Linda Fairstein - The DeadHouse

I did. It was Dakota's.

"Can't say I'm as familiar with it as you are, but when I saw the little Post-it attached with the initials L.D., I took a wild guess."

I looked at the single word printed on the front by Lola: "Blackwells."

"I lifted the flap and guess what slipped into my hand?"

I shook my head at Mike, puzzled.

"A little gold key. No markings, no numbers."

"Was there anything else with this?"

"Nope. It was buried under a few personal notes in his top drawer. Now all we have to do is find out what it fits into. Get one of your clones started on a warrant."

He revved up the engine and made a U-turn on the quiet street. "And last but not least, we're going to meet Dr. Claude Lavery."

"Now? Is he back? Why-"

"Because that's who Bart Frankel was on his way to see this morning when he was so rudely interrupted."

"Tony Parisi told you about Lavery?"

"No, he called over to Bart's house. I almost had him convinced after a once-over of Bart's office that he should walk me through his home to see if we could find anything. You know that if Bart's life was as screwed up as it sounds, he's probably got stuff there that we should be looking at. Anyway, one of his kids had taken a break from the hospital vigil and answered the phone, which put the kibosh on that idea for the moment."

I couldn't imagine what this was like for Bart's three children.

"But when Tony asked the daughter why her dad had left the house so early this morning, she said that a man had called him last night and Bart had told her that he had to go into the city to see him. There was a pad next to the telephone that had Lavery's name and number written on it."

"Not bad for a quick sweep through the office."

"Hey, easier than if I had to search your place for anything of value. You got four extra pairs of shoes under the desk, different-height heels for every occasion. Drawers filled with panty hose, nail polish, perfume, and Extra-Strength Tylenol. Somebody bumps you off and the first thing Battaglia has to do is run a tag sale to get rid of your beauty supplies."

Mike was enthused now. He had new directions in which to proceed and pieces of the puzzle to try to fit into place. "How do you even begin to figure out the significance of a key? And how do you know what door it fits?"

"Start with the fact that it's labeled 'Blackwells.'"

"Yeah, but there aren't a lot of buildings still standing on the island from those days. And the remnants that are there don't have doors."

"So it's something connected to the project, probably."

"I think even two hours' exposure to New Jersey has damaged your brain. No kidding, Coop. Like I needed your help to figure that one out."

"Were any of the things taken from Lola's office, after Lily gave Sinnelesi permission, listed and inventoried so we have a record of them?"

"Nope. Would it surprise you to learn that Bart Frankel picked two of his squad cops, drove over himself, and just sort of packed up the whole bundle to be sorted out at his convenience? In the privacy of his office. Somehow that stinks as bad as the rest of what he was doing."

"Where is the stuff now?"

"Parisi doesn't know. He'll have to find the guys who went with Bart and see what closet they dumped everything into."

"Sooner rather than later. We've got to see what he found."

"Give me credit for something, Coop. I do believe I've lit that fire under Parisi's ass."

"You think Lola knew, when she got into bed with Bart, that he had lost all his money in one of Ivan's deals?"

"Hard to imagine that it wouldn't have come up in conversation. Gave them both a reason to hate the guy. And it gave Bart an extra incentive to go after Ivan."

I thought for several minutes. "That's one way to look at it. But there's a darker side to that. Suppose Ivan's about to get jammed up by Sinnelesi's office. The number two man is up to his ears in debt, and Ivan knows why. What if he tried to buy his way out of the whole thing-two cases at the same time? I mean, how could Bart have screwed up Lola's undercover sting so badly? Bad enough that Ivan's back on the street. You'd have to try awfully hard to step on yourself that way."

Mike was with me. "So you go as far as having Bart getting paid off by Ivan. Bart maybe even delivering Lola right into the killer's hands. Dropping her off at her front door. Ciao, baby, see you later. Then he drives off into the sunset, stopping by the campus to pick up the key-the key to…? That's sort of where the plan gets parked with me."

"I'm not saying that's what I think happened. I just know I'm praying for Bart's recovery for all the wrong reasons. I'd love him to answer some questions for us."

On the ride back to the city we thought aloud about all the possible links among Ivan's fraud investigation, the domestic violence complaints, and Lola's death.

The scene in front of 417 Riverside Drive was a much calmer one than the one the night of the murder. Mike rang the bell in the vestibule next to Lavery's name and within a minute, through the intercom, a voice said, "Yes?"

Mike muffled his mouth with his hand and spoke a single word: "Bart." "Bart" was a few hours late, but still welcome enough for Lavery to buzz us into the lobby. We entered together and walked to the elevator.

When we reached the sixteenth floor, the door to Lavery's apartment was ajar. I could hear someone speaking on the telephone, so I pushed it wider and Mike came inside behind me. The man whom we assumed to be Lavery was standing with his back to us. His conversation was ending, and he thanked his caller before he hung up and turned around, startled to see us.

"I'm Mike Chapman. NYPD Homicide," Mike said, flipping his gold shield out of its case. "This is Alexandra Cooper. Manhattan DA's Office. We've been-"

"Not exactly who I was expecting when I let you in, Detective." Lavery walked to the doorway behind us and stuck his head out in the hallway. "Is Bart coming along, too?"

I could sense that if Lavery did not yet know about Bart's accident, Mike wasn't going to tell him. "He's had a rough day. I doubt he's gonna make it."

Lavery was clearly puzzled. He walked to the CD player on the bookshelf along the far wall and lowered the volume. If Chapman had been expecting Bob Marley and the Wailers, with Lavery smoking weed through a wooden pipe, he must have been disappointed. A Beethoven adagio provided the soft background to our conversation. Lavery had apparently been sitting at a desk in front of his park-view window, working longhand on some piece of writing. He was dressed in African garb and still had his hair done in dreadlocks.

"Bart's been a friend of ours for a long time. He decided, after you two spoke on the phone, that he really didn't want to meet with you alone. He thinks it would be better if you say what you want to say to the two of us."

Lavery's expression gave nothing away, but he seemed too smart to trust the situation. Or the cop who was giving him the once-over.

He folded his arms across his chest and looked at me. "Aren't you the woman handling the investigation into Lola Dakota's death? I recognize your name from the news stories." His voice was a deep baritone, and he spoke in a measured cadence. "Yes, we're both working on that case."

"Lola was a dear friend of mine. And a great supporter, in what have been some difficult days for me." He turned away to walk to a living area, motioning us to follow. "I suppose you've heard about that?" He asked it in the form of a question, not quite sure what to think.

"Yeah, we know a bit about it."

"Lola has stood by me from the outset. Taken my part with the administration. I shall miss her friendship terribly."

"Actually, that's what we'd like to talk to you about. We've been trying to reach you-"