The Deadhouse (43 page)

"Your bail is revoked, Mr. Modesto. Put him in, gentlemen. You are
remanded without bail, sir. Miss Cooper, I expect you'll be ready to
advance this matter and move to the grand jury most expeditiously. And
that you'll be adding the charges of hindering prosecuting and
obstructing governmental administration. Can you get this done by the
end of the week?"

"We'll do our best, Your Honor."

The last thing I needed now was any diversion from the Dakota
investigation. Especially another domestic violence victim willing to
give her man a break, ignoring the acute danger of her situation and
the lengths to which he would go to escape prosecution.

Mike was playing solitaire at Laura's desk when I came back
upstairs. "Battaglia's looking for you. He sounds completely pissed
off. Sinnelesi called to complain about the stuff you had taken out of
Bart Frankel's office. Battaglia wants a complete accounting of it.
Says he's shocked you did that search warrant without running it past
the front office first. Bad position to put him in with another elected
official. You know the drill. You oughtta go on over and cool him down.
I suggested maybe he should put you over his knee."

"Bet he passed on that one."

"Told me I could take the first shot, actually."

"This is one time he'll have to wait for me. No politics slowing
down this train."

I opened the Dakota file folder to the sheet of information with all
the case names and telephone numbers and dialed the Lockhart home in
White Plains. Skip's mother passed me on to the grandfather, who was no
doubt in his favorite chair in the solarium.

"Mr. Lockhart? It's Alexandra Cooper."

"He just left, Miss Cooper."

"Who just left?"

"Skip. That's who you're looking for, isn't it?"

"No, sir. I had a few more questions for you."

"What did you do to rile up the boy, Miss Cooper?"

"I haven't seen Skip today, or talked with him. I'm calling because
when we met with you I hadn't read your diaries. I didn't know anything
about Freeland Jennings's secret garden. But I was looking through your
books last evening, and I'm interested in learning what became of
Jennings's model of Blackwells. Do you still have it, Mr. Lockhart?"

"Don't be telling me you had nothing to do with firing up my
grandson. He practically tore through the whole place today looking for
that damn thing."

I took a breath. "Did Skip find it? Did he take it with him?"

"You know where it is?"

"I believed that you had it, sir."

"Skip's mad as a hornet with me. I told him to talk to Lola about
it. Can't recall exactly the last time I saw it, but Lola knows. She's
got it, maybe. Skip's coming back later to look through the garage.
I'll tell him you were asking about it."

Back to square one. "Thanks, Mr. Lockhart. Sorry to trouble you."

I dialed Sylvia Foote's number again. "Check with your professors.
Any of them have cars?" I thought for a moment about the weather.
"Four-wheel drive? I think we should take a quick trip to White Plains
this afternoon. Perhaps if all of us are together with the Lockharts,
senior and junior, we can make some headway. I'd like to start the
meeting in your office and make a run up to see if the old man is
hiding more than he's telling any of us."

"But—"

"I'll explain when we get there. I think a field trip might help,
Sylvia."

Maybe my phone message to Sylvia last evening, when I was reading
the Lockhart diaries, had been a mistake. I thought it might alert the
small group of faculty members that we were onto something that one of
them might have concealed from us, but I had only meant to rattle the
cages in preparation for our meeting today. I didn't want anyone making
an end run around us.

Mike's feet were propped on Laura's desk when I hung up the phone
and came out to intercept the kid from the mailroom who was
distributing the Monday delivery.

"What have you got for me, Gilbert?"

"Just the usual, Miss C."

I sorted through the envelopes to see whether any subpoenaed
information had been returned in the late-morning mail. The
thicker-than-usual batch, rubber-banded together, consisted mainly of
printed greeting cards from sleazy law firms and private investigators,
complete with the tacky little calendars and wallet-size laminated
business cards that served as clear reminders of whom
not
to
call in case of emergency.

Halfway through the pack, I pulled out a legal-size envelope with a
return address scrawled in sloppy handwriting that was practically
illegible. I squinted and looked again, then read the name to Mike.
"Bart Frankel. Postmarked Saturday morning."

"Where from, blondie? Heaven or hell?"

"What a weird feeling, to get this today. He's not even buried yet."

"Think Shirley MacLaine. Think Dionne Warwick. Open the frigging
thing, will you?"

I held the envelope in my fingertips by one corner, and used the
letter opener on Laura's desk to slit a hole along the top. I withdrew
the small slip of paper from inside and read the yellow Post-it that
Bart had attached to the longer white page

Alex—Everything in my life is out of control. I never meant to lie
about any of it to you. I'll try and make it right next week, when we
sit down at your office. Had a scare tonight. Thought I was followed to
my home. I'm putting this in the mail when I walk the dog later. It's
the paper I took from Lola's desk the day she was killed. I swear to
you I had nothing to do with her murder. B. Frankel.

I lifted the note and looked at the enclosure. It was a hand-drawn
map of Blackwells Island—circa 1925—meticulously crafted and perfectly
scaled to dimension. Every building, every tree, every bench, and every
boulder was assigned a number. On the bottom of the page was the
signature of Freeland Jennings.

30

"Looks like the weatherman may give us a break.

"It had taken us nearly an hour to drive from the courthouse to
King's College. The radio continued to promise a winter storm, but was
delaying its arrival until nightfall, and the wet flakes that deposited
themselves limply on the windshield did not seem to be sticking.

Like any college community at Christmas break, the area around 116th
Street and Broadway felt like a ghost town. The Barnard, Columbia, and
King's students had scattered to their homes and families, and the
normally lively sidewalks and footpaths were bare of young adults and
earnest academics.

At one-fifteen, we knocked on the door of Sylvia Foote's office and
were invited in. I glanced around the conference table, taking an
informal inventory of the assembled guests. She ushered us to our
seats, and I squeezed in between Chapman and Acting President
Recantati. As I placed my pocketbook on the floor behind me,
^m
Y
pager beeped loudly.

"Excuse me, please. I'll turn it off." I removed it and checked the
number, worried that Battaglia might be tracking me down, annoyed that
I had blown him off when he had requested that I come in to talk to
him. Relieved to see that it was only Jake, beeping me for the third
time since we had left downtown, I clicked the mechanism off and tossed
it inside my bag.

"Unhappy boss?" Mike asked.

"Unhappy boyfriend."

Mike, in the meanwhile, was checking off the faces present against
his list of names: Sylvia Foote, Paolo Recantati, Winston Shreve, Nan
Rothschild, Skip Lockhart, and Thomas Grenier.

"As an aficionado of the detective story, Mr. Chapman, it appears to
me that you've come here expecting one of us to stand up and announce
that he—or she—is, in fact, Professor Plum, who killed Lola Dakota in
the library with the lead pipe." It was Grenier who tried to break the
ice with a bit of facetious humor.

"This isn't a board game." Mike glared at the biology professor,
whom he was meeting for the first time. "But if any one of you wants to
save us some effort, I'd welcome the admission."

"Are we waiting for Claude Lavery?" Grenier asked Foote, striking a
more serious tone.

She turned to Mike. "Professor Lavery won't be coming. He called an
hour ago to say that since we've severed him from college affairs while
he's under investigation for the grant impropriety, he doesn't feel
obligated to participate."

I watched pairs of eyes find each other across the table, silently
affirming alliances.

Winston Shreve, the anthropologist, looked back at me. "Per haps
that message you asked Sylvia to deliver to us last night unsettled
him. About the diaries and the so-called secret garden."

"Why him in particular?"

"Claude Lavery and Lola Dakota confided in each other. They were
neighbors, good friends." It was Paolo Recantati who picked up Shreve's
lead. "I can't believe he didn't come here today. It's either
arrogance, or it's exactly what Winston is suggesting. Claude won't
discuss what he knows in front of the rest of us."

Sylvia Foote tried to regain control of her herd. "I thought it
would be useful for those of us who worked with Lola to sit down
together as a group and examine her professional circumstances. Most of
us, of course, believe her death relates to her complicated personal
situation. But perhaps if Miss Cooper and Mr. Chapman get a better
sense of what was going on here at the college, they'll understand why
we feel this way."

And they'll get out of our hair, she seemed to imply.

Sylvia asked Nan Rothschild to begin the conversation. If the severe
general counsel meant to set herself a smooth sail, then she had chosen
well. As the quiet anthropologist began her description of the
Blackwells project, I tried to focus on her words and keep my
imagination from divining the real dynamic between the two successful
women, Rothschild and Dakota. Had I been too quick to eliminate Nan's
interests and possible motives simply because I had known her as a
casual acquaintance from the ballet studio?

Mike was making notes, and I jotted a reminder to myself to ask him
whether he thought the tension between the female professors was
something to explore.

Nan started with how the working teams came to be formed, then moved
along to the technical aspects of the dig, which I found fascinating
now, in light of the stories of old Mr. Lockhart. Wouldn't the
high-tech equipment used by the interns and volunteers have uncovered
any of the legendary treasures that had been concealed on the island?
It didn't seem clear, though, that the team had actually done any work
on the southern tip, where the prison had once stood.

Nan then turned the narrative over to Winston Shreve. With frequent
punctuation by Lockhart and Grenier, Shreve led us through a much more
congenial version of the academic staff relationships than we had been
treated to during the one-on-one interviews. Any hopes that this
gathering would help us disappeared by the end of the first hour.

I could tell that Mike wanted to take the meeting in another
direction. While his pen jiggled up and down between the first two
fingers of his right hand, he was brushing back his hair with the left.

"Let me ask you this, Ms. Foote. Is there any additional discipline
the college could impose on Claude Lavery while his matter is pending a
decision? Any other action to take against him?"

"I'm not sure I understand, Detective. What are you suggesting?"

"Suppose he lied. Supposed he lied about what Ms. Cooper here might
call a material fact."

"Related to what?"

"To Dakota. Lola Dakota."

"Why don't you tell us the fact?" Recantati asked, trying, perhaps,
to reclaim the position he had undermined by entering Lola's office
after her death.

Mike looked over at me to see whether I agreed that we should reveal
information, hoping to gain something in return. The slight nod of my
head told him that I did.

"We've got a witness, an eyewitness," Mike began. He obviously
didn't want to tell the assembled group that Bart Frankel was dead.
"This guy observed Lola Dakota walking into her apartment building
within an hour of her death."

No one spoke.

"Claude Lavery held the door open for Lola and walked inside with
her."

Again, I tried to identify the allies. Recantati's eyes darted from
Foote to Rothschild, Lockhart sought a reaction from Shreve, Grenier
fixed on Mike Chapman.

"Problem for me is that when I interviewed Lavery, he denied seeing
Dakota. Never mentioned it. Told me the last time he saw Dakota was
around Thanksgiving, three weeks or so before she was killed."

"There's no reason to assume Claude's the one who's lying,
Detective." Sylvia Foote was quick to take the supportive role. "It
depends, doesn't it, on how reliable your eyewitness is. Someone who
knew both of them? Some passerby who might be mistaken?"

"Solid as a rock," Mike answered, neglecting to add that he'd be as
difficult as a rock to cross-examine at this point, too. "No mistake.
I'm asking you to assume for the moment that Claude Lavery outright
lied about something as important as that. Why? Does it put him in any
worse situation with the college, or does it tell me something I need
to know for my investigation?"

Eyelids raised, brows furrowed. I didn't know what Mike was digging
for, but I was certain that this message was designed to get back to
Lavery as soon as the meeting broke up. Stirring the pot, the
lieutenant liked to call it. Seeing whether anyone could be flushed out
or who would turn against whom.

"I thought from the outset that it was strange that Claude didn't
report hearing any noise, living directly upstairs from Lola." Thomas
Grenier wanted to get that off his chest. Nan Rothschild frowned, and I
inferred from her expression that she disapproved of his candor.

"I'm a bit surprised, actually," said Shreve. "I don't know why
Lavery said that to you. The morning after Lola's death—before he left
for vacation—I called Claude to talk about her, about how sad it was. I
sort of assumed he'd know more details, being a neighbor and all that.
I
know
he told me that he had gone up in the elevator with
her that same day. I'm positive about that. Maybe we can speak with
him—"