The Deadhouse (24 page)

"In the meanwhile, why don't you open your presents."

"Ah, bribery. Try and divert me with material things."

I reached for the package under the tree and handed it to Jake. He
unwrapped it slowly and dropped the paper next to him. "Where did you
find them? Now
I'll
be up all night."

Three leather-bound volumes, all first editions of works he loved.
Jake collected books, like I did, and was always searching out rare
finds to add to his shelves. He handled the covers carefully, reading
the names imprinted on the spines. "Faulkner, Hammett, Keats. Eclectic,
and all favorites. What a perfect gift."

I slipped a smaller box out of the stocking with his name on it.
"Something else?" This time he ripped at the red bow tied around the
shiny white paper to reveal a black leather case. Inside was a pair of
antique Edwardian cuff links, powder-blue enamel baked over
eighteen-karat gold. "They're so handsome."

"I thought they'd show nicely when you're on air. When you're
traveling without me and you wear them to do a story, I'll know you're
thinking of me."

"Move in and you can stick them in my cuffs every morning yourself,
just to make sure I do."

"You are hopelessly persistent." I poured another glass of champagne.

Jake walked to the tree and came back with the toy store package.
"This one's for you."

I sat up and crossed my legs, undoing the green ribbon. When I got
the box open, I lifted a giant stuffed teddy bear out and sat him next
to me on the floor. I grinned. "Now why would I even need you when I've
got a cuddly guy like this to come home to? I'm sure he's a much better
listener than you are. No cross-examinations about my day, no
complaints about the competition."

I turned to the bear and opened my mouth to speak. The words stuck
in my throat when I saw what was gleaming on his furry chest. Pinned
right where his heart should be was a magnificent sparkling diamond
bird perched atop a large aquamarine stone. "That's just breathtaking,
Jake." I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him to me.

"Let go of me and put it on."

"I'd rather let the bear wear it. That way I can look at it all the
time."

"Bird on a rock. Your friend at the Schlumberger salon said you've
been eyeing it for years. Hold still." He unhooked it from the animal's
plush stuffing and attached it to my pale silk pajama shirt. "That's
why I had to get this outfit to go with the brooch."

I stood up and headed for the bedroom. "I've got to see how it
looks. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever owned." Jake followed me
in and watched me preen in front of the full-length mirror. "I'm never
taking it off."

"Except when you go to work every day, and right at this very
moment." He unbuttoned my top and laid it carefully across the chaise
at the foot of the bed, the facets of my elegant bird catching every
glimmer of light from the candles on the bedside tables. "That's how I
want you to think of us, always. You're the exquisite, delicate bird,
and you've always got me to land on, to be your bedrock. Merry
Christmas, my angel."

We finished undressing and got under the covers, making love again
before we drifted off in each other's arms.

Our internal alarm clocks each went off as usual at about
six-thirty, as the morning sky was attempting to brighten. We ignored
the signals and decided to sleep late, reveling in the fact that
neither of us had a deadline or a decision to make the entire day. It
was eleven o'clock by the time I was up and dressed and had brewed the
first pot of coffee. After calling our families and friends, we bundled
up in thermal underwear and heavy jackets and set out on a hike to
Squibnocket Beach. For more than a mile, packed snow crunching beneath
our boots, we walked along the ocean, hand in gloved hand, talking
about things we had never explored with each other before.

Jake asked me questions about my relationship with Adam, and about
my slow recovery from the nightmare of his death. He spoke about his
broken engagement, when the woman he had dated for four years moved out
and married one of his closest friends, tired of the instability of his
life on the road and anxious to start a family.

The only people we passed were several of my neighbors, walking dogs
along the vast expanse of Atlantic beachfront. Back at the house, we
converted the remains of our dinner into a lobster salad, and then
spent the afternoon in front of the fireplace with our books. My
Fitzgerald novel was constantly interrupted by Jake's discovery of
something in his new Keats that he wanted to read aloud to me.

After a simple supper of chowder and some greens, we watched a DVD
of
The Thirty-Nine Steps
and put ourselves to bed early. We
were up before dawn, on a seven o'clock flight to Boston, connected to
an eight-thirty shuttle back to La Guardia. Jake's car service picked
us up in front of the terminal and we drove into Manhattan. I dropped
him at the NBC studios at Rockefeller Center and we kissed good-bye.

"I'm expecting you at my apartment tonight. Till you get
confirmation that your window has been replaced and that your
pistol-packing victim isn't waiting by the front door, we're doing a
test run of my proposition. See you later."

The driver took me down to Hogan Place and let me off in front of
the entrance. It was after ten, and the place seemed like a ghost town.
Only a skeleton staff would be at work today and tomorrow, and I
expected to be able to get a lot done.

Laura had taken the day off, so I signed for the packet myself when
the FedEx deliveryman appeared with an overnight letter from the New
Jersey telephone company.

I opened the envelope to study the jumble of digits that comprised
the incoming and outgoing calls made to and from Lola Dakota's
temporary shelter at her sister Lily's. It could take hours for a
detective, using a reverse directory, to put the numbers together with
the subscriber to whose home or office the calls had been placed. Each
was coded with the date, hour, and minute the connection was made, as
well as its duration.

I scanned the pages until I found the day, one week earlier, of
Lola's murder. I ran my finger down the rows of figures. There had been
dozens of calls in the morning, when people had been coming and going
to arrange the faked homicide performance. Then the activity had slowed
to a standstill.

Lily had heard Lola make the call presumably to be picked up by a
cab company. And then Lily had medicated herself and gone to bed.

I stopped at 1:36 P.M. A single call, made to a local Jersey number
from Lily's home. Maybe I wouldn't need a detective to help decipher
and track the telephone connection. The number looked familiar. What if
Lola hadn't called a stranger to transport her safely to Manhattan, but
had reached out for a friend instead?

I dialed the exchange and waited while the phone rang three times.

An operator answered. "Office of the District Attorney, may I help
you?"

I swallowed hard. "Perhaps you can. I'm not sure if I dialed the
right number. Is this Mr. Sinnelesi's office?"

"It's his office. But it's not his direct line."

"The extension I dialed," I said, looking down at the printed
record, "is 8484. Can you tell me whose number that is?"

"Who are you trying to reach, ma'am?"

The last person to see Lola Dakota alive, I thought to myself. I
stammered. "I, uh, I've got a message to call this number. I just can't
make out the name my secretary took down."

"Oh, okay. This is Bartholomew Frankel's office. He's the executive
assistant district attorney, Mr. Sinnelesi's number two man. Mr.
Frankel stepped away for a bit. Shall I put you through to his
secretary?"

17

"You saved me from a miserable afternoon with my mother." Mike had
been at his desk in the squad when I called, and instantly agreed that
we should drive out to Sinnelesi's office to confront Bart Frankel with
our new information. The secretary had assured me he would be around
all afternoon, so we were soon on our way through the Holland Tunnel.

"Mom's been begging me to help her plan her funeral. Pick out the
coffin, go to—"

"Has she been ill?" I had known his mother for years and had no idea
that anything was wrong. Perhaps that's why Mike had been delayed at
the hospital on Monday morning.

"Fit as a horse. But at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, she got me
to promise I would take her to get everything arranged. Peace of mind
and all that. She's so excited you'd think she was going to Disney
World with John Elway, for chrissakes. Told her I was breaking the date
'cause of you. That's the only way I could get a reprieve."

"Tell her that when we solve this one, we'll both come out and take
her to lunch. . . . Does it bother you as much as it does me that
Frankel's the guy who got Lola's call?"

"Hey, if the escort was strictly professional, they would have had
detectives taking her out of Lily's home and making sure she got inside
her apartment safely. Your big guns in the Manhattan DA's office do
witness escort and protection? I can just see Battaglia asking Pat
McKinney to run somebody uptown to Harlem. Not a chance. You know
Frankel?"

"I've only met him once, when Sinnelesi sent a delegation to talk to
us about helping them stage this shooting of Lola. Anne Reininger was
doing a very professional job with the investigation. She had some
really good ideas about wiring an undercover cop and proving the case
just through incriminating admissions from Kralovic. But the district
attorney thought this sting would be great press for him, just in time
for his reelection campaign. Battaglia and I disagreed. The plan was
over-the-top hokey, dangerous, and unnecessary. Frankel came to our
office to try to get me to change my mind."

"Any sense of what he's like?"

"I heard he's a law school buddy of Sinnelesi's, so he's probably
the same age. About fifty. They were at NYU together. Frankel started
with the Brooklyn district attorney, right out of school—"

"Which means he was rejected by your office, no doubt."

"He did six or seven years there, before my time. Then went into
private practice, doing criminal defense work in New Jersey. When
Sinnelesi was elected, he brought Bart in as his right-hand man. He
really runs the shop."

"Did Lola ever mention him to you?"

"No. But we really weren't in contact often once Jersey g
_ot
involved
in the case. And when Bart came to see me with Anne, he was just acting
like a supervisor. I never imagined he had any hands-on connection to
the case."

"Hands
on?
How about private parts m? Can't wait to hear
his explanation for this."

We parked behind the civic center and found our way up to
Sinnelesi's office a bit after one o'clock. The receptionist was
startled to see visitors on this quiet, postholiday afternoon.

"We're here for Mr. Frankel," Mike announced.

"Is he expecting you?"

Mike jerked his head in my direction. "She's an old friend of
Bart's. Passing through town. I think we'd just like to surprise him."

"How nice," she said, smiling in my direction. "I'm sure he'll be
pleased. He called to say he'd be stopping for a sandwich on his way
back here, so he should be in any minute."

I took off my coat and hung it on the rack in the waiting room.
"What the hell is that frigging glob you got stuck on your suit?" Mike
was staring at the gift Jake had given me for Christmas.

"Well, I didn't stop at the apartment, and I was afraid to leave it
in my office with the suitcase."

Self-consciously, I unpinned the bird and wrapped it in my
handkerchief, putting it inside my shoulder bag.

"Guess Mr. NBC went to the well for that one. Don't let me cramp
your style, blondie. You could probably wipe out the entire national
debt of Sri Lanka if you—"

"Alex? How nice to see you."

Bart Frankel came through the front door and approached me to shake
hands. I introduced him to Mike. "Are you here to meet with the
district attorney?"

"No, Bart. We want to speak with you."

A large brown paper bag in one hand, Frankel pushed open the
entrance to his wing with the other. "Come on in. I still can't get
over what happened to Lola. Such a tragedy." He ushered us into his
corner suite, removing his backpack and his coat. This prosecutor's
small modern office complex in a suburban corporate park was far more
gracious and comfortable than ours. Two chairs faced Frankel's desk.
Mike and I seated ourselves while he unwrapped his lunch and put it to
the side.

I couldn't help but notice that he was chewing gum.

"Can I order something in for you?"

"No, thanks."

"What can you tell me about how the investigation is going?" He took
a tissue, swiveled in his chair, removed the gum, and threw it in his
wastebasket. Mike gave me a thumbs-up.

"It's actually going really well, Bart. Faster than I expected.
We've had some lucky breaks."

"What do you mean?" He glanced back and forth between Mike's stone
face and mine. He laughed nervously, or so it seemed to me. "I get it.
Need to know. Tell me and you'll have to shoot me." He nodded his head
up and down. "Maybe it's sour grapes 'cause Battaglia wouldn't let you
buy into our sting plan. Well, he was right, Alex. Tell him from me,
off the record, that once again he made the right choice. Vinny's
getting lots of heat from everybody. Starting with Lola's family. The
dancing Dakotas, he calls them. A whole chorus line of whining
siblings, waiting for their fifteen minutes of fame. That's what their
mama primed them for." Bart was talking nonstop, tapping the fingers of
both hands on his desktop.

"I got the governor on my back, too. She's big on domestic violence
and all that political garbage. Then we got victims' rights groups. You
name it, we got it. And you know the drill, Alex. When the shit hits
the fan, the number one man is always unavailable for comment. Mr.
Sinnelesi had to leave town. Family emergency down in Boca. Vinny, I
tell him—Vinny, first I take a huge pay cut to come work for you and do
public service, instead of making a real living for me and my family.
Now I got to have my balls on the chopping block, too?"