The Deadhouse (9 page)

"Yeah, claims he's gay. Not guilty."

"Anything I can do to be useful?"

"No. Just didn't want you to read about it in the morning papers.
The victim's a graduate student at NYU. It's probably not related to
what you're working on, but I thought you ought to know about it. Seems
like it's open season on college campuses this week."

I hung up and took the elevator back to the fourth floor. Lieutenant
Peterson had just arrived and was talking to the chief, who summoned me
to them with his forefinger.

"I'm surprised you and Chapman didn't stay for the service."

"What service?"

"Peterson's just telling me that President Recantati called for a
prayer session and candlelight vigil tonight, then canceled all the
classes and exams next week, and dismissed the students for the
Christmas recess."

I was livid. Recantati and Foote must have made those plans before
we saw them in the early afternoon, and they had chosen not to tell us.
I thanked Chief Allee for the news and worked my way through the crowd
to find Chapman, who was in the middle of the dance floor with one of
the assistant DAs from my unit, Patti Rinaldi.

"You can have the next tango with him, I just need him for a few
minutes." I took Mike's hand and led him to the side of the room,
explaining the news to him. "You realize that means we're not going to
have any kids there to interview by Monday afternoon, and possibly not
any faculty members? They'll all scatter home over the weekend."

"Relax, blondie. I'll pay Foote a visit first thing tomorrow morning
and get some names and numbers. We'll do the best we can." He shuffled
back to the dance floor without missing a step, calling out to Patti,
to the Motown beat:
"Rescue me! Take me in your arms

I fumed on the sidelines, annoyed that Chapman didn't seem as
distressed as I was by Sylvia Foote's duplicity.

7

"Just once, I'd like to read an obituary of a murdered woman who
hasn't been canonized overnight." It was Chapman, my Saturday morning
6:45 wake-up call. "Doesn't anybody wicked and ugly ever get blown
away? I picked up the tabs on my way home."

Home from where? Patti's apartment? I wondered.

"'King's and Columbia Mourn Death of Beloved Professor.' Who beloved
her? Mercer says she was a real ball breaker. 'Raven-haired Prof Slain
After Spousal Sting.' The
Post,
of course. The broad is
dead—what frigging difference does her hair color matter? D'you ever
read a man's obit that says he was balding or blond? Someday I'm going
to write the death notices for all of my victims. Truthfully. 'The
despicable SOB, whose face could stop a clock, finally got what she
deserved after years of being miserable to everyone who crossed her
path.' That kind of thing. So what's the plan for the day? "What time
is Lola's sister expecting us?"

"When I spoke with her yesterday, she suggested one o'clock. Is that
okay with you?"

"Rise and shine, twinkle toes. I'll pick you up at Fifty-seventh and
Madison at noon."

Mike knew that my Saturday routine began with an eight o'clock
ballet class, the one constant in an exercise schedule that had long
ago been abandoned to the unforeseeable nature of the prosecutorial
job. I had been studying with William for years, and relied on the
stretches, plies, and barre work of the studio to distract me from the
tension of my daily dose of violent crime. From there, I was due at
Elsa's, my hairdresser at the Stella salon, for a touch-up on my blonde
highlights, for what I had expected to be a cheerful holiday season.

I picked up the paper from my doorstep, took the elevator down, and
waited in the lobby until someone pulled up in a Yellow Cab, not
anxious to stand on the corner trying to hail one in the frigid early
morning air. On the ride across town, I read the
Times
coverage
of the Dakota story. The reclassification of her death as a homicide
bumped the news from the second section to the front page, above the
fold: "Academic Community Stunned by Scholar's Death."

The piece led with the achievements, publications, and awards that
the professor had garnered in her relatively short career. A second
feature described the reaction of college officials. "Morn-ingside
Heights Mourns Neighbor," it began, explaining the decision of both
Columbia University and King's College to suspend classes on the eve of
the holiday week, while police tried to determine whether the killing
was the work of someone stalking Dakota, or a threat to the schools'
population at large.

Another sidebar item traced the course of the case against Ivan
Kralovic, questioning the wisdom of the Jersey prosecutor's choice of
techniques to cement the evidence against Lola's estranged husband.
Each of the articles wove in quotes from a variety of sources close to
the deceased, and referenced the eloquent words of King's chaplain,
Willetta Heising, Sr., who spoke of the loss of her friend and also
urged the students to remain calm in the face of this menace to their
general sense of security. A photograph of the throngs pouring out of
Riverside Church after the service, slim ecru tapers in every hand and
a tissue dabbing the occasional eye, filled the rest of the page on
which the stories concluded.

I folded the paper inside my tote, hoping to find time later to do
the crossword puzzle, and paid the driver. I raced in the door and down
the steps to William's studio, leaving my coat in the dressing room and
joining a few other friends who were limbering up in the center of the
floor. The warm smiles and routine complaints about stiff joints and
unnoticeable weight gains signaled to me that none of the dancers had
connected me to the bad news in today's headlines. It was a relief to
be spared the questions and concerns that accompanied my involvement in
the tragedies of others' lives, and I continued my stretches in silence.

Each time I picked my head up, I looked around the room to see
whether Nan Rothschild had arrived. I knew that she was on the faculty
at Barnard College and remembered that we had talked about Lola Dakota
on several occasions a year earlier. I thought I could pick Nan's brain
for some insights about how to handle her colleagues during this
sensitive investigation, but there was no sign of her this morning.

I finished my knee bends as William entered the room, clapped the
class to attention, and moved us to the barre to begin the session.

He started with a series of deep, measured plies, counting for us to
set a tempo. The recording, he explained, was Tchaikovsky's symphonic
fantasy "The Tempest." I let my mind wander with the music, enjoying
the fact that if I concentrated hard enough on holding my position
correctly, I stopped thinking about the things I needed to do for the
Dakota investigation.

"Head higher, Alexandra. Pull straight up when you do the releves."
He ran his pointer down the legs of the woman in front of me, showing
me the perfect lines of her elevated pose. By the time we were ready
for floor exercises, I had worked up a good sweat and loosened my limbs
completely. I sat on the hardwood and extended my legs into a wide
V-shaped wedge, my ballet shoes coming toe to toe with the elegantly
arched foot of Julie Kent.

"What are you doing for Christmas? Going to the Vineyard?" she
whispered.

I nodded. "A really quick trip. You and Victor?"

William put his finger to his lips and "ssshed" us to silence,
tapping me on the shoulder with his wooden stick. Julie beamed at me
and mouthed the word "later."

At the end of the class, we chatted about the holidays as we
showered and dressed against the wintry day. I slogged for several
blocks through slush made gray by traffic and filthy car exhaust
without sighting a taxi, and finally reached the crosstown bus to take
me to the hairdresser. My friend Elsa had read the morning paper, and
we talked quietly about the bizarre events of the preceding day while
she painted streaks in my pale blonde hair.

When I went down to the lobby of the building shortly before noon,
Mike was parked directly in front, on Fifty-seventh Street, with his
flashers blinking. We drove to the West Side and down to the Lincoln
Tunnel for the ride to New Jersey. Typical for this time of year, most
of the traffic was heading into Manhattan, not in our outbound
direction. Suburbanites were coming to shop for Christmas, view the
elaborate window displays at the Fifth Avenue department stores, skate,
and enjoy the mammoth tree at the Rockefeller Center rink. We had much
more sobering business before us.

Mike had called Lola's brother-in-law while I was at class in the
morning to tell him and Lily that the medical examiner had officially
declared Lola's death a homicide, something the morning papers had
broadcast to the entire metropolitan area. Now the family seemed quite
anxious to meet with us.

We pulled up in front of the house at one-thirty, and it was
instantly recognizable from Thursday night's broadcast of the footage
of Kralovic's hired hit. The wreath was gone now, and signs of seasonal
joy were overshadowed by the gloom of the postvideo events.

As Mike lifted the brass knocker, the door swung open. A portly man
in his fifties greeted us and introduced himself as Lily's husband,
Neil Pompian. "My wife's in the kitchen. Why don't you come inside."

We wiped our feet on the bristled mat and followed Pompian through
the entry hall and past the great room, which was dominated by a large
tree surrounded by dozens of wrapped packages. Three women, who
identified themselves to us as neighbors, rose from their seats around
the table, took turns hugging Lily, made sure platters of pastry were
fully packed for our choosing, and offered us food and drink as they
let themselves out the back door.

I poured two cups of coffee and we joined Lily at the kitchen table,
in a bright corner of the room, facing a large backyard with a swimming
pool all covered up for winter. Lily was sitting on a window seat, her
legs tucked up beneath her, and a glass of white wine in front of her.

"That bastard was determined to get Lola one way or another, wasn't
he?" She lifted the drink and sipped at it as we each introduced
ourselves. "I know you didn't think we were right to do what Vinny
Sinnelesi suggested, Ms. Cooper. My sister told me about her
conversations with you. But she was really at her wit's end, and she
liked the idea of an undercover sting to get Ivan once and for all. She
thought it was a much more aggressive way to keep him behind bars, once
she decided that's where he belonged."

"Here's what we'd like to do, Mrs. Pompian. I'm a detective with
the Homicide Squad. I know how you feel about Ivan Kralovic, but he was
in custody when Lola was mur—"

"This whole case is about control, Mr. Chapman. Ivan liked to
control everything. Everybody. All the time. He needed to control Lola
the way most people need to eat and sleep. That's what his fights with
my sister were about. It would be an understatement to call Lola
independent. Once she got it in her head to disagree with you, or to
disapprove of something Ivan was doing, there was no bringing her back
into the fold."

"I understand that, but I don't want to jump to—"

"I'm not jumping to any conclusions. These are facts, Detective.
Ivan wanted my sister dead. He put the word out. Unfortunately for him,
the cops are the ones who got the word. He paid handsomely to have
these cops pretend to kill Lola."

"That's my point. That's why he's in jail."

"Yeah? Well, suppose he was smarter than they are? Suppose he didn't
trust them? Let's say he caught on to their scam and just wanted to
lull us all into thinking Lola would be safe the moment that
Sinnelesi's cop team pretended to shoot her? Then he one-ups all of
you, and sends the real killer to her apartment." She shook her head
back and forth and reached for her wineglass again.

"That's one of the possibilities we're looking at, Mrs. Pompian."

"One
of them? I suggest you look a little harder, Mr.
Chapman. And faster, this time." She glanced in my direction. "Where's
Ivan now? He's not loose is he, just because Lola can't testify against
him?"

"He's locked up over here on the attempted murder charge. He's being
held without bail." Mike had gotten through to the sheriff's office
before he picked me up. "Who's the prosecutor you've been working with?
We'd like to talk to him, too."

"Her name is Anne Reininger. She was very good to Lola. You think
Ivan isn't capable of controlling this thing from inside the Jailhouse?
He's got money, he's got connections to every scumbag on both sides of
the river, and he wanted Lola dead."

"Do you know why?" I asked. It was one thing to attack her himself,
in the middle of a fight when they were alone together. But a hired
killing, after they were separated and living out of each other's way,
suggested another kind of problem. Avoidance of alimony payments?
Something that Lola knew about Ivan that she threatened to expose,
personally or professionally? A matter, perhaps, that was connected to
the cash she kept hidden in a shoe box? I was willing to consider that
it might be an issue less obvious than marital discord.

Lily Pompian thought my question was a stupid one. She had already
explained why. It was becoming obvious to me that this was going to be
Chapman's interview. I was being dismissed without an answer, and the
repeated hits of Chablis, as Lily refilled her glass, were making Mike
look like the warm and fuzzy one on our team. She shifted her weight on
the bench and leaned in on her elbow to talk directly to Mike.

He took advantage of that dynamic and, armed with his most sensitive
gaze, responded to her approach. "Let's start with Ivan. I think Alex
knows a lot about him, from the earlier incidents, but why don't you
tell me what kind of business he's involved in?"