"Apparently Julian used to brag about being on Ivan Kralovic's payroll. That the husband paid him for information about Professor Dakota-what her hours were, when she was at her office, where she had moved, when she was out in the field on her new project. In fact, that's the reason some of the guys think Julian hanged himself. That he didn't realize Kralovic wanted the information so he could kill his wife. Julian just thought he was harassing her. And believe me, there were plenty of people on campus who wanted her harassed."
I was thinking out loud, directing my question to Mike. "Where in the world do you think Julian Gariano would have crossed the path of Ivan Kralovic?"
"Not hard to figure," Gloria responded. "My friend was there the day they met. Julian's dad had just hired a lawyer to handle his drug case. Turned out to be Ivan Kralovic's defense attorney, too. They met in the waiting room at the lawyer's office. Julian was wearing a King's College sweatshirt. Said Kralovic started asking him a million questions. That same night, back in the dorm room, Professor Dakota's husband called to talk to Julian again. Offered him a ton of money to rat on his wife. There was nothing Julian wouldn't do for money. He didn't think anyone would get hurt." Mike gave Gloria his card. "Call me if you hear anything else." We thanked her and walked back across Amsterdam Avenue, passing the car and continuing on to keep our appointment with Sylvia Foote at the King's building on Claremont Avenue.
This time, she was expecting us. I suspected it gave her a good deal of pleasure to tell us that she had been unable to comply with our request to have students lined up ready to talk with us. "You know what this season means to so many families. Despite my best efforts, most of the young people from out of town wanted to keep to their plans and get home to their folks. I've got a few local students here, and you're welcome to use my deputy counsel's office now."
She smiled wanly and I guessed she had sanitized their stories pretty well.
Mike had opened his notepad and was ticking off his new requests. "We'll move on to the permanent residents, Ms. Foote, faculty and administration. Here's a list of the people I'd like to see tomorrow. At my office. Let's start with the acting president, Mr. Recantati. I'd like Professor Lockhart-he's the historian, right?-and Professor Shreve, from anthropology, and the heads of each department involved in the project Professor Dakota was working on. I want-"
"I'm just not certain of the availability of these people on such short notice."
"Coop, have you got any paper with you?"
I opened my folder and removed several grand jury subpoenas. Foote knew exactly what that meant. "They can be in Detective Chapman's office in the morning, or they can come directly to the courthouse at the end of the week and be questioned by me, under oath, before the grand jury. Their call, Sylvia." I scribbled in the names and dates while Chapman kept talking.
Foote ushered us into a small room adjacent to her own. For the rest of the afternoon, we saw a stream of young adults who attended King's College and lived in the five boroughs or surrounding suburbs. Most of them acted as though they would rather be boarding the Titanic than talking to a detective and a prosecutor. Not one of them admitted to having any personal knowledge about Lola Dakota or Charlotte Voight. Drugs were everywhere on campus, they seemed to agree, but none of these kids had ever inhaled and didn't know who the dealers or steerers were.
One of the last to straggle in was a senior who had lived on the same floor as Charlotte during the spring semester. Kristin Baymer was also twenty. Her home was a Fifth Avenue apartment, where her father and stepmother were raising her infant half brother. She parked herself on the sofa opposite the desk at which I had been working and curled up with her knees underneath her, stifling a yawn as she greeted us.
"I'm not gonna get in trouble for this, am I?"
"Depends what you did," Mike said, trying to apply his charm, along with his best grin and most collegiate affect.
"Drugs. You probably know that I was on academic probation sophomore year. Got caught with some pills. Amphetamines tranquilizers. That kind of stuff."
"We're not here on a drug bust, Kristin. We've got a murder to solve and a girl to find. Hey, I'd like it if nobody stuck needles in their arms or snorted coke, but I'm not the Vice Squad. What you say to us about any of that stays right in this room "
Foote hadn't given us the student files, so we hadn't known Kristin's background. She looked too wasted and too tired to worry about whom she could trust. She just started talking
"Charlotte and I had a lot in common. Both loners, both stubborn both enjoyed getting high. My mom died a few years ago hke hers. And my father married my big brother's girlfriend. My stepmother's two years older than I am, and now I've got an eight-month-old brother. Classy, huh? And they call me dysfunctional."
Did you and Charlotte spend a lot of time together?"
"Only when we were doing drugs. Otherwise, neither one of us was very sociable."
"Did she have a favorite? Not person. I mean drug of choice "
"Charlotte? She'd try almost anything. Pills were nothing for her. She'd take ups when she was depressed. Then she'd get so manic she needed something to bring her down. She liked cocaine a lot. And heroin."
Heroin had ravaged the drug users in urban America throughout the sixties and seventies. It had rarely appealed to young women, experts thought, because so many of them were averse to injecting themselves in the arm and developing track marks. The late nineties saw a surge of heroin use, with a new and potent strain that could be snorted and smoked, just like the more fashionable cocaine.
Kristin was biting at a hangnail now, twisting the torn skin between her teeth. "And Ecstasy. That girl loved her Ecstasy." She said it like an endorsement for cornflakes. Good old wholesome Ecstasy.
The pills, originally patented by the E. Merck pharmaceutical company in Germany, in 1914, were now made in Holland, Belgium, and Israel. They were being smuggled into the States in enormous quantities and had taken over the drug scene faster than any substance tracked before. The euphoric condition Ecstasy produces, along with its reputation for enhancing sexual enjoyment, made it hugely popular among young adults. The tablets stimulate the nervous system like speed, but at the same time create a sense of well-being and an almost hallucinogenic haze. So new on the scene that it wasn't even a controlled substance in New York until 1997, it was now a staple on high school and college campuses.
"Where'd you get it? The Ecstasy, I mean."
"Are you kidding? It's easier than getting a pack of Marlboros. Kids need proof of age for cigarettes these days. Ecstasy's everywhere." Kristin smiled.
"It's expensive, isn't it?" I thought the pills went for at least thirty dollars a pop. Fine for models and stockbrokers, but tough on a college allowance.
"Charlotte used to call my prep school friends 'Trustafarians.' No shortage of funds for a good time. My dad would rather send me money to keep me away from home than have me bitching about his wife all the time." She looked Mike up and down, then switched her scrutiny to me. "I don't know when either of you was last in a bar in Manhattan. But a Cosmopolitan costs nine bucks per drink. I can get the same buzz off one Ecstasy that it takes me five cocktails to match. Do the math.
"Besides, Charlotte was sleeping with Julian for the better part of a year. When you're putting out for the guy who's dealing the pills, there's an endless supply." "Were you close to Julian, too?"