Likely to Die (38 page)

 “Whoops. Hold it there, will you?” Dogen rose to his feet and squinted as he walked closer to the screen. “You probably know this—I can see you’ve been very thorough in your work. You’re aware that her chain is missing from the bookshelf?”

 Chapman and I exchanged puzzled glances. “What chain? What are you talking about?”

 “Another of her Tower Bridge obsessions. You see this hook on the end of the metal support?” There were pairs of slender steel arms that held the lengths of bookshelves along one entire wall of Gemma’s office. Dogen was standing beside the screen pointing at the curved end of the brace that protruded directly next to the side of her large office desk.

 “This is where Gemma hung her spare set of keys. The round hook fitted over the point of the arm and that way the two essential keys she needed—her office and her home—were always ready for her to grab in case she didn’t want to carry an entire handbag around with her. You know what I mean,” Dogen said, looking over at me.

 I nodded, similarly having a spare set that I used when I jogged or walked Zac and didn’t want to deal with the bulk of a pocketbook. Police had found Gemma’s tote bag in her drawer—untouched—and from it recovered the set of keys that Mercer and I had used to enter her apartment.

 “Are you saying you’ve seen a set of keys up there from time to time when you visited?”

 “I mean, shealways kept them there, detective. It had become a joke. Not very funny now. But she called her office Traitor’s Gate, after the part of the Tower where prisoners were received to go to their deaths. It’s where they got their last look at the world on their way to the block. Ironic now but she had come to view herself as an outsider at Minuit.

 “So those were her keys to freedom, Gemma used to say. They always dangled from that spot so she could reach up and grab them and be off anytime she wanted. Go for a run, walk to her apartment, get away from the people she didn’t like. I assure you—look at any photograph of this room before Gemma’s death and you’ll see that Tower Bridge key chain hanging from this very point.” Dogen was at his most emphatic pitch now, driving his finger against the enlarged tip of the bookshelf, which wavered as the screen hit the wall behind it.

 Neither Mike nor I seemed to know what significance to attach to Geoffrey’s news. We let him calm down and finished reviewing the slides as I realized it was almost five o’clock in the afternoon. When he stepped out to use the telephone, Mike shrugged his shoulders and asked what I thought.

 “Hard to tell. I can’t imagine anyone except the cleaning staff who might actually know how recently such a key chain was in the office. But I guess we better put it on the list to ask everyone when we go at it again next week.”

 “Yeah, but what’s the point? Nobody broke into her office just to steal the key to that very same office, right? That’s kind of stupid. And it didn’t appear that anything had been taken from her apartment, either.”

 “Maybe the killer kept it as a trophy or something,”

 “I’m telling you to lighten up on those murder mysteries, Coop. You’re reading too many of these serial killer things and buying into all that FBI bullshit. Are we done with Dogen, d’you think?” He opened the door to look for the doctor.

 Creavey, Chapman, and I walked Geoffrey Dogen out to the car park in front of the Great Hall. “Did you and Gemma ever talk about her social life, the men she dated?”

 “No, no. Not the kind of thing she’d bring up with me.”

 “I assume you’ve heard the name William Dietrich, I mean, because of his position at Minuit.”

 “Know him for two reasons, actually.” Dogen frowned. “I knew about his professional tiffs with Gemma and I’d heard bits and bobs about their relationship from other colleagues who disapproved. Something about his financial problems and a motor car that he wanted desperately. Gemma was always a soft touch for a friend who needed money. Material things meant very little to her. The girl came from nothing, made a lot of money, and was happy to give it away. Don’t know any more than that but I must say I wasn’t inclined to like this Dietrich fellow.”

 We were struggling to make small talk by this time and Mike asked the doctor what Gemma had done for amusement or fun.

 “Fun?” Dogen responded as though the word needed interpretation for him. “Not exactly the first thing that comes to mind about her. I mean, she enjoyed her friends, and she liked a good movie or a great read, but Gemma was quite intense about all her pursuits.”

 “Well, did she ever talk about American baseball or similar events that she went to for diversion? Mets, Yankees, Knicks—?”

 “Never heard her say the word baseball. Can’t imagine she went to any games of that sort. She hated team sports.”

 Mike’s questions reminded me of the folder I had seen in her apartment when Mercer and I had visited there more than a week ago with the file tab labeledMET GAMES.

 Dogen rambled on. “Gemma loved nature. Put her in a canoe or climbing a mountain or running for miles at a clip and she was content, but I’ve never known her to be interested in any kind of team activity, really. And your American baseball? Much too slow a game for her to sit through. No patience for that kind of nonsense at all.”

 I’d have to make a note to check out the file folder and see what it had contained. Or decide whether this meeting had been a complete waste of time because Geoffrey Dogen simply didn’t know his ex all that well after the many years of separation.

 *   *   *

 Mike and I entered the reception area, having said good-bye to Dogen and the Commander. A bellman handed me the piece of paper and told me its message. I was to call Mr. Mercer back at Sarah Brenner’s office. Good news, the note read, and bad news.

 Mike followed me up the stairs to our room. I dropped the case folder on the desk and asked the operator to place the call to my office.

 Sarah’s secretary answered and put me through. “I’ll give you the good news first. They’ve had a break in the stabbing of the doctor at Columbia-Presbyterian. A snitch led them to a suspect last night and the squad’s got someone in custody right now. Tell Mike he was right. The guy saw the M.D. plates and flattened the tire himself, figuring he could at least steal drugs or a prescription pad from the victim. Then the doctor turned out to be a woman, so he tried to rape her, too. But this perp’s an uptown guy. Nothing at all to link him to Mid-Manhattan. Unfortunately, his victim is still likely to go out of the picture.

 “And Maureen gets a message to me, via the Commissioner, once a day. Everything’s fine, so try and take it easy ‘til you get back home. Here’s Mercer with the bad news.”

 I could hear him humming in the background, doing the intro like he was one of the Platters, before his deep bass voice broke into song as he took the receiver from Sarah. “Oh—oh, yes, he’s the great pre-e-tender—”

 “Dammit. Will the real John DuPre stand up, please? What’s the story, Mercer?”

 “Keep in mind the Tulane Medical School offices didn’t open until ten o’clock—that’s not much more than an hour ago. Just got a call back from them. The only John DuPre who holds a diploma from their distinguished institution graduated with honors in, let me see, the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and thirty-three. Nineteen thirty-three—that’s a wee bit before our boy was born, I would say. And I have to agree that my money’s with you on the idea that no self-respecting brother is walking around with the name Jefferson Davis anywhere in his pedigree.

 “Now, when are you bringing m’man home to me?”

 “We’re done. We’re on that noon flight tomorrow.”

 “I’ll be picking you up at Kennedy so we can compare notes then. Right now Sarah’s typing me up a search warrant for DuPre’s office.

 “I’m not gonna call over there first ‘cause I don’t want to alert any of his staff. But I’ll just show up and go back in to the receptionist saying I’ve got some more questions I forgot to ask about Gemma Dogen. Meanwhile, Sarah’s looking at the statutes on practicing medicine without a license. The warrant should cover all those diplomas on his wall, some of the patient records, and his appointment book. I’m thinking maybe we’ll catch a break and find something that connects him to the deadly candy or the attempt on Mo the other night.”

 “Fingers crossed. Keep us posted.”

 “Let me talk to Chapman. Can’t wait to tell him how much I miss him.”

 25

 WHILE MIKE SHOWERED AND DRESSED FORthe Cliveden Conference Banquet, I wrapped myself in the crested robe, stretched the telephone line over to my bed, put my feet up, and placed a call to Washington to try to find Joan Stafford. I gave the operator Jim Hageville’s number and was incredulous when it finally connected and I heard my friend’s voice.

 “I hate to get melodramatic but where have you been in my hour of need?”

 “I tried to call you back as soon as I got your message. Drew’s been phoning you over there, too, but—”

 “I doubt he’ll ever try again. Mike answered the last time he called and he probably thinks I’m holed up with another man. Joanie, you have to help me with this one. Can you remember exactly when it was that Drew told you that he wanted to meet me?”

 “Why are you mixing him up in this woman’s murder case, Alex? You’re just overreacting. You’ve got to get over what you went through with Jed and his kind of—”

 “One has nothing to do with the other. It’s a bit freaky that Drew tells you he wants to meet me and a week later I find out that the doctor whose murder I’m working on was the surgeon holding the knife when Carla Renaud went out of the picture. How did the whole thing start? That’s what I want to know.”

 There were a few seconds of silence as Joan stretched for an answer. I was thinking like an interrogator now rather than a friend and it hurt my case not to be able to eyeball her and gauge her demeanor as she tried to answer me.

 “Joanie?”

 “I’m not stalling. I’m looking in my date book. Remember the AIDS benefit at the Temple of Dendur in early March? Jim and I were just leaving when you arrived—you were standing right in front of that sarcophagus with the twenty-five-hundred-year-old mummy on loan from the British Museum—”

 “Which one of us looked better?”

 “Personally,I voted for the mummy, but that’s when Drew told Jim he knew who you were and wanted a chance to be introduced. We were on our way out so I told him to give us a call with some dates and I’d put it together at a dinner party.”

 “And when did he call you? Got that in your little black book, too?”

 A longer pause.

 “He didn’t call you until after he saw the newspaper articles about my assignment to Gemma Dogen’s case? Right? Like a day or two before the dinner party that you’d already set up. And you just added an extra chair.”

 “What’s the big deal? I mean, I certainly didn’t know anything about this, Alex. But I can’t blame the man for being curious about the doctor who had such a profound effect on his personal life. I’ve talked to him plenty since then and he’s really crazy about you.”

 “Well, it’s extremely weird to be in the middle of a love triangle with a guy who’s probably trying to channel messages to his late wife through the prosecutor who’s handling the murder of the woman—”

 “Cut it out. I’ve got to go, the baby’s crying and—”

 “You don’t have a baby.”

 “Well, it works for Nina whenever you’re makingher crazy with your phone calls. Maybe I’ll borrow one ‘til you pass through this phase.”

 “I’m sorry.”

 “Look, you’ve only dated the guy a couple of times. Jim’s known him forever. Get through with this case and give Drew a chance.”

 I was lying down on my side now, with my head propped up on one elbow, holding the phone to my right ear. We made small talk for a couple of minutes before I wormed my way back to the purpose of my call. “Mike thinks this is a bit far out, but do you—well, does Jim think that Drew harbored enough of a grudge against Dr. Dogen that he might have—I don’t mean that he did anything violent himself, but that he would have hired someone to—”

 Joan was shouting at me across the Atlantic. “Do you remember what you used to tell me you did your first year in the D.A.‘s Office, when you were assigned to that bureau where all the nuts called in with their complaints? Whenever you got stuck on the phone with a pain in the neck who wouldn’t let you go, you used to reach a point where you’d say, ’Madam, I think we’re about to be disconnected.‘ Keep talking like this, Miss Cooper, and you will be permanently disconnected.”

 I could hear Joan take a deep breath.

 “Listen to Mike,” she said. “He’s got wonderful instincts about this kind of thing. I’ll be back up in New York on Tuesday, then you and I can get together for a quiet dinner. Call me here on Sunday after you’ve unpacked and settled in.”

 Mike had shaved and showered during my call and emerged from the bathroom dressed in a dark blue suit. He was almost ready to go downstairs for the cocktail hour as he finished knotting and straightening his tie.

 My conversation with Joan had put things in perspective and cheered me up as my exchanges with her usually did. There was no reason to write Drew off altogether, especially since I wouldn’t have much time for socializing as the pace of our investigation picked up. I might as well enjoy my free hours now and figure out how I felt about him when this case was behind me.

 “Is my little wallflower going to stay in her room again this evening or are we going to have the pleasure of your company?”

 “Give me half an hour. I’ll clean up and be downstairs—”

 “That’s what you told me yesterday.”

 I waved him out of the suite and went in to shower and wash my hair. My cocktail dress was a simple black silk with a short pleated skirt that swung when I moved. My mood was lighter than it had been in days as I stepped into my evening spikes and gave the skirt another shimmy.

 It was after seven when I walked down the staircase to the Great Hall. I could see Chapman’s thick dark hair amid the thinning pates of the older academics and made my way across the room to join him. Along the route I asked one of the servers for a Dewar’s on the rocks and was told that the only Scotches the bar stocked were single malts. He would bring me a Glenrothes.