The Bone Vault

3

I slipped my key in the lock, opened my apartment door, and went to the kitchen without turning on the overhead light. I held a glass against the edge of the automatic ice maker and let four or five cubes drop into it. The decanter on the bar had been refilled by my housekeeper, and I listened as the Dewar’s I poured crackled over the frozen pieces and floated them to the top. The glass cooled my hand, and I held it pressed against my forehead for several seconds before I took my first sip.

Walking to the bathroom, I removed my watch and set it on the dressing table. It was almost 2A.M., and I had to be at my desk before eight, ready to meet with a detective who needed help with a complaining witness whose story about a sexual assault did not make sense. I took off my wrinkled suit and draped it over the back of the chair. It was unlikely I’d ever want to see it again after it was returned from the dry cleaner; it might be headed to the thrift shop. I was sure I could never wear it without thinking of the body in the coffin in the back of the truck.

I turned the water on and waited until steam filled the room, clouding the mirror so I didn’t have to look at my own reflection. I was too tired to deal with that. The circles under my eyes had as many rings as the oldest redwoods in the forests. I opened the cabinet to find some kind of bath oil that would have a calming effect. I pushed aside the rosemary and lavender to read the label on the chamomile. Nina Baum and Joan Stafford, my closest friends, would know exactly what to use. My luck, I’d slather myself with something invigorating rather than soothing.

I showered and washed my hair, then toweled it dry as I carried my drink into the bedroom. The alarm was already set for six-thirty, so I folded back the soft cotton sheet and settled onto the bed, relishing the comfort of the cool, dark room.

A hand stroked my thigh beneath the covers. I turned my head and saw Jake’s dark hair against the pale yellow bedding. “Smooth marble finish, perfectly sculpted. Must be the Venus de Milo.”

I rolled over and caressed his head, kissing him on the ear. “Wrong museum, wrong continent, wrong broad. This one’s got arms.” I ran my hand along the length of his spine.

He started to sit up and turn on the light.

“Please don’t. The light, I mean. I’m just trying to wind down for a few minutes. This is a nice surprise.” I continued to rub his thigh.

We had tried living together at his place for a few weeks around the New Year, but I had found it too difficult to give up my independence. I was in love with Jake, but not ready to make a permanent commitment while we both had such strong professional pulls. His job took him out of town for long and erratic periods of time, and mine required an intensity of focus that made it hard to be available when he was between assignments. I did not need the artificial compromise of one apartment to stay faithful to him.

Jake turned onto his side and crossed his leg on top of mine. He put his hand on my chin, turning my face to his and kissing my mouth, over and over again until I responded to him. I rested my head on the pillow and he played with the ringlets that were forming around my face, first with his fingers and then with his lips.

“When you didn’t call within the hour, Nina and I figured that the message she heard delivered to Thibodaux at the party was right. There’s a dead girl?”

I nodded my head, sat up, and reached for the scotch.

“Somewhere downtown, Nina said.”

“Newark, actually. Mike’s got her over at the ME’s office now. We’ll have a better idea of the whole thing tomorrow. I’m just wired from being out there at the shipyard. You’re supposed to be calming me down and taking my mind off my work. Isn’t that why you’re here?” I slid down lower on the bed and wrapped Jake in an embrace.

“I’m mostly here so you didn’t worry all night about me being seduced by the old dame dripping in sapphires. She doubled back for me the minute you left. Ruth Gerst’s her name.”

“Is she really a trustee of the Met?”

“Most definitely. Toying with giving them her late husband’s entire collection of Greek and Roman sculpture. Wants me to come up to her country house in Greenwich and see it sometime.”

“Where was Nina when I needed her?”

“Quentin was making her crazy. He was furious that Thibodaux didn’t do the big fireworks finale. Quentin had apparently sold a highlights special to one of the cable networks and now he’s got no grand ending to deliver. Nina and I finally rescued each other, had a lovely dinner, and I managed to cross-examine her mercilessly about all the crazy things you two used to do together. I dropped her off at the Regency.”

“At least she gets to sleep late and have room service in the morning. No such luck for us.”

“I wasn’t sure that you’d be happy that I let myself in. I know your stalker hasn’t been heard from in a couple of months, but I didn’t think this was the night to experiment with letting you come home alone.”

“Much as I hate to wish her on someone else, she’s obviously found a new target.” One of the witnesses in an old case of mine had been harassing me all winter, showing up at my apartment lobby from time to time, with doormen and cops scrambling unsuccessfully to snare her. “No sign of her in ages. Maybe her parents had her institutionalized after all.”

“Shhhhh. Don’t think about her now. Don’t think about anything.” Jake’s mouth brushed down the side of my neck, finding my shoulder blade, and then moving on to my left breast. “No, it’s not Venus. This is definitely not marble.”

He looked up at me and saw that my eyes were open. “I’m not doing a very good job of distracting you, am I? I know, I know. It’s hard to go from what you’ve seen tonight to making love to me. Come here.” He lay flat on his back and pulled me against his side, cradling my head in his arm and holding me tight. “Close your eyes, darling. Think about something else. Pick a place, anywhere in the world. Let’s plan a vacation for the end of next month. Someplace with turquoise water, no police department, and funny drinks with little paper umbrellas stuck in them that magically start appearing at noon every day.”

I picked up one of his hands and pressed it against my lips. “Good night, Jake. I’m glad you’re here. It means the world to me.”

I stared at him as his eyes closed and he tried to position himself for sleep. I knew how fortunate I was to have a lover who understood the demands of the work I had chosen. It seemed like an odd career to many of my friends and acquaintances, but Jake understood the great emotional satisfaction the job provided for me.

Nights like this one always made me wonder about what it was in my life that had prepared me for such an unusual occupation. I had grown up in a close-knit family of great privilege and personal strength. My two older brothers and I were young children when my father, Benjamin Cooper, revolutionized the field of cardiac surgery with an ingenious invention that he and his partner created. The Cooper-Hoffman valve, a tiny piece of plastic tubing, was a critical component in every heart operation in this country for more than fifteen years after they introduced it to the medical community. Still, he and my mother remained grounded, raising the three of us in suburban Westchester County, with an emphasis on superior education and a commitment to giving back to society in any way possible.

After my education at Wellesley College, with a major in English literature, I had surprised them by going on to law school at the University of Virginia. My commitment to public service was to try a stint in the greatest prosecutor’s office in the country, working to do justice with a district attorney whose integrity was legendary. Although I had planned to stay for only a few years before going on to private practice, Paul Battaglia’s innovative approach to combating crime had given me a unique foothold in the legal community.

Battaglia’s office had pioneered the idea of a specialized unit to investigate and prosecute crimes of violence against women and children. For so many decades, victims of sexual assault were denied access to courts of law, these intimate violations handled differently from other criminal cases. The word of a woman had not been legally sufficient to take her case into a courtroom because of myths and misconceptions that had actually become embodied in the legislation that this country had adapted from British common law. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s across America, the legislative reform that enabled these cases to proceed sparked the birth of police and prosecutorial units, evidence collection techniques, and continued lobbying efforts for improvements in the criminal justice system. Nowhere were these changes more boldly employed than under the guidance of Paul Battaglia.

It had been a dozen years since I had joined his legal staff and been promoted to run that distinctive unit. When I tried my first rape case in front of a jury, my three favorite letters of the alphabet-DNA-although sequenced that way in a laboratory several years earlier, had not yet been accepted in the scientific or legal communities or developed enough to yield the forensic results that are so decisive for victims today. And now, not only do we use it on a daily basis to exonerate men wrongly accused of crimes, but we achieve victories in cases of homicide and sexual assault that would not have been possible a decade ago.

Those triumphs, those days that we could give a just result to a victim of violence, were what made every moment of this job a joy to me and my colleagues. The rewards were much richer than the experience of an evening like this, when the enormity of a particular tragedy and the loss of a single life overwhelmed all our good work.

Jake stirred beside me and rolled onto his side again.

“You’re not still writing your summation for the trial about this body you found tonight, are you? You haven’t got anyone to prosecute yet. C’mon, Alex. Shut it down.”

I closed my eyes and nestled my body against his.

“Did you say Newark?”

“Newark what?”

“A couple of minutes ago, when I asked you if you went downtown with Thibodaux to see the girl’s body, did you say you were in Newark?”

I was finally beginning to feel drowsy. “Yeah.”

“So what morgue is Mike going to with the body?”

“Ours.”

“How’d you get the body back over here from Jersey?”

“I stole it.”

“No, seriously.”

“I’m being serious.”

Jake had propped himself up on one arm now, just as I was getting comfortable. “Did you give this story to anyone yet?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. This neck that you were kissing? It may not be marble, but I’d still like to keep it intact. The cardinal rule is that I need to tell the district attorney about the case before anyone writes a press release. Remember?”

Paul Battaglia had more media sense than anyone I had ever encountered. He had the wisdom to call in chits and favors owed from reporters with valuable information and unnamed sources, and he knew how to repay them with a great scoop carefully timed and planted. An exclusive, if the subject matter was right for it. This one was his to deal out.

“You think this story’s going to stay quiet, just amongst your little circle of friends?”

“For the moment, yes. Thibodaux has no interest in publishing a rumor that some unfortunate young lady shuffled off her mortal coil on her way out the door of his museum, if that’s what happened. Nobody knows who she is, or where and how she died. And Mike Chapman hates the press. All the guys in his squad do. The media does nothing except make their work more difficult, especially in a high-profile investigation. Then there’s me, and I have the good sense to drop this right in Paul Battaglia’s lap. Not to mention that I’m exhausted now. Can we talk about this tomorrow?”

“That’s my point, darling. I’m having breakfast with Brian Williams.” Jake subbed for Williams on the nightly cable news desk, and they had become good friends.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“I’d never discuss your cases with anyone unless you gave me permission. You know that. But this one’s going to get out before the day is over. You can’t sit on the story of a dead girl in an ancient sarcophagus shipped out of the largest art museum in America, and a controversial prosecutor who spirited the body out of one jurisdiction back to Manhattan. We’ll do it tastefully, darling. It might as well be our story to break.”

“Save thedarling for another time, will you? Tell anyone and I swear that I’ll never talk to you again.” I pulled the sheet up over the top of my head to end the conversation.

It wasn’t enough that the coffin had developed cracks. Now I had to worry about leaks from my own bedroom.