Alex Cooper 01 - Final Jeopardy

by Linda Fairstein

  “You knew Isabella, you knew her far better than I did. She was relentless. She, she—”

  “Don’t make me vomit with this stuff. What was it, another stalker, Jed? Did she harass you?”

  “You introduced me to her, you were there when—”

  “I introduced you to a lot of people. Does that mean you had to play ‘hide the salami’ with all of them?”

  “Don’t talk like your cop friends, Alex. It really isn’t very becoming. You sound crass and vulgar.”

  “Yeah, but it’s a hell of a lot more direct than the crap you’re trying to peddle.”

  “You encouraged me to help her with her financial problems. ‘Call her,’ you said, ‘do what you can to help her.’ ”

  “You helped her all right. You apparently helped her into a shiny white coffin.”

  “Stop that, Alex, that’s a goddamn outrage, that kind of accusation. She begged me to come to the Vineyard, claimed she was desperate.”

  “Tell it to the cops, Mr. Segal. Does your lawyer know you’re about to incriminate yourself?”

  “I’m not interested in the cops or my lawyer. I’m here to plead for your forgiveness. I never intended to get involved with her sexually—”

  “Don’t say the next line, Jed, leave me some piece of you I can still believe in. Luigi, I think he’s about to tell me she raped him. Spare me this garbage, really. Did Isabella ‘make’ you get in bed with her, Jed—did she really force you to make love to her? Please.”

  Jed pounded his hand up against the roof of the car in disgust. “It’s always wisecracks with you, Alex. You won’t even give me a chance to tell you what was going on, to tell you how I feel about you. Why do you think I’m here, why do you think I’m pursuing you like this?”

  “You want to know what I really think? I think you’re here because you’re in a shitload of trouble, and if you align yourself with me, you’re hoping I can convince Chapman that you’re not a killer. You have lain in my arms and lied to me, Jed. You have made love to me after making love to Isabella in my very own bed…”

  “That wasn’t making love, with Isabella, that was—”

  “Oh, forgive me, Jed. You made love to me after you screwed Isabella or f—”

  “Alex, give me a chance to make it up to you.”

  “I can’t help you, Jed. I don’t want to help you and I won’t help you. I don’t know whether you killed Isabella or not, but you sure as hell killed something inside of me. No life support, no resuscitation—it’s dead, and I don’t want to bring it back to life. Luigi, I’ll get out at the light. No more calls, Jed, no more messages. Nothing.”

  I was a block away from the restaurant when I got out of the car and slammed the door behind me. I stopped at the drugstore for a bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol. While I ripped off the plastic seal around the lid and pulled the cotton wad out of the top of the container, I could hear the radio playing from the shelf behind the counterman. The raspy-voiced David Ruffin was leading The Temps through the classic “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” pleading for his sweet darlin’ not to leave him. I swallowed hard and forced the three capsules down my dry throat, hoping they’d have some effect on my throbbing headache.

  “Com’e stai, Signorina Cooper?” Giuliano greeted me as I entered the door at Primola and scanned the crowd at the bar for Joan Stafford.

  “Fine, Giuliano, everything’s fine. Is my friend here yet?”

  “Of course, she’s at the table. Follow me, please.”

  As he led me to the corner, Joan saw me coming and stood to embrace me. “No wonder he climbed into bed with a screen goddess. Maybe it takes a good friend to tell you how awful you look.”

  “Thanks a million, Joanie. You sound like Mike Chapman. I’m beginning to get a complex.”

  “How about a mental health day? Take tomorrow off and we’ll go to Elizabeth Arden or Georgette Klinger—my treat. Facial, massage, pedicure, manicure—just a girls’ day out. It’ll make you feel good.”

  “Maybe this weekend. Battaglia’s going to be on me like a hawk. I have to show him I can do the work.”

  “Listen, Jed called me three times this afternoon. I think he was driving around town looking for you—I didn’t know what to tell him.”

  “He found me. Not at the office, but coming out of my ballet class.”

  The captain brought over our drinks. “The usual, right?”

  “Right. Joan, he’s going to keep calling you, I’m sure. He wants to see me again, explain things, start over. Forget it. I don’t need the aggravation. And furthermore, you can’t believe a word that he tells you. Yeah, he tried to call the office a few times, but never told Laura he was waiting right outside for me. Tells you he’s left messages on my home machine—not even my mother called today. He’s a liar. He’s scared and you can’t trust a thing he says, so don’t waste your time.”

  I motioned for the waiter to come over. “I’m starving. Know what you want?” Joan nodded. I ordered the tricolor salad and penne arrabiata, while she chose minestrone soup and a dish of linguine with white clam sauce.

  “Basically, Joan, you have to be my Chinese wall. I don’t want any information filtered through you from Jed. I’m not interested in his excuses or explanations. I know he’ll try to use you, because he’s manipulative and he knows where to find you. Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it, understood?”

  “Yes, Madam Prosecutor.”

  “I’m hoping that if I don’t give him an ear, he will be forced to talk to the police. I’m in no position to listen to his story, and right now he won’t cooperate with Chapman. So I don’t know if he was on the island when Isabella was shot, and I don’t know if he had anything at all to do with her death. But if he’s got such an urge to unburden his soul, let him do it at the squad, not to you or me.”

  By the time our appetizers came, I had convinced Joan that I needed to talk about something else. We coasted through dinner as she caught me up on world news, a review of the latest Stoppard play that had just opened last week, and a description of what she planned to wear to the Literary Lions dinner, where she’d be feted for her recent Edgar nomination. Two double decaf espressos, a check, and we hailed a cab so she could drop me at my building while she went on to her apartment farther uptown.

  “Envelope for you, Miss Cooper.” Victor handed me the large manila packet that Chapman had dropped off as I passed through the revolving door. On the outside he had scribbled, below my name, “Tonight’s Final Jeopardy answer is Giuseppe di Lampedusa.”

  I got on the elevator mumbling to myself, as I fumbled with the envelope’s metal clasp, “And the question is, who wrote The Leopard?” I ought to give that book to Mike sometime, I thought to myself, knowing he would love the fictional version of Italian history, portrayed through the story of the demise of an old aristocratic family. Inside, attached to the police reports, was a big yellow Post-it on which Mike had written: “I didn’t bet you on this one. Figured you’d know it. I thought it was a sexually transmitted disease. Leaf through these and I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  No light was flashing on the answering machine. Either my friends assumed that life was back to normal and had stopped worrying about me, or they had all reverted to the usual “she’s tough, she can handle it” mode. Whichever way it was sort of a relief, so I kicked off my shoes and put on a warm-up suit, then climbed on the bed to sort through the day’s mail and read the correspondence that had been found in Isabella’s home after her death.

  LAPD Homicide Squad Report. Det. Reynoldo Lo-perra. Attached are pieces of stationery found on desk of deceased after search at request of Chilmark, Mass. Sheriff’s Office.

  My dearest Isabella,

  I will first address your most serious concern regarding your forthcoming trip to Martha’s Vineyard. Perhaps you are surprised that I know so much about your plans, but I must comment that you have been unusually careless in dropping broad hints that have come to my attention, and as you may realize by no
w, I am almost psychic in this regard. Should you have any doubts about that, perhaps our mutual friend can put your mind at rest.

  There would be something sadistic about your mendacity and duplicity, cara Isabella, if it all wasn’t so very mindless, and my concern about whether you would be a good candidate for psychoanalysis is because I fear it would reinforce a pernicious lasciviousness in you, which is quite inappropriate for a woman of your notoriety.

  I know you have a strong ego, but I worry also that when you learn that you are not the only one who is capable of prevarication—that is, when you find that the woman he really loves is not your equal—not in physical beauty, not social status or material wealth, not even in professional recognition in her chosen field—the disappointment may be more miserable than the momentary pleasures of the flesh justify.

  I am an ocean away and more than twice your age. I am confident, then, that you will not feel threatened if I tell you that my feelings for him are just as deep as yours, and so it is with profound respect for both of you that I caution you against the adventure you are undertaking so blithely.

  Perhaps you will come to your senses—and send him on a plane to come and have some scones and a glass of burgundy with me. Better to love wisely than too well, and so on.

  Best ever,

  Cordelia Jeffers

  Fellow, Royal Academy of Medicine

  Maybe it was just the late hour but the letter made absolutely no sense to me at all. There were two or three others and I tried to skim through them to see if they were any more comprehensible. Was Isabella actually going back and forth to London to see a psychiatrist? There weren’t any copies of envelopes attached to the reports, so there were no postmarks to check for the mailing origin. The writing was sophomoric and pretentious, and I found it hard to believe that it could be the jargon or the wisdom of a prominent therapist. Was I the “other woman” referred to in the letter? No match for Isabella Lascar, it’s true—not her beauty, wealth, or fame, but certainly some recognition in my field. Was the mutual friend, in fact, Jed? More and more puzzles presented themselves instead of solutions, and I couldn’t decide if someone had actually had the premonition that Isabella would be in danger if she kept her rendezvous with Jed.

  I looked at my watch and saw that it wasn’t yet eleven o’clock. I dialed David Mitchell’s number and was about to give up after five rings when he answered the phone. “David, did I awaken you?”

  “No, no. Alex?” He sounded reserved and rather cool. “Anything wrong?”

  “No. But I’ve got some letters here—letters that someone sent to Isabella, maybe a psychiatrist, and I was wondering if you could take a look at them for me.”

  He hesitated before responding. “Sure. Do you think it can wait until morning?”

  “Oh, David, I’m sorry. I didn’t even ask—are you in the middle of something?”

  “Well, not exactly the middle, but I do have company and…”

  “No problem. Let’s make a date for tomorrow. That’s fine.” Just because I’m Miss Lonelyhearts doesn’t mean the rest of the world has to stop for me.

  “Come on in for coffee at seven-thirty tomorrow morning. Bring the letters. I’m running at six-thirty, then a quick walk for Zac and I can give you as much time as you need.”

  “And your company? This is kind of confidential. I think I’d rather wait and see you alone.”

  “Gone with the first light of day, Alex. See you in the morning, okay?”

  “Thanks.” I undressed, got into bed, and was asleep before I could even think about what the next day was going to bring.

  Chapter

  20

  The doorman rang my intercom shortly before seven-thirty on Wednesday morning to tell me that Dr. Mitchell was on his way upstairs and would like me to meet him in his apartment in five minutes. I had been up for almost an hour, getting ready to go to work and browsing through the Times for what seemed like the first day in more than a week. It helped greatly to put my personal situation in perspective to read that there had been yet another Ebola virus outbreak in Central Africa, a new Serbian uprising in a part of the Balkans I’d never heard of, and a recent discovery of mass graves containing hundreds of unidentified bodies in Guatemala. Humphrey Bogart was right: my problems don’t amount to a hill of beans in a world as full of trouble as this one.

  David was just unleashing Prozac after their walk when I opened the door to his apartment. The dog greeted me warmly and we played tug-of-war with her chewed-up rawhide toy while David went into the kitchen to get the pot of coffee he had set up before going out to run. She nosed her way into my hand and invited me to rub behind her soft ears, and I was grateful for her early morning display of affection.

  We sat at David’s dining room table and I spread out some of the papers for him to see. I began by summarizing the events of the week and trying to give him an objective overview of the cast of characters that was developing. As David studied the letters of Dr. Cordelia Jeffers, I glanced around the apartment, amused at the contrast in our decors. Mine was as utterly feminine as his was masculine, with every surface here bathed in brown, except those that were beige or tan. He had been a bachelor for too long and I instinctively began redecorating in my mind’s eye as I waited for some kind of response to Isabella’s bizarre correspondence.

  “I suppose the police have checked this woman’s credentials with the Brits.”

  “I haven’t heard any results on that yet.”

  “I did some work with the president of the Academy when I was at Ditchley last year. I can call him today and try to get some information, but from the looks of these letters, I’d guess she’s a fraud. This just seems like a lot of gibberish to me. Dr. Jeffers may be a bit senile and dotty, or else she’s taken on the traits of one of her patients. She sounds more like someone in need of treatment than a physician. Can I hold on to these letters?”

  I shouldn’t even be showing them to anyone, I reminded myself. “They’re my only copy, David. I’ll Xerox them at the office and get a set to you tonight,” after I tell Chapman to get the lieutenant’s permission to consult a shrink. “But it would be great if you make the call to find out where this woman is and what kind of practice she has. Then we can interview her about Isabella.”

  “I’ll do that as soon as I get to the office, before they close shop in London for the evening. We’ll talk tonight?”

  “Yeah. Why don’t you call me. I can promise you won’t be interrupting anything.”

  I hailed a Yellow Cab on the corner of Third Avenue and directed the driver to take me to the Criminal Court Building by way of the FDR Drive.

  “Know where the courthouse is?”

  “Yeah.”

  Always a bad sign, it usually meant that the driver had a criminal record.

  “You a lawyer?” he asked, looking me over through the rearview mirror.

  Most cabbies asked that question when they picked me up or dropped me off in front of the building, hoping for free advice about their immigration status, moving violations, or arrests for assault.

  “No. I’m going to court to testify. I was raped.” A surefire way to end the conversation and allow me to finish perusing the paper the rest of the way downtown, as the driver took another peek in the mirror to see what one of those looked like.

  I was later than usual, so the elevators and hallways were bustling with prosecutors and witnesses. A heavyset uniformed cop, pushing retirement age, stepped out of my way as I turned into the eighth-floor corridor. “Hey, Miss Cooper. How ya doin’? Remember me? I had that rape case with you in ’92.”

  “Nice to see you. Sure.” I had only talked to a thousand or more cops about a thousand or more rape cases since then. Give me a hint.

  Laura was at her desk when I walked in. “You don’t want to know who’s been calling, I guess.”

  “Not if it’s more of the same from Jed.”

  “Okay. There were a few others. Mercer just called. Said he was going
out in the field and he’d try you again when he got back. They had a 911 call, something to do with the Con Ed rapist. Not a new case, just a possible suspect. Sarah needs to speak to you—she’s got a question about a search warrant. And Elaine called from Escada. The suit you ordered came in. Can you get to the store to try it on?”

  “Just ship it. I’ll never get there.”

  I started working on my third cup of coffee, called Sarah and several of the other assistants who had E-mailed for help, then spent some time responding to some of the mail that had accumulated on my desk. When I finished, I told Laura I’d be upstairs watching one of the newer members of the unit deliver his first summation. I took a legal pad and went to the trial part on the fifteenth floor, where I sat in the rear of the room to make notes for the critique I would do after the verdict came in on the case.

  For the better part of an hour I listened to the defense attorney drone on about his version of the facts of the case. It was a date rape and therefore—automatically—a difficult trial. Sarah and I had prepared our newest recruit, Mark Acciano, for the problems he would have to confront before the jury. Most people considered this kind of case far less serious than stranger rapes, and trying to educate jurors during the course of the trial—if the ones with that attitude had not been identified and dismissed during the jury selection process—was next to impossible.

  Unlike cases in which victims were attacked by armed assailants they had never seen before, the typical date rape involved two people who were together because they liked each other, and wanted to be in each other’s company. Many psychologists called them “confidence rapes,” because they occurred when a woman placed her trust in someone she felt she would be secure with, who then betrayed that reliance. While jurors tend to empathize with women who are raped by strangers, they are much tougher in these date cases, in which defense attorneys try to blame the victims for their participation in the events leading up to the sexual acts. The typical strategy is to attack the victim for every aspect of her lifestyle, from her manner of dress to her alcohol or drug use to her initial attraction to the defendant that must have meant that she “asked for it.” They were ugly cases to try.