Death Dance (33 page)

"Double or nothing," Mike said, tossing two twenty-dollar
bills on the floor. "Winner buys dinner. What do you say, blondie?
Anywhere you want to go—we can walk around the corner to
Swifty's for some twinburgers, or I'll drive you down to Patroon, buy
you the biggest steak in the house."

I sniffed at the ends of my hair. "Can you just see me in
Swifty's? The best-dressed, most perfectly coiffed ladies in Manhattan,
and I walk in like this? No, thanks. I'm too achy to go anywhere."

Mike walked to the phone to order a pizza as Trebek unveiled
the answer. "Editor of the autobiography of the great American general
Ulysses S. Grant."

Two of the three contestants seemed to be too puzzled to even
venture a guess, while the third one scribbled an answer on his screen.

"I hate when they sucker me in like that," Mike said. "This
answer doesn't have anything to do with military history. It's right up
your English-major alley once again."

"Not even a guess?" Trebek asked the second contestant, who
held up a blank slate.

"Maybe it's a trick question. Why would you need someone else
to edit your life story? I'm going with Grant himself," Mike said,
talking to Trebek.

"Mercer, do you care to jump in here, or is this for me, to
ease my pain?" I said, reaching out my arm for the forty dollars on the
carpet near my feet.

"Go for it."

"I'm so sorry," Trebek said. "That's not the correct answer.
Who—"

"Who was Mark Twain?" I asked.

"… was Mark Twain? Can you imagine that?" Trebek
said. "The author of one of our finest American novels actually edited
and published the memoirs of one of the greatest generals who ever
lived. Quite something, isn't it?"

"They were really an odd couple," I said, "but they were last
friends."

"You're one to talk about odd couples."

The phone rang and I screwed up my nose as Mike tried to hand
me the portable receiver. "I don't want to speak to anyone. Let it
ring."

He looked at the caller ID and pressed the talk button.
"Alexander Cooper's residence."

I rested my glass on the floor beside me and waved at Mike
with both hands, mouthing the word
no
as
emphatically as I could.

"No, sir. I'm just the butler. Yeah, Mr. B, it's Mike Chapman.
She's—uh—she's actually across the hall at her
neighbor's apartment Can you imagine? She ran out of scotch. Yeah,
she's fine. She'll tell you about it in the morning." Mike proceeded to
give the district attorney a replay of my description of the fiery
letter, as well asto talk about the likely suspects—Sengor or
Alkit—who might have sent it.

"Whatever you say, Mr. B. Sure, I can spend the night here, no
problem. I don't think anybody's gonna show up later on Ms. Cooper's
doorstep with exploding anchovies on a large pie, but if it makes you
feel better, I'll keep an eye on her," Mike said. "Yeah, I know what
you mean. Sometimes she's more trouble than she's worth. I gotta agree
with you there."

I pushed up from the sofa to protest. "There are two doormen
downstairs, twenty-four hours a day. I really don't think—"

"Don't roll your eyes at me, blondie. Till we see if they lift
any prints from what's left of that envelope in the morning, the
district attorney wants to play it safe."

By the time the pizza was delivered, I was hungry enough to
chew on a slice while Mercer and Mike devoured the rest of it.

A little before nine, Mercer had a call on his cell from one
of his Special Victims Squad colleagues, who was a few blocks from my
apartment. He was returning from the DA's video unit with duplicate
copies of Sengor's collection and asked if we wanted to review any of
them before arraigning his pal, Dr. Alkit, in the morning. Mercer went
down to the lobby and returned with six tapes.

"You want to see what we've got?"

"Guess we'd better look at the one from last Friday. Are they
marked?"

"Yes. These are all labeled," Mercer said, picking out the
right tape and loading it in my VCR.

Sengor must have activated the video camera at some point in
the evening after his victims had been rendered unconscious. The first
few seconds of film showed the empty beds in his room, the covers
folded down to reveal the sheets. Mercer had been in the apartment the
night of the arrest, so he described to us the bookcase opposite the
bed in which the device had been hidden, wedged among a series of
pharmacological textbooks.

In the background, I could hear the CD player changing discs,
and then Kris Kristofferson's plaintive voice asking someone to help
him make it through the night. Sengor walked into the room carrying
Jean Eaken's limp body in his arms. He was naked, and she was dressed
in the casual clothes she had worn when I met her late on Friday night.

The doctor lowered his victim onto the nearest bed, adjusted
the dimmer on the light switch to darken the room, turned to the
camera—almost preening for it as he ran his hand down his
chest and paused to admire his erection.

Jean Eaken never moved. Sengor slowly and deliberately raised
her by lifting beneath her shoulders and removed her sweater over her
head. He unhooked her bra and took her arms out of its straps, one at a
time. He was mumbling now, talking to her as he undressed her, but the
words were inaudible to me. He let her fall back in place and stood up,
taking a drag from a joint—presumably marijuana—
that was on his nightstand, before going back to the business of
removing her pants.

Mike had seen enough. "Necrophilia. I've never seen anything
so disgusting. How can you watch him do this? The only thing different
than having sex with a corpse is that this kid's body is still warm.
I'm telling you, you people who do sex crimes, you're all out of your
minds. At least the people I deal with are dead. Over and out. They
don't see anything, they don't feel anything. The perp doesn't get to
say, 'It ain't a crime where I live, buddy.' It's frigging murder, no
matter where it happens. This stuff? How can you look at it? No wonder
your love life's in the can, Coop."

Mercer stopped the tape. "Here's a guy gives us the whole
crime, gift-wrapped. We have to watch it—make sure there's
nothing exculpatory on it. You know that."

Mike was in the kitchen, his vodka in one hand, the other one
rifling through the freezer for ice cream, the most likely food group
to be found in my home. "Yeah, but there's something about the two of
you sitting in the den with this—this disgusting
stuff—and the fact that you're watching it together like
you're at the movies is really—"

"Those nuns in parochial school did a great job on you, Mikey."

I said. "I'm surprised you can even say the words
sexual
intercourse
, no less do the deed."

"What makes you think I've done it, kid? You'd be the last to
know. I'm telling you, watching that shit roused you up, see? You
shouldn't even be talking like this."

"Mercer and I have to watch this, and all the other tapes they
seized, just the way you go to autopsies."

"Yeah, well, I'll take homicide any day of the week. Let me
know when you think you've seen enough to prove your case, will you? I
know you like to give the jury a rock-crusher, but this one's out of
the park."

I walked into the living room to meet him. He dropped into an
armchair and scooped out spoonfuls of chocolate chocolate chip from the
container, his feet on my glass-topped coffee table.

"Now all I need is a perp to prosecute," I said, easing myself
onto another chair.

Mercer followed me out of the den, but stood behind Mike.
"I'll head for home. You want to bring these duplicate tapes down to
Max? I suppose she and your interns can sort through them all and see
if we've got more victims to search out."

"Will do." I got up to walk him to the door and kiss him good
night. "Thanks for keeping me company. It really was frightening when
that little fireball flew up at my face. Have you seen anything like
that before?"

"Who got the call to the governor's office on Third Avenue two
years back? Iggy, wasn't it?" Mercer asked Mike. "Remember that
prisoner in New Mexico who set up fifty letters like that and sent one
to the governor of every state?"

Mike shrugged.

"Yeah," Mercer went on. "Five secretaries all over the map got
lit up just like you. The other intended bombs sat in stacks of
correspondence and they all got tracked to the same inmate. It's not
hard to do, Alex."

"You'll let me know about the fingerprints in the morning?"

Mercer pointed at my hair. "You take care of the
'do'—the rest is up to me."

"You ready for a refill?" I asked Mike after I closed the door
and locked the deadbolt.

"Sure. We'll watch the ten o'clock news and then it's lights
out for you."

"That's fine with me, Dr. Chapman. I'm really whipped. You can
sleep in the guest room, you know."

"This sofa's worked for me before. I'm cool with it."

"I'll get a quilt to put over you. And how about a robe?"

"Pink's not my best look."

"No, I mean, I'm sure I've got a—um—an
old—"

"You think I want to wrap myself in some rag that one of your
lovers left behind? No thanks—I might begin to feel entitled,
then what the hell would I do? Hey, I've had worse details than this.
You just try to calm yourself down."

I was yawning before the anchor turned things over to the
weatherman and said good night as I went to put myself to steep.

But by four o'clock, I was wide awake and rolling restlessly
from side to side. I had been dreaming about Natalya Galinova, a
night—mare in which her broken body appeared as it had when I
saw her in the bottom of the shaft at the Met. It was such a vivid
image that for seconds I couldn't figure out whether or not I was still
asleep, so unnerving that I got out of bed and went into-the bathroom
for a drink of water to change the setting.

I wrapped a dressing gown around me and walked in my bare feet
to the living room to see whether Mike had stirred. He was curled up on
the sofa, the half-empty vodka bottle beside his empty glass. It was
probably the way he had anesthetized himself on more than one or two
nights since Valerie had been killed.

I pulled a pillow off the armchair and stretched out on the
floor beneath him, resting my head on the soft cushion, tracing the
pattern of the pale green design in the soft wool threads of the
Persian car* pet with my finger. I was hoping the monotony of the
motion would lull me back to sleep.

Images of Jean Eaken in Sengor's videotaped assault were hard
to erase. The Kristofferson lyrics that had played in the background
also kept repeating. Let the devil take tomorrow, I thought, 'cause
tonight I really did need a friend.

Nothing worked. I watched the sky turn from deep cobalt to
hazy gray to a bright cloudless blue. Whatever demons I was fighting,
the basic problem was that I had been disturbed enough by the week's
events—and by the letter bomb—that for at least
this time, I didn't want to be alone anymore.

At six forty-five, I decided to shower and dress. I
accidentally brushed against one of Mike's legs as I stood and he
picked his head up, squinting as he tried to get his bearings.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

He looked at his watch. "Damn. I better put a move on if we're
going to make you look presentable today. What's with the pillow? How
long have you been out here?"

"Ten, fifteen minutes. I just got antsy, is all. I'll be
quick."

"I'd like to stop by my place and clean up, too. Okay?
Something wrong that you were out here? Something you want to talk
about?"

"No. I was just slept out, I guess. I'm not used to going to
bed so early." He couldn't see the expression on my face as I walked
away.

On our way out the door, Mike stooped to pick up the
newspapers. The front page of the
Times
had no
mention of Selim Sengor, but the
Post
editors
couldn't resist another banner headline: DOC CONCOCTS TURKISH DELIGHT
—FLIGHT.

We were in Mike's car, parking near his tiny walk-up apartment
on York Avenue, when his beeper went off. He returned the call and
seemed pleased with the message.

"The man's glove that was picked up near where Galinova was
dumped, at the Met? The one that gave up two different DNA profiles?"

"Yeah."

"Inside the glove, the DNA from the skin cells is a perfect
match to Joe Berk."

"Joe Berk? What's the exemplar they used? What'd they have
with his profile on it to make the comparison?"

"That plastic drinking cup you didn't want me to take from his
apartment, Coop. You can cut your teeth on some more breaking law. Make
it legal for me so it sticks in court. Hate to jam you up with a bad
search, but the practice will be good for you."