The DeadHouse

by Linda Fairstein

  The top volumes were years of annual reports from the Board of Health, which supervised those prisoners who served as "nurses" in the other institutions. Below those were records of the Department of Correction, leading up to MacCormick's raid, which closed the penitentiary permanently. I piled up a few copies of each series and jotted down a note about which ones I was taking with me.

  Three-quarters of the way down in the package was a set of matching black leather albums, their grainy finish frayed at the edges. The bottom right corner of each bore the stamped gold initials o.l. I opened the cover of the one on top and saw the elegant penmanship of the then-young man who had documented his life with such care.

  I lifted the six volumes of Orlyn Lockhart's diaries from the box and added them to my stack of organizational reports. Now I could hear footsteps coming closer and resounding in the darkened corridor outside the small room. I stood to gather my night's reading material and put on my coat to leave.

  When I opened the door I stood face-to-face with the night custodian. "Just coming to get you, miss. I'm supposed to lock up the main door at seven o'clock. Heat gets shut way low. The president asked me to be sure you got out okay."

  I thanked him and we walked together down the staircase to the front door. The wind came howling off the river behind my back as I turned up to 116th Street and swept me up to Broadway in its wake. The air was heavy with moisture and the sky was an even shade of dark gray, clouds covering the tops of the tall buildings in the distance. It took me almost ten minutes and several blocks of walking south to find a taxi to take me back to Jake's.

  "Smells heavenly." I dropped my books on the table in the entryway and walked into the kitchen, where he was putting a salad together.

  "Worth the trip?"

  "Definitely." I described the conversations and the two meetings.

  "Mike called. Said he's got what you sent him for and he'll see you in the morning."

  The table was already set and the candles were lighted. I went inside to slip into leggings and a warm sweater when the chef advised me that dinner would be ready in half an hour.

  Back in the living room, I picked up the first volume of Lock-hart's diaries. It was dated 1933, when he was still a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. I read aloud to Jake, amused by the description of the work in those days. I browsed through the opening pages of the next three books, landing on the one that concerned the raid.

  Jake had opened a report by the commissioner of correction and was reading selectively from it to me. "'January 11, 1934. The problem of the female offender is growing, due to her emancipation and tendency toward greater sexual freedom.' Are you listening?"

  "Sorry. I'm looking for the part about Freeland Jennings." I skimmed quickly through Lockhart's recounting of the raid, and his personal pain when he learned of the death of his friend. There was no mention of diamonds or precious jewels, and I recalled that Lockhart had said those stories didn't surface until much later on.

  "Slow down. You can read till your heart's content after dinner."

  I came to the description of Jennings's fancy living quarters in the penitentiary. Then the entries stopped for several days. The narrative resumed after the funeral.

  I should like to have something of Jennings's to keep for myself, something to remind me both of him and of this daring raid we conducted to weed out the evil on the island. The belonging that most intrigues me is his miniature secret garden, a detailed replica of all of the great buildings of Blackwells constructed in the last century.

  It seems that Freeland befriended an indigent prisoner, a stonemason from Italy-same region as Ariana, actually- who was sentenced to the penitentiary because he was a grave robber. Broke into mausoleums and took precious objects that decorated private family crypts. A petty criminal but a gifted artisan nonetheless. He created a meticulous tabletop copy of the island which my own friend kept in his prison room. An exceptional piece of artwork, really. Shows every edifice, every tree, and practically every rock on the whole place. I shall ask Commissioner MacCormick if I may claim the model as my souvenir of our endeavor.

  Freeland wrote to me concerning his garden once. Said he would tell me more about it when I came to visit. He said it held the secret to his survival on the island.

  27

  "I've got to call Skip Lockhart."

  "It's almost eight-fifteen. Can it wait until after dinner?"

  I read the section about Jennings's secret model to Jake. "Maybe this miniature tableau of the island has something to do with Lola's murder. Why hasn't anyone mentioned it to me? Just five minutes and I'll be ready."

  Jake looked annoyed. "Dinner will be on the table in three. Care to join me?"

  I went into the den and opened one of my files. I dialed the number Skip Lockhart had given us for his apartment in Manhattan and got the answering machine. "It's Alexandra Cooper. Could you please call me first thing tomorrow morning? It's about your grandfather's diaries." There was no point being coy about this. I assumed he had read the volumes before letting Lola get her hands on them. "I'd like to talk to you about the model of Black-wells that Freeland Jennings kept in his jail cell."

  Then I tried the Lockhart number in White Plains. A woman answered and when I told her who I was, she told me that Skip had gone back into town. "Would it be possible for me to have a few words with your father-in-law?"

  "I'm sorry, dear. He ate his dinner at six o'clock and I'm afraid he's sound asleep now. Why don't you try him again tomorrow?"

  I called Sylvia Foote's machine at the office to leave her a message, too. "It's Alex. I'm expecting to hear from you in the morning about the faculty meeting you may be planning later in the day. I'd like to be there for part of it, to explain to the group exactly what's going on and what I might need from them." As casually as I could, I dropped in an additional request. "And when you speak to them, Sylvia, tell them I'm interested in talking to them about the Lockhart diaries. You know, the ones kept by Skip's grandfather. And what any of them know about the model of his secret garden on Blackwells. Thanks a lot."

  The old volumes had been kept in Lola Dakota's office, without any particular safeguarding. Even now, no one had claimed them or spirited them away. I assumed that any of the people with a particular interest in the project had already scoured the books for information anyway, and that there were likely to be dozens of photocopies floating around.

  I didn't think the mention of the diaries would trigger any unusual response, but I was curious to see whether my inquiry about the miniature model of the island fueled a reaction.

  Jake was seated at the dinner table when I returned to join him. The salmon and baby asparagus awaited me, and he had already begun eating. He was annoyed, and rightly so. Now, I wish I had put off those calls until after the meal, as he had suggested.

  shapeType20fFlipH0fFlipV0lineWidth3175posrelh0fLayoutInCell0fLayoutInCell0"I apologize. I'm sorry for getting so carried away with this investigation. Why don't you tell me about the rest of your afternoon. Any calls?"

  "Joan called about New Year's Eve. Wants to know if you can bring some of that great caviar you served at her birthday party. I reminded her that we had to fly back first thing in the morning for Mercer's wedding. I lined up most of my plans for next week. Nothing as exciting as what you're in the middle of."

  He was cool and removed now. Not the right moment to remind him that prepositions weren't good words with which to end sentences. I could usually tease him about grammar whenever he made an on-air slip.

  "I'm going to have to pick up some things from my apartment after work tomorrow. I'll need an outfit for Joan's dinner and my travel kit."

  "We're not even going to be away for twenty-four hours." Jake realized he was snapping at me and tried to bring it down a notch. "If Mike can't drive you by there after work, we can meet at my office and I'll take you over." We were both thinking about Shirley Denzig and whether she was still lurking in the neighborhood.<
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  I reached over and put my hand on top of his, and he loosened up as we both ate and chatted. It was my fault that the fish was dry and overdone, so I finished all of it, so as not to be berated for that, too.

  "Go ahead inside. I'll clean up." The job was quick and easy, and ten minutes later I joined him in the living room, where he was reading briefing papers for his next day's assignments. I sat on the far end of the sofa and entangled my legs in his while I carefully read the 1935 volume of the Lockhart diaries from cover to cover.

  At 10:35 the phone rang.

  "How've you been?" he asked the caller. Usually he mouthed to me the name of the person he was speaking to, if I could not recognize who it was from the context of the conversation. This time he did not.

  "No, I don't remember ever meeting him. I've heard of him, of course. I think Tom did a feature piece about his firm, if I'm not mistaken."

  The other party spoke.

  "You're kidding." Jake sat bolt upright, both feet on the floor. "When?"

  Presumably an answer.

  "In Montauk? Where is he now? Where are the kids?"

  Another brief reply.

  "What makes you think it was murder?"

  I put down the book and stared at Jake, who was looking straight ahead.

  "Just hold on a minute, will you? I want to go into the den." He turned to me. "Darling, would you mind if I take this one inside?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Just hang it up for me when you hear me get on, okay?"

  He walked toward the den and I held the receiver until I heard him ask if his caller was still there. She answered, "Yes."

  For almost fifteen minutes while they talked, I sat in the living room and fumed. Less than a week ago Jake had invited me to move into his home. I had done so reluctantly, encouraged by the circumstances inside and outside my own apartment. The intimacies that had begun to make me savor our days and nights together were fragile enough to be shattered by one conversation he refused to have in my presence.

  I got up to pour myself a drink.

  "Don't I get one, too?" he asked as he came back into the living room.

  "Sorry. I didn't know when you'd be off the phone." I returned to the bar and fixed him a scotch. The mood shift had been completed. Now I was cool and abrupt to Jake and he was fired up with the adrenaline rush created by an exclusive piece of breaking news.

  He sensed my pout immediately. "You're not jealous, are you?"

  "Of whom? I don't even know who called." He didn't offer to tell me her name.

  "She's just an old friend. A paralegal at one of the big white-shoe firms."

  "I wouldn't care if it was Gwyneth Paltrow or Emma Thompson. I am just stunned that there is something you can't talk about in my presence." I steered away from the sofa and sat in an armchair across the room. "You go through this whole big deal about me needing to let you more into my life and me needing to open up to you. You try to convince me that I should move in with you, and then the first time you get a serious telephone call you fly out of the room because there's a conversation that I'm not permitted to be privy to."

  "There's your preposition, darling."

  "I'm not amused, Jake. You can be damn sure"-I got up and walked in a circle around the chair as I talked-"damn sure that I'm not ever about to live with someone who takes private calls in a separate room. And especially when I hear the word 'murder.' Now, do you want to tell me what that was about?"

  He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his thighs, his glass in one hand. He was smiling as he looked over at me. "Am I talking to my lover, or am I talking to a prosecutor?"

  "When you say 'murder' and 'kids' in the space of a few minutes, I regret to inform you-darling-that I am a prosecutor."

  He sat back. "That's the problem. My sources are privileged. I got this information in confidence, so don't ask me anything I can't tell you." He was too anxious to repeat the story not to go on. "She was working-"

  "She?"

  "The source. My friend. She was called in to assist a partner who had a business appointment with a client. Emergency meeting on a Sunday evening because the client's a stock analyst, specializing in foreign securities. He was supposed to be off to Europe in the morning. Very well-known guy in the financial community."

  "What's his name?"

  Jake looked at me. "Can't do that."

  He paused. "They sit through half an hour of the meeting, then the senior partner takes a break to go to the men's room. Client follows him in and, standing next to him at the urinal, tells him that he killed his wife on Saturday and-"

  Mike Chapman would have had an appropriate comment about the guy's timing, but the moment and its humor were lost on me. "In Manhattan?"

  "They live here, but this happened somewhere between New York City and their beach home on Long Island. Nassau or Suffolk County, Madam Prosecutor. Not your jurisdiction."

  He couldn't possibly think that I would fail to be appalled about a homicide that had occurred outside the confines of the city limits of my legal responsibility. "And the kids? What's the part about children?"

  Jake paused slightly before answering. "This guy actually put his wife's remains in the trunk of his car. Then he got the two kids and drove upstate to dump the body."

  "Where?"

  "Where what?"

  "Where is that woman's body right at this very moment? And where the hell are the children?"

  "They're fine. She assures me that they're perfectly okay."

  "And you're not going to tell me who this victim is and whether she's lying out in the woods or dumped in a lake or-?"

  "Look, my informant's in a tough position, Alex. This is their client and the information he's giving them is privileged. They're trying to do the right thing and deal with getting him surrendered before he leaves the country, but right now he's resisting that idea. When there's more that I can tell you-"

  The phone rang again and Jake answered. "Hey, that's fine. No problem. You can call me any hour of the night with a story like this. In the meantime, why don't we plan on lunch tomorrow? You can give me all the details then."

  His caller clearly liked the idea.

  "Michael's. Fifty-fifth Street between Fifth and Sixth, at twelve-thirty. There's a great table in an alcove in the front. Very private. No overheards. I'll call in the morning and reserve it."

  She had a suggestion for Jake.

  "No, you're not disturbing anything. Sure, if you get something else, call right back." He hung up and turned back to me. "You can't solve all the world's problems, Alex."

  "I'd like to think that even if I were not a prosecutor, this story would be so upsetting that it would make me get off my ass and do something about it. I can't understand how you can sit there and probably just think about whether you can scoop the other networks with some lurid personal detail about this woman's murder. I can't understand why calling the police isn't the first thing you do."

  The phone rang again and this time, without asking my permission, Jake held up a finger as if to suggest that I wait a few minutes till he returned from the den to finish our conversation. He trotted off to the other room to take his call alone.

  I walked to the window and looked out at the murky night sky. Three minutes of that did nothing to calm me. I picked up my cell phone, Jake's spare set of keys, the forty-seven dollars cash I had left until I hit the ATM in the morning, and I stuffed them in my shoulder bag. I had to get out of the apartment before my temper exploded. And I needed to find out who the dead woman might be.

  Jake was still in the den when I put on my coat and walked out to the elevator.

  I pushed the revolving door open before the doorman could get to his feet and reach out for it. A fine layer of sleet was falling as I turned the corner and tried to find a coffee shop where I could make some calls to local precincts to see whether any relatives or friends had reported a missing female in the past twenty-four hours.

  After going three blocks, it was apparent that
nothing in the area was open after eleven o'clock on a Sunday evening. Although I was less than five minutes from my own apartment, I knew it was foolish to go there. I did not want to risk an encounter with the unstable, stalking complainant, Shirley Denzig, and I had not received word that the window had been repaired.

  I reached inside my coat and lifted my beeper when I felt it vibrating on my waistband. I held it up under the streetlight and saw it display Jake's number. I replaced it, tightened the collar of my coat, raised it against the sleet, and crossed the street.

  If I walked another few blocks north, I would reach the Nineteenth Precinct station house on Sixty-seventh Street. If I went east instead, I could get to Mike's building just as quickly. He knew every homicide detective in a fifty-mile radius of the city. We could sit in his tiny studio apartment, which he had long ago nicknamed The Coffin, making calls all night if need be until we figured out who this killer was and locked him up before he fled the country.

  I picked up my pace as I headed east to York Avenue. A coat of ice was forming on the sidewalks and streets and I took care not to slip as I walked briskly along. The only people outside were those who needed to be there. Dog walkers out for the last effort of the evening, hospital workers heading for the midnight shift at Cornell Medical Center, and the occasional homeless person huddled in a storefront or alleyway.

  When I reached the entrance to the old tenement that stood dwarfed amid the surrounding high-rise condos and upscale restaurants, I opened the outer door, shook the drops off my sleeves, and looked for the buzzer to Mike's apartment. It was marked with the number of his gold detective's shield rather than his name. As the beeper on my waistband went off a second time, I continued to ignore it and pressed the doorbell.

  The several seconds it took for Mike's voice to come over the intercom seemed like an hour.

  "Yeah?"

  "I've got a problem. It's Alex. Buzz me in?"

  The brass handle yielded to my grip as the signal to unlock it sounded in the small lobby. I grabbed at the banister in the dingy hallway and jogged up the staircase, flight after flight, to the fifth floor of the narrow building. I was huffing and puffing when I got to the landing and stopped to catch my breath.