Entombed (6 page)

Adolfo poured the wine
for us and went off to place the order. I told Mike about the new case
with my old sick stocking nemesis and explained how Mercer and I had
convinced Battaglia to let us go ahead with our idea to indict his
genetic profile to allow us to connect the newest cases to the older
ones.

The soup arrived and I
began to eat while Mike chewed on bread sticks. "Tell me how Val is," I
said. "I thought she looked fantastic last week."

Mike had fallen in
love with an architect he met almost two years ago, while she was
recovering from surgery for breast cancer. It was the first serious
relationship he had been involved in since we started working together
ten years earlier.

"Yeah, she's in great
shape. That was my best Christmas present, after the scare we had last
fall. She got a clean bill of health in December."

Mike Chapman had just
celebrated his thirty-seventh birthday a few months back, half a year
before I would. We came from vastly different backgrounds and had grown
to be great friends. There were no two people I would rather have
covering my back than Mike and Mercer, and I delighted in the happiness
that had so radically changed both their lives recently.

Michael Patrick
Chapman was the adored son of a legendary cop who, as a
second-generation immigrant, had returned to Ireland and married a girl
from the family home in Cork. Their three daughters and Mike were
raised in Yorkville, and Brian was fiercely proud that Mike chose to be
the first in the Chapman line to attend college. While in his third
year at Fordham, where he immersed himself in military history when he
wasn't waiting tables to supplement his student loans, Mike's father
suffered a fatal coronary the day after he retired and surrendered his
gun and shield. Mike graduated the next year, but enrolled in the
Police Academy immediately, determined to follow in the giant footsteps
of the man he most admired.

"Val looked like a
natural with Logan in her arms," I said. We had all been together for
dinner at Mercer's house in Queens. He and his wife, Vickee, were the
parents of a little boy, born last year and named Logan.

At forty-three, Mercer
had a new stability in his life, with his remarriage to Vickee and with
fatherhood, a role he took so seriously. There were not many
first-grade detectives in the NYPD, and Mercer was one of the few
African-Americans to hold that distinction. He had once been assigned
to homicide with Mike, but preferred-as I did-the opportunity to work
with victims, whose recovery from their trauma could be aided by the
relationship with a compassionate investigator.

"Six months ago I
probably would have snapped at you for going in that direction. Now I'm
starting to think it wouldn't be so bad. A kid is all Val wants," Mike
said.

I smiled at him.
"Think of all the broken hearts there'll be when she takes you off the
market. Officially, I mean."

"Yeah, well, I'm
trying to buy up every deck of Old Maid in the toy stores around town.
You're wearing that logo like it's embedded in your forehead. You don't
even look upset about it."

"I actually feel kind
of relieved," I said, as Adolfo replaced the empty soup bowl with our
entrées. My relationship with television newsman Jake Tyler had
ended abruptly last October, after a long period during which I could
feel our emotions unraveling and tangling both of us in their debris.

"First-class jerk if
you ask me. Shit, I would have married you just for the house on the
Vineyard."

"You still can," I
said, reaching to refill my wineglass.

"Too much angst, Coop.
You and me? You'd probably cut off my balls the first time I rolled
over in bed and closed my eyes. It's bad enough you're always telling
me what to do on the job. Think what would happen the first time you
tried that between the sheets. Talk about murder."

I had grown up in a
loving family, too, but came to public service from a completely
different direction. My two older brothers and I were young kids when
my father, Benjamin Cooper, revolutionized the field of cardiology with
an invention that he and his partner created for use in surgical
procedures. The small piece of plastic tubing known as the
Cooper-Hoffman valve remained an essential component in every operation
done in this country for the fifteen years thereafter.

The trust fund that my
father established for each of us was a cushion while he encouraged us
to find ways to give back to society by working in the public sector.
My schooling in Westchester was followed by a degree from Wellesley
College, and then law school at the University of Virginia. It was in
Charlottesville that I fell in love with Adam Nyman, the young
physician who was killed in an automobile accident as he drove to the
Vineyard to be married at the beautiful old farmhouse we had bought
together.

"It's odd sometimes.
So many of my pals saw that it wasn't going to work with Jake before I
did."

Nina Baum, my college
roommate and closest friend, had been the first to tell me to step
back. There had been a point early on when I was certain enough of my
love for Jake that I had moved into his apartment so we could try
living together.

"Hard to miss the
clues, kid. He just wasn't there when you needed him."

"Or when you thought I
needed him."

Mike was devouring the
chop while I pushed the risotto around my plate. "Eat up before I start
on your meal," he said, pointing his fork at my food. "Mercer and I
have it all figured out. What you need is a nice brainiac kind of guy
who has a solid nine-to-five job, with no emergencies, no summit
meetings in Asia to cover."

Jake had been a
reporter for network news. He spent more time on airplanes than I did
at crime scenes. "It's not just the travel-"

"Whoa, I'm not done.
He's got to have a lot of self-confidence and-"

"I can wait till you
stop eating."

"See what I mean? What
you really wanted to say right now was to tell me not to talk until I'm
finished chewing, right? You just can't help yourself, can you? Most
important, this guy should be mute."

"'Cause you think I
don't let him get to say what he wants?"

"No, 'cause I think
the urge to tell you to shut up would be powerful."

"What to know
something interesting?" I asked.

"Don't change the
subject. You don't think that's going to stop me from starting a search
committee to find a mate for you? Otherwise you'll take out all your
frustration on Mercer and me."

"I'm not the least bit
frustrated at the moment. I've just been thinking about this. Tonight
was the second time I've actually been in a room that Edgar Allan Poe
lived in."

"Body or no body?"

"Guess we have to go
back and check under the floorboards. He spent a year at the University
of Virginia, 1826. I think it was only the second year Jefferson's
school had been open. Poe lived on the west range of the Lawn. The
room's been restored to look like it did when he was there: fireplace,
small bed, chair, and desk. Number thirteen."

"Superstitious?
Wouldn't have worked for me to live there."

Giuliano came over to
the table and pulled out a chair to sit with us. "I was just in my
office, watching the late news. So this guy, this Silk Stocking guy.
This is your case, Alexandra?"

"Yes, he is. Again."

"I know you're going
to think this is crazy, but I swear to you: that sketch they just
showed on television? That man was in here a couple nights ago. He was
right over there at the bar, drinking with a group of guys for an hour
or two. I swear it was your rapist."

7

"That's just a sketch
they showed on the news, Giuliano. It's not a photograph."

"I know that. But he's
got an unusual face, no?"

The Silk Stocking
Rapist was distinctive-looking to me, if in fact he closely resembled
the inked rendering. Most often the portraits created by police artists
looked like a generic composite that would not enable anyone to pick
the assailant out of a crowd.

This perp had features
that each of his victims had described to the man who worked, four
years ago, on the drawing they all agreed resembled their attacker. He
had almost a cherubic affect, with soft, puffy cheeks that rounded the
shape of his face and seemed to push his eyes into a permanent squint.
His dark black skin made it hard to notice the fine mustache that
traced the outline of his upper lip, but several women described the
way it felt when it brushed against their skin.

"What night was he in
here?" Mike asked.

Giuliano had a great
mind for his business. Customers came in once and it was rare that he
would forget them when they reappeared weeks later. A nod of his head
and Adolfo would know whether to seat the arrivals in the front, with
his most prominent clientele, or bury them in Siberia, near the
kitchen, or by the steps to the rest rooms.

"A couple, maybe three
nights ago. Late, like close to midnight."

"Was it two nights or
three?" I pushed him, knowing that two nights would place him here
drinking just hours before Annika Jelt was accosted.

"Fenton," he said,
stepping away from the table and whispering to the bartender, who
thought for a few seconds and shrugged before responding to his boss.

"He's pretty sure it
was the night before last. He remembers the guy, too," Giuliano said,
"and Fenton was off three nights ago."

"You know the people
he was here with?"

"Three guys.
Investment bankers, maybe. You know the type. Two of them on their cell
phones the whole time, talking about the market and deals. Money,
money, money. No talk about broads even-nothing but money. And flashing
lots of cash," Giuliano said, describing their manners and clothing,
down to the brand of gold watch each was wearing. "Not regulars. Maybe
Fenton knows them."

He waved to the
bartender, who came over to the table. Fenton, too, agreed that no one
in the group was familiar to him.

"None of them? No one
you ever saw before? Nobody paid by credit card?"

"Two of them put
hundred-dollar bills on the bar. I checked them myself."

"This isn't exactly a
halfway house, Giuliano," Mike said. Local politicians, celebrities,
sports stars, and well-to-do New Yorkers sat elbow to elbow at the
tables that were turned over three times a night. "The cheapest scotch
you serve is eight bucks a pop, so who were these guys? You hear their
conversation, Fenton?"

"Some of it. The guy
who put the first bill down, I think he was French. He did most of the
talking. Sounded like they had all come from a party together and just
dropped in here before they split."

"Was there only one
black guy in the group?"

"Yup."

"He talk a lot?"

"Drank mostly. Don't
remember him saying much."

Mike looked at me.
"You and Mercer got room for me on the task force? If you can arrange
for me to have this post-just park me here at Primola's bar-I can help
keep the city safe."

"That's a deal. This
one's a real long shot, Giuliano. Just promise me you'll call
nine-one-one if you think you see this guy again."

"You're not
convinced?" Mike asked. "You're the one who spent the better part of a
year going to every community meeting and school association, if I
recall correctly, telling people in this very neighborhood that the
Silk Stocking Rapist lived or worked right among them."

What a thankless
assignment that had been for Mercer and me. Some rapists were
opportunists who attacked whenever the moment presented itself, whether
the prey was fifteen or seventy-five years old. If she was in the wrong
place at the right time for the perp, and she was vulnerable, he
struck. This one was different. He targeted a physical type-most were
tall, slim young women, in their twenties-and so far he had never
deviated from his profile. Week after week we'd respond to requests to
talk to citizens groups about the Silk Stocking Rapist's pattern and
the risks posed in his targeted residential community. Rarely did any
women under the age of sixty show up to listen to us, and the seniors
who came could have passed our suspect on the street without his
thinking twice about committing a crime.

"Look at the man in
your corner deli," I used to tell everybody, "the dishwasher in the
restaurant on your block whose shift ends at one
A.M.
, right before the attacks started.
Your doorman, the super down the street, the guy next to you on the
subway platform."

"So why couldn't he
show up in your favorite restaurant, Coop?"

"It's certainly in the
zone. So next time, Giuliano, make sure you get the glass he was
drinking from before it goes in the dishwasher. A little saliva for his
DNA is all we need. C'mon, Mike. I'm whipped."

He drove me the short
distance to my apartment and waited until one of the doormen let me
inside and walked me to the elevator.

I flipped on the
lights and stopped to hang up my coat and scarf in the hall closet. I
picked up the pile of mail that my housekeeper had left on the credenza
and carried it into my bedroom. There was no flashing light on my
answering machine, one more sign of my newly unattached lifestyle.
Somehow, wherever in the world Jake Tyler had been on assignment, he
left loving messages for me that cheered me when I returned at whatever
ungodly hour from a day too full of violence and heartbreak.

I clicked on the
television and listened to the local all-news channel as I undressed,
washed up, and crawled into bed. After reports of a suspicious breach
of security at a nuclear power plant upstate and a car accident in
Times Square that killed three tourists, the commentator replayed the
police commissioner's seven o'clock statement.