Death Dance

2

"Hello, Selim? I didn't wake you up, did I? It's Jean."

"Jean? Where are you?"

We were sitting in a room with two phones, one of which was attached to a digital recorder, so that I could listen on an extension as my witness confronted her assailant and give her direction in case she needed it. It was now twelve forty-five in the morning.

"I'm at the Port Authority, waiting for-"

"You were supposed to be on a three o'clock bus this afternoon, weren't you?" Selim's English was heavily accented as he cut Jean off before she could answer.

"Yeah, except Cara and I were a bit sick today. Nauseous and dizzy. We just couldn't face a ten-hour bus ride."

"But you're still going tonight, aren't you?"

"Nothing leaves for Toronto until the morning."

"You want to come back here? I'm still up. I haven't been home very long. Wait at my apartment until then."

"Oh, no. I think I'm going to take Cara to the hospital. She's really feeling bad and I think she should be examined before she travels. I was wondering if-"

"You don't want to start with that, Jean," Selim said, sounding almost angry as he raised his voice to get her attention. "I'm a doctor. Tell me what her symptoms are and I can figure out if anything's wrong. Probably something she ate. You'll waste too much time waiting in an emergency room. You don't have any insurance coverage in this country, do you? So it's going to be very expensive for her."

He seemed to be scrambling for any ideas that would keep the women away from a medical exam.

"We didn't eat anything unusual, Selim. Each of us had a salad. And we didn't drink anything except bottled water until we got to your place."

"Yeah, well, maybe there was something wrong with the salad. Like it wasn't clean or the dressing had turned already."

"That's a good enough reason for us to go to the hospital. Could be food poisoning. At least they can do blood tests there, can't they?"

Jean was quick. I had told her not to be confrontational with Selim, knowing that might anger him and cause him to hang up the phone. Roll with him. Bring him back to talking about the cocktail he mixed for you.

"That drink you gave us tasted kind of weird. Lucky I didn't have more of it."

"Hmm."

"Hmm" didn't tell me anything I needed to know. Selim was probably trying to think of an excuse for her observation. I scribbled a note to Jean and slid it across the table. I wanted on record that she had not been drinking more alcohol than she told Mercer and me. I wanted to hear it from Selim. The defense at a trial like this would just try to convince the jury that she and Cara were blottoed.

"I mean, you saw me, Selim. I don't think I even had more than a few sips, did I? I didn't finish a fraction of the drink you poured." Jean was wide awake now, the receiver in one hand and her other one gripping the papers I had prepared.

"No, no, you didn't. You hardly touched it. Maybe you were already feeling sick before you came there."

"I felt fine when we got to the apartment. Both of us did. I'm worried about Cara. She's been throwing up and everything. C'mon, what was in the drink you gave us?"

"Bourbon. Just the bourbon that you brought me."

"You gotta be kidding, Selim. It wasn't even the same color as what was in the bottle. It was all fuzzy and white." Jean didn't like being challenged any more by him than she had by my questions. Her green eyes were focused with determination now.

He was silent.

"You still there, Selim? I mean, I don't have to tell Cara, but it would help me to know that we can get on that bus and she's not going to need to have her stomach pumped or be throwing up on me all the way home. I can't think of much worse than that on a long ride, can you?"

Still, silence.

"My problem has all cleared up-you don't have to worry about that. It's just between you and me, but you gotta give me a hand with Cara."

Good pitch, girl. Let him think it's no big deal.

"Bourbon and what?" Jean said. "I heard you working the blender in there."

A nervous laugh. "Oh, that. I usually put a little cordial in with my drink. Do you know Bailey's?"

"I know what it is, but I've never had it."

"I think you two just weren't used to the taste of the bourbon."

"But that combination of liquors wouldn't make me feel all drugged up, would it? So quickly?"

"Oh, sure. It could do that. Everybody has a different reaction, depending on their metabolism.".

"Really?" Jean paused for several seconds before her next question. She put down the crib sheet, gnawed once at her cuticle, and stared down at the tabletop. "Selim, did you have sex with me last night?"

Again he seemed to snap at her. "Why are you asking me that? You wanted to do that?"

I held my hand up at Jean to try to get her to back off, but it was clear to me that she was frustrated by the doctor's answers and understandably anxious to know whether she had been violated after he sedated her.

"No. You know I didn't have any interest in having sex with you. I made that clear the first night we got there. But I had this sort of dream that you were-"

"Maybe you drank the bourbon too fast. Maybe you're just imagining things. I never touched you. Look, it's really late and I have to go to-"

"How about Cara? She swears you made love to her."

I had written out that choice of language for Jean to use. If she'd confronted Selim with a highly charged word like "rape," he would have known immediately that she was talking about a crime. I was hoping that an expression like "making love" would cause him to lower his guard and explain away the conduct to his accuser as consensual.

"I think you better go home, Jean. I think you're acting really crazy. Nobody's going to believe the stuff you're saying. They'll just think you were drunk."

The call ended abruptly. Jean tried to keep him talking, but Selim wasn't having any more of it.

I dialed Mercer's cell phone number and walked out of the room so Jean wouldn't hear my conversation with him.

"Where are you?" I said when he answered.

"Right down the hall from the doc's apartment. Top of the stairwell," he whispered. "I got two guys with me for backup, and Kerry Schreiner, in case the girlfriend's inside. Four of us ready to roll."

"The judge authorized nighttime entry, didn't she?"

"Yeah, Sarah argued exigent circumstances so we could go in any time. By morning, the kitchen sink might be clean as a whistle. Before I put my finger on the doorbell, did Jean get any admissions from him?"

"Not enough to collar him yet. Denies drugging them. Denies sex. She did a really good job but he got spooked when she pressed too much. It's all up to what you find inside. Keep me posted." I wished him luck and clicked off the phone.

I took Jean back to the Special Victims office to reunite her with Cara McDevitt. When Cara saw us enter the squad room, she stood up and rushed forward to embrace her friend.

"What took so long?" Cara asked. "Are you okay?"

She was tearful and anxious. Jean nodded without emotion and stepped away to sit in one of the chairs. "I'm fine. Exhausted is all. I just talked to the pervert-"

"You did?" Cara asked, wide-eyed and still sniffling.

"Can I let her know about it now, Ms. Cooper? I'm only sorry I couldn't tell him what I really wanted to say."

"I promise to give you that chance down the road. It's better for the case that you stuck to my script. You nailed down some very important points, and I know how hard that was to do." I smiled at Jean, admiring her courage and her fortitude. "Sure you can tell Cara about it."

One of the detectives from the squad was waiting to take them to the hotel room we had arranged so they could get some rest. I wanted them to stay in town to testify before the grand jury the next week if we came up with evidence of the commission of a crime.

My file was still in the Homicide Squad office, so I went back to retrieve it and wait for Mercer.

"What's got you up past your bedtime?" Mike asked. "You're looking a little short in the beauty sleep department."

"Think we've got a DFSA."

Drug-facilitated sexual assault had been around for a very long time. There were mickeys slipped to femmes fatales in half of the noir films and pulp fiction of the forties and fifties. And the occasional Mata Haris who used similar techniques to betray their seducers. But the nineties had ushered in a roster of designer drugs that made it sport for college kids, street thugs, and professionals to lace drinks of unsuspecting dates with ecstasy and Seconal, roofies and GHB- known more formally as Rohypnol and gamma hydroxybutyrate. Not only did the druggings often lead to sex crimes, but also to lethal combinations of chemical substances in these muscle relaxants that triggered a range of reactions, from seizures to comas, and even death.

"Why don't you go home?" Mike asked.

"The call didn't go as well as I had hoped. The guy didn't give us much, so I want to see what Mercer comes back with. Anything new on Natalya?"

"The artistic director of the company wants to lowball it. She's got a bad rep as a prima donna-"

"She is a prima donna. She's one of the best dancers in the world. Julie Kent, Alessandra Ferri, Natalya Galinova-they're breathtak-ingly brilliant artists. What does that have to do with the fact that she disappeared?"

"Your pal Talya sports a fierce temper and a foul mouth. She had a battle backstage in her dressing room after the second act, stormed out of there, and wasn't around to take her bow at the end of the evening."

"She's too much of a pro not to finish the performance."

"No, no, Coop. She was dancing only one piece. It was-what do you call it? A gala or something. They weren't doing a full-length ballet, just excerpts, and hers was done."

"That makes more sense. Who was she fighting with?"

"Maybe her lover. Maybe-"

"Her lover? I'm sure her husband back in London will be thrilled with the news."

"Could be why the director wants to keep a lid on this one for a few hours, till we see where she shows up," Mike said, looking over his notes. "Thirty-eight. That's pushing it for a dancer, isn't it? It's even an advanced age for a prosecutor."

"I'm not there yet. Don't rush me. And yes, ballet is ruthless in that regard," I said. "Who called in the scratch?" I asked.

"Talya's agent. He phoned the precinct to ask how to file a missing persons report. The desk sergeant told him it was too early but kicked it up here to cover his ass."

The long-standing NYPD policy didn't allow adults to be declared missing unless they hadn't been heard from in more than twenty-four hours. More than eighteen thousand reports of missing persons came in to city cops over the course of an average year, and all but a handful turned out to be runaways or people who had chosen to leave whatever scene they had disappeared from.

"Who's the lover?"

"Depends who you ask. The artistic director claims the guy's a major producer. Theatrical, like Broadway shows. He says they've been working the couch in her dressing room pretty hard. The agent admits Talya knows the man, but claims it's just a professional relationship."

"What's his name?"

"Joe Berk. Ever hear of him?"

"I've seen it in the papers but I don't know anything about him."

"Seems there's no accounting for the lady's taste. He's twice her age, thick like a stuffed boar, filthy rich, and vicious as a rattlesnake, according to Talya's agent. But he's sleeping at home like a baby tonight. Rinaldo Vicci-that's her agent-tried calling Berk to find her. Says if the guy did anything evil, it's not keeping him awake. Besides, Talya also argued with the stage manager about the lighting, and earlier in the evening with the guy who partnered her about nearly dropping her on a lift at today's rehearsal. Might have just pirouetted off in a huff. Something you've done to me more times than I can count on all my fingers and toes, blondie."

The door opened and Sergeant Maron from Special Victims signaled to me. "Need you inside, Alex. DCPI wants a briefing in case anything goes down."

The deputy commissioner of Public Information had to be ready for reporters when any police matter threatened to be high profile. I picked up my folder and started out.

"Hey, Mike," Maron said. "Where you been holed up?"

"Took some time off." He wouldn't turn his head in Steve's direction.

"Sorry to steal Alex away from you."

Mike waved the back of his hand at us. "You're doing me a favor. Coop was threatening for a month to plaster my picture on the side of milk cartons, send a task force out searching for me. It's a relief to be back on the job."

Mike's girlfriend had been killed in a freak accident on a ski trip a few months back. The grief had overwhelmed him and he had distanced himself from even his closest friends as he tried to find a way to deal with the loss.

Steve Maron and I were still in his office half an hour later when Mercer and his team of detectives walked into the squad room. He was holding the arm of a man whose hands were cuffed behind his back.

Mercer led his prisoner into the barred holding cell, unlocked the cuffs, and told him to take a seat on the wooden bench against the wall. The sullen suspect was about five-foot-eleven, looked to be in his early thirties, had short brown hair parted neatly on one side, and large dark eyes that swept the room as though he was trying to figure out who each of us was and why he had been brought here.

"Dr. Sengor, I presume?" I asked Mercer, as he crossed the room to talk to me in Maron's office, our backs to the larger room.

Mercer nodded.

"And probable cause to go with him?" I asked.

"Check out the boxes," he said, closing the door and pointing at the cartons that the other two detectives placed on Maron's desk. I opened the lid of the large one and saw a blender and three dirty drinking glasses. Two of them were coated with residue that streaked their sides and bottom.

"Where were these?"

"On the kitchen counter. The sink was full of dirty dishes."

I lifted the top off the shoe box next to the carton. Pills. Dozens of pills. All of them in vials with prescription labels or sample cards from pharmaceutical companies.

Mercer removed a glassine envelope from his pants pocket. In it was an empty pill bottle. "This was sitting beside the bourbon the girls brought him last night. See what those red letters say next to the warning symbol?"

I twisted the bag and looked at the highlighted print. "Avoid alcohol while taking Xanax. Alcohol increases drowsiness and dizziness."

Mercer picked out one of the samples from the shoe box. "You don't have to read the fine print on this to find out what we already know-an overdose of the drug causes unconsciousness. It's up to you to make the charges stick, Alex. I just couldn't walk out of that apartment without cuffing the bastard."