“Mo said that if I mentioned four little words to you, you’d know she’s just fine.”
I tried to think if she and I had ever discussed a code word but nothing came to mind.
“ ‘Canyon Ranch. Your treat.’ You tell me, is she alive and well?”
I smiled. We had often joked about going to an elegant spa for a week-to be pampered with massages and mud baths and facials-but had never taken the splurge. “Tell her she’s on, first break Battaglia gives me.”
We said good-bye and I hung up the phone, resting my head back against the top of the chair’s cushion. “God, I just couldn’t forgive myself if anything ever happened to Maureen.That’s not the work of any crazy guy living in an underground tunnel. I don’t know what its hook is to Dogen’s murder but only a health care pro would be sticking syringes in patients-or in chocolates, for that matter-to try to scare us.”
“Let’s go downstairs and get some chow. Tomorrow we see Dogen’s ex-husband. Creavey’s going to sit in on the interview with us and have a look at the photos. Then Saturday morning we’re going home. So take yourself off duty for a few hours and enjoy what’s left of the evening.”
I looked at my watch and saw that it was almost eight o’clock. We’d been in England more than twelve hours. The combination of jet lag and this disturbing news had hit me head on. “I’ll go down with you, but I’m too nauseated to eat anything.”
I splashed water on my face, reapplied my lipstick, spritzed on more perfume, and tried to smooth the wrinkles out of my yellow-and-black David Hayes suit. We bypassed the bumpy lift in favor of the staircase, and walked down toward the library.
Graham stopped us at the doorway. “Sorry, madam. Sir. They’ve all gone in to dinner already. To your right,” he motioned us with his gloved hand. “And Miss Cooper, you had two calls while your line was engaged.” He handed me the message slips. Mr. Renaud phoned and will call again tomorrow, I read. The second one said that Miss Stafford was anxious to talk to me, was on her way to the airport, and would ring back.
“You go on ahead, Mike. I want to go back upstairs and return the calls.”
“But Graham just said-”
My annoyance was palpable. I hadn’t meant to direct it at Mike but he was the only one in range. “I just want to go back to the room for a couple of minutes.” I turned and stomped off to the staircase, taking its three tall sections on the run without missing a beat.
I opened the door to the room and stepped inside. I had no intention of returning Drew’s call at that point. I simply did not want to speak to or socialize with anyone.
I went into the dresser drawers and removed one of Mike’s shirts. Not expecting to be sharing a room, I had packed without bringing a nightgown. Then I called the housekeeping department and asked them to pick up the laundry I placed in a bag and left outside the door of the room, including the dirty shirt Mike had worn on the plane, for overnight service. I wanted to make sure it would be washed and ironed since I had now purloined one to sleep in. I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower until the steam poured out into the rest of the suite, then stood beneath the water until all of the tension of the day and evening ran out of me.
Dressed in Mike’s red-and-white-striped shirt, I sat at the desk and wrote him a note apologizing for snapping at him and abandoning him to the crowd. I placed it on his pillow and turned down the corner of his sheet, leaving on the reading lamp so he could see his way around.
I crawled in between the tightly pulled linens of my own slender bed, separated by a couple of inches from Mike’s. I wasn’t thinking Tina Turner tonight, I was thinking Otis Redding. He had been right. Young girlsdo get weary. Try a little tenderness, he had advised, over and over again when I had listened to him sing to me. I wanted someone to try it and I wanted it soon. But it wasn’t likely to happen tonight, so I turned off the lamp nearest to me, burrowed my head into the pillow, and convinced myself that I was exhausted enough to need a good night’s sleep.
23
I AM SO UNACCUSTOMED TO AN EARLY BEDTIME that I was up shortly after five in the morning and rolled around restlessly until I could see a glimmer of daybreak at the curtain’s edge. I slipped into the bathroom quietly and dressed for a run. Down the stairs, a nod to the young man at the reception table, and I was outside and around back on the rear balustrade of the enormous building looking out over acres of lush green gardens and forests. I did my leg stretches against the columns that had supported Cliveden’s façade for a couple of centuries, then set off through the clipped hedges to follow the paths that eventually sloped down to the Thames. In the more than five miles that I covered, I encountered only an occasional gardener or groundsman and relished the stillness that surrounded me in this peaceful sanctuary.
The last hill of the return gave me a particularly hard time so I slowed to a walk and wandered through the intricate mazes of the formal Long Garden created from boxwood hedges that had been so carefully laid out and maintained.
Mike was still sleeping soundly under a halo of stale-smelling lager as I let myself back into the suite, showered, and dressed for the day. He mumbled a greeting as I was about to leave the room and I explained that I was going to the morning program to hear the presentations on DNA that one of the forensic men from the Yard was giving.
“Geoffrey Dogen’s due here at about eleven. Creavey’ll meet him at the door and wait for us. He’s arranged a small conference room that we can use for a few hours.” His head rolled in my direction. “Hey, thanks for holding up your end of things last night, kid. I only waited about three or four hours for you-by then, I figured you really had stood me up.”
“Sorry, I-”
“Don’t worry about it. Creavey and I scored. Some duchess took us on.”
I laughed at the idea of it.
“No kidding. A duchess-and a knockout, too. Bounced us around to a few pubs, showed us the sights.”
“What time did you get in?”
He cocked an eye. “My mother’s alive and well in Brooklyn, thanks. She doesn’t need any backup. I’ll see you at eleven, okay?”
I walked outside and over to the Churchill Boardroom, picked up some coffee and a scone, and found my place again at the table for the nine o’clock program. After apologies to Lord Windlethorne for missing dinner, I made small talk with my neighbors until the speaker finished setting up his audiovisual equipment and began his address.
The British were way ahead of us in their use of DNA and genetic data banking. And although their volume of sexual assault cases was far lower than ours in the States, they had already begun the process of developing the genetic fingerprint from crime scene evidence in every single case of reported rape that occurred in the Greater London area. The lecture had some fascinating suggestions for future uses of the technology and I busied myself at note taking so I could bring the ideas back to Bill Schaeffer, who had done such great work establishing and running the DNA lab in our medical examiner’s office.
It was almost eleven when Windlethorne announced the midmorning break. I explained to him that I would be absent for the following session because of some business Chapman and I would be conducting locally. He assured me that he quite understood and I went back to the room to pick up my folder of materials on the Dogen case.
When I returned to the reception area, Creavey had just finished introducing Geoffrey Dogen to Mike. I approached and Dogen extended a hand. “You must be Alexandra. Lovely to meet you. Thanks for coming over. Commander Creavey told me you’re Benjamin Cooper’s daughter, aren’t you? I had the pleasure of hearing your father speak, uh-it must have been at the medical conference in Barcelona last year. He’s a remarkable man.”
“I think so, too. Thank you.”
Creavey directed us to one of the adjacent outer buildings, which the staff had prepared for our use. He walked ahead with Dr. Dogen, who was smaller than I had expected, about sixty years old, thin and wiry, with a balding head and ears that were a bit too larg
e in proportion to his other features.
“By the way, while you were in school this morning your boyfriend called.”
“What-?”
“Drew. That’s the guy’s name, isn’t it? Said it was four or five in the morning at home. Just called to say hello-said he couldn’t sleep and hadn’t been able to reach you ‘cause of your travel schedules. Lucky he called when he did-woke me out of a deep sleep.”
“Great. You told him who you were, didn’t you? I mean, that you’re just my fr-I mean, that we’re only sharing, you know-”
“What’d you expect me to tell him? Sorry, I don’t know the Wellesley etiquette. They probably taught you rules for all this kind of crap. Should I have said, ‘Not to worry, I’m a gay cop,’ or ‘Jesus, I wouldn’t nail Alex Cooper on a bet, would you?’ The guy woke me out of a heavy slumber, Blondie. I took a message and told him to call back. Yesterday, he pissed you off and you’re thinking he’s a murderer ‘cause Dogen butchered his wife-now you want his calls. Go figure. Let him think there’s a little competition in the field, like you’re here with the Prince of Wales or Sean Connery or something. No common sense for a smart broad, really.”
Forget about Drew Renaud and everything else in your personal life for the moment, I reminded myself. Get to work.
We entered a miniature duplicate of the boardroom. In it were a rectangular table with six comfortable seats, slide and video projectors with which to display our photographic evidence, and enough water and coffee to keep us afloat for days.
“Perhaps you and Alexandra might begin by telling me what you know at this moment,” Dogen suggested, drawing his chair up to the table and giving us his most earnest look. “Do you know who killed Gemma?”
“I’d rather do it the other way ‘round, Doc, if you don’t mind,” Mike replied. “It would help, I think, if you just talk to us a while about Gemma. Even what might seem to you to be irrelevancies. I don’t want whatwe know or don’t know to direct your thoughts. After you’ve sketched in more of the background for us, I promise we’ll bring you up to where we are in the investigation.”
That ought to be impressive, I thought to myself. Mike could bluff almost anyone about almost anything but this situation seemed beyond even his best bullshit ability. We’re more confused today than we were the first time we had called Geoffrey Dogen last week.
“Understood. I’ll begin, then.”
He pulled his chair close into the table and leaned his elbows on it, supporting his bowed head with his hands as he recalled Gemma’s family background for us. Nothing struck him as unusual about the story. Her parents had moved to Broadstairs from London as hostilities flared across Europe and Gemma was born there in ‘39. Only child, raised by her mother after her father’s death on the battlefield- Dunkirk. I scratched notes on a legal pad, doubting the significance of this part of the conversation but recognizing that Chapman’s interest would be even more engaged simply by virtue of the remote link to World War II.
Geoffrey took us through her schooling and scholarship to University, where she excelled in the biological sciences and won prizes for several experiments that captured the attention of the academic community. He met her a year later, when she entered the medical school at which he was already enrolled.
“Actually, I had seen her at the school. Couldn’t miss her in those days. She was quite a striking figure then,” he smiled, obviously bringing back to mind an image of the young woman with whom he had fallen in love. “But I first met her somewhere else. Tower Bridge.”
I shot a glance at Mike and Creavey’s sharp eyes followed as ours met.
“I was there with a group of Australian students. They were visiting our medical school, and wanted to do the usual tourist things at the weekend. Beefeaters, the Crown Jewels, the Bloody Tower, and Traitors’ Gate. You’ve done all that, have you?”
I nodded while Mike regretted that he hadn’t yet had the opportunity.
“Pity to be so close to London and not have the time to see some of it. Can’t you take the weekend off?”
“Sorry, no. We’ve got to get back directly, after you’ve helped us, Dr. Dogen.”
“Of course. Well, I’d almost finished showing my Aussies the sights but they were determined to climb to the top of Tower Bridge. Three hundred steps at least. Dragged me along with them. Got to the pinnacle and there’s only one person up there with us. I recognized her from the medical college. It was Gemma, standing at the window and staring downriver, oblivious to the rowdy troop of us that piled in behind her.
“I introduced myself, explained the connection to school, and learned that she was called Gemma Holborn.”
Mike was impatient. He didn’t particularly want the love story, if that’s the direction in which Geoffrey was headed. “Why was she there? Any special reason?”
“For her, growing up in the countryside, Tower Bridgewas London. It is for many people. Sort of a symbol of this city. For some it’s Big Ben or Buckingham Palace, but Gemma didn’t care for those because you just look up at them. They didn’t give that curious child an enormous structure that opened its windows onto a faraway world. The bridge did. It’s a newcomer really, compared to the Tower itself, which is almost a thousand years old. But its structure is so identifiable, wouldn’t you say, Commander? Sort of represents old London to lots of people.”
Creavey agreed.
“It was the first place Gemma remembered visiting as a young girl after the war, climbing both of the towers to see how far up- and downstream the river went. Probably believed she could see America ‘til she got old enough to know better. When she had anything to dream about or fancy, she’d take herself up to those rooms, or out on the catwalk, and wish to her heart’s content.”
“D’you ever go back there with her?”
“I had little choice, Mister Chapman. It’s where I proposed to Gemma, two years later. That way, I knew she’d accept,” Geoffrey said, smiling at us, a bit more relaxed as he continued his storytelling. “She’d go there the night before her big exams. Never mind that she’d studied more hours than all the other students combined, she needed the comfort of some moments of solitude in her tower.
“Even liked to go for the big events, with the crowds. TheGypsy Moth came home in ‘67 and they opened the bascules for it and we were the first to arrive-”
“Whoa, you lost me here,” Chapman interrupted.
“Me, too.”
Creavey injected the facts. “You Yanks are a bit too young to remember, but it’s a good one for that quizzer you watch on the telly. Sir Francis Chichester sailed ‘round the world on a little yacht by the name ofGypsy Moth IV. Took a year, and when ’e got home they opened the bascules-the arms of the bridge-so ‘e could sail into the city. And the Queen ’erself got on board to make him a knight. Used the same sword that had tapped the shoulders of Sir Francis Drake.”
Chapman was loading up on history but this conversation was going nowhere for me.
“Any idea if this interest carried through in her adult life?” I thought of Gemma’s key chain that was sitting at home on my dresser and its twin that I had observed in William Dietrich’s hand when he left the conference room a few days earlier.
“I’m afraid it was impossible to shake her out of it. She made a special visit in 1994 for the centenary celebration of the construction of Tower Bridge. By then I’d remarried, as you probably know, and Gemma dragged a bunch of us up to the top for a view. She must have bought souvenirs for everyone in America. Tower Bridge coffee mugs, Tower Bridge teaspoons, Tower Bridge key chains-”
“Lots of them?”
“Loads of them.”
So much for the importance I was reading into Dietrich’s token of affection. It was more likely one of dozens she had distributed to friends and colleagues.
“I’m sure you must have noticed things like that in her home and her office, didn’t you? That remote side of her was one of the pieces of Gemma I never quite unlocked.
&
nbsp; “We divorced less than ten years after we’d been married. Never an argument or a cross word. You can probably tell that we remained quite good friends. Saw her every time she was over here, practically. Corresponded with her, kept up with each other-professionally and personally, much as I dared. She simply couldn’t let anyone into her world, into the part of it that really counted.
“She was a brilliant scientist and a fiercely loyal friend if she believed in you. But there was an entire piece of her that was hollow, that she never letme fill for her-and I’m quite sure no one else was ever allowed to venture in. Odd, actually, that as a physician I used to think of it as a real space somewhere within her body that I could ‘cure’ if only I could locate it. But I never quite did.”
Geoffrey Dogen was quiet now, looking at his hands, which were clasped together on the table in front of him.
We listened to more than an hour of background information on Gemma’s marriage, divorce, friends, students, and her career in England. In many of the murders Chapman worked, the access to this kind of detail from a reliable source close to the victim could have proved to be invaluable. Here, it was bringing us no closer to anything we seemed to need.
Gently, Mike tried to steer Geoffrey to the recent events that involved Gemma’s professional future. The doctor let out a deep sigh and slumped down into his chair.
He looked over at Mike. “Do you honestly think this could be connected to Gemma’s work?”
“We want to consider all the possibilities at this point.”
“Well, the last couple of years have been a constant battle for Gemma. I’m referring to Minuit Medical College and Mid-Manhattan, not to her personal life.”
“D’you know what the issues were and who were the enemies?”
“She’s created waves from her very first days there, you know. Nothing major, but she’s always been a stickler for her principles. Quite a good thing in our business, actually.
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