Linda Fairstein - Likely To Die

Mike was on his feet to pick up the phone and redial the office so I could speak to Mercer. “I called back home to the squad during the break in the afternoon session, after the German’s presentation. I wasn’t holding out on you, Coop, I just didn’t want to upset you right before you had to deliver Battaglia’s speech.”

I stirred the ice in my drink with my finger and took a swallow of the Scotch while he waited for the connection to be put through.

“Hey, big guy. Coop needs to talk to you. Uh-huh, just told her now. No, no, she’s not. Speak to her yourself or I think she’ll be on the next flight outta here.”

He extended the cord to its full length and carried the phone to my chair.

“I have had just about all the bullshit I can take, Mercer, so please tell me exactly what’s going on with Mo now.”

“She’s good, Alex. They moved her to New York Hospital in the middle of the night right after this happened-to check her out and do some tests on her blood. I saw her there and held her hand this morning. Then they transferred her out of the city for safekeeping. None of us knows where but she’s cool about that. And Charles is with her.

“Mo said that if I mentioned four little words to you, you’d know she’s just fine.”

I tried to think if she and I had ever discussed a code word but nothing came to mind.

“ ‘Canyon Ranch. Your treat.’ You tell me, is she alive and well?”

I smiled. We had often joked about going to an elegant spa for a week-to be pampered with massages and mud baths and facials-but had never taken the splurge. “Tell her she’s on, first break Battaglia gives me.”

We said good-bye and I hung up the phone, resting my head back against the top of the chair’s cushion. “God, I just couldn’t forgive myself if anything ever happened to Maureen.That’s not the work of any crazy guy living in an underground tunnel. I don’t know what its hook is to Dogen’s murder but only a health care pro would be sticking syringes in patients-or in chocolates, for that matter-to try to scare us.”

“Let’s go downstairs and get some chow. Tomorrow we see Dogen’s ex-husband. Creavey’s going to sit in on the interview with us and have a look at the photos. Then Saturday morning we’re going home. So take yourself off duty for a few hours and enjoy what’s left of the evening.”

I looked at my watch and saw that it was almost eight o’clock. We’d been in England more than twelve hours. The combination of jet lag and this disturbing news had hit me head on. “I’ll go down with you, but I’m too nauseated to eat anything.”

I splashed water on my face, reapplied my lipstick, spritzed on more perfume, and tried to smooth the wrinkles out of my yellow-and-black David Hayes suit. We bypassed the bumpy lift in favor of the staircase, and walked down toward the library.

Graham stopped us at the doorway. “Sorry, madam. Sir. They’ve all gone in to dinner already. To your right,” he motioned us with his gloved hand. “And Miss Cooper, you had two calls while your line was engaged.” He handed me the message slips. Mr. Renaud phoned and will call again tomorrow, I read. The second one said that Miss Stafford was anxious to talk to me, was on her way to the airport, and would ring back.

“You go on ahead, Mike. I want to go back upstairs and return the calls.”

“But Graham just said-”

My annoyance was palpable. I hadn’t meant to direct it at Mike but he was the only one in range. “I just want to go back to the room for a couple of minutes.” I turned and stomped off to the staircase, taking its three tall sections on the run without missing a beat.

I opened the door to the room and stepped inside. I had no intention of returning Drew’s call at that point. I simply did not want to speak to or socialize with anyone.

I went into the dresser drawers and removed one of Mike’s shirts. Not expecting to be sharing a room, I had packed without bringing a nightgown. Then I called the housekeeping department and asked them to pick up the laundry I placed in a bag and left outside the door of the room, including the dirty shirt Mike had worn on the plane, for overnight service. I wanted to make sure it would be washed and ironed since I had now purloined one to sleep in. I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower until the steam poured out into the rest of the suite, then stood beneath the water until all of the tension of the day and evening ran out of me.

Dressed in Mike’s red-and-white-striped shirt, I sat at the desk and wrote him a note apologizing for snapping at him and abandoning him to the crowd. I placed it on his pillow and turned down the corner of his sheet, leaving on the reading lamp so he could see his way around.

I crawled in between the tightly pulled linens of my own slender bed, separated by a couple of inches from Mike’s. I wasn’t thinking Tina Turner tonight, I was thinking Otis Redding. He had been right. Young girlsdo get weary. Try a little tenderness, he had advised, over and over again when I had listened to him sing to me. I wanted someone to try it and I wanted it soon. But it wasn’t likely to happen tonight, so I turned off the lamp nearest to me, burrowed my head into the pillow, and convinced myself that I was exhausted enough to need a good night’s sleep.

I AM SO UNACCUSTOMED TO AN EARLY BEDTIME that I was up shortly after five in the morning and rolled around restlessly until I could see a glimmer of daybreak at the curtain’s edge. I slipped into the bathroom quietly and dressed for a run. Down the stairs, a nod to the young man at the reception table, and I was outside and around back on the rear balustrade of the enormous building looking out over acres of lush green gardens and forests. I did my leg stretches against the columns that had supported Cliveden’s façade for a couple of centuries, then set off through the clipped hedges to follow the paths that eventually sloped down to the Thames. In the more than five miles that I covered, I encountered only an occasional gardener or groundsman and relished the stillness that surrounded me in this peaceful sanctuary.

The last hill of the return gave me a particularly hard time so I slowed to a walk and wandered through the intricate mazes of the formal Long Garden created from boxwood hedges that had been so carefully laid out and maintained.

Mike was still sleeping soundly under a halo of stale-smelling lager as I let myself back into the suite, showered, and dressed for the day. He mumbled a greeting as I was about to leave the room and I explained that I was going to the morning program to hear the presentations on DNA that one of the forensic men from the Yard was giving.

“Geoffrey Dogen’s due here at about eleven. Creavey’ll meet him at the door and wait for us. He’s arranged a small conference room that we can use for a few hours.” His head rolled in my direction. “Hey, thanks for holding up your end of things last night, kid. I only waited about three or four hours for you-by then, I figured you really had stood me up.”

“Sorry, I-”

“Don’t worry about it. Creavey and I scored. Some duchess took us on.”

I laughed at the idea of it.

“No kidding. A duchess-and a knockout, too. Bounced us around to a few pubs, showed us the sights.”

“What time did you get in?”

He cocked an eye. “My mother’s alive and well in Brooklyn, thanks. She doesn’t need any backup. I’ll see you at eleven, okay?”

I walked outside and over to the Churchill Boardroom, picked up some coffee and a scone, and found my place again at the table for the nine o’clock program. After apologies to Lord Windlethorne for missing dinner, I made small talk with my neighbors until the speaker finished setting up his audiovisual equipment and began his address.