“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 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 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 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 m—”
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 before 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 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 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 Woolworth’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 led 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.”
Chapter
16
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 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.
Sleep was impossible. I sat up and turned on the light, got out of bed, and slipped into the least sexy, snuggest bathrobe I owned. I had instantly reverted into that end-of-relationship funk in which I knew I would never need sexy robes or underwear for the rest of my life. Never would I expose myself again—in my most fetching lingerie—to any other untrustworthy man who crossed my path. I traipsed from room to room, illuminating all of them as I looked for some diversion to keep me occupied until, as I hoped, drowsiness would overcome me.
I went into the kitchen and made myself a cup of hot chocolate. The October evening was much too mild for that, but I remembered some vague childhood thing about my mother and warm milk as a soporific, so I figured I’d give it a try. On to the dining room table to do the Monday Times crossword, but it was so ridiculously simple that I knocked it off in less than fifteen minutes. It was a bad reminder that the week still had four days to go.
Finally, I moved through the living room and perched in the den, where my television and stereo were set up. I reclined in an armchair with my feet on the ottoman and turned on the tube to see what old black-and-white rerun might lull me into a little nap. It was the first stroke of luck I’d had in days, even though that meant I wouldn’t close my eyes for a minute. One of the cable channels was playing Notorious, which is my favorite movie ever made. It had started at two-thirty so I had missed the first few scenes, but I could practically recite the lines from memory for all the times I had seen it.
There was the splendidly youthful Ingrid Bergman and th
e dashing Cary Grant. They were already in Rio and she had agreed to the perilous plan to seduce the evil Claude Rains, and ultimately to move into the palatial home he shared with his monstrous mother. Ingrid and Gary were daring to have her debriefings in the most public of places, the park in the middle of the city where they pretended to meet—by chance—on horseback.
I lost myself in the Hitchcockian brilliance of the double-crossings and treacherous dealings, the principled spies and the demonic Nazis. I marveled at Ingrid’s willingness to accept Cary’s dare and actually marry the enemy, though she ached for Cary to love her. I tensed as I always did at the champagne reception and the riveting scene in the wine cellar with the missing key and the broken bottle. And as the very large, bright moon outside my window threatened to disappear into daylight, I wanted to be saved just as the deceived Ingrid had been: by Cary, sweeping me into his arms and down the grand staircase and out of all danger. Just what I needed—an escape from my troubles into a cinema life of intrigue and romance and lovers not knowing whether they could trust each other. Worked like a tonic.
Now I was wired. It was almost 5 A.M. and I clicked the dial past an endless array of gadgets like Veg-O-Matics and Ginsu knives and tummy-slimmers. Nothing engaged me on any channel and I was resigning myself to the fact that this was going to be an all-nighter—I was much too edgy to sleep.
I leafed through the current New Yorker, hoping for a long piece on the most current Washington scandal, but finding instead a dull treatise on ozone levels in the Brazilian rain forest.
The buzz of the intercom in my kitchen, connected to the phone of the building’s doormen in the lobby, nearly lifted me out of my chair when it shattered my quiet daze a few minutes later. It would be Jed. Should I let him in when I was alone? The ringing kept up interminably, but I held my resolve not to pick up the phone and acknowledge his presence. I was annoyed that the doormen had ignored my instruction not to admit him if he showed up, and assumed he had greased their ever-open palms with some large bills.
Alex Cooper 01 - Final Jeopardy Page 18