Final Jeopardy

by Linda Fairstein

  “Madam, I must insist, madam. Whom are you meeting?”

  I had practically reached the landing at the top of the stairs when I looked down at the source of the voice calling up to me. All I could see was the top of his uniform cap.

  “Oh, I’m terribly sorry. Were you talking to me? I’m with an escort service Mr. Segal called for me half an hour ago said just to come ahead as I was, what he needed wouldn’t take us very long.”

  I continued down the short hallway and waited at the entrance to the bar so that Mike could catch up with me before I pushed open the padded leather door and walked in.

  There were about five clusters of drinkers scattered about the large room, relaxing around cocktail tables with armchairs and easy chairs, nursing their nightcaps before heading off to rest up for tomorrow’s deal-making.

  “Alexandra!” Jed spotted me almost immediately and called out to me as I stood in the doorway, scanning the room to find him.

  “Come with me, Mike,” I whispered as I moved forward.

  Jed rose to his feet, followed in rapid succession by his two boot lickers Larry and Stan slightly younger versions of Jed, hoping to grow up just like him, I was sure. Anderson Warmack, the centerpiece of the group, never budged from his chair, but just leaned in and rested his elbows on the table as he winked at me in welcome.

  “Jed, I think you remember Mike Chapman. He’s with Homicide. Mike and I need to ask you some questions, Jed. We’d like to-‘

  ”Alex, darling, why don’t you and Chapman join us for a round. We’re celebrating Mr.

  Warmack’s big night and anything you want to tell me can certainly wait till we get home.“ Could he really be as cool and unconcerned as he appeared to be, seeing me burst in here looking like a shrew with a detective at my side? Was it possible that I had made a ridiculous mistake?

  Larry and Stan or was it Curly and Moe were scrambling to pull up two extra chairs from nearby tables now.

  “Don’t bother. We’re not sitting. Jed, this is not a joke. We need to go somewhere private and talk. Right now. We can go upstairs to the library on the fourth floor I’m sure it’s empty at this hour.”

  Anderson Warmack chose that moment to begin to blow his hot air into our business.

  “Alexandria, my dear…”

  “It’s not Alexandria. It’s Alexandra.”

  Now I had Jed’s attention. I could mess with him but I better not cross old moneybags.

  “Alexandra young lady I’ve been keeping your sweetheart from you too long, is that the problem? Called the police in on me, have you? You look mighty perturbed.”

  Well, you’re a master of understatement, you pompous old fart. I’m not perturbed I am fucking pissed off and heartbroken and confused and hurt and angry, but I am much too well brought up to say exactly that to a politefool like you who likes to have his dimpled old ass kissed as frequently as possible. ftic “Quite the contrary, Mr. Warmack. I only need to see Jed ‘ for fifteen or twenty minutes, and if you’ll be good enough to wait for him, I won’t ever need to take him out of your presence again, for as long as I live. ” Jed was mad now. He was furious that I was bringing his idol and his underlings into some spat they thought I was starting, and he was trying to placate Warmack before he dealt with me.

  ‘I’ll just finish up with you, Anderson. Alex and her friend can have a wait-’ Mike was ready to jump in, at last.

  “Hey, Mr. Spiegal, we’re ready to-‘ ”It’s Segal.“

  “Nobody wants to embarrass you. I do have a few questions that need to have answers tonight. Now be a gent and do what the lady would like you to do, understand?”

  Larry thought it was time for a little levity.

  “Go on, Jed, we’ll still be here. Don’t make the tough guy take out his gun and shoot you in the foot to make you dance. What is it, Officer Krupke, a parking ticket? Did he expose himself in public? Better go with the nice policeman, Jed, I can’t I afford to call a lawyer for you.” Stan thought that was a real knee-slapper. Warmack, on the other hand, saw Jed’s tightened jaw set in place and his two fingers locked onto his expensive Cohiba cigar, creasing its very costly skin.

  Warmack glared back at Jed. I knew he was too white bread to enjoy a public display of anybody’s dirty laundry.

  “Why don’t you go along and clear up this business, whatever it is. I’m in no rush to go anywhere, as long as they see fit to keep some brandy in my glass.”

  Jed excused himself and led us out of the room, around the corner to the elevator, and up to the library, without any one of us uttering a word.

  The library was a strikingly elegant room. Dark-paneled and comfortably furnished, it featured second-story galleries reached by spiral wooden ladders and housed an eclectic selection of books, both commercial and rare. I used to love the evenings I had to wait for Jed to finish a negotiation downstairs, while I sat and browsed through some first-edition poetry volume from the thirties, interrupted only by staring at a section of the vaulted ceiling, painted with maps and mythological figures that showed me a new aspect every time I settled in a different chair.

  This time, there was no looking at the ceiling. I walked to one of the long, narrow reading tables and sat down, pointing to the men to join me.

  “Do I have to interrogate you, Jed, or do you think you can be honest with me for a change?”

  “I must say I’m rather surprised at this Gestapo-like approach, Alex. I assume you and I can talk out our problems without any interlopers present.” Jed refused even to glance at Mike Chapman, who was sitting on my side of the table, across from him. His dark eyebrows were drawn together and wrinkled over his nose, as he seemed to try to puzzle why my mood had snapped so radically in the brief time since I had kissed him good night at the Plaza.

  “I thought so, too, but apparently I was wrong. I didn’t even know we had problems. Why don’t you tell me what was going on between you and Isabella?”

  “What’s gotten into you, Alex? I don’t understand what’s happened to you in the last hour, darling.” This time he nodded in Chapman’s direction, suggesting we could on talk more intimately if we were alone.

  “Why don’t you and I? ”This has gone beyond “you and I.” Just start explaining everything to Detective Chapman.“

  ”Take it easy. I can’t figure out what has you in such a rage.“ ”It’s one thing to take advantage of me, Jed, but don’t play me for stupid on top of that. Tell us about your relationship with Isabella Lascar.“

  “Ah, this is about jealousy, is it? You’re the one who introduced me to her and encouraged me to help her.

  What suddenly makes you think anything else was going on? It’s not like you to be so insecure.“

  “Try me. When did you decide to go with Isabella to my house on the Vineyard?”

  How could I lie in bed beside you Saturday night and believe the things you whispered to me as well as the responses you evoked from me, is what I really wanted to say out loud.

  “Now hold on right there, Alex. That’s insane. I never went to your house-‘ My hand slammed down hard on the solid table, piercing the silence of the cavernous room. I was almost as mad at I myself as I was with Jed. I prided myself on my ability to cross-examine witnesses, and I wasn’t even doing an amateur job at it. There was no subtlety to my technique, no clever buildup of incontrovertible facts. I just wanted to crash my way through to the only thing that mattered.

  Why had he double-crossed me with Isabella Lascar? Our relationship wasn’t so entrenched that he couldn’t have ended it and moved on to be with her or anyone else he chose. Why did he have to humiliate me so openly?

  “Don’t play with me anymore. This is not about jealousy or my feelings or anything as trivial as that. This is about – ‘ Mike was ready to try a more competent approach.

  “What do you drink, Mr. Segal?”

  “Oh, are we ready to be civilized now? Shall I order us up something from the bar?” Jed actually turned to look for a house phone befor
e Mike made him realize the question was not a social one.

  “We’re not interested in drinking with you now. I asked you what you drink.”

  I knew the answer to the question. I’d heard Jed order it dozens of times, usually having to explain to the bartender except in his regular joints exactly what it was.

  “Booker’s, Mr. Chapman. I like Booker’s.” I mouthed the next phrase along with him, knowing he would feel the need to describe it to Mike.

  “It’s a single malt Bourbon, from Kentucky. Quite pricey. I’ve always had a preference for Kentucky Bourbons over Tennessee. I’m sure there’s a reason you need to know this.”

  “And when the barkeep runs dry on Booker’s, what’s your second choice?”

  “It doesn’t much matter then. Something comparable from Kentucky, before I cross over the border into Tennessee.”

  Nice start, Mikey, although I had been slow to catch up with you. Mike was thinking back to the arrangement of the bottles in my liquor cabinet on the Vineyard, when he had noticed that the Stoli and the Jack Daniel’s were in front of the Dewar’s. I never associated the Jack Daniel’s with Jed because he had never ordered any in all our time together.

  But that Tennessee sour mash was the only Bourbon I had in my house, and he had obviously had to settle for it when he and Isabella were drinking together.

  “Where’d you buy me that perfume, Jed?” I wanted to get back in the game.

  “Paris, Alex. Are we at the point where I have to produce receipts for gifts I brought you?” In the typical fashion of a guilty defendant, Jed hadn’t even asked us what all these questions were about. Someone who was really in the dark would be more outraged and demanding explanations for our conduct.

  Instead, he seemed to think that we were bluffing and as long as he was smarter than we were a woman and a blue-collar civil servant he could simply hold his course and continue to mislead us.

  “What store, Jed? You so rarely go shopping I’m sure you remember which store in Paris you nipped into to buy the perfume.”

  He took what he assumed was the safest way out of that one. This is a no-brainer, you dumb broad, he was probably thinking as he smiled smugly at me.

  “Chanel. Chanel 22 direct from the salon on Avenue Montaigne.”

  I had been hoping he might have even tried to say the duty-free shop, as I had joked at my apartment on Saturday ‘ evening. But no, he was determined for some reason to make me think I had been in his consciousness in Paris. The irony was that Chanel 22 is the only one of their perfumes that is made in America. It isn’t sold in a single place in France, not even in the company’s own stores.

  “Make a note to check with American Express for his charges, Mike. See where and when he bought it.”

  “Look, I agreed to come up here with you two because I wanted to resolve what I assumed were some petty issues that had arisen in your work. I didn’t know you were so damn paranoid, Alex, and this is a pretty ugly way to find it out. But if you think you can make these absurd allegations about me because I agreed to help your friend Isabella sort out her financial difficulties, you’re both out of your very unprofessional minds. I’ve never been to Martha’s Vineyard, I’ve never been involved with Isabella in any other way, and I’m not going to let you derail my plans by breaking up this evening for Warmack. Alex, if there’s an explanation for any of this, maybe we can talk about it by ourselves tomorrow.”

  “You’ll have time for that after you finish at my office, tomorrow at four,” Mike said, drawing a business card out of his wallet and handing it to Jed. “We’ll need to do a set of fingerprints for elimination purposes, and we’ll have to get the medical examiner in to draw a vial of blood. I guess Alex has explained the potential for DNA evidence here. And bring your airline tickets and boarding passes for the flight to Paris, too. We’ll need a copy of them for the file.“

  Jed exploded as Mike went from liquor and perfume discussions to submission to evidentiary tests for a murder investigation.

  “This is a goddamn insult. You’re just trying to embarrass me for whatever it is you think I’ve done to hurt you. Have you gone mad? Does Battaglia know you’re playing these games with real people, not some bum you picked up in a homeless shelter? You want evidence from me you better call my lawyer or get a warrant.”

  “You watch too much television, Jed. Why don’t you just give it up?”

  “Hey, Alex,” Mike said, pushing himself away from the table and standing up, “I guess this is when I’m supposed to do my Columbo imitation, huh?” He slouched a bit, stuck his left hand in his pocket and faked a cigar in his on right, closed one eyelid and sounded more like Peter Falk than Peter Falk ever did.

  “Ya know, I’m-just-a-stupid-cop! Mr. Segal, but I gotta ask ya, d’ya know anybody who Her drinks Bourbon and maybe put his hands all over a bottle of Jack Daniel’s when he couldn’t come by any Kentucky mash up in Chilmark last week, who wasn’t in Paris when he was supposed to be in Paris but went to Paris afterward anyway so he could come home from Paris, who’s got a really classy blue-and-green-plaid shirt that ain’t sold by the gross at Kmart or Wool worth’s like my shirts, and who left a wad of semen in some condoms in a house where a very famous lady he knew was murdered, even though he wasn’t a real prince for being there at the time because it woulda made some other nice lady who liked him a lot very unhappy? You know anybody like that?

  “Cause, jeez, if you do, a dumb cop like me could sure use your help.”

  I didn’t think anything could have made me laugh when we had walked into the club half an hour earlier, but Mike’s imitation of Columbo was perfect and refreshing, causing Jed to storm out of the library and down the staircase as we pressed for the elevator to take us back to the lobby.

  “I dare you, blondie. The only thing you can do to beat the way you got us into the club tonight is if we both take all our clothes off in the elevator right now and just walk out of the building stark naked. Game?”

  “Nah, Mikey. It would be my luck to run into Anderson Warmack on his way out of here, and it might just give him too much pleasure to see my bare ass. I’ll take a pass.”

  We were down and out without incident, through the lobby, which was quiet as a mausoleum, and back in my driveway ten minutes later.

  I opened the car door, said good night to Mike, and started to get out.

  “Talk about role reversal, we’ve really come full circle,” he remarked to me. “Remember those lectures you used to give me during the Quentiss trial?Go directly home no gin mills, no drinking all night with the guys, no dropping in on flight attendants who are here on a turn-around. Go home and go to bed ‘cause you’re gonna get pounded on cross tomorrow.”

  Remember the perky young prosecutor trying her first high-profile case, reading me the riot act whenever I had to be in court the next day? Well, same goes for you, Coop. Get upstairs, go directly to bed, don’t drink anything alcoholic, screen your calls in case that weasel tries to worm his way back into your affection, stay clearheaded for the morning. Understood?“

  “Yeah, boss.”

  “Alex, can I leave you alone, really? I mean, if you want company or you’re, well, you know…”

  “Thanks, Mike. I’m really okay. This whole thing since the first phone call about Isabella’s murder last week has taken on a life of its own. I just feel like I’m being dragged along in a vicious riptide. I’ve sort of stopped fighting it now. I think I’ll just try to ride it out and see where I land.”

  “Hang tough, blondie. The most important lesson for tonight is to think Aretha. No Tammy Wynette. No ”Stand by Your Man.“ I’m talking ”Respect“ all capital letters. You tell the doormen not to let Jed in if he shows up, and not to take his calls. We know he’s a liar and I know you don’t want to admit this to yourself but he may be more dangerous than that.“

  The message light was flashing on my phone when I got into my bedroom and started to undress. One solicitation to change phone companies and reach
out to friends all over the U.S.A. for pennies less than whichever system I was using, one hang-up getting to be a bit too commonplace lately and two terse messages from Jed that had come in during the last ten minutes. The first was short and angry in tone, berating me for creating that ridiculous scene with my ‘pet cop’; the second was short and conciliatory in tone, urging me to meet with him alone tomorrow, and to believe in him. The Easter bunny, the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, and Jed Segal – I had believed in each of them and they had proven to be among life’s great disappointments. Jed would never get the honor of rising to the level of those others.

  I toyed with the idea of ringing David’s doorbell and asking his advice, but I was afraid to find out that he, too, would admit some previously unacknowledged connection to Isabella. Instead, I climbed into bed and picked up the phone to call Nina Baum. Not even eleven o’clock in Los Angeles yet, so I knew I wasn’t likely to find her at home.

  “We can’t come to the phone now…” the message droned on, so I waited for the beep and left her an update. I vented on all my pain about Jed’s faithlessness, and concluded with Mike’s concern that Jed was actually a suspect in the murder. A best friend was better than a shrink any day, in my book. I knew Nina would call back first thing tomorrow, suggesting ways to put these events in perspective with the rest of my life and loves. I switched off the light, rolled over onto my stomach, and tried to fall asleep. Whatever pleasant thoughts I attempted to balance in my mind danced there for only brief seconds before being pushed off center stage by the reality of the last few hours. I lay in the dark reliving all of my days and evenings and nights with Jed, wondering whether particular moments together had been artificial or genuine, whether they had occurred before or after his first contact with Iz, whether there had been someone else before her.