Death Dance

36

There was no point keeping Hubert Alden in my office any longer. His information was pointing us in a new direction, reweaving many of the same characters into a new tapestry, giving us another venue to explore-one that was familiar to most of them.

As Mike walked Alden to the elevators, Mercer Wallace came into my office carrying a bag full of sandwiches.

"Heard you were busy doing your StairMaster workout early this morning," he said, unpacking the late lunch he brought for each of us. "I figured after that you could even stand a bag of chips for a change."

"Feed me, m'man," Mike said, returning to the room and reaching for the roast beef hero, biting into it as though he hadn't eaten in days. "How was your weekend?"

"I think I've been in every homeless shelter and soup kitchen in the city since you left town. Still looking for Ramon Carido," Mercer said. "He must be living under a rock in the park, and it has gotta be driving him crazy. This beautiful spring weather-every jogger and biker and stroller is out there on his hunting ground, stoking his imagination. I doubt he'll ever go after a dog-walker again."

"Coop missed all the local news while she was on the Vineyard. Every station showed that sketch of him around the clock."

"Reward money's up to twenty grand from one of the victims-advocacy groups. Some mutt'll turn him in for the loot before too long."

"So you worked all weekend while I played hooky?"

"And lucky thing you did, Ms. Cooper. May I say that for once you are no longer the favorite prosecutor of the Manhattan Special Victims Squad? I don't want to be a snitch, but somebody drew a mustache and horns on that picture of you holding my baby boy last Christmas. You look downright evil."

"Easy come, easy go. What now?"

"The guys are really pissed at you because of the order from Judge McFarland in the Carido case."

"You mean not being able to try to match their DNA evidence to the linkage database? Two weeks and we'll have a whole new set of rules. Good ones, I hope."

"In the meantime, we caught six new squeals since Thursday night."

"Yeah, I saw the complaint reports on Laura's desk this morning. Four of them knew their attackers. DNA won't make the difference in those cases. Tell the squad to work those cases the old-fashioned way-with their brains."

"Well, they need the databank in the other two. In fact, when you look those reports over more carefully, you'll see that Saturday night's break-in down on Allen Street may be part of a pattern. We want to try to link it to an open series in Tribeca."

Mike had finished his hero and was working on his second bag of nachos. "She's not going to win any popularity contests in the Homicide Squad either. Same beef."

"I didn't go up to court intending to try to make new law, guys. It was a command performance."

"Yeah, well, don't go calling nine-one-one again any time soon," Mike said, wiping the mustard from his cheek with the back of his hand. "Some dick is likely to tell you to stick your DNA up your-"

"Laura? You just reminded me, Mike. Laura?" She poked her head through the doorway. "Would you call down to the supply office? They need to issue me a new cell phone. Beg them to let me keep my old number, okay?"

"Got it."

"I had to turn mine in to the detectives this morning so they can make a record of the exact times of the calls I made from my building last night," I explained to Mike and Mercer. "They have to check with Benito, too. Maybe he heard whether my attacker said anything while the line was open."

"I thought you told me he didn't say a word."

"That's exactly what I told you. And I'm Sure of it. They just want to double-check, in case I'm mistaken.''

"Guess you got zero credibility, Coop. Those cops trust you about twice as much as you trust your witnesses. It's good medicine for you. What'd you think of Hubert Alden?" Mike had finished his bottle of root beer and reached for a swig of my Diet Coke to wash down the food.

"Same as I think about anybody who throws a curve like that one. You and I had such tunnel vision about the Met as the geographic center of this investigation. There's something way too slick about Alden, and I worry that maybe he's just steering us away from the progress we were making," I said, as Mike started to tell Mercer about the rehearsal studios at City Center.

"Progress? You still got a ballerina in a refrigerator down at the morgue and me itching to put cuffs on Joe-do-you-know-who-I-am-Berk. Progress is when I ratchet those little metal bracelets on some-body's wrists."

"When do we check the place out?" Mercer asked.

Mike looked at his watch. "It's almost three o'clock. Let's get up there while there's still someone to show us around. Where are your wheels?"

" Bayard Street. Near the sleazebag bail bondsman's office."

"I'm in front of the building. Let's use mine. Chow down, blondie."

The ride up Avenue of the Americas was slowed by traffic. I tried to nap in a corner of the cluttered rear seat of Mike's department car. I didn't have to count sheep-I had an even longer list, it seemed, of suspects who had eluded the long arm of the law this past week: the Turkish doctor who drugged his victims; Ramon Carido, the rapist who'd been bitten by a dog; and Ralph Harney, the stagehand who'd gotten a stand-in rather than provide us with a sample of his DNA.

"Ralph Harney," I said aloud. "You think he knows enough about electrical stuff to have been the guy who blackened the apartments and waited for me last night?"

Mike cocked his head and looked at me in the rearview mirror. "He's a stagehand, not an electrician."

"But he's worked around all that elaborate stage wiring for years. Had to pick something up, the jobs are so intertwined," Mercer said. "Worth looking at. The guys he works with could tell us how much he knows."

There was a hotel loading zone half a block east of City Center. Mike pulled in and parked the car.

As we approached the theater-the great expanse of sandstone capped by its monumental dome-a huddle of young women walked out of the building, stopping on the sidewalk to talk among themselves. Their long legs resting in the turned-out position of dancers, towels around their necks, suggested they had just finished the day's warm-up or class.

Behind them, another woman rushed out of the door, seemingly agitated that her path was blocked. She shifted from one side to the other, nudging the girl closest to her in order to pass by and run out into the street to flag down a Yellow Cab. She tossed her large black tote into the rear seat and climbed in after it.

It was impossible to tell whether she ignored the three of us or simply didn't hear Mike Chapman call for her by name to get her to stop. Mona Berk slammed the door of the taxi and took off down the one-way street.