Final Jeopardy

CHAPTER 6

I got off the train at Fifty-seventh Street and Seventh Avenue. The studio was a few blocks due north, but I toyed with the idea of a diversionary jaunt to the corner of Fifth, since it was such a beautiful afternoon.

I thought of Holly Golightly and how she relieved her bouts of depression by visits to Tiffany’s, on the theory that nothing bad could ever happen there. I could square the area and still be in time for class – Tiffany’s windows, with Bendel’s and Bergdorf’s thrown in for good measure.

Better than Prozac any day. Then I remembered the Warner Brothers store that expropriated the northeast corner and decided against the side trip. That giant souvenir shop had really brought the neighborhood down, I concluded, and kept on walking to William’s loft instead. The dressing room was empty when I went inside to change into my leotard and tights. It was rare that I arrived ahead of the regular students, most of whom lived and worked uptown, and I relished the moments of privacy and quiet at this end of the day as well. William was already in the studio, so I joined him for a series of stretches and bends, willing the tension and distress out of my stiff body as I tried to limber up.

“I didn’t think you’d be here today, Alex,” he said quietly, in the calming manner that always put me at ease in his presence. “I’ve been following the story about Isabella.”

“I think this is the best place for me to be. It really helps.”

I was on the floor now, my back erect and the heels of my feet drawn up close to my body, as I tried to press my knees down to make contact with the wood. William walked over and began to knead my shoulders and neck, working the tightened muscles apart.

“I’ve got two tickets for the Kirov next week. I thought perhaps you and Bernard could use them. I hate for them to go to waste and I hope to get out of town for a few days by then.”

“We’d love them if you’re not going to need them, Alex. That’s very thoughtful. I guested with them once nearly three decades ago. What a priceless week that was.”

“Must have been.”

“Bernard’s dying to know if the police have any leads in the murder case. That you can talk about, of course.”

No wonder the neck massage. You can’t ever get something for nothing, as my grandmother used to say.

“Nothing new.”

“Any rumors that Isabella was gay?”

That was a new one on me. “That’s never come up, as far as I know.”

“Phew. I mean after the furor over Basic Instinct, Bernard thinks the community would go wild if the killer turned out to be some crazed lesbian. Entirely too Hollywood.”

I laughed.

“Tell Bernard to relax. I think we’re safe on this one.”

The dancers were beginning to filter in and warm up alongside us on the floor and at the barre. William went over to turn on his elaborate recording system, and the strong music of Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony lifted me back to my feet and into the opening pattern of pli and relev in the standard numbered positions.

By the end of the hour I was physically drained – a perfect complement to my emotional condition. I dragged myself into the dressing room, showered in the tiny stall William had rigged up for his sweaty troupes, and put my business clothes on again to head over to meet Joan for dinner. I checked my answering machine from William’s phone to make sure Joan had not changed or canceled our plans, but there were no messages at all, so I said goodbye to the stragglers and walked out onto the street.

When I reached the curb at the corner of Sixty-fourth Street and Central Park West, I was startled by the approach of a sleek navy limo that must have trailed me for the block and a half from the studio. The rear door opened and Jed stepped toward me, carrying an armload of long-stemmed yellow roses, my favorite.

“Please, Alex, you must let me talk to you. I know you’re meeting Joan – just give me five minutes in the car and I’ll take you wherever you’re going.”

“It’s over, Jed. I’m not interested in a post-mortem. And I’m even less interested in creating a scene on a street corner.“

“Five minutes. I know you don’t owe me anything, but I’d like you to hear what I have to say.”

I looked at the driver. It was Luigi, who usually drove Jed around town and who had always been a perfect gentleman to me. I still couldn’t absorb Mike’s theory that Jed was a killer, and I trusted that I was not in mortal danger as on long as Luigi was in earshot. A smile formed on my lips, despite my company, as I toyed with the thought that the only thing Chapman and I hadn’t floated was a conspiracy theory. He’d be livid that I got was in a car with Jed, and ready to commit me if he let his imagination carry him to think that Jed and Luigi had conspired to do Isabella in. I was tired enough to yield to the pressure and I bent to get into the car. Luigi began to draw closed the glass window that separated him from us in the backseat, but I put my hand up to stop him.

“Would you mind taking me to Sixty-fourth and Second, Luigi, to Primola? I’d like you to leave the partition open you might as well hear all this.” I counted on the fact that I could at least embarrass Jed a bit in the process.

Luigi had probably driven him to all his assignations anyway.

Jed grimaced at my suggestion, but was prepared to go ahead. He sat opposite me on the car seat riding backward and trying to look me in the eye.

“I’ve called you dozens of times today and could never get through. Laura wouldn’t take any messages from me, Joan won’t help. I’ve left more on your home machine.”

Bullshit. Start with a lie, that’ll really win me over. I just checked the machine and there was nothing on it, but why give him the satisfaction of knowing I even cared? I stared at the back of Luigi’s head.

“Alex, I want to apologize to you. I have lied to you and I was unfaithful, but I think you’ll understand what happened if you listen to the whole-”

“I’ve heard all I need to hear, Jed. This is one place where the details really don’t interest me. Don’t you see how painful this is for me?“

We were on the Park transverse now, right below the twinkling little white lights of Tavern on the Green, and dusk was fast becoming the darkness of a mild fall evening.

“I want you back, Alexandra Cooper. I love you and I want you back. I made a mistake – a stupid, selfish, pig-headed mistake. Are you so perfect that you’ve never done that in your life?”

“What was your mistake, Jed, betraying me or getting caught at it?”

“You knew Isabella, you knew her far better than I did. She was relentless. She, she-”

”Don’t make me vomit with this stuff. What was it, another stalker, Jed? Did she harass you?”

“You introduced me to her, you were there when-”

“I introduced you to a lot of people. Does that mean you had to play “hide the salami” with all of them?”

“Don’t talk like your cop friends, Alex. It really isn’t very becoming. You sound crass and vulgar.”

“Yeah, but it’s a hell of a lot more direct than the crap you’re trying to peddle.”

“You encouraged me to help her with her financial problems. “Call her,” you said, “do what you can to help her.”

“You helped her all right. You apparently helped her into a shiny white coffin.”

“Stop that, Alex, that’s a goddamn outrage, that kind of accusation. She begged me to come to the Vineyard, claimed she was desperate.”

“Tell it to the cops, Mr. Segal. Does your lawyer know you’re about to incriminate yourself?”

”I’m not interested in the cops or my lawyer. I’m here to plead for your forgiveness. I never intended to get involved with her sexually-‘ “Don’t say the next line, Jed, leave me some piece of you I can still believe in. Luigi, I think he’s about to tell me she raped him. Spare me this garbage, really. Did Isabella ”make“ you get in bed with her, Jed did she really force you to make love to her? Please.”

Jed pounded his hand up against the roof of the car in disgust.

“It’s always wisecracks with you, Alex. You won’t even give me a chance to tell you what was going on, to tell you how I feel about you. Why do you think I’m here, why do you think I’m pursuing you like this?”

“You want to know what I really think? I think you’re here because you’re in a shitload of trouble, and if you align yourself with me, you’re hoping I can convince Chapman that you’re not a killer. You have lain in my arms and lied to me, Jed. You have made love to me after making love to Isabella in my very own bed…”

“That wasn’t making love, with Isabella, that was-‘ ”Oh, forgive me, Jed. You made love to me after you screwed Isabella or f-’ “Alex, give me a chance to make it up to you.”

“I can’t help you, Jed. I don’t want to help you and I won’t help you. I don’t know whether you killed Isabella or not, but you sure as hell killed something inside of me. No life support, no resuscitation it’s dead, and I don’t want to bring it back to life. Luigi, I’ll get out at the light. No more calls, Jed, no more messages. Nothing.” I was a block away from the restaurant when I got out of the car and slammed the door behind me. I stopped at the drugstore for a bottle of Extra-Strength Tylenol. While I ripped off the plastic seal around the lid and pulled the cotton wad out of the top of the container, I could hear the radio playing from the shelf behind the counterman. The raspy-voiced David Ruffin was leading The Temps through the classic “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” pleading for his sweet darling‘ not to leave him. I swallowed hard and forced the three capsules down my dry throat, hoping they’d have some effect on my throbbing headache.

“Com’estar, Signorina Cooper?” Giuliano greeted me as I entered the door at Primola and scanned the crowd at the bar for Joan Stafford.

“Fine, Giuliano, everything’s fine. Is my friend here yet?”

“Of course, she’s at the table. Follow me, please.”

As he led me to the corner, Joan saw me coming and stood to embrace me.

“No wonder he climbed into bed with a screen goddess. Maybe it takes a good friend to tell you how awful you look.”

“Thanks a million, Joanie. You sound like Mike Chapman.

I’m beginning to get a complex.“

“How about a mental health day? Take tomorrow off and we’ll go to Elizabeth Arden or Georgette Klinger my treat.

Facial, massage, pedicure, manicure just a girls’ day out.

It’ll make you feel good.“

“Maybe this weekend. Battaglia’s going to be on me like a hawk. I have to show him I can do the work.”

“Listen, Jed called me three times this afternoon. I think he was driving around town looking for you. I didn’t know what to tell him.”

“He found me. Not at the office, but coming out of my ballet class.”

The captain brought over our drinks.

“The usual, right?”

“Right. Joan, he’s going to keep calling you, I’m sure. He wants to see me again, explain things, start over. Forget it.

I don’t need the aggravation. And furthermore, you can’t believe a word that he tells you. Yeah, he tried to call the office a few times, but never told Laura he was waiting right outside for me. Tells you he’s left messages on my home machine not even my mother called today. He’s a liar. He’s scared and you can’t trust a thing he says, so don’t waste your time.”

I motioned for the waiter to come over.

“I’m starving.

Know what you want?“ Joan nodded. I ordered the tricolor salad and pen ne arrabiata, while she chose minestrone soup and a dish of linguine with white clam sauce.

“Basically, Joan, you have to be my Chinese wall. I don’t want any information filtered through you from Jed. I’m not interested in his excuses or explanations. I know he’ll try to use you, because he’s manipulative and he knows where to find you. Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it, understood?”

“Yes, Madam Prosecutor.”

“I’m hoping that if I don’t give him an ear, he will be forced to talk to the police. I’m in no position to listen to his story, and right now he won’t cooperate with Chapman.

So I don’t know if he was on the island when Isabella was shot, and I don’t know if he had anything at all to do with her death. But if he’s got such an urge to unburden his soul, let him do it at the squad, not to you or me.“

By the time our appetizers came, I had convinced Joan that I needed to talk about something else. We coasted through dinner as she caught me up on world news, a review of the latest Stoppard play that had just opened last week, and a description of what she planned to wear to the Literary Lions dinner, where she’d be feted for her recent Edgar nomination. Two double decaf espressos, a check, and we hailed a cab so she could drop me at my building while she went on to her apartment further uptown.

“Envelope for you, Miss Cooper.” Victor handed me the large manila packet that Chapman had dropped off as I passed through the revolving door. On the outside he had scribbled, below my name, “Tonight’s Final Jeopardy answer is Giuseppe di Lampedusa.”

I got on the elevator mumbling to myself, as I fumbled with the envelope’s metal clasp, “And the question is, who wrote The Leopard?” I ought to give that book to Mike sometime, I thought to myself, knowing he would love the fictional version of Italian history, portrayed through the story of the demise of an old aristocratic family. Inside, attached to the police reports, was a big yellow Post-it on which Mike had written: “I didn’t bet you on this one. Figured you’d know it. I thought it was a sexually transmitted disease. Leaf through these and I’ll call you tomorrow.”

No light was flashing on the answering machine. Either my friends assumed that life was back to normal and had stopped worrying about me, or they had all reverted to the usual ‘she’s tough, she can handle it’ mode. Either way it was sort of a relief, so I kicked off my shoes and put on a warm-up suit, then climbed on the bed to sort through the day’s mail and read the correspondence that had been found in Isabella’s home after her death.

LAPD Homicide Squad Report. Det. Reynoldo Loperra.

Attached are pieces of stationery found on desk of deceased after search at request of Chilmark, Mass. Sheriff’s Office.

My dearest Isabella, I will first address your most serious concern regarding your forthcoming trip to Martha’s Vineyard. Perhaps you are surprised that I know so much about your plans, but I must comment that you have been unusually careless in dropping broad hints that have come to my attention, and as you may realize by now, I am almost psychic in this regard. Should you have any doubts about that, perhaps our mutual friend can put your mind at rest.

There would be something sadistic about your mendacity and duplicity, Isabella, if it all wasn’t so very mindless, and my concern about whether you would be a good candidate for psychoanalysis is because I fear it would reinforce a pernicious lasciviousness in you, which is quite inappropriate for a woman of your notoriety.

I know you have a strong ego, but I worry also that when you learn that you are not the only one who is capable of prevarication that is, when you find that the woman he really loves is not your equal – not in physical beauty, not social status or material wealth, not even in professional recognition in her chosen field – the disappointment may be more miserable than the momentary pleasures of the flesh justify.

I am an ocean away and more than twice your age.

I am confident, then, that you will not feel threatened if I tell you that my feelings for him are just as deep as yours, and so it is with profound respect for both of you that I caution you against the adventure you are undertaking so blithely.

Perhaps you will come to your senses and send him on a plane to come and have some scones and a glass of burgundy with me. Better to love wisely than too well, and so on.

Best ever, Cordelia Jeffers Fellow, Royal Academy of Medicine

Maybe it was just the late hour but the letter made absolutely no sense to me at all. There were two or three others and I tried to skim through them to see if they were any more comprehensible. Was Isabella actually going back and forth to London to see a psychiatrist? There weren’t any copies of envelopes attached to the reports so there were no postmarks to check for the mailing origin. The writing was sophomoric and pretentious, and I found it hard to believe that it could be the jargon or the wisdom of a prominent therapist. Was I the ‘other woman’ referred to in the letter? No match for Isabella Lascar, it’s true – not her beauty, wealth, or fame, but certainly some recognition in my field. Was the mutual friend, in fact, Jed? More and more puzzles presented themselves instead of solutions, and I couldn’t decide if someone had actually had the premonition that Isabella would be in danger if she kept her rendezvous with Jed.

I looked at my watch and saw that it wasn’t yet eleven o’clock. I dialed David Mitchell’s number and was about to give up after five rings when he answered the phone.

“David, did I awaken you?”

“No, no. Alex?” He sounded reserved and rather cool.

“Anything wrong?”

“No. But I’ve got some letters here – letters that someone sent to Isabella, maybe a psychiatrist, and I was wondering if you could take a look at them for me.”

He hesitated before responding.

“Sure. Do you think it can wait until morning?”

“Oh, David, I’m sorry. I didn’t even ask – are you in the middle of something?”

“Well, not exactly the middle, but I do have company and…”

“No problem. Let’s make a date for tomorrow. That’s fine.” Just because I’m Miss Lonelyhearts doesn’t mean the rest of the world has to stop for me.

“Come on in for coffee at seven-thirty tomorrow morning. Bring the letters. I’m running at six-thirty, then a quick walk for Zac and I can give you as much time as you need.“

“And your company? This is kind of confidential. I think I’d rather wait and see you alone.”

“Gone with the first light of day, Alex. See you in the morning, okay?”

“Thanks.” I undressed, got into bed, and was asleep before I could even think about what the next day was going to bring.

The doorman rang my intercom shortly before seven-thirty on Wednesday morning to tell me that Dr. Mitchell was on his way upstairs and would like me to meet him in his apartment in five minutes. I had been up for almost an hour, getting ready to go to work and browsing through the Times for what seemed like the first day in more than a week. It helped greatly to put my personal situation in perspective to read that there had been yet another Ebola virus outbreak in Central Africa, a new Serbian uprising in a part of the Balkans I’d never heard of, and a recent discovery of mass graves containing hundreds of unidentified bodies in Guatemala. Humphrey Bogart was right: my problems don’t amount to a hill of beans in a world as full of trouble as this one.

David was just unleashing Prozac after their walk when I opened the door to his apartment. The dog greeted me warmly and we played tug-of-war with her chewed-up rawhide toy while David went into the kitchen to get the pot of coffee he had set up before going out to run. She nosed her way into my hand and invited me to rub behind her soft ears, and I was grateful for her early-morning display of affection.

We sat at David’s dining-room table and I spread out some of the papers for him to see. I began by summarizing the events of the week and trying to give him an objective overview of the cast of characters that was developing. As David studied the letters of Dr. Cordelia Jeffers, I glanced around the apartment, amused at the contrast in our decors.

Mine was as utterly feminine as his was masculine, with every surface here bathed in brown, except those that were beige or tan. He had been a bachelor for too long and I instinctively began redecorating in my mind’s eye as I waited for some kind of response to Isabella’s bizarre correspondence.

“I suppose the police have checked this woman’s credentials with the Brits.”

“I haven’t heard any results on that yet.”

“I did some work with the president of the Academy when I was at Ditchley last year. I can call him today and try to get some information, but from the looks of these letters, I’d guess she’s a fraud. This just seems like a lot of gibberish to me. Dr. Jeffers may be a bit senile and dotty, or else she’s taken on the traits of one of her patients. She sounds more like someone in need of treatment than a physician. Can I hold on to these letters?“

I shouldn’t even be showing them to anyone, I reminded myself.

“They’re my only copy, David. I’ll Xerox them at the office and get a set to you tonight, after I tell Chapman to get the lieutenant’s permission to consult a shrink.

“But it would be great if you make the call to find out where this woman is and what kind of practice she has. Then we can interview her about Isabella.”

“I’ll do that as soon as I get to the office, before they close shop in London for the evening. We’ll talk tonight?”

“Yeah. Why don’t you call me. I can promise you won’t be interrupting anything.”

I hailed a yellow cab on the corner of Third Avenue and directed the driver to take me to the Criminal Court Building by way of the FDR Drive.

“Know where the courthouse is?”

“Yeah.”

Always a bad sign, it usually meant that the driver had a criminal record.

“You a lawyer?” he asked, looking me over through the rearview mirror.

Most cabbies asked that question when they picked me up or dropped me off in front of the building, hoping for free advice about their immigration status, moving violations, or arrests for assault.

“No. I’m going to court to testify. I was raped.” A surefire way to end the conversation and allow me to finish perusing the paper the rest of the way downtown, as the driver took another peek in the mirror to see what one of those looked like.

I was later than usual so the elevators and hallways were bustling with prosecutors and witnesses. A heavyset uniformed cop, pushing retirement age, stepped out of my way as I turned into the eighth-floor corridor.

“Hey, Miss Cooper. How ya doin‘?

“Remember me? I had that rape case with you in ‘92.”

“Nice to see you. Sure.” I had only talked to a thousand or more cops about a thousand or more rape cases since then.

Give me a hint.

Laura was at her desk when I walked in.

“You don’t want to know who’s been calling, I guess.”

“Not if it’s more of the same from Jed.”

“Okay. There were a few others. Mercer just called. Said he was going out in the field and he’d try you again when he got back. They had a 911 call, something to do with the Con Ed rapist. Not a new case, just a possible suspect. Sarah needs to speak to you she’s got a question about a search warrant. And Elaine called from Escada. The suit you ordered came in. Can you get to the store to try it on?”

“Just ship it. I’ll never get there.”

I started working on my third cup of coffee, called Sarah and several of the other assistants who had e-mailed for help, then spent some time responding to some of the mail that had accumulated on my desk. When I finished, I told Laura I’d be upstairs watching one of the newer members of the unit deliver his first summation. I took a legal pad and went to the trial part on the fifteenth floor, where I sat in the rear of the room to make notes for the critique I would do after the verdict came in on the case.

For the better part of an hour I listened to the defense attorney drone on about his version of the facts of the case. It was a date rape and therefore automatically – a difficult trial. Sarah and I had prepared our newest recruit, Mark Acciano, for the problems he would have to confront before the jury. Most people considered this kind of case far less serious than stranger rapes, and trying to educate jurors during the course of the trial – if the ones with that attitude had not been identified and dismissed during the jury selection process – was next to impossible.

Unlike cases in which victims were attacked by armed assailants they had never seen before, the typical date rape involved two people who were together because they liked each other, and wanted to be in each other’s company. Many psychologists called them ‘confidence rapes because they occurred when a woman placed her trust in someone she felt she would be secure with, who then betrayed that reliance. While jurors tend to empathize with women who are raped by strangers, they are much tougher in these date cases, in which defense attorneys try to blame the victims for their participation in the events leading up to the sexual acts. The typical strategy is to attack the victim for every aspect of her lifestyle, from her manner of dress to her alcohol or drug use to her initial attraction – to the defendant that must have meant that she ’asked for it.“ They were ugly cases to try.

When the defense attorney sat down, Mark rose to make his closing argument. First, he marshaled all the evidence in the case, detailing every word and act that the complaining witness had described about her assailant during the course of the several hours he spent in her apartment when they had returned there after a dinner date. Mark was candid about the weak spots – how much liquor she had consumed, how much foreplay she had consented to but firm about the fact that neither of those factors gave the defendant a license to force her her to have intercourse with him. As Sarah and I had coached, he was graphic and emphatic about the defendant’s threats, and about the force with which he had restrained his prey when she had tried to resist and escape his attack.

The victim’s outcry had been prompt, which is somewhat unusual in many date rape cases when women are conflicted about whether to report the crime, fearful of not being believed. The medical record was a useful tool in this case, and Mark took the jury through it carefully. The finger marks on the young woman’s wrists and inner thighs corroborated her story about the defendant’s application of pressure – no, she hadn’t been beaten and bruised, but she had been held down against her will, and these marks did not support his story of tender lovemaking.

The internal exam had revealed redness and swelling in the vaginal vault, with several very minor abrasions noted on the accompanying diagram, again inconsistent with the protection afforded by lubrication during consensual sex.

I was impressed with the construction of Mark’s argument, and with the manner in which he made the jury confront the unpleasant details that established the elements of the crime. These were cases that had little to do with the business of a police investigation, but rather rose and fell based on the candor and credibility of the complaining witness. He placed that all before the panel of twelve jurors, some who nodded in agreement as he hammered home his strong points, some who sat stone-faced in their chairs, and some who appeared to be napping through all of the argument. He worked his way painstakingly toward his conclusion.

‘… and I ask you to find the defendant guilty of the crime of rape in the first degree. Thank you very much.“

Mark had taken more than an hour for the delivery of his summation, and I smiled my approval to him as he returned to his seat at the prosecution table. The judge would now begin his charge to the jury, in which he’d explain the various laws that had to be applied to the facts in the case. I noted that it was after noon, so I slipped out of the courtroom and returned to my office, knowing that it would be hours before the jurors finished deliberations and reached a verdict in a case like this.

“Rod called. Wants to know if you’d like to go out for lunch,” Laura greeted me when I returned to my office.

“Please tell him I’m stretched for time – let’s do it next week. And would you order me in a salad and soda?”

“Sure. Call Mercer at Special Victims. And Lieutenant Peterson at the Homicide Squad.”

I was excited when I picked up the phone to dial Mercer’s number. We were overdue for a break in the serial rape pattern and I was hoping it had come.

“Special Victims. Wallace.”

“Any luck? Heard you went out on a call.”

“A bullshit run. Nothing.” Mercer sounded discouraged.

“Every time some pimply faced plumber rings a doorbell on the Upper West Side, somebody calls 911. Not our guy, not even close. It’s a bad month to be a repairman – this poor slob was scared out of his wits. Took me two hours to calm him down. Then I had to call his old lady and explain the situation – make sure she understood it was all a mistake. Sorry for the false alarm. I’ll be talking to you.”

Peterson was Mike Chapman’s boss at the Homicide Squad, a tough old-timer who had worked Homicide most of his career, and knew the business better than anybody.

“Hey, Loo, how’ve you been?”

“Pretty good for an old guy, Alex. Can’t complain.”

“What do you need?”

“It’s on the Lascar case. Mike’s due in at four. I just called him to let him know what’s been going on, and I thought you should know, too. Then we had an idea, maybe you could help us with.”

“Shoot.”

“Chief Flanders just called. I don’t know the case as well as you do, but Mike says you’d understand what I’m talking about. First of all, Flanders got a hit on the photo ID of this Segal guy from the two sisters at the lunch place. That make any sense to you? Mike says it would.”

Butterflies began floating in my stomach and my spirits sank to a new low. It made no sense at all to me.

“Yeah, Loo, it makes perfect sense. Go on.”

Now it was no longer speculation. And now it was no longer just a matter of infidelity. Mike had been right. Jed had been with Isabella less than one hour before she was killed. Despite all the indications, I had kept on hoping he had left earlier. I had refused to consider him a serious possibility as a suspect, but I had to come to grips with the reality of that fact. No wonder it was Peterson who made the call. Mike was too afraid I’d be shattered by the confirmation of that news.

“The next thing Wally says to tell you is that Burrell – I guess he’s the ex-husband – has something to hide, too. Must’ve followed his wife from Boston to the Vineyard. Stayed at a hotel in Edgartown called the Charles Inn. Know it?“

“The Charlotte Inn. Gorgeous. Expensive.” Son of a bitch, doesn’t anybody believe in telling the truth anymore? Burrell shows up here to pitch me his case, then he looks me in the eye and lies. Interesting approach, I got to give him credit. Admit the gun possession, admit the fight in the Boston hotel. Just leave out the part that puts you within fifteen miles of the crime scene. Mike’s right – they think we’re all stupid if we’re in law enforcement.

“Now that suggests two things to me, Alex. One is, he didn’t go to the island planning to off his ex-wife. I think he woulda known to use an alias at the hotel. Even in the movies cops canvass hotels and motels to check the guest lists. But it doesn’t mean something didn’t set him off once he got there maybe he saw her with the other man, maybe they had a phone conversation that made him crazy. He’s in town, so we’ll set up the interview and sweat him. It always helps to go in with a piece of information that he obviously doesn’t think we have.”

I was still focused somewhere back on Jed.

“The rest is just local gossip. People who claim they saw and heard things all week. Someone in the post office says a woman was in asking directions to your place. Doesn’t exactly remember what day it was. Could that have been Isabella or did you have other company?”

“I gave directions to Isabella a week before she went up there. But she could easily have left them behind or stopped in somewhere to check. Maybe she invited someone else over I sure as hell didn’t even know she had Jed Segal there.”

“Also, American Express confirmed the Chanel sale. Only thing is Segal bought the stuff in New York, on Saturday afternoon, after his European trip. Looks like he got it at a drugstore about two blocks from your place. Sorry. The good news was that he had purchased the Concorde ticket to Paris weeks ago, then he moved his departure back a day or two at the very last minute. So he hadn’t planned the trip to the Vineyard for long. Well, that’s today’s report. Next thing, that FBI agent, Luther Waldron is in town. The feds had to make calls to get some of these guys to come to New York, which leads me to the favor we want to ask you.

“Mike doesn’t want Waldron in on all the interviews tomorrow. Doesn’t like the guy’s style, doesn’t think he knows anything about murder investigations, says he’s no better than a Meter Maid. So Mike’s trying to get as much done as possible out of Waldron’s presence, okay?”

“Suits me fine.”

“Johnny Garelli you know that name?”

“Yeah. Johnny Gorilla, she called him. The stunt man stud Isabella romanced for a few months. I only met him once.”

“Waldron got him to come into town for a sit-down tomorrow. He arrived on the red-eye this morning. Staying at the Gramercy Park Hotel. Mike thinks that if you called him and asked him to meet you for dinner this evening, you might be able to get more out of him than we could in a formal interview. Mike says Garelli likes broads better than he likes’ cops I’m supposed to butter you up and say he likes blondes with great wheels does that work?”

“No butter needed. You know this is the kind of assignment I love. Do I have to tell Battaglia?”

“Hey, you know me. If it was one of my guys did a thing like that without my permission, I’d wring his fucking neck.

But in your case, don’t you go off duty at 6 P.M.? I’m not asking you to get a pass from nobody to have a dinner date. It’s nothing dangerous like Mata Hari. We have no reason to think he’s the killer, but Mike wants to look at him ‘cause he’s got such a history of jealous squabbles with the deceased. We figure he’ll bite if you call, one of yous’ll pick a place, and Chapman’ll be having a drink at the bar.

Maybe you’ll get some scoop, some juice he’ll give you as a friend of Isabella’s. Pick his brain. I guess I’m usin’ that term loosely. Worst that can happen to you is you have a boring evening and a bad meal. Choose the restaurant, you might even eat good.“

“On the job, Loo. I love it. I’ll try to reach him. Tell Mike to call me when he gets in this afternoon. I’ll really feel like a wallflower if he turns me down.”

“If he turns you down, Alex, I’ll take you to Sheehan’s for a steak.”

Ugh, the food at Sheehan’s, a friendly bar run by the family of a retired Homicide cop. Great place to drink, but damned if I’d eat another meal there. That was incentive enough to put in a call to the Gorilla.

I got the number of the hotel from Information and asked the desk for Johnny’s room. He answered the phone and sounded as though I had awakened him. I reminded him that we had met once at Mortimer’s, expressed my less than-enthusiastic sympathy for Isabella with exaggerated sincerity, and suggested that we might meet for drinks or dinner to commiserate about her loss. He told me he’d been napping because of his jet lag, and that he had a date with a dancer from one of the Broadway shows who couldn’t meet him till almost midnight. Yeah, he’d be glad to do dinner with an old friend of Isabella’s.

“Want me to suggest a restaurant, or do you know New York?”

“You got any problem with Rao’s?”

“Only getting in. I adore it, but you’ll never get a table for tonight.” A New York classic, but impossible to get into. The tiny place four booths and a handful of tables was one of the hottest tickets in New York, despite its unlikely location on the corner of Pleasant Avenue and 114th Street in the heart of East Harlem. It was one of the last remaining vestiges of the Italian neighborhood that,ey once flourished there. Run almost like a club, regulars had On their own tables for designated nights of the week and there was no room for reservations for unknowns unless every as politician, actor, writer, and hotshot were marooned on the;er same remote island. Great food, no menus, and the most he incredible jukebox in the city light on Smokey, but lots st of Sinatra and the Shirelles. ier “Not a problem. Stallone told me I could have his table if I wanted it tonight. I was just about to give it up this girl I’m being set up with doesn’t get off till it’s too late to eat. I’ll meet you there at eight.”

Lucky for me. I get the good meal, and the showgirl gets Johnny Garelli for dessert.

When my lunch was delivered, I closed the door to the office and ate by myself, enjoying the solitude. It never lasted long.

The first knock on the door was Mark Acciano. I waved him in.

“What did you think?” he asked eagerly.

“Great summation, really good job. Thoughtful, thorough, impassioned. You gave it your best shot. Now you’ve got to let the jurors go to work you’ve given them all the tools they need to reach the right result. The rest is in their hands.” We chatted about the case and I told him I would try to be with him when the verdict came in, to beep me when he got the call. Then came Phil Weinfeld, aka The Whiner. He had two traits that made Sarah and me cringe every time he loomed in the doorway of my office. First was what we called the “I knew that‘ problem. He’d call and urgently plead for ten minutes of my time, come over and present a hypothetical, and then ask for guidance. The ten-minute presentation never took less than half an hour, and at the end, when Sarah or I made a suggestion which obviously caught Phil by surprise, he’d say, ”I knew that.“ Then what did you bother me for in the first place?

The other thing he was known for, much to the aggravation of most of his colleagues, was his insistence on seeking advice from eight or ten of us on exactly the same issue, without revealing that he had already consulted the others. We used to joke that if he got hit by a bus on his way home in the middle of the trial, the case wouldn’t even need an hour’s adjournment. There’d be at least a dozen of us who knew the facts every bit as well as he did who could pick up the file and carry on to the verdict.

He had worn out his welcome with Sarah, who’d begin every conversation with him by asking, “How many other assistants have you asked about this already?” If he’d been through it with half of the bureau, she’d point to the door and tell him to get lost.

“What’s up, Phil?”

“Have you got a few minutes for a question, Alex?”

“A few.”

“I’m having a problem with the witness in the case that you assigned me in September, the woman whose old boyfriend came back to her apartment to pick up his clothes, and then beat her to a pulp when she wouldn’t have sex with him? You know which one I mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, she canceled three appointments with me. Kept telling me that she didn’t want to prosecute ‘cause she still loved him. I was trying to work out a plea with his lawyer, figuring I’d rather take a misdemeanor assault than have him walk away with no record.”

“What’s the problem?”

“She just called me in hysterics. Changed her mind completely. She went to a psychic this morning for a consultation.

Didn’t tell the psychic any of their history, nothing about the guy, and the psychic does her reading and says, ”There’s a man in your life who’s very dangerous.“ She flipped. She’s terrified. Now she wants to go all the way with the case.”

“You mean the ex puts her in the hospital with two fractured ribs, a loose tooth, a broken nose and a black eye, but it took a swami to convince her the guy is dangerous?Unbelievable. I’m sure she’s sitting in front of the psychic with a huge shiner and her nose relocated next to her ear, and the genius figures out that a dangerous man hit her.Maybe we ought to put a psychic on the payroll to help with recalcitrant witnesses.”

“What should I do about the plea offer I made?”

“Withdraw it. If the schmuck was too stupid to take it and run, bring her in tomorrow while she’s still hot to testify and put the case in the Grand Jury. Assign the arresting officer, even if it’s his RDO‘ regular day off’ and I’ll authorize the overtime. Indict him and let’s get the felony instead of the misdemeanor. Be sure her order of protection is renewed.” I “Yeah, I know that. I’ll take care of it.”

“Anything else today?”

“Nope that’s it. I’ll let you know what happens.”

The rest of the day passed quickly with the usual array of cases and customers. Every time the phone rang I feared it would be Battaglia, and I played with the idea of asking him whether I should keep the meet with Johnny Garelli.

But he didn’t look for me once, and since I knew he would have been disapproving, I simply avoided having to deal with the issue.

Mike called me a little before four o’clock when he reached the squad.

“What a wimp you are,” I chided him.

“Couldn’t even call me to tell me about the Quinn sisters making the hit on the photo of Jed, could you?”

“Frankly, I didn’t want to tell you, you’re right about that.

You didn’t seem to want to accept the obvious from the first time we talked about it.“

“Have you told his lawyer about the photo ID yet?”

“Nah. I just got in. I’ll call him later. Meanwhile, the lieutenant tells me you’ve accepted our mission gonna throw some moves on Johnny Garelli tonight. Did you find him?”

“Piece of cake. It’s all set.”

“Where’s the meet?”

“Rao’s. Can you do it?”

“Way to go, blondie. We’re both in for a good evening.”

“You can get a table at Rao’s? I can’t believe it.”

“No way. But I can get a seat at the bar. And once I’m in, the whole joint is so small I can scope it all pretty easy.

Joey’s aces, the best. He’ll let me sit there all night, and Vie will keep my glass looking full.“ The restaurant was owned by Joey Palomino a real charmer, who not only ran the business, but also acted in a number of movies and TV series, usually playing cops and detectives. He was good to the industry luminaries who frequented Rao’s, but just as nice to the guys who let him hang out at precincts and squad rooms to learn the ropes. And Vie was one of those astounding bartenders who would see a customer like me walk in someone who wasn’t likely to get there more than twice a year point a finger at me, raise an eyebrow, and say, ”Dewar’s on the rocks, am I right?“

“So what do I do, Mike? Johnny wants me to meet him there at eight.” “I’ll make sure I’m there at seven-thirty. I’ll see if I can get Maureen Forester freed up from her bodyguard detail to go with me, so it looks like I got a date.” Maureen was one of the best detectives in the city, with the added advantages of being great-looking and having a superb sense of humor.

“We’ll be at the bar.

“Nobody’s expecting any trouble, but this way you’ll have us at your elbow if the guy does anything jerky. Sit and have a nice dinner. See if you can find out what his relationship was like with Isabella near the end. So far, nobody we’ve talked to in L.A. has any idea where this goofball was the week of the murder. See if you can ease anything out of him.”

“What’ll you do until then?”

“See what other information came in today. If I don’t speak to you before dinner, you should let the Gorilla take you home from the restaurant. Then Maureen and I will come up for a nightcap when we see him pull away, and we can compare notes on the day, okay?”

“Yeah. See you later.”

I called Mark Acciano’s office to see how the deliberations were going in his trial. His paralegal answered and explained that Mark was still in the courtroom. The jurors had asked for a lot of read back most of the testimony of the complaining witness, which meant that at least one person, maybe more, were fighting on her behalf. That process alone would take several hours, so it was unlikely there would be a verdict this evening.

“Please tell Mark I can’t wait it out with him tonight. I’m sort of working on something else. But my beeper will be on in case he gets a result sooner than I think.” I wished the team good luck and hung up.

Pat McKinney was standing in the doorway.

“I just got a call from Maureen Forester. She’s body guarding that pro who’s a material witness in a drug conspiracy murder case that Guadagno’s on trial with. She says you’ve got an emergency need a female undercover that I’ve got to relieve her for the evening. Do I need to know about this?”

Shit. Not if I can help it. Oh, Mo I wouldn’t exactly have called this an emergency.

“Well, you know that pattern we’re trying to break up the Con Ed guy?”

“Oh, it’s related to that?”

“Not ex-‘ ”You’re not using her for a decoy or anything, are you?“

“No, of course not.” I wasn’t lying, I was just stalling for an excuse. I think all the people who’d been testing my good nature all week had something contagious that I had picked up. Well, it was very unlikely that Pat would ever find out about my evening plans.

“Okay, Alex, you can have her but you’re going to have to call around and get somebody to replace her on the bodyguard. My wife and I have theater tickets tonight, and I just don’t have time to hang out here begging the squad commander for a replacement. It’s in your lap, okay?”

“Fine.” Don’t let your current state of despair get the better of you, Alex, I tried to tell myself. How does a sour, mean-spirited grouch like Pat get himself a wife who he can take to the theater at the end of a busy day, while I can’t find a decent guy to save my life? Karen McKinney’s a boring, computer science techno-nerd professor at Brooklyn College, but it still must be awfully nice to have someone to go home to and leave all this bad news behind. I called Chapman at the office and told him what I needed.”

“Pat dumped it back on me. If you want Maureen, is I’ve got to get someone to bodyguard Mo’s witness at the hotel overnight. Any ideas? Is she difficult?“

”Nah. We’re just trying to keep her straight during the trial. Junkie. We call her the Princess. She’s from the suburbs, very agreeable. Shoots up in her armpits so she doesn’t leave any tracks for her old man to see. Easy to baby-sit no problem as long as you keep her away from the stuff. I’ll make some calls and have someone up there in an hour. Don’t worry about it.“

My second line was flashing. Laura signaled that Joan Stafford was on the telephone.

“Can you believe how bad it is? Even Pat McKinney has more of a life than I do,” I moaned into the line.

“Little wonder, Alex. I’m thinking of having a Cooper family crest designed for you. A symbol of Athena, with a broken heart, and an inscription in Latin: ”I sure know how to pick ‘em.“” “Why? More from Jed?”

“Alex, he’s going over the edge. Now he’s calling me constantly. I love you dearly, but I’ve got a deadline with my editor and I’ll never make it if I try to keep Jed at bay for you. I can’t keep up with his calls. Maybe you should just hear him out for an hour tonight and get it over with. He can’t understand why you won’t respond to his messages.”

“Joan, there are no messages. He’s manipulative and dishonest. Look, I’ll speak with his secretary and have her tell him to leave you alone, but don’t suggest for a minute that I see him. I’m busy tonight, working. You’re an angel I’ll get you out of this one, promise.”

The last call of the afternoon was to David Mitchell.

“How’s everything been going today, Alex?”

I’m not looking for a diagnosis of my condition, I just need help with the case.

“Much better, David, thanks. Got something for me?”

“Yes. I checked first thing this morning. There is no psychiatrist in England named Cordelia Jeffers, nor is there any record that there ever has been. At least she’s not a licensed M.D.” and there was never anyone by that name who was admitted to the Royal Academy.“

Curiouser and curiouser.

David went on.

“I’d like to look at the letters again, if I may. I’ll probably have a few more questions for you after I do. Did you remember to make copies?”

I told him I’d make them right now and slide them under his door before my dinner date.

I closed up for the day and walked out of the office to look for a cab. The fall air was heavy and the thick clouds made an evening rainstorm likely. I grabbed a yellow on the corner of Worth Street and gave him my address. The inside of the taxi smelled like a corral for a herd of camels, and like so many of the new additions to the fleet of drivers in the past few years, the man at the wheel didn’t seem to recognize too many words in the English language.

We attempted to make ourselves clear to each other by a combination of waving arms and grunts, but I yielded to the fact that I would have to stay on top of him for the entire ride to make sure he knew where I wanted to go.

“Here she is now,” I heard Anthony, the second doorman, tell the young delivery boy, who was barely visible behind they the tall array of two dozen yellow roses.

“Miss Cooper, want on me to send the kid up with you?”

“No thanks, Anthony.” I stepped to the table along the wall near the mailboxes and withdrew a pen and a twenty-dollar bill from my pocketbook. I removed the card, ripped up Jed’s pathetic note “Please I really need your est help‘ and gave the kid back the flowers along with the tip.

I scratched on the envelope the words “With gratitude for all you do,” relied on the old theory that anonymous giving was really the most generous form of the art, and directed the kid to New York Hospital, which was just a few blocks down the street.

“Sorry, this was a mistake. They were supposed to be delivered to the burn unit at the hospital.

Just leave them there, at the nurses’ station, okay?“

The young man didn’t seem too annoyed, and I continued on my way upstairs. I heard Zac bark as I slipped “Dr.”

Jef fers’s letters under David’s door, and I unlocked my own apartment and went inside to change for my rendezvous ‘ with Johnny. No mail of any interest except a postcard from Nina and a request from the Wellesley Alumni Magazine for an update on my activities for the class notes. My schoolmates would be about as interested in my goings-on as I am in the news of their Zen weddings on hilltops in the Rockies, their inventive mothering styles, and the I impractical topics of their postdoctoral theses. I ripped up I the request and saved the notice to send in my annual dues before the end of the month. No messages on the machine, either, so I showered and selected a slinky black outfit to wear for dinner.

I was ready to go and called for a car service to take me uptown, as I waited for the Final Jeopardy question to come on, just before the seven-thirty close of the show.

The topic was world geography Mike and I could split this one down the middle, but I figured he was already on his way to the bar with Maureen. The Final Jeopardy answer was: “A town in France, famous for its tapestry, which was in fact an embroidered chronicle of the Norman Conquest.”

Alex Trebek began to go on about the tapestry not being an actual tapestry, but rather an embroidery made of coarse linen. I was sssshing him through the television screen as I tried to concentrate as hard as his contestants, who appeared to be as puzzled as I was. Alengon? Cluny? I probably would have bet my whole stash for the evening on a topic I figured I was pretty good at, but I was actually stymied by the time the stupid music of the jingle stopped playing. I made a last-ditch stab at Aubusson.

“No, I’m sorry. Aubusson is not the right answer,” Alex gently rejected one of the players who had come up with the same guess as I had. Player number two had just left her card blank, shrugging her shoulders and shaking her head. Player number three, an obese musicologist from Indianapolis with one arm and five children, surprised Trebek with the right question: “What is Bayeux, France?”

“That’s absolutely correct, Mrs…” I clicked off the television before I could hear how much money she had won and picked up the ringing phone at the side of my bed.

It was the polite, slightly Southern accented voice of FBI agent Luther Waldron, greeting me with a “Hello, Alex, I never thought I’d find you at home tonight.” Well, I might ask, why did you bother to call me here then? But I didn’t.

“Hi, Luther. I’m just on my way out the door.”

“Wanted to let you know I’m in town. I’ve arranged for some of Isabella’s disgruntled suitors to be here for interviews.”

“Yes, I’ve heard.” as “ Course none of them look quite as likely as that character you had yourself mixed up with. That was certainly a kc shocker. Next time you get serious with somebody, you let me help you with a little background check, young lady.”

I’ll just ignore that one for the moment.

“How can I help you, Luther?”

“Just thought you’d like to know I was in on this. Your Homicide guys may do fine with street criminals, but I’m not sure they know how to carry off the interrogation of Hollywood types, businessmen. You know, the more intelligent kind of suspect. I’m staying right on top of it.

“Couple of other items. Just tried to pass them along to Chapman, but he’s out in the field. I’ll brief him when I see him tomorrow.”

“What are they?”

“Well, for one thing, Burrell’s back into the ice. Cocaine.

We’ve got a snitch in Boston who says his main man made a delivery to Burrell’s hotel room the same day Isabella checked out. You add that to his secret trip to the Vineyard, spice it up with his rage at her, and who knows what he did, without ever planning it in advance. We’ll be talking to him before the end of the week, and I hear he’s mighty nervous already.“

“What else?”

“One of our L.A. agents tracked down the local psychiatrists whose names were on the pill bottles in Isabella’s bathroom. Three of them had been fired over the years for not giving her the ups and downs she wanted. The current guy seems pretty cool, but he’s pulling all kinds of patient-doctor privilege stuff now. You know, he can’t divulge things Isabella said to him because she was his patient. Claims he has no information about her that has anything to do with the murder anyway. Wants to confer with his lawyer first to find out, legally, whether the privilege survives her death. How can he know what’s relevant to her murder without knowing half the details we know? The only thing he’d give up was that the lover she was talking to him about – sorry-, but we figure that’s Segal he’d had an experience with a stalker, too. That’s one of the reasons she was so comfortable with him. The shrink’ll talk about Segal says that he wasn’t the patient, so there’s no privilege with whatever things he told Isabella. He never met with Segal directly -just says Lascar told him Segal had also been stalked by some woman while he was running for political office. Did you know about that?”

“Yeah, we did.”

“We’ll keep working the psychiatrist, Alex.”

“Okay, Luther. I’ve got to run.”

“Hey, got a couple of jokes for you, Alex. Heard them at Quantico the other day right up your line of work, so I saved them for you.”

The guy just doesn’t get it, I guess.

“Anybody down there tell you the one about FBI agents about why each male agent has a hole in the end of his penis?” I asked him, cutting him off at the pass, before he had another chance to offend me.

“No,” he replied cautiously, ‘haven’t heard it yet.“

“So oxygen can get to their brains.” Have a nice day, Luther.

“See you tomorrow.”

I put out my lights and locked the door behind me as I went off to meet one more of the men who might have had a motive to take the life of Isabella Lascar.