The guests were circling the tables to find their place cards. Drew was standing behind his chair waiting to help seat his hostess and me as we took our places on either side of him.
He picked up the thread of conversation that had started in the library quite easily and guided me back to our meeting the previous summer. I sipped my wine and ate the superb pâté de foie gras that Joan’s chef lad prepared, finding myself charmed by the warmth and wit of my dinner companion.
When the medallions of veal were served, accompanied by an incredible Margaux, I was conscious that I had started to flirt with Drew but uncertain about whether the cause was the wine or a genuine interest. I liked the way it felt again and I liked the sense of intoxication the whole evening had fostered.
We talked about acquaintances we had in common, the vacation he had taken the previous summer on my beloved Vineyard, Joan’s incomparable skills as both hostess and friend, and the books we were reading. We rambled on about dogs and movies and restaurants and basketball and nowhere did I get a sense-so frequently transmitted when I met men socially-that he confused my professional interest in crimes of sexual violence with my personal life. I had all but forgotten that Hugh Gainer was sitting on my other side, I had become so completely engaged in my conversation with Drew.
“You’ve been to the Palais Soubise, haven’t you, Alex?” Joan was asking. She had an astounding memory for all kinds of anecdotal information. “I really think it’s the most exquisite façade in Paris. Louis XIV built it for the Princesse de Soubise, you know. Whenever the Prince was on the road, theprincesse wore one emerald earring to court. That told Louis that the coast was clear,et voilà! Not a bad price to pay for the grandest home in town, don’t you think? Anyway, Hugh, you must be sure to see it when you’re over there. It’s divine.
“Coffee and brandy in the living room?”
We all rose from our seats and Drew brushed against me as he went past. My hand was on top of the chair back, pushing it under the table. He rested his own on top of mine and asked, “Want some cognac or-?”
“I’d love some.”
“You didn’t let me finish, Alex,” he said, talking softly into my ear. “Or would you rather come to my place for a nightcap?”
“I-uh-I don’t think I can do that. I sort of have to go home because-um-there’s a-well-” I was stammering as I found myself in the unusual situation of having to get back to the apartment to take a dog for a walk.
“I’m sorry. You don’t need to explain,” Drew offered coolly. I could tell that he assumed I was playing some kind of game with him, that I had someone waiting at home for me while I egged him on all evening.
I spoke over him as I shook my head, “No, no. I mean, it’s a dog.” He looked up and laughed. “It’s my neighbor’s dog,” I went on, “I’m just not used to having to keep such regular hours and have some living thing depend on me.”
“My rival’s adog? I can deal with that. How about a brandy at your place, then, and someone to keep you company on your midnight dog walk?”
“An offer I can’t refuse. Let’s find the hostess.”
Joan was making the rounds of her guests as they sipped at demitasse cups while Jim passed cigars to those men who still smoked.
Drew and I thanked her for the evening. She hugged me goodnight as he went to fetch our coats. “For once, I’ll forgive you for leaving early. Did I mislead you?”
“Not so far. I’ll call you tomorrow?”
“Brunch at Mortimer’s with me and Jim?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve got tons of paperwork to review on the investigation and indictments to proofread in seven other cases. I’m going to work at home, but it’ll take the better part of the day. Me and the usual suspects.”
“Alex, don’t be a sex crimes prosecutor tonight, will you please? Be a girl.”
“Go back to your guests, Joan.” Drew helped me on with my coat and we went down to the street to get a cab to my apartment.
Prozac was pleased to have our company when we came in and followed closely on my heels as I turned on a few more lights in the hallway and den. I poured us each a brandy as Drew walked around the living room, picking up picture frames that sat on most of the tabletops and asking who the people were in each of the scenes. When I flipped on the CD player, the velvet voice of Sam Cooke sang to us, soothing me with “You Send Me” and the thought that his big thrill started as infatuation, too.
We settled onto the wide sofa with our snifters, Zac nestling below me as I kicked off my shoes and made myself comfortable. I chattered with Drew about my girlfriends, his childhood, my career, his partners, and all the time I wanted him only to reach over to me and kiss me into silence.
When it happened-somewhere between the tales of my first college romance and his last fly-fishing trip to Scotland -I opened my mouth and tasted his tongue, drawing him deeper as I reached up to stroke the soft brown hair that curled up at the nape of his neck.
Drew leaned back, lifting me with him and pulling me against his body as he embraced me and whispered “Alexandra” over and over again, his mouth pressed against the crown of my head. I took the knot out of his tie, unfastening the top buttons of his shirt to kiss his throat and chest. He raised my face, holding it between his hands so he could look at me, meeting my eyes with his smile and approval. I shook free, searching out his mouth again with my tongue.
It seemed this gentle foreplay went on for hours, but it was only three or four songs later when Drew planted a more playful kiss on my nose and suggested we take Zac for a walk before he left for home.
All this and sensible, too, I thought to myself as I got up from the sofa, pulled down my skirt, stepped back into my shoes, and ran my fingers through my messed-up hair.
The whole thing felt so good that I didn’t mind putting brakes on the sexual progression. My face was flushed and my body tingling with the fresh excitement of arousal, a feeling I hadn’t experienced for far too many months. I wanted to savor it and make it last and I wanted Drew to want me as badly as I wanted him. I was already fantasizing making love to him and I knew it was going to be without the false stimulants of alcohol and wine.
I hooked Zac’s collar onto her leash and we put on our coats and descended in the elevator. We walked a couple of blocks, Drew holding the dog’s leash with one hand and me with the other. Perhaps it was that March was nearing an end, or because of the warmth of my company, that I didn’t seem to mind the night chill and didn’t want the stroll to end.
We returned to the front of my building and Drew kissed me another time, holding me against one of the large pillars that framed the entrance to the driveway. “I’ll call you tomorrow. I’ve got to take a trip to San Francisco this week to close a deal. Save me some space on your calendar, will you?”
“Days or weeks?” I asked, not ready to turn to go inside.
“Am I too greedy to think months?” he said as I laughed at his enthusiasm. “Does a case like this one consume you entirely or will I be able to find you when I call?”
It was his first reference to the murder investigation all evening and the sudden insertion of Gemma Dogen into my thoughts eliminated every trace of giddiness instantly.
“I don’t think you’ll have any trouble finding me if you try, Drew.” We pulled apart and he turned to walk away.
I watched as he went out to the street to hail a cab, then took my four-legged companion upstairs to go to sleep.
Lounging in bed on Sunday morning with theTimes was a rare treat for me. Zac had an early outing, then I came back inside with the paper, got under the covers, and devoured every section of the news and features before I got up to shower and dress for the day.
Joan called at eleven. “Can you talk?”
“As in, is Drew still here?”
“Well, that thought did cross my mind.”
“He’s gone, but I do owe you for this one, Joan. Yes, I had a wonderful evening. Yes, the dinner was fantastic. And yes, I am goi
ng to see him again. Can you hold a minute? The call-waiting thing is clicking.”
I pushed the button on the telephone console and Chapman came on. “I got news for you, Blondie-”
“I’ll call you right back, Mike. Let me get off the line.”
“Okay, but I’m not at home. I’ll give you the number.”
He reeled off the digits, then told me to ask for extension 638.
I held my curiosity in check while I told Joan I had to blow her off to talk business.
I dialed and heard a switchboard operator answer. “ Saint Regis Hotel, how may I direct your call?”
I gave her the extension number and waited until a sultry accented voice picked up and said, “Hello.”
“Mike Chapman, please.”
“Certainly,” she said, and after several seconds Mike spoke into the receiver.
“Her expense account or yours?” I asked.
“Last timeI paid for a hotel room, the bathroom was down the hall and my date was gone before I could find the switch to turn on the space heater. There’s a minibar in this place you could live out of longer than I could stay alive in your kitchen.”
“This the reporter from Milan covering the police beat?”
“On-the-job, Blondie. On-the-job. This is all business-no need to be jealous.
“But Peterson beeped me this morning and I thought you oughtta know right away. One of the old hairbags in the precinct, working in the record room, came across a 61.”
Sixty-ones were the complaint reports filled out by uniformed police officers when civilians reported crimes in New York City.
He continued. “Complaining witness was Gemma Dogen. Call came into the precinct a little over a month ago, at the end of February. It’s listed as an aggravated harassment.”
Telephone calls that annoyed or alarmed the recipient.
“What does the report say? Who took it?”
“Easy. I don’t have it in front of me. I can just paraphrase it for you. Dogen was getting a series of threatening messages on her home machine. Male caller. Didn’t recognize the voice but thought it was disguised. Veiled threats-”
“Exactly what kind of threats?”
“Peterson says she never said they were life threatening. Foul language, mostly, telling her to get out of town if she knew what was good for her. The lieutenant wants me to interview the cop who took the call and see what he remembers. That’s all I know at this point.”
“Well, what about the follow-up? Didn’t anyone refer it to the detectives to interview Dogen?”
“Yeah. Two empty DD5s.” Detective Division reports. “First one, guy tried to call her every day for a week and she was out of the country. Her office never returned the calls. Second one was two weeks before the murder. Detective wanted to set up an interview and Dogen refused. Told him the calls had stopped and she didn’t want to pursue it. Said the problem had resolved itself.”
“Whoa. Can you imagine if they’re related? We’ve got to find out who she was having trouble with, on and off the job.”
“I’m driving out to Queens. The cop who did the 61s is assigned to the pound,” Mike said, referring to the huge facility where the department stored recovered cars that had been stolen or had been forfeited during searches for contraband.
“I thought you said the complaint came into the 17th Precinct?”
“That’s where the guy used to work ‘til your deputy got hold of him.”
“Sarah?”
“Yeah, she had him flopped ten days ago. Guess she didn’t want to bother you with this one.
“Dental hygienist brought a guy home with her from a party. Had sex with him in the backseat of his car, parked on First Avenue. Then claimed he got wild in her apartment and raped her. Phones the station house from her living room the next morning to say he’s asleep in her bed, could they send a cop to get him out ‘cause she’s scared of what he might do now.”
“Don’t tell-”
“Yeah, this genius says, ‘Lady, we don’tdo wake-up calls.’ Girl pitched a complaint, Sarah asks the sergeant about it, and next day the guy’s filling out endless reams of paperwork on stolen Tauruses and Novas. No human contact advised for a couple of weeks. Sensitivity training to follow.”
I could hear Miss Milan giggling in the background.
“Maybe you ought to sign up for classes with him, Mike.”
“Anyway, throw this one into the mix. You order the phone records on Dogen?”
“Yes, I had the grand jury issue subpoenas and Laura typed them all up and got them out on Friday. That should give us all her phone information. If you give me the dates of these incoming calls, I’ll do a dump first thing in the morning.”
Telephone “dumps” would actually reveal the source of an incoming call to a number if we could narrow down the date and time. They were hugely expensive procedures for the phone company-at least five hundred dollars a shot for only three days’ worth of numbers-so they weren’t authorized in most cases. Like almost everything else in a high-profile matter, however, the stakes were raised and the rules were broken.
“You got it. It’s still gonna take more than a week to get the answers, isn’t it?”
“That’s the problem. But at least we’ll get started.”
“I’m off to the outer boroughs. Call you later.”
We hung up and I went into my second bedroom, which had been converted into an office when I had moved to the apartment years earlier. The papers from my case file were spread all over the desktop and I found the folder with Dogen’s name on it. Sitting down, I opened it to add the facts about her complaint of the previous month.
I slipped out one of the photos that had been taken at the crime scene and looked at the gruesome image it depicted. The old ivory-handled magnifying glass I bought at the Chilmark flea market to use as a paperweight was holding a stack of bills. I lifted it to look closely at Gemma’s corpse, angling it to see whether any secrets would yield themselves to my eye.
I started a new pad of notes, under the heading “Blood,” followed by a question mark. Had she been trying to draw a figure or design that could identify her killer? Was it a letter that would have been the start of a word or a name? In a column, I listed letters of the alphabet, lower and upper case, that could possibly have been formed if she had retained the strength to finish the symbol. Tomorrow, as we tried to move on away from Austin Bailey and isolate a string of suspects, I would bring my photo and my list to see whether any of the bloody squiggles on the carpet could be matched.
Who were the demons that peopled the life of this good doctor, I wondered as I looked at her butchered body. What was it that her files held, and not her wallet, that made the files the object of a search?
I kept at the paperwork most of the afternoon, forgoing my usual Motown accompaniment for the background of Schumann’s calming Sonata for Piano.
Drew called from his office at five. He was working on Sunday, too. “I don’t know how productive your day has been but mine was a lost cause. I kept thinking about last night and haven’t been able to come up with a good reason for leaving when I did. Meet me for dinner? I have to come back to the office tonight to get these documents ready to go to the printer but I’d love to be with you for a little while.”
“I accept.”
“Pick a place in your neighborhood-casual but good. I’m in jeans.”
“Butterfield 81, just off Third? Great steaks and salads.”
“Perfect. I’ll call for a table and meet you there at seven.”
I fed Zac and took her out for some exercise, then walked up ten blocks to the restaurant. Drew was waiting for me in a booth and I sat down across from him as he pushed the menus out of the way to grab hold of my hands and pull them to his lips.
We talked and ordered, talked and ate, talked and lingered over cups of decaf coffee.
“I’m leaving for the West Coast tomorrow night. Any chance you’d fly out next weekend and spend it there with m
e? Get a hotel room with a view of the bay and-”
“I’d love to do it, Drew, but it’s really impossible at this stage in the case. If the cops are no further ahead than they are now, we’ll still be interviewing all week and weekend. And if there’s a break in the investigation-I mean, a good one-then it shifts completely tomy responsibility. There’s no way I can leave town at this point.”
“Then I’ll just have to speed things up with my client and get back here as soon as possible. I don’t think the view’s going to matter very much, is it?”
I shook my head and smiled.
“C’mon. Let’s grab a cab and I’ll drop you. Or shall I come up?”
“Tomorrow’s a ‘school day.’ ” I said. I knew that I didn’t want our first night together interrupted by the buzz of the alarm clock.
We left the restaurant arm in arm, exchanged kisses during the short drive back to the apartment, and I let myself out of the cab reluctantly to send Drew back downtown to his office.
The doorman held open the door. “I didn’t see you go out earlier, Miss Cooper. You must have left while I was on my dinner break. I just sent the guy with the deli delivery up to you on the service elevator. I tried to ring you, but I got interrupted ‘cause 24C’s got a leak on her terrace. Emergency.”
“I didn’t order anything. I’ve been out for two hours. Wrong apartment.”
Many of the young kids bringing food in from local take-out restaurants were immigrants and few of them spoke good English. Like most of my neighbors, my doorbell often rang at odd hours with meals someone had ordered to the floor above or below. Mr. Hooper on nineteen wound up with Miss Cooper’s pizza more times than he cared to, and, as Cooper, I was regularly confused with Kupler on twenty-three.
I was daydreaming as I removed my keys from my jacket pocket and opened the door. Zac was sitting upright as though she had been waiting for my arrival. Her left paw covered a sheet of paper, which must have been slipped under the door.
I picked up the plain white page, which had huge red letters scrawled across it in a childlike hand, and stared at the words. “CAREFUL. IT’S NOT ALL BLACK AND WHITE. DEADLY MISTAKE.”
Likely To Die Page 17
