MERCER WAS PARKED NEXT TO THE FIRE hydrant on Hogan Place. He popped the trunk so Mike could stick my suitcase inside. I pushed two ratty ties, a half-opened gym bag that appeared to be full of dirty underwear and socks, and a Yankees World Series hat over to one side so I could climb into the rear seat of the standard-issue detective-bureau Crown Vic.
We headed down Lafayette toward the entrance ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge and the choppy sequence of potholed highways that would take us to Kennedy Airport.
“So what are the afternoon updates on last night’s cases?”
“Columbia-Pres is still on life support. Not looking good for her and nobody’s come forward with anything worthwhile on a suspect. Metropolitan looks like an aborted burglary-in-progress.”
“Anything taken?”
“Two schools of thought. Whoever did it was a few feet short of the pharmacy. Could have been planning on drugs and syringes but just never got there. Had a little bit of success in the administrative office. Petty cash drawer was emptied out and personnel files were dumped all over the place.”
“Still not clear at this point. It’s a mess. Understatement. The guy actually defecated all over the files so it’s been difficult for anybody to get, shall we say, a clean read.”
“Spare me the particulars.”
“Done.”
Late-afternoon traffic was heavy as usual. Mercer weaved in and out of the idling cars and we crept slowly along for the last few miles before the freight hangars came into view. The pace picked up as we approached the terminal areas, but I braced myself against the seatback as Mercer slammed on the brakes in front of the Chapel of the Skies. It was a serene little outpost in the center of the airport that I had passed hundreds of times but had never entered.
“Coop and me’ll wait in the car. You want to say a few novenas?”
“Man, don’t make fun of me.” Chapman was terrified of flying but hated to be ridiculed for it.
“Not for the flight. Pilot’ll take care of you up there. Just so’s maybe you get lucky in England, you know?”
He was moving again and we took the turnoff for the international departures entrance at the American Airlines building.
Mercer waited until he let us out at the curb to drop his bombshell. “The lieutenant called with the lab results on the candies from Maureen’s secret admirer.”
I glanced over at Mike, who was fidgeting with his ticket, and knew immediately that that’s what he’d been whispering about to Sarah as we were leaving the office.
“Chocolate-covered cherries-which were laced with boric acid. Some sick puppy injected it using a needle that left a hole smaller than a pinprick. Almost invisible.”
As I opened my mouth to speak, Mercer grabbed my face between his enormous hands and leaned over to look me directly in the eye, our noses almost touching. “It’s okay, Alex. Nothing happened to her, you hear? This is exactly why we wanted her in that hospital in the first place-to draw our killer out.”
“But-”
“But nothing. You spoke to Mo yourself last night. You know she’s fine. Now, you get out of town and go about your business.”
“I just can’t-”
“Look at me again, girl-right in these big brown eyes. Are you telling me that you don’t trust me with Maureen’s well-being, huh?”
I shook my head back and forth.
“Now, go on, Coop. I hate long good-byes.”
Mike and I walked into the terminal together while he explained to me that it had been Mercer’s idea to tell me about the poisoned candy at the last possible moment. I was fretting because I couldn’t be with Mo, but I understood the logic of their decision and knew that she was a consummate professional.
Security was tight and we waited on the long line for the evening flights to Europe until our passports were studied, our luggage scanned, and our seats in the coach section of the 767 assigned.
“C’mon. I’ll take you up to the Admiral’s Club. We’ve got half an hour before they board us.”
Mike followed me down the corridor and into the elevator for the one-floor lift to the private lounge. I walked to the desk to show the attendant my membership card while Mike moved ahead to use one of the telephones for a last check at his office. The couple in front of me turned and I was surprised to recognize the distinguished-looking gentleman who was pocketing his ticket portfolio as he spotted me.
“Business or pleasure, Alex? Which way are you headed?” Justin Feldman greeted me with a kiss on the cheek.
He was a superb lawyer, with an expertise in securities work, which usually kept him in the more rarefied atmosphere of the federal courts and not our scruffier forum. “It’s all business this time. London. Congratulations on that piece I saw inAmerican Lawyer last month-ten best securities litigators in the country. Nice press.”
“You’ll push me off that kind of list someday, as soon as you come over to our side. Meet my associate, Susan LaRossa. She makes it all possible, right?”
Susan was a few years younger than I but I had heard about her talent and courtroom skills from friends in the private sector. She extended a hand and we talked about our mutual acquaintances as we made a tentative date for lunch.
“Where are you two headed?”
“ Paris. Quick trip for a client in that banking scandal your boss is digging into. Battaglia’s been keeping us all well fed. Susan and I might even get into criminal court for a change on this one.”
The airline representative returned my club card and the three of us walked toward the lounge area. “Your name came up yesterday afternoon, in a meeting I had downtown at Milbank. What was it? Oh, of course-”
I was already biting my lip. There really are no secrets in New York. Six degrees of separation wasn’t an exaggeration.
“I understand Drew Renaud is mad about you. Just met, isn’t that right? Well, his partners say he seems happy and upbeat for the first time since his wife died.”
“We don’t even know each other, really. I’m sure there’s something else that has changed his mood-it’s awfully premature to even be-”
“He’s a wonderful guy, Alex-smart and solid. I know what brought it up. We were talking about coincidence and the odd circumstance that brought Susan and me into this case that we’re working on now. Drew’s partner said he’d heard of bizarre happenstances before, but the one about you, Drew, and that murder investigation you’re handling really startled him.”
I stopped in my tracks and looked at Justin quizzically. “Which ‘bizarre’ part of it are you talking about?”
“About Drew’s wife and the way she died.” Justin’s smile had disappeared and he looked somber now while Susan avoided my glance and focused her dark brown eyes on a spot on the floor.
“Cancer. She died of a brain tumor, right?” I didn’t get any connection and it was becoming obvious to Justin that he had more of the facts than I did. “The doctor who was killed, the case you’re handling-sorry I can’t recall her name.”
“Gemma Dogen.”
“Yes, well, we all assumed you knew about it. Carla Renaud died on the operating table. Drew had flown her to London for a procedure that was developed there. Very complicated, done by a crack team of neurosurgeons. Dogen was brought in from Minuit to assist in the surgery. Carla died while Dogen was working on her, in the middle of the operation.”
Images raced through my mind as I tried to remember the order of things. Had Drew told Joan Stafford he wanted to meet mebefore or after Gemma had been murdered? Had Gemma’s name come up in any of our conversations and had I raised it or had Drew? Why hadn’t he mentioned any of this to me? It had to be the most significant and traumatic event of his life.
“Sorry if I’ve upset you, Alex. We all thought it was great that you two were dating. Just odd that this case should come along right after you started seeing each other.”
“Not after, Justin. Dogen was killed several days before I was introduced to Drew.”
Why had he wanted to meet me? Was it me or was it because I was handling the case? Had he hated Dogen, I wondered? She had apparently failed to save his wife.
“Excuse me, please. Sorry, I’m just distracted. I’ve got to make a phone call before we board.”
“I’ve obviously upset you, Alex. I’m sorry-”
“It’s fine, Justin. Good to meet you, Susan. See you both again.”
There was an empty cluster of chairs in the far corner against a window and I made directly for it, picking up the phone on the side table. I dialed Joan’s home and punched in the digits of my credit card and PIN number. I got the answering machine. “Pick up, dammit. If you’re writing, or you’re on your StairMaster, or you’re on the other line, pick this up, Joannie. I’m desperate to speak with you before I get on that plane and I’m not kidding.”
I waited several seconds and got no reply. If Joan had been anywhere in earshot, she would have responded to me. “Beep me if you find this message in the next fifteen minutes,” I begged.
The first boarding announcement was made for our flight. I could see Mike across the large room laughing into the mouthpiece of the phone. I knew we had a long walk to the gate and still had to pass through the metal detector on our way down the hall. I checked my watch, looked at the phone number for Drew’s hotel that I had scribbled on the outside of the ticket envelope, and called San Francisco. It was the middle of the day and there was no chance that I would find him in his hotel room. Chapman was standing now, scanning the room for me, and headed toward me as he waved at me to get up to leave.
The operator connected me to Drew’s room, let it ring twelve times, and then got on to ask me if I wanted to leave a message for him. I didn’t know what I wanted to say. I wantedhim to tell me things without my asking. I wanted to know what Joan knew about any of this before I spoke with Drew directly. I wanted to know what kind of grudge he had harbored against Gemma Dogen for the two years since his wife’s tragic death. “No. You don’t need to leave word. I’ll try again later.”
I grabbed my tote and met Mike by the front door of the club. “You okay?” he asked. “You look like somebody just hit you over the head with a tire iron.”
“C’mon. Let’s get down to the gate.” I was fuming as we took the elevator downstairs, pushed and were pushed as we tried to cross the entire length of the ticketing counters in the main section of the terminal, and stood in the crowded line of departing travelers to go through the security checkpoint that led down the concourse to our gate.
“What’s bothering you?”
I lifted my bag off the screening machine and started to tell Mike about the conversation I had just finished in the club, as we were able to walk side by side for the first time.
“Take it for what it looks like, kid. It’s a coincidence.”
“Bullshit. You don’t believe that any more than I do.”
“You’re watching too many movies.” Chapman was shaking his head and grinning. “Tell me what you’re thinking. Your new main squeeze killed the doctor? Then, a day later, he tells your best friend he’s dying to meet you. He does. You fall for him. He gets laid-”
“He didnot get laid.”
“You didn’t do him? No wonder he didn’t kill you yet-he’s waiting for one shot at you to see if that’s all it’s cracked up to be.Then he’ll kill you to get you off Dogen’s case.”
“You know how stupid that sounds?”
“Yeah, in fact, I do. That’s why I said it out loud and you didn’t. Are you really thinking that this white-shoe lawyer, who’s been mourning his wife for two years, has anything to do with stabbing Dogen to death in the middle of the night in her office? And, your obvious charms apart, for what earthly reason would he take up with you-unless it’s to kill you to get you off the case because he doesn’t want it solved. I know that’s the way your mind is working right now and I’m here to tell you that it’s crazy. Maybe he doesn’t like to talk about his wife. Maybe he doesn’t even remember the doctor’s name.”
“Maybe, maybe, maybe. I want to know the answers. I hate maybes and I hate coincidence.”
“You hate any circumstances you can’t control. Just calm yourself and put it out of your tired little brain until we get back.”
We had almost reached the end of the corridor and I could see the passengers filing through the door of Gate A20. “Go ahead and get on the plane. I want to try Joan one more time. Please.”
I stopped at a pay phone, dialed the number, and waited for the connection while I heard the loudspeaker announcement for the last boarding call of our flight. Mike was pointing me out to a woman I guessed was the Special Services agent as the last few stragglers showed their tickets and boarded. She was holding Mike’s envelope and he jogged the fifty feet back to the phone bank as I again urged Joan to pick up her line. She still wasn’t home, so I told her to call me tomorrow at Cliveden.
Mike picked up my tote from the ground, took a firm hold on my elbow, and guided me up the incline to the gate agent’s desk. “She needs your boarding pass.”
I handed it over and watched her cross out some numbers and reenter a new designation on the seat assignment. She gave it to the Special Services representative, who asked us to accompany her onto the plane. Instead of turning right and wading through the scores of coach passengers engaged in the battle to squeeze their carry-on luggage into the overhead bins, she pointed us to the left. “You’re up ahead in first class, seats 2A and 2B. Hope you enjoy the flight.”
“I’m afraid to ask who you bribed to get this done. You didn’t show anyone your badge and demand an upgrade, did you?” At least I was smiling again. “Or did some poor stewardess have to put out for this exchange?”
“You’re such a skeptic, Blondie. I thought it would be a nice surprise. Remember Charlie Bardong?” Charlie used to be a lieutenant in the District Attorney’s Office squad and was now a private investigator. We both knew him well. “His wife runs Special Services at American. I called her this morning and she said if there were any empty seats it wouldn’t be a problem. Cheer up, Coop. A few cocktails after takeoff, I’ll forget I’m airborne and you can forget about Lew-”
“Drew.”
“Whatever his name is. I keep telling you, don’t go seeing ghosts where there aren’t any. We got enough confusion already.”
There were only twelve seats in the first-class section of the 767, half of which were empty. I took the one by the window, emptied some magazines from my tote, put on the slippers from the complimentary travel pack, and settled in with my pillow and blanket at the ready. Mike ordered me a Dewar’s and himself a double Jameson’s, making good on his plan to transfer my affection to Irish whiskey.
By the time the plane reached our cruising altitude, all I could see was the darkened sky and the occasional lights of another aircraft speeding by below us. We were on our second round of drinks and the assortment of warmed nuts, mulling over our options for the microwaved dinners. The liquor was relaxing me and I was losing the edge of my annoyance about the circumstances of my introduction to Drew. There would be plenty of time to focus on all that after we got home to New York. I was happy to be six miles above the earth, out of the range of beepers and sky-pagers. I liked my flying isolation booth.
Mike talked to me nonstop during the meal service. He relived old cases and escapades with ex-partners, unsolved murders, and victims whose corpses had never been identified or claimed. By the time the icecream sundaes and brandy were served, it was close to ten o’clock and I was snuggled into the reclining chair, somewhere east of Greenland.
“If you could be anybody in the world, who would it be?”
“What?”
“Don’t you ever do that? Just take yourself out of your own skin and pretend you could be someone else?” Mike asked. “Tell me three people-dead or alive-that you’d like to have been. Sheer fantasy, no goody-two-shoes stuff. Don’t give me Mother Teresa or Albert Schweitzer or Jonas Salk or Clara Barton. Just for fun, who would you change places with if you could?”
My legs were drawn up in the seat, under the blanket, and I cradled the Courvoisier with both hands while I thought of my answers. “First choice-Shakespeare.”
“For you? Never would have guessed it. I figured you for great clothes but not cross-dressing.”
“I can’t imagine any one mind creating all of those remarkable writings-the language, the themes, the images, the range of words and ideas. Maybe I’d rather have been Mrs. S.-simply lie there at night and let him come home and read to me the lines he’d worked on all day. Just be the inspiration for that incredible poetry. I don’t think anyone has ever used the language more magnificently.”
“You like it all? I mean, you’ve read all his plays?”
“Not all, but my favorites over and over again. Mostly the tragedies and histories. But, of course, the histories are usually tragedies, too. I adore his tragedies.” I picked my head up from the pillow and looked across at Mike. “Something wrong with me, you think? That I like tragedies so much? And murder mysteries, and the kind of job that I have-?”
“You’re just coming to that conclusion now?”
“Some days it seems more obvious than others, I guess. Who’s your choice?”
“Neil Armstrong. First man to walk on the moon. The idea of being a pioneer in an entirely new world and-”
“Time out.” I pressed a finger on the cushioned arm pad and imitated the sound of a TV game show penalty buzzer. “Bad answer. You’re terrified of flying-you can’t be an astronaut.”
“I just want to be the guy who takes the first step on the moon. I didn’t say anything about flying B-52s or-”
“Not fair. There’s only one way to get to the moon and you would be completely and totally ineligible. Too long a flight, no alcohol. Next idea.”
“Okay.” He mused before going on. “This one changes from time to time, depending on whose biography I’m reading. Usually, it’s the Duke of Wellington. Great military strategist-genius in planning Waterloo. Some days, though, it’s Napoleon. Before Waterloo. That’s when I get fickle-right around 1815. Sometimes it’s even Hannibal, taking those elephants over the Alps. You get the point-a great general, leading his troops into battle. Die with my boots on and all that. Who else for you?”
“No surprise. A ballet dancer.” I looked at my watch. “Right now, someone is sitting inmy seats at American Ballet Theater sighing over Kathleen Moore’s performance. It’s an art that allows no imperfection-the audience can see every slip and misstep and off-balance move. I’d love to have that grace and elegance. Natalia Makarova-she’s the one I’d most like to be. But I’m fickle, too. I could be Ferri or Kent or Moore. Dance like a dream and lose myself in the music.
“You know, even in ballet I like the tragedies best. Should I be worried?”
“Too late for that. D’you ever dance leading roles, I mean, when you were in ballet school?”
“Queen of the Wilis. That’s my fate. Never Odile, not Coppelia, no Princess Aurora for me.”
“What are the Wilis? Never heard of ‘em.”
“They’re the maidens who died of unrequited love, in Giselle. Lines and lines of ‘em, in long white tulle skirts, flitting all over the stage. They spend most of the second act dancing you heartbreakers to death. I’ll take you to see it sometime. Suits my personality to a tee. And your next?”
“Joe DiMaggio. I sometimes think Babe Ruth or The Mick, but, then, Joe had all the great baseball moments plus Marilyn Monroe. He’s still such a classy guy. Heroes of the All-American sport, ‘til the strike screwed it up. Actually, I was there at the Stadium for Game Six of the Series when the Yankees won it. I would have jumped into the shoes of any one of them-Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter. I’d have sold my soul to the devil to have been Wade Boggs circling the stadium on the rear of that horse after all the years he waited just to get to a Series. What a moment.”
“Don’t forget Andy Pettitte. Now, that is a fox. You turn yourself into Andy Pettitte or Derek Jeter and I could get very interested.”
“Last call. Ultimate fantasy. Who’ll it be?”
“No contest for me. Tina Turner.After Ike, let me make that part of it perfectly clear.”
“Now you’re talking, Blondie. Great casting.”
“Remember the Private Dancer Tour-‘85? Tina coming down that staircase suspended from the ceiling in Madison Square Garden? A mane of hair, an endless stretch of legs, a microskirt, and four-inch heels-strutting to the tune of ’What’s Love Got to Do with It?‘ Not holding on to anything for a hundred steps or more on her way down, never missing a beat. I would have killed just to be one of her backups that night. Nina sent me a tape of the concert and I just pop it in the VCR to watch that one number whenever I think I need an antidepressant. Three minutes and I’m cured. I wanna be Tina.”
“You did a damn good imitation of her-for a white girl-the evening of Battaglia’s roast. I thought he was gonna lose it when he saw you prancing down the staircase from the private dining room into the lobby at ‘21.’ ”
“Jeez, remember that? I thought he had left already. I never dreamed he’d see me.”
“You may have a shot at this one, Coop. The only broad in the world with legs as good as Tina’s is your old lady. All we gotta do is work on your voice.”
“And your third?” I asked, smiling.
“A great director, movies. Probably Hitchcock, Spielberg, Truffaut. That’s the kind of creative talent I’d like to have. Bring stories to the screen and give them life-entertain billions of people forever and forever. Sagas, epics, plots with imaginary creatures or escapist themes. Maybe I could be Carlo Ponti.”
“He directs? I thought he’s a producer.”
“Whatever. At the end of the day, he still gets to crawl into bed with Sophia Loren, which wouldn’t be a bad part of the deal.”
“Predictable. Why did I think there’d be anything unusual about any of your fantasies? These are actually more tasteful than I expected any of them to be.”
Mike and I had taken each other’s minds off our respective concerns for a little while. We were farther away from home than either of us cared to be during an ongoing investigation and no closer to answers than we had been from the start. Sheep never worked for me, so I closed my eyes and tried to count Wilis until I drifted off to sleep.