At the automatic glass door entrance to headquarters he realizes that he’s still holding a metal hanger with a clean, almost new pink-and-white dress. He stares at the dress for a moment and wonders how such a seemingly insignificant garment could have in its own way propagated the death of two people and ruined the lives of two others. He looks around, a combination of indecision and embarrassment, and then drops the garment in the metal wastebasket to the right of the automatic doors. It will sit undisturbed among the used coffee cups, food wrappers, and other assorted garbage that visitors and cops both leave there until the next day’s pickup.
He nods to the desk officer, walks through the side door to his cubicle, and punches in his home number. Maybe they could all go out for pizza tonight.
CHAPTER 31
Posner enters the house for what he imagines will be the last time. It’s his first trip back without the police since Sara died. He unlocks and pushes open the front door and half expects a weight to impede its progress. Yet the door has no memory and glides open smoothly, as if Heidi’s body had never blocked its movement. He steps into the hall and for a moment stands where Sara died in his arms. He cannot stop the tears that come and doesn’t try. The impossibility of the two separate deaths within almost the same space overwhelms him. He hesitates in the doorway as he regains some control, while he burns with anger first at Stern and then at himself.
Others are waiting behind him, but they are patient and say nothing. They all know what he’s been through. He’s listed his home with a local broker. There are two movers with him and someone who calls herself a relocation consultant. He needs the help. They will go through everything he owns and segregate items either for disposal, contribution, sale, or storage pending ultimate shipment to the West Coast. For now he still sleeps in the New York apartment, but he’s also put that up for sale. He tries to think of other things. Nothing will bring Sara back. He lives with his own guilt.
He needs to move far away and plans to make a deposit on a two-bedroom house rental in Napa Valley. From the photos the house seems small, which is what he wants. It sits on a third of an elevated acre, but the adjacent house has at least ten acres of planted grape vines that roll up the hill toward him. An option to buy is included in the lease. The purchase price seems very high, although he understands that Napa seems to have inflated real estate values. He is now prepared to spend his days looking at sunsets over a vineyard instead of sunrises over the ocean.
The important thing now is to get away. He spends the next two hours supervising what to do with furniture, paintings, lithographs, file cabinets, and an assorted medley of things he’s kept without purpose. He’s long since disposed of the windbreaker and its content of broken heel and bit of plastic. Satisfied with their progress, he leaves the others to their tasks, retreats to the master bedroom, and closes the door. He tosses a suitcase on the bed and fills it with those items of his clothing he wishes to keep. The rest he consigns to a large plastic bag for delivery to a local nonprofit, or into another trash bag to be tossed. He fills a separate bag with Sara’s things, first from the closet and then out of the undersized dresser. She never kept too much clothing here. It might make too much of a commitment.
In her second dresser drawer he swallows a deep breath as he pulls out a few worn pages from a dated woman’s magazine wedged behind two sweaters. The article seems to be a brief guide to enhancing prospects for pregnancy. He notes it begins with a discussion of ovulation cycles and the heading immediately ratchets his memory back several years.
He repeats the same thought he’s had since his legal troubles began that everything might have been very different if there were children. He might have shifted his workload, or more importantly, his work ethic, so he could spend more time at home. There would never have been a Heidi or a Stern. He still thinks of this, years after he and Sara have stopped trying to get pregnant. Yes. Things would have been very different if there were children. He crumples the pages into a tight wad and flings them into the bag of trash.
The last item from a side drawer is a black tee shirt. He holds it in his hands before he buries his face in the cotton. The cloth mutes his sobs so those in the next room cannot hear. He staggers backward until his legs reach the bed. He sits and blames himself over and over, but there is nothing more to do.
Stern is now under observation in a psychiatric ward. There is no question of his guilt in Sara’s death. Wisdom and Bennett have both told him that if a person introduces a lethal weapon to a scene, then the person is guilty of a crime, probably manslaughter, even if the ensuing death was accidental.
Stern will also likely be convicted of Heidi’s death, despite the man’s denial of guilt and attempts to implicate Posner. The theory seems clear. Jealousy must have possessed him to follow the bus in a rented car and then trail the two of them through their tour of the area and then to Posner’s house. While he was out searching for his wallet, Stern came in and confronted Heidi. He either pushed her or she fell to her death. Everything after that just added to his need to protect himself. His report of her disappearance, the visit to the local police, and even his visit to Posner were all meant to draw suspicion away from himself.
The only dicey part was the burial. At first, Stern must have gone nuts wondering why her death wasn’t reported. Indeed, he did follow Posner out to the overlook and that’s what he’d told the cops. Still, it was his word against Posner’s, and Stern was the one with both the motive and opportunity. And besides, anyone involved can see the man’s a nutcase. Posner is blameless with regard to Heidi’s death according to the County District Attorney’s Office. He has no intention of ever admitting to the burial. What good would it possibly do? He has even researched the penalties for unlawful disposal of a body and they are relatively minor. No. He will not involve himself in the burial. He is now free to move to the coast whenever he wants, as long as he makes himself available, if necessary, for a trial.
He seethes with hate whenever he thinks of Stern. The man will get what he deserves, but it will not bring Sara back. Dammit! He thought things were going to be better after that weekend in the city. And then everything fell apart. Like Humpty Dumpty. Except that no one can put his life together again. He wipes his face with her shirt, holds it to his cheek, and then slips it into the bag with the rest of her clothes.
He’s gone through everything except for the white leather jewelry box on the dresser. He remembers she only kept costume stuff in this house. She either wore her engagement and wedding rings, or kept them in the apartment with other items like the Mikimoto pearls and the jade pendant he’d bought for her in Taiwan. He sighs, pulls the box off the dresser, and sits back down on the bed.
There isn’t much to go through. Certainly nothing of value. It’s much more a sort of junk container than a jewelry box. He finds a broken Swatch watch, a “Kerry ’04” button, and three boxes of matches from The Lodge restaurant in East Hampton crammed under schedules for a local yoga studio and the Hampton Jitney. He reaches for the trash bag and begins to drop in the junk items. There is no jewelry and so he decides to toss the box away as well. When he lifts it though, he hears a small rattle. He reopens the box and sees a part of a gold chain wedged in the back of the lower shelf. A slight pull and it springs free. It is a thin gold chain necklace from which hangs a small capital H.