“Yeah, I met him. The night of the snowstorm. He just showed up, out of the blue. How he found out where they were, God knows. I mean, it doesn’t get much more remote than that place. Ty figured maybe Abbie must have called him or something. Or that he knew about me coming up from Denver and followed us back. I guess we’ll never know.”
“Go on.”
“Ty found the guy’s computer hidden in the back of the car and I went to Great Falls that day to see if I could get into it. Like, crack the password.”
“And your friend Freddie helped you.”
Josh looked at him nervously.
“Josh, I saw your phone records, okay?”
“Oh man, don’t do anything to Freddie. He didn’t know. Please.”
“We’ll come back to that. Go on.”
“When I got back to the cabin and it was snowing and all, there was this car there and it was him. He was in the cabin, waiting for me to come back with the goddamn computer. Jeez, was he mad. Out of his mind. I guess it was finding Abbie with Ty and everything. And the computer. They tried to pretend it was all a mistake, that it just happened to be in the truck, but he knew something was going on. I think he knew we were going to use it against him. That guy, I tell you. He was like a maniac, ranting and raving . . .
“And then he tried to take Abbie. And that’s when Ty made his move and I ran in to help him. Rolf was pulling Ty’s shotgun out from under the bed and I just leapt on top of him and everything went crazy. The three of us, just wrestling and punching and fighting.”
“What was Abbie doing?”
“Ty yelled at her to go, anywhere, just get away. And she ran out to the corral and took one of the horses and . . .”
He felt the tears surging in his eyes now. Shit! He didn’t want to cry but he couldn’t stop himself.
“It’s all right, Josh. Take your time.”
The sheriff put a hand on his shoulder and kept it there. Josh took a deep breath. The sun was disappearing in a final blaze of orange and red.
“Anyhow. Her going made him even madder. And, man, he was strong. I mean, Ty’s a strong guy, but Rolf, hell, he was something else. He kind of dragged us all through the doorway and out into the snow and around the side of the cabin. He kept hollering Abbie’s name, you could tell he wanted to go after her. I had my arms locked around his neck and he and Ty were struggling for the gun, both trying to wrench it out of each other’s hands. Then Rolf kind of swung me around and sent me crashing into the rails of the corral and I broke clean through them.
“I think I must have gotten knocked out for a moment because the next thing I know is I’m lying there in the snow and the two of them are by the broken fence, still wrestling with the gun. Then Rolf kicks Ty’s legs from under him and Ty loses his grip on the gun . . . oh, man.”
“It’s all right, son. Easy now.”
“He was going to kill him, no doubt about it. Ty’s on the ground in front of him and the guy just lowers the barrel, points the gun right at him and tries to pull the trigger. I swear to God. But the safety catch was on and while he tried to find it, Ty grabbed hold of his leg and I got up and charged, just hurled myself right at him. And I knocked him sideways and he kind of twisted around and fell back. And the gun went off. It was a miracle nobody got hit. But Rolf, he . . .”
Josh could see it now. And hear it too. The guy crashing back against the broken rail, the dreadful scrunch of skewering flesh, his face suddenly changing, the look of stunned horror in his eyes.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen, I swear. It was just the way he fell. There was this jagged end where the rail had broken off, like a spear of splintered wood, still nailed to the post. And he landed with his back right on it and . . . For a moment we didn’t know what had happened. He just went all still. And then we saw the blood and . . . the point sticking out through the front of his shirt. Oh, Jesus.”
He started to sob now and it was a while before he could go on.
“We pulled him free and Ty ran and got a towel and we tried to stop the bleeding, but it was no good. All we could do was stand there and . . . watch him die.”
The twitching body, the clawed hand reaching out, the unstoppable flood of blood.
The sheriff was still holding him by the shoulder, patiently waiting.
“What happened to Abbie?”
“We never knew. The horse came back without her. We rode out the rest of the night, calling and calling. But the snow was coming down so thick, you couldn’t hear or see a thing. No tracks, nothing. We had no idea where she’d gone. We spent the next two days looking for her. Not a thing. Not a single thing.”
“And what did you do with Rolf?”
“We . . . we wrapped him up in a plastic sheet and put him in the trunk of his car, the one they’d hidden in the barn. The blood on the snow, oh man, I tell you. We boiled water, God knows how many gallons, and tried to melt it away, then shoveled fresh snow over it and still the red came through. Ty knew this big lake or reservoir, about twenty miles south. Up in a kind of canyon. Real deep, he said it was.”
“I know it.”
“Anyhow, that third night, after we’d given up looking for Abbie, and we’d cleaned up the cabin and mended the rails, gotten everything back the way it was and, at last, the blood wasn’t showing anymore, we drove up there. I drove Ty’s truck, he drove the car with the body in the trunk. It was amazing we made it, what with all the snow. We pushed it off a cliff into the water.
“He’d rented the other car, the one he arrived in, at the airport in Great Falls. I left it there the next day and flew home. And that’s it.”
For a long time they both stared out and said nothing. There was a narrow band of fire across the skyline where the sun had gone down. The buildings were all alight. Below them, under the boardwalk, the flash and roar of the rush-hour traffic. Everybody going home. Josh wondered what the guy was going to say. He’d obviously have to arrest him now.
“Who knows about this, apart from you and Ty?”
“Just you.”
“You haven’t told anyone?”
“I’m not that dumb.”
“Not even your mom and dad?”
“Are you kidding? Can you imagine what it would do to them? Finding out that both their kids are murderers? No way.”
“It doesn’t sound like a murder to me, son.”
“One’s enough.”
For a minute or more neither of them spoke.
“What happened to the computer?”
“We put it in the trunk.”
Josh pulled from his pocket the little package he’d taken from behind his desk. It was the flash drive. He handed it to the sheriff.
“That’s a copy of what was on it.”
Charlie lay all night in his bed in the little downtown hotel room listening to the traffic and watching the lights and shadows travel the ceiling in ever-changing patterns. He’d never found it easy to sleep in cities but tonight he had nothing to blame but his own troubled head. It felt like a casino machine on which the same thoughts reassembled in a different order every time you played and never let you win.
He knew, of course, where his duty lay. He should let events be dictated by the due process of the law. That was what it was there for and that’s what he had always done. The car and the body would have to be hauled out of the lake and Josh and Ty would have to be arrested and charged with the killing. The chances were that a court would go easy on them. If Josh’s account of what happened was believed, that it was self-defense, the two of them would probably walk free.
But there was never any certainty. The case would be coast-to-coast news, just as it had been when they found Abbie’s body. Some smart, ambitious prosecuting attorney might well sniff fame or political advantage in painting events quite differently. And in the current climate of fear, the brother and former lover of a notorious terrorist could easily get tarred with the same brush—as Ty had already once discovered to his cost. The poor guy was bro
ken as it was. How could he survive another such ordeal? And what about the Coopers? What about Sarah? Hadn’t they all suffered enough?
Charlie cussed himself for leaving Josh. They’d walked off the bridge and caught a cab back to the boy’s apartment, agreeing to meet again in the morning. Charlie had wanted time to think things through. But time was exactly what Josh didn’t need. He’d be terrified now. What if he’d run off or, God forbid, done something worse?
That was enough. He was driving himself crazy. He got up and took out his phone and started to dial Josh’s number and then realized it was four in the morning and snapped it shut again. He dressed and put on his coat and went out through the drab fluorescent lobby to the street and started walking. Block after block, light after light, Walk, Don’t Walk, the options pounding through his head with each step.
Two hours later, as the eastern sky paled behind him, he found himself by the water again, staring out across the Hudson to the spangled black bank beyond. And he knew at last what he was going to do. Absolutely nothing. He knew the place where they had pushed the car into the reservoir. The water there was green and opaque and very deep. The guy wrapped up in the trunk had gotten no more and no less than he deserved. He could stay where he was.
In his pocket Charlie had been fingering the little flash drive Josh had given him. He knew he should check what was on it. Or maybe not. He took it out and looked at it. Then, as hard and as far as he could, he threw it out across the river. And he neither saw the splash nor heard it.
THIRTY-TWO
It was Iris’s idea that they should have a combined party to celebrate their fiftieth birthdays. Sarah hadn’t been planning to have one at all, preferring to let the dreaded date skulk by as unacknowledged as possible. At first she brushed the proposal aside. It would involve too much work and too much stress. And it was completely impractical too, because Iris’s friends were all in Pittsburgh while hers were in New York. No problem, Iris said. They would throw the party in New York. She had too many people to ask anyway and it would be a clever way to cull a few. She hounded her and bullied her and in the end, just to get some peace, Sarah reluctantly agreed.
The date was set for the Saturday after Labor Day, which fell precisely between their two birthdays. In June Iris came to stay and they scouted half of Nassau County for a venue but couldn’t find anywhere they both liked that wasn’t already booked. Sarah’s parents offered their house in Bedford and were a little offended when she said thanks, but no. Held there, it would feel like a twenty-first and she was a grown-up now. Just when she was starting to hope that they might be able to call the whole thing off, up stepped Martin Ingram with an offer they couldn’t refuse.
He was building a restaurant, a sort of brasserie, on a fabulous site in Oyster Bay and he wasn’t just the architect, he was going to have a fifty percent share of the business too. Barring disasters, to which Martin rarely fell prey, by early October it would be finished but not yet open. It had wonderful maple floors and a vast mezzanine with a wraparound window through which you could see the ocean. It would be good for business to let people see it, he said, and they could have it for free. Sarah had to concede that it was perfect.
They hired a professional party planner named Julian McFadyen who was so cute and clever that Iris almost went into a swoon every time they met to discuss things. He did everything, including sending out the invitations, and made it all seem so effortless and enjoyable that as the day drew near, Sarah found she was actually looking forward to it. There was only one issue that troubled her.
It was just after Labor Day and Iris had flown in to finalize a few things with the adorable Julian, who she still refused to accept was gay. It was early evening and they were sitting out on Sarah’s deck and Julian, having raised the subject of toasts and speeches and sensing some disagreement, had tactfully withdrawn so they could discuss it.
“Why do we have to have speeches at all?” Sarah said.
“Because that’s what happens. Honey, how often do you get to stand in front of a hundred people being told how fabulous you are? And if I told Leo he couldn’t make a speech he’d do it anyway.”
“Well, that’s fine. But what about me? Who’s going to do mine?”
“Josh could. Martin could. Hell, I could.”
“Oh, Iris.”
“Listen, we won’t make a big deal of it. I’ll tell Leo short and sweet.”
“When has Leo ever done short and sweet?”
“We’ll put up a clock like a game show. Three minutes and bong!”
“Everyone’ll just be feeling sorry for me. I can’t stand all that poor old Sarah, still on her own stuff.”
“Oh, give me a break.”
Sarah stubbed out her cigarette.
“I don’t want Martin talking about me.”
“Then ask Josh. He’s a big boy now.”
“You know how shy he is.”
Josh was in Santa Fe spending a few days with his father. Sarah promised to ask him when he got home.
Since he graduated that spring, Josh had astonished them all. Out of the blue he’d announced that he wanted to be a lawyer. He’d cut his hair, bought himself a suit, and all summer had been working as an intern at Alan Hersh’s firm in the city. He regularly came home buzzing with news about cases and clients and esoteric points of law that Sarah had to pretend to understand. Soon they were going to start paying him to do some paralegal work. If all went well, next year he’d go to law school. Meanwhile, on the weekends, he earned a few dollars helping Jeffrey at the bookstore. To see him so involved and invigorated was as thrilling as it was surprising. Sarah sometimes wondered if she’d missed the spaceship landing on the lawn.
Benjamin said the same. Of late they had been speaking more regularly. Instead of always calling Josh’s cell phone, he now often called on the house line and it was usually Sarah who answered. He seemed less wary of her now, probably because she was warmer with him. Their shared wonder and admiration at Josh’s transformation had helped draw them closer.
“What did we do wrong?” he’d said the other night, when he called to check out Josh’s flight times.
“How do you mean?”
“I never dreamt I’d have a lawyer for a son.”
“I know. Maybe we should have been more supportive of his marijuana habit.”
“I don’t think he missed out too much in that department.”
The more compelling reason that they were easier now with each other was Sarah’s letter. At Christmas she had written to apologize for what she’d said about Benjamin being to blame for Abbie’s death. They were words uttered, she said, in a moment of deranged grief and despair. He sent her back a card, a serene photograph of sky and ocean. All it said was Thank you, with my love, always, Benjamin.
It helped too, of course, that he now knew about Charlie Riggs. Sarah and Charlie had taken a week’s vacation in June. They had driven down to Colorado and stayed in a heavenly hotel in the mountains. They had ridden together through high meadows filled with flowers and hiked a stretch of the Continental Divide trail to a spring where one stream ran east and the other west. And they had at last become lovers. Sarah liked him very much. How serious it was ever going to be, she didn’t know, and neither of them was pushing it. She had asked him to come over for the party and after cross-examining her to see if she truly wanted him there, he had said he would come.
Josh, for reasons Sarah couldn’t quite fathom, seemed keener than she was that it should work out, even though he’d never met the guy. Perhaps it was because it would take the pressure off him a little, having to look after his poor, lonely, old mom. She had to remind him of his sometime refrain that long-distance relationships sucked. He said she’d better move to Montana then and Sarah laughed, as if she hadn’t already considered the idea.
Leo had been going on about Iris for about twenty minutes and though some of the stories were funny (especially the one about her coming to haul him off the golf course in f
ront of all his friends), it was, as Iris liked to say, enough already. Josh could see people giving each other little glances. Still, it gave him a good excuse to be brief.
The party seemed to be going well. Freddie, who was above him, leaning on the mezzanine rail with Summer and Nikki, had already voted it the best old folks party he’d ever been to. The food was great, he said, and even the band wasn’t bad.
As Leo embarked on his eighteenth story, Josh went through his notes once more. He thought he had it pretty well straight. It was amazing how much better his memory was since he’d stopped smoking grass. He looked around the room for his mom and saw her standing with Martin and Beth Ingram and Charlie Riggs. She was wearing a black silk dress that showed her shoulders and she looked absolutely gorgeous. She and Charlie had hardly left each other’s side all evening. It was great to see her looking so happy.
When she’d introduced them, Charlie and Josh had, of course, shaken hands as if they’d never met.
“Your mom’s told me a lot about you,” he said.
“Likewise.”
“How’re you doing?”
“I’m good. Thank you.”
During the ten months that had passed since their walk on the bridge, Charlie had called him maybe a dozen times to see how he was getting along. He never made a big deal of it, always had some little joke or a funny story to tell. The last time he’d called was in June, just before his vacation with Josh’s mom in Colorado. Charlie clearly had something important to ask but didn’t seem quite able to spell it out. Then Josh realized he was in fact being asked for his blessing, which he duly tried to bestow.
Watching them standing there now, across the room, listening to Leo’s speech, Josh thought what a fine couple they made. He hoped, with all his heart, that it was going to work out for them. His mom must have felt his gaze, because she turned and looked at him and smiled and pulled a discreet face to indicate it was time somebody banged the gong on Leo. Luckily, it wasn’t needed.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, although I could go on all night . . .” There were calls of Please, no, spare us. “. . . I’m going to hand it over to that handsome young man over there who all of you know—and if you don’t, believe me, you soon will—Mr. Joshua Cooper!”