Linda Fairstein - The DeadHouse

"We were over there yesterday. That building doesn't exist at all anymore, does it? Just a pile of rubble and rocks."

"You're right. It used to stand directly to the north of the Smallpox Hospital, but it was demolished before the Second World War. It was the gloomiest place on the island, which is saying quite a lot. Unless you've made a study of it, as I have, there'd be no reason for you to know about the terrible scandal that took place there shortly before it was closed."

"What kind of scandal?"

"During the Tammany Hall days, the prison was a cesspool of corruption and graft. The place was actually dominated by mob members who were inmates. You'd have to see photographs to believe the way they lived."

"You mean how awful it was?"

"Not for the top dogs. They had quite a luxurious lifestyle, with personal pets and private gardens, food and liquor that was smuggled in to them. A few even dealt drugs inside."

"That piece of it hasn't changed too much," Chapman said.

"Finally, when Fiorello La Guardia was elected to the mayoralty and Tammany Hall fell, he named a new commissioner of correction. A gentleman named Austin MacCormick. My grandfather was a young lawyer at the time, hired out of your office, Miss Cooper."

Lockhart leaned over and handed me one of the old photographs from the side table. "He wasn't even thirty years old. MacCormick hired him to work on the cleanup of the penitentiary. He and his cronies planned a huge surprise raid of the prison-a very successful one, which ended up shutting it down. It was quite a big deal. Gramps still has all the clippings to prove it."

Lockhart stood to adjust the thermostat in the room and check on the heat.

"Did Lola Dakota ever meet your grandfather?"

"Meet him? I thought she was going to elope with him." He laughed as he said it. "Once she found out that he had actually spent time on the island, there was no keeping her away from this house. And it was a godsend for my folks to have someone who took a real interest in the old guy, who could listen to his stories day in and day out."

"What did they talk about?"

"Everything he could remember. She listened to him describe the raid itself, she looked at his photo albums and read his diaries. In fact, I think she may still have had some of the volumes. I suppose someone will sort that all out and get them back to us. Seems rather irrelevant in light of what happened to Lola."

I made a note to look for the diaries among the inventory of Lola's books and papers.

"Were you there for those conversations?"

"Two or three times, at the outset. But I grew up on these stories and I've heard them all my life. I don't suppose there was anything he told her that I didn't already know. She'd just take the train up here, have lunch with my grandfather, spell my mother for a couple of hours. I don't think any great revelations came of it, Miss Cooper."

"Can you think of any reason, any motive for someone to kill Lola?"

"Is Ivan too obvious a choice? I've only met him a couple of times, but I know she was very frightened of him. There are plenty of students who hold her responsible for their not making the dean's list or bringing down their averages, but I don't think we had any homicidal maniacs among them."

"Did you ever accuse her of being a gold digger or a treasure seeker?"

Lockhart blushed. "That's what I get for being out of town when all this started. You've clearly covered some territory." He looked down at his Top-Siders and back up at Chapman. "Not in a literal sense. She wasn't after Ivan's money-if he really had any. It's just that she would latch onto people and use them for whatever she could suck out of them. Then she'd just discard them when they couldn't give her anything else. It wasn't a nice thing to watch."

"What do you know about Claude Lavery?"

Lockhart was slow to answer. "More than I ever wanted to. I can't tell you I objected to his activities at the college. I can't say he was selling drugs to kids, exactly, but he introduced so many of them to a culture in which there was a general acceptance of substance abuse. There are so many rumors about his misappropriation of funds-well, it just makes me furious. We've been struggling awfully hard to get King's off the ground, and Lavery did everything he could to allow intellectuals at the better schools to think we were just all about street jive."

"What do you know about the missing money?"

"Not a thing. I'm on a tenure track myself, trying to keep my hands clean and mind my own business."

"Lavery and Lola?"

"I didn't meddle with it. They were pals. Nothing intimate, of course. She was working on something else with him, and I just put up a Chinese wall between us."

"Would you mind if we talked with your grandfather, as long as we're here?" I asked.

"Not at all. I'm sure he'd be delighted, too. Hope you don't have to be anywhere very soon. You get him going on the MacCormick raid and he'll bend your ear off."

Lockhart stood up to lead us out of the room, then turned back, biting the corner of his lip.

"Something wrong?"

"I doubt he'll realize that Lola is dead. I've told him about it, naturally, and I've read him the newspaper stories. It's just that he's got a bit of a problem with his memory. Long-term, it's quite remarkable. Doesn't forget a thing. But ask him what I gave him for breakfast, or the fact that Lola was murdered last week, and he won't know a thing about it. Some of the doctors believe it's an early stage of Alzheimer's, while others assume it's just part of his aging process."

Mike and I followed the young professor through the length of the rambling house, beyond the enormous kitchen to a cheerful solarium, where Lockhart's grandfather was sitting on a chintz sofa, washed in the sunlight that was streaming through the glass-walled room.

"Gramps, these are some people who are trying to help Lola. They'd like to talk to you."

"Lola? What's wrong with Lola?" The tall, lean man with an elegant mane of white hair raised himself to his feet and shook hands with Mike. "Orlyn Lockhart, sir. Who might you be?"

"I'm Michael Chapman. I'm a New York City detective. This is Alexandra Cooper. She works in the district attorney's office."

He checked behind himself to be sure the sofa cushion was in place, and as he lowered himself down, his grandson reached an arm out to steady his descent. "Did young Orlyn tell you I used to work there myself?"

"He certainly did." I smiled at Skip, who held up three fingers to indicate to me that he was the third Orlyn Lockhart.

"What service do you perform there? Are you a secretary?" "No, sir. I'm an assistant district attorney in Mr. Battaglia's office. I run the Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit there."

"Still can't get used to the fact that women practice in the criminal courts." The old gent was shaking his head back and forth. "Wouldn't have seen one anywhere near the well of the courtroom in my day. Not a lawyer, not even allowed to serve on the jury. Where'd you go to school?" "University of Virginia."

"Mr. Jefferson's university? My alma mater, too, young lady. They've come to let women in these days? I'm shocked. The whole damn school was men only back then, and a great place. Came out and went right to work in the best law office in the country. New York County district attorney. Joab Banton-I was one of Banton's boys. Blame all these women in the courtroom on Kate Hepburn. She started the whole damn thing with her movies. And wearing pants, no less. Who's the DA now? It's not still Dewey, is it?"

Not since 1941, when he left to run for election as the governor of New York, before two unsuccessful attempts at the presidency. "No, sir. Paul Battaglia." I was beginning to question how reliable a conversation with this man could be.