Linda Fairstein - The Bone Vault

“And Mike knew she was there?”

“That’s one of the reasons his mother called him. Courtney’s mom called Mrs. Chapman, begging her to send Mike to try to find Courtney, to get her out of the building and safely away from the disaster scene.”

“You think that’s why he went?”

“Wild horses couldn’t have kept him away. He didn’t go because of her, but he was damn determined to try to save her once his mother gave him that mission.”

“That’s another difference between guys like him and people like you and me. Some creep had dumped me years ago? I wouldn’t have had a charitable bone in my body.”

“It didn’t matter. She never had a chance, like everybody else up there.”

“Mike told you all this?”

“He must have talked for three hours.”

“About Courtney?”

“Sure. About how he had always felt so inadequate after she broke up with him. That there was only one thing in his life that was a passion, other than his love for her, and that was police work. That he was afraid to become involved with other women for fear they would reject him, ultimately, for the same reasons. You know the great irony of it?”

“I can guess. Here’s the one event that makes everybody in the world stand up and pay their respects to the cops, the firemen, the everyday heroes who did such extraordinary things in the face of certain death.”

“Yeah. And Courtney doesn’t live to see him right in the middle of it all.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“I didn’t have to tell him anything. He wasn’t there to listen to me. He just wanted to vent some of this, to let me in a little bit. Explain some of his behavior to me, in a way.”

“Didn’t he-um-”

I shook my head. “He needed an anchor, Nina. That’s all he wanted. He was lying down on the sofa, his head in my lap as the sun came up. I was stroking that beautiful black hair. And he cried. He just cried softly until I thought he was going to dissolve in his own tears.

“‘No one who wasn’t there can ever understand the magnitude of this, the agony of these victims,’ he kept repeating. ‘I close my eyes and it’s all I see and hear. I’ve been to hell, Alex.’”

Nina sat up and blew out the candles on the table. “No wonder Val can’t get him to open up. It’s something that none of the rest of us can even begin to imagine.”

“She’ll do fine with him. She’s got the patience to let him move at his own speed. As painful as it was for him to feel so helpless that day, and as unspeakably tragic as it was, I think Courtney’s death freed him from a lot of the insecurities that had plagued him.”

“And you, Alex? What did it all do to you?”

“I don’t even begin to know yet.” I looked out at the moon, clouds dancing across its face.

“You sleeping in tomorrow?” I asked.

“Absolutely.”

“When do we get to talk about you?”

“If you hadn’t just yawned in my face, I would have suggested doing it now.”

I embraced her and kissed her good night. “Midnight. That’s a good time to knock off.”

Nina walked upstairs and I went to get ready for bed. I turned off the alarm clock and shut off the lights. I was too tired to even flip through my pile of monthly magazines.

I must have fallen asleep immediately, because the neon dial on the clock showed twelve-fifteen when I reached to answer the telephone. Jake was somewhere in Australia or New Zealand, and was doing no better a job keeping track of the time differences than was I.

“There’s a big empty hole in this bed, right next to me, where you should be sleeping right now. Well, maybe not sleeping, exactly. How’s that for a long-distance greeting?” I was tired and intoxicated and hoping the sound of my voice would pass for sexy instead.

“What’d you have in mind, blondie?”

I rolled onto my back and felt my face redden in the darkness of my room. “Not that you wouldn’t be entirely welcome, Mr. Chapman. I just wasn’t expecting it to be you.”

“Glad it wasn’t Battaglia. You could put some men into an early grave with that offer.”

“Thanks a lot. Something break on the case?”

“No.” He paused, thinking I would make the connection before I did. “I just called to say good night to Val. Lost track of the time. If she’s gone up I’ll just let it be.”

I put the receiver back in the cradle. I suppose I was glad that Mike had fallen in love with Val. I turned on my side, away from the empty half of the bed.

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.”