Linda Fairstein - Entombed

"That could be why his DNA isn't in any data bank in the States."

"I'm figuring it can't be an ambassador or high-ranking diplomat himself, just 'cause the age we're going for is too young for that," I said. "But suppose his father is posted here. The son gets a job as an investment banker-an office on Park that fits with the subway stop on East Fifty-first Street and with hanging out at the bar at Primola with a handful of yuppies, yapping on their cell phones the night Giuliano made him."

Mercer picked up the thread. "Maybe someone on the father's staff got wise to the fact that the kid's got a problem. Maybe even tags his comings and goings to the nights of the attacks, back four years ago when the newspaper coverage was saturating the city. Shows Papa the sketch that was plastered all over the East Side and that convinces the father to send him back to the mother country."

"The rapes stop happening for a few years. The father doesn't have any reason to know the pathology of a rapist. Figures his son has outgrown the problem and decides it's time to ease his way back into town," I said.

"That's a lot of data to read into a few MetroCard entries, but it makes as much sense as every other shadow we've been chasing. I'll get on it tomorrow."

It was after 7P.M. when the guys dropped me at my apartment. We had talked Mike into taking time off, spending a few days with Val's brother when he came into town to close up her apartment at the end of the week. I had never seen him look as lost as he did when the car pulled away from my building, and I wonderd when I would hear from him again.

There were so many messages of concern about Mike on my answering machine that it had run out of space. I played them all back and settled in to return some of the calls.

The last conversation was with Joan Stafford, who adored Mike and spent some portion of each of our daily phone calls inquiring about him. I didn't repeat everything that had happened during the last few days, but I confided in her about the engagement band that Mike had heaved into the ocean.

"Did you know he had bought Val a ring?"

"Not until he put it in my hand. I-uh, I hadn't really thought he was that close to a proposal. He seemed like the last guy in the world to make that kind of commitment."

"Yeah, it would have changed everything between the two of you. The way you work together, the way he protects you, the joking-"

"That's just ridiculous. His marriage was bound to have happened sooner or later. It wouldn't have made the least bit of difference on the job. Look at the way Mercer and Vickee have got it together. We're still-"

"It's me you're talking to, sweetie. Didn't the sight of that ring make you just a little bit jealous?"

"Jealous? Are you crazy, Joan? My heart just breaks for Mike, seeing him like this." I tried to sort through my emotions and reassure myself that one of my very closest girlfriends hadn't seen something more clearly than I had.

"He's going to need you to get him through this."

"Right now he's pushing everyone away. I don't even know how to begin to help him."

"Trust me, Alex. When he's ready for a shoulder to lean on, it's going to be yours."

I called P. J. Bernstein's deli to get the last delivery at nine o'clock, and ate half a turkey sandwich before abandoning it in favor of a comforting bath.

I ran the water steaming hot and filled it with a fresh-scented bubble bath. I poured myself a scotch, then stopped in the den to look at my bookshelves. There was an old volume of Poe-not the stories, just the collected poems-and I pulled it down to take with me as I soaked and sulked.

My mood was maudlin. I couldn't blame Mike for shutting me out, yet it was difficult to be kept at arm's length when he was so very alone. He would have to go through much of his grieving by himself, and I understood that completely.

I turned up the jets on the whirlpool and started flipping the pages. So many of the poems were written to dead and dying women-various names, all meant to be Poe's Virginia-and so many had as their theme the loss of a loved one. I started to read them aloud, one by one, matching the somber cadences to my mood.

I finally came to "The Raven." It had been years since I had read the poem in its entirety. The editor of the anthology had written an introduction, proclaiming that this work had made an impression that had probably never been surpassed by any single piece of American poetry. More than one hundred and fifty years had gone by since its publication. Reflecting on it, I viewed that a stunning fact.

I loved the poem-everything about it. The tale of the young man, devastated by his lover's death, visited on a bleak winter night by the stately ebony bird. The fact that the bird could talk (Poe eventually described in an essay his plan to use a creature that was nonreasoning but capable of speech). The pulsating rhythm of the stanzas building as the narrator recognizes the torture of his fate, realizing that he will not find peace in forgetting his beloved. And of course, the haunting refrain of the raven's taunting reminder- "Nevermore."

At the end of the poem there was a note, reminding the casual reader that Poe considered his bird "the emblem of mournful and never-ending remembrance."

I thought of all the deaths that had occurred in this last week- unnatural and unnecessary, each of them-and closed the book.

I dried off and got into bed, reading myself to sleep.

We had no idea what kind of schedule Aaron Kittredge kept, so Mercer had offered to pick me up at six-thirty on Sunday morning. We drove to the block where he lived, on West End Avenue, and parked at a hydrant in front of the stoop, waking ourselves up slowly with coffee from the corner bodega.

For almost an hour we talked about Mike and Valerie. Mercer had left him at his own apartment last night, and one of his sisters was waiting there. She had arranged to take him out to see his mother and spend the rest of the weekend with his family.

At seven-thirty sharp, I saw Kittredge come out of the building and trot down the steps. Both of us got out of the car and I called his name.

He turned his head toward me but kept walking away, swinging his gym bag. I went after him, trying to keep up with his pace.

"Mr. Kittredge, I've got to see you."

"Another day. I'm late."

"I need twenty minutes."

"I told you what I know. Yesterday's news. Lay off me."

Joggers and dog walkers were interested in the scene. I dodged between them.

I called out a single word: "Ratiocination."

Kittredge stopped and turned around. "Now there's a word I haven't heard in a very long time. Who's your sidekick this time?" he asked. "You trade in the wise-mouth for the strong, silent type?"

"Mercer Wallace, Special Victims."

"Let's take this conversation off the street," he said, removing his keys out of his pocket and leading us back to his apartment.

He let us inside and motioned us to sit in the living room, while he opened the bedroom door and whispered something-probably explaining our presence-to the girlfriend.

Kittredge didn't know what to make of us. "So what's this? The book club of the Manhattan DA's office? Or are you reading fiction now to try to find out how to solve cases?"

He poured himself a cup of coffee but didn't offer any to us.

"Can we start with Emily Upshaw again?" I asked.

"Suit yourself."

"The story she told you when you first met her, about the boyfriend who claimed to have killed a girl?"

"Yeah?"

"The day I was here with Mike Chapman, Edgar Allan Poe's name didn't come up in that conversation. What I want to know is whether Emily ever mentioned that she thought the murder she was telling you about had anything to do with Poe."

He shook his head. "You know what kind of reception she got from the desk sergeant when she walked in the station house and started talking about a woman holed up alive behind a wall of bricks? Nobody thought she was wrapped too tight. The last thing I think she woulda done is make literary allusions to try to impress a bunch of harebag cops."