Free The Deadhouse by Linda Fairstein Page A

calm and
dignified manner of the detective, which had made him such an
outstanding member of the Special Victims Unit, the police department's
companion unit to my bureau. Lola had called him often when she was
indecisive or frightened, and he had talked her through some of the
toughest moments of her ordeal with Ivan. I could tell how it pained
him that, in the end, nothing he could do had saved her.
    "Time to bundle up and boogie." Mike was on his feet, taking our
coats out of the closet and getting ready to leave. "Who gets the first
dance, Chief Allee or Inspector Cutter?"
    "What are you doing tomorrow night, Alex?" Mercer asked.
    "No plans. I had been thinking about going to DC. to meet Jake, just
for Saturday night, until Mike got that preliminary report from the ME
this morning telling him this was probably going to be declared a
homicide. I called Lola's sister, Lily, right after I got the news, to
see whether we could go out to her house to talk with her. It's not a
very smart time for me to leave town."
    "Come out to my place for dinner. Mike'll drive you. I'm having some
friends over to do my tree. Seven o'clock."
    "Sounds good."
    "Still nice to get a crack at Miss Lonelyhearts when her own
personal talking head is out of town, isn't it, Mercer? Just like old
times."
    I rode with Mike and Mercer to the Seventh Regimental Armory, an
enormous fortress on Park Avenue, built in 1879, which took up an
entire city block. The interior was a throwback to another era, its
vast halls—designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany—lined with plaques
honoring war dead from the last century, and its rooms decorated with
moose heads and other dusty antlered animals whose glass eyes stared
down at the festivities. The original function of its drill hall had
given way to use as rental space for endless rounds of weekend antiques
shows and the occasional rubber-chicken dinner meetings of
organizations too penny-wise to engage private salons at real
restaurants.
    As we entered the fourth-floor room in which the squad party was
being held, we were swamped by detectives and cops who had not seen
Mercer since the shooting. I stepped back and walked over to greet the
chief of detectives before I made the rest of the rounds.
    "Heard you and Chapman were up at King's College this afternoon. Any
headway?"
    "They're beginning to see the light."
    We talked for several minutes until I felt my beeper vibrating on my
waistband. There was a phone booth on the main floor and I excused
myself to go downstairs to return the call. I recognized the number
displayed as the main line from ECAB—the Early Case Assessment
Bureau—which was the intake unit through which every arrest in
Manhattan entered our office. The expediter answered.
    "Hey, it's Alex Cooper. Any idea who beeped me?"
    "Ryan Blackmer's looking for you, Alex. Hold on a minute."
    "Sorry to bother you, but I figured you'd want a heads-up," Ryan
said. He was one of the brightest and best lawyers in the division, and
had drawn the Friday night supervising position in ECAB. "Uniformed
guys in the Sixth Precinct just collared a mope for sex abuse tonight."
    "You got the facts yet?"
    "The complaining witness was walking home from a friend's house,
right along Washington Square Park—on the north side near the Arch—when
this clown grabbed her from behind and started to rub against her,
trying to drag her into the park. She was able to break away and get
home. Called nine-one-one from her apartment. Cops drove her around for
almost an hour and she ID'ed him a few blocks from the square."
    "Make any statements?"
    "Yeah, claims he's gay. Not guilty."
    "Anything I can do to be useful?"
    "No. Just didn't want you to read about it in the morning papers.
The victim's a graduate student at NYU. It's probably not related to
what you're working on, but I thought you ought to know about it. Seems
like it's open season on college campuses this week."
    I hung up and took the elevator back to the fourth floor.