might as well just hand him mine.”

“I’ll take it back with me. May be my only hope to keep my gold shield.”

The Patriot was roped to the uprights on the old pier alongside the jetty. Mike let himself onto the stern of the boat gingerly, favoring his bad leg. He moved forward and seated himself in the wheelhouse, close to Maggie.

I wanted the brisk, fresh morning air. I stayed outside, watching the sun begin to rise, and letting my hair blow wildly in the wind.

Somehow, no matter what turmoil awaited me at the office, the peace and beauty of my island home always managed to bring back an inner calm. A few days and nights here would give me the emotional energy to deal with repairing Gina Borracelli’s delicate emotional health and getting her in the proper professional hands. Mike would follow up on my hunch that Bishop Deegan had no idea who Fyodor Zukov was when he nodded at the stranger in the clerical collar, and instead that Zukov had the defendant, child molester Denys Koslawski, on his pariahs-of-the-church hit list.

There was a strong chop in the water and the whitecaps gleamed in the morning sunlight. I had dozens of questions for Chat Grant, but they would have to wait until doctors treated her and determined that she was able to cooperate with us to give us every detail of her long encounter with the crazed murderer.

I looked inside the cabin. Mike had engaged Maggie with tales of his exploits, no doubt. He had a bruise developing on his right cheekbone and lacerations on his chin, but his legendary resilience was already on display in full force.

I turned back to the soothing vista of the sea and the chain of Elizabeth Islands. The district attorney and police commissioner would shortly share a podium to describe the capture of the clergy killer. They could do nothing else publicly but praise Mike and me for hunting him down and saving Chat’s life, but I smiled when I thought how Paul Battaglia would get me in his office alone to take me apart for risking so much in that effort. I would spend part of my day composing an apology to him and to Scully for disobeying their orders, but they would know as well as I did that it wasn’t going to be sincere.

I wanted this serene interlude for a few days. I needed it. I had no illusion about the stack of cases — serial attackers, date rapists, domestic violence, child abuse — that would pile up on my desk to review on my return. But for now, I was headed for my own safe haven.

The strong boat worked its way through Canapitsit Channel, between Nashawena and Cuttyhunk, on its way to Menemsha Harbor. I would never be so happy to step onto the gas dock and look across the pond at the home I loved more than any place in the world.