He glanced at his line again—still quiet—and then something moving in along the edge of the cove caught his eye.
“You see that?” he asked his friend. “What you think that is?”
Herman squinted at an object bobbing along in the bright choppy water. His eyes grew big.
“It looks like some kind of cwawfin.”
Indeed it was, a homemade wooden box just four and a half feet long.
CHAPTER two
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS BEFORE he was summoned to peer down into that opened box, death was the last thing on Jack Leightner’s mind. This was unusual: As a detective with the elite Brooklyn South Homicide Task Force, corpses were the focus of his every working day.
He had the weekend off, though, and he was far from New York City’s steady influx of bodies. At the moment, his attention was riveted by another box, one whose dimensions were considerably smaller. Standing just inside the closet, he slipped the black velvet case out of his traveling bag and into his pants pocket, but it was too obvious there, so he took it out again and removed the ring. He felt like he was getting an ulcer.
“What are you doing in there?” asked his girlfriend, Michelle. She had flopped down on their new bed as soon as they’d checked in and unpacked.
“Nothing,” Jack replied, slipping the ring into his pocket. “I’m just trying to figure out what to wear down to dinner.” This was a silly excuse, as he only had two choices: one of the dark blue sports jackets he wore on the job, or the tweed jacket he saved for the occasional court appearance or NYPD retirement racket.
They had just arrived on the train from Grand Central. It had run along the sparkling Hudson River, through the last bright scraps of fall foliage, past the gray stone blocks of Sing Sing prison. The inn was only an hour and a half north of Manhattan, but it might as well have been on another planet. There was no rap music thumping in the streets of this quaint little town, no car alarms, no trash piled on the curbs. No NYPD vehicles blowing by to remind Jack of his latest case.
As he stepped back into the bedroom he wondered if Michelle might be suspicious, but she was busy reading a brochure. She lay on top of the frilly bedspread. That wasn’t the right word: It was probably a duvet, or a sham or something; there was undoubtedly a Victorian name for it. That was the big keyword here, Victorian, and it seemed to mean that everything had to be wildly overdecorated and look like something you shouldn’t sit on, or even touch. It wasn’t Jack’s style, but he hoped his girlfriend liked it.
Michelle Wilber was forty-one, with long black hair, slightly slumped shoulders, and wrinkles in the corners of her eyes. (Jack had never been the kind who chased after young women.) Right now she looked so good that his heart ached.
“I’ll be right back,” he said.
“Okay,” she murmured, engrossed in her reading.
He stepped out into the hall and gently closed the door. The inn was supposed to be one of the oldest in the United States. The plank floors had been polished smooth by generations of guest feet. The narrow stairs down to the lobby were so ancient that they bowed. At least the place was well kept; he would have been very disappointed if he had brought Michelle to some kind of dump. (You could never really tell from an ad—the photo might show laughing couples lounging around a fancy pool, and then you’d arrive and find a little cracked kidney bean full of dead leaves.)
Behind the front desk the innkeeper was tapping away at a computer, one of the only objects in the whole place that wasn’t topped by some porcelain knickknack. The woman was a brisk middle-aged blonde.
“Hello,” Jack said. “I need to ask a little favor.”
The woman peered through tortoiseshell half-glasses. She was several inches shorter than he was, but managed to give the impression that she was looking down at him. “Yes?”
Her smile struck him as brittle. Maybe that was because he had asked to change rooms earlier. It wasn’t his fault. On the Internet, a view from one of the windows had showed a cozy little street packed with antiques shops. When he and Michelle actually showed up, though, a chambermaid had led them up to a room at the back, which faced out onto a parking lot and a drive-through bank. Maybe the innkeeper had heard his Brooklyn accent and assumed she could get away with it. Normally Jack might not have cared, but this was a special occasion and he was determined to do it right.
He cleared his throat, glanced at the stairs, and took the ring out of his pocket. “I need a little help with this,” he said. “I’m gonna propose to my girlfriend at dinner tonight.”
The innkeeper’s smile suddenly grew a lot more genuine. “Isn’t that wonderful!” she said. “What can we do?”
BY THE TIME JACK got back to the room, Michelle had kicked her shoes off and piled a couple of pillows under her wavy hair. There was a hole in the toe of one of her stockings and that made Jack feel better—he wasn’t the only one unaccustomed to such upscale digs. He had prepared an excuse about getting something from the car, but she didn’t even ask where he had been. Michelle was pretty self-sufficient. It was not that she was uninterested in what he did, but she trusted him—she only got on his case if he screwed up in some major way. He couldn’t help comparing her to his ex-wife, who would probably have grilled him like a detective in an interview room.
He looked at his watch; they had the whole day to kill. He supposed they could scope out the antiques shops, but the thought made him itch.
He pressed a hand against his stomach. He had always prided himself on keeping in shape, not letting middle age turn him flabby, but he could feel a hint of a pot developing. “Hey—why don’t we go get some of this country air everybody’s always going on about?”
Michelle set down the brochure, smiled, and unbuttoned her blouse. “What’s your hurry?”
AFTER, THEY TOOK A walk, setting off along a two-lane blacktop that led out into the countryside. A couple of days after Thanksgiving the weather had taken a plunge into winter and the air was nippy, but after a few minutes of hiking Jack was warm enough to unzip his jacket. The busy tourist kernel of the town gave way to some grand, dilapidated old estates, and then the view opened up across stubbly farm fields dotted with an occasional cow. Crows cawed up in bare branches; other than that there was an almost eerie silence, broken only by their own footsteps and an occasional passing car.
Jack wished they had come in spring, when there would be flowers and stuff to look at, or in the fall during peak foliage days, but Michelle was not put off by the stark views. She found things to comment on, pointing out an interesting weathervane or farm silo. Jack was an observant sort himself, but he focused on different things, like how isolated some of these country houses were, how easy, it would be to break in. How owning a gun might make some sense out here, rather than in the city where every time somebody fired one of the damned things they ran the risk of popping an innocent—or not-so-innocent—bystander.
“Couldn’t you see us living in a place like that?” Michelle said, pointing at a little farmhouse.
“I don’t know,” he said, not wanting to dampen her good cheer. He did know: He’d probably go nuts after a few months in a quiet place like this. If he took a job with a police force out here, he’d probably spend his time investigating teenagers’ break-ins of summer homes. A good murder would probably only come along every five years.
A scruffy little brown-and-white dog trotted out of a yard and started following them. Jack bent down and scratched its ears. “Go home, pooch,” he said, his breath puffing white in the still country air, but the dog set off with him when he moved on.
By the time he and Michelle reached the next town, they were both hungry; even the little dog looked like it could use a snack. The village seemed rather run-down and not at all touristy. There were no cute little cafes or even convenience stores. It soon became apparent that there was not a single commercial dining establishment in the whole place. Every once in a while a car whizzed through, headed somewhere else. Finally, Jack saw a gaunt old woman
step out onto her front porch.
“Excuse me,” he called up. “Is there someplace to get a bite to eat around here?”
“Well,” she drawled, “there’s some nice places about three miles up the road that way.” She pointed toward their starting point.
Jack turned to Michelle. “Sorry, honey.”
Michelle just grinned.
That was one of the things he loved about her: She was such a good sport. She had proved that in the most dramatic way imaginable, just after they had gotten together this past summer, when he had taken a late-night call, left her bed, set off to meet an informant for a case he was working on—and taken a bullet in the chest. She could easily have bailed out, and he wouldn’t have blamed her—they barely knew each other—but she had rushed to the hospital, visited him every day, helped him with his physical therapy when he finally came home. In the middle of all that, September 11 happened, and they spent several days huddled together in front of the TV. It seemed as if they had lived a lifetime in that terrible month. Jack shrugged. “I guess we’d better head back, then.” A few yards away, the little dog sat on its haunches looking up at him with what seemed like a Brooklyn expression. Whaddayagonnado?
TWO MILES INTO THE return trip, even the dog was drooping. Jack wondered if he’d have to start carrying the thing.
“You okay?” Michelle asked.
Jack was tired—he was still recovering from his bullet wound—but he nodded and kept walking.
Finally, they reached the dog’s yard and it perked up and trotted off. Adios, amigos.
By the time they made it back to town, chilled and faint with hunger, even Michelle’s good spirits were wearing thin. They found a luncheonette on the main street and settled into a booth.
“I’m gonna order one of everything,” Michelle said.
Jack scratched the side of his mouth. “Let’s save some room for dinner.” After the mix-up with the rooms and the long, hungry walk, his hoped-for perfect day had already gone a bit off the rails. It wasn’t so much that Michelle would expect a fairy-tale proposal—it was more that he was determined to do things better than when he had gotten engaged to his first wife. He had been in his early twenties and Louise had gotten pregnant and there hadn’t even been a proposal, really, just a sort of somber discussion and an agreement that marriage seemed like the right thing to do.
“I’M HUNGRY AGAIN,” MICHELLE said three hours later as they prepared to head down to the inn’s fancy dining room. “It must be the country air. Or maybe the good loving.” She smiled and gave her dress a tug in front of the mirror.
The moment of truth had arrived. Jack chewed an antacid as he started putting on a necktie.
“C’mon,” Michelle said. “We’re out in the country—you don’t need to dress up.”
“You sure?” Jack was an expert at many things—crime scene investigation, ballistics, even forensic entomology—but fashion was not one of them. This made him an anomaly among NYPD detectives, who loved to put on the style.
“Of course,” Michelle said. “This is our chance to relax a little.”
Down in the dining room the ceilings were low, with dark wood beams from when the place had been a tavern during the Revolutionary War. The flickering oil lamps didn’t give off much light, but enough to show that every man in the place was wearing a tie.
Jack frowned, but Michelle squeezed his arm. “You look great.”
He gave his name to a portly older woman at the entrance to the dining room and made sure he made eye contact—I’m the guy who’s gonna propose tonight. She smiled and led them to a nice corner table. Jack held Michelle’s chair out for her and then he sat down.
A short girl in a frilly apron approached. Her teeth were covered with braces and she looked like she might still be in high school. “Can I take your beverage order?” she said cheerily, stretching her mouth around the words.
“I feel like something fun,” Michelle said. “Can I get a Cosmopolitan?” This was a drink she had learned about on nights out with the women from her office in Manhattan. The company rented out plates and tablecloths for parties.
“And you, sir?”
“I’m okay for now.” He didn’t want alcohol to interfere with his upcoming speech.
The leather-bound menu weighed about two pounds. The appetizers cost more than the entrées in most places he was used to. He tried not to raise his eyebrows. It wasn’t that he was cheap, but he had grown up poor in Red Hook, Brooklyn, to parents who thought take-out chow mein was a great extravagance. He rested a hand on top of Michelle’s. “Order whatever you want.”
“The Caesar salad looks good.”
Jack gave her a worried look. “You can’t have a salad for dinner.” What kind of story would that make when they were old and sitting around on a porch somewhere?
Michelle looked beautiful, her skin glowing in the candlelight. I don’t have a single doubt about this woman, Jack marveled.
He glanced at a middle-aged couple two tables away. They were the only black people he had seen since he had gotten off the train. They were more formally dressed than anyone else in the room. The guy sat as straight as if there were a board in the back of his jacket. He looked about as comfortable here as Jack was, but he had probably never allowed himself to consider skipping the tie.
Jack made it through the dinner. He managed to order something, and even to eat something, and to make small talk about how the sweater-vested bartender looked like he might have fought in the Revolutionary War himself. He kept reaching down to his pants pocket and then remembering that he had surrendered the ring to the innkeeper, who was going to pass it on to the chef, who was going to hide it in Michelle’s dessert.
A busboy cleared their entree plates. “Hoo,” said Michelle, who had finally settled on linguini with shrimp. “I’m stuffed.”
Jack tried not to frown. “Have a little dessert. How about the chocolate mousse? You love chocolate.”
Michelle sighed. “I’m fine. Thank you, honey. This was such a beautiful dinner.”
“Get the mousse,” Jack said. “I’ll help you eat it.” He wished he had just held on to the damned ring.
Michelle took a sip of her wine. “All right—but only if you’ll help.”
After the waitress took their order, Jack sat back and wiped some sweat off his upper lip. He was known as the Homicide Task Force’s most dogged veteran, a guy who didn’t mind tackling the most difficult, evidence-starved cases. Proposing made such challenges seem like a walk in the park.
Even though he and Michelle had known each other for only a short time, they had gone through so much together, and he was sure she wouldn’t say no. Almost sure. His armpits were sweating profusely and he was glad his jacket was still on.
The waitress swept out of the kitchen bearing a silver tray. With a flourish she set down the mousse and two little glasses of port. “Compliments of the chef.”
Jack tried to smile as he nodded his thanks, but he wondered if the port was overkill. Michelle gave no sign of suspicion, just picked up her spoon and scooped up a tiny dab of whipped cream. After a minute, another. At this rate, it might take an hour to reach the ring. Jack wanted to help, but what would happen if he accidentally scooped it up?
“You okay?” Michelle asked.
“Huh?” he said. “Of course. It’s just a little hot in here.”
Thankfully, once Michelle hit the chocolate she began to take more of an interest in the dessert. She finished a big spoonful and closed her eyes in rapture. “Oh my God. This is amazing.”
Jack glanced over at the bar. The waitress was beaming at him and the bartender gave him a thumbs-up. The room was packed now and he wondered how the other diners would react when he got down on one knee.
Michelle licked some mousse off her finger and gave him a sultry look. “Don’t you want some?”
“It’s okay. I’m good.”
She smiled again. “You certainly are.” She dipped the spoon in, dippe
d the spoon…
His chest got tighter with every dip. Absurdly, he wondered which knee to get down on. He tried not to stare at Michelle’s par-fait glass. Another spoonful. Another. And then…she scraped the spoon along the bottom of the empty glass.
He stared openly now, in shock. He had spent two months’ pay on the ring, like you were supposed to. He’d run the gauntlet of the jewelry stores up on Forty-seventh Street, the Diamond District, the horror—salesmen practically diving over their counters, as if he had worn a sign on his head: SCHMUCK LOOKING FOR ENGAGEMENT RING…And he had finally found just the right one.
Vanished.
CHAPTER three
SPECKS OF GLASS GLITTERED in the asphalt as Jack drove deep into the heart of Red Hook. Past vacant lots, low factories, modest row houses; past dead weeds rising out of sidewalk cracks. He drove through the quiet, run-down streets but also through the remembered world of his childhood, when these streets had swarmed with sailors and shipbuilders and longshoremen, back before the boom years of the Brooklyn docks had irrevocably gone bust. In those days the place had been packed with bars, movie theaters, groceries, and clothing stores; now you had to leave the neighborhood to shop or to see a show. There was talk of a revival but the place still felt like a ghost town.
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