Linda Fairstein - Likely To Die

I reminded Mike that we had to bring Mercer up to speed on Geoffrey Dogen’s thoughts about the missing key chain.

“We’re going to have to talk to Dietrich about exactly when Gemma gave him the one he carries with him.”

“Yeah, and how many other people walking around that hospital got them from her as gifts. I’m not sure that’s gonna be a very fruitful avenue to explore. We have no idea the last time that key ring was hanging from her bookshelf. D’you talk with Spector at all?”

“Sure. The whole bunch of ‘em greet me like I’m a prospect for brain surgery when I walk into Minuit, kinda rubbing their hands together and acting like they’re pleased to have me there. He was in his office with Coleman Harper and Banswar Desai.

“Desai still mopes around like he lost his best friend and Harper’s got his nose so far up the boss’s ass that it’s gonna be a shade darker than mine is any day now.”

“Cooperative?”

“Yeah. No problem with that. I was just trying to see if anybody had any ideas about DuPre. None of them seemed to know he had hit the road so I didn’t tell them. Spector’s real busy trying to do his own work and be anointed to take over Gemma’s place, too. Real humble, now, like it’s a big surprise he’ll get the job.”

The owner came over to offer us an after-dinner drink on the house as soon as we had taken care of the check with Adolfo.

Mike was already on his feet, pulling out my chair. “You know, Giuliano, just once I’d like you to buy me a drinkbefore dinner. You’re always quick to suggest one when Blondie’s dragging me out the door. Next time, okay?”

“Buona notte.Nice to see you-Miss Cooper, gentlemen.”

“Ciao, Giuliano.”

We got in Mercer’s car for the short ride to my apartment. “What’s the plan, guys?”

“I’m off tomorrow,” Mercer answered. “Unless we get word from one of those out-of-town departments that they’ve picked up Jean DuPuy. The lieutenant will give me a call if that happens. He’s trying to encourage me to stay home because of all the overtime we’re racking up on this case already.”

“I promised my mother I’d stop by and take her to Mass in the morning.”

“Then why don’t we meet in my office on Monday?” I said. “I’ll go over all the reports again tomorrow and set up a schedule for doing interviews. We can plan it out around your tours for the week, okay?”

The doorman came out to meet the car and help me into the elevator with my luggage.

“Want me to go up with you and make sure no one’s hiding under your bed, Goldilocks?”

“No, thank you. Be sure you tell your mother about your conquest of the duchess. She’ll be very proud of you.”

“Hey, if DuPuy rings your doorbell tonight and wants to make a house call to take your blood pressure, don’t let him in, y’hear?

I WAS RELISHING THE SOLITUDE OF MY own apartment on a rainy Sunday morning, reading the Times and filling in the answers to the puzzle. My telephone tape had been loaded with messages from friends but I didn’t intend to start returning any of them until later in the afternoon. I had unpacked my suitcase and had nothing that needed doing other than to organize my notes and police reports for the week ahead.

Mercer’s call caught me in the middle of noshing on a toasted bagel. “Hey, Alex, it’s me. Two things, one you may be able to help me with.”

“Shoot. You sound like you’re on another planet!”

“I’m on a cell phone up in Connecticut. Drove up to my cousin’s house for a family party today. Almost forgot about it. First thing is, I got beeped by a little police department in Pennsylvania. Bluebell, to be exact. Seems like DuPuy made a U-turn somewhere near the Mason-Dixon line and reversed his tracks. Coming back north.

“Commissioner’s concerned enough about it to be moving Maureen again to a different location, just as a precaution. Everyone assumes he’ll start using a new credit card or ID any hour now. Steal one, buy one, con one off somebody. Surprised we’ve had this much of a run on him using the Perkins cards.”

“Maybe he’s coming back to get his wife and kids.”

“Well, that’s a very generous view of the weasel, but it’s a point. There’s a tap on her phone and the lieutenant’s had a team sittin‘ on the house since we heard he fled.

“Which leads to my question. Peterson asked me if we had inventoried the files in Dogen’s office and apartment. I told him that you and I took some notes but they were pretty general. At least mine were by topic, not by specific name. He wants to know if she had a folder on John DuPre. And, frankly, I couldn’t remember. Sound familiar to you?”

“Hold on. I can look through my materials and check it for you right now. Off the top of my head, I know I was listing the categories of things she had but I don’t remember even seeing any individual names.” I was trying to visualize the reams of documents we had plowed through that afternoon and whether the neurologist’s name would have had any significance to me at that particular point in time.

“Not that important. I tried to reach George Zotos but he’s upstate fishing with some of the guys from his old squad. He was goin‘ through a lot of them with us that day.”

“Just give me a minute and-”

“It’ll keep ‘til during the week. I can promise you the Chief isnot bringing me back in on my RDO unless there’s a major break in the action.” Regular days off were sacred in the NYPD’s high command, since the rate of a second-grade detective’s overtime scale was quite costly.

“Okay. Have a good time at the party.”

I hung up, refilled my coffee cup, and took it into the bedroom while I showered and dressed. I thought I might walk around the corner to the Frick Collection for an hour or so and threw on an old cashmere sweater-a pale yellow cable-stitched tunic-over some velvet leggings to dress myself up a bit for the weekend art crowd.

I poured one more hit of coffee from the pot and sat at the dining-room table reviewing the notes I had jotted down while talking with Geoffrey Dogen. It bothered me that Lieutenant Peterson had questions about the files in Gemma’s apartment for which I didn’t have answers, especially since I had offered myself to go there to look for information that might be relevant to our case. I was even more annoyed that I couldn’t make a connection between some of the file names I had seen and facts that Gemma’s friends had not been able to fit into her life.

I didn’t have any way to get into Dogen’s office at Minuit without alerting the hospital administrators, but her own house keys had been sitting on top of my dresser ever since the afternoon Mercer had taken me to her apartment almost ten days before. I had forgotten to return them and no one had needed to claim them on her behalf. Rent was paid up through the end of this month and Geoffrey Dogen had sent directions to donate her clothes to a thrift shop and have all her other personal belongings packed up and shipped home to England for distribution to relatives and friends.

I walked into the bedroom to call a couple of my girlfriends to see if anyone wanted to meet me at the Frick. It was a toss-up whether to just hang out for a few hours or try to accomplish something useful on the case by spending some time in Dogen’s files. I picked up the miniature model of Tower Bridge and played with the keys as I dialed the familiar numbers. Lesley Latham’s husband told me she was in Houston on a business trip, and Esther Newton was on her way out the door to a Huskies game at the Garden.

If I went down to Beekman Place and detailed information from Gemma’s records, I told myself, then I’d deserve a late-afternoon visit to the museum-see the current exhibit and pick up some new postcards to send Nina-and a stop for a cup of hot chocolate on my way home. I left a message on David Mitchell’s tape telling him I was back from London and asking if he and Renee wanted to come in to watch60 Minutes this evening. Then I called Mike’s machine to pass on the news from Mercer about DuPre’s change in direction.