First the outer one, and then the inside one. He sees her face again. What can change in a few minutes? he wonders. Yet she looks paler, as if the Iranian sun has begun to recede from her skin.
He pulls out the straw bag and removes the cell phone with the idea that later he will smash it into bits and distribute the scrap residue in the ocean. He reties the bag and stops.
He needs a plan. He needs to think. He walks upstairs and stares out the window at the ocean. The dark clouds have passed and the absence of motion at the tops of the sand pines tells him the wind has died. The sun hangs white, low, and alone to the west. Sara will be on her way to her Long Island meeting. He doesn’t have much time, but his sense of logic and planning begin to return. He knows what he will do next, but first he washes the glass she used, returns it to the cabinet, and recorks the wine, which he leaves on the countertop. He stands at the top of the stairs, and then moves down toward the silvery bundle.
He’s late getting to East Hampton Airport to pick up Sara. There’s been just too much to do, too much to think about. He needed to put things as they should be before she comes. As he drives, he remembers how they met. It was her father who introduced them at a year-end cocktail reception at Posner’s firm where her father’s investment company was a client.
“Sara, this is Amos Posner, whose firm handles some of our overseas commodities business,” Jacob Auslander spoke as one hand pressured Amos’s elbow to turn.
Amos pivoted his body away from the open bar without the glass of red wine he’d ordered and faced a very tall brunette with shoulder-length hair, dark eyes, and a clear, pale complexion. She was wearing a simple black cocktail dress with a strand of tiny pearls and matching earrings. He absorbed all of this in seconds, even before Jacob introduced his daughter Sara.
“She’s a lawyer. Just moved back east from Chicago.”
Jacob went on for at least another minute, but Amos wasn’t listening, only looking.
“Don’t forget your wine,” she said breaking into their mutual concentration.
Soon after they met, they discovered that she was coincidentally doing legal work for a British subsidiary of his firm. There was a chance meeting in London less than three months later. Three weeks after, they spent a weekend at Inverlochy Castle in Scotland and within six months they were married.
And now it’s possible that the very survival of their marriage has come down to what’s happened today and what he’s done about all of it. He fights off a series of tremors that invade his hands, rubs sweaty palms on his pants, and wills himself to stay calm as he pulls up to the terminal entrance.
No one stands in front of the doors. He’s late. The clock on the dash reads twenty past, yet she should be there. Should have already dropped the rental off. He leaves the car and steps a few feet inside the small terminal, which is nearly empty, but doesn’t see her. Back in his car, he reaches for his cell phone to call, but a message is waiting. Sara called. Why didn’t he hear the ring? Yet the reason is immediately obvious when he sees that the call came in earlier during that time when he was busy agonizing and then acting on a plan to remove the body. The message is harsh, almost cruel, as if she had spit the words out.
That’s it. Just a few lousy sentences. The words at first have the effect of instant paralysis. His throat tightens and his hands shake in uncontrolled frenzy. He sits without moving while the engine idles and he feels the heat in her voice. He plays the message over. Then again. One part of him might even have expected something like this after the way things were going, but not today. God, not today. He doesn’t want to go back to the house, but he has to. He can’t follow her back into the city much as he’d like to. He’ll have to wait till she’s ready. And maybe he’s forgotten to clean up something back at the house. He drives back in a state of semishock, yet calms down enough to rationalize that it’s better this way, isn’t it? What would he say to her if she was here? If he told her the truth, she wouldn’t believe him in a million years, not after all her recent suspicions. No, it’s better this way. Just as long as it doesn’t last, but he can’t worry about that now.
Three hours earlier, Amos had driven east to a scenic overlook parking area nearly three miles past the village of Montauk, a right-hand turnoff on the road to Montauk Point State Park. The overlook had views of the water and dunes, but at seven o’clock on an early May evening, dusk had begun to settle. A stand of pine trees at one end of the parking area had already morphed the asphalt into dark shadows when Posner pulled his car into the area.
The lot was empty. He drove to the darkened end where the car was largely hidden from the main road. He shut off the engine and rolled down the window. A few stray birds hooted into the dusk, but otherwise everything was quiet. This was the last moment he had to decide. He could still change his mind, but he had already thought everything through. There was no turning back.
He chose a level site more than a hundred feet away from the lot amidst a dense thicket of woods. The ground was covered with pine needles and other forest debris. This was why he brought the rake as well as the shovel. He worked quickly, as there was always the odd chance that his car mightbe spotted. He raked an area clean and then began to dig. The ground was soft from spring rains and he surprised himself when he managed to excavate to a depth of nearly three feet in only a half hour. His clothes were covered with soil and sweat stains by the time he walked back to the parking area. He almost expected to see a police cruiser waiting alongside his car, and slowly peered around a set of pine trees at the edge of the lot, but the area was quiet. Darkness had already fallen heavily across the overlook.
He opened the trunk and stared at the silver plastic package. That’s all there is now, he told himself, just a package to be disposed of. The form was much heavier, much more rigid than when he first moved it to the car. He needed to partially squat to prop the body on his back. At first he staggered under the unbalanced load. He teetered backward three steps before he somehow switched his weight forward and stumbled ahead until he bumped into the open trunk. He steadied himself and cautiously shifted the weight across his right shoulder until he felt secure. He closed the trunk and began to walk into the woods, but his gait was uncertain. He wobbled as if drunk, barely able to control his motion until he realized that he could manage his movements far better by going from tree to tree.
He stopped after ten feet, leaned against a tree, and pulled the flashlight from his left-hand pocket to check on the location. The woods were dark now, although a faint twilight glow was still visible through the trees when he looked up. He was nearly back to the spot where he dug when he stumbled over a surface tree root. He fell forward and the body pitched to the ground as his arm lost its grip. The flashlight flew from his left hand. He heard a crack as it landed against a rock and everything turned black. He was engulfed in darkness.
He scrambled about in a panic. The bag was still there, just to his right, but he needed light to finish what he started. He had to finish. He couldn’t just stop. He had to protect himself. There was no other way. He crawled to the left and stretched his hand in an arc that swept up branches, pebbles, twigs and pine needles. He kept on with his search. The flashlight couldn’t have fallen too far. A tightness rose in his throat. He was about to stop and cry when his fingers touched a cylinder. He pulled it forward and sat up. He did the first thing he thought of. He shook the flashlight. Nothing except a rattle. Loose, he thought. Something was loose. He slid his right hand to the lens cover and slowly tried to turn the end that emitted the light. It moved. Nearly two turns later the light jumped out at him. He saw everything, the silver bag that rested on the ground, and only a few yards away, a mound of dirt that surrounded a trench.
He stood, but was so dizzy with relief he stumbled over the dark bag. When he rose again he began to drag the bag forward with one hand. There was no other way. He didn’t have the energy to lift her anymore. He was nearly at the hole when the bag snagged on a root. He heard a rip and focused the light downward. He saw a patch of pink that surrounded the partially torn-off white heel of a shoe.
He propped the light on the top of a log and slid the bag into the hole as gently as possible. There was no time for ceremony, but he would say something for her every day as long as he lived. He filled the hole and raked the ground over with pine needles and twigs, gathered his tools and made his way back to the parking area. As he closed the trunk over the shovel and rake, he saw a crescent moon rise above the trees to the east.
As soon as he entered the car, the rearview mirror glared back at him with a red slash across his cheek. His face and arms were covered with soil. Bits of twigs and damp leaves clung to his shirt and pants. He checked his watch. There was barely enough time to get home to shower and change before he needed to meet Sara. He was already moving westward, toward his home, every mile confirming his innocence, when he stretched his right arm
