Linda Fairstein - Likely To Die

“What can I do to be useful? I’m still stunned by Chet’s findings. I was just counting on something that the lab could give us to move forward with by the weekend. I’ve got to give a speech at Julia Richman High School tonight.”

Mercer stepped off the curb to cross First Avenue. I turned back and flashed a grin at Chapman. “Why’d you ask? Do you need me, Mikey?”

“In your dreams, Blondie. In your dreams.”

BURGUNDY-SUITED DOORMEN FLANKED THE entrance to Gemma Dogen’s apartment building on Beekman Place, a short walk from the medical center complex. Wallace palmed his gold detective shield to the older of the two, on our left, who acknowledged his recognition by swinging back the large glass doors.

Wallace pointed me to the right, through the lobby and past an enormous display of forsythia and pussy willows that seemed to be rushing the season. We got on the elevator and Mercer pressed twelve.

“Damn,” he said as the doors opened onto a dim hallway made more oppressive by a heavy pattern of taupe flocked wallpaper. “I brought a camera in case you wanted any photos. Left it in the trunk. It’s the third door on the left-12C. Here are the keys, large one for the bottom lock. Let yourself in and I’ll be back up in five.”

I fingered the key chain as the doors pinched shut behind me. I hesitated while toying with the miniature replica of London’s Tower Bridge from which the two keys dangled, thinking I might be more comfortable entering Gemma’s home with Mercer than alone.

Grow up, I told myself. There are no ghosts inside and Mercer will be here within minutes.

I slipped the shorter key into the top lock, then turned the long Medeco one into the cylinder below. The knob seemed to stick for a minute before it cracked open, and I was startled at that exact moment by a noise behind me. I stepped on the threshold and looked over my shoulder to see only the swinging door at the service end of the hallway moving back and forth.

There were no voices and no other noise on the corridor and yet I could have sworn I saw someone’s face peeking out from behind the small porthole window there toward me. It was a creepy feeling, as though I were being watched, and I reassured myself that nosy neighbors were likely to be concerned about the strangers who were parading in and out of the dead woman’s home.

The entryway light switch was on the wall next to the front closet, so I flipped it up as I closed the door behind me.

My eyes swept around the large space. It was a postwar building with rooms of a generous size, spoiled by concrete ceilings that resembled a huge, upside-down vat of cottage cheese but saved by a floor-length wall of windows that looked over the expanse of the East River. Today the clouds hung dense and low and I could barely see beyond the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge and the traffic gliding toward La Guardia Airport.

Gemma Dogen’s taste was simple and stark. I moved through the living room, which appeared to have been furnished during a single stop at a low-cost, contemporary Scandinavian store. Every piece had sharp angles and lines; all fabrics were neutral in shade and slightly rough to the feel. I wished her the deep, rich colors and thick, soft materials of my own home, which enveloped and soothed me when I was ready to relax, kick my shoes off, and leave my professional world behind me at the end of a tough day.

I placed my coat over the back of one of the chairs at the dining table and turned into the short hallway that led to her bedroom. Antique British travel posters of Brighton, the Cotswolds, and Cambridge lined both sides of the wall leading into another sterile-looking chamber with its queen-sized bed.

If the photographs with which she surrounded herself were any evidence of her priorities, Gemma Dogen certainly liked her role in the academic community. She beamed from platforms and podia when she was dressed in her professorial garb. Flags flanking the stage settings showed her equally at home in England and in America and I silently applauded a woman of her accomplishment who had been such a brilliant success in a specialty dominated for so long by men.

The alarm clock next to her bed was still displaying the correct time. I pressed the little button on top to see at what hour Gemma scheduled her days to begin. It flashed a reading of 5:30A.M. and I admired even more the discipline that drove her out that early, especially these March mornings, to run along the riverside path before going to work. The harsh buzz of the front doorbell brought me out of my reverie and I headed back to let Mercer in.

“Who else you expecting?” he asked, ridiculing the fact that I had looked through the peephole before turning the knob.

“You know my mother’s rules, Mercer.” I supposed I’d been doing that peephole thing instinctively since I moved to Manhattan more than a decade earlier. “And someone was lurking around out there when I let myself in. Did you see anybody?”

“Not a soul, Miss Cooper. Carry on, girl.”

“Did you see the alarm clock?”

“Not that I remember. Anything significant?”

“Just worth checking out the time of her usual schedule. It was last set for 5:30A.M. -we should note it in case it helps backtrack if we get any closer to knowing the time of the assault.”

“Done.” Mercer opened his pad and scratched in some notes. “Now, your video guy took some film in here, and we had Crime Scene go over it, too. George Zotos has been pouring through a lot of the files. Seems like she didn’t entertain here much. Used this living room more like an office. That whole wall unit to the left is full of books, but the one on the right is all files and stuff from the med school.

“We’ve been over a lot of it. Take your time, I’ll be here with you. Let me know if you want a picture of anything.”

I started back to the kitchen. Like mine, its shelves and cupboards were pretty bare. The standard upscale equipment-Cuisinart, Calphalon pots and pans, Henckel knives, and an imported espresso machine-all looked pitifully underutilized. This was the Gemma Dogen I could relate to.

“We’ve been through there, Coop. Zotos inventoried the fridge but then threw everything out. Skim milk, carrots, head of lettuce. You’re welcome to look, but it won’t tell you much.”

I walked back into the bedroom and sat in the armchair that was adjacent to Gemma’s bedside table. The bed was neatly made up and the spread was pulled tight without a crease. Either she had arisen at her usual time and straightened up after her jog or she had never gotten home during the night to go to sleep.

I picked up the book from the bedside table-a slim volume on spinal cord injuries, just published by Johns Hopkins University Press, which seemed as depressing as the task ahead of us. I looked at the pages that Gemma had dog-eared and underlined but they meant nothing to me and I replaced it under the lamp.

Closet doors were on runners, which I slid back to look at the way she presented herself to her world. On one side were dark suits with no trim or detail, utilitarian but not of any style. The other end was mostly casual gear-an assortment of khaki slacks, simple cotton shirts, and jackets. Running shoes and sneakers of every variety and condition covered the closet floor. Several pairs of solid English walking pumps must have carried her through her professional appointments. Sensible, my mother called them, but unexciting. A few white lab coats, cleaned and starched, hung between the business and the play clothes. My hand reached for the sleeve of a navy wool suit. I wondered if anyone had claimed Gemma’s body from the morgue and thought of taking an outfit for her burial.

I went back into the living room. Mercer stood up from the chair at Dogen’s desk, where he had been looking through some of the manila files that lay on top, and offered the seat to me.