Allan Retzky - Vanished in the Dunes

Posner is silent for several seconds before speaking. “I thought the phrase was probable cause, but you said reasonable grounds. What’s the difference?”

“None really, except that some decision about ten years ago seems to have expanded the authorities’ ability to search. In fact it’s not too hard now for the Feds or even local cops to get a warrant. I mean if someone’s innocent, then they have nothing to hide. Right?”

A part of Posner would like to spend more time in New York City. It is a conscious mental effort to distance himself from the accident. The city is not unfamiliar. He had worked there for years. But with Sara’s current mood, he’s forced to opt for the solitude of his house on the end of Long Island in spite of the disturbing memories that greet him whenever he opens the front door.

He prefers to think about the positive side of staying at the beach. The house is in an area that has other advantages: the broad sandy beaches, the ocean that shifts and amazes him with every tidal surge, and the sea terns that glide and swoop for prey among the small fish or mollusks along the surf. But most of all he savors those days when the weather rises up and feeds the air with the raw energy of a storm. Not a hurricane, for sure, but the wild uncontrolled release of passion that only some act of nature can bring; a happening that boils the ocean into a frenzy and diminishes the role of man who must hunker down amidst the torrent and wait to see if there will be another day. He loves all of this, but now is torn between avoiding the house and staying in New York, but this decision is now controlled by Sara. His mind foolishly tells him that by living a hundred miles away in the city, the wall of concrete and brick buildings will somehow insulate him from what rests under the ground at the Montauk Overlook.

Perhaps the city would be easier to take if things between him and Sara were more normal, but this isn’t the reality of their relationship. It also seems that she can only tolerate his New York presence in small doses, as if her forgiveness of his presumed betrayal can only be earned in similar micro measures. He accepts this as the only way to heal their relationship. The consequence of this arrangement is that he’s really left with no choice at all about where to spend most of his time.

He constantly thinks about the late spring rains. He checks the weather daily in the papers and on the Weather Channel. When heavy rain is forecast across the eastern end of Long Island, and especially over the isolated area where Heidi’s body rests, his chest falls away as the prospect grows that the water will slowly erode his secret.

He imagines the topsoil washing away, until someone, a hiker, or his dog, even a fox or deer pulls away at one end of an exposed end of plastic bag until some appendage is exposed. He has a compelling urge to drive back to the overlook and walk through the brush to see if his secret is still safe, but he has so far resisted such impulse.

“There was a message for you on the tape,” Sara says. This is his second day back on this visit and it is a rare recent incident of direct interaction. She speaks as she sits at a small desk in the living room opening her order from the Vietnamese take-out. Amos sits across the room on a couch that faces the muted sounds from a flickering television. This arrangement is typical of their recent physical separation whenever they are both in the apartment.

Posner has spent the day at the Neue Galerie on Fifth Avenue staring at the erotic drawings of an Austrian artist named Egon Schiele who only lived until he was twenty-eight. There was boldness in the artist’s renderings. Women subjects unflinchingly part their legs to reveal crimson labia, and all of it makes Posner uncomfortable as he imagines some connection between these provocative poses and Heidi.

“A Detective Wisdom from the East Hampton Police asked you to call him back. What’s that all about?”

Her sudden interest is a change from the recent past and catches him off guard. He raises a glass of wine to buy time. He sips the burgundy liquid and leans back. He must tell the smallest part of the story now, and he isn’t sure how to do it. The words finally come out as if he were another person speaking.

“Oh, there was this person on the Hampton Jitney that went missing some time ago. A woman. She was on the same bus I took, so the town police wanted to know if I could help them.”

“Did you already speak to them?’

“Yeah. About a week or two ago. The detective I spoke to said he’d probably have a few more questions. No sweat.”

Sara doesn’t comment. She just turns away from him with apparent disinterest and digs her chopsticks into a container of spicy chicken with cashew nuts.

Wisdom answers on the first ring.

“This is Amos Posner. You left a message for me to call.”

“Thanks for getting back so fast. Not everyone’s so good about responding.”

Posner pictures Wisdom sitting at a battered metal desk in a dingy room filled with smoke, and then catches himself in mid-thought. There is a brand new police department building in East Hampton. The desks are likely all new and smoking has surely been banned.

This is not some old film or television image.

“How can I help you?”

“I have a few more questions you might help us out with. Can I ask when you plan to be back in Amagansett?”

“I’m really not sure,” answers Posner. “Give me a second.”

He realizes that a hundred miles cannot separate him from this matter. Nor a thousand. Seconds of dead air follow. He sighs, but is sure Wisdom doesn’t hear him.

“The day after next,” he says.

“Can I come over about ten in the morning?” asks Wisdom. It is a formality, which Posner readily agrees to. There is no other option. He must play out his story to the end. He tells Sara he is going back to Amagansett the next day.

“Whatever,” is all she says, but her shrug reveals indifference. Still, he feels that even her verbalized apathy seems to be an improvement.

“Did you notice if the woman had a cell phone?” asks Wisdom.

The detective is dressed in similar clothes to those he wore on his first visit. Posner absently wonders if the man has multiple similar outfits, or whether he never changes his clothes. He opts for the former, but the idea brings a smile to his lips, which he cannot disguise.

“Something funny about the question?” asks Wisdom.

“Sorry,” answers Posner. “Something unrelated. I apologize.”

Wisdom grunts and pulls a pad from his coat pocket.

“What about it? Did you see her with a cell phone?”

“I’m pretty sure I didn’t,” says Posner. “We only spoke for a few seconds. You’re not supposed to use a cell phone on the Jitney.”

Wisdom nods. Something in his manner makes Posner definitely realizes the man is a long way from some bumbling cop. He is more like that shrewd, yet modest, television detective he watched years ago. That’s it. Colombo. Except that Wisdom has neither a cigar nor a raincoat.

“It seems she made a call to her boyfriend. Another doctor. A guy named Henry Stern sometime that afternoon. The day she disappeared. Said she was calling from some nice house in the area with ocean views.”

Wisdom puts his notepad down and his eyes rise to see through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

“Lots of houses out here have ocean views,” is all Posner thinks of saying, but it is the right comment.

“You’re right about that,” says Wisdom and returns his gaze to his notebook.

As Wisdom studies his notes, Posner’s memory fixates on the cell phone. The incessant ringing on the front seat of his car, until the last chimes die away, and his ultimate race the next morning to a local beach where he finds a stone and pummels the amalgam of plastic and metal into tiny bits; and then the drive to the town recycling center later that day to scatter the remnants, then little more than powder, amidst the piles of nonrecycling garbage; the chicken bones, orange peels, and assorted household waste that have become man’s footprint.