The DeadHouse

4

I heard The New York Times slam against my apartment door at six-thirty, flung there by the porter who distributed the papers throughout the building every morning. Drops of water from my hair, still wet from the shower, dripped onto the front page as I leaned over to pick it up and check the headlines for the story of Lola Dakota's death.

Three pages back in the Metro section was a photo of Lola, standing at a lectern in full academic dress, mortarboard atop her head. The caption read "University Professor Dies in Bizarre Accident," above a subheading printed in smaller type describing her as a "Witness for the Prosecution." The reporter had managed to incorporate every stereotypical expression of reaction into his brief story. The administration was shocked and saddened by news of the beloved professor's death, students were puzzled by the ironic twists of fate in Dakota's final days, and her husband's family was outraged at charges that he was alleged to have been involved in the thwarted plot to kill her.

The phone rang and Chapman gave me the morning weather report. "You're gonna need a dogsled to get downtown this morning. The streets are coated with ice and the windchill brings it down to about five degrees. I'm on my way home to catch a few hours' sleep."

"Anything develop during the rest of the tour?"

"Nope. Made the usual notifications, took care of all the paperwork, got the preliminary reports down on the chief of detectives' desk so he's in the know first thing he walks in. Subway's the only way to go today, kid, much as you hate it. The driving is treacherous. See you around lunchtime."

I finished dressing and reluctantly headed for the Sixty-eighth Street Lexington Avenue station, anxious to beat the rush hour crowds. Once settled into my seat, I scoped out the other passengers and sat back to read the rest of the newspaper. It was early enough so that most of my companions appeared to be people going to their jobs and offices. A bit later and too many of the riders who stayed on board south of Forty-second Street would also be on their way to the courthouse, to make appearances for their criminal cases. On those occasional days that I got on the train at nine o'clock, it was an eerie feeling as we looked each other over for the last ten minutes of the ride, knowing at a glance-the closer we all got to the Canal Street station-that we were combatants on opposite sides of the battle. Usually, I preferred to drive to work.

The cold air bit at my cheeks as I reached the top step of the subway exit and turned south for the short walk to Hogan Place, fighting the strong wind as I walked carefully around icy patches on the sidewalk. The guy inside the small pushcart on the corner closest to the office saw me coming and readied a bag with two large black coffees.

I scanned my identification tag into the turnstile, greeted the uniformed cop who sat at the security desk, and got on the elevator with a few other lawyers from the staff. I stuck my head in at the press office around the corner from my own desk to remind the assistant to include Dakota's story and obituary in the clips she was preparing for the district attorney to read. Each morning, Brenda Whitney's aides combed the Times and the tabloids, the local and national papers, cutting and compiling all the stories related to our cases or to crime stories that might be of interest to Paul Battaglia and his executive staff.

Before I could remove my coat and boots, Pat McKinney stood in the doorway, resting a hand on the back of my secretary's, Laura's, empty chair. "Lost a big one last night, huh?"

I tried not to let my intense dislike for McKinney, who was deputy chief of the trial division and one of the supervisors to whom I answered, affect my response. "After all that woman had been through, you might think about putting it in terms of her life, not mine."

"Lucky for us it didn't happen on your turf. Pretty clever sting they pulled off in New Jersey with the fake hit. How come you weren't so creative with the case?"

"It was Paul's decision not to be involved in such a risky plan, and I think he was entirely right about it."

"That's what you get for not going up the chain of command, Alex. I would have backed you on that one. Our squad wouldn't have let her walk away yesterday afternoon without taking better care of her, tucking her in at home, making sure she was safe and sound. Next time, check with me first. I can often be more flexible than Battaglia. And Lola Dakota would be alive." He slapped his hand against the back of Laura's chair and walked away toward his office at the end of the hall.

The phone rang and I picked it up as I sat down to turn on my computer. Rose Malone, Battaglia's executive assistant, was calling to tell me that he was on his way downtown and wanted to see me as soon as he got in. That gave me half an hour to try to get the Jersey prosecutors to bring me up to speed on what they had learned during the night. The one answer Battaglia didn't like getting too often was "I don't know, boss."

I dialed the number for my counterpart in Sinnelesi's office and left a message in his voice mail to call me back as soon as possible. How did the case against Kralovic look? Exactly what time did Dakota leave her sister's home? How did she travel into Manhattan? What kind of mood was she in? Who saw her last? Battaglia was likely to ask me what she'd had for breakfast, too, and whether or not she had cleaned her plate. There wasn't anything about her last days on earth that he wouldn't expect me to detail for him as soon as he got into the office.

"Have a minute for me?" Jody Soellner was standing tentatively in my doorway, and I waved her in. Her arms were loaded with notepads, a copy of the penal law, and what looked like an NYPD evidence envelope. "I'm on my way to the grand jury to put in that case I picked up last weekend. The guy who broke into the apartment on West Twenty-third Street and raped the babysitter who was watching the three kids. Remember the facts?"

I told her I did.

"The victim just showed me two of her fingers. When the perp put down his knife on the bed, she tried to roll off, away from him. But he pulled her by the arm and bit down hard." Jody held up her left hand and grabbed her own middle and ring fingers. "She was back at Roosevelt Hospital for her follow-up yesterday and the doctor confirmed that she had two severed nerves. Can I charge an extra assault count-you know, that the perp's teeth are a dangerous instrument?"

"Good try. Unfortunately, the court of appeals disagrees with you. I think the case is People versus Owusu, a couple of years back. The distinguished jurists said it's different from upping the ante by bringing a weapon along to assist the bad guy in his criminal endeavor. His teeth come with him naturally-they're not 'dangerous instruments' and you can't get the extra charge, even though I like your creative thinking. What's in the brown folder?"

Jody unclasped the catch and withdrew a plastic package covered in black ink with a voucher number and case identification. When she flipped it over to the clear side and held it up to show me, I could see the carving knife with the ten-inch blade. This victim was lucky. The jurors wouldn't even need to wait to hear the definition of forcible compulsion before they voted a true bill.

"Be sure and give Laura a copy of the indictment as soon as you file it."

I e-mailed instructions to Maxine, my paralegal, to pull the Dakota papers as soon as she got in. Reporters would soon be calling to get whichever facts about the case history were public record in order to reconstruct the story behind yesterday's events. I pushed aside the notes on the hearing for which I was trying to prepare, jotting down a Post-it reminder to take the whole file home for the weekend and work on it there, when I could better concentrate on the issues.

Battaglia had a speed-dial number that rang directly on my console, bypassing both of our secretaries. Usually, I jumped out of my seat when I heard its distinctive ring, but this morning Rose had helped me with an estimate of his arrival time. I greeted him and told him that I would be in immediately to brief him on the Dakota case.

"Save it till this afternoon. The governor just called. He's on his way to the World Trade Center and wants to stop in to talk about the DA Association's proposed legislation package for the January session. You got anything that can't wait, or is it as straightforward as the papers make it appear?"

"I've made all the calls to get details on what happened during the past twenty-four hours, and I'm waiting for Jersey to get back to me. Chapman and I were both pretty skeptical about the accidental death theory last night, but I've got nothing unusual to give you yet."

"Keep it that way, if you can. The last thing I want for Christmas is a high-profile case that sets me up as Sinnelesi's whipping boy."

"No problem," I promised him, and kept my word for almost two hours.

Chapman sounded groggy when Laura put through his eleven o'clock phone call. "The news from both ends is bad."

"Hey, you're supposed to be sleeping. How can anything bad have happened?"

"Peterson just woke me up with the results of the inventory that some of the guys have been doing. You know all those shoe boxes in Lola's apartment? Well, she didn't share your fetish for high heels, slinky sandals, and velvet slippers. A few of those cardboards have some worn-down leather pumps, most are crammed with index cards that look like notes or research for a project, and two tired old boxes are stuffed full of cash."

"Like savings for a rainy day?"

"Like a stash for the monsoon season, Coop. Not kosher."

"Glad I wasn't on the scene for that discovery. What else?"

"And then there's the latest word from the ME's office. Autopsy won't happen until the end of the day, but Dr. Kestenbaum has already noted a few things that don't make him happy. Like some hairs-not Lola's-that she had gripped in her tight little fist, and, more to the point, lots of petechial hemorrhages in her eyes."

I knew the significance of the findings before Chapman went on. The tiny red pinpoints were the classic forensic hallmarks of strangulation.

"Kestenbaum thinks she actually struggled with her attacker while he choked her to death. Then he rolled her into the elevator shaft to make it look accidental. Fasten your seat belt, Coop, while he takes a close look at Lola's innards. He's just getting ready to declare this case a homicide."