The Deadhouse (6 page)

"Who's in charge?"

"We're about to find out. Foote said she'd have the acting president
at the meeting."

"Wanna take Third Avenue uptown? Stop for a minute at the corner of
Seventieth Street."

I pulled up in front of P. J. Bernstein's.

"Hungry?"

"No, thanks. Had a salad at my desk."

Chapman got out of the car while I double-parked and waited for him.
In a slight nod to Christmas, Bernstein's window displayed a few large
smiling Santa faces. But there was also a huge menorah with electric
candles on the countertop, while blue, gold, and white-fringed
streamers declared a Happy Hanukkah to the deli's customers.

Mike returned in a few minutes with two hot dogs wrapped in a
napkin, overflowing with sauerkraut and relish, and a can of root beer.
"I know the rules. No droppings on the floor mat. No sucking the
sauerkraut out of my teeth in public." He chewed on his lunch as I
continued driving and cut through Central Park at Ninety-seventh
Street, taking Amsterdam Avenue the rest of the way north to the campus.

"Had any cases out of King's College yet?" Mike asked, licking the
mustard off his fingers and swigging from the can of root beer.

"Not one."

"Must be the only school in the country with no reported crimes.
Wait till these kids find Cannon's and the West End." Those two bars
were magnets for the collegiate community and havens for the
binge-drinking students who found their way to our offices with every
kind of problem that alcohol abuse created.

Mike displayed his badge to the expressionless, square-tinned
security guard who sat inside the small gatehouse at the entrance to
College Walk on 116th Street, barely looking up from the skin magazine
he was holding in his bony hand. "Okay if we park this inside for a
couple of hours? I'm taking my niece here for an interview, see if I
can get her back into school. A mind is a terrible thing to waste."

The guard waved us in without looking up. I found a space in front
of the Graduate School of Journalism, on the corner of Broadway, and
Chapman locked his arm in mine as I lowered myself out of the Jeep; we
jogged together across the double-wide street and headed down to
Claremont, fighting against the strong wind as we ran.

Sylvia Foote's secretary was expecting us. She took our coats and
led us into Foote's small office, which overlooked the avenue and
Barnard Hall directly opposite. Foote extended a hand to both of us,
and made the introductions to Paolo Recantati, explaining that he was
the acting president of King's College, and formerly a history
professor at Princeton.

Recantati invited us to sit in a pair of black leather seats with
our backs against the large bay window, while he moved across from us
to a straight-backed wooden armchair and Foote remained behind her
desk. They offered nothing, and waited for me to speak.

"As you know, Sylvia, I'd been working with Lola Dakota on the case
against Ivan for almost two years. And I'm sure she made you aware of
what the New Jersey prosecutors were doing. Despite their best efforts,
it's doubtful that Lola's death was an accident after all. Detective
Chapman and I are here to try to get your help in finding out what was
going on in her life and who else, besides Ivan, might have wanted her
dead."

Recantati spoke to me before Foote even opened her lips to form a
response. "I know what your area of expertise is, Miss Cooper. Are you
telling me that someone sexually assaulted Lola and then killed her?"

"There's no reason to believe that at—"

"Then exactly why are you involved? Shouldn't we be working with Mr.
Sinnelesi's office on this? Lola's case was being handled by his
people."

"The Dakota matter has been my investigation for close to two years.
I supervise the domestic abuse cases as well as sex crimes. The issues,
the sensitivity concerns, the needs of survivors going through the
system—many of the problems overlap in these situations. I know the
background of Lola and Ivan's relationship, most of her history, a lot
of the intimate details of her private life. If she was the victim of
an attack—a murder—in New York, I will be the person in charge of the
prosecution."

Recantati pursed his lips and looked off to his left, as though to
take a cue from Foote. He was tall and lean, and for a few moments, the
crossing and uncrossing of his long legs was the only obvious sign of
his discomfort. He'd probably never dealt with anything quite like this
in his idyllic ivory tower, before coming to Manhattan.

Chapman pushed himself to the edge of his seat and eyeballed
Recantati. "You think if you don't give us what we need, we'll just
fold up our tents in the night and slip off to the next unsolved crime?
You got how many students here?"

"Almost three thousand at King's," he said softly."And how many next
door at Columbia?"

"Close to thirty thousand," he murmured.

"So start out with something like sixty-six thousand mothers and
fathers picking this up on the evening news, half of'em spread out
around the country, who didn't want their kids coming to this city of
perverts and potheads to begin with."

Foote and Recantati exchanged scowls.

"Best view of it is, you had a little marital discord that got out
of hand, off campus, so nobody else here is at risk," Chapman said,
brushing his hands against each other as though to wipe away the
problem. "Worst view of it is that you got somebody roaming this
neighborhood, making all these darling scholars and social saviors of
the future vulnerable to violence. And exactly what are
you
two
doing to make little Jennifer and little Jason safe at school?"

"Believe me, Detective, this is an entirely new problem for us here
on campus."

"You must be frigging nuts if you think I buy that one. We're not
talking 'animal house' and student pranks. This is a college in the
middle of a neighborhood that used to boast one of the highest homicide
rates in the city. Just look next door at Columbia— they've had
students murdered in their dorm rooms and apartments, kids who've been
robbed and raped by other students, as well as by strangers from the
street."

Recantati opened his mouth to speak but Chapman wouldn't be
interrupted. "There's been more drugs used in some of these halls than
Keith Richards and Puff Daddy have seen in their combined lifetimes.
This isn't the time to hide behind your cap and gown, pal."

Foote broke in to relieve the president. Chapman's directness didn't
make her happy. "Alex, for the moment, since Lola had personal contact
with you, can't we just discuss this one-on-one? The police don't have
to be included until we get official word that this wasn't an accident.
After all, that's our understanding of the findings at her apartment
last night."

Chapman got up and walked to the phone on Foote's desk. "Mind if I
call the morgue? I'd hate to waste your time if the docs can step away
from the table in the middle of sawing Lola in half to assure you this
was only a slip and fall."

Recantati's stunned gaze moved back and forth between Chapman's face
and Foote's hand, which she had clamped over the telephone receiver. He
seemed caught in the glare of the headlights and longing to be back in
the library instead. "Have you and Ms. Cooper worked together on this
kind of thing before?"

Chapman laughed. "Seventy years."

Recantati's brow furrowed more deeply. "But—?"

"I count 'em in dog years. Every one I spend with Coop feels like
seven."

Recantati was responding to Mike in a way Sylvia Foote never would,
looking as though he hoped the police would help him out and take the
entire matter off his hands. "So, what is it you need from us?"

Foote cleared her throat. "Not that we can promise you anything
before the middle of next week. We've got to clear this
administratively."

"How about a command decision, Mr. President." Chapman ignored Foote
completely and spoke only to Recantati. "Next week's gonna be too late.
I'd like to get into Ms. Dakota's office this weekend, start checking
her files, her correspondence, her computer records. I'd like to find
out who knew her best, which students were in her classes, what faculty
members worked with her, who liked her and hated her, who slept with
her ..."

Recantati's face reddened at the mere thought, it seemed, that we
would be exploring such intimate aspects of Dakota's life. He was
silent.

"We could walk right over to her office now, with both of you. That
way you can make sure that Ms. Cooper and I don't do anything to cause
trouble here."

Time to soften the approach while we had him on the line.

"You understand, sir, that not everything Detective Chapman is
talking about may be necessary," I said. "It's entirely possible that
Lola's death will prove to be related to her husband's efforts to get
rid of her, and not to the campus community at all. We're exploring
that angle first, of course. Nobody wants to involve the school or the
kids, except as a last resort."

Foote was harder to fool. "Suppose I can gather together some of the
political science faculty for you on Monday morning. We'll make the
library available to you for interviews, so our staff members don't
have to be carted downtown. Then we'll move on to talk with the
students, but only if we must."

Not a bad compromise. "I've got to be in court for a hearing at
nine-thirty on Monday. So if we can say two o'clock for you to have
some people lined up, that will give you the morning to contact whoever
you haven't been able to reach over the weekend. Shall we take a look
at Lola's office while we're here?"

Foote buzzed the secretary and asked her to have the head of
security bring the passkey up to us as quickly as possible. Within
minutes, Frankie Shayson knocked on the door and came into the room.
"Hey, Mike. Alex. Haven't seen either of you guys since that racket
they threw when me and Harry left the job. Never dull, is it?" The
former detective from the two-six squad, the neighborhood precinct,
crossed the room and grabbed Chapman's hand as he greeted us warmly.
"Want me to take 'em upstairs, Ms. Foote?"

She was obviously unhappy that we had an independent connection to
the college, and she wasn't about to let him take us to Dakota's office
alone. "If you give me the key, I'll return it to you later today." She
reached out her hand to take the ring from Shayson, motioning to
Recantati to come along.

The three of us marched down the hallway behind Sylvia Foote and up
two flights of stairs to a turreted corner office. On the wall next to
the door, instead of a nameplate, there was an ink and pen drawing, two
inches by three inches, of a small piece of the U.S. map, with the word
badlands
written in the
middle. The Badlands of Dakota.

Foote unlocked the door and entered first, followed by Chapman.

"Jesus, the feng shui in here is for shit."

Recantati continued to look lost and overwhelmed. "Sorry, Detective?"

"Don't you know anything about the principles of negative energy?
This place is a hellhole, just like her apartment. First of all,"
Chapman said, kicking a box of books out of his path into the room,
"all entrances should be free from obstruction. You need a generous
flow into the working environment. And she's got too much black fabric
in here. Bad karma—symbolizes death."

Chapman worked his way around the room, looking at books and papers
that were piled on the floor, careful not to touch or disturb surface
items. Foote had taken Recantati aside and was whispering something to
him. I took the moment to stifle a smile and ask Chapman a question.
"When did you become an expert in the Chinese art of feng shui?"

"Attila's been shtupping an interior decorator for the last six
months. That's all you hear about when you work a tour with him. The
office is beginning to look like a Jewish princess's idea of a Chinese
whorehouse. 'Don't leave your toilet seat up 'cause your fortune will
flow down into the sewer.' See, dried flowers like this?" Mike pointed
at the dusty arrangement on Dakota's windowsill. "Lousy idea.
Represents the world of the dead. Gotta use fresh ones."

Marty Hun was one of the guys in the Homicide Squad. Mike had
nicknamed him Attila.

"We'll get Crime Scene over here this afternoon. I'd like them to
process the room for prints and take some pictures. Okay with you two?"

Mike moved behind Lola's desk, noting in his steno pad what lay on
top of it and sketching a general outline of the office. The smile was
erased from his face, and with his pen he shifted some of the papers on
top of the blotter. "Who's been in here since last night?"

"No one," answered Foote.

"I'll betcha my paycheck you're wrong on that count."

Foote approached the desk from the opposite side and placed her palm
on a stack of books as she leaned over to see what had caught Mike's
attention.

"You wanna get your hand off there?"

She straightened up and brought her arm down to her side.

Mike pulled open the top middle desk drawer by putting his pen into
the brass handle. "It's too neat. Way too shipshape, both on top of the
desk and in this first drawer. Right where you'd keep whatever it was
you'd been working on most recently, or something that was pretty
important. Every other pile is sloppy and out of line. Even the stack
of mail is too fastidious. Somebody went through some of this stuff and
couldn't resist just patting these papers into order. Nothing major,
but it's just not in keeping with Lola's messy style. Maybe a careful
once-over can come up with a print or something. She chew gum?"

Recantati looked to Foote and then shrugged. "Not that I ever
noticed."

It was Chapman's turn to whisper now, leaning over and speaking only
to me. "Let's lock up the office and get Crime Scene over here
immediately. There's a wad of Wrigley's in the wastebasket. It's great
for getting DNA. All that juicy saliva will tell us exactly who's been
messing around in here."