Cemetery Dance

"Still, my sources say you two are close. Boy, does she have a great career. She could make commissioner someday, if she plays her cards right…"

At last, D'Agosta stopped. "Let me tell you something, Mr. Kline. If you think you can threaten or intimidate Captain Hayward, you're sadly mistaken. She could crush you like a roach. And if, in her infinite mercy, she decides to spare you — rest assured that I won't. Now, if you'd show me to the safe, please?"

Chapter 21

Nora exited the subway at the 207th Street station. She walked to the north end of the platform, then climbed the stairs to street level, where she found a three — way confluence of streets: Broadway, Isham, and West 211th. This was a neighborhood she had never been in before, the northernmost tip of Manhattan, and she looked around curiously. The buildings reminded her of Harlem: prewar walkups, attractive and sturdily built. There were few brownstones or town houses: dollar stores, bodegas, and nail salons sat cheek — by — jowl with funky restaurants and whole — grain bakeries. Nearby, she knew, was Dyckman House: the last remaining Dutch Colonial farmhouse in Manhattan. It was a place she had always intended to visit with Bill some su

She pushed this thought from her mind. Checking the document she had printed earlier — a satellite view of the neighborhood, with the street names marked — she got her bearings and began making her way north and west, along Isham, climbing the rise toward Seaman Avenue and the setting sun.

She crossed broad, busy Seaman Avenue and continued down an asphalt path, te

Nora glanced at her watch: five thirty. Night was falling quickly and the air had taken on an almost frosty chill. She took a step forward, then stopped again, glancing uncertainly into the gloomy forest. She had never been in Inwood Hill Park before — in fact, she didn't know anybody who had — and she had no idea how safe it was after dark. Hadn't a jogger been murdered in here a few years back…

Her jaw set in a hard line. She hadn't come all this way just to turn back now. There was still plenty of light left. Shaking her head impatiently, she started forward, leaning toward the wall of trees almost as if challenging them to stop her.

The path curved gently to the right, ru

Soon the paved path gave way to a dirt track that wound its way sinuously among the trunks, climbing all the while. Through a gap in the trees, Nora could make out a steep slope plunging to a tidal basin, thick with mud and populated by noisy seabirds. Their cries followed her faintly as she continued climbing the winding path, her feet kicking aside drifts of fallen leaves.

After about fifteen minutes, she stopped at the foot of an ancient retaining wall, crumbling into ruin. The roar of Manhattan had receded to the sound of wind sighing in trees. The sun had fallen behind the rise of land, and an angry orange glow suffused the October sky. The chill of night was coming down. Nora glanced at the hardwoods crowding in around her, at the glacial boulders and kettle holes scattered treacherously about. It seemed almost impossible that two hundred acres of such wild forest existed here on the most urban of all islands. Nearby, she knew, were the remains of the old Straus mansion. Isidor Straus had been a congressman and co — owner of Macy's. After he and his wife died on the Titanic, their country house in Inwood Hill Park had gradually fallen into ruin. Perhaps this very retaining wall had once been part of the estate.

The path continued to drift westward, away from the direction she needed to go. She peered at the satellite map in the dying light and then, hesitating only a moment longer, decided to bushwhack northward. She left the trail and began pushing through the sparse undergrowth, away from the trail.

The land pitched sharply upward, shelves of exposed gneiss cropping out here and there. She scrambled up the defile, hands grabbing for purchase on bushes and small trunks. Her fingers were very cold now, and she bitterly regretted not bringing gloves. She slipped, falling onto a striated rib of rock. She clambered back to her feet with a curse, brushed the leaves off, slung her bag back over her shoulder, and listened. There were no sounds of birds or rustles of squirrels, only the gentle sigh of the wind. The air smelled of dead leaves and damp earth. After a moment, she scrambled on, feeling increasingly alone in the wooded stillness.

This was crazy. It was getting dark a lot faster than she'd thought. Already the lights of Manhattan had drowned out the last of the twilight, casting an eerie glow across the sky, the black silhouettes of the half — bare trees outlined against it, giving the scene the unreality of a Magritte painting, bright above, dark below. Ahead, at the top of the defile, Nora could make out the ridgeline, studded with spectral trees. Quickly now, she half ran, half scrambled toward it. Gaining the height of land, she paused a moment to catch her breath. An old, rusting chain — link fence ran east to west, but it was bowed and twisted from neglect, and Nora soon found a loose section and ducked beneath easily. She took a few steps forward, angled her way around a set of massive boulders — and then stopped again abruptly.

The vista that lay ahead took her breath away. Before her feet, the ground fell away in a cliff, ramparts of rock dropping toward the tidal waters. She had reached the uttermost tip of Manhattan. Far below, the waters of the Harlem River were black, ru