Liberty Falling-pigeon 7 (39 page)

It was the perfect place for trespass. Claypool's windows faced east and west and the overgrowth of bushes effectively screened the place from any other direction. Interlopers: weekend adventurers looking for a romantic spot, no doubt. The islands, jewels of isolation in the bustle of the harbor, would be prime targets. A pleasant thought tickled Anna's mind. She had an excuse to seek out Andrew. The gods were placing too much in the way of temptation before her. Her dubious virtue was in glorious danger. Pushing through the interlaced branches, a shortcut to the mall leading to Lady Liberty, she laughed at herself. Deep within her was a seventeen-year-old girl who steadfastly refused to be tamed by the questionable wisdom of middle age.

Stepping deeper into the brush, she watched her feet. If she waded into a copulating twosome it wouldn't be the first time, but coitus interrupt us was not her favorite pastime.

Branches closed behind her. Leaves met overhead. In front, foliage blotted out the light. Locked in this miniature copse, suddenly, momentarily, she heard the party boats go quiet: CDs being changed, sound systems shut down in sync, whatever caused the odd hush that occasionally falls on a
roomful of people when, for no explicable reason, all conversation stops at once. Overlaid on this palette of silence was the skritching of the runabout rubbing against the rocks, and a faint shush in the leaves near her.

As she stood there clasped in darkness, no flashlight, no underpants, ridiculous shoes--reality slapped Anna between the shoulder blades with a cold fishy smack. Peculiar things had been happening, things that left a trail of dead and broken bodies. In lust and boredom, she'd forgotten the world was a dangerous place. As Hatch had forgotten a predictable pattern could prove fatal.

The fog of preoccupation lifted and she stood stock-still, letting her senses sharpen. Thoughts of sex evaporated and she felt a chill despite the heat of the summer night. The racket of the party boats returned, robbing her of her sense of hearing, something she relied on when working without light.

What had alerted her? Merely the blindness of the brush? A sixth sense? Or was it the anxiety that had circled her all afternoon coming to roost? Danger rose around her with the scent of crushed leaves. And a different odor, one out of place: the mingled smell of garlic and stale sweat. Slowly, trying not to make a sound, she began backing out of the bushes. Her flip-flops scooped up leaf litter. One pulled off of her foot. She didn't stop to retrieve it. There had been a sound; the boat on the rocks and the shush. A breath. When she walked into the black of the brush she'd heard breathing. Now it was as if she could feel it on her bare skin.

A second step. A stick or thorn jabbed into the heel of her bare foot. She used the pain to help her stay centered. Maybe the leaves in front of her moved. Maybe they didn't. Through the raucous music she couldn't hear if someone moved with her. Two more steps and she would be clear of the copse, she could turn and run. Her left foot eased back, settling firmly. Now was not the time to emulate Japanese maidens being chased by monsters and fall down.

Out on the water, a Roman candle ignited. Hot-pink light flooded over her shoulders, illuminating the ground in neon. A yard away were boots; army boots, worn and scarred. She turned to run and sensed rather than saw movement from above. She was to be clubbed down as Corinne had been.

Protecting her head with her arms, she turned the meaty part of her shoulder to absorb the blow. It hit with such force that she staggered and went down on one knee. Before she could pull herself up, a flash of black, and the impact of a bootheel colliding with her temple flattened her. There followed a crushing weight that knocked the breath from her lungs and forced her face into the dirt.

The man was in a hurry. Her death was not on his agenda. She lay without moving, taking courage from the fact that there were plenty of live possums in the world. Playing dead came easy. Without breath, her brain rocking from a kick in the head, she doubted she could have risen if she tried.

No more attacks came. Breath returned in squeaking, niggardly drafts. When she was able, she pushed onto her hands and knees and crawled to the island's edge. Futilely, she tried to wipe clear eyes blurred with dirt and trauma. He'd taken the boat. Under the perfect cover of party boat music, he was motoring away.

Not because it would do any good but because she was hurting and, though the incident was over, shaken, Anna sought out Andrew.

He did not disappoint. He was strong and handsome and calm. First he ascertained that she wasn't going to die in the immediate future; then he checked the island to make sure the boatman had worked alone, Liberty's residents were unharmed and no damage had been done to the resource. The statue was locked for the night. Built on Fort Wood, she was a fortress unto herself. The lady was unhurt.

Anna waited at the ranger station. Her back was killing her. She didn't want to stand, sit, lie down or be alone. Until Andrew returned she leaned against the wall, her feet braced on the bottom of his desk, keeping her spine, a conduit of pain, in perfect alignment. Between blows to shoulder, back and temple, she believed it to be the only thing holding her together. The wall's support lessened the pressure.

Andrew came back and she allowed herself to be helped to a chair. He retrieved the first aid kit from the basement and gently cleaned the abrasion the kick to the face had left on her cheekbone. While he worked she told him what happened. When she described the assault to her person his brown eyes glowed with an anger that warmed her heart. Come first light, he would search the crime scene, but both doubted he'd learn much.

Cotton balls streaked with blood and dirt began to pile up on the desk. "You might get away without a black eye," Andrew said, surveying the damage. "The kick didn't land square. Looks like it glanced off, taking skin with it." He held her face in his hands. Anna could smell a faint promise of cologne. Not the usual stuff, but sweet and spicy. Maybe it was just the smell of the man. As he examined her wound, his face was close to hers, his skin flawless, eyelashes long. But she knew she'd break in a million pieces if she so much as raised her arms. Andrew never knew what a near miss he had.

"Let
me take a look at your back," he said. A considerate EMT, he walked around the chair rather than making her turn. With the detachment of a physician--or a black man touching a white woman in a racist world--he lifted the tank top, clinically careful not to expose too much of her.

A low whistle, then: "You've got to see this. It's perfect. Perfect, heck--it's evidence. Stay put. I'm getting the Polaroid."

He headed for the stairs. Gingerly, Anna raised herself from the chair. An eight-by-eleven-inch mirror was hung near the door so rangers could check to see if their hats were on straight before exposing themselves to the eye of the public.

Having removed it from its nail, she propped it against the telephone on the desk. Out of deference to Andrew's sensibilities, she held her top over her bare breasts after pulling it off. Each movement hurt, reminding her how frail individual components of the body are, how fortunate she was not to live with pain on a daily basis, how it behooved her to be more careful.

Agonizing craning of the neck and twisting of the torso brought her back into view, and with it, Andrew's evidence. Below her right shoulder blade, extending nearly to her kidney, was a bruise, a bootprint, the tread blood-purple, the heel black and angry red.

"An inch higher and your shoulder blade would have shattered. Two inches lower and he would have ruptured a kidney. This is a vicious person." The words were civil, the delivery icy. Andrew was cut out to defend the weak and rescue fair maidens. "Hold still." Anna obliged and he snapped half a dozen pictures.

"What do you think?" he asked. "Size ten, ten and a half?"

"Sixteen," Anna said, and he laughed.

"A work boot?"

"No." Andrew politely turned his back. Anna put her top back on. "An army boot."

The boot she'd seen in the crowd the day Agnes died.

The boot she'd seen in the subway when she was pushed.

And, she didn't doubt, the boot that had kicked the stairs from under her.

24

Anna had soaked and she had slept for a couple of hours. Patsy awakened her with a cheery "Happy Fourth of July," then, with the pronouncement "There is no rest for the wicked--or the ambitious," rushed off to work on Mrs. Weinstein's political event. The bathroom mirror gave Anna a damage report. As Andrew had predicted, she was spared the cosmetic misery of a black eye, but her cheekbone was an angry purple shot through with red abrasions, tender to the touch, battered bad enough it hurt to close her teeth.

The bootprint on her back had ripened to perfection. Bruises were blue-black ringed with red. Andrew had omitted the worst of the what-ifs. Two inches to the left and it might have snapped her spine. Soft-tissue injuries took the longest to heal. Anna would feel this boot for a long time.

This morning it felt as if the son of a hitch had stomped clear through to her belly. Muscles had screamed, bones ached, viscera roiled. Nausea had racked her cells, ruling her body with toxic tides.

Today she wanted to see Molly; she had a kayaking date with the good doctor, and another with Hatch's dad for Scotch and memories. Staring at her reflection in the glass, she felt far too old for any of those things, too banged-up to face crowds, noise or Molly's angry compassion when she saw what her only sister had allowed the world to do to her. Thoughts of Robert Louis Stevenson and the sofa had nearly seduced her into canceling everybody, when Mandy's puffy face appeared around the bathroom door. "Oh," she said, letting annoyance shine through feigned surprise. "It's you. I thought by now you would have gone back to wherever."

"Soon."

"Good. I hope you've got plans for the Fourth. I'm hanging out in
my
house, on
my
couch. Maybe I can get a little privacy."

"Big plans," Anna said. "I'll be out of your way before you can say 'Miss Manners.'"

"You're a laugh riot." Mandy slouched off in the direction of the kitchen.

Mentally, Anna apologized to the couch for abandoning it to a fate worse than death.

Dressing was an ordeal. She'd never stopped to think how many muscles it took to pull a shirt over one's head.

Because of the facial contusions, makeup was out. Since raising her arms higher than her shoulders set her back to spasming, she couldn't do anything with her hair. Jamming on Agnes Abigail's spud hat, Anna decided David Madison would have to take her as she was or not at all.

Movement helped, as did the already intense rays of the midmorning sun. She knew that when she stopped she'd feel rotten, but she enjoyed the slight reprieve. Liberty Island was mobbed. It was the lady's day of tribute; she stood for the dreams formalized on Independence Day. Since joining the National Park Service fourteen years ago,
Anna had worked every Fourth of July. It was a big day in the outdoor recreation business. Having no family, she'd been glad to volunteer to work the holiday. Other rangers got to stay home with their kids, Anna made time and a half, everybody won. Winding her way through the masses, trying not to get her fragile frame jostled, she realized she preferred it that way. Working on holidays, one wasn't required to have fun. There was no pressure, no disappointments. And she usually had a wonderful time. Park visitors fed her. She was part of a dozen parties but owed allegiance to none. If the gathering was boring, she moved on. If it was too rowdy or offensive, she arrested everybody.

Molly made the long hot journey worth every insult to Anna's bruised body. She was sitting up and had color in her cheeks. A woman's eyes could tell the blush was laid on from without, not generated from within, but its application bespoke a desire to live. Frederick was there, of course. It was a small wonder his rear end hadn't grown to the chair. Anna was glad to see him. Glad to see his shirt was pressed and his shorts clean and well fitting.

Easing down onto the cool linoleum, the wall bracing her aching back, she told the story of her adventure. With loving ears to hear, she found herself feeling sorry for the woman who got stomped. Molly gave her usual lecture on the benefits of getting a real job where clients rarely tried to kill you. Frederick's eyes glinted with a need to pulverize the man who had battered her, and Anna felt at home.

Once her tale was digested, Molly rang for the nurse and demanded Dr. Madison be summoned. By the time Anna realized it was for her, it was too late. Madison shined his penlight in her eyes, palpated her spine, gave her a handful of Advil and a prescription for Valium to help with the spasms. He was a conscientious physician, so the scrip was for ten tablets, nonrefillable. Enough to get her through a few days, not enough to get her hooked.

"Are we still on for two-thirty?" he asked as he was leaving.

"Two-thirty," Anna agreed.

"Maybe kayaking is not such a good idea," he said, thinking of her injuries. "Maybe we should just tuck in for an at-home." He winked, said, "Meet me in my office. By the way, nice Idaho potato," and was gone.

Anna had forgotten she still wore Agnes Abigail's cap. She left it on. By now she'd have such a severe case of hat hair that hiding it was a cosmetic courtesy.