“I do. He was a carriage driver for a wealthy family that lived on Fifth Avenue.”
“That’s right. Well, one of his great-greats-I don’t know how many greats, girl, but Big Logan, as we called him, was born in 1893-and one of his ancestors was a man named Epiphany Bateman, born in Tuskegee.”
“Who gained his freedom before the Civil War.”
“Long before that,” Vickee said. “Epiphany made his way to New York, where he established himself as a bootblack. He did well enough to buy one of the first lots of land, in 1825, in what became known as Seneca Village. Epiphany was a trustee of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church-”
“Built right in the Park? Or what became the Park?”
“Just where that playground is now on 85th. Dig down, you’ll find the pew that Epiphany Bateman sat in every Sunday. It’s all in the family Bible. The Mother AME Zion Church, Alex, was considered the wealthiest black church in America at that time. These folk even built their own schools for their kids. Colored School #3 is what it was called.”
“And All Angels’?” I asked.
“That was the third church in Seneca Village, built closer to 1850. The community was so upscale that whites began to move in, German and Irish immigrants mostly. All Angels’ was the only one of the three churches in the community that was integrated, so Epiphany moved his family over to worship there.”
“Does Mercer know all this?”
Vickee smiled at me. “Well, that depends on whether he listened to my father when he’d tell all those family stories. I got no guarantee of that.”
“When these villagers were moved out of the Park, Vickee, did they set up another community? Are there lists of the family names in church or city records?”
“So the dead girl is white. You’re looking to make the killer a scion of Seneca, are you, Ms. Alex?”
“I’m looking for long shots, Vick. Are there names?”
“The families all scattered, sadly enough. Some of my ancestors moved down to Little Africa.”
I gave her a blank stare.
“C’mon. Don’t you know? Little Africa was a small black community on Minetta Lane in Greenwich Village, but the people of color were later forced out of there. Some stayed on the Upper West Side, like the rest of my relatives, and some moved on to the Bronx.”
“You started me on this track. The black angel, could it really be a relic from a church that’s now buried beneath Central Park?”
“Columbia University anthropologists did a dig a few years ago. Talk to them. They found dinner plates and cow bones and teapots, and a few crosses from one of the churches. Of course there are relics. It was a vibrant community for the thirty years of its existence. Then it was just razed to the ground and covered with plantings and grasses.”
Vickee’s phone rang, and she grabbed it. “Hey, babe. Everything good?” She listened while Mercer told her something and then she replied, “I’ll tell her. And Alex is real interested in Seneca Village. She thinks you ought to have the Rothschild anthropology team from Columbia look at the black figure-in case angels are part of the theme here, and in case one of my long-lost relatives is still wilding through the Park. See you tonight.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“So Mike’s just dropping off his mother after Mass. He’s agreed to spend the afternoon with Mercer, and he said he’ll open up about Jessica Pell. That’s all good.”
“Thanks a million.”
“And Mike said he forgot to tell you last night, but the autopsy was negative for any signs of trauma in the vaginal vault. No semen. Sexually active, it appears, and never pregnant. Plus, so long in the water, there’s nothing on the body for DNA. Dead end there.”
“Mechanism of death?” I asked Vickee, whom I assumed had heard it from Mercer.
“Depressed fracture of the skull.”
A blow or blows of such force that the smooth outer bone of the vault was cracked and depressed inward.
“Nothing from the canvasses, I guess,” I said.
“We’d each have heard about it from someone by now, don’t you think? Let’s get some clothes on and go for a run on Black Point. And leave your phone right here. Be off duty for an hour or two.”
I hated to run, preferring to get my exercise stretching and doing pliés in a ballet class I tried to attend on Saturdays when I was in the city. But Vickee had started her regimen when she was training at the Police Academy and kept her well-toned body in shape by jogging five miles a day.
“On the beach, no less? We can’t run in sand.”
“Stop whining. It’s packed as hard as concrete when the tide’s out. Let’s go.”
In five minutes we were on our way to Black Point, one of the many gated beaches that lined the spectacular south shore of the Vineyard, where the Atlantic surf pounded the island. Massachusetts was one of only two states that allowed ownership of property down to the mean low water mark, so even in the height of the season, only owners with keys could access the wide strips of sandy seashore that were punctuated every few miles by handsome public beaches.
There were only three other cars in the parking lot. We made our way over the dunes, where the sight of the seemingly endless ocean with its variety of blue and gray and aqua waters roiled and pounded against the sand.
We dropped our bags near the entrance and stretched, warming in the sun that was almost directly overhead.
Vickee’s body-she was an inch taller than my five-foot-ten-cast a long shadow as she took off to the east. I satisfied myself by staying well behind her, trying to keep a steady pace.
I was drawn to the ocean view. Many years ago I had scattered Adam’s ashes on this beach-his favorite place to be with me-and I always felt connected to him here, whether I sat high on the dunes as the sun went down or swam in the waves, soaking up his spirit.
And I glanced down from time to time while I ran, not looking for beach glass like a child, but one day expecting to see the shimmer of a small diamond on a gold band. It was here, after Valerie’s violent death, that Mike had thrown the engagement ring he’d bought for her into a surf that appeared to be as full of rage as he was, though I tried in vain to console him.
Vickee and I stayed at the beach for most of the afternoon-reading crime novels, napping, and gossiping. We went back to the house to shower and pack up, stop for an early supper at the Chilmark Tavern, and drive to the airport. In the morning, my caretaker would bring the car home for me.
The flight back was also easy. We hugged good-bye and each took a cab to our homes, Vickee to Queens and me back to Manhattan.
It was only nine P.M. when I unlocked my door and went inside. I poured a drink for myself and went into the bedroom to play back my messages.
The first one was from Mike, who had obviously chosen to avoid talking to me by not calling my cell. “Hey, Coop. Thanks for putting Mercer on to me. It helped to open up to him. And when you come to the canvass in the morning, Sergeant Chirico wants you to hang with him, not me. Just in case word is out about Jessica Pell, he doesn’t want to add any fuel to the fire. G’night.”
Seconds after that message had come in at eight, there had been a second call. No one spoke, but from the background noise it sounded as though the caller was standing on a city street. I walked to my large window, which offered such a grand vista twenty stories above the sidewalk, just reassuring myself of the normal traffic below.
It was a hang-up, but the number registered on the caller ID wasn’t familiar to me. Even though there was no name displayed, the number had been captured on my dial because it was one that I had apparently phoned at some previous time.
I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out the emergency numbers for the DA’s office, running my finger down the pages, scanning for those with a 646 area code. At the very end was the list of judges who had agreed to make themselves available to take nighttime calls when our assistants needed a signature on a search warrant.