The Bone Vault

24

I was a bit more cautious when I answered the phone on Sunday morning. It was eleven o’clock, and we were spread out on the living room floor with sections of theTimes while we finished our coffee.

“Alexandra Cooper?”

“Yes.”

“This is Clem.”

I had assumed Clem was a man, but this was the soft voice of a woman on the line. I sat up and reached for a pen and pad from the drawer of the table beside me.

“Are you going to tell me what’s happened to Katrina?”

I fumbled for the right words, not certain of the nature of their relationship. “Last Tuesday, the police found Katrina’s body. She was murdered, sometime last winter.”

Clem didn’t speak for more than a minute. “In South Africa?”

“No, here in the States. She never got back there, it seems.” I did not want to give more details than necessary.

“Do you know who killed her?”

“No, we don’t. The detectives are working on the case now.”

Her questions flooded out in typical fashion as she began to absorb the shocking news. How did she die? Where did they find her? Has anyone tried to communicate with her father? Did I know she’d been raped? Did I know she’d been ill? It was clear to me that Clem knew as much about Katrina as anyone with whom we’d spoken.

“The reason I wrote to you, Clem, is that yours was one of the last e-mails that came through to Katrina’s account before the end of last year. You had sent a message after the holidays, after you had returned from visiting your family. Do you remember what you said to her?”

Silence again. “Nothing specific. I imagine I was just anxious to know why I hadn’t heard from her.”

“I’ve got a copy of that correspondence. You do ask about her well-being, but you also make a point of inquiring about whether she had gotten into a vault. Do you recall that?”

Longer silence. It was impossible to question someone by telephone. There was no way to assess her demeanor or physical response. “Not really.”

“Let me read you the actual e-mail.” I went inside to my office and opened the folder.

“Look, Ms. Cooper, I’d like to be helpful. I don’t know who you are or why this is useful for your investigation, but I’m not anxious to have this conversation by telephone.”

Neither was I.

“Would you be willing to come to New York, at our expense, to talk to us?”

No answer.

“We can’t seem to find many people who were close to Katrina. This could make an enormous difference in our work.”

“I’ve got a job. I’ve got responsibilities here in London.”

“Then can you suggest someone here whom Katrina trusted as much as she seemed to trust you?”

“With whom have you talked so far?”

“Museum people. Thibodaux, Poste, Friedrichs, Bellinger, Mamdouba. A kid named Zimm. Oh, and Gaylord.”

“That won’t do. None of them knew her the way I did.” She hesitated. “How certain are you that it was murder and not an accident?”

“Someone poisoned Katrina Grooten. It was a slow death and a very painful one.” I said that as firmly as I could. “I can reserve a seat for you on a morning flight from Heathrow. A detective will meet you at the airport. Have you back in a couple of days if you can give us the help we need.”

“I’ll need to take emergency leave from work.”

“Would it help if I called your office and explained the situation?”

“That would make matters much worse, Ms. Cooper. No one at either museum must know yet that I’m coming to talk to you. Is that possible?”

“Of course. We’ll put you up in a hotel. You’ll be working with me and with the homicide detective assigned to the case. Now, I’m going to need your name. The complete name and address, so we can book the e-ticket. You’ll just have to show your passport when you arrive at the desk to pick it up.”

“Clementine Qisukqut. Let me spell it for you. It’s an Inuit name.”

I copied it onto the pad as she spoke the letters. “So when you told Katrina in your e-mail that you had gone home for the Christmas holidays, that was to-?”

“Greenland. My father and grandfather were both miners. Worked the zinc mines in Canada, right up near the Arctic Circle. My mother loved that old American folk song about the miner-the forty-niner-and his daughter, Clementine. I might be the only Inuit with that given name.”

She was beginning to loosen up. Her chosen screen name-for the “oh my darling” of the song’s refrain-became more obvious now.

“May I ask what kind of work you’re doing in London?”

“I’ve got a job in the British Museum.”

“Anthropology?”

“Not yet. You may have learned from Mr. Mamdouba or your other sources that I was let go. It’s an awfully incestuous world, this museum business. I would never have landed a job here if I needed my references from Natural History. I tried something different.”

“Doing what?”

“They’ve just reopened the great Round Reading Room in the British Museum. I’ve used my undergraduate degree in library science to get a position here for the time being. But they mustn’t know I’m going to the States to work on a museum matter. They’d sort the whole thing out if someone were to tell on me.”

“You have my word on that. Let me make your travel arrangements and get back to you within the hour. I can’t thank you enough for doing this.”

“I’ve lost a good friend, Ms. Cooper.” Clem’s voice dropped off. “I hadn’t really worried too much at first, knowing she’d have her hands full once she reached home in South Africa. New job, readjusting to life there, dealing with her father and his dreadful illness. Has anyone told Mr. Grooten about Katrina?”

“Our detectives notified the police there, who went to the nursing home to pay him a visit and explain it to him in person. His dementia is so advanced he didn’t even seem to know who Katrina was.”

“It’s such a tragedy, on every level. And then once I heard that she’d been here on business in January, I assumed things were fine. That she’d settle in back home and once she did, she’d get in touch with me.”

The morgue would give me final word on this, but it seemed unlikely from what we knew at this point that Katrina had been abroad this winter. “January? Are you certain that she was in London then?”

“That’s what one of my mates told me. Used to work in medieval art, and he’d met her in the States. Said that Katrina Grooten had spent the afternoon in a meeting at the museum with two other people from the Met. He’d seen her name signed in for a visitor’s pass. I thought she’d been here briefly, on her way home. Many of the U.S. flights to South Africa stop in London. It’s not unusual to break up the trip that way. Just figured she didn’t have enough time to see me on her way out.”

“That visitors’ log, do you think you can find me a copy for that date in January?”

“Perhaps the friend who told me about it can scout it up. I’ll leave him a message now. Why don’t you give me a fax number, and if he finds it he can get it to your office tomorrow, while I’m traveling?”

“That’s a good idea.” I knew our office would be closed, so I gave her the number at the homicide squad. “It’s awfully good of you to do this.”

“Of course I should be helping you.” She almost whispered her response. “I’m afraid it may be my fault that she’s dead.”

I tried to get her to explain what she meant but she refused to talk about it.

I dialed Ed Flannery’s home number. He was in charge of all our witness travel arrangements. “You’re flying her in without McKinney’s approval? No Saturday-night stay-over? No reduced fare?”

“Battaglia’ll sign off on it, Ed. Promise. Get the best price you can. And she can’t stay at one of our usual flophouses. Security’s an issue. Book a room and put it in my name. I don’t want her to appear anywhere on the register.”

We usually put witnesses up at midprice hotels in the city, bound by our per diem budget. On more than one occasion, violent crimes had been committed in the same facilities. Push-in robberies, room burglaries, and on one recent occasion a businesswoman was assaulted in the suite adjacent to our victim’s as she was followed by a serial rapist after she checked in and wheeled her suitcase to her room without a hotel bellman.

“You tell me. Our credit isn’t all that good in the five-star hotels.”

“I’ll call the Regency. They’ve done it for us before.” The owners were among the most philanthropic family in town, and the nicest, and I was certain they would do a favor for us in the midst of a murder investigation. Nina had stayed there last week and I was familiar with all the amenities. “And nobody would think to look there for one of our witnesses, that’s for sure. Call me back when you’ve got the flight information.”

Then I called Mike. “Our Clem? He’s a she. Clementine. We’re bringing her over tomorrow. Can you meet her at the Jetway when she lands at JFK and speed her through customs and immigration?”

“Don’t we have some interviews to do tomorrow at the museum? And then Pierre Thibodaux. I’ll get Mercer to pick her up.”

“Fine.” I repeated all her information for him, and told him I’d get back to him about the flight and hotel.

“What kind of name is that?”

“Inuit.” I laughed. “She’s from Uummannaq, Greenland.”

“Oh, Eskimo.”

“Used to be. Inuit now.”

“Like the friggin‘ Washington Redskins, huh? Now it’s gotta be the Uummannaq Inuits. Well, Clem’ll be my first Eskimo. Don’t introduce her to that sadomasochist you’re prosecuting. He ever makes someone try to spell this one’s name, they’d get beaten to a pulp. What are you guys doing today?”

“Val’s set up on the dining room table. She’s got to finish drafting some plans before we go back in the morning. Nina and I are going riding. And you?”

“Might actually catch a break. Last night was quiet so I’ll stay home today, unless I get called in on something new. Took my sainted mother to Mass and now I’m good for six months.”

I waited until Ed called back with firm plans before passing the travel details on to Mike.

Nina and I drove to the stables off South Road and rented horses for an afternoon beach ride.

We made our way slowly through the thickly wooded area until we crossed through the tall beach grass of the wetlands, around Tisbury Great Pond, and onto the wide expanse of pristine white sand that bordered the Atlantic for miles. Nina and I came to Black Point Beach whenever she visited me on the island, and I came often when I was here alone.

More than a decade ago, during the summer after law school when I had taken the bar exam, I was engaged to be married in a ceremony at my home on the island. I had bought the house with my fiancé, Adam Nyman, who had been a surgical resident at the University Hospital in Charlottesville while I was a student there. Nina had been with me for the week before the wedding. She was going to be the matron of honor, as I had been the maid of honor for her several years earlier. And it was Nina who had to break the news to me that Adam-the last person scheduled to arrive because of his inflexible rotation in the residency-had been killed by another driver, who sideswiped his car on the highway in Connecticut, sending it crashing over the side of an old bridge and into the riverbed below.

We came here always, Nina and I, to remember Adam and talk about the things that had made him such a unique influence in my life.

For too long, I had been unable to trust myself to become seriously involved with another man. Afraid to have my heart stabbed at its core, and by immersing myself in the intensity of my new job, I had stayed emotionally remote for several years. Now it seemed to me that Mike Chapman, for quite another reason, had functioned the same way. Perhaps that explained why we had such an unspoken understanding of each other for all this time, even though I had not known why until the morning after September 11.

Nina and I walked our horses along the water’s edge as she reminded me of some of the weekends she, Jerry, Adam, and I had spent together while I was in law school. We laughed together at the memories, and I tried to suppress thoughts of what my life would have been like if Adam hadn’t been killed.

“Let’s stop at the market before it closes. Val and I are going to cook dinner for you tonight.” Nina turned her horse around and headed for the dunes.

When I pulled on the reins to get my horse to follow her, I could see that Nina had stopped to watch me. “You know something, Alex? I realize you put a weekend moratorium on advice, but I love you too much not to tell you.”

I smiled, expecting the usual lecture on working too hard and becoming too caught up in the lives of my victims.

“Jake Tyler’s not the one.”

My back stiffened and I sat up straight in the saddle. No wonder Nina hadn’t wanted to talk about him last night.

“You know I’m right, Alex. He’s too self-centered, too distant. You need a guy with more heart.”

I dug my heels into the side of the horse and she carried me up and over the dunes, back toward the woods. The wind had kicked up and I could let Nina think I hadn’t heard what she said as I rode away from her.

I was quiet on the short ride home, letting the car radio fill the heavy silence between us.

“Call Mercer,” Val said, greeting us at the back door. “Kind of urgent. He’s at SVU.”

I speed-dialed the number and Mercer Wallace answered. “Thought you ought to know. Bad scene. I’m here with Vandomir. That kid you interviewed with him last week, Angel Alfieri?”

“Yeah, the fourteen-year-old. What about her?”

“Disappeared during the night. Told her old lady she was sleeping over at her girlfriend’s house. Be home today. Mother calls over there a few hours ago to find out whether she’d be back in time for dinner. Finds out Angel never got there last night.”

“Shit. Any ideas?”

“Mrs. Alfieri came in here all hysterical. The precinct won’t take a missing person’s case yet.” That was typical. The NYPD usually required that someone be gone for forty-eight hours before they took police action.

“Anyone tried Covenant House? The Eighth Avenue strip? Video arcades?” Teenage runaways had a regular network in the city. The usual suspects often went straight to the usual hangouts.

“Vandomir’s doing that now.”

“Can’t be Felix. He’s still on Rikers.”

Mercer was slow to comment. “I think maybe you were so busy working on the murder case that you forgot to get his bail raised. He got out before the weekend.”

I cursed again. There were too many things on my plate, and dropping the ball on any one of them could be a matter of life or death.

“I, uh, I could come back tonight. I can get right on this.”

“Stay put. You’re the last person she wants to see. Her mother says she hasn’t stopped talking about how mean you were to her since she left your office. Thinks it’s your fault the kid ran off. I’m just calling to give you a heads-up. Nobody wants you back around here.”

I pleaded with Mercer, even though the matter was not in his control. “Please find her for me. Find her before she gets hurt.”