Alex Cooper 01 - Final Jeopardy

by Linda Fairstein

  Never snap at the interviewer, I reminded myself. I was too sensitive after the events of the last week, and it took me a second to realize that Ellen hadn’t been spying on me—she’d simply made a logical assumption from a glance around the room. “Sorry, Ellen. Yeah, I’m going to a formal dinner tonight.”

  “I was just curious about what you’ve got in the bag—for me, not for the article. I know you’ve been described as a clotheshorse in some of the other interviews.”

  I laughed at the description. “I do love beautiful clothes.” I had no problem discussing designer labels that anyone with a good eye could recognize by looking at me if it diverted Ellen from details of my social life that I really didn’t want to see in print.

  “If I remember correctly, Glamour said you favored Calvin Klein, Dana Buchman, and Escada for your business wardrobe.”

  She had done her homework.

  “Not exactly the kind of things a girl can shop for on a public servant’s salary, but then I’ve also read about your family background, too.”

  Time to turn the tables for a minute and see how she liked getting personal. “Well, since you know so much about me, Ellen, when do you start to tell me a bit about yourself?”

  “What is it you’d like to know? I’m a sabra, Alex. Israeliborn, to an Israeli mother and an American father. My father was West Point—a missile expert. He met my mother when he was working on a United Nations project in the Middle East. I grew up like an Army brat, on bases around the world, but did my high school and college, as well as my military service, in Israel. But I’ve always been fascinated by the States, so I spend a lot of time here, even though my family is all abroad.”

  “That’s an interesting background.”

  “People’s lives always seem more interesting to those who didn’t live them. It wasn’t a very stable upbringing, Alex. The constant moves throughout my childhood, never staying in one place long enough to develop relationships that outlasted the posting. In and out of new schools, having to prove each time that you were capable of doing well. And a father in the service. Let me tell you, no matter how brilliant I knew he was, it’s not a profession that enjoys great respect in this country. I suppose some of that is why I spend so much time examining the lives of successful people, to see what makes them achievers—and to see whether that brings happiness.”

  I had no glib response. I thought to myself that my only comment had been, “That’s interesting.” I didn’t intend to unleash Ellen Goldman’s inner torment, but now I knew more than I needed to know. Maybe it was just easier to go back to the benign inquiry she had made.

  “Well, to answer your original question, Ellen, the dress in the bag is a very elegant navy blue Calvin Klein sheath. It should do just fine at what I imagine will be a boring testimonial dinner to a boring gentleman I barely know.”

  “Someone in your business?”

  “No, actually, the boss of a friend of mine. Anyway, if we’re going to continue this interview tomorrow, why don’t you just meet me across the street in Part 53, Judge Hadleigh’s courtroom. I have a sentence there in the morning which you might want to see. Then we can come back here and go on with what you need, okay?”

  “That’s fine. Alex, before I leave, I wouldn’t be a good journalist if I didn’t ask about Isabella Lascar and her murder. Are there any leads yet, anything you can tell me about?”

  I caught myself again. Goldman had resisted asking the question for more than two hours—better than I would have guessed—and I almost had her out the door. “Nothing at all, Ellen. Keep in mind, I’m not working on the case.” And you must really think I’m an idiot, I thought to myself, if you think I would tell some stranger I just met about suspects in a murder investigation. Well, these are the professionals who hold a camera in front of a hysterical woman’s face and ask how it felt to have watched a grizzly bear eat her three children while camping in Yosemite. It’s a job.

  Ellen left and I dialed Jed’s number.

  “Shall I have a car pick you up at the apartment?”

  “No. I knew I couldn’t get out early. I’ve got all my things here, so I’ll shower and change and meet you at the Plaza.”

  “Well, please try and get there in time for some of the cocktail hour. Andersen’s anxious to see you, and we’ll never get a chance to talk to him once we’re all seated and the banquet begins.”

  Anderson Warmack was Jed’s boss and the dinner tonight was in his honor. “This must be something new. He blew me off at the summer picnic—didn’t seem too anxious to meet anyone except the bartender and the twenty-year-old bimbo who was with his son that afternoon at the club.”

  “Sweetheart, he didn’t know who you were then. Now he’s heard all about you. He was a huge fan of Isabella’s, and once he found out you were her friend and that we had actually taken her to dinner one night, he’s got a million things to ask you.”

  “You’re not serious, Jed. How could you?”

  “What?”

  “How could you trade on the gossip of that girl’s death?” I was aggravated and angry. It seemed so unlike Jed to use Isabella to get to Warmack.

  “Oh, c’mon, Alex. You must be aware that everyone is talking about it. Things like this don’t happen every day and people are interested in it, especially when it intersects with the lives of people they actually know.”

  I was silent at the end of the telephone line. Thanks a lot for your concern for the deceased, Mr. Warmack, it’s heartwarming.

  “I mean, there are fascinating things, like the DNA you were talking about. Do they have results on that yet?”

  “Jed, I hope to God you haven’t been talking about evidence to anyone!” I was livid. “I told you about things because they happened in my house, behind my back, and I thought you’d care about that. I never expected that you’d tell other people about—I don’t intend to lose my job because—”

  Jed interrupted me. “Calm down, Alex, calm down. I haven’t told Anderson or anyone else what you’ve told me. I just meant that as an example of an interesting fact people don’t know much about.”

  “Well, let’s keep it that way. DNA takes six weeks, eight weeks, sometimes longer to develop,” I said, trying to mollify Jed with technical data. “If the case isn’t solved by then, I’ll really be out of my mind.”

  “I didn’t mean to upset you, Alex. I’m trying to keep Anderson happy.” The rumors had been circulating for weeks that Warmack would step down by the end of the year, and that Jed had a great shot at being picked to succeed him. “Sorry I was so casual about Isabella—I didn’t know the old guy was such a fan, and I guess I’m trying too hard to please him these days. I never should have mentioned I had met her with you.”

  “And I’ll never get out of here if we don’t get off the phone so I can finish up at my desk. Kisses.” Truce. I pursed my lips and smooched into the phone line.

  I buzzed Laura and asked her to tell the two assistants who wanted to see me to bring up their case files so we could go over their problems. She gave me all the messages she had been holding during the Goldman interview, and told me she’d be gone by the time I got underway with the next meeting.

  “Mercer Wallace called, too. No need to call him back. Just said to tell you they’re overdue for some noise from the Con Ed rapist—there’s a full moon this week so maybe the squad’ll get lucky—you’d know what he means.”

  I knew exactly what he meant. As folk literature and old wives’ tales had reported for centuries, the full moon seemed to bring out with it all forms of madness and lunacy. There’s not a cop in the city who didn’t believe that unusual happenings and strange phenomena accompanied the glorious sight of an iridescent full moon. Wallace was hoping the inexorable draw of the tide would bring out his serial rapist and lead to the demon’s capture. Thinking of Isabella’s stalker, with any luck, I hoped for twofers.

  It was almost six-thirty when I said good night to my two young colleagues and took my dress bag and mak
eup kit into the ladies’ room. The ugly taupe tile and institutional decor was even more depressing than the rest of the drab office space. I undressed, stepped into the shower stall, and washed quickly, always amused by the irony that there were no locks on the bathroom doors and that the building cleaning crews who serviced the rooms at night were all ex-cons prosecuted by my colleagues, out on work release and employed by Wildcat—the company which attempted to rehabilitate serious offenders.

  I toweled off, twisted my hair into a French braid, slipped into the slim sheath and traded my mid-heel work shoes for a spiky silk pump. There was room in my tiny Judith Leiber minaudière for my blue and gold shield—always a hit with corporate types—my beeper, a lipstick case, and a linen handkerchief, but not for much else. My Schlumberger wing earrings were the only jewelry I put on. A few spritzes of Chanel and I was ready to walk back to my office and call for a car service.

  The long corridors on the eighth floor were quiet and empty at this hour, with most of the worker bees toiling through the evening on the flights below the executive wing. I was conscious of the clicking noise my high heels made as they echoed in the hallway while I strode toward my office, thinking about the position I planned to take at the sentence hearing before Hadleigh the next morning.

  I turned the corner and continued past Laura’s desk into my office, where I stopped short in the doorway at the sight of a stranger, a man I had never seen before, standing in front of the bookcase against the far wall.

  Chapter

  14

  My heartbeat was racing as we spoke over each other’s voices. I demanded to know who he was and how he had gotten in past the security desk while he blurted out his apology for appearing unannounced and explained that his name was Richard Burrell and he needed to talk to me about Isabella Lascar.

  “I called all day Friday and several times today and was never able to get through to…”

  “Well, if you thought just breaking into the District Attorney’s Office was the answer,” I started to say as I backed out to Laura’s phone to call the lobby security guard, “you’ve made an enormous mistake.”

  “No, please, Miss Cooper. I’m—I’m Isabella’s ex-husband. I really need your help on this and I just didn’t know where else to find you or whether your calls were being taped.”

  Burrell—if he really was Richard Burrell—looked harmless enough in this setting. My mind tried to quickly filter all the stories I had heard from Iz about him, and as I had told Luther last Friday, none of them suggested violence or danger. Yet here I was alone in my office after hours in a practically deserted building with a man who was certainly on the short list of murder suspects. Not very smart.

  “How did you get in here?”

  “To be honest with you, Miss Cooper, I lied to the guard. I told him we had a dinner appointment together and he let me right up. Sorry to do that.”

  Did he realize how stupid I thought that was? Here he was coming to me for help about some aspect of this case, and the first thing he did was lie to get in to see me. At least I was on notice about his credibility.

  “May we close the door and talk?”

  “No. Absolutely not. The door stays open and you have five minutes to tell me what this is all about.”

  “Look, Miss Cooper, I’m scared, terrified. I’ve come into Manhattan voluntarily because the police want to talk to me. They obviously think I had something to do with Isabella’s death, but I swear it isn’t true. They know that I saw her in Boston the weekend before she was killed, that I wanted to reconcile with her. They think I might have killed her because she rejected me again, but that’s absurd. Iz trusted you completely—I need you to help convince the police I had nothing to do with the murder, please.”

  “Mr. Burrell, this is very inappropriate. Just because I had a relationship with Isabella doesn’t mean I can vouch for you or anyone else she knew. It’s quite the opposite. Either you tell your version to the detectives and rely on their ability to check out your story, or you get yourself the best damn defense attorney in town and get some professional advice. That’s already more help than a prosecutor should give you.”

  “But there are things the police probably don’t know yet that won’t help me, and I’m sure they’ll find out.”

  “Like your cocaine problem? They’re well aware of it.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean. I don’t have a coke problem anymore. That’s why I left Los Angeles, Miss Cooper. That’s all behind me. I’ve just completed a new screenplay and I’m ready to try to reestablish myself in the business. Being implicated in a homicide will kill every opportunity I have.”

  Not to mention what it did to every opportunity Isabella had… but he neglected to mention that.

  Now I was curious about what was a more current dilemma for Burrell. “What sort of thing are you afraid the police will misinterpret?”

  “Guns, for one thing. I’ve got guns.”

  “What for? Like pistols, for protection?”

  “No, like high-powered hunting rifles. I never had a gun when I was in Hollywood. I always had gofers to handle my drug transactions. I never carried. But I moved to Maine when I detoxed—it was easier for me to stay dry in a new environment. Now I live on one of those primitive little islands off the coast—no highways, no airports, no police department. Just beautiful vistas and lots of wild animals. The island is crawling with moose and deer and wood-chucks and skunks. I started hunting with the guys who live around me—not for sport, but when the animals got destructive or like the time a rabid woodchuck attacked my golden retriever. Anyone up there will tell you that I can draw a bead on a four-legged creature and hit it between the eyes like a trained sharpshooter.”

  I shuddered at the tone of pride in his voice as he described the strike, since it jolted me abruptly back to the neon-taped crime scene that marked Isabella’s execution.

  Chapman, Flanders, and Waldron would certainly be interested in this piece of information. Maybe Burrell would be stupid enough to give me more. Or was he playing me for the fool, so he could defuse this kind of fact by getting it on the table—through me—before his police interview later in the week.

  “Everyone involved with Isabella seems to know something about guns. That hardly makes you a prime suspect, Mr. Burrell.”

  “Miss Cooper. I’m telling you this because I’m sure Iz mentioned to you when she got to your house that she had just seen me in Boston. I realize you must be aware of what went on between us, and I need to know what you’ve told the police about it, do you understand? I don’t plan to hide anything, I’d just like to walk into that interview with an idea of how much they know about me.”

  He had made the mistaken assumption that Isabella had called me with confidences about her Boston rendezvous with Burrell when she arrived on the Vineyard. My lie of omission was simply to let him believe that, and my larger deceit was to bluff him about what I had learned in the conversation we never had. From the cast he put on the revelation, it was easy to infer that their encounter had not gone well.

  “I do know how much the weekend upset her. She was quite unhappy about it,” I baited him. “Maybe angry is a better word.”

  “You have to understand my frustration, Miss Cooper. I adored Isabella, I worshiped her from the first moment I met her. I helped create the Isabella Lascar the world fell in love with on the screen.”

  Here we go, another Pygmalion story. Another man behind the woman, responsible for her success. You’re losing me now, Burrell.

  “We were fabulous together, before anyone knew who Isabella was capable of becoming. Then I screwed it up, all my own fault. My addiction destroyed everything in my life, personally and professionally. But I’ve got it all together again, I can assure you. I’ve written a great property, something that would have been perfect for Isabella. She wanted to meet with me, to read it, to talk about it. For me, it was my foot in the door to ask her to take me back. The movie was secondary—I wanted to be her hu
sband again, I wanted her to let me love her.”

  As far as I could tell about Lascar’s love life, it would be like standing on line at a bakery the night before Thanksgiving to buy a couple of pies. Take a number.

  “Bottom line, Mr. Burrell? She told me it didn’t fly.”

  “Bottom line, as you say, Miss Cooper. I realize I’m running over the five minutes you gave me, but you see the urgency of all this, I’m sure. Isabella wanted a script but had no use for me, other than as a friendly old shoulder to lean on.”

  “So the two of you fought.”

  “I don’t think either one of us meant to, really. But she got sloppy—the combination of vodka followed by too much red wine—and all the while I was sober. And as you know, she could have a pretty cruel tongue when she was liquored up, and I didn’t have the benefit of any alcoholic anesthesia to ease her blows.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard her barbs, Mr. Burrell. They could be very painful, I’m sure. Is that why you put your hands on her? She’d always described you as such a gentle person.”

  It worked. “Iz was getting so loud, Miss Cooper. I had images of people in adjacent rooms calling the front desk and someone generating publicity about her drinking or her temper. I didn’t hit her, you know, she didn’t tell you that, did she?”

  “No, no, she didn’t.”

  “I just grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to shake her a bit. Merely to quiet her down and bring her to her senses. That only made her angrier and raised her volume a pitch or two. Her glass fell to the floor and splintered. She screamed some more insults, called me some names, went into the bathroom, and locked herself in. I waited awhile. When she refused to come out, I eventually went back to my room.