The Sniper's Wife Part 17

"How've you been?" she finally asked.

He spoke to his toes. "Okay."

Her cheeks flushed. "I'm not asking about your health."

His jaw clenched. He'd been dreading this ever since Gunther told him she'd come along. "I'm trying to set things right," he said.

"I know that. How's it going?"

Something in her voice made him look up. It was the strength he heard-familiar, natural, welcome. In his own emotional gyrations, he'd begun to blend his memories of Mary with those of Sammie, making the latter weaker and less reliable than she was. Sammie was high-strung, and he knew that he'd occasionally put her through the wringer, but she wasn't Mary. She'd be someone who would throw him out when the time came, not run to get away from him. And she certainly wouldn't seek out male companionship for security or drugs for escape. Sammie was a fighter-pa.s.sionate and emotional, definitely, but tough as nails when it counted.

The way she'd just voiced that short sentence reminded him of that, and helped reestablish one of the few tethers he had to a world he felt he was only orbiting at the moment.

"Pretty s.h.i.tty right now," he admitted.

"Nathan Lee?" she asked.

His face registered his surprise.

She smiled, which came as a relief. "The sphinx you're not-not with me, anyhow."

He sighed in concession. "I hadn't thought about him in years. Only did now because I needed his help. I saw it as calling in a marker, but he treated me like a friend. And now I think maybe I got him killed, like I've been doing all my life."

Sammie cupped her cheek in her hand and studied him. "Your whole adult life you've been either a soldier or a cop, same as me... except you're a whole lot older."

"Hey," he said, smiling despite himself.

"And you've been in combat," she continued. "What did you expect? That your friends wouldn't get banged up or killed? It's a dangerous life."

He frowned at the seeming ba.n.a.lity of the comment until she added, "You should ask yourself why you chose those lines of work."

That stopped him. He actually never had, and only now wondered why not. He shared a contempt for selfa.n.a.lysis that many did who needed it most, using those who overindulged in it as the reason why. Except that now, in a virtual flash, he saw that his might have been like an anorexic's view of a glutton, with no acknowledgment that the majority of humans inhabit neither extreme.

But this was a pa.s.sing thought only. w.i.l.l.y wasn't given to clarifying epiphanies, and he answered Sammie instead with a defensive, "You saying I like this? That I do it on purpose?"

She didn't back down. "That's for you to find out, w.i.l.l.y. And while you're at it, ask yourself why you shut out the people who aren't likely to get killed, like your mother, or Bob, or your friends."

w.i.l.l.y stood up angrily, making his chair skitter across the floor. "Speaking of mothers, who elected you, all of a sudden?"

But he stopped his ineffective outburst almost as quickly as he'd started it, stalled by her simply rolling her eyes. For a moment he just stood there, breathing hard, his face red, fighting for some of the dignity she seemed to possess without effort. It was a side of her he hadn't seen in a long time, and the fact that it had resurfaced told him something he couldn't yet clearly define.

The door opened and Ward Ogden stopped on the threshold, his eyes moving between the two of them. "Everything okay in here?"

w.i.l.l.y retrieved his chair and sat back down. "Yeah."

Sammie let out a silent breath of air. Her show of strength notwithstanding, her heart had been pounding all through that last exchange. She was sick and tired of feeling anxious and manipulated. All it did was remind her of her poor history with men. Except that this one, she believed fundamentally, was not to be grouped with any of those preceding him. While still probably one of the worst choices for a lifelong companion, w.i.l.l.y had stamina and courage and a strong sense of righteousness, and the potential of being someone extraordinary, if he could beat back his own personal Mr. Hyde.

The trick for her was to figure out how to disconnect his fate from her own self-regard, and it was there, just lately, that she felt she'd been making inroads.

She had no idea if this was actually true, of course, but it made her feel better about herself, and for the moment that was enough.

Slightly warily, Ogden stepped farther into the room and placed a photograph on the table. Gunther was watching from the doorway.

"That the guy you were looking for?" Ogden asked gently.

w.i.l.l.y gazed down onto the obviously lifeless face of Nate Lee. "What happened to him?"

"He was found under the 145th Street Bridge, dressed like a b.u.m. The a.s.sumption was he'd fallen and hit his head. He had no ID, n.o.body in the area knew who he was, so they declared him an accidental and took him to the potter's field on Hart Island yesterday. We're lucky they started photographing these folks a while back and cataloguing where they're buried. We can have him exhumed first thing tomorrow morning."

w.i.l.l.y pursed his lips, drawing connections in his head. "Anything on the other one-Ron Cashman?"

"No, sorry. We only came up with this 'cause of a habit of mine. Anytime somebody living hand-to-mouth goes missing, even if he fancies himself an independent businessman, as I'm sure Mr. Lee did, I check the Hart Island index. I figured this was him. They've only had four this past week, and he was the only one fitting the description."

w.i.l.l.y nodded. "Well, I appreciate it."

Ogden checked his watch. "It's getting late. I got a couple of people keeping the search engines running on some of our inquiries. I suggest we get a good night's sleep and meet at Bellevue after they bring the body back from Hart Island."

"I'd like to be with him," w.i.l.l.y said softly.

Ogden gave him a surprised look, but instantly grasped his meaning. "At the exhumation?"

w.i.l.l.y simply nodded, not making eye contact.

Ogden immediately defused any possible debate. "Sure. We'll all go-make it a field trip. It's a beautiful spot. How 'bout the dock on City Island at eight A.M.? You need directions?"

"I know where it is," w.i.l.l.y said, turning to Gunther and Sammie. "Where're you two staying? I'll pick you up."

Joe gave him the name and address of an inexpensive hotel, followed by, "You want to have dinner together?"

But predictably he shook his head. "No. I better pay somebody a visit I haven't seen in a while." He smiled sadly at Sammie and added, "Maybe make amends. I'll see you seven-forty-five."

It wasn't all that late when w.i.l.l.y reached Washington Heights by subway and began walking toward the street where he'd spent his entire youth. If she was keeping to her old habits, which he had no reason to doubt, his mother would be lost in whatever television was beaming out after suppertime, and would probably stay there until eleven. She'd always been a night owl.

He wasn't making this journey with any great conviction, or holding out much hope. In fact, he wasn't sure he fully understood his own motives, aside from the fact that Sammie had indirectly made him feel he should make some sort of gesture-that and Nate's death being confirmed right afterward. Sammie's comment about his abandoning people who didn't do him the service of either abandoning him or dying first had struck a chord. Despite all that had befallen him, w.i.l.l.y had never seen himself as one of life's victims. However insensitive, clumsy, and even brutal his ways of fighting back, he had never considered quitting. So, while the cynical pessimist in him was gearing up for a disappointment, he was nevertheless going to show Sammie that he was at least sometimes capable of making the first move.

As he approached its perimeter, the old neighborhood seemed to echo similar contradictions to the ones he was struggling with. The buildings and streets were familiar, the roll of the terrain underfoot like an old and comforting home movie, but the foreground of language, people, and general spirit was utterly foreign, as if the old hometown had been completely taken over by a busload of tourists.

Gone were the sausage shops and beer parlors and the guttural shouts of angry hausfraus yelling at children running in the streets. Gone, too, were the synagogues and kosher delis and serious men all dressed in black that had been as much part of the landscape as trees were to Vermont. The Irish Catholics, whose presence here had wobbled between the entertaining and the threatening, depending on who you were and what the alcohol intake had been that evening, were also just figments of memory. Now, nearly everywhere he looked, w.i.l.l.y saw a world almost completely become Hispanic.

As a result, he noticed with some amus.e.m.e.nt, the old stomping grounds had been blessed with a lot more life and color. He knew the area had suffered hard times, including violence, drugs, and civil unrest, but there was also an exuberance now that he didn't recall from before. The music spilling into the streets, the effervescence of the neon store lights, even the swagger of the people loitering on the sidewalks, laughing, catcalling, and having a good time after work, were all things he wished had been there when he'd been young. Admittedly tainted by retrospection, his memories were of a dour place of Germanic discipline and disappointment, and of traditions he'd longed to escape.

He continued walking up St. Nicholas Avenue, to where Washington Heights becomes Fort George. Here were the remnants of his youthful experience, surviving like an outpost on foreign soil, and sure enough, the old familiar restlessness began welling up inside him like an instinct.

He turned the corner onto 187th Street, now just a few blocks away from his mother's apartment, the smell of some familiar German meal drifting by on the cool night air, when he heard a tired, slightly querulous voice say behind him, "Hey, mister, gimme a buck?"

The question wasn't directed at w.i.l.l.y. He was already too far past the spot for that to be the case. It was also nothing he hadn't heard before, especially given the streets he'd been walking recently. But there was something about the plea that made him turn around. Later, he thought it might have been the utter silence following the request, instead of the usual muttered evasion. But whatever the cause, when he looked back, he saw not the b.u.m propped up against the wall, but the man who'd stirred him to speak.

And as soon as he saw him, a tall, angular man with a large, flesh-colored bandage incongruously plastered across the bridge of his nose, w.i.l.l.y knew he was looking at someone wishing him harm.

He didn't hesitate, as an innocent might have. Nor did he wait for this perceived threat to announce itself, as cops are trained to do. He simply reached under his coat and pulled out his gun.

The other man reacted with equal instinctiveness. Producing his own weapon, he ducked and sidestepped, dropping behind the b.u.m, using him as a barrier behind which to draw a bead. w.i.l.l.y fired once at a spot just beside them to make his pursuer tuck in, and then made for the nearest alley at a dead run, his eyes still smarting from the brightness of the muzzle flash.

The ploy worked. The one return round sang harmlessly by like a wasp on adrenaline.

w.i.l.l.y ran down the alley to where an oversized metal Dumpster lay as large as a sleeping buffalo. He swung around behind it, using its bulk as a shield and its side to steady his arm, but even as he waited for his follower's shadow to fill the opening of the alleyway, he knew it was over as quickly as it had begun.

As if in confirmation, the b.u.m's thin voice drifted down to meet him. "Help, police. Somebody call the cops. There's shootin' goin' on."

w.i.l.l.y straightened, pocketed his gun, and returned to the street, cautiously peering around the corner. The b.u.m was on all fours, crawling around, uselessly wailing and trying to collect his scattered belongings. The rest of the block was empty, but he could already hear the sounds of startled voices asking one another if they'd heard what they thought they had.

w.i.l.l.y continued in the direction he'd been headed, his casual pace belying his vigilance.

But the family reunion wouldn't happen tonight. He was not going home. He was confident he hadn't been followed here. He'd been keeping an eye out instinctively. Which meant the shooter had known of his mother's address, and had selected it as the perfect site for an ambush, and the perfect way to make w.i.l.l.y Kunkle join Nate Lee in the hereafter.

For w.i.l.l.y was pretty sure he'd just met Ron Cashman.

Chapter 18.

Ward Ogden was already at the dock when the three of them drove up and parked near the small shed the ferry crew used as an office and lunchroom. He was pacing the top of the ramp, watching the early morning sun flash off the mirror-smooth water of Long Island Sound. Below him, nestled into the boat slip like a foot in an open-back shoe, was the Michael Cosgrove, a small, steel-decked ferry with a wheelhouse and an engine room mounted like long, narrow bookends on the starboard and port sides of what otherwise would have looked like a raft.

On the horizon, as flat as an airstrip except for a low growth of trees, was Hart Island, site of the largest potter's field in the United States.

Ogden turned as they approached. "Good morning. Everyone sleep well?"

Gunther and Sammie answered in the affirmative. w.i.l.l.y, typically, asked, "When do we leave?"

Ogden was unfazed. "Soon as the truck from Rikers arrives."

Sammie looked at him quizzically.

"A detail of volunteers from Rikers comes here every day," he explained, "along with a truck of unclaimed bodies. It helps the city cut costs and it gives the prisoners a little time outside the walls. They're very respectful," he added without being prompted. "Probably more so than if they were just city workers. Could be some of them appreciate the fine line between them and the people in the boxes."

"There's a truckload every day?" Sammie asked.

Ogden smiled rea.s.suringly. "No, no. Not a load, just a truck. Sometimes it only has a box or two on board. It does mount up, though." He pointed at the island. "Since that opened up right after the Civil War, three-quarters of a million people have been buried out there." He glanced at his watch. "The ME's office is sending a vehicle later for Nathan Lee's body, after it's been exhumed."

They all turned at the sound of a large white box truck trundling down the feeder road toward them. Its sides were labeled, "Queens Health Network" over the names of two hospitals. Behind it was a Department of Correction bus.

They stood back while the correction officers and the ferry crew went through the formalized routine of loading all vehicles on board, including Ogden's car. Once that was done, Joe, w.i.l.l.y, and Sammie stepped onto the steel deck themselves and watched while the ferry's engine kicked to life, belched a cloud of diesel smoke from its stack, and began plowing a line through the cold, smooth water toward Hart Island, just over three thousand feet away.

There was a mystical sensation to the trip. Intermingled with the trees, crumbling, decrepit buildings slowly began emerging into view as the boat neared the sh.o.r.e, lending a feeling of a lost civilization to the already known quant.i.ty of just under a million lost souls.

Ogden continued acting as tour guide, standing at the chain closing off the ferry's bow ramp and pointing at the various landmarks. "Lot of history to this place, beyond the potter's field. There was a prison out here once, a shoe factory, a psychiatric hospital and drug rehab center. There's a peace monument they put up after World War Two, and, as ironies would have it, the remnants of a missile launching pad within sight of it."

"Hold it," Gunther said. "They had missiles out here?"

"During the Cold War, yeah." Ogden gestured to the left. "On the island's northern end. It was one of those ramp-mounted things, lay covered up in a shallow trench till needed. Gone now, of course, but the hatches are still there, along with what I guess is a command center-all you can see is a manhole with a huge rock on top of it. I always wondered what was inside. Far as I know, n.o.body's ever looked."

They were drawing near and the crew was getting ready to dock. Through the windows of the bus, Gunther could see the dozen or so prisoners enjoying the early sunshine.

They drove in a caravan to the island's southern end along a rutted gravel road that cut between the sh.o.r.e and what looked like not just an a.s.semblage of buildings-as it had appeared from the water-but an entire village, complete with hospital, church, power plant, greenhouse, and homes, all laid out along a grid of paved streets, and all choked by a junglelike growth of young hardwood saplings, which made the whole thing resemble a bizarre northern version of some Mayan ruin.

"It's sort of a shame, really," Ogden said as he drove last in line. "It's a beautiful setting, inhabited solely by the dead. Seems like somebody could find a way to get something up and running again out here."

They rounded the island's largely treeless southern tip, observing the faint impressions left by several long, narrow, parallel trenches in the sod, and parked near a backhoe situated beside a utility shed. There, everybody got out, the prisoners to unload and stack the wooden coffins, the others to wait and watch.

"I think it's about a hundred and fifty coffins per trench," Ogden continued. "Different for the children's area, of course. They stack the adults three deep and two across, end to end. You'll notice, as they off-load each box, that one of the prisoners will number it with a router, so they can be cross-indexed with a location map later on in case they need to be retrieved. That's how they'll find Mr. Lee."

As he spoke, that's exactly what was happening. The box truck's back was opened and several orange-clad prisoners began dragging out the contents to where each one could be branded with a number. In the meantime, deep in the open trench, another party was getting ready to receive and stack the boxes in regimented fashion. As Ogden had said, they were quiet and respectful of their duties, working with peaceful decision.

The New York detective turned toward a long rectangular patch of raw earth immediately adjacent to the open hole. "As luck would have it, they filled in that last trench yesterday. Otherwise, we could've just shoveled out a little dirt and found the box we're after. Not to worry, though, these guys are pretty good at what they do.

"They'll be at it awhile, though," he said. "Afterward, the prisoners will be taken to a small, secure compound near the missile pad for lunch. The exhumation will happen just before then. So, if you want to walk around a bit, feel free. It's pretty interesting. The really old graves are to the north-lots of slightly sunken troughs-and a ton of geese that live there."

w.i.l.l.y tentatively touched Sammie's forearm with the back of his hand. "Go for a walk?" he asked.

Surprised by the unusual offer, she fell into step beside him as he headed north toward the abandoned settlement.

"I'm sorry I blew up yesterday," he said after several minutes of walking in silence.

"You're in a tough spot," she answered, figuring she'd let him lead the conversation.

"Still..."

She kept quiet.

They came to the outskirts of the empty, ghostly, mostly brick-built buildings, almost every door and window of which was open to the casual onlooker. It was like touring a long-forgotten movie set.

"I reach a point, sometimes," he continued, "where all I got left is my anger. It's the only thing keeping me together."

"Anger at who?"

As if proving the point, he sneered. "Oh, right. This where I say, 'My mother'?"

But Sammie didn't miss a beat. "How would I know?"

She watched him compress his lips, struggling to keep track. To his credit, he returned to what he'd been saying.

"I've always had it," he admitted. "From as far back as I can remember. Maybe I was just born p.i.s.sed off."

She sensed some of this had been running around his head when they'd parted ways earlier, so she asked, "Is that where you were going last night? To find out? You said you were off to make amends."