Linda Farstein AC 07 Entombed

Archiwum

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off the seat of his jeans. "I don't think I can deal with it."
"Nobody does. Nobody wants to."
"You come out here to be near him, don't you? You feel closer to Adam when
you're here."
I didn't answer.
"The heavens, the ocean, sand for as far as the eye can see-and not another
person around," he said. "Makes you pretty conscious of your own mortality."
He reached into his pocket, removed a black velvet pouch, and handed it to
me.
"Open it. Go ahead."
I untied the drawstring and turned it upside down in my hand. Out slipped a
diamond ring-a slim gold band with a small brilliant stone in a classic round
setting.
"It's very beautiful," I said, holding it up and watching the gem sparkle,
reflecting against the shimmering surface of the water. "Did Val-?"
"Nope. A surprise," Mike said. "Valentine's Day. I had it up on a shelf in
her bedroom closet that she couldn't reach."
No wonder he'd been so short of money these past two months.
He took the ring from me and loped down the dune toward the edge of the
water. I called out after him but I knew there was no way to stop him. I
watched as Mike waded into the frigid surf, drew back his arm, and hurled
Val's ring into the riptide that was sucking the waves out to sea.
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34
None of us felt much like eating dinner.
More than the landscape and the foliage change when winter comes to Chilmark.
Not only the general store closes, but so does every up-island restaurant and
inn. No fried clams at The Bite, no lobster rolls at The Galley, no shore
dinners at The Homeport, no conch fritters at Cornerway, and no harpooned
sword from Larsen's. There was always some clam chowder in the freezer, and I
defrosted it for the three of us. Mike barely played with it while we tried to
distract him with memories of weekends and evenings that all of us had spent
together.
Mike stood up from the table, walked to the bar, and opened the liquor
cabinet. He closed it and turned to Mercer. "I'm not gonna drink. It's too
easy to get through it that way. Feel like a walk?"
They let themselves out the back door and went off in the dark. I took a book
into the living room, added some logs to the fire, and poured myself the drink
that Mike had rejected. It was almost ten o'clock by the time they returned.
Mike warmed himself in front of the fireplace for a few minutes before
telling us he was going to try to get some rest. He and Mercer clasped each
other in an embrace and then Mike grabbed the banister and pulled himself up
the stairs.
"I think he's worn himself out enough so that he may actually sleep a few
hours," Mercer said, joining me with a glass of vodka.
"Did he talk?"
"Enough. You know he was prepared for, well-the worst-a year ago, when Val's
treatments weren't going well. With the cancer in remission, this hit him like
such a bolt of lightning I'm afraid it's going to set him back twice as hard."
"What time do you want to head home?" I asked.
"Grab a ferry late morning, if we can. Be in the city by six."
"Did you reach Lieutenant Peterson this afternoon?"
"Yeah. You and I have some catching up to do this weekend. We've lost Mike
for the rest of this one."
"I've been making a list," I said, ticking off names with each finger of my
left hand. "I'm sure Peterson has, too. We've got to sit down with Professor
Tormey, now that we know what the Raven Society is. I'm going back at Gino
Guidi, whether or not Ellen Gunsher has been able to rework a deal with his
lawyer."
"You guys never got to talk to him about Poe, and there he is, a major
benefactor of the cottage."
"Well, we didn't know it at the time. And Emily's pal Teddy Kroon still has
questions to answer, as far as I'm concerned."
"It's not the right moment to bring this up with Mike," Mercer said, "but you
were with him when he went to that retired cop's apartment, weren't you?"
"Aaron Kittredge? Yeah."
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"Mike had asked the lieutenant to get his departmental file. The loo filled
me in on that today. Kittredge is my first priority when we get back."
"Why?"
"He left the department without a pension. Had to sue to get it reinstated."
"He told us that. You got the back story?"
"Rubber gun squad," Mercer said. "Got dumped to Central Park."
Trigger-happy cops were relieved of their weapons while the shootings they
were involved in were investigated. Those who weren't indicted, but who
weren't completely exonerated either, wound up flopped into some uniformed
assignment where little harm could come to people in their way. Central Park
was one such holding zone-very few human residents, with only squirrels and
pigeons to endanger.
"Who'd he shoot?" I asked.
"Think of the story that Zeldin and Phelps told us." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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