The Deadhouse (34 page)

He nudged me out of the waiting area. I walked to the nurses'
station to inquire again about Bart Frankel's condition. A new face
behind the desk asked me if I was family and I shook my head in the
negative. "There's nothing I can tell you." Her grim expression spoke
volumes.

We made the short drive to the prosecutor's office and this time,
instead of using the rear parking lot, Mike stopped in front of the
pizza shop at the far corner. He left the ignition on so that I could
have the benefits of the heat and the radio.

"You mind?"

"I always knew I'd be the first thing to go. Come back with
something good and I'll forgive you."

It was close to half an hour later when Mike returned to the car.
The wind blew in with him as he opened the door and got back into the
driver's seat. "I wouldn't say we hit the jackpot, but we got a few
things to work with. This stuff would have sat in Sinnelesi's drawer
till you started sprouting gray hair underneath that peroxide before
anybody would have told us about it.

"First of all, Bart Frankel was—as a tribute to modern medicine,
I'll say
is
—up to his ass in debt. Left his private practice,
which wasn't exactly a thriving one, to come back to public service
when the Fat Man called him. Paying a huge amount of alimony 'cause his
ex has a serious medical problem. Three kids, two in college and one
getting ready to go. And a slight penchant for the horses. The
Meadowlands was his second home. Gambling debts running close to a
quarter of a million."

Hard to do on a prosecutor's salary.

"What do you know about penny stocks, Coop? I mean the kinds that
are bad schemes."

"The basics, why?"

"Explain 'em to me. I Xeroxed a file that was on top of Bart's desk,
but I don't know anything about that business."

"They're generally really cheap stocks in small, sometimes dubious
companies. A lot of them have involved investment scams. There are
salesmen who make cold calls by telephone, just reading from a script.
The guys behind the scam pump up the shares by fake trades and false
publicity. When the stock soars, the promoters generally cash in and
leave the other investors holding worthless shares."

"Ever hear of"—Mike looked down at the tab on the manila
folder—"Jersey First Securities?"

"No."

"Seems like Sinnelesi's been investigating the company. The two
partners behind the business are about to declare bankruptcy, and it
looks like the note on the file quotes the feds as saying this was a
'continuing massive fraud.' And one of the penny-meisters is—"

"Ivan Kralovic, of course."

"So it would seem. And who lost lots of nickels and dimes betting on
Ivan's pot?"

"Bart?"

"So when Vinny gets back from the sunny south, maybe he can explain
to you why he'd let Bart anywhere near this investigation. Hold on to
the file. Now, exhibit number two. Here's a photocopy of a little
envelope," Mike said, holding up an image of a tiny white packet that
looked no longer than three inches. "You recognize the penmanship?"

I did. It was Dakota's.

"Can't say I'm as familiar with it as you are, but when I saw the
little Post-it attached with the initials L.D., I took a wild guess."

I looked at the single word printed on the front by Lola:
"Blackwells."

"I lifted the flap and guess what slipped into my hand?"

I shook my head at Mike, puzzled.

"A little gold key. No markings, no numbers."

"Was there anything else with this?"

"Nope. It was buried under a few personal notes in his top drawer.
Now all we have to do is find out what it fits into. Get one of your
clones started on a warrant."

He revved up the engine and made a U-turn on the quiet street. "And
last but not least, we're going to meet Dr. Claude Lavery."

"Now? Is he back? Why—"

"Because that's who Bart Frankel was on his way to see this morning
when he was so rudely interrupted."

"Tony Parisi told you about Lavery?"

"No, he called over to Bart's house. I almost had him convinced
after a once-over of Bart's office that he should walk me through his
home to see if we could find anything. You know that if Bart's life was
as screwed up as it sounds, he's probably got stuff there that we
should be looking at. Anyway, one of his kids had taken a break from
the hospital vigil and answered the phone, which put the kibosh on that
idea for the moment."

I couldn't imagine what this was like for Bart's three children.

"But when Tony asked the daughter why her dad had left the house so
early this morning, she said that a man had called him last night and
Bart had told her that he had to go into the city to see him. There was
a pad next to the telephone that had Lavery's name and number written
on it."

"Not bad for a quick sweep through the office."

"Hey, easier than if I had to search your place for anything of
value. You got four extra pairs of shoes under the desk,
different-height heels for every occasion. Drawers filled with panty
hose, nail polish, perfume, and Extra-Strength Tylenol. Somebody bumps
you off and the first thing Battaglia has to do is run a tag sale to
get rid of your beauty supplies."

Mike was enthused now. He had new directions in which to proceed and
pieces of the puzzle to try to fit into place. "How do you even begin
to figure out the significance of a key? And how do you know what door
it fits?"

"Start with the fact that it's labeled 'Blackwells.'"

"Yeah, but there aren't a lot of buildings still standing on the
island from those days. And the remnants that are there don't have
doors."

"So it's something connected to the project, probably."

"I think even two hours' exposure to New Jersey has damaged your
brain. No kidding, Coop. Like I needed your help to figure that one
out."

"Were any of the things taken from Lola's office, after Lily gave
Sinnelesi permission, listed and inventoried so we have a record of
them?"

"Nope. Would it surprise you to learn that Bart Frankel picked two
of his squad cops, drove over himself, and just sort of packed up the
whole bundle to be sorted out at his convenience? In the privacy of his
office. Somehow that stinks as bad as the rest of what he was doing."

"Where is the stuff now?"

"Parisi doesn't know. He'll have to find the guys who went with Bart
and see what closet they dumped everything into."

"Sooner rather than later. We've got to see what he found."

"Give me credit for something, Coop. I do believe I've lit that fire
under Parisi's ass."

"You think Lola knew, when she got into bed with Bart, that he had
lost all his money in one of Ivan's deals?"

"Hard to imagine that it wouldn't have come up in conversation. Gave
them both a reason to hate the guy. And it gave Bart an extra incentive
to go after Ivan."

I thought for several minutes. "That's one way to look at it. But
there's a darker side to that. Suppose Ivan's about to get jammed up by
Sinnelesi's office. The number two man is up to his ears in debt, and
Ivan knows why. What if he tried to buy his way out of the whole
thing—two cases at the same time? I mean, how could Bart have screwed
up Lola's undercover sting so badly? Bad enough that Ivan's back on the
street. You'd have to try awfully hard to step on yourself that way."

Mike was with me. "So you go as far as having Bart getting paid off
by Ivan. Bart maybe even delivering Lola right into the killer's hands.
Dropping her off at her front door.
Ciao,
baby, see you
later. Then he drives off into the sunset, stopping by the campus to
pick up the key—the key to ... ? That's sort of where the plan gets
parked with me."

"I'm not saying that's what I think happened. I just know I'm
praying for Bart's recovery for all the wrong reasons. I'd love him to
answer some questions for us."

On the ride back to the city we thought aloud about all the possible
links among Ivan's fraud investigation, the domestic violence
complaints, and Lola's death.

The scene in front of 417 Riverside Drive was a much calmer one than
the one the night of the murder. Mike rang the bell in the vestibule
next to Lavery's name and within a minute, through the intercom, a
voice said, "Yes?"

Mike muffled his mouth with his hand and spoke a single word:
"Bart." "Bart" was a few hours late, but still welcome enough for
Lavery to buzz us into the lobby. We entered together and walked to the
elevator.

When we reached the sixteenth floor, the door to Lavery's apartment
was ajar. I could hear someone speaking on the telephone, so I pushed
it wider and Mike came inside behind me. The man whom we assumed to be
Lavery was standing with his back to us. His conversation was ending,
and he thanked his caller before he hung up and turned around, startled
to see us.

"I'm Mike Chapman. NYPD Homicide," Mike said, flipping his gold
shield out of its case. "This is Alexandra Cooper. Manhattan DA's
Office. We've been—"

"Not exactly who I was expecting when I let you in, Detective."
Lavery walked to the doorway behind us and stuck his head out in the
hallway. "Is Bart coming along, too?"

I could sense that if Lavery did not yet know about Bart's accident,
Mike wasn't going to tell him. "He's had a rough day. I doubt he's
gonna make it."

Lavery was clearly puzzled. He walked to the CD player on the
bookshelf along the far wall and lowered the volume. If Chapman had
been expecting Bob Marley and the Wailers, with Lavery smoking weed
through a wooden pipe, he must have been disappointed. A Beethoven
adagio provided the soft background to our conversation. Lavery had
apparently been sitting at a desk in front of his park-view window,
working longhand on some piece of writing. He was dressed in African
garb and still had his hair done in dreadlocks.

"Bart's been a friend of ours for a long time. He decided, after you
two spoke on the phone, that he really didn't want to meet with you
alone. He thinks it would be better if you say what you want to say to
the two of us."

Lavery's expression gave nothing away, but he seemed too smart to
trust the situation. Or the cop who was giving him the once-over.

He folded his arms across his chest and looked at me. "Aren't you
the woman handling the investigation into Lola Dakota's death? I
recognize your name from the news stories." His voice was a deep
baritone, and he spoke in a measured cadence. "Yes, we're both working
on that case."

"Lola was a dear friend of mine. And a great supporter, in what have
been some difficult days for me." He turned away to walk to a living
area, motioning us to follow. "I suppose you've heard about that?" He
asked it in the form of a question, not quite sure what to think.

"Yeah, we know a bit about it."

"Lola has stood by me from the outset. Taken my part with the
administration. I shall miss her friendship terribly."

"Actually, that's what we'd like to talk to you about. We've been
trying to reach you—"

"Would you mind if I called Bart, Detective? I'd prefer to—" "Bart's
out of the picture, Mr. Lavery. For the time—" "Doctor. It's
Doctor
Lavery." He lowered himself into an armchair and we sat opposite
him.

"You got a stethoscope, a prescription pad, and a license to
practice medicine, then I'll call you 'doctor.' Every other 'ologist'
who writes a dissertation on some useless theoretical load of crap is
just plain old 'mister' to me."

"Professor ..." I tried to start anew. "Ah, the diplomat on the
team."

"Yeah, the Madeleine Albright of the Manhattan District Attorney's
Office. She wants to know the same thing I do. Bart was kind of
surprised when you called. He didn't know you were back in New York."

"I arrived home last evening. Around eleven o'clock." "We've been
trying to interview all of Ms. Dakota's associates and friends. I hope
you don't mind if we ask a few questions?" I tried smiling at him.
"They're quite routine."

"If it will assist you in finding the beast who did this, I’m
pleased to help."

"When did you leave town, Professor? I mean, where were you coming
from last evening?"

"I flew to visit friends during Christmas week. Went to St. Thomas,
in the Caribbean."

"When did you leave town exactly?"

"On December twenty-first. I've still got the ticket right here. I
can show it to you, if that's necessary."

"That's two days after Lola was killed. Last Saturday, am I right?"

"I guess it was. I debated about staying for her funeral in New
Jersey on Monday, but my friends were expecting me and I didn't think
there was anything I could do to be useful. Many of our colleagues
didn't share Lola's feelings about my work."

"The guys from my squad canvassed the building on Friday. Miss
Cooper and I have read those reports. I understand you were here in the
apartment on the afternoon of the murder."

"Yes, I talked to the police. Of course, I have no idea what time it
was when all this happened to Lola."

"Don't worry about that. Why don't you just tell us what you were
doing that day?"

"Thursday the nineteenth ... let me think a moment. Most days, I
work from my home instead of the office over at King's. As you must be
aware, I've been suspended from the college while they examine this
glitch with my grant."

A several-hundred-thousand-dollar glitch, I thought to myself.

"I seem to recall going out in the morning to pick up some things I
needed for the trip. The drugstore, the bank, the film shop. That sort
of thing. It was snowing, and I remember coming home to work on a study
that I've had to write up for the government. Never went outside again.
I sat right at this table and kept looking across as the snow covered
the bare limbs of the trees in Riverside Park, thinking over and over
again that I'd be swimming in turquoise waters in a matter of days.