Linda Fairstein - The DeadHouse

I scanned the pages until I found the day, one week earlier, of Lola's murder. I ran my finger down the rows of figures. There had been dozens of calls in the morning, when people had been coming and going to arrange the faked homicide performance. Then the activity had slowed to a standstill.

Lily had heard Lola make the call presumably to be picked up by a cab company. And then Lily had medicated herself and gone to bed.

I stopped at 1:36 P.M. A single call, made to a local Jersey number from Lily's home. Maybe I wouldn't need a detective to help decipher and track the telephone connection. The number looked familiar. What if Lola hadn't called a stranger to transport her safely to Manhattan, but had reached out for a friend instead?

I dialed the exchange and waited while the phone rang three times.

An operator answered. "Office of the District Attorney, may I help you?"

I swallowed hard. "Perhaps you can. I'm not sure if I dialed the right number. Is this Mr. Sinnelesi's office?"

"It's his office. But it's not his direct line."

"The extension I dialed," I said, looking down at the printed record, "is 8484. Can you tell me whose number that is?"

"Who are you trying to reach, ma'am?"

The last person to see Lola Dakota alive, I thought to myself. I stammered. "I, uh, I've got a message to call this number. I just can't make out the name my secretary took down."

"Oh, okay. This is Bartholomew Frankel's office. He's the executive assistant district attorney, Mr. Sinnelesi's number two man. Mr. Frankel stepped away for a bit. Shall I put you through to his secretary?"

"You saved me from a miserable afternoon with my mother." Mike had been at his desk in the squad when I called, and instantly agreed that we should drive out to Sinnelesi's office to confront Bart Frankel with our new information. The secretary had assured me he would be around all afternoon, so we were soon on our way through the Holland Tunnel.

"Mom's been begging me to help her plan her funeral. Pick out the coffin, go to-"

"Has she been ill?" I had known his mother for years and had no idea that anything was wrong. Perhaps that's why Mike had been delayed at the hospital on Monday morning.

"Fit as a horse. But at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, she got me to promise I would take her to get everything arranged. Peace of mind and all that. She's so excited you'd think she was going to Disney World with John Elway, for chrissakes. Told her I was breaking the date 'cause of you. That's the only way I could get a reprieve."

"Tell her that when we solve this one, we'll both come out and take her to lunch… Does it bother you as much as it does me that Frankel's the guy who got Lola's call?"

"Hey, if the escort was strictly professional, they would have had detectives taking her out of Lily's home and making sure she got inside her apartment safely. Your big guns in the Manhattan DA's office do witness escort and protection? I can just see Battaglia asking Pat McKinney to run somebody uptown to Harlem. Not a chance. You know Frankel?"

"I've only met him once, when Sinnelesi sent a delegation to talk to us about helping them stage this shooting of Lola. Anne Reininger was doing a very professional job with the investigation. She had some really good ideas about wiring an undercover cop and proving the case just through incriminating admissions from Kralovic. But the district attorney thought this sting would be great press for him, just in time for his reelection campaign. Battaglia and I disagreed. The plan was over-the-top hokey, dangerous, and unnecessary. Frankel came to our office to try to get me to change my mind."

"Any sense of what he's like?"

"I heard he's a law school buddy of Sinnelesi's, so he's probably the same age. About fifty. They were at NYU together. Frankel started with the Brooklyn district attorney, right out of school-"

"Which means he was rejected by your office, no doubt."

"He did six or seven years there, before my time. Then went into private practice, doing criminal defense work in New Jersey. When Sinnelesi was elected, he brought Bart in as his right-hand man. He really runs the shop."

"Did Lola ever mention him to you?"

"No. But we really weren't in contact often once Jersey g otinvolved in the case. And when Bart came to see me with Anne, he was just acting like a supervisor. I never imagined he had any hands-on connection to the case."

"Hands on? How about private parts m? Can't wait to hear his explanation for this."

We parked behind the civic center and found our way up to Sinnelesi's office a bit after one o'clock. The receptionist was startled to see visitors on this quiet, postholiday afternoon.

"We're here for Mr. Frankel," Mike announced.

"Is he expecting you?"

Mike jerked his head in my direction. "She's an old friend of Bart's. Passing through town. I think we'd just like to surprise him."

"How nice," she said, smiling in my direction. "I'm sure he'll be pleased. He called to say he'd be stopping for a sandwich on his way back here, so he should be in any minute."

I took off my coat and hung it on the rack in the waiting room. "What the hell is that frigging glob you got stuck on your suit?" Mike was staring at the gift Jake had given me for Christmas.

"Well, I didn't stop at the apartment, and I was afraid to leave it in my office with the suitcase."

Self-consciously, I unpinned the bird and wrapped it in my handkerchief, putting it inside my shoulder bag.

"Guess Mr. NBC went to the well for that one. Don't let me cramp your style, blondie. You could probably wipe out the entire national debt of Sri Lanka if you-"

"Alex? How nice to see you."

Bart Frankel came through the front door and approached me to shake hands. I introduced him to Mike. "Are you here to meet with the district attorney?"

"No, Bart. We want to speak with you."

A large brown paper bag in one hand, Frankel pushed open the entrance to his wing with the other. "Come on in. I still can't get over what happened to Lola. Such a tragedy." He ushered us into his corner suite, removing his backpack and his coat. This prosecutor's small modern office complex in a suburban corporate park was far more gracious and comfortable than ours. Two chairs faced Frankel's desk. Mike and I seated ourselves while he unwrapped his lunch and put it to the side.

I couldn't help but notice that he was chewing gum.

"Can I order something in for you?"

"No, thanks."

"What can you tell me about how the investigation is going?" He took a tissue, swiveled in his chair, removed the gum, and threw it in his wastebasket. Mike gave me a thumbs-up.

"It's actually going really well, Bart. Faster than I expected. We've had some lucky breaks."

"What do you mean?" He glanced back and forth between Mike's stone face and mine. He laughed nervously, or so it seemed to me. "I get it. Need to know. Tell me and you'll have to shoot me." He nodded his head up and down. "Maybe it's sour grapes 'cause Battaglia wouldn't let you buy into our sting plan. Well, he was right, Alex. Tell him from me, off the record, that once again he made the right choice. Vinny's getting lots of heat from everybody. Starting with Lola's family. The dancing Dakotas, he calls them. A whole chorus line of whining siblings, waiting for their fifteen minutes of fame. That's what their mama primed them for." Bart was talking nonstop, tapping the fingers of both hands on his desktop.

"I got the governor on my back, too. She's big on domestic violence and all that political garbage. Then we got victims' rights groups. You name it, we got it. And you know the drill, Alex. When the shit hits the fan, the number one man is always unavailable for comment. Mr. Sinnelesi had to leave town. Family emergency down in Boca. Vinny, I tell him-Vinny, first I take a huge pay cut to come work for you and do public service, instead of making a real living for me and my family. Now I got to have my balls on the chopping block, too?"