The DeadHouse

37

"You do know the piece of paper I mean?"

I tried to force myself to focus. Once he knew how to get his hands on the map, there was no need to keep me alive. I thought of the paper in my pocket and my hand unconsciously moved stroke my throat, thinking of Lola's fate and imagining the many uses of the thick length of rope Shreve had brought back with him. There were two other copies, and I had to make him think was indispensable in getting them into his possession.

"I didn't know about the significance of the map when I came across it, of course. I never knew the story of your grandfather's diamonds until just the other day. But I do know how get it for you."

He was calm now, and talking to me as he squatted next to the chair.

"Look, Ms. Cooper. I'm a French citizen. You get me this map, and I'll find Freeland's ransom, go back to my home abroad, and donate half the money to the college or any cause you name."

I listened. Surely he would know we could extradite him from France. Or was he that certain that he could talk his way out of a murder charge?

"We're talking about millions of dollars." My head dropped to avoid his gaze. "Ah, ever the earnest prosecutor. Once you help convince all the authorities how Charlotte died, I'll be home free. And you'll still have Claude to blame for Lola Dakota's death."

"You'll need me to get the map, Mr. Shreve. The original is in the safe in Paul Battaglia's office."

"Your team is too efficient not to have made some copies. I took the liberty of looking through your file-the one that was in my car-but no map."

"One copy." I sucked in some frigid air and prayed that what I was about to say would not put Mike in harm's way. "Detective Chapman has that copy. And I can help you get it from him."

"How can you do that?"

I would have to think of something specific by daybreak, less than an hour or so away. "Because he'll do whatever I ask him to do."

"No wonder you've got some problems with your boyfriend. Rather confident of that, aren't you?"

"Chapman's a very intelligent man, Mr. Shreve. If you let me call him and arrange for him to meet us, you can tell him exactly what you've told me about Charlotte Voight and Lola Dakota."

"Surrender?"

"If Charlotte's death was accidental, and Lavery killed Lola, then you've got nothing to worry about."

I needed to talk myself out of this black abyss and into the open areas outside the building where someone might actually be able to see us once the morning came.

"I'd rather get back home to the Sixth Arrondissement and let you break the news to the NYPD. Where's the Blackwells Island miniature that my grandfather had Bennino make, Ms. Cooper? Do you know that, too?"

I moved my head up and down, slowly trying to think of a possible answer.

"Was that a'yes'?"

"Yes, I do." Shreve himself had given me the idea when he had talked about Lola's weeks in hiding. "It's at Lily's house, Lola's sister." Why hadn't I thought of that possibility in all the days since the murder? Lola must have taken a lot of things with her to occupy her during the weeks in New Jersey. She was too much of a workhorse not to have done so. If that's where she was when she figured out Jennings's deadhouse scheme, that's probably where the model was concealed.

I went on weaving my tale, which seemed to interest Winston Shreve. "There's a key to a trunk that's in Lily's garage. It's where Lola left the miniature when she came back to the city. Chapman has that key. I'm supposed to meet him at nine o'clock this morning to go with him to pick up the model."

"And all that charade about old man Lockhart and going up to listen to his story?"

"To try to determine who else knew about the map and the diamonds. If you let me call Chapman now, on your cell phone, know he'll agree to meet with us." And I know he'll get the tech unit to trace the call immediately. They could do amazing thing with satellite systems, even pinpointing the location of the caller in a matter of seconds.

"I wouldn't want to alarm him in the middle of the night. He might be busy."

Shreve was right. Mike might be much too involved with Valerie to be giving me a second thought.

I didn't want to end my life in this godforsaken ruin like one more of the outcasts sent here and left to die. Slowly, I raised my head to meet his eyes. "I've studied your grandfather's map, Mr. Shreve. I believe I could recognize the shapes of some of the areas, the pieces of land where the wooden sheds once stood, if I saw them. If you want to walk outside with me, I can try to help you find the rocks that correspond with the locations noted on the map."

"That's a good way to start, Ms. Cooper." He turned to look out the hollowed window frame. It was still dark, and the storm had subsided. The precipitation had stopped and large wet flakes of snow blew lazily upward from the ground instead of falling in sheets. "The positions on the map, were they numbered?"

"Yes, yes, they were numbered." The first time I said that word aloud I recalled another set of numbers. In the pocket of the black sweater that we'd found in Lola Dakota's apartment just hours after her murder was the slip of paper that we had removed. The paper that bore the words the deadhouse, followed by a list of numbers. They meant nothing to us at the time, and now I realized they must have been the key to the map that Lola had deciphered while holed up at her sister's home.

Lola had come back from New Jersey wearing that sweater, but removed it at some point before she walked out of her apartment for the last time. Shreve had gone to intercept her, looking for the map and the numbers that might correspond to it and lead him to the diamonds.

"The numbers, Ms. Cooper. Tell me how they were ordered." "I honestly can't remember that. I know that the lower numbers started at the southern tip of the island. I, uh, I could probably show you where some of the areas that were highlighted on the map are, if I could actually see the terrain."

"Nice try, Ms. Cooper. That's hardly the way it was half a century ago."

"But some of it is exactly the same. I, I-when I saw the map, I didn't even realize what the outline of the Strecker building represented. But I know there were areas to the east of the seawall, that were starred by Professor Dakota on her map." After Shreve's explanation this morning, it didn't take much else to figure out where the wooden sheds had been built, close to the morgue and out of view of patients arriving from Manhattan.

He was too smart to trust me entirely.

"You've got nothing to lose." I tried to say it casually, not to reveal how anxious I was to get out of this hellhole. "I can't get very far." Surrounded as we were on three sides by water that was so cold it would kill the strongest swimmer within minutes of submersion, even before the current could carry one away, and bounded on the fourth side by a razor-wire fence, Shreve could hardly disagree.

He picked up one of his neckties and rewound it around m hands, binding them in front of me-rather than behind-so could move more easily. He carried the long piece of rope in his left hand, while lifting me to my feet with his right. "I'll call your bluff, Ms. Cooper. You've got a bit of time to see if you can find me a gem or two."

It took me several seconds on my feet before I was able to walk a few steps. The cold air had numbed them, and I was fearful frostbite. That was a good thing, I reminded myself. It at le meant that I thought I was going to survive this ordeal if I was worried about losing a few toes.

Shreve led me through the shell of the building and out the rear door, the same way we had come in hours before. It was the only side of the structure that was not lit by floodlights, and so he knew he could guide me out to the shoreline without detection, in the event anyone had even thought to look for me in this unlikely place.

The city nightscape was more visible to me now. The grey-black sky had cleared to cobalt blue, in the final hour of predawn darkness on the last day of the year. Off in the distance on the Manhattan side, the Art Deco crown beneath the spire of the Chrysler Building was bathed in the red and green lights of the holiday season. Closer to me, in Queens, the Citicorp tower dominated the skyline, standing behind the Domino Sugar, Silvercup, and Daily News signs that stood atop the company plants that fronted the river.

Below the neon lights and factory smokestacks, on the streets and piers, I could not make out a single human being across the water.

Holding my elbow, Shreve walked me to the edge of the river. Rats the size of piglets scampered up and over the boulders that edged the seawall. There were boat docks farther north, on the populated part of the island, but no vessel could come close to this granite border without smashing its hull against the rocks.

I turned back to look at the two ghostlike structures. On my left, parallel with the front wall of the old hospital, was a giant elm tree, bare of her leaves and coated with icicles.

"That tree is one of the markers on the map. Behind us"-I swiveled and pointed with my bound forefingers locked together- "is where the island widens and curves north."

Shreve looked at the shape of the wall, following my direction. I went on, "That had to be the strip on which the deadhouses were built. It's close to the morgue, but still out of sight." That much was logical. I tried to sound just as convincing as I continued to speak. "The map had foundations of four old wooden buildings. The first one was a bit north of that bend in the seawall, if I remember it correctly."

He moved away from me and took a few steps to the edge of the wall, taking care not to slip on the icy boulders. He braced himself with one leg on a piece of granite closest to the water, and I saw it wobble beneath his foot. It must have given him a scare, because I heard him curse beneath his breath and back away from the edge. He decided to explore the loose boulder and got down onto his knees. The rock lifted easily and although it was dark where we were standing, there did not appear to be any treasure hidden beneath it. He scraped a gloved hand against the frozen ground, but the dirt wouldn't yield to such a soft probe. I assumed that years of neglect had caused the seawall to decay, too.

"I don't think any of the rocks that close to the edge were marked on the map," I cautioned. I wriggled my hands in the direction of a paved area that seemed to be composed of crumbling material. "This patch would have been under the base of one of the buildings," I suggested.

Again, Shreve dropped to his knees and began to dig his fingers into the crevices, moving anything loose out of his way but coming up empty. No long-buried treasure was going to be that close to the petrified surface of the land.

He was getting short with me now, figuring that I was leading him on a wild-goose chase to save my own neck. He pushed himself back to a standing position and picked up the rope from the ground beside him.

"It makes more sense if you just wait for me inside." Shreve took a step toward me and it was clear that he was ready to use the thick cable to restrain me. I knew he had less than an hour to decide whether it was safe to tie me up and leave me alive beside Charlotte Voight while he returned to Manhattan for the day, or it was better to dispose of me in the icy current just ten feet away.

I slid my feet backward, one at a time, away from his outstretched arms. "Come on, Ms. Cooper," he said, extending the rope with one hand and trying to grab my wrists with the other "I'll go over to the college and see what progress the police a making with your disappearance. Don't worry, I'll be here in the afternoon with something for you to eat, and another chance for you to cooperate."

I glided back in the direction of the footpath and Shreve tried to keep up with me, both of us slipping and sliding on the frosted rocks' glassy surface. I was not going back inside the morgue, to be a companion to the decomposed remains of Charlotte Voight.

"Don't be stupid, young lady. You've got nowhere to go."

"Take me with you," I pleaded, skating sideways as he fell on one knee and struggled to keep his balance.

As Shreve scrambled to get back on his feet, I could see over the top of his head that three police cars, red bubble lights flashing, were coming over the small bridge from Long Island City to the northern end, near Roosevelt Island's Main Street. My heartbeat quickened. Perhaps Mercer had given Mike the Jeopardy! message after all. Perhaps the motorcade was looking for me.

They were still miles away from this isolated strip of earth, and I needed to stall for as long as possible until they might find me.

I turned south, away from the ruins of Strecker, and headed for the southernmost tip of the island, the only point that could be seen from both Manhattan and Queens. It was treacherous going, and Shreve tried to overtake me as I balanced every tread on the slippery path. He was moving carefully, not racing, since it was as obvious to him as it was to me that I had no way to escape him.

When I was just several feet from the narrow end, I stopped and looked back at my pursuer. In the air, to my left, one of the giant red cabs of the tram had lumbered into view and was cruising down into its station. It was still too early for the system to be operating, and I prayed the movement meant that the police had pressed it into service. Shreve was bearing down on me and had not noticed the police cars or the tram that was traveling behind his back.

"I lied to you," I screamed out at him, my words blown off over the water by the fierce wind.

"What?" he answered, yelling back as he was still trying to make his way to me.

Off the very point of the island was a spit of rock, a huge boulder that was connected to the land by a series of smaller stones. Sometimes barely visible throughout the year, the stones now protruded through the water's surface because of the heavy buildup of snow and frost. Between and around them were patches of ice, thin coatings that endured defiantly during this cold spell again; the constant pounding of the swift current.

Only a ten-foot-high beacon stood on the barren rock, useful in fog to guide ships around the island into the channels on either side.

"What did you say?" he shouted at me again as I scanned the horizon, hoping to see patrol cars careering onto the roadway that led to my lonely outpost.

He was not more than an arm's length away, and he paused catch his breath, winding and twisting the rope like a rodeo rid about to snare a calf. He was confident, and I was terrified, trying to buy time as he closed in on me.

"I said I lied to you before."

He laughed aloud at me. "And exactly which part was a lie?'

I checked over my shoulder and back to the very edge of the seawall. As I stood on top of an ancient fragment of granite pushed my jacket aside and poked my bound hands around t edges of my pants pockets.

Shreve's face screwed into a puzzled expression as he watched me fumble.

I strained to hear beyond the howl of the wind but could 1 make out the noise of any sirens. Where could the cops be? What was taking them so long to find us?

I stepped one foot down onto a flat rock that jutted out of black water and was the first link to the boulder less than ten feet away. When I was standing securely with two legs in place, I glanced back at Shreve and pulled the paper from my pocket.

"It's the map, Mr. Shreve. I lied when I told you I had time to make copies. This is the original. It arrived in yesterday's mail just before we went up to the meeting in Sylvia's office. This is what you want, Professor. It's the only one there is."

The wind whipped at the paper and tried to snatch it from hands and carry it away. I crammed it into the pocket of my parka and continued on my hazardous journey.

It was my turn to be confident now. If I could navigate the seven or eight stones to get across to the large boulder, I would be safe. Shreve would not dare to follow me. The more than eighty pounds that separated what I guessed our weights to be would fracture the ice, should he attempt to step on it. And I could cling to the beacon, waiting out the sunrise, sure that the police were on their way to find me.

If I didn't make it, and I was keenly aware of that possibility, it would be an awful death. But faster, I assured myself, than anything Winston Shreve had in mind.

I hadn't counted on how badly he wanted to get his hands on the map.

I was on the fourth stone in the icy archipelago, straining to keep my feet from slipping, hindered by my inability to stretch out my arms and stabilize myself against the wind above and the slick surface below. Behind me, I heard the crackling noise of breaking ice.

I ignored the voice in my head that had been telling me not to look back. Shreve had followed my path and was on the first stone. He had stepped off to the second one, but his feet were longer than mine and the rocky incline could not hold his thick boots. His left leg had slid down and landed on the crust of ice, breaking it apart and allowing the black water to bubble through.

"Give me the goddamn map," he screamed at me. He had frozen in place, it seemed, now aware of the dangerous trail he had undertaken. "Give me the paper!"

The wind played with him, too, and his words were lost somewhere over the roiling water.

My next two obstacles were relatively flat and elongated. I moved across them easily and counted only three more on my course to the big rock.

A glance back and it was clear that Shreve was consumed by his desire to get to the map. He had made the decision to come after me. His feet held on the third step, and he paused there to figure how to make it safely onto the next one.

The great buildings of the United Nations were directly across to my right now. Lights were going on in some of the offices as the sky began to brighten. The city was coming to life. Someone would find me.

My foot reached out to anchor itself on the next rock, but it was peaked and ragged, with no flat area on which to step, I leaned forward and grabbed its crest with my clasped hands stretching out the toe of my right foot to find a hold on the slippery cover. It seemed secure, and so I pulled myself forward, balancing my one hundred fifteen pounds on either side of the crest. As fast as I could free my hands and move again, I teetered forward to the adjacent perch, almost at my goal.

As I stood on the next-to-the-last rock, I was ready to launch myself to safety. I grabbed at the naked shrub that was poised on the ledge in front of me and tried to pull myself onto the slick boulder. But the ice beneath my left foot ruptured sharply and my entire leg was submerged in the frigid water. I clung desperately to the small gray stubble of the branch that was supporting me and kicked my quickly benumbed leg furiously to get it out of the icy river.

Slowly and agonizingly, I hoisted myself onto solid ground Shreve's scream pierced the air and the wind slammed its sound against my head.

I opened my eyes and saw him grasping for my leg, which was dangling over the side of the great boulder. He was trying to get me to save him, I thought, not to hurt me, although it hardly mattered at that point. As he had reached out for me, he slid off the peaked rock and collapsed through the slim coating of ice. "The rope!" I yelled at him. "Throw me the rope." But the wicked current tugged at him and swept him away from the rocks. I pulled myself up to a standing position using the sturdiest branch of the small bush, but with my hands still tied I was unable to extend my reach near the drowning man.

Shreve screamed once more as he struggled to keep his head above the waves. The turbulent inky water had claimed him, and he was dragged downriver at ferocious speed. He shouted something again, gurgling insensibly as he was pulled down by the paralyzing force of the raging flow.

I lowered myself onto the ground, wet and frozen. I rested my head against a low stump and gave up waiting for salvation. The Pepsi-Cola sign flashed and there seemed to be early morning traffic racing along the FDR Drive.

The little red snub-nosed tugboat of the New York City Fire Department seemed to be making a beeline for my deserted boulder. I tried to tell myself its crew would see me here, with dawn breaking through the night sky. As it neared me, on its prow I thought I could make out the figures of Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, standing beside two uniformed firemen. Mercer must have repeated the story I fed to Shreve about the Blackwell Jeopardy! clue, and Mike had made the connection.

Cold, exhaustion, and hunger overwhelmed me.

I closed my eyes.

"When I came to, the first thing I saw was the pure white counterpane on my hospital bed. I felt warm and comforted for the first time in days. Looped around the upper rim of the metal railing was an intravenous tube. The IV pole was next to my headboard, and I could see that the glucose solution was almost empty. I must have been badly dehydrated.

I looked at the clock on the bedside table and it said 11:42. The shades were drawn three-quarters of the way down, open enough to reveal that it was night.

I rolled from my side onto my back, wiggling my toes as I did so. I lifted each foot, one at a time, to reach my hands, and counted to make sure I had all my toes.

When I moved onto my other side, my cheek scraped against something hard. There, pinned against the corner of the pillow, was Jake's glittering little bird atop a rock.

Through the glass windows that separated my room from the nurses' station, I could see five people standing together. Jake Tyler and Mercer Wallace were leaning against the counter watching Mike Chapman and laughing at him. He was gesturing with great animation, regaling two nurses with his war stories and adventures.

I knew it wouldn't take long for Mike and Mercer to coax me back to Blackwells, with the old map, to dig for diamonds with them. They would find my stalker, too. I was sure of that.

Outside the door to my room was another IV stand. Attached to it, hanging upside down, was a bottle of champagne. Tommorow would begin a happier new year.

I smiled and closed my eyes.