Linda Fairstein - The Bone Vault

Nina and her son, my godchild, had spent ten days with me the previous July. I adored the opportunity to spoil him, loading up on toy trucks and trains, building blocks and books of all sorts, and dozens of beach toys. “Stashed away till this summer. Coming back, aren’t you?”

“I’m begging Quentin to give me some time off. Gabe says he’ll be here with you, whether or not I come.”

“Only thing you risk is that I keep him forever.”

Nina had her elbows on the counter, watching me pour the drinks. “Jerry’s ready for another one. Kid, I mean.”

“You told me that a year ago. I think it’s great.”

“Yeah, well, it just hasn’t happened. And if you like the idea so much, why don’t you start giving some thought to-”

I could hear Val’s footsteps on the staircase. “I’ll make you a deal. This weekend? No advice. I won’t spend any time telling you that you’re insane to put the kind of effort and intelligence into a job that pays you a bloody fortune but has absolutely no emotional rewards, no personal satisfaction. And you keep your mind out of my uterus, okay?”

I lifted my glass and clinked it against hers as Val joined us. “What a little piece of paradise this is. I may lose myself in that down comforter, with a stack of old books next to the bed. What time is reveille?”

“Any time you want. Tired now?”

“Yes. I’d prefer to make tonight an early one.”

Val soon headed upstairs to her room to read, Nina got on the phone to call home before Jerry put Gabe to sleep, and I sat down at my computer.

I opened the file that had the e-mails Bellinger had collected when Katrina Grooten’s computer had been dismantled at the beginning of January. There were nine from acquaintances in Europe, all wishing her a merry Christmas and a healthy New Year. None seemed to know her well enough to have been aware that her physical condition had been deteriorating for months. Several asked what she was doing at work, and wondered whether she would be traveling abroad in the months to come. Someone named Charles, writing from the cyber address of the museum in Toulouse, gave her the local staff gossip and ended by asking about her love life.

A few of the messages were administrative e-mails from the Metropolitan, in response to circulation of the memo that Katrina had resigned: “May I remind you to turn in your keys to the ladies’ room at the Cloisters?” “If you have any books outstanding from the Metropolitan Museum library system, will you please return them to the employees’ desk in the main building?” “Unless you complete all the necessary steps for clearance before separating from the organization, we will be unable to process any references for future employment.”

There was nothing to suggest that anyone suspected foul play at the time the young woman disappeared from the institution.

In the middle of the pile I came to the note I had been seeking. It was dated December 27 and signed with the single word I assumed to be the writer’s name: Clem.

I was beginning to worry about you until this morning, when I got back to London after a trip home and found your message. I’m glad you have decided to go back to South Africa. You can focus on regaining your strength. I’m still curious. Have you gotten into the vault since we last spoke? I visited the grave when I was at home. It made me happy to see that he could be at rest after all this time. We are doing a very fine thing.

Let me know as soon as you have a new e-mail address and contact information.

Clem.

Who washe? I wondered. What grave? Where? I went back up to the header and typed the screen name, hoping it would still be valid these five months later. Omydarling@Britmail.uk.co.

I took the cursor down to the subject line and wrote Katrina’s name. Then I moved it to the body of the letter. Without any knowledge of the nature of their relationship, I could not imagine breaking the news to Clem that Katrina had been murdered in this first cold contact.

Instead, I introduced myself as an acquaintance of Katrina’s, said that I did not know when their last contact had been, and asked whether I might get a telephone number so we could speak about her. I signed my name, without identifying my professional position, and pressed the mouse to send the message across the ocean. I composed similar e-mails to the other correspondents before shutting off the computer and going to bed.

When I awakened at seven o’clock, Val was already outside on the lawn. She was sitting on the grass at the edge of the wildflower field, sketching the poppies and loosestrife that stood defiantly upright in the strong morning breeze, against the backdrop of Menemsha Pond.

“I’m going down the road to Primo’s, for coffee, blueberry muffins, andThe New York Times. Special requests?”

“Want company or shall I wait for Nina?”

“No mother of a four-year-old is going to miss the opportunity to sleep in on an unencumbered Saturday morning. We won’t see her for hours. Stay put. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

I made the short run to Beetlebung Corner, where the Chilmark Store was my lifeline for the season’s provisions. When I pulled up and saw Justin Feldman sitting on a rocker on the porch of the general store, relishing his daily coffee and bagel while he tried to pick out the regulars from the renters, I knew I was home.

“Who’s keeping the big city safe if you’re up here, Alex?”

“Haven’t you heard? Crime is down.” He was the smartest lawyer in town, frequently sought by corporate executives for complicated securities litigation. “I’ve got some friends up for the weekend. Want to stop by for cocktails before dinner tonight?”

He tapped his hand against the newspaper, which was folded in half to reveal the Metro page headline. “I’m going back this morning. Got a call in the middle of the night.” He pointed to the bold print, which I leaned over his shoulder to read. “Freak accident, but the Metropolitan’s a client, so I’ve got to go deal with it.”

I straightened up, bringing the paper with me:WORKER DIES IN PLUNGE FROM MUSEUM ROOF.

I sat in the Jeep and read the story again.

A twenty-eight-year-old maintenance worker, Pablo Bermudez, fell to his death from the museum roof while performing a routine inspection of the water tanks used in the large complex’s cooling system. Mr. Bermudez had done the same checks every Friday for the past two years, without incident. The reporter described the man’s death as “mysterious,” citing coworkers who had seen him half an hour before the accident but had lost sight of him when he climbed outside to complete his testing. What was it, a museum spokesman wondered, that could have caused him to lose his balance on this occasion?

At the bottom of the story was an architect’s rendering of the area involved. That part of the roof was flat, and enclosed by a parapet that was knee high and a foot wide. A museum guard who joined the search for Bermudez noticed his body lying on the ground a hundred feet below, at the bottom of an air shaft, in the narrow courtyard between the Chinese galleries and the wing housing the Temple of Dendur.

I raced home with containers of coffee for Val and me. “I’ve got to call Mike. Want me to bring the phone out when I’m done so you can say hello?”

She was shading the two-hundred-year-old stone wall that ringed the perimeter of my property in classic Vineyard fashion, and didn’t look up from her sketchpad when she spoke: “I called him earlier. He was already out working on something. I won’t bother him again till he’s finished for the day.”

I walked up to the house and dialed his cell phone number.

“Yeah?”