“Get any word back on the lawsuit he told us about?” I asked between spoonfuls of steaming hot soup.
“Yeah, the malpractice case. Poor patient was a thirty-year-old guy. Came to see DuP-well, whoever he is. Described his symptoms, which were-” Mercer flipped open his steno pad and looked at the notes he had written. “Complained of sudden weight loss, insatiable thirst, dry lips and mouth, and dizziness.
“This quack orders some blood tests, fills a beaker of urine, but simply told him to stay home and rest. The medication he ordered was for vertigo. Forty-eight hours later, lady friend finds the guy in his house-dead.”
“How come?”
“His symptoms, Dr. Chapman, are the classic markers of an uncontrolled case of diabetes. Any first-year med student should have picked it up. Our clown missed it completely and his trusting patient left the office and went into a diabetic coma. A completely avoidable death.”
“So that drives him out of some small town near Atlanta and where better to go than the naked city? Eight million stories here and nobody’d even ask what his used to be.”
“Now we got to figure out if he really left New York yesterday or if he’s still lurking around here somewhere.”
“Update on that, too.” Mercer was sliding his knife through the largest, most tender chop I think I’ve ever seen. “Checked with the squad while I was at the airport. American Express and Visa are helping us track a flight route, which looks like it’s headed right on back to the bayou.
“Somebody’s using the cards of an eighty-eight-year-old man, Tyrone Perkins. Car rental in the Bronx, gas on the Jersey Turnpike, motel in South Carolina last night.”
“When were they reported stolen?” I asked.
“Haven’t been-yet.”
“Then I don’t see-”
“The companies each called up the guy’s house ‘cause the cards are showing a flurry of recent activity after a very long dormant period. Problem is, Tyrone’s niece says he’s been in the hospital on life support for about seven months so he has definitely not been leaving home or anywhere else with his American Express card.”
Mike was pointing his fork at Mercer. “And if I had to guess, I’d bet ol‘ Tyrone is hooked up to some machines over at Mid-Manhattan.”
“The lieutenant sent someone there this afternoon to check the lockup where they store the valuables of the patients in the intensive care unit. Mr. Perkins’s personal things seemed to have been ‘misplaced’ sometime during the past few days. So we got a trace going nationally on ATMs, restaurants, and stores ‘til we find that scumbag.”
“Anything else going on at the hospital while we were out of town?”
“Well, I was over there yesterday afternoon. I say starting Monday morning we gotta bring every one of these guys down to the D.A.‘s Office and reinterview them. Whoever left that note under your door-the one about black and white-was trying to point a finger at DuPre if that’s what it was a reference to. Now, would they be doin’ that because they knew he was guilty of murder? Or just because they knew he was a fraud? Or was it simply because they wanted to divert attention from themselves?”
“I’m with Mercer. Enough of trying to give ‘em special treatment and meet them on their own turf. They’re regular witnesses, like in any other case. Who’d you see there yesterday?”
“I wanted to bypass administration and go right to Spector’s office. But somebody got on the horn when I walked into the lobby because Dietrich was on my back the minute I got to the reception area on the sixth floor.”
I reminded Mike that we had to bring Mercer up to speed on Geoffrey Dogen’s thoughts about the missing key chain.
“We’re going to have to talk to Dietrich about exactly when Gemma gave him the one he carries with him.”
“Yeah, and how many other people walking around that hospital got them from her as gifts. I’m not sure that’s gonna be a very fruitful avenue to explore. We have no idea the last time that key ring was hanging from her bookshelf. D’you talk with Spector at all?”
“Sure. The whole bunch of ‘em greet me like I’m a prospect for brain surgery when I walk into Minuit, kinda rubbing their hands together and acting like they’re pleased to have me there. He was in his office with Coleman Harper and Banswar Desai.
“Desai still mopes around like he lost his best friend and Harper’s got his nose so far up the boss’s ass that it’s gonna be a shade darker than mine is any day now.”
“Cooperative?”
“Yeah. No problem with that. I was just trying to see if anybody had any ideas about DuPre. None of them seemed to know he had hit the road so I didn’t tell them. Spector’s real busy trying to do his own work and be anointed to take over Gemma’s place, too. Real humble, now, like it’s a big surprise he’ll get the job.”
The owner came over to offer us an after-dinner drink on the house as soon as we had taken care of the check with Adolfo.
Mike was already on his feet, pulling out my chair. “You know, Giuliano, just once I’d like you to buy me a drinkbefore dinner. You’re always quick to suggest one when Blondie’s dragging me out the door. Next time, okay?”
“Buona notte.Nice to see you-Miss Cooper, gentlemen.”
“Ciao, Giuliano.”
We got in Mercer’s car for the short ride to my apartment. “What’s the plan, guys?”
“I’m off tomorrow,” Mercer answered. “Unless we get word from one of those out-of-town departments that they’ve picked up Jean DuPuy. The lieutenant will give me a call if that happens. He’s trying to encourage me to stay home because of all the overtime we’re racking up on this case already.”
“I promised my mother I’d stop by and take her to Mass in the morning.”
“Then why don’t we meet in my office on Monday?” I said. “I’ll go over all the reports again tomorrow and set up a schedule for doing interviews. We can plan it out around your tours for the week, okay?”
The doorman came out to meet the car and help me into the elevator with my luggage.
“Want me to go up with you and make sure no one’s hiding under your bed, Goldilocks?”
“No, thank you. Be sure you tell your mother about your conquest of the duchess. She’ll be very proud of you.”
“Hey, if DuPuy rings your doorbell tonight and wants to make a house call to take your blood pressure, don’t let him in, y’hear?
27
I WAS RELISHING THE SOLITUDE OF MY own apartment on a rainy Sunday morning, reading the Times and filling in the answers to the puzzle. My telephone tape had been loaded with messages from friends but I didn’t intend to start returning any of them until later in the afternoon. I had unpacked my suitcase and had nothing that needed doing other than to organize my notes and police reports for the week ahead.
Mercer’s call caught me in the middle of noshing on a toasted bagel. “Hey, Alex, it’s me. Two things, one you may be able to help me with.”
“Shoot. You sound like you’re on another planet!”
“I’m on a cell phone up in Connecticut. Drove up to my cousin’s house for a family party today. Almost forgot about it. First thing is, I got beeped by a little police department in Pennsylvania. Bluebell, to be exact. Seems like DuPuy made a U-turn somewhere near the Mason-Dixon line and reversed his tracks. Coming back north.
“Commissioner’s concerned enough about it to be moving Maureen again to a different location, just as a precaution. Everyone assumes he’ll start using a new credit card or ID any hour now. Steal one, buy one, con one off somebody. Surprised we’ve had this much of a run on him using the Perkins cards.”
“Maybe he’s coming back to get his wife and kids.”
“Well, that’s a very generous view of the weasel, but it’s a point. There’s a tap on her phone and the lieutenant’s had a team sittin‘ on the house since we heard he fled.
“Which leads to my question. Peterson asked me if we had inventoried the files in Dogen’s office and apartment. I told h
im that you and I took some notes but they were pretty general. At least mine were by topic, not by specific name. He wants to know if she had a folder on John DuPre. And, frankly, I couldn’t remember. Sound familiar to you?”
“Hold on. I can look through my materials and check it for you right now. Off the top of my head, I know I was listing the categories of things she had but I don’t remember even seeing any individual names.” I was trying to visualize the reams of documents we had plowed through that afternoon and whether the neurologist’s name would have had any significance to me at that particular point in time.
“Not that important. I tried to reach George Zotos but he’s upstate fishing with some of the guys from his old squad. He was goin‘ through a lot of them with us that day.”
“Just give me a minute and-”
“It’ll keep ‘til during the week. I can promise you the Chief isnot bringing me back in on my RDO unless there’s a major break in the action.” Regular days off were sacred in the NYPD’s high command, since the rate of a second-grade detective’s overtime scale was quite costly.
“Okay. Have a good time at the party.”
I hung up, refilled my coffee cup, and took it into the bedroom while I showered and dressed. I thought I might walk around the corner to the Frick Collection for an hour or so and threw on an old cashmere sweater-a pale yellow cable-stitched tunic-over some velvet leggings to dress myself up a bit for the weekend art crowd.
I poured one more hit of coffee from the pot and sat at the dining-room table reviewing the notes I had jotted down while talking with Geoffrey Dogen. It bothered me that Lieutenant Peterson had questions about the files in Gemma’s apartment for which I didn’t have answers, especially since I had offered myself to go there to look for information that might be relevant to our case. I was even more annoyed that I couldn’t make a connection between some of the file names I had seen and facts that Gemma’s friends had not been able to fit into her life.
I didn’t have any way to get into Dogen’s office at Minuit without alerting the hospital administrators, but her own house keys had been sitting on top of my dresser ever since the afternoon Mercer had taken me to her apartment almost ten days before. I had forgotten to return them and no one had needed to claim them on her behalf. Rent was paid up through the end of this month and Geoffrey Dogen had sent directions to donate her clothes to a thrift shop and have all her other personal belongings packed up and shipped home to England for distribution to relatives and friends.
I walked into the bedroom to call a couple of my girlfriends to see if anyone wanted to meet me at the Frick. It was a toss-up whether to just hang out for a few hours or try to accomplish something useful on the case by spending some time in Dogen’s files. I picked up the miniature model of Tower Bridge and played with the keys as I dialed the familiar numbers. Lesley Latham’s husband told me she was in Houston on a business trip, and Esther Newton was on her way out the door to a Huskies game at the Garden.
If I went down to Beekman Place and detailed information from Gemma’s records, I told myself, then I’d deserve a late-afternoon visit to the museum-see the current exhibit and pick up some new postcards to send Nina-and a stop for a cup of hot chocolate on my way home. I left a message on David Mitchell’s tape telling him I was back from London and asking if he and Renee wanted to come in to watch60 Minutes this evening. Then I called Mike’s machine to pass on the news from Mercer about DuPre’s change in direction.
Still undecided about which route I would take, I stuck a blank legal pad in my tote, dropped in the key chain, and put on my hooded red rain slicker. The museum was only four blocks away, but as I stood in the drizzle on the corner of Park Avenue waiting for the light to change a gentleman in a green mackintosh coat stepped out of a yellow taxicab and made it easy for me to shift course.
The cab discharged me at the entrance to Dogen’s building. I saw only one doorman inside the lobby. I smiled and started to approach him to explain my purpose but he barely looked up from hisDaily News comic section, so I continued on back to the right and waited for the elevator to descend and bring me up to the twelfth floor.
The nervous feeling I had experienced when I first came to the apartment with Mercer fluttered back as I knew it would. This time, it was just the spookiness of being alone with the keepsakes and belongings of the dead woman, which didn’t seem to hold much meaning or value for any of her heirs or acquaintances. How odd for the accumulation of such an interesting life to pass with so little notice or concern.
The double locks gave easily as I turned a key in each of them. Once again I was startled by a noise behind me, but this time it seemed to be the door resounding as it slammed shut at my back. I thought of William Dietrich and the other people who still might have had Gemma’s keys, so I twisted the lock and chained the bolt before throwing my slicker onto the back of an armchair.
Things were more or less as I had left them on my earlier visit. I knew that detectives had been in and out of here on a number of occasions since then on orders from the lieutenant, but whether the superintendent or rental agents had scavenged any of Gemma’s belongings I doubt I’d be aware. I spent a few minutes walking from room to room looking for differences that I might notice but finding few.
The book on spinal cord injuries was no longer on the bedside table and the closet door in that room had been left open, revealing its empty innards. I put my finger on the bottom edge of a furled-up yellow Post-it someone had stuck onto the wooden trim around the closet with a handwritten arrow pointing beneath to the words, “Deliver to Hospital Thrift Shop, Third Avenue.”
Back in the living room, I looked at the photographs with renewed interest. Now I could pick out the faces of Geoffrey Dogen, Gig Babson, several colleagues from Minuit, and London backdrops of Gemma’s favorite setting. Books and CDs were still in place, but someone had made off with the disc player and the little television set I had seen there last time. I took out my notepad and wrote a reminder to find out whether the removals were authorized or not-a typical problem at the scene of a homicide when there was no family member to keep up a presence.
There was an old clock radio on the back of the desk and I turned it on to a classical music station to fill the room with something other than the stillness that hung in the air. People in the adjacent apartment must have been more hard of hearing than my late grandmother as the noise from their television set almost boomed through the wall at me with the shrill voices of Home Shopping Network announcers. Today was obviously Capodimonte day and prices were being slashed by the minute. The neighbors couldn’t have heard me turn Gemma’s little radio knob up a notch.
I sat down again in the seat I had worked in from the day Mercer and I tried to catalogue some of the property. I could remember remarking about the lack of logic of some of the files, but there were far too many cabinets to put my finger on the ones that had stood out to me at the time.
At random, I slid open drawers and started to rifle through the subject tabs, looking for names that were now more familiar from meetings with the hospital staff and the expanded scope of our investigation. I was interested in information Dogen might have had about the men we had since interviewed and especially wanted to please Lieutenant Peterson by coming up with something that Gemma might have known about Jean DuPuy.
Inches and inches gave me nothing but medical research and clippings from journals about brain injury and surgical techniques. I checked my original notes and matched the third drawer from the left with a list that earmarked her files on “Professional Ethics.” Grabbing a handful of them, I swiveled around to place them on the desk and began to skim through them.
Some of them went back years, almost to her first days at Minuit, and none of the names they referenced had anything to do with the current staff or student body. With a red marker, Dogen had annotated the official school documents, commenting in the margins on the suitability of a candidate or her opinion of his worthiness to enter the
program.
I pushed the pile to the side of the desk and reached back for a more recent assortment on the same topic. Fanning them out across the top of the blotter, I started from the rear of the pile. Midway through, the titles changed and I realized I had passed from the ethics folders into her personal records.
The tabs I was reading were labeled in Gemma’s hand with the names of sports teams. Clipped together in one lump were the Saints, the Braves, and the Redskins. I lifted the metal clasp and opened the three packets as Gemma’s filing system became obvious to me. This was her stash on John DuPre, the team name representing the city in which an academic institution or professional connection was located-Tulane was in New Orleans, his practice and lawsuit were in Atlanta, and Georgetown, where he claimed to have received his undergraduate degree, was in D.C. Somehow, she had figured the information she collected would be less obvious or desirable to an interloper if it looked like it related to a sporting event.
I thought of the briefing session at which we’d been told that one of the cops from the 17th had found file folders in a trash barrel in the hospital parking lot that bore similar labels. Perhaps this was a duplicate set that Dogen kept at home, where she had a greater assurance of privacy.
The find excited me. I dialed Chapman’s number but he still wasn’t there. I left him a message and told him to call me at Gemma’s apartment if he got in within the next hour, reading the number off the printed slot on the base of her phone. I beeped Mercer, then returned to ferreting through the drawers for more things like DuPre’s records while I waited for him to call me back.
“Who’s this?” Mercer asked when I picked up the receiver.
“It’s Alex.”
“Where are you? I didn’t recognize the number.”
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