Allan Retzky - Vanished in the Dunes

He works at it with intensity. Every few minutes he moves a few paces farther away from his last shallow trench. She wishes he would give it up, yet knows he won’t. In less than ten minutes, he stops and bends down. He has found something. She knows. Just as he rises, she half turns her head in reaction to the grumble and screech of automobiles. She pivots in time to see two town police cars enter the lot in tandem. They are followed by two unmarked cars, one of which she recognizes as Wisdom’s. They spread out across the empty parking area except for Wisdom’s car, which heads straight for her. In seconds, a number of policemen are out and running across the lot toward the woods. Their pistols are drawn.

She turns her attention back to Stern who also hears the cars approach. He stands straight up and switches his hand grip around the spade as if to turn it into a club. He begins to wave it back and forth like a bat. She leaps from the car and begins to run toward him without stopping. From somewhere behind she hears Wisdom call her name.

“No. No, Henry. Put it down.”

The words fly from her as she runs into the woods, but Henry doesn’t seem to hear. He stands as before, holding the spade in two hands as the thought flashes through her that she has no idea whether he’s defending himself or Heidi’s grave.

CHAPTER 29

At a quarter past two, Posner rides in a column of four cars that moves east from Montauk village. Two are unmarked sedans. All have overheads blinking into a bright early afternoon light. It doesn’t take long for the convoy to reach a destination only a few miles east of the village. They slow and exit into the overlook before they fan out. If viewed from above, these maneuvers might look almost balletic.

The lot is empty except for a red Audi. Posner is in Bennett’s car, which follows Wisdom’s and parks in a spot parallel to, but twenty yards away, from the Audi. A woman with short dark hair is clearly visible in the passenger seat. Posner stays in Bennett’s car with one officer. The plan is to bring him out as soon as the situation is secure. From the rear seat of the cruiser, Posner watches the exercise unfold. He can see it all. The woods seem far less overgrown than he remembers. Stern stands in front of the twisted tree; Posner’s all too familiar grave site landmark. Stern’s two hands grip what looks like a shovel, which he swings back and forth as if it were a baseball bat.

Four uniforms enter the woods from opposite sides and approach Stern in a pincer movement. Once in the woods they slow up, taking cautious steps around a range of scattered fallen branches and undergrowth while they keep their weapons pointed downward. In seconds they appear to be closing a circle around Stern.

The woman makes a sudden exit from the Audi and runs toward Stern shouting something. Posner imagines he recognizes a blurred facial resemblance to Heidi. She turns and moves away before he can get a better look, but he still feels an immediate fleeting angst that grabs his stomach muscles in a vise. Not possible, he mumbles to himself more than once. Not possible. He tells himself that whoever she is, she’s not Heidi, and this process of rationalization begins to restore calm. With the windows closed, he only catches part of what she shouts, but the name “Henry” is unmistakably clear.

Wisdom runs behind the woman and calls out to her. Bennett trails Wisdom in a moderate jog. It’s all a bit of a circus with everyone in motion.

Posner feels like everything that unfolds before him is in some bizarre way a tableau of his own creation; the phalanx of police cars, the officers converging on a lone man with their guns drawn, a woman he’s never seen, two detectives he has, a wooded setting, and the man they’re chasing. The poor dumb schmuck of a doctor doesn’t have a chance. And all because Amos Posner either wasn’t faithful enough to Sara by bringing the woman home in the first place, or wasn’t unfaithful enough to have just fucked the woman and moved on. He has choreographed a disaster and is ordained to watch it all unfold.

And later he’ll have to show them where to dig up Heidi’s body. Where he told them he’d seen Stern. Almost where Stern now stands. The uniformed cop shifts to the right, opens the side widow and the drama now has full audio.

The woman shouts, “No. No, Henry. Put it down.” The clarity almost shocks Posner, and he is unprepared for what happens next.

A thunderclap roars across the woods. The woman screams and falls forward as if pushed before disappearing beyond Posner’s sight line. Just as she lands, Posner hears another loud crack and has his torso pushed into the seat cushion by his bodyguard cop.

“Down.” The words are instinctive. Obedience is instant. Posner stays there with the officer’s hands and chest pressed against his back. They are so close he smells the faint soapy residue from the man’s morning shower.

In what seems like minutes, although he later learns it was all over in less than sixty seconds, he is allowed to regain a sitting position. He sees Bennett approach his car. In the distance, a number of uniforms cluster around the area where he last saw Stern, but there is no sign of him. Another huddle of police stands near where he thought he last saw the woman fall. He sees Wisdom among them, obvious in his blue blazer and chinos, bending over some object on the ground. Less than ten minutes later an ambulance pulls into the lot and screeches to a stop beyond the Audi and blocks his further view. In moments, another appears as well and parks alongside the first.

There is a sense of controlled confusion as yet another two police cars arrive. Officers appear to mill around randomly, yet Posner suspects there is organization beyond the outward chaos.

Stern now appears as a vague shape at the very edge of Posner’s view. He is surrounded by four officers as he moves into a police car, his wrists in cuffs.

“Bastard. Fucking bastard.”

The words spew from Posner just as Bennett arrives at the car and opens the rear door.

“Time to put an end to all of this. Are you up to it?” He seems unduly solicitous considering all the trouble Posner’s put him through. At that moment another wave of grief attempts to overwhelm him. Somehow Bennett senses this and hugs him. Just like that. A hug a big brother might give him. Bennett is anything but the dashing television image of a policeman. Posner returns the hug. Now he’s ready to go ahead.

He exits the car, and they begin to walk into the woods.

“What happened there? I heard what sounded like a shot. Maybe more than one.”

“Later,” is all Bennett says.

From the corner of his eye, Posner sees a gurney being loaded into one of the ambulances. Wisdom is there and closes the rear door. Then a quick wave and the driver takes off for the trip to Southampton Hospital.

“Who was that?”

“I said later. Just keep going. We’re almost there.”

Posner’s eyes focus on the area directly ahead. A truncated focal length creates a kind of tunnel vision. All he sees is the gnarled sand pine looming ahead surrounded by a small cluster of uniformed police. When he’s within fifteen feet of the area, he notices two white-coated medical personnel and behind them an empty stretcher that rests on a gurney. He comes to a stop outside the circle of police and signals to Bennett. He stretches an arm outright towards spot on the ground that is already disturbed with the removal of a few shovelfuls of sandy soil. He sees a piece of silver plastic sticking out, nearly upright, like a marker mountain climbers leave.

“Here,” he says in a weak voice that follows his outstretched arm. “Right here.”

It’s all there. Nothing’s changed. So close to the surface Posner wonders how it ever survived undisturbed for all these months despite weather, animals, or even the occasional hiker. He’s positioned about ten feet away and watches two policemen with shovels move the soft soil from around the silver plastic. A form becomes more obvious as the surface material is removed. A departmental photographer’s camera clicks a procession of digital images.