The DeadHouse

15

Neither Shreve nor Recantati had mentioned any financial improprieties at the college. Mike and I were both thinking of Lola's shoe boxes and whether this would be a connection to the unexplained cash.

"Have either of you heard of Dr. Lavery? Claude Lavery?"

Neither one of us answered.

"He was thought to be a trailblazing anthropologist. We hired him away from John Jay." John Jay was New York City's college of criminal justice. "The administration convinced me, at the time, that it was quite a coup for us.

"Lavery's expertise was urban drug use." She extracted several clippings from her leather case. One of them was a John Jay alumni magazine, several years old, featuring a cover photo of Lavery and heralding an article on his inner-city work. He sported a colorful dashiki, unkempt dreadlocks, and a tangled beard. He was holding a crack pipe in his hand.

"I'm upping my contribution to the Jebbies this year. The closest this guy could get to the faculty of a Jesuit college like Ford-ham would be the service entrance."

Foote narrowed her eyes and examined Mike more closely. If she thought he was crossing the limits of political correctness, she hadn't seen anything yet.

"What came with Dr. Lavery to King's College was a grant of three million dollars, courtesy of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. That's a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services. It made him even more attractive to us than his resume.

"The first problem we faced was where to put him. Winston Shreve was running the anthropology department and, quite frankly, didn't want a thing to do with Lavery's study. Shreve is a classicist, really. He has very little experience with modern urban culture and certainly not this kind of thing. He wanted us to put Lavery in the sciences, or with sociology."

"Anybody want him?"

"Actually, yes. There was a bit of competition to get him. Professor Grenier runs the biology department and was very interested in carving a position out for Lavery because of the potential for health-related studies of drug use. Long-term physical problems of heroin addicts, everything from HIV infection to dental deterioration. It fit nicely with their premed courses, overlapped with the chemistry curriculum, and linked them more tightly to the social sciences.

"And poli sci wanted him as well. Lola staged quite a campaign to convince us. She thought it was a wonderful basis to study the city, everything from the criminal justice reaction to the drug issue, the competition for funding between prison facilities and treatment programs, and the political response to substance abuse in society."

"What was your solution?"

"It was one of the few battles that Winston Shreve has lost here. Dr. Lavery calls himself an anthropologist, and that's the department in which we saw fit to place him. Much like the Black-wells Island project-"

"Is Lavery involved in that?"

"Not that I know. But it's a similar situation in that Lavery created a multidisciplinary approach to his issue, so the other departments could each get a piece of his very large and quite delicious pie. Money for everyone."

"What's the problem, Sylvia?"

"A complaint was initiated by the government a few months ago. Not in your office, but with the feds. Southern District of New York. It seems that a substantial sum of the money he was awarded is missing and unaccounted for.

"The grant came with a discretionary fund. It made one hundred thousand dollars available annually for Lavery to use as he saw fit. Related to the research, of course." She was thumbing through documents that appeared to be spreadsheets and accounting records.

"Lavery claims that he purchased computer equipment and office supplies and gave cash to student interns who researched short-term matters for him. There don't seem to be records to support him, but most academics wouldn't be surprised by that."

"What's the theory?"

Sylvia Foote studied a point on the floor between her shoes and Mike's desk. "Drugs, Detective. Sort of everyone's worst fear about this grant from the outset. That the cash was being used to buy drugs-illegal street drugs-to keep his worker bees happy. Perhaps to use for his own pleasure. The investigation is still ongoing."

"But how-?"

"Claude Lavery is a unique character. Kind of a Pied Piper in a college setting. Smart and creative, but gave the impression of being the anti-academic at the same time. He has a very laid-back style, and early on, right out of the London School of Economics Lavery would venture into the bleakest parts of the city. Central Harlem, Bed-Stuy, East New York, Washington Heights. He bonded with street characters, the kind who would never let outsiders into their world. That's why his research was unique.

"He wrote about phenomena that made him the darling of scholars in urban studies-both the hard government types and the more 'touchy-feely' sociologists. And then, all the major newspapers picked up his theories as though they were gospel."

"Like what?"

Foote pulled a copy of a Washington Post front-page story from her briefcase. "Citing data from Lavery's studies, the story backs his claim that it was the federal government's strict interdiction policies about marijuana back in the seventies and eighties that created the market for international cocaine trafficking to fill the void.

"The students were wildly enthusiastic whenever they came under his spell. They would walk into a neighborhood with Claude-the kind of place these middle-class kids wouldn't dare to go on their own-and find that he had established this wonderful rapport with the locals. That led him, and them, to the addicts and, finally, to the dealers."

"You thought maybe by bringing this guy to the college he was gonna be hanging around on Sesame Street? What's the surprise here?"

"Frankly, Detective, you're right. That's why some of my colleagues aren't the least bit shocked. They expected no less. I presume," she said with great resignation, "that some of them are the people who sparked this formal complaint. Caribbean vacations to study island sources and native drug use, major foundations pouring money in on top of the government grant-things quite likely to make other serious academics a bit envious. And then you have the real distress. What if Claude Lavery was literally putting money into the hands of these students to enable them to buy drugs themselves?"

I wondered if this could be the story that had reached David Fillian in state prison. Perhaps Lavery was the professor Dr. Hop-pins was referring to when she stopped me in the courtroom to tell me the news that Fillian was trying to barter for an early release. Was Lavery the person selling drugs to students?

"The kid who hanged himself the other day-any connection to Lavery?"

"Not that we can tell. Julian Gariano was more involved with what they call designer drugs-speed, Ecstasy, some cocaine. Claude's work was primarily with street drugs, but as you know, those lines have been increasingly blurred the last few years. They had certainly met, and Julian was in one of Lavery's classes. No one puts them together outside the lecture hall."

"The missing girl?"

"No link at all."

"Lola Dakota. Connect those dots for me."

Sylvia looked at her files. "As soon as the federal allegation was filed, we suspended Lavery. Quite frankly, we were trying to mount a case to revoke his tenure, which is not an easy thing to do. Professor Dakota led the opposition to the administration. Backed Claude with all her strength. Even turned Winston Shreve around and had him barking at us to wait and see, allow Claude the presumption of innocence."

"Why?"

"Well, we don't know exactly why. She claimed it was strictly for professional reasons. He bucked the system, just as she did. If anyone admired his unorthodox techniques, it would have been a maverick like Lola.

"Then, there's a more malevolent view. Some people were worried that there was something more in it for Lola. Money, to be exact. That she had been using some of Claude Lavery's funds for her own purposes."

"For drugs?"

Sylvia Foote frowned. "No one's ever made that claim. There's not even the hint of a rumor that Lola would have anything to do with drugs. Nor would she tolerate that in her students. But her own projects were quite costly to run. And she was dreadfully competitive. If she could buy an edge for herself, there are those on our faculty who are convinced she would have done it." "Do you believe it?"

"Lola was a thorn in my side. Constantly. If someone could create trouble for my staff any day of the week, it would be Lola, pushing the envelope every time. I didn't like her alliance with Lavery, and the reason for it is still a mystery to me. She wasn't a particularly materialistic person, and I don't understand what she would have wanted with the money. But the fact remains that a substantial sum has vanished, and before you saw that story in the headlines or heard it from your federal counterparts, Paolo thought I ought to tell you that it was under investigation."

"But other than the fact that Lola was backing Dr. Lavery, was there anything else to suggest an attachment between them?"

Sylvia gave it a few moments' thought. "Nothing unusual. Good friends, neighbors-"

"Whaddaya mean, neighbors?" Mike asked.

"Claude lived in the same building that Lola did: 417 Riverside Drive. He lived one flight above her. Directly overhead, if I'm not mistaken."

I looked at Mike and could tell that our wheels were spinning in the same direction. I did a mental run-through of the police reports of the canvass of the apartment house that detectives had conducted the day after the body was found. I couldn't call up a memory of any particular names, but it should have been obvious that a building that close to the King's College campus would have been full of residents who were faculty members or staff. Had the cops talked to anyone named Lavery? Had they accounted for his whereabouts the afternoon Lola Dakota was killed? Had they cross-checked names of tenants with Lola's family or friends to see what her relationships were with others in the building?

Chapman's impatience was more obvious than my own. "Where's Lavery now?"

"I have no idea, Detective. The last time I saw him was at the vigil on Friday evening. So many people have gone out of-"

"Who can tell me where he is this very minute? Today." Chapman was standing now, ready to be unleashed from the polite tether of administrative interviews and get his hands into the dirt.

"He has been suspended from the college. He doesn't have to report to us or tell us his whereabouts. Dr. Lavery continues to receive a paycheck from us until this is resolved, and if the feds come down with an indictment, I assume the rules may be somewhat different for him."

"How about this other guy, the biologist?"

"Professor Grenier? What about him?"

"He's another one I'd like to talk to."

Sylvia pushed some more papers around. "Grenier's on sabbatical until the beginning of the new year. Can you be patient another week or two, Detective?"

"Frankly, Ms. Foote, I can't be patient another damn minute." He towered over her, shaking his pen in her face as he talked. "You get a forty-eight-hour reprieve 'cause Santa's coming to town and there's nothing I can do about that. These guys are on your payroll; you just said that. Lola Dakota is colder than a stone and six feet under. Find these guys, understand me? I want to see Skip Lockhart, Thomas Grenier, and Claude Lavery by the weekend. Move heaven, earth, and unlock your unsmiling frozen jaw to make it happen."

Sylvia's papers were sliding off her lap as she listened to Chapman's booming voice. They scattered to the floor, and I helped her organize them while he continued to list instructions. By the time she left us, she was walking so unsteadily that I had to hold her arm all the way out to the reception area.

"When are you coming back from the country?" Mike asked as I walked toward his desk. I looked at his calendar. This was Tuesday and tomorrow was Christmas Day. "I'll be back on Thursday unless you want me to change our plans."

"Don't bother. Nobody's here to work with. Just figure we'll be scrambling all next weekend on this, if Foote rounds up her troops and if the lab is good with any test results." He picked up the phone that was ringing on his desk. "It's Laura, for you."

"The superintendent of your building just called, Alex. There's a problem."

"What kind of problem?"

"Seems like there are two workmen who were found in your apartment. The super needs you to come home right away and see if anything's missing."

I slammed down the phone and told Mike I had to go home.

"Not without me. I'm driving."

"You've got things to do. I'll grab a cab."

"Not with that chubby little whackjob whose ID you glommed running around looking for you. You live twenty floors up, with two doormen on every shift. How the hell did anyone fly into your little love nest? I can't get there on my best day, best behavior."

We drove downtown and parked in the garage in my building. The woman from the apartment below me was standing in the lobby, with her Boston terrier, when we walked in.

"The management's security guys are upstairs, along with a detective from the precinct," Jesse said, following us into the elevator.

"What happened?"

"You know the guys who've been working on the scaffolding? Well, you don't see them much, 'cause you're at work all day. But once my kids leave for school, I'm around the house in the morning, and then I'm in and out all day. It's been really creepy to have them around. They seem to be looking in the windows all the time."

For the past six weeks, scaffolding had been erected around the entire high-rise apartment building as it was undergoing repairs to the brickwork and the replacement of some of the windows. Workmen arrived early and spent most of their days hanging off the roof, being raised up and down by a series of pulleys as they went about their business.

"This morning," Jesse continued, "I left about an hour ago to do some errands. Got all the way up to the avenue and realized I had forgotten something, so I turned and went back. When I got inside, the first thing I noticed was that the windows in the living room were wide open and my dog was barking. Then I could see the scaffolding platform rising on the ropes. I grabbed the dog and ran down to the door.

"I told one of the guys on duty what had happened, and Vinny took a run up to check your apartment, since it's right above mine. He must have your passkey." "He does."

"He opened the door, and the two workmen were standing in the middle of your living room."

We stopped on twenty and got off. My apartment door was ajar and I could hear the loud arguing between the detective and one of the workmen as the three of us walked in.

"Not the traditional way to enter someone's home, but thanks for having us, Alex." The guys from the Nineteenth greeted us as they sat in my living room, trying to talk to the two interlopers. "You heard the story?" one asked, looking over at Jesse. "Yeah. What's their version?"

"They say the wind was so bad that they had to get inside, or they were afraid they'd be blown off." It was the first thing I had heard that seemed logical. "They kicked the window in and came through that way," Detective Powell said, pointing to the marble-topped counter on my cabinets behind the dining table. "Looks like they broke some of your china."

I glanced over to see that several of the decorative antique plates that were displayed on the sideboard had fallen to the floor splintered into pieces.

"So how come, if they were so terrified, they broke the window downstairs but didn't go in?" Mike asked. "Doesn't make sense if all they were worried about was saving their asses."

"The story they're giving us is that when the dog started barking, they backed out."

Jesse wasn't buying it. "They were more frightened of a weeny terrier than of being blown off the side of the building? That one's hard to swallow. I think they saw me returning and just panicked. Why'd they go up and not down?"

Powell answered again. "Their boss says that when it's windy, it's actually more dangerous to be lowered than to go up higher. If they drop, it means they have to let out more rope, and that causes them to swing more, and that makes it riskier for them."

He put his arm around my shoulders and guided me off into the den. "I don't want to make a scene in front of your neighbor, but you gotta know that since the scaffolding went up, there have been three burglaries in the building."

I turned to look at Powell, surprised by the news. "Nobody's mentioned it to me."

"Needless to say, management would rather not have it known. There's no forced entry, so we've been looking at them as inside jobs. We actually started with the house staff as suspects-"

"Hey, I'd start with these guys on the outside. I'd go to the mat for the men who work in the building. Every single one of them." "Well, today seems to prove the point. You want to look around for me and tell us if anything's missing? I patted them down, and they've got nothing on them. Of course, since your neighbor was so quick to act, these guys never got out of your apartment. So if they didn't drop stuff out the window, they probably didn't have a chance to take anything.

"And you might want to know, just for your comfort level, that these mopes who've been staring in everyone's window the past few weeks? They've both got sheets a mile long. The short one standing near the kitchen door, he's on parole in the Bronx for armed robbery. The taller one, who pretends he don't understand English? He's had four collars for larceny.

"One of your neighbors in the C line moved in on a Monday night, and woke up the next morning to see him standing in her bedroom doorway. She screamed her guts out."

"And he's still working here?"

"The guy backed right out. Said he thought the apartment was still empty, didn't know she'd moved in. He'd been using the bathroom as his Porta Potti all month. Apologized and left. Hard to know what to do about him."

"Would you mind getting these guys out of here while I check around for you?"

"We're taking 'em over to the precinct. Gonna print both of them, to compare against the other cases. I won't charge 'em with anything here unless you tell me something's gone, okay?"

The two detectives walked the men out of the apartment while Mike, the super, and I surveyed the damage. Broken glass was everywhere, mixed in with the shattered china.

"Is Powell locking them up?"

"I can't see it, for this. What if their lives really were at risk and they had to come inside? I'm not going to second-guess anybody on that. They don't seem to have gotten out of here with anything. All they did was make a mess." We were standing by the window, and even though there didn't seem to be much wind today, the frigid air streamed into the room.

"Yeah, well, I think it's bullshit and they're lucky they landed where they did. Nice to know you're so forgiving about guys who crash into your pad. I may bank on that. What are you gonna do about this mess?" In one corner of the room stood my cheerful little Christmas tree, while here at my feet was a pile of debris.

The super spoke. "We'll take care of it for you, Ms. Cooper. We'll clean all this up by the end of the day. Just make a list for us of the things that were broken and we'll submit it to the insurance company."

He looked at the giant hole in the glass. "I doubt I can get the window replaced before tonight. Were you planning on being here for Christmas?"

I shook my head.

"Then you'll have a new one by Thursday, I promise."

When everyone left, Mike and I knelt on the floor to pick up some of the porcelain pieces. "Now I've got something new to worry about. I can't think of many places I've felt safer than behind the doors of this apartment, once I get inside at night and turn the locks. No fire escape, no back entrance, no way in unless I open the dead bolt." I tried to laugh. "Now I've got to worry about men climbing in off scaffolding twenty stories above the street?"

"These guys were trying to give you the same message I was the other night. Time to settle down and develop a more stable lifesty-"

"Don't go there, Mr. Chapman. Get up off your knees. There's nothing to salvage in this pile. I'm just going to check with the office and then I'll take a cab out to the airport."

"But they wrecked the joint."

"Puts things in perspective, though, doesn't it? Lola Dakota is dead, and all I've got to complain about is some broken china. Want to open your Christmas present?"

"Nope. Let's celebrate when you come back. Maybe we can get Mercer in for dinner one night and have our own little holiday, okay?"

"Pick the date. That's fine with me."

I dialed my office number and checked with Laura to see if there were any messages that had come in since we last spoke. She told me no and patched my call through to Catherine Dashfer, who was supervising the unit while I was uptown. "Thanks for covering for me. Anything going on today?"

"A new case just came into the complaint room. Looks like we're going to have to do a hospital hearing at the end of the week, to hold the perp in. Do you think you can get Leemie or Maxine to cover it on Friday? Paul and I are still planning to be at my sister's house through the weekend."

"Sure. Let me make some calls. Why a hospital hearing, though?" There could be several reasons the proceeding would be held in an institution and not at the courtroom. It was frequently done when the defendant was confined with an injury or an illness, or if he had a mental condition that required detention at a long-term-care facility. In that case, the judge, lawyers for both sides, court officers, and an official stenographer trouped to the site to conduct the arraignment or probable-cause hearing. "What hospital?"

"Bird S. Coler. The one on Roosevelt Island."

"Even better. I'll do this one myself. Tell Laura to have the file messengered to Jake's doorman." That way it would be waiting for me when we came home from the Vineyard on Thursday evening. "What's the case?"

Catherine repeated the facts that the officer had told her. "Perp's name is Chester Rubiera. He's a paranoid schizophrenic with a history of substance abuse. Assaulted one of the other patients. I'll get a facilitator for her, too. The victim has a severe mental disability. You may need someone to help the court understand her testimony. Friday at ten, okay?"

I turned to Chapman and explained the situation. "How about if I ask Nan to show us around Roosevelt Island on Friday afternoon? I've never been there. The new case happened at Coler." A chronic-care facility located on the north end of the island, the hospital was home to many patients with physical ailments, and had a large psychiatric unit as well. "I can do the hearing in the morning, and you can meet me over there at lunchtime. Maybe we can get a sense of the place."

"You're living in the past, blondie. Your fascination is with Blackwells Island. There's no such thing anymore, and there's no evidence, at the moment, to think that Lola's death is connected to what's going on over there today."

"You're right. But I'm just interested in what had Lola so engaged in that project. If there's something more important to be done on Friday, I'll skip it. If not, I'll exorcise my curiosity." "You know what curiosity did to the cat, Coop." "It's a perfect place to be, under those circumstances," I said, smiling. "At the deadhouse."