Entombed (47 page)

"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 delight 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.

To Hilary Hale and
David Young at Time Warner UK, my gratitude for taking Alex Cooper
around the world in such grand style. And to Esther Newberg, the best
in the business, I'm glad to have had you at my side since the outset.

My family and friends
are my inspiration and source of sustenance. Librarians and booksellers
are the generous souls who put my books in readers' hands. And my
beloved Justin Feldman- whose childhood playground, in the Bronx, was
actually Poe Park-remains my steadfast partner in law and literature,
which gives me happiness beyond imagining.