Linda Fairstein - The Bone Vault

“So do you think she buried the lead or what?” Mike asked.

“I can’t figure it out. Ruth Gerst is way too smart to have brought us over there, just to drop in that fact about meeting Katrina Grooten as an afterthought.”

“When she started out, I thought maybe Thibodaux had set her up to put in a good word for him. Shift some suspicion to Timothy Gaylord. But if that’s the case, she wouldn’t have dropped the bombshell about Thibodaux and the girl.”

“I had never put Pierre and Katrina together until the salesgirl placed the sweater on Mrs. Thibodaux’s back. Now suppose it goes even further, with them arriving in town within a month or two of each other, and both coming from France.”

“We’re going to have to get a road map to find out where these private storage rooms are hidden in the museum.”

“Someone else made a reference to a ‘vault’ the other day.”

“This case? You mean the vaulted ceilings that we saw in the Met basement?”

“No, something I saw in a report or-I know. In one of those e-mails from Katrina’s friends.”

“What did you do with those?”

“I’ve got them packed to take with me to the Vineyard tonight. I was planning to write to each of her friends and tell them about her death. See who that brings out of the woodwork.”

“Val’s waiting at my apartment. I told her we’d pick her up after we get Nina.”

“Nina’s at my place. I have to run up and throw some things in a suitcase. The traffic leaving the city on a holiday weekend is going to be a nightmare. You sure you don’t want us to grab a taxi to the airport?”

“And miss the chance to be with the three of you?”

It was after five o’clock as we pulled up to the front of my building. Unlike most Manhattan apartments, mine had a driveway off the side street, where cars could actually park and wait. Mike stayed there while I went upstairs, changed into jeans and a sweater, and filled a canvas-sail bag with some casual clothes and my folder of case reports. Nina was on the phone with her office in Los Angeles and motioned with her hand that she was winding up the conversation.

“Great,” she finally said, turning to me. “Just getting confirmation on the plane. Quentin’s spending the weekend in Sag Harbor. He wants to fly back to the coast early Monday morning. It’s all ours till then.”

The UniQuest jet was sitting on the tarmac at Teterboro, a small field for private aviation in northern New Jersey. “Wheels up?”

“The pilot’s ready for us.” Her suitcase was next to the front door. “It’s so bizarre to be running off for a weekend without a husband and kid. Like old times, huh?”

We were inseparable during our years at Wellesley. And like the great friend that she had been, Nina continued to include me in her travels even after her marriage to Jerry and the birth of their son, Gabe, four years ago.

Mike opened the trunk for our bags, and we drove a few blocks downtown to pick up Valerie Jacobsen, the thirty-two-year-old architect whom he had been dating since the previous summer.

He double-parked and went upstairs to his studio apartment on the fifth floor so Val wouldn’t have to carry the suitcase down. When Mike met her, Val had been recovering from a mastectomy and an aggressive course of chemotherapy to combat breast cancer. She had rebuilt her strength over the winter months and was much stronger than when she and I had originally met, during the Christmas holidays.

I climbed into the backseat with Nina and did the introductions when Val reached the car. “You can’t imagine what a godsend this weekend is, Alex. I’ve been working around the clock on a proposal the firm is doing for a new baseball stadium. Mike’s idea of a long weekend is having me spend even more time at the office, while he covers homicide for all the guys who’ve got family graduations or weddings.”

“Have you ever been to Martha’s Vineyard before?” Nina asked.

“No. But I understand we’re in good hands. Best food, best view-”

“And thanks to Nina, best way to get there. What a luxury.”

One of the key virtues of the island was its remoteness from the rest of the world. Ferry reservations were essential at this time of year, and it was more than a four-hour drive from Manhattan to reach the terminus. Direct air service varied in its regularity from year to year, but rarely started before early June. It would have been almost impossible to plan a short stay like this one without the welltimed availability of the UniQuest plane.

We got to the airport shortly after seven o’clock. The four of us went inside to find the crew and have some coffee before we took off. By the time we were ready to board, Mike had found the television and had it primed toJeopardy! for the final question. “C’mon. I got one world-class architect and two shopping mavens. The category is ‘Furniture.’ I’ll be a good sport. Everyone in for twenty bucks?”

“Double or nothing. How often do I get to do this?” Nina asked.

“I must be crazy. I don’t have a shot.” Mike put his money on the counter while the receptionist tried to figure out what was going on.

Trebek read the answer as it dropped into place on the game board. “‘Pedestal-style circular table named for Moorish slave whose heroism gave Venetians the victory at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.’ ”

I looked at Nina and laughed. “I’m clueless. You, too? How’d we get the one decorating question you couldn’t answer?”

Mike swept the jackpot off the table. “I’m heading right to Patroon for a great steak dinner. Anybody have second thoughts about the weekend? ‘What’s a gueridon?’-that’s your question, Mr. Trebek.”

“Of course. Like those little round bistro tables. How’d you know?” Nina asked.

“Never heard of the tables, but Gueridon was the name of the slave who helped the Christians defeat the Turks during Lepanto. One of the most famous warrior legends of the Middle Ages. Okay, ladies, now scat. I’ve got places to go, people to see.”

He helped us get our bags to the plane, gave us each a hug, and watched as the copilot pulled the staircase up into the plane and locked the door.

The sky was clear and, looking down, you could trace the path of the flight by the lighted towns and villages that stretched out east of New York City. The three of us gabbed the entire way, cruising into the landing strip and coming to a stop directly in front of the new terminal before the hour was out.

My caretaker had opened the house for the weekend and had left my twenty-year-old Jeep Cherokee in the parking lot. It was too dark to show Val any of the lush spring scenery on the twenty-minute ride up-island to my farmhouse in Chilmark. There was a wonderful crisp chill in the air as we stepped out of the car on my hilltop and looked up at the blanket of stars covering the sky. I was immediately calmed-as always-by coming home to this peaceful haven.

“Anybody else hungry?” Nina asked. “C’mon, Val. Let’s pick our rooms. We’re upstairs.”

I dropped my bag in the master bedroom, with its wide vista out over the water, which was shimmering in the moonlight. The answering machine light was blinking, and I played back the message, which was Jake calling from somewhere high above the Pacific Ocean. I’d have to wait until tomorrow to speak with him.

In the kitchen, I unpacked the sandwiches and put out dinner plates. I breathed in the rich smell of the lilacs that my caretaker’s wife had clipped and placed in the living room. The pale lavender and white trees surrounded the front door of the house, filling the air with that unique scent for just these last weeks of May.

Nina was the first to come back downstairs. “Not a trace of Gabe. What did you do with all his toys?”