Random Hearts Page 4

  "You'll figure something out," he said lightly. When it came to anything but decorating the house, Vivien was not much of a spender. Sometimes such complacency worried her. Perhaps she was too content in the little niche she had carved for herself. Yet, in another age, contentment had been a goal. Surely she should not feel guilty about being content.

  "You'll want to call someone in to shovel the snow. Who knows what they'll charge? Maybe you'll need to get meals delivered. I'd rather anticipate."

  At times he had criticized her lack of anticipation—like failing to take her car keys out of her bag until she got into the car. His reaction was always mild admonishment. Sometimes she did it on purpose just to get him to react.

  "You needn't worry," she said gently, watching him knot his tie in the mirror and pinch it just under the knot. She also liked the deliberate ways in which he did things.

  "And remember to lock the doors at night." That was always his special task, the final lockup, seeing to it that they were safe and snug. He tucked his shirttails into the belt that sheathed his tight slim waist. He took good care of his body, jogging every day.

  "I can just see you running down the Champs Elysées."

  He laughed.

  "Where will you stay?" she asked. "George Cinq?"

  "Not sure."

  "You have no reservations?"

  "I'll know when I get there. The clients will meet me at DeGaulle."

  It sounded so exotic, and for a moment as she made the bed, it made her feel dull and dowdy to be doing something so prosaic.

  "If you go again in the spring, will you take me?" she asked again.

  "Sure," he said.

  She came up behind him and put her arms around him. "Paris in the spring. How lovely."

  "The perpetual romantic," he mocked lightly.

  "I thought I was the practical Vermonter."

  "A strange mixture." He laughed and unhooked her arms. She had wanted to cross the space between their beds last night, but he had stayed up late in his study and by the time he had come to bed she had drifted off. And in the morning she hadn't the heart to wake him. It troubled her sometimes that between them there was not much to the physical thing, although when it did occur it was dutiful and gentle. She supposed it was a sign of their maturity and intelligence not to invest it with too much importance. Besides, they were living in an age when sexuality was grossly exaggerated, making it seem that it was the prime factor in a marriage, which was absurd. It was simply not an issue between them.

  "If there are any problems, just call Miss Sparks."

  "There won't be any."

  "Last time I was away, the heating unit went out."

  "You know how I am about mechanical things," she said defensively. "I called her only for a suggestion. She was pretty good, actually. Told me to call the gas company. It was only the pilot light."

  She admitted to a slight humiliation over that. To counter the possibility of any repetition, he had made a list of service people and stuck it on the wall over the kitchen phone.

  "Don't give us a thought," she said. "Just do whatever you have to do and do it successfully."

  "The good old New England work ethic."

  "You might say that." She wondered if Orson felt the same sense of stability that her mother had given her father. "The old rock will be here when you get back," she said. "Just watch out for those French dames."

  "Do you mean look for them or avoid them?" he said, winking at her. He had turned his eyes away when he said it, which confused the idea of the humor.

  "Any way you like. Foreign aid is a matter of principle." She wasn't sure what she meant by that, although it sounded rather clever. "Just bring it back safe and sound," she said.

  "It?"

  She was teasing his prudish streak. In many ways, despite his apparent worldliness, he was a bit of a stuffed shirt. Soon he would reach that stage in life where his pomposity would be earned.

  He had come to Washington just out of Harvard Law as one of those hotshots appointed by the Justice Department. They had been married for a year.

  "Whither thou goest, I go," she told him then, although she knew she would miss her parents, whom she saw once or twice a month but spoke to frequently. She got a job as a secretary, and they moved to northern Virginia, where the apartments rented for less. When Ben came she quit her job, and they moved to the house in McLean.

  By then Orson was making good money. By some standards, big money. He had become a partner in a Washington law firm, and his income had tripled, although he did work longer hours and began to travel more frequently.

  Lately he seemed to work even harder than before, and there were occasional signs of irritability. When she called it to his attention, it only made him more irritable.

  "It doesn't come by mirrors," he told her. "You want the good things, you pay the price." Sometimes she felt as if she had all the good things she needed and didn't desire any more.

  She did love their house with its comforts and gadgets, and she had lavished a good deal of time on decorating it. Mostly everything in it had her stamp. And since Orson worked so hard, she did want to show her appreciation by providing him with a beautiful setting. A home was not just things, her mother had preached.

  When he had finished dressing, she followed him out and put on a coat.

  "Where are you going?" he asked.

  "Getting the car."

  "In this weather? Are you mad?"

  "I'm sure the highways will be clear."

  "I won't hear of it," he said in a tone that brooked no protest. "I'll call a cab."

  "Suppose they're not running?" she asked.

  He looked out the kitchen window. "Always looks the worst from here." He frowned. He picked up the kitchen phone and talked briefly. The frown disappeared. "Main roads still clear. They're running." He appeared relieved. "Too important to miss."

  Through the window she could see Ben shoveling snow into a large pile. It still came down relentlessly in great white clumps.

  "Did you call first to see if they're flying?"

  "They are," he said decisively, remembering that their house was not far from the flight pattern, although she had long ceased to pay any attention to the jet sounds. Apparently he had made it a point to let it filter into his consciousness. "Silly to worry," he said. "The airlines know what they're doing, and pilots don't want to die any more than passengers do."

  "I wasn't worrying," she said defensively. The fact was that she was a worrywart. For some reason, stoicism alone had not come down through her New England ancestors. As long as she could remember people had told her to stop worrying. Something in her expression, she had finally concluded. Worry was not a trait to be carelessly exhibited. It made people overreact.

  Orson went into the study, and Vivien heard him talking on the telephone to his office. "It can wait till Thursday, Miss Sparks." She cleaned the kitchen. Soon she heard the sound of the taxi's horn, muffled by the snow.

  Ben came in from the outside, bringing in the fresh scent of the snowy outdoors. His cheeks were bright red. Orson kneeled and hugged the boy.

  "Listen to Mommy," Orson said.

  "We're going to make a snowman," Ben said. He lifted his arms. "A big one like Daddy." She caught a misty glint in Orson's eyes as he stood up.

  "I'm off," he said.

  "Think of us," Vivien said.

  A frown shadowed his face, for which she felt partly responsible. She had not meant for him to feel guilty. Really, she rebuked herself, it was only for four days.

  "How about Saint Thomas in February?" she said as she bent to offer her lips. She kissed him on the cheek.

  "We'll talk about it when I get back." He kissed her and went out the door.

  With Ben waving beside her, she watched Orson slosh through the snow and get into the cab. It rolled away slowly, the tires following their earlier tracks. As always when she bid him good-bye, she felt brief tremors of loss. This time she felt a bit foolish. It'
s only for four days!

  She spent the day as she had promised, helping Ben build the snowman. They stopped for lunch and finished it soon after. She used chocolate chip cookies for eyes, stuck one of Orson's old bent pipes into a slit of mouth, and put Orson's tweed rain hat on his head.

  "Looks like Daddy," Ben said.

  "Well, then, we won't miss him so much, will we?"

  Alice, their baby-sitter and cleaning woman, called. She was too frightened to drive because of the snow and wouldn't be coming in. Vivien spent the entire day with Ben, which meant isolating herself completely in his child's world. In late afternoon, she made him hot chocolate, sat him on her lap and read to him from My Book-house until both of them dozed off.

  When she awoke, it was dark. The snow continued to fall, and a deep hush descended over the house. She felt serene, satisfied, and content. She hugged Ben to her, breathing in the aroma of his sweet child's body, feeling again the sense of completeness in her motherhood, her home, her husband; a bird secure in her nest. Ben was the image of his father, a fact that made her love him all the more. The pressure of her caresses woke him.

  "Mommy loves you," she whispered. Tears brimmed in her eyes. She was overwhelmed with the joy of it. Considering the perils of this world, there was much to be thankful for. The telephone's ring shattered the mood. Her mother's tense voice startled her.

  "I saw it on television. Isn't it awful?"

  "Awful?" She thought immediately of Orson. Had something happened?

  "I mean the plane crash."

  "My God." Her heart jumped.

  "It went right into the Potomac. Under the ice." There was a long pause. "Vivien!"

  Her throat felt constricted. She grunted an answer, and her head began to pound.

  Her mother continued, "It was this plane to Miami."

  "Miami?"

  Relieved, she felt the pounding subside as her mother plunged on with the story: a handful of survivors; they think the rest are dead. She listened patiently, understanding her mother's motive for telling her this terrible news, imagining how many other parents and children were reacting in just that way.

  "Orson flew to Paris today," Vivien said. "I've been here with Ben. We're fine. We built a snowman."

  In the long silence she felt her mother's embarrassment.

  "I'm so sorry, Viv. How stupid of me. I thought everyone knew. I just called to hear your voice, that's all."

  "I know, but you did scare the bejesus out of me."

  "I'm so sorry, dear."

  "It's all right, Mother. You couldn't have known Orson was flying today."

  "They shouldn't fly in this weather," her mother said firmly. A public tragedy, Vivien supposed, often triggered anxiety in those whose loved ones were within geographical proximity of the event.

  "We're all fine, Mama," she said reassuringly. They talked for a while, and then she put Ben on. But the news, despite its irrelevance to her, had shattered her sense of calm. While Ben talked she turned on the television set. She saw the bridge, the wreckage of automobiles, and the divers going down into the water through a screen of falling snow. A young man's battered body was being extracted from a car.

  "Oh, my God," she exclaimed. Ben looked at her, then threw a kiss through the telephone mouthpiece and hung up. Quickly, Vivien turned off the set.

  "Nothing that concerns us, baby."

  She gathered him into her arms and hugged him. How lucky we are, she thought.

  5

  Sergeant Lee McCarthy of MPD Homicide could not remember ever having been this cold. They had set up a ribbon bridge that jutted out into the Potomac to make it more convenient for the rescue boats to bring up the bodies. A few yards up the embankment, MPD had set up its Morgue Tent, where the bodies were received, bagged, and their effects inventoried.

  On the first day they had set up a heater in the tent, but since the bodies were coming up either frozen solid or semi-frozen, a decision was made to disconnect the heat. It was thawing the bodies.

  They hadn't got things efficiently operational until the second day. The Army Engineers brought in their diver teams. Sophisticated radar scanners that could read under water were used to diagram the crash site and divide it into segments so that the divers would be able to organize their rescue efforts.

  A ninety-foot crane was brought in to bring up parts of the plane. Police and firefighter boats were summoned, as well as helicopters. In the first hour a helicopter had rescued four people. Nearly eighty still remained in twenty-five feet of water under a partial layer of ice.

  On the third day they brought up twenty-six bodies. The objective of the special emergency team that had been assembled, of which McCarthy was a member, was to make a visual examination of the body, dictate the details of observable injuries to a partner, catalogue personal property, label and bag the bodies, and then accompany them to the Medical Examiner's office where the team was to assist in identification and notification of the next of kin.

  Identifying the males was a simple process. Men normally carried wallets that contained their IDs. The females were more difficult unless a handbag was recovered in the vicinity of the body. If they had some identifying object on their person, like an engraved ring or a charm with their name or initial, it could be checked against the passenger manifest or, if possible, against the seating assignments. Many females had never been fingerprinted. Visual inspection by the next of kin was the swiftest and surest method of female identification.

  By the fourth day the bodies of more than half of the people missing were recovered and fully identified. On that day a white female had been deposited on the ribbon bridge. Nothing on her person gave a clue to her identity, and a handbag had not been brought up with the body. Apparently the woman had not been securely belted, and the impact of the crash had sent her body hurtling through the fuselage. Assessing her, McCarthy dictated the characteristics of her injuries, including physical markings that would be useful. Clutched in her hand, inexplicably, were the remains of what looked like a flower, perhaps a rose. When he looked at it more closely and touched her fingers, it slipped from her grasp. A gust of wind carried it to the river where it sank below the surface. Not important, McCarthy told himself as he continued his dictation.

  "Age about thirty. Brunette. About one hundred and twenty pounds. Blunt force trauma. A Casio wristwatch stopped at three-twenty P.M., almost the recorded moment of impact. Front of skull caved in." Kneeling, he had looked up and watched Charlie, his partner, turn away, fighting the temptation to gag.

  "Just bag her," he muttered.

  "Looks like instant death. Not drowning like some of the others."

  "Lucky bitch."

  "Lucky?"

  At the Medical Examiner's office, partial autopsies were made of every victim, personal property was assembled, and forms and inventories were filled out and filed alphabetically. Polaroids were taken of the face and body, and then the corpses were filed on trays in the Medical Examiner's refrigerator.

  Southair, reacting quickly, set up headquarters in a nearby Marriott Hotel and took rooms for the relatives awaiting the news. After a body was processed, the next of kin were brought in to the Medical Examiner's office for a visual identification, and the body and personal property were released to the relatives.

  By the evening of the fourth day the woman's body had not been identified. Her fingerprints had come back negative, which meant that she had never been printed. Two sets of relatives with potential victims of the same age and sex were brought in to view the body, also with negative results. Relatives at the hotel had been questioned.

  Since nearly half of the passengers were still to be accounted for, McCarthy was not concerned. The lady would be identified by a process of elimination. She was labeled Jane Doe and placed on a tray in the refrigerator.

  On the fifth day the weather was so severe that the divers could not go down safely and operations were suspended, leaving the Homicide division to concentrate on sorting per
sonal property and cleaning up paperwork. By then more than fifty bodies had been accounted for and claimed. Only Jane Doe remained unidentified.

  Because of the lull, McCarthy was able to pursue the identity of the young woman. He matched all the known next of kin with the various deceased yet to be recovered. There were a number of women in her age category still on the river bottom, confirmed by relatives either waiting at the Marriott or located in other parts of the country. A small number of the dead still remained without confirmed next of kin.

  Among those who appeared on the passenger list but were still not recovered were a Mr. and Mrs. Calvin Marlboro. Jane Doe did wear a marriage ring, the inside of which was unmarked, but there was no way of knowing whether or not she fit the age category of the couple. As yet no next of kin had come forward for the Marlboros. McCarthy checked the telephone companies of all the surrounding jurisdictions. He could not find a single Marlboro listed. He found a number in Florida, but they reported all relatives with that name accounted for.

  To make the process more complicated, the tickets purchased by the Marlboros had been paid for in cash at the ticket counter. No telephone number had been given or required. The ticket agent had absolutely no recollection of the purchaser. A return trip had been booked for four days later. In Miami, a rental car had been booked in Mr. Marlboro's name.

  For McCarthy, the little mystery offered a welcome diversion from what had become a tiresome and predictable routine. As for death, fifteen years with homicide had desensitized him to most aspects concerning the victims. Once death occurred, there was no more pain in it for the victim. To a professional like himself, a corpse was evidence, nothing else. Pain was for the living. Yet, despite his hard-boiled facade and attitude, he could still feel something at times, especially anger. A child's untimely death reminded him of his own children. Although his divorced wife had them most of the time in Philadelphia and he rarely saw them, he could still feel a parent's loss. Occasionally he did feel pity in varying degrees, but always for the living relatives, friends, and spouses. Most of the time he could easily shrug it off, like the aftermath of a sad movie.