Linda Fairstein - The DeadHouse

"And the diamonds?"

"My detectives were on these two fellows pretty quickly. Mind you, at the time, no one knew the men were in Jennings's room to find jewels. That's the story that other prisoners began to tell long after the dust settled. They both were examined quite thoroughly since we were all looking for contraband and drugs, small things that could be concealed. No jewels, my dear."

"Was the island searched?"

"By the time these stories surfaced, the penitentiary had long been abandoned and the quarries on the island had been mined of their riches. People have scoured it and fools will continue to do so well after I'm gone, if you ask me.

"Course, if I didn't have this tale to tell, probably wouldn't get a single visitor anymore. That's why Lola comes." He lifted his left arm and squinted to see the time. "She's late."

"Was Lola looking for Jennings's diamonds?"

"She may guess that I'm stupid and senile, but if Lola thinks I believe there's any other reason she's been here to visit me, she's mistaken. She's been all through my diaries, too. I suspect she's looking for clues that she thinks I've forgotten by now. Probably knows more about all my lady friends and some of the crooks I represented in my practice than she does about any buried treasure"-he smiled broadly now-"but if it keeps her coming back here to chat with me, she's welcome to them. Hell, I've answered to more important people than Lola about that."

"What do you mean?"

"Old MacCormick himself called me on the carpet many years after the raid. Thought I was living mighty high on the hog and had heard all the rumors by then. Looked me straight in the eye and asked whether Jennings had paid me off before the raid, or had I known where his stash was hidden. Even the mayor bought me a drink one night. Fiorello La Guardia. Over at the 21 Club it was. Had to know about the diamonds, he said, and whether I thought they were really there."

"What did-?"

"And Jennings's son. He was going off to Europe to fight. Middle of the Second World War. I call him Jennings's son, but all I know for sure is that his mother was Ariana. Hard to figure whether Freeland had been cuckolded by that tart before the kid was born. The boy had run through most of his old man's money and felt the diamonds were his due. He wasn't just curious. He accused me of stealing the damn things out from under my dead friend. Angry with me, he was. But it didn't make any difference. Never saw him again after that."

"Did you ever look for the diamonds yourself?"

"I only set foot on the island once, the day of the raid. No reason to go back, in my book."

"Did Lola talk to you about the deadhouse?"

He snapped his head to look at me. "You damn well must be her friend. What is it? Where is it? Damned if I ever heard that word before she sat at my feet going at me. Doesn't mean a thing to me, young lady."

"May we come back and visit you sometime, Mr. Lockhart?" Mike was on his feet, hand on the shoulder of the old guy so he didn't feel the need to stand up with us.

"Certainly, certainly you must. Come to the party next week. Skip's having a little holiday party at the house." His eyes brightened and he looked up at me. "You'll bring me some licorice, will you? And you, miss, you'll send my best to Mr. Hogan?"

Frank Hogan had been one of America's great prosecutors, before Bob Morgenthau and Paul Battaglia. He had died in 1974 after twenty-eight years as Manhattan's district attorney. I wondered anew how much of what Orlyn Lockhart had been telling us was fact, and how much was lost in the confusion of time past. Perhaps I could get some articles from the microfiche newspaper files at the New York Public Library and research the story of Freeland Jennings and the penitentiary raid.

We made our way back through the kitchen, where the professor was working on his laptop computer. He looked up as we entered the room. "Thanks for listening to my grandfather. You've just spelled me for an hour and I've gotten some work done."

Chapman was annoyed. "When I asked you about whether you'd ever called Ms. Dakota a gold digger, you jerked me around. Seems pretty obvious to me that you know she's been nagging the old man about buried treasure. You gonna tell me you haven't been party to her diamond excavations?"

Skip Lockhart stood up to face Mike. "Look, half of the stuff the guy's talking about is just nonsense he makes up, I'm sure of it. He likes to have an audience, and quite frankly, it's worn most of the family pretty thin over the years."

"But it's his story that interested you in the Blackwells project in the first place."

"Sure it is. But that's on an intellectual level. The raid really happened. The prison conditions that he probably described to you are quite accurate. I've researched all that. But my grandfather doesn't know any more about missing diamonds than you do."

"Except that he actually eyeballed two gemstones the very day of the raid. That gives some credence to the whole story, doesn't it? When will you be back in your office in the city?"

"Next Thursday, January second."

"Expect me. Early and often. And I'll want to see the reports of all your trips over to the island with Lola Dakota-and anything else that might relate to the project. Have them ready. And a list of the students who've worked on the dig with both of you."

My beeper began to vibrate as I buttoned my coat and walked out the door. I shuddered once against the cold and then a second time when I recognized Pat McKinney's home number. I opened the car door and dialed my cell phone.

"So what do you do for excitement when you and Chapman aren't making people's lives miserable?"

"That does seem to account for an inordinate amount of our time, Pat." It was clear he was about to unload some kind of bad news on me. "Want me to think about it and get back to you?"

"I figured if you had nothing better to do today you could get yourself back over to New Jersey, to the medical center near Hackensack. Bart Frankel's car was rear-ended early this morning by a Mack truck. The truck won."

"If we got three choices, the only one I can rule out is suicide. Pretty hard to count on killing yourself by letting the car behind you run you off the road. Ain't always a sure thing."

It was early Saturday afternoon and the detective from Sinnelesi's office, Tony Parisi, was talking to us in the visitors' lounge at the hospital.

"Between an accident and a homicide attempt, what's your guess?"

"Tough to prove it's anything but an accident. Old shitcan of a car moving along on Route Seventeen, and a trucker comes barreling down behind it at one of those treacherous curves in the road. The driver gets distracted, hits a patch of ice, and slams on the brakes too late. Schmuck behind him just whacks him off the road into a row of trees. Splinter pie, man.

"And let me tell you, Bart was really distracted. When the news got out after that bail application yesterday and Kralovic was released, Bart was ready to crawl into a hole. If the old will to live has anything to do with getting him off the life-support machine, he ain't gonna make it. He's toast."

"What do you know about the truck?"

"Not even sure that's what it was. Hit-and-run is all we know. Somebody wanted him out of that lane real bad and then didn't even stop to see what happened. Shit, if Vinny Sinnelesi was in town, I'd put my money on him. He'll be royally pissed if Bart blew the Kralovic case for him."

"Don't you think he'll live?" I asked tentatively.

"Not a prayer. Just hooked him up so his kids could say goodbye to a warm body. They're in with him now. His lawyer claims he did one of those living wills. 'Don't crank me up again once the pump shuts off.' I'd say, you want to make sure it's curtains for Bart? You two grim reapers walk in the room and hand him one of your bona fide New York County subpoenas. Finito."