Linda Fairstein - The Bone Vault

“You sound like you’re in the middle of something. Just saw the paper and wanted-”

“The jumper? The happily married maintenance worker with three kids, who the museum wants me to believe threw himself to his death ‘cause the water wasn’t quite as tepid as it should have been? Or that he suddenly developed a brain disorder that made him keel over and drop off the roof, only now his brain wentsplat all over the cement so we’ll never know quite what the disorder was? Yeah, I’m at the Met, why?”

“They’re reporting it as an accident, so I just wasn’t sure you’d have any reason to know.”

“I had just sliced into a sixteen-ounce New York strip with garlic mashed potatoes when the shit hit the fan. The Hells Angels and the Pagans were having a motorcycle prom at Roseland, which was interrupted by gunfire and resulted in one heavenly Angel making an early visit to Saint Peter. Then some yupster in Yorkville got pissed at his live-in for doing belly shots with another guy at their local watering hole, so he clubbed her over the head with a ten-pound weight from her Richard Simmons workout program when she came through the door, which only goes to prove my point that exercise can be a very dangerous thing. And then this.”

“Someone from the museum call you about Bermudez?”

“You’ve used up your quota of stupid questions for the day. Of course not. I’m sitting in the emergency room at Mount Sinai Hospital, waiting to talk to the distraught lover of the girl who died from the fractured skull he gave her when another bus pulls in with Bermudez. DOA.”

“The ambulance didn’t get him to the hospital till the middle of the night?”

“He was missing all afternoon, so they were scouring the museum for him. Mostly the basement, where he usually works. Finally, after dark-about nine o’clock-they’re back out on the roof when a guard has the good sense to shine his light over the edge, into the courtyard down below. Gets to this spot. Poor Bermudez had those orange neon strips on the trim of his work boots. The guy lit up like a pair of fireflies, only one leg was practically planted in the Chinese collection while the other one was in Egypt.”

“Any police involvement?”

“Yeah, it was Emergency Services that had to get into the tight space and pick up the pieces. It was their bus that brought him to the hospital, which is the only reason I had a clue something deadly had happened at the museum. Then your girlfriend showed up.”

“Who might that be?”

“Eve Drexler.”

“Of course. She’d be taking Thibodaux’s calls while he’s away.”

“Yeah, still in Washington. Eve came over to do damage control with Bermudez’s family, and with the media.”

“So what other kind of maintenance work did he do at the Met?”

“Jack-of-all-trades, like most of the guys in that department. And yes, if you’re curious about whether he moves pieces that are being shipped in and out of the museum, he certainly helps. I’m on the job, blondie. I told Eve we want all his employment records for the last year. Activity logs, time sheets, work orders. I’m waiting in her office to see what they can put in my hands today. We’ll talk to his coworkers and his buddies, see why he was doing a high-wire act without a safety net. Now get back to your company. There’s nothing for you to do here.”

I checked my e-mail to see whether Clem had responded to my message. There was no reply from him yet. I wondered what vault he was talking about, and whose grave site he had visited on his trip home. Three of the others had sent innocuous answers, wondering what my connection to Katrina was and why they hadn’t heard from her in so many months. I decided not to give out any details for another twenty-four hours. I didn’t want to take the chance that one of them might also be corresponding with Clem, and would alert him to my news of her death before I had a chance to explore what he meant about Katrina and the museum vault.

Now I was restless, almost sorry I had left the city. I walked off the deck and down the hillside to Val. “Can I tear you away from this vista? I can give you the Vineyard tour while Nina catches up on her sleep.”

We drove down-island, away from the sheep pastures and rolling, open farmland of Chilmark. For almost three hours, we traversed the twenty-two-mile length of the island, in and out of the separate towns, stopping along the side of the road for Val to take photographs of scenes she wanted to paint later on. Sailboats tacked in the distant waters and lobstermen pulled up their traps in the local saltwater ponds.

Everything was beginning to blossom, not only the ancient lilac trees, which were everywhere, but azaleas and forsythia and beach plum. It was a spectacular time of year to be in residence, as all forms of life shed their bleak winter garb to reawaken in the deep green palette that spread from Vineyard Sound to the Atlantic Ocean.

By the time we pulled into the driveway, Nina had made a pot of coffee and was sunning herself on the deck. “No carpooling, no play dates, no sugar-coated breakfast cereal sticking to every countertop. I’ve forgotten what life can be like. Feeding time?”

“I left the motor running. I figured you’d have a craving for your favorite lunch.”

This time, we took the ride past Beetlebung and hooked around to the little fishing village of Menemsha. There was already a line of discerning eaters who knew that the tiny gray shack on the side of the road, with two picnic tables and a couple of benches on the porch, was the unlikely place to find the best fried clams in the world. The Quinn sisters, Karen and Jackie, sweated over their deep fryers with their staff at The Bite for a very short season, from Memorial Day weekend to Columbus Day, but managed in that time to draw islanders and tourists, hardworking locals and mega movie stars, to eat the most delicious seafood on the coast.

I stood on the back of the line while Nina and Val tried to stake out the end of a table. By the time I got to the screen door to place my order, Karen was already fuming about a customer.

“Clam rage. Can you imagine? We’re not even open twenty-four hours, and some guy just docked in a stinkpot is mouthing off about how long he’s had to wait for his oysters and calamari. What’ll it be, Alexandra?”

“We’ve got a first-timer with us. Definitely clams. But you better give us a sampling of everything else with it.”

The three of us sat at a small table, shaded by a striped beach umbrella, and devoured the finger food in ten minutes’ time.

“Ready to work off that fried stuff?” I asked, heading back to my hilltop. I parked the car and unlocked the door of the barn. I kept four ten-speeds there, since the island had miles of bike paths through forestland and along beach roads. “Val hasn’t seen Aquinnah. I thought we’d do it this way.”

We changed into biking clothes and mounted up, heading right out of my driveway and down the last steep, curving hill in Chilmark to cross over the town line. We rode past Herring Creek and out onto Moshup’s Trail, a stunning strip of roadway that ran along the ocean, named for a legendary Wampanoag Indian chief. We biked up to the lighthouse, then back past the Outermost Inn and down Lobsterville Road, before doubling back up the winding slope we had cruised down so easily at the start of our ride.

Nina rolled her bike into the garage. “Pooped. Done. Easy for you with your weekly ballet lesson, my friend. This is why we have cars in Beverly Hills, so we don’t have to do this stuff.”

“Your reward is waiting. Remember Pamela? Bodysense?”

“The massage therapist? Divine.”

“A house call for three. By the time we shower, she’ll be here. Then all I have to do is pick up dinner-already cooked for us-before seven.”