Willy straightened, pocketed his gun, and returned to the street, cautiously peering around the corner. The bum was on all fours, crawling around, uselessly wailing and trying to collect his scattered belongings. The rest of the block was empty, but he could already hear the sounds of startled voices asking one another if they'd heard what they thought they had.
Willy continued in the direction he'd been headed, his casual pace belying his vigilance.
But the family reunion wouldn't happen tonight. He was not going home. He was confident he hadn't been followed here. He'd been keeping an eye out instinctively. Which meant the shooter had known of his mother's address, and had selected it as the perfect site for an ambush, and the perfect way to make Willy Kunkle join Nate Lee in the hereafter.
For Willy was pretty sure he'd just met Ron Cashman.
Chapter 18
Ward Ogden was already at the dock when the three of them drove up and parked near the small shed the ferry crew used as an office and lunchroom. He was pacing the top of the ramp, watching the early morning sun flash off the mirror-smooth water of Long Island Sound. Below him, nestled into the boat slip like a foot in an open-back shoe, was the Michael Cosgrove, a small, steel-decked ferry with a wheelhouse and an engine room mounted like long, narrow bookends on the starboard and port sides of what otherwise would have looked like a raft.
On the horizon, as flat as an airstrip except for a low growth of trees, was Hart Island, site of the largest potter's field in the United States.
Ogden turned as they approached. "Good morning. Everyone sleep well?"
Gunther and Sammie answered in the affirmative. Willy, typically, asked, "When do we leave?"
Ogden was unfazed. "Soon as the truck from Rikers arrives."
Sammie looked at him quizzically.
"A detail of volunteers from Rikers comes here every day," he explained, "along with a truck of unclaimed bodies. It helps the city cut costs and it gives the prisoners a little time outside the walls. They're very respectful," he added without being prompted. "Probably more so than if they were just city workers. Could be some of them appreciate the fine line between them and the people in the boxes."
"There's a truckload every day?" Sammie asked.
Ogden smiled reassuringly. "No, no. Not a load, just a truck. Sometimes it only has a box or two on board. It does mount up, though." He pointed at the island. "Since that opened up right after the Civil War, three-quarters of a million people have been buried out there." He glanced at his watch. "The ME's office is sending a vehicle later for Nathan Lee's body, after it's been exhumed."
They all turned at the sound of a large white box truck trundling down the feeder road toward them. Its sides were labeled, "Queens Health Network" over the names of two hospitals. Behind it was a Department of Correction bus.
They stood back while the correction officers and the ferry crew went through the formalized routine of loading all vehicles on board, including Ogden's car. Once that was done, Joe, Willy, and Sammie stepped onto the steel deck themselves and watched while the ferry's engine kicked to life, belched a cloud of diesel smoke from its stack, and began plowing a line through the cold, smooth water toward Hart Island, just over three thousand feet away.
There was a mystical sensation to the trip. Intermingled with the trees, crumbling, decrepit buildings slowly began emerging into view as the boat neared the shore, lending a feeling of a lost civilization to the already known quantity of just under a million lost souls.
Ogden continued acting as tour guide, standing at the chain closing off the ferry's bow ramp and pointing at the various landmarks. "Lot of history to this place, beyond the potter's field. There was a prison out here once, a shoe factory, a psychiatric hospital and drug rehab center. There's a peace monument they put up after World War Two, and, as ironies would have it, the remnants of a missile launching pad within sight of it."
"Hold it," Gunther said. "They had missiles out here?"
"During the Cold War, yeah." Ogden gestured to the left. "On the island's northern end. It was one of those ramp-mounted things, lay covered up in a shallow trench till needed. Gone now, of course, but the hatches are still there, along with what I guess is a command center-all you can see is a manhole with a huge rock on top of it. I always wondered what was inside. Far as I know, nobody's ever looked."
They were drawing near and the crew was getting ready to dock. Through the windows of the bus, Gunther could see the dozen or so prisoners enjoying the early sunshine.
They drove in a caravan to the island's southern end along a rutted gravel road that cut between the shore and what looked like not just an assemblage of buildings-as it had appeared from the water-but an entire village, complete with hospital, church, power plant, greenhouse, and homes, all laid out along a grid of paved streets, and all choked by a junglelike growth of young hardwood saplings, which made the whole thing resemble a bizarre northern version of some Mayan ruin.
"It's sort of a shame, really," Ogden said as he drove last in line. "It's a beautiful setting, inhabited solely by the dead. Seems like somebody could find a way to get something up and running again out here."
They rounded the island's largely treeless southern tip, observing the faint impressions left by several long, narrow, parallel trenches in the sod, and parked near a backhoe situated beside a utility shed. There, everybody got out, the prisoners to unload and stack the wooden coffins, the others to wait and watch.
"I think it's about a hundred and fifty coffins per trench," Ogden continued. "Different for the children's area, of course. They stack the adults three deep and two across, end to end. You'll notice, as they off-load each box, that one of the prisoners will number it with a router, so they can be cross-indexed with a location map later on in case they need to be retrieved. That's how they'll find Mr. Lee."
As he spoke, that's exactly what was happening. The box truck's back was opened and several orange-clad prisoners began dragging out the contents to where each one could be branded with a number. In the meantime, deep in the open trench, another party was getting ready to receive and stack the boxes in regimented fashion. As Ogden had said, they were quiet and respectful of their duties, working with peaceful decision.
The New York detective turned toward a long rectangular patch of raw earth immediately adjacent to the open hole. "As luck would have it, they filled in that last trench yesterday. Otherwise, we could've just shoveled out a little dirt and found the box we're after. Not to worry, though, these guys are pretty good at what they do.
"They'll be at it awhile, though," he said. "Afterward, the prisoners will be taken to a small, secure compound near the missile pad for lunch. The exhumation will happen just before then. So, if you want to walk around a bit, feel free. It's pretty interesting. The really old graves are to the north-lots of slightly sunken troughs-and a ton of geese that live there."
Willy tentatively touched Sammie's forearm with the back of his hand. "Go for a walk?" he asked.
Surprised by the unusual offer, she fell into step beside him as he headed north toward the abandoned settlement.
"I'm sorry I blew up yesterday," he said after several minutes of walking in silence.
"You're in a tough spot," she answered, figuring she'd let him lead the conversation.
"Still…"
She kept quiet.
They came to the outskirts of the empty, ghostly, mostly brick-built buildings, almost every door and window of which was open to the casual onlooker. It was like touring a long-forgotten movie set.
"I reach a point, sometimes," he continued, "where all I got left is my anger. It's the only thing keeping me together."