Linda Fairstein - The DeadHouse

"So a lot of pharmaceutical companies have been searching for a better fix, a healthier solution to an age-old problem. And nobody on the faculty knows the poppy as well as I do, in the professional sense. Grenier had made a deal with one of the large drug companies to lead the research team. He simply neglected to cut me in on any of the potential profit."

"Did you two have a falling-out?"

"We didn't come to blows with each other, but it hasn't been pretty. I don't like being taken advantage of."

"Where did Lola stand in this?"

"With me, Detective. I can't say she has any personal regard for Grenier."

"But they still worked together on the Blackwells business?"

"I'm not sure the sandbox was big enough for both of them, but she tried to make do."

"Did you know about the legend of Freeland Jennings's diamonds?"

Lavery pushed away from the desk and laughed again. "Of course I did. That's one of the things Lola and I used to argue about late into the night. Do this dig for whatever historical purposes interest you, I used to tell her. There's a lot of sorry history of this city on that island-a storehouse of human misery. But don't be wasting your energy on some far-fetched tale that may not even have been true."

"Is that what kept Thomas Grenier and Lola Dakota together?"

"Don't be ridiculous. The man is a scientist. He thought that Lola was foolish to have believed the diamonds were still in the ground. His interest in the island is strictly scientific."

"What's in it for him?"

"Grenier again expects to profit from the work the students will be doing when they study the Smallpox Hospital. There's enormous debate in the field of medical ethics about whether or not the smallpox virus should be completely eradicated when the disease is conquered worldwide. Since you need the actual virus to make the vaccine, does one save a small amount of it against the day that some form of the pox reappears in the world? And who is the keeper of the deadly virus? Whom do we trust not to engage in germ warfare?"

"And obviously, some biotech company would support this project, hoping that a study of all the plagues treated on Black-wells Island a century ago would be useful to scientists making determinations about the future," I reasoned.

"Exactly. It's hard to think of any other finite stretch of land, isolated from the population, which institutionalized, treated, and buried so many of society's untouchables. That's why Grenier loves it there."

"Does this venture of his have a name?"

Lavery paused for a few moments and then shook his head. "I should know it, but it's not coming to me right now. You'll have to ask him yourself. Some fairly gruesome pox-related thing. Lola used to joke and call it deadhouse dot com."

"Deadhouse?"

"That's how Lola referred to the island."

"Do you know why?" It appeared that the phrase was not as mysterious as it had seemed when we first encountered the word on a piece of paper in her apartment.

"You know that a lot of the interns who worked on the project refused to be involved with the plans at that old smallpox hospital? They're enthralled with the insane asylum and the penitentiary, but that abandoned hospital spooks the best of them. Many of those who aren't science majors believe that they might dig up things that are still germ infested, that contagion lurks even now in some of the objects that were buried a century ago. They simply don't want anything to do with all that deadly history."

"Did you ever go with her to Blackwells-I mean, to Roosevelt Island?"

"Only three or four times. She walked me through the area they call the Octagon, with that magnificent staircase. And of course we had to see the remains of the hospital. I'd always wondered what it was, from this side of the water."

"Would you mind, Professor, if I asked you about the accusations concerning the misappropriation of the grant money?" It seemed unusual that Lola would be such an advocate for Lavery, under the circumstances that Sylvia Foote had described.

His mood changed again and he stiffened. "I have an attorney, Ms. Cooper, and I've been instructed not to discuss this matter with anyone out of his presence."

Chapman veered off in another direction. "You know anything about this kid Julian Gariano? The one who hanged himself last weekend?"

It was hard to discern whether Lavery had a good poker face or truly had never crossed paths with the campus drug dealer. "Gariano? The name doesn't sound familiar to me. Was he a King's student? It must have happened after I left for the Caribbean."

"One more thing, Professor. There's a young woman who was a junior at the college last year. I don't believe she was in any of your classes, but I understand she had a problem with drugs, and I thought perhaps you might have heard something about her disappearance. Her name is Voight. Charlotte Voight."

"I had heard that she had dropped out, although I didn't know her either. The administration always circulates a notice to the faculty if something unusual happens or if a student withdraws from classes without an official leave. These kids are often going through a tough time, and one of us might be a lifeline to them. Dropping out is nothing new for college students, is it?"

Lavery stopped speaking for a moment, then looked up at me. "But Charlotte Voight is back around, isn't she?"

Perhaps Lavery had information we didn't. "That's news to us. Any clue where she is?"

"No, I have no idea. But the last time I talked to Lola, that's what she told me. That she knew where the Voight girl was, and that she was going to see her."

Each time I thought we were about to take a step or two forward, we were thrown back five or six. Mike had pushed Lavery hard on when it was that Lola Dakota had told him she was going to see the missing girl. If the professor was being truthful, he had not seen his neighbor for almost one month. But if Bart had been honest, then Lavery might have heard that news from Lola within an hour of her death.

Either way, the effort before us grew larger rather than focused. Had Charlotte Voight returned to the King's College campus a few days before Christmas, ready to attempt to reenter school for the new semester? Did her reappearance have anything to do with the suicide of her former lover, Julian Gariano, who had supplied her with drugs? And who else other than Lola knew where the girl was?

There were significant discrepancies between the story told to us by Bart Frankel and the facts as reported by Claude Lavery. Each of them was undoubtedly lying about something. Lavery seemed to paint a flawed picture of each of his colleagues while underscoring the feuding world of academic politics. And why wouldn't Lavery admit that he had seen and spoken with Lola Dakota when she had returned to the building just a short time before she was killed?

"We've got to sit down on Monday morning and map out all these connections. I'm so tired and emotionally drained at this point. It's lucky that no one from Special Victims beeped me these last two days." The clock on the dashboard of Mike's car was slow, but it was already close to seven o'clock in the evening as we headed downtown from Lavery's apartment. "The last thing I need is a handful of new complaints."

"It's Fleet Week, isn't it?"

"Yes, and I'm delighted that everybody's so well behaved this season. That's usually good for five or six cases." From time to time, when a special event like the Fourth of July or New Year's called for it, a large contingent of warships would gather in New York's ports and harbor. There were festivities aboard as well as up and down the Hudson River. But sometimes, when the sailors who had been at sea for long stretches reached Gotham City, the parties got out of control.