Entombed

by Linda Fairstein

  On the distant roadway below us I could see headlights moving slowly along. The red bubble flasher on top of it illuminated the blue and white colors of a patrol car.

  Phelps pivoted and pushed me back inside the cave, pinning me against the wall and holding the shotgun to my cheek.

  "They'll find us, you know. They're good at that," I said. "There's all kinds of equipment they can use to search for bodies in an area like this."

  "It worked long enough for bin Laden, didn't it? My bet's on the guy inside the caves."

  "Why here, Mr. Phelps?" I asked softly. "Why a groundskeeper at the gardens?"

  "It's the perfect solution, don't you think? At least it was for a good while. I like working outdoors-that part never bothered me. And it's as close as I'm going to get to living like a Phelps. A nineteenth-century carriage house surrounded by hundreds of acres of the most glorious park and plantings in North America. Time for my poetry, and then there's Zeldin himself, who dropped into my lap with the world's greatest collection of Poeiana. I had access twenty-four hours a day to all those privileges of the Raven Society. It's not a bad way to go, Miss Cooper, if you've got to work for a living."

  Phelps had stepped back and ordered me to continue lifting and carrying rocks. The car had passed through without any sighting of us.

  "You identify with Poe?" I knew there was a name for this syndrome in the psychiatric literature but I was too terrified to pull it up.

  "I'm not foolish enough to think my own writings can compare, but he was always, shall we say, my inspiration."

  "He's the reason you killed Aurora?"

  "Not at all. I had reason enough of my own to do that. It's just that he had composed the most brilliant manner in which to do it. It still excites me every time I think of what her final thoughts must have been when she realized that I was sealing her behind that wall. Alive."

  The rock slipped from my hands. I was losing my focus.

  "Every time there was another insult in my life, another rejection, another defeat, I consoled myself by the thought that Poe had overcome all those similar things and more to become the greatest writer of his time."

  I thought about the tragedies that had overwhelmed Poe's life from infancy. He had all the psychological torment that could have created a monster, a serial killer. Aaron Kittredge believed he might have been one. It seemed more plausible to me with every second in Phelps's presence.

  "Don't I get any credit for my rehabilitation, Miss Cooper? After Aurora's death, I was-well, nearly a model citizen for a very long time."

  "Until you murdered Emily Upshaw."

  "Emily knew too much." Phelps sighed. "Once the newspapers showed such an interest in the skeleton, it wouldn't have taken long for her to spill her guts about me."

  "She knew you as Phelps?"

  "It's not the name I used in those days," he said, "but she certainly knew who my stepfather-well, whatever you want to call him-she knew who he was. She knew my story."

  And that led to Dr. Ichiko, I thought, stacking another rock on the pile. Undoubtedly the shrink had all the information in his old patient files to help him piece together who "Monty" really was.

  "Dr. Ichiko?" I asked.

  "Now there's a man who wasn't all that clever. Information isn't of any value unless you use it properly. Dr. Ichiko was just unfortunate."

  "He was smart enough to find you," I said, wiping some debris from the corner of my eye.

  "He got partway there. He knew enough to look for someone named Phelps. He remembered my affinity for Poe-some kind of psychological transference, he liked to say it was. So he did his research and called information for the Raven Society number, just to see if perhaps there was a member with my name. There's a Manhattan listing that goes to Zeldin's home, Miss Cooper. But if you check the Bronx directory, the same number rings at the mill. And when he dialed over here, I just happened to answer the phone. He didn't know that at the time, so when I heard the nature of his inquiry, I pretended to be the great Zeldin and invited him here to discuss the information he thought he had so brilliantly uncovered. He should have watched his step more carefully."

  Once the cover-up had been set in motion, Sinclair Phelps had not been able to stop. It was the fear that someone would come here to his sanctuary-whether it was Aaron Kittredge more than a decade ago, or Dr. Ichiko or Noah Tormey most recently. Someone with a connection to Aurora or a link to Emily, someone who would expose the quiet life he had created for himself and connect him to the murder of Aurora Tait, someone who would walk through these gates and shatter the illusory world in which he lived.

  "And your little punks-why did they attack Ellen this afternoon? What was that about?"

  "Quite frankly, Miss Cooper, they had orders to go for you. I didn't know they'd be creative enough to impale someone on that gruesome plant, but they're good at being bad. I told them you'd be the woman asking all the questions-the ever-inquisitive Alexandra Cooper," Phelps said, shaking his head in my direction. "I understand you were uncharacteristically quiet today. They mistook that other lady for you."

  The boulders were stacked waist-high now. My time was running short.

  I stepped back out into the fresh air and looked in vain for any sign of human life. I stalled for a minute, reaching into my rear pants pocket and realizing for the first time that I hadn't left my gloves in the ski jacket back at Phelps's house. Something stung me sharply as I tried to withdraw my hand.

  Stuck tightly to the fine knit of the woolen gloves were several leaves of the plant-the ferocious plant-that I had pulled from the wounds on Ellen's face. The long thorns pierced the tips of my fingers and I winced in pain.

  I had pocketed the treacherous needles so they wouldn't accidentally injure anyone coming to Ellen's aid. Now they might be my only defense against Sinclair Phelps.

  Holding the gloves in my hand, I picked up a smaller rock, one that I could carry with a single arm. Phelps was leaning against a large boulder and had placed the shotgun on top of it. He was toying with a piece of material that I assumed would be my gag and binds-ripping it into several lengths of cloth.

  There would be no second chance for me. If I didn't make a clean strike, it would be my very own, very premature burial.

  I approached the mouth of the cave and walked directly in front of Phelps. He started to say something to me and as I turned to look at him, I shifted the rock to my left arm. With a single thrust, I rammed the thorn-encrusted black gloves into his eye with my right hand, pushing as hard as I could.

  Sinclair Phelps howled as the prickly needles embedded themselves in his eyelid. He doubled over, covering his face with his hands. I lifted the rock and brought it down as hard as I could, pleased with the sound it made as it cracked against bone. Blood trickled from his ear as he fell to the ground.

  The two coydogs leaped to their feet and charged at me.

  I grabbed the shotgun from the boulder, pointed its barrel straight overhead, and discharged several rounds into the quiet night.

  The dogs whimpered and circled each other in distress, frightened by the blasts of the gun. Dozens more bats swooped out of the cave, dipping their wings and blackening the sky above us. I clutched the weapon in my hand and ran down the slope as fast as I was able to move.

  46

  "Ratiocination, my dear Coop. Edgar Poe would have delighted in your use of it."

  Mike Chapman was leaning against a bookshelf in the basement of the snuff mill, surrounded by ravens of every shape and size.

  My shotgun volleys had rallied several pairs of police officers in the direction from which I had come running. Two intercepted me on the roadway and took me into their patrol car. They brought me back to Zeldin's office, the place from which Mike and Mercer had been tracking the search mission.

  "Once I saw Phelps outside the door of his cottage paying off one of the kids, it all started to come together. It was a gang of teenagers who had assaulted Aaron Kittredge when he tried to visit here al
most ten years ago. Phelps must have feared, then, that he might be spotted. He didn't want to risk an accidental encounter with someone who could link him to his other life. It was kids who hit me over the head, and who tried to-to bury me." I paused to take a deep breath. "Who put me under the floorboards at Poe Cottage."

  Mercer refilled my water glass. "And the same kids-Sinclair Phelps's roving band of bad boys-who mistook Ellen Gunsher for you in the conservatory."

  "He could have lived out the rest of his life here, undisturbed, if no one had been able to connect him to Aurora Tait. Or to Emily Upshaw," Mike said, folding his paperwork in quarters and tucking the pages in his blazer pocket. "Or to his own miserable past."

  "Did you guys find Zeldin?" I asked. "Do you think he knew anything about Phelps?"

  "He's all fired up, Coop. We even got him out of the wheelchair tonight, pompous old stiff that he is. I think he was in the dark about Phelps. I mean, he knew that the little hoodlums did all the groundskeeper's dirty work, but I don't think he figured murder. When Ellen was attacked, he got himself out of there like a rocket, but he phoned Phelps to call off his boys. If Zeldin had known, he might have let Phelps into the Raven Society," Mike said.

  I looked over at him to see whether he was joking. "You still think that's a prerequisite for membership?"

  "I think Edgar himself would have liked it that way, don't you? I intend to find out."

  The brick coffin had been inadvertently opened and everything Phelps thought had been entombed with Aurora Tait had begun to spill out.

  "Where are you going?" I asked Mike, who had turned his back to me and was walking toward the door.

  "Just lie there and mope as long as you want, kid. Let somebody else handle your big case for you. If you hadn't run off into the woods, you'd have heard the good news."

  "What?"

  "Hugo Maswana. The DNA's a match. Annika's family is going to stay with her another week so you can put together a lineup and arraign him on the indictment. Substitute his name for John Doe."

  I tossed back my head and stared up at the ceiling. For almost five years I'd been trying to put that bastard out of business.

  "That means the ambassador is waiving diplomatic immunity?" I asked Mercer.

  "No such luck. It means you've got to get back in the ring and fight him, Coop. Then you got to get Noah Tormey to sit down with Amelia Brandon-his daughter. She took the bus back home, but she's entitled to some answers."

  "So am I."

  "What's stumping the normally know-it-all prosecutor?" Mike asked.

  "When did Phelps have time to set up the attack on me at the cottage?"

  "He must have heard Zeldin make the offer to call Gino Guidi's office to get us in. We sat in the coffee shop for almost an hour waiting for clearance. That gave him plenty of time to do it."

  "But what were they going to do when they came-?"

  "Idle thoughts. You don't want to go there," Mike said. "Anyway, it would have distracted us from any bad business at the gardens. It would have looked like a mugging in a tough neighborhood. Who knows where we would have found you."

  He continued on his way to the door, waving a hand. "I'll give you a call, Mercer."

  "We're not done," I said, standing and rattling a porcelain bust of the great poet as my elbow struck against the side table.

  "Oh, yeah? I am. The Upshaw murder is solved. How does it go in Clue? It was Colonel Mustard, in the conservatory, with the knife. Case closed."

  "The arrest, Mike. You've got to stay to get all the facts from me so you can take Phelps to his arraignment."

  "Make yourselves comfortable. Stick around for the next meeting of the Raven Society." He pointed at Mercer. "Detective Wallace is taking the collar."

  I looked from Mercer to Mike. "But it's a homicide. It's your case."

  "Not this time."

  "Why not?" I could see that I was losing him. He was tired and distracted, running his fingers through his thick, dark hair and resting his arm on the mantel over the fireplace.

  "Police brutality."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Phelps stands up-if he can-in front of the judge tomorrow morning. He'll be a full turban job, his shattered skull packaged in layers of bandage and gauze wrap."

  "Yeah, but I'm the one who hit him."

  "Some court-appointed asshole looking for his Clarence Darrow moment sees my name as the arresting officer and spots his opportunity. Makes me the dupe, stringing my personal life into the middle of the mess. 'Detective Chapman went over the edge this time, Your Honor. He's lost control of himself, taken it out on my client.' Asks for all kinds of privileges for the murderer with the cracked cranium. Maybe even gets him bail for medical treatment. I'm not in the game, kid. I'm outta here."

  "Don't be ridiculous. I had to hurt Phelps to save my own life."

  "That'll be the footnote after the trial, Coop. Right now, nobody'll believe it was anything except excessive force by a homicide cop who's got no focus at the moment. You're not the one who stands next to this scumbag at the arraignment-one of us dumb dicks does that. I'm not giving the tabloids the chance to bring Val…" Mike's voice trailed off. "To make this frigging case personal."

  I tried to maneuver myself to stand in Mike's way but he sidestepped me and kept walking. "They'll blame Mercer for it. You don't want that, do you?"

  "The gentle giant? Nah. They won't play the race card. Nobody thinks he'd hurt a fly. It's me they'd be gunning for."

  "Nobody's going to let you be held responsible for Phelps's injuries."

  "Alex Cooper used her glutes and pecs instead of her brains to bring a guy down? I'm not being the patsy for you tonight."

  "Why, Mike? I disappointed you?"

  He turned back from the doorway of the snuff mill. "Yeah, Coop. You did. Too bad you didn't finish the job tonight. One less shitbird for the State of New York to house and feed for another forty years. One less miserable excuse for a human being to suck the life out of every appeal and excuse in the book. You should have hit him harder when you had the chance."

  No need saying I didn't believe Mike meant those things. I knew he did.

  Mercer had his notepad ready. "Let's get back to it, Alex."

  The front door was open and Mike was silhouetted in its frame. Behind him was a phalanx of department cars with bubble flashers on their hoods surrounding the quiet house, casting red streaks of light against the backdrop of the dark forest.

  "Tomorrow? Want to have dinner with me, Mike?"

  He stopped to answer. "I barely have the strength to get myself through the night. I can't help you this time, Coop. I just can't do it."

  I heard Lieutenant Peterson's voice in the front yard, ordering one of the men to escort Mike's car out the gate on the far side of the gardens to avoid the reporters and cameramen waiting at the nearest exit.

  I started through the doorway to go after Mike. There was something else I wanted to tell him. I had a need to make some kind of physical contact with him as badly as I wanted him to embrace me.

  "We've got work to do, Alex," Mercer said, clamping a strong hand on my shoulder to hold me in place.

  I looked up at him, ready to plead my case, but he gave no ground. I turned away from the flashing lights, let him close the door behind us, and walked back to sit in the armchair, surrounded by Poe's dark birds.

  Mercer pulled up a stool opposite me and stroked my head until I lifted my eyes to look at him. "Let the man go, Alex. Just let him go."

  Acknowledgments

  My first encounter with Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque made an indelible impression on my adolescent imagination. A dead man's heart beating beneath the floorboards, the huge pendulum descending on a prisoner in the pit, the Red Death invading the festive masquerade, and the repeated torment of premature burial and entombment behind cellar walls-each of these narratives was responsible for youthful nightmares, and all of them have lured me back over the years to de
light in their dramatic power and poetic elegance.

  That Poe was capable of such a body of work-stories, poems, journalistic pieces, and literary criticism-is even more remarkable when one considers his short life and the tragic circumstances of it. Several cities claim the great master of crime fiction as their own- Richmond, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston. To my surprise, though, were the many places in New York where Poe lived and in which some of his greatest works were written, and the inspiration he drew from the landscape he so loved to walk.

  My greatest pleasure in plotting this book was the opportunity it provided to reread all of Poe's writings. My source was the ten volume collection published by Stone and Kimball in 1894, including the memoir by George E. Woodberry. Poe's life is well-described by Kenneth Silverman in Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance; and by Arthur H. Quinn in Edgar Allan Poe-A Critical Biography.

  The Bronx County Historical Society maintains Poe Cottage in remarkable condition, for tourists and scholars alike. Kathleen McAuley is not only its knowledgeable curator, but an enchanting guide. The splendid setting that is the New York Botanical Garden is one of the city's true jewels, as I saw in the hands of Dr. Kim Tripp, and a far less threatening site than it appears in my novel. I am grateful to both institutions for opening their doors to me.

  Thanks once again to everyone at Scribner and Pocket Books- Susan Moldow, Roz Lippel, Louise Burke, Mitchell Ivers, Pat Eisemann, Erin Cox, Sarah Knight, Angella Baker-and to John Fulbrook, for my own elegant raven.

  To Susanne Kirk, who has guided my hand and spirit from the first pages of Final Jeopardy through the last edit of Entombed, may you always be sitting on my shoulder as I write, through your long and happy retirement.