A Bookmarked Death

by Judi Culbertson

  Although Colin taught archeology, he was part of the larger anthropology department. Leaving the elevator, I began turning corners to reach the Institute for Long Island Archaeology. I turned into the hall where the offices were, but stopped abruptly. Colin, in profile, was explaining the bulletin board photographs to a graduate student. He had his hand companionably on her shoulder and I could tell he was instructing her in the warm, erudite way he used to dazzle young women. She was taking it all in eagerly, studying the wonders of his face as much as the board.

  That girl was me. She was the entranced sophomore I had been twenty-­six years ago, believing that this man, and this man alone, could give me the life I craved. He could teach me everything and show me the world I had known only from books. Not just that: He was bright, charming, witty, and adored me.

  Standing in the shadow, I didn’t suspect that there was anything going on between Colin and this particular young woman. I was seeing instead how ordinary I must have been, just part of that year’s parade. Would he have even thought of marrying me if Jane hadn’t been on the way? Maybe it had simply been time for him to settle down and have a family. For me there had been no question, of course. I had been ready to hand my life over to him like an empty blue book.

  The realization was so stunning that I stepped quickly back around the corner before he could turn and see me. Any words would have stayed clogged in my throat. There had been exciting years in the beginning, I reminded myself, the times when the children were very small and we traveled to exotic countries and guest lectureships. We had never been equals, but our roles had seemed time-­honored. But then in Stratford the family had been shattered and I had become someone who could be blamed for everything that went wrong.

  This time I did not wait for the elevator, but hurtled down the cinder block–lined staircase and ran all the way to the parking garage. Only when I was in my van, leaning back against the seat, did I feel safe. But safe from what? No one was chasing me, nothing but the thoughts I had unleashed like lurking demons in medieval paintings. What had changed was a view of myself. Too much of me had remained an idealistic and naïve college girl instead of a woman who had given birth several times, sorrowed through the deaths of her parents, and established a good-­enough business completely on my own.

  I was an adult who should have embraced that life years ago. Was this what Colin had been trying to teach me by his slow fadeaway? If so, I had been a slow learner.

  A slow learner who had picked the worst possible time for this epiphany. By the way, Colin, I’ve lost our daughters, and I don’t want to be married anymore.

  Then I realized he still did not know what was happening. I reached for my iPhone. Even if the line had been compromised, it wouldn’t matter. It would seem suspicious for me to suddenly stop making calls. Besides, I wouldn’t be saying anything to Colin that they didn’t already know.

  As promised, he answered immediately.

  “Delhi? What’s going on?”

  “I found Elisa. She’ll do it.”

  “You found her? Where is she? What about Hannah?”

  “They said she’s okay. A little uncooperative, but . . .” My throat was clogging.

  “What happens now?”

  “They want us to go to Fire Island. Elisa and I are supposed to take the ferry from West Street in Patchogue. No police, no one else.”

  “What about me?”

  “They said no one else.”

  “But I’m her father!”

  “I know, but—­” But what? “You can be there, but—­come after four. We’ll be coming back to that dock.”

  He sighed. I knew he wasn’t happy being sidelined. “I’ll be there.”

  Chapter Thirty-­Three

  PATCHOGUE IS A village that has yet to find itself. Or find itself again. Located on the South Shore of Long Island, it was a prominent seaside resort in the late nineteenth century, even known as “the land of a thousand hotels.” Trolley tracks ran from the Long Island Railroad station down Ocean Avenue to the Great South Bay. Vacationers could enjoy raw clams and oysters, vaudeville acts, and sailboat rides in the fresh air.

  The gigantic houses that were once hotels and inns have been turned into nursing homes or multifamily dwellings. I arrived in Patchogue much too early and drove slowly down South Ocean Avenue. Unfortunately the early industries of shipbuilding, lumber milling, and paper making died away shortly after the vacationers moved on. When the last vestige, the Old Lace Mill, burned, it stood as a ghostly brick ruin for years. The village is finally making a comeback as an arts center.

  From South Ocean Avenue I drove over to West Street. I had assumed the pier would be at the end of the street jutting into the bay, and nearly passed the rustic chocolate brown sign announcing “Fire Island National Seashore.” I jerked the van into the large lot, surprised at the number of cars and trucks already there, and parked three rows from the building. It was too soon to go inside so I sat in my van and obsessed over what would happen in the next few hours.

  No other cars had come into the lot after me, but that did not mean I wasn’t being watched. Knowing I would end up here, they could already have parked and be watching everything I did.

  Where was Elisa? Could I blame her if she didn’t come?

  It was nearly 3:15 when a black sports car pulled into the row behind me and I saw two doors open. Elisa climbed out of the passenger side, dressed casually in jeans and a dark green hoodie, her hair pulled back from her face. The driver was a fair-­skinned young man in stylish sunglasses and a red golf shirt. Could that be Will? I had formed an image of him as the cliché of a Hispanic drug dealer, someone short and swarthy with a ponytail, his arms inked with sinister designs. This young man could have been modeling his clothes.

  When they had almost reached me, I climbed out of the van and locked the door. I stood facing them.

  Elisa and I didn’t hug, though I wanted to. The mood was too businesslike for that.

  “Will?” I asked.

  His face, boyish in a prep school way, didn’t smile. “She’s not going.”

  Elisa gave me a look of appeal. Did she want me to understand his concern or was she letting him speak for her?

  “We can’t talk out here,” I said. “It’s safer inside.”

  I moved quickly toward the modern tan building facing the water. Except for a long, narrow photograph showing Fire Island, the facade gave nothing away. The hall we stepped into was dim and cool, opening up to display two counters flanking the entrance to the pier. The only decorations were several photographic posters on the walls and the iconic Red Flyer wagon, used on the island to transport groceries since no cars were allowed.

  As I moved closer, I saw that this wagon was filled with shells sprinkled on sand and some larger artifacts—­a horseshoe crab, a bottle holding a message, a child’s blue plastic shovel. It was a vignette promising travelers a fantasy of ocean and beach.

  We paused deep in the entryway between two backless benches on facing walls.

  “Thank you for coming,” I said, then winced at the party hostess words.

  Elisa turned her pretty face to Will. She was carrying a large compartmented leather bag, the purse Hannah had talked about.

  “You want to put her in danger,” Will accused me.

  “No, of course I don’t! But she’s going to be well-­protected.”

  “You don’t know them.”

  I stared into his amber eyes. “No, but I knew the Crosleys. I knew them before you were born. These ­people can’t be any worse.”

  “You don’t know them,” he repeated.

  “Will, it’s going to be okay.” Elisa put her hand on his upper arm. “I told you, it’ll only be for a few minutes.”

  I realized they must have been having this conversation all day.

  “I know you want to protect me, but I have
to get Hannah back.”

  He gave his head an angry shake. “It’s too risky. You take too many chances, Liss. You always have to show that you’re braver than anyone else!”

  She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again.

  He moved closer until his face was a few inches from hers. “You just met this Hannah. You’ve known me all my life! Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  Sibling rivalry? Was he actually jealous that Elisa had a twin she was worried about? Would Hannah lose her life because Elisa’s adopted brother felt put out?

  “We have to get our tickets,” I broke in. I had been watching both doors as we talked, frightened that someone would storm in and take Elisa by force. If they had a gun, what could we or the young woman behind the ticket counter do? Perhaps going to Fire Island was just a ruse to get us into an unprotected place.

  I reached out and took Elisa’s upper arm gently to move her toward the counter. A beat later Will grabbed her left wrist and started pulling her toward the doors.

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” Elisa tried to shake us both off. “Delhi, let go of me! Will, I told you I’m going to do this and I am.”

  I dropped my hand immediately, but Will did not. Furious, she wrenched her arm away. Yet when she spoke to him, her voice was mild. “Stay here, I’ll be back. We’ll be eating fried chicken and drinking cerveza tonight. Many beers, I promise.”

  “No, don’t expect to see me again. I’m asking you not to do this and you’re doing it anyway.”

  “Now you’re being ridiculous.” She turned and walked rapidly to the accommodations counter with me in tow. I bought two roundtrip tickets, then we stepped outside onto the pier. I didn’t look back at Will. I half expected him to move around the side of the building and try and pull her away. There was still a chance he would keep her from going. The only thing that would keep him in check was her fury.

  “Liss?” He was suddenly at the doorway to the pier. “At least remember what I told you!”

  “Don’t worry. I will.”

  He nodded, his mouth an angry line, and disappeared back into the building.

  As if Elisa could tell what I was thinking, she said, “He’ll be okay. He promised not to screw things up. It’s just, he hates anything to do with my parents. They’ve said terrible things to each other, things that you never get over or forget.”

  “You know I don’t want to put you in danger.”

  Yet that was exactly what I was doing.

  Seven or eight other passengers waited on the raised deck with us. I looked them over. Two young women in T-­shirts and capris were sprawled on one of the benches, laughing at their whispered comments, tote bags and a six-­pack of Blue Point beer at their feet. The one with dark curls periodically looked down at her smartphone, then up, without losing a word of conversation. A ­couple in their thirties with a rambunctious four-­year-­old watched fondly as he ran in crazy circles. A burly man in a Long Island Power Authority uniform sat facing the sun with his eyes closed.

  The last passenger was a woman holding the leash of a small dog with wavy brown fur, a breed I could not identify. She stood by the railing with a chartreuse-­dotted tote bag by her side.

  I decided the LIPA worker had to be the undercover cop.

  Looking at the dock, I pictured it packed with excited families laden with camping gear, and vacationers headed for rentals at the eastern end of Davis Park. Across the narrow canal from us there would be the activity of ­people climbing on and off the boats in the slips, sunning themselves or getting ready to push off into the bay. Today nearly every slip was filled, which meant that few ­people were out on the water.

  But where was the ferry? It was after 3:30 and the pilings in front of us were still empty. What if it had been canceled and the kidnappers didn’t realize it? I looked around at the other ­people waiting to board, but they seemed unconcerned. Perhaps the boat was always late. Perhaps they knew something I didn’t.

  Beside me Elisa fidgeted with the zipper of her sweatshirt. It had a white pocket logo for a ski resort in Vermont.

  “You should have called me,” I whispered.

  “I couldn’t. You’re one of the first places they’d look. Someone’s probably been watching you for days.”

  “Really? But who are these ­people? And why do they want you?”

  She gave me an oblique look and didn’t answer. Instead she put her head back against the wood and closed her eyes as if to nap. Or pray.

  Chapter Thirty-­Four

  I STOOD UP and moved to the wooden deck railing to see if I could see the ferry approaching. Finally I saw the boat gliding slowly down the canal, its outside upper deck a crowded mass. The ferry moved with the stateliness of a parade float, but as it came closer the mass broke into a jumpy collection of small children and adults. A field trip to the Sunken Forest or the dunes? No doubt it had taken time to make sure everybody was safely on board.

  Offloading the crowd was a slow process. After the side of the ferry bumped against the pier several times like a friend making insinuations, a young woman jumped off to secure a rope around the pilings. It was another few minutes before a metal gangplank was stretched across and the children disembarked. I saw that they were no more than five or six years old. A kindergarten class? I watched one of the girls in a pink sweatshirt, blond hair in ponytails, talking eagerly to her mother. The sharp pain it brought me, a knife to the gut, was so unexpected that I gasped.

  “Are you okay?” Elisa whispered.

  I nodded. I would have to think about what it all meant later.

  Then it was our turn to board. Everyone climbed the skinny metal stairs to the top deck except for the man in the LIPA uniform who ducked into the inside cabin. Wait a minute. You’re supposed to be protecting us! Elisa and I sat on wooden benches painted the pale yellow of beaten eggs, with our backs to the wall. Maybe nothing would happen on the ferry. The young women and their beer camped farther down on our side, the family and the woman with her dog sat across the way from us, their backs to the boat slips. A low metal structure separated us from them.

  I watched the moored boats as we navigated slowly up the canal. Most were facing us, but a few were angled enough so that I could read their names: Dream Wave, Fuzzy Logic, Doing Better Now. The sun was warm on my face. I sniffed, hoping for salty air, but picked up only the fumes of diesel oil.

  I began to obsess over what we would find on the other side. “Have you been with Will all this time?” I whispered to Elisa.

  “Uh-­huh, but moving around. He knows lots of places to stay.”

  “What was your plan? You didn’t go to the police?”

  “That’s what they thought we would do. But Will didn’t think—­we figured they couldn’t stay around, they’d have to leave. I had no idea they’d do something like this.”

  But who are these ­people? I wanted to demand. Why wouldn’t Elisa tell me?

  I had the prickly feeling of being watched then, but when I looked up I saw it was just the lady with the dog. Yet she was staring intently, as if there was something she wanted to tell me. I had been surprised when I first saw her, I hadn’t known that you could bring animals on the ferry. But why not, if you weren’t disturbing other passengers. This dog was settled calmly at his owner’s feet, his curly head resting on one of her white sneakers.

  The woman’s brown hair was nearly the same shade as her dog’s, scraped back and clipped at an odd, fashionable angle. She wasn’t noticeably pretty, wasn’t wearing lipstick, but she had a good white-­teethed smile, which she bestowed on her puppy. Then she looked back up at me and gave her head the slightest jerk.

  Definitely a signal. I pushed up from the bench, nearly losing my balance as the ferry lurched. We had just entered open water and the boat was speeding up, starting to bounce. The American flag on the hull crackled in the wind out here, threateni
ng to snap apart. I reached for the metal center railing, then made my way around. Squatting down beside the dog, I said, “I’ve been watching him. He’s so cute!”

  “You can pet him. He’s very friendly.” She reached down to straighten his red-­studded collar affectionately and her hand pressed against mine. I realized I was holding a small piece of metal. “His name’s Sir Love-­a-­lot.”

  “That’s really cute.” I gave him several more strokes, then pushed back to my feet with my free hand.

  As I moved by her, she said in the lowest voice possible, “See that she wears it.”

  Without saying anything, I moved to the front of the boat and stared out at the strip of land that expanded as we moved toward it. Then I brought my fist to the front of my waist and opened it cautiously. I was holding a smooth gray circle, the size of a quarter, though thicker. Some kind of tracking device that I would have to get to Elisa as soon as possible.

  I felt a moment of calm before anxiety overtook me again. The police were doing their job; it was up to me not to jeopardize everything.

  THE BUILDINGS WE docked in front of were more whimsical than the no-­nonsense headquarters, odd angles of wood sticking out like the arms of beach chairs. The boats moored in the slips surrounding them were grander, most of them yachts, few names visible. Perhaps the Crosleys’ yacht was one of them, anchored here to watch us get off the ferry. As we tied up, I studied the fifteen or twenty ­people lined up at the barrier waiting to board for the ride back. None of them looked threatening, but that meant nothing. What meant more was that Elisa didn’t seem to recognize any of them.

  We were the last to disembark. Looking at my watch, I saw that the ride had taken nearly thirty minutes, longer than I expected.

  “What do we do now?” Elisa’s voice held the fear of someone entering a hospital who knows a procedure will be painful.