Cold Hit

5

Alex Trebek told the noisy crowd of prosecutors and cops packing “Part F”-the name affectionately given to the bar at Forlini’s, since at many points on a Friday afternoon it was likely to have more office personnel in it than most of the dozens of court parts across the street-that the Final Jeopardy category would be New York State History.

I could see Chapman’s dark head positioned beneath the television that was hung in the far corner of the room, surrounded by six of the guys from Trial Bureau 50, celebrating the end of another workweek.

“Get it up, blondie!” Mike shouted down the bar at me as I squeezed through friendly packs of coworkers who were reliving their cross-examinations and telling one another about their latest triumphs and travails. “How are you on the Empire State?”

“I’ll go the usual ten,” I said, sliding into the space cleared for me by Ed Broderick and Kevin Guadagno. Dempsey had seen me arrive, too, and my Dewar’s on the rocks was already on the countertop.

“All right, then,” Trebek continued, fighting for our attention over the noise of the jukebox and the banter of more than a hundred of law enforcement’s thirstiest troops. “The answer is: City that was the site of the largest Confederate prison camp during the Civil War.”

I shook my head and rested it in my right hand, ready to acknowledge defeat, while I sipped my scotch with the left. Chapman was writing furiously on the back of a cocktail napkin. “I’ve been had. This isn’t a New York question-it’s military history,” I moaned.

Mike Chapman had majored in history at Fordham College and amassed a limitless knowledge of battles, gunboats, warriors, and even the names of the stallions on which they rode. Our long-standing habit of betting on the Final Jeopardy questions-whether in the middle of a crime scene, a good meal, or a round of cocktails-had taught each of us to stay away from the categories that were the other’s strong points, and I was about to be taken down in front of my colleagues on Chapman’s principal strength-much to his delight.

As the timer ticked and the theme music jingled on, my mind sped through lists of upstate names, but all I could think of were prisons to which my convicted rapists had been sent over the last decade-Green Haven, Ossining, Clinton, Auburn, and so on. Nothing conjured up the Civil War. Mike was singing an Irish ballad in my ear, confusing me further, and substituting the name of one of the grimmest institutions for the town in the classic song. “How are things in Dannemora?” he crooned as I tried to brush him away from me.

Trebek picked up the card lying on the podium in front of the septuagenarian wallpaper hanger from Minnesota, saw that it was empty, and commented that it was too bad he hadn’t ventured a guess.

“Take your best shot, Cooper?” Mike said.

“What is Attica?” I asked, stirring the ice cubes with my finger.

“ Bzzzzzzzz. ” Mike imitated the penalty buzzer as the show’s second contestant bombed with her answer, too. “What is Elmira?” he said, loud enough for everyone at our end to hear.

The Stanford professor who had won on the show four days this week also had the correct answer, and was beaming no less proudly than Chapman as Trebek congratulated him and announced that his five-day total was $ 38,000.

“Cooper’s got the next round, Dempsey. For me and everybody in Trial Bureau 50. Elmira, the flower of Chemung County. Treaty of Painted Post proposed there in seventeen ninety-one, to end the settlers’ war with the Iroquois. Wouldn’t expect you to know that, kid. But three thousand Confederate soldiers are buried there. Actually, called it ‘Hellmira’ during the war, ’cause the conditions were so bad. What’d you think they were going to ask, Coop-where’s Niagara Falls? Who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb? Too much time wasted at Wellesley with those Elizabethan poets and that Chaucerian crap you’re so full of.”

“I’m going back to the office, Mike. You want to talk autopsy before I go?”

“You gotta be kidding. We got a table in the back room- we’re all having dinner together. Aren’t you going to stay for that?”

“I’m taking a salad back with me. Honestly, I’ll be in the library all weekend. Just tell me what happened this afternoon.”

Chapman and I walked out of the bar toward the rear of the restaurant and sat at an empty table for two. “Still no I.D. Dr. Fleisher makes her out to be about forty years old, and in very good health-except for that crater in the back of her head. No kids-never given birth. He was also right about the cause. Blunt force injury-dead long before she hit the water.”

“Does he know what’s responsible for the laceration?” I asked.

“You can start with the fact that this wasn’t a ‘slip and fall.’ Whatever she was hit with was hard enough to cause a skull fracture. Could have been a gun butt, a brick, a rock. Doubtful that it was a bottle or anything like that-no residue or fragments in the wound,” Mike went on. “The impact was probably a glancing blow, but it was so deep that the subcutaneous tissue separated from the underlying muscle fascia.”

“And the internal exam?” I asked.

“Fleisher didn’t find anything remarkable. Sexually active adult female. Only thing that will interest you is that there were abrasions on her upper thighs, close to the vaginal area.”

“Nobody mentioned them last night at the scene,” I commented.

“Doc said it’s typical with a body that’s been immersed in water. That kind of injury-scraping of the skin and removal of superficial layers-only becomes noticeable after the body has dried out,” Mike said.

“Were those actually finger marks I saw?” I asked, wondering if the abrasions had been caused during an attempt at a sexual assault.

“Looks consistent with that. They took lots of close-ups, so you can study them.”

“How about rope burns from the ligature marks?”

Chapman described the autopsy proceeding, in which Fleisher cut the skin directly under the wrist and ankle restraints, looking for that answer. “Not enough hemorrhaging to suggest she was alive when they tied her up,” he answered. “It was probably just the means of securing her body to the ladder, for the purpose of disposing of her. That’s it, except for the toxicological workups, which won’t be ready for another week.”

“Any reason to think there’ll be findings of significance?” I wondered.

“Yeah, Fleisher thinks she’s had some problems with cocaine. He didn’t like the looks of her nasal septum. Could be just one more of those uptown drug deals gone sour,” Mike said. “She looked classy, but she undoubtedly liked to stick that sugar up her nose.”

“What’s next?”

“Gert just stays tucked in her fridge until somebody figures out who she is. Tomorrow morning, she’s out of the newspapers, and I start looking for who-done-it.”

“Give me a call over the weekend if anything develops, will you?” I asked. “I’ll be down here most of the time, either in the library or at my desk.”

“Don’t you want a ride home later?”

“Thanks, no. I’ve got the Jeep right in front of the office. Ciao.” I said my “Good nights” around the bar, picked up my take-out salad, and walked the quiet block back to the office.

It was after midnight when I locked up my files, rode the elevator down to the lobby, and drove home to park in the garage and drag myself upstairs to go to sleep. I played the messages left by friends on my answering machine throughout the day and evening, and made a list of calls to return at some point on Saturday. Most of my pals got out of the city on the steaming summer weekends-to beach houses they owned or rented, borrowed or shared-and I was just as anxious to get this court proceeding behind me so I could disappear to my home on Martha’s Vineyard for some rest.

I bathed, ignored the usually appealing pile of magazines next to the bed, and read a chapter of The Ambassadors before falling off into a sound sleep. On Saturday morning I went over to the west sixties, where I took a two-hour ballet class with my instructor, William, who tried to remove all the knots that several weeks of courtroom tension had worked into my shoulders, back, and thighs. When I left the dance studio I headed directly downtown to the office, to continue researching and crafting my arguments for the complicated presentation I had to make on Monday.

It was close to eight o’clock when I realized that my eyes were bleary and my thought process was getting fuzzy. As I neared home on the FDR Drive, I was trying to decide whether there was anyone in town I could call on such short notice to meet me for a light supper. The beeper went off while I was still a few blocks away from my apartment, and when I glanced down and noted that the number on the lighted display was unfamiliar, I decided to wait until I got upstairs to return the call.

“Hello?” I said tentatively.

The accented voice of an older woman spoke into the telephone. “One moment,” she said, and I heard her say something inaudible while passing the receiver to someone.

“Yeah?” It was Mike Chapman’s voice.

“Hi. Got your beep on my way home.”

“Hey, Coop. We got an I.D., just an hour ago. Housekeeper came back from vacation. Says the lady of the house was supposed to be here all week but nobody’s seen her. Noticed the sketch in yesterday’s news, then she put it together with the fact that ‘Madam’ is not around. Called the precinct, and they notified us. I grabbed one of the guys and we ran down here with a couple of the head shots from the M.E.’s Office, and the housekeeper breaks up on us as soon as she sees the photos.”

“Who is-”

“Lady’s name is Denise Caxton. Lives-well, lived-at 890 Fifth Avenue. Ever hear of her?” Chapman wanted to know.

“No. Why?”

“She and the husband own an art gallery, same place where you get your roots done.”

“The Fuller Building?” I asked. Madison Avenue at Fiftyseventh Street -the crossroads of the art world, as the owner of my salon liked to call it.

“Yeah, the Caxton Gallery occupies the entire top floor.”

I could hear the background conversation between Mike’s partner and the tearful woman as Mike whispered into the phone. “You wouldn’t believe this apartment-five-bedroom duplex, with a modern art collection that most museums would kill for.”

“So, did they? And where’s Mr. Caxton?”

“The housekeeper doesn’t know. Denise split with him- Lowell Caxton-a few months back. They both still share the apartment-separate entrances and living quarters-but there’s no sign that he’s in town. And she says there’s nothing to suggest any foul play in the apartment, either.”

“Want me to come over and-”

“Forget about it. Hazel’s giving us the boot. Won’t let us look around or touch anything. Not till she gets her orders from Monsieur Caxton.”

“Any date book, calendar-to trace back the deceased’s movements?”

“All on computer, Coop, and she’s not letting us anywhere near that room or any of the equipment.”

“Can you secure the apartment until I can get a warrant to search it?” I asked.

“You bet your ass we’ll have to. Any of this stuff disappears, we’ll all be nailed to the wall. I’ve sent for some uniformed guys to watch each of the entrances, just to keep the place buttoned up tight.

“And get your beauty sleep, blondie. I have the distinct feeling that you and I will be dancing together on this one. If there’s one motive for every million hanging on these walls, we’re gonna be busy.”