Vanished in the Dunes (6 page)

He says he vaguely remembers the woman because she asked him how to get to the beach from the bus stop and is unaware of any other conversations she had. He feels he has covered himself with a veneer of truth. In five minutes it is all over. Wisdom writes down Posner's New York City phone number as well the one in Sara's office.

“It's useful to know how we can reach potential witnesses,” Wisdom says, strictly methodical, like an accountant doing an audit. The comment makes Posner wonder whether Wisdom knows he has pending issues with the Justice Department, but the idea seems farfetched.

“Well, thanks for your help,” Wisdom says as they walk down the stairs.

Posner opens the front door, yet finds it impossible to ignore the presence of Wisdom standing on the very tiles where Heidi's head split open. He wills himself into calm, yet feels the tremor of nausea rising in his throat.

“Sorry I couldn't be of more help,” he says as he pushes the door farther open.

“It's part of the process,” answers Wisdom. “We'll call you again if we have any more questions. Thanks for your time. We know you've lived here for a number of years, so we won't bother you again if we don't have to.”

Posner shakes the offered hand and immediately worries that his fingers were too damp or even trembling, but if so, Wisdom seems to take little notice. As soon as the door closes, Posner races to the nearest bathroom, gagging uncontrollably, but it was not until three hours later that he'd wondered whether Wisdom might have heard his spasmodic retching from the driveway.

Posner realizes that innocence maybe a state of mind long before it becomes a legal issue. An observer may only glimpse a part of the truth, yet all sorts of preconceived views stir the pot of judgment. A day after Wisdom left, Posner remembers a vacation he and Sara had taken some ten years before to Israel. They stayed at a hotel on the Sea of Galilee. On the Friday morning they arrived, the hotel was already busy with Israelis away for the weekend, but by late Saturday afternoon most of the locals were gone, as Sunday was a workday.

He and Sara lounged on adjoining chaises. At five in the afternoon, the lake shimmered in dwindling sunlight. The large pool, so filled just a day before with vacationers, was empty. A small tote bag stuffed with their wallets, credit cards, passports, and plane tickets rested under his chaise.

They had treated themselves to a bottle of a decent local white wine, and by the second glass they had both eased into languid drowsiness, that never-never land barely a breath or two above sleep, impervious to all the traditional worries that flood daily life.

And they both knew, without a word, that later, after raising themselves from drowsiness, there would be sex in the large bedroom with a view of the lake. And after showers there would be a quiet dinner of salad and St. Peter's fish on the restaurant terrace, alone except for a few other random visitors and the odd waiter.

He was on the edge of a dream when the shouts roused him. The words were in English, so there is no mistake in their purpose. A security guard on the far end of the pool shouted, “Stop him. Stop the thief.”

Posner sat up, followed the guard's pointed arm and looked to the far end of the grounds. A boy was running away, no more than a flash of thin dark arms in the twilight, but there was enough light to see that the boy clutched Posner's recognizable beige bag in one hand as he sprinted across a long stretch of small jagged boulders
that bordered the hotel grounds. At first Posner stared in some awe as the boy glided effortlessly across the stones, an animal species that levitated above the sharpest edges, and then he raised himself upright and began to scream.

“Catch him! Catch him!”

Only then did he spring from the chaise and begin to run after the boy. Another guard at the edge of vision moved into a slow trot, at best barely a performance gesture, and without energy.

Posner ran after the boy and quickly became the lead pursuer. The boy had somehow approached the chaise and snatched his bag. Posner could not allow such a theft without some action. The boy turned once to check his pursuers. There was a brief flash of dark arms and hair before he ducked behind a rock outcropping.

Posner continued to run, but he was barefoot and the sharp rocks cut flesh from his instep. He had been violated, and the pain from the rocks soon slowed his pace and a security guard easily passed him. He finally pulled to a stop and bent over. He felt his legs wobble as if in spasm. Just as he straightened up, he saw his bag between two large rocks no more than ten feet away. The thief had dropped it while making his escape. He checked the contents. Everything was there. He turned back toward the hotel and saw Sara standing near where the rocky boundary began. He waved to her as he held the tote above his head and jammed his thumb in the air.

A noise from behind caused him to turn back. The security guard was standing next to a boy. The guard began to slap him again and again. The boy soon fell to the ground and the guard then kicked him repeatedly. There was a scream and then silence. It was all over in seconds. The guard turned and looked back to where Posner stood. Posner held the bag in the air and the guard offered a weak smile and began to walk toward him.

“Why were you hitting him, and why didn't you call the police?” asked Posner.

“They're all the same. Fucking Arab thieves. We couldn't prove anything so this is the best way to treat them,” was all the guard said.

As they walked back together, Posner looked over his shoulder and saw the boy stand and walk toward a group of similar age. He watched the guard peel away back to his post on the far side of the pool while he massaged his right hand with his left.

The next morning as they checked out, the hotel manager told Posner that the actual thief was an Israeli boy from the neighborhood who had a recent history of such actions. The boy's father found out and advised them early that morning, but the hotel declined to call in the police.

“His father will discipline him, and that is enough,” the manager said. At Sara's suggestion, Posner had started to ask about the other boy, the innocent Arab boy, but thought better of raising the issue. “What good would it do?” he later asked her. “It's a cultural thing, and innocence is not always what it seems to be.”

Ten days after Detective Wisdom's visit, Posner sits alone in the living room of the Manhattan apartment watching television. Sara has consented to let him back in the apartment for a few days at a time, and he's grateful she doesn't raise the old issue of his fidelity. She asks him to sleep on the living room sofa bed. He doesn't argue and just accepts that he must somehow gradually regain her trust.

“Television is a good way to quickly decompress,” she's always said when they'd drink wine and watch together, but she isn't here now, and he thinks that the glass of Merlot he sips is probably a more effective path to decompression. The show is one of the newer crime-scene spin-offs that have lately invaded the networks. A police forensic team is searching a car for evidence of an old homicide. One of the cops uses a glow-in-the-dark chemical to reveal blood traces, although the suspected crime occurred years before.

The cop's partner remarks, “We wouldn't even have a shot at
getting these results without probable cause giving us a chance to search the car.”

The words stay with Posner long after he goes to bed. Probable cause. What does it really mean? he wonders as he tosses for several hours before exhaustion plunges him into oblivion.

As soon as Sara leaves the next morning, he checks the Internet for information. The chemical referred to in the program that glows when applied to blood is called Luminol. It's been used for some time by crime-scene investigators to detect traces of blood. The only apparent way to avoid a positive test result is to rip out the contaminated surface in its entirety. There is scant chance of even such simple renovation of a few tiles without involving Sara, since the entrance area was redone only three years before. He used bleach to remove all surface stains from the tiles and grouting, but the blood traces are still there, an image his mind cannot release, and he begins to wonder whether he will ever be liberated.

His Internet search yields one small, but unconvincing, consolation. He uncovers a comment from a defense attorney, which suggests that Luminol can produce a fake blood positive when it reacts with other substances including vegetation and cleaning fluid.

He waits till nearly ten to call Mark Rothman, his attorney. They haven't spoken for several months, which is a positive sign with regard to his corporate uncertainties. Still, he needs to speak to Mark. His attorney specializes in criminal law, albeit only white collar, as far as Posner knows. He realizes they could speak in privileged circumstances, but he is not anywhere prepared to share his secret. He is kept on hold for several minutes until a secretary announces that she'll put him through.

“This is Mark,” grumbles a voice. Posner pictures the slightly built man with a pink scalp sitting in his black leather chair, feet raised on
the far corner of the desk, an unlit pipe stem clutched in the corner of his mouth.

“You didn't need to call. Nothing's happening, and that's good news.” Mark's voice is clearer now. Posner imagines that the pipe has moved to Mark's hand, or even to the desktop.

“I just wanted to check in,” says Posner. “It's been a while.”

“Like I said, there's no problem. Anything else I can do for you today?”

Posner feels he is being rushed off the phone, yet he realizes the man is not a friend, so he keeps his response brief.

“Oh, I was just curious about something,” answers Posner. “When the authorities want to investigate something or someone, and they need a search warrant, what does probable cause mean?”

“There's nothing I can imagine you have to worry about on that score,” answers Mark. “As far as probable cause, shall I check the law dictionary, or can you get the short version?”

“The short version will work.”

“Okay, then. The gist of it is that if the authorities feel there are reasonable grounds for an evidence search based on the circumstances, a judge will grant the warrant.”

Posner is silent for several seconds before speaking. “I thought the phrase was probable cause, but you said reasonable grounds. What's the difference?”

“None really, except that some decision about ten years ago seems to have expanded the authorities' ability to search. In fact it's not too hard now for the Feds or even local cops to get a warrant. I mean if someone's innocent, then they have nothing to hide. Right?”

A part of Posner would like to spend more time in New York City. It is a conscious mental effort to distance himself from the accident. The city is not unfamiliar. He had worked there for years. But with
Sara's current mood, he's forced to opt for the solitude of his house on the end of Long Island in spite of the disturbing memories that greet him whenever he opens the front door.

He prefers to think about the positive side of staying at the beach. The house is in an area that has other advantages: the broad sandy beaches, the ocean that shifts and amazes him with every tidal surge, and the sea terns that glide and swoop for prey among the small fish or mollusks along the surf. But most of all he savors those days when the weather rises up and feeds the air with the raw energy of a storm. Not a hurricane, for sure, but the wild uncontrolled release of passion that only some act of nature can bring; a happening that boils the ocean into a frenzy and diminishes the role of man who must hunker down amidst the torrent and wait to see if there will be another day. He loves all of this, but now is torn between avoiding the house and staying in New York, but this decision is now controlled by Sara. His mind foolishly tells him that by living a hundred miles away in the city, the wall of concrete and brick buildings will somehow insulate him from what rests under the ground at the Montauk Overlook.

Perhaps the city would be easier to take if things between him and Sara were more normal, but this isn't the reality of their relationship. It also seems that she can only tolerate his New York presence in small doses, as if her forgiveness of his presumed betrayal can only be earned in similar micro measures. He accepts this as the only way to heal their relationship. The consequence of this arrangement is that he's really left with no choice at all about where to spend most of his time.

He constantly thinks about the late spring rains. He checks the weather daily in the papers and on the Weather Channel. When heavy rain is forecast across the eastern end of Long Island, and especially over the isolated area where Heidi's body rests, his chest falls away as the prospect grows that the water will slowly erode his secret.

He imagines the topsoil washing away, until someone, a hiker, or
his dog, even a fox or deer pulls away at one end of an exposed end of plastic bag until some appendage is exposed. He has a compelling urge to drive back to the overlook and walk through the brush to see if his secret is still safe, but he has so far resisted such impulse.