The Deadhouse (29 page)

The three of us continued to argue while the defendant became more
irritated, and my witness no doubt grew more anxious out in the
hallway. When the judge finally reversed himself and let us go forward,
Dr. Herron guided Tina in and sat beside her. The patient's pleasant
smile faded when she saw Chester sitting on the opposite side of the
long worktable. She clung to Herron's hand and wriggled in her seat.

For the better part of the next two hours, we went through the
encounter between Chester and Tina, with Herron clarifying the language
whenever Tina's verbal utterances were incomprehensible. By the end of
the cross-examination, the patient had exhausted herself by the
combination of her concentration on the retelling of the story, and her
apprehension about being close to Chester.

When Vexter ruled that there was sufficient evidence to hold the
matter for the action of the grand jury, he released Tina from the room
and dealt with the business of finding an appropriate facility in which
to secure the defendant, away from Coler Hospital.

At four-fifteen, I thanked the doctor and retraced my steps to the
lobby of the building, where Chapman was waiting. "Proud of yourself,
blondie? Chester the Molester moving on to a better place? Can't
believe they actually got a psychobabble disorder named for a bad
disposition."

"Yeah. 'Intermittent explosive disorder'—temper tantrums that the
perp's unable to control."

"And a medication that works for them?"

I nodded.

"Get a double dose and I'll keep it in my desk drawer, to have on
hand for those days you lose it with me. C'mon, that student who was
supposed to meet you had to leave for the day. One of the guys from the
one-fourteen is going to cruise us around for ten minutes. Will that
do?"

We went outside, where the sky was already darkening and the wind
had picked up force. A blue and white RMP—radio motor patrol car—sat in
front of the hospital. The two uniformed cops in the front seat looked
less than thrilled to be chauffeuring us around the quiet little island.

They pointed out the landmarks as we wound our way south, past the
remains of the Octagon, the apartment houses, the meditation steps, the
observation pier. Near the southern tip, we came flat up against the
heavy metal fencing that blocked off the ruins of the Smallpox Hospital.

"Can we get in there to see it?"

The driver flashed his annoyance at his partner, who answered more
politely. "Nothing to see, really. You can't go inside the building
'cause it's all crumbled and full of falling blocks of granite. And
broken glass. And then there's the rats."

I got the point. "Can we just drive up closer so I can take a look?"

With some hesitation, the driver started the car again and drove us
to the locked fence. He got out of the RMP, inserted his card in the
automated locking device, and watched as the gate slid open. He stepped
back into the car and drove slowly through the entrance. In the wintry
darkness of the late afternoon, I could barely make out the shapes of
the large boulders on the darkened landscape. "You won't see much, and
I can't let you out to walk around. Last guy I took in needed a tetanus
shot from tripping and cutting himself open on some old can or bottle."

"What are these huge rocks?"

"The walls of the old City Penitentiary. That's what it all was,
once. Came down in the 1940s. It's just been sitting here ever since.
Kids used to really get hurt on this stuff. That's why they finally
fenced it off."

He drove south until he stopped at the abandoned ruin of the
Smallpox Hospital. Chapman and I stepped out of the car and walked to
the waist-high wooden fence that kept trespassers at bay.

"Isn't it glorious?" The facade looked like an old castle, the dark
gray stone porch of the entry now draped in icicles and bare of all the
ivy that cascaded down its sides in summer. Through its paneless window
frames, the enormous bright red neon letters of the bottling factory's
Pepsi-Cola sign lighted the black sky above the river. On the Manhattan
side, the glitter of the United Nations complex sparkled with the
outline of its distinctive shape.

"This all that's here?" I could see Mike's breath forming the words
in the chilled air.

The driver of the RMP nodded in response.

"Now you've seen it, kid. Let's hoof it back to the mainland. Must
be like a girl thing. The place doesn't do anything for me. Mercer's
gonna meet us at your place at seven-thirty."

The cops dropped us at the station and we waited with two other
passengers until the cable car landed and disgorged its returning
commuters.

Mike and I stood in the front of the tram, hanging on to the
overhead straps, as the red behemoth lurched from its berth and lifted
toward the first tower. For just a few moments we were below the
roadway of the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, and then we reached the
height that put us almost at eye level with the huge girders that
spanned the river. The wind was fiercer now, and I could feel the play
in the tension of the steel wires.

Mike turned to say something to me when a burst of shots resounded
on the side of the moving cab. They pinged and smacked against the
steel sidings and the thick glass of the upper body of the tram. Before
the second volley was fired off, and without a word between us, Mike
had tackled me to the ground and covered my body with his own.

The window had shattered as the hail of gunfire continued, a second
round and then a third. The car swayed and frigid air rushed in to fill
the small heated space of the wounded tram. The remaining two minutes
of the crossing seemed endless, and my mind flashed to those desperate
moments almost five months earlier when Mercer had taken a bullet meant
for me.

My face was pressed against the muddy tiled floor of the cab. I
could hardly breathe from the combination of terror and the weight of
Mike's body flattened against my back. I closed my eyes to keep the
glass particles from blowing into them, and heard the sound of Mike's
gun scraping against the floor of the tram as he positioned it
alongside my ear to cover the opening of the door as we docked.

20

Startled commuters awaiting the short ride home gasped at the
spectacle of the four of us, crawling on the bottom of the cable car,
and a gun in the hand of Mike Chapman, who had been unable to reach
into his pocket to display his badge.

"I'm a cop. It's okay," he said. He stood up and went to check on
the older couple who had been sitting on the bench in the rear of the
tram before they had dropped to the floor. "You two all right? I'm a
police officer."

The elderly woman was clutching her chest and began to cry as Mike
helped her to her feet. "He's got a heart condition," she said,
pointing at her husband. "Is he—?"

Mike was assisting her husband onto the bench and restoring the cane
to his hand. "You wanna call for an ambulance?" he shouted to no one in
particular, as the trembling man assured Mike that he was fine.

A bystander said that someone had already called 911 after the first
shots were heard.

"How's your wife?" the old gent asked, pointing to me. I was
standing up, brushing the slivers of glass off my knees and trying to
maintain my composure.

"Nothing a six-pack of Dewar's won't fix in a minute. She takes a
flop like that every couple of days, just to keep me on my toes." Mike
was doing his best to defuse the situation, to keep everyone calm until
he could sort out what fears were appropriate.

Within minutes, six cops bounded up the steps to the departure
platform. Two of them recognized me and one of them had known Mike for
years. They helped the older couple make their way down the staircase
to an ambulance, and put me in the back of one of the patrol cars. One
cop stayed with me to take the details for a police report, while Mike
and the others examined the inside of the cab.

By the time Mike got back to the car, the uniformed sergeant had
arrived and introduced himself to me. "They're doing stops at both ends
of the bridge, Mike. What do you think it was?"

"I left 'em up there for Crime Scene to photo, but it's pellets of
some kind. Meant to kill somebody? I doubt it. But you could send a
loud message that way. Could be somebody just goofing around with a
shotgun, could be somebody looking to break windows and scare the shit
out of people, could be somebody thinks you're running a shooting
gallery in the Nineteenth. I'll leave it to you to figure out."

"There's been a dingbat on the loose after Miss Cooper, hasn't
there? Saw a scratch on it back at the house."

"Yeah, but this was definitely not a handgun. Besides, nobody knew
it was going to be us on that tram. Maybe it's just some loose cannon,
warming up for New Year's Eve."

I thought of Lola Dakota. Was I getting to be as paranoid as she had
been? "Remember the kid who hanged himself last weekend? Lola wasn't so
crazy. He
was
selling information to Kralovic about where
she was and what she was doing. Maybe someone snitched that I was out
on the island today, and this attack really was aimed at you and me."

"She's just out on a day pass, Sarge. I'm taking her back to
Bellevue right now." Mike stepped out of the car to talk with the
sergeant before he left, then slid back onto the seat beside me,
closing the door behind him. "You want people to think you're nuts?
That was just some earful of kids from Long Island being frisky on the
ride home after an outing in the Big Apple. Don't start seeing your
cases in every odd thing that happens."

He was running his fingers through his thick black hair, a sure sign
that he was more upset than he was willing to acknowledge. Mike didn't
believe this was random mischief any more than I did. "They'll beep me
if their search turns up any goofballs with shotguns. My guess is that
whoever did it was off the bridge before the nine-one-one call went
through."

A couple of the cops returned to the patrol car and asked where we
wanted to be dropped off.

"Let's go to my place to meet Mercer." This unexpected event had
chewed up more than an hour of our time. "I'd like to put on some
sliver-free, clean clothes for dinner, okay? Wash my face and hands."

"Dab some perfume on, too, Coop. You didn't smell so sweet when I
was breathing down your neck."

Mercer was already waiting in the lobby of my building. The doorman
stopped me as I crossed to the seating area to greet him. "Miss Cooper?
The super asked me to tell you, if I saw you, that your window still
hasn't been replaced. The glazier they use is on vacation, so it can't
be fixed until January second. Is that okay?"

I didn't have much of an alternative. "As soon as they can get it
done, I'd appreciate it."

On the way upstairs in the elevator, we told the story of our
harrowing tram ride. Perhaps it was a result of his own recent attack,
but when I left them in the living room to go change, Mercer was
insisting to Mike that we make the cops work to identify the shooters.

Despite the tarp on the empty window frame, the apartment was as
cold as the inside of a refrigerator. I changed into a casual outfit,
packed some more clothes to take to Jake's place for the weekend, and
returned to find Mercer and Mike pouring drinks in the den, the pocket
doors closed in an effort to keep out the cold.

"Here's to our own little Christmas. Looks like it'll be the last
one for this trio without significant others, spouses, offspring.
Chokes me all up inside." Mike lifted his glass and we clinked
together. "Too bad you didn't have your hardware on your chest today.
This thing Jake gave her, Mercer? It must be like kryptonite. Probably
could have melted that buckshot on the spot. We can't top it, blondie,
but we have some trinkets—"

Mike interrupted himself and hit the television remote to eliminate
the mute function. Alex Trebek announced that the
Final Jeopardy!
category
was an audio question, and the topic was the Oscars. "How much, guys?"

Mercer and I smiled at each other. There were categories in which we
didn't stand a chance against Mike, but we could both hold our own at
the movies. "Fifty bucks."

"I'm in," I said to Mercer.

Mike was reluctant. "Probably some dumbass song from a Disney flick.
Make it twenty."

Mercer held his ground and Mike yielded.

"Here's the music," Trebek said. The introduction to the song
played, and the Main Ingredient did the opening lines of "Everybody
Plays the Fool." Mercer took my hand and started to dance with me as
Trebek gave the clue.

"Tonight's answer is, the Oscar-winning actor whose father was the
lead singer in this group."

Mike protested as Mercer and I danced around him. "That's a really
misleading category. What did the guy win the award for?" Mercer and I
answered at the same time. "Supporting actor." "We'll split the pot on
this one, Ms. Cooper, okay?" Mike, like the three contestants, did not
know the right question. "That's not cricket. You two know more about
Motown than I know about the Civil War."

Mercer told Trebek that the question was "'Who is Cuba Gooding
Junior?' Now," he continued, turning to Mike, "Mr. Chapman, show us the
money." We each took twenty-five from Chapman and began to open our
presents.

"For you, Detective Wallace," I said, passing a wrapped package to
him. He ripped at the paper and smiled when he lifted the cover off the
box to reveal a photograph in an antique sterling-silver frame. I had
asked the mayor to inscribe the picture of himself with Mercer and his
father taken at City Hall, when Mercer had received an award for his
work on a prominent art dealer's murder. It had been taken the week he
had gotten out of a wheelchair and was walking without assistance, and
the expression on Spencer's face told the whole story.