"But it's his story that interested you in the Blackwells project in the first place."
"Sure it is. But that's on an intellectual level. The raid really happened. The prison conditions that he probably described to you are quite accurate. I've researched all that. But my grandfather doesn't know any more about missing diamonds than you do."
"Except that he actually eyeballed two gemstones the very day of the raid. That gives some credence to the whole story, doesn't it? When will you be back in your office in the city?"
"Next Thursday, January second."
"Expect me. Early and often. And I'll want to see the reports of all your trips over to the island with Lola Dakota-and anything else that might relate to the project. Have them ready. And a list of the students who've worked on the dig with both of you."
My beeper began to vibrate as I buttoned my coat and walked out the door. I shuddered once against the cold and then a second time when I recognized Pat McKinney's home number. I opened the car door and dialed my cell phone.
"So what do you do for excitement when you and Chapman aren't making people's lives miserable?"
"That does seem to account for an inordinate amount of our time, Pat." It was clear he was about to unload some kind of bad news on me. "Want me to think about it and get back to you?"
"I figured if you had nothing better to do today you could get yourself back over to New Jersey, to the medical center near Hackensack. Bart Frankel's car was rear-ended early this morning by a Mack truck. The truck won."
23
"If we got three choices, the only one I can rule out is suicide. Pretty hard to count on killing yourself by letting the car behind you run you off the road. Ain't always a sure thing."
It was early Saturday afternoon and the detective from Sinnelesi's office, Tony Parisi, was talking to us in the visitors' lounge at the hospital.
"Between an accident and a homicide attempt, what's your guess?"
"Tough to prove it's anything but an accident. Old shitcan of a car moving along on Route Seventeen, and a trucker comes barreling down behind it at one of those treacherous curves in the road. The driver gets distracted, hits a patch of ice, and slams on the brakes too late. Schmuck behind him just whacks him off the road into a row of trees. Splinter pie, man.
"And let me tell you, Bart was really distracted. When the news got out after that bail application yesterday and Kralovic was released, Bart was ready to crawl into a hole. If the old will to live has anything to do with getting him off the life-support machine, he ain't gonna make it. He's toast."
"What do you know about the truck?"
"Not even sure that's what it was. Hit-and-run is all we know. Somebody wanted him out of that lane real bad and then didn't even stop to see what happened. Shit, if Vinny Sinnelesi was in town, I'd put my money on him. He'll be royally pissed if Bart blew the Kralovic case for him."
"Don't you think he'll live?" I asked tentatively.
"Not a prayer. Just hooked him up so his kids could say goodbye to a warm body. They're in with him now. His lawyer claims he did one of those living wills. 'Don't crank me up again once the pump shuts off.' I'd say, you want to make sure it's curtains for Bart? You two grim reapers walk in the room and hand him one of your bona fide New York County subpoenas. Finito."
At least I didn't have to be paranoid that Pat McKinney was the only person who blamed me for Bart Frankel's condition. Mike ran his fingers through his dark hair, clearly troubled. He started to speak. "What-?"
"Don't even ask what you think you can do for him, Chapman. We'll be taking care of this one all on our own. You know we got real cops here in Jersey, too?"
"Yeah, but you haven't solved a friggin' case since the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped."
"Bart's one of ours, whether you liked him or not. Poor slob was thinking with his penis instead of his brain. Gettin' in bed with that Dakota dame was a stupid thing to do, but you got a long way to go to convince me he'd whack a broad or throw a case."
"Tony, I appreciate your feelings for Bart. And I understand why you're unhappy with us. But there was information he had that we needed." I was trying to dance around the fact that the prosecutor had not told us the truth. This detective had no cause to know it, and I did not want to broadcast the fact, given Bart's medical condition.
While it was possible to believe he had dropped Lola off at her building's entrance as he had claimed, it seemed hard to deny that he had then gone on to her office at King's College. He may even have taken something of significance from her desk. Something, I had hoped, that would lead us to the reason for her murder.
"Look, you got no jurisdiction here, Miss Cooper. And besides that, I don't think nobody that knew Bart even wants you on this end of the tunnel."
"Alex is being polite, pal. She isn't telling you the half of it. Executive Assistant District Attorney Bart Frankel looked the two of us in the eye and lied to us."
Parisi was unmoved.
"He fibbed about things that happened the very afternoon that Lola was killed. Not just the fact that he was sleeping with her. Where he was at the moment she died, what he was doing. He even held back for an entire week the name of the guy she walked into the building with."
Parisi bit his lip, not wanting to trust Chapman. "What do you want from me?"
"I want the chance to go to his office, the way he went through Lo-"
"Are you nuts or what? Don't even finish that sentence. I'm gonna take you two over to Sinnelesi's office while his main man is sucking on an air tube in a hospital bed, sneak you inside, maybe get my balls cut off in the process if anybody catches me, just 'cause you think you're gonna find something you can use to sink Bart in this even worse? Not happening, baby."
"We'll be fast. You can stay with us the whole time."
"And who's gonna hire a gone-to-seed former investigator for Vinny Sinnelesi when I get thrown out on my ass? Chapman, you've pulled a lot of crap in your day, but you ain't calling the shots on this one."
"Just for once, why don't you do something useful for society?"
"Screw you. I recycle."
"Tony, when we were up at Lily's house-Lola's sister-she told us that she had signed a power of attorney so that Vinny could go into Lola's office and remove her belongings. All of them. Who actually went and did that? Was it Bart?"
Parisi fidgeted.
"You're looking at this with blinders on. Buy into my facts for a minute. Bart went to the campus the day Lola was killed, maybe already knowing she was dead. He was searching for something. Alex and I can prove that. If he found what he wanted that day, or if he went back for it with legal authority to do so a few days later, maybe he got what he was after.
"And just suppose, for one minute, that what he discovered in Lola's office is what got him followed this morning. Got him killed."
"Suppose you start thinking that if there's any truth to what you're saying, I'm gonna be able to figure it out myself. It's what they pay me the big bucks to do." Parisi had given us all the time he was going to waste, so he turned on his heel and headed for the door.
"Tony, you know what to look for, right? You'll recognize all the players? Charlotte Voight, Skip Lockhart, Sylvia Foote, Free-land Jennings, the Blackwells project…"
Chapman was calling up every name he had heard in the past eight days, aware that none of them would ring a bell with the New Jersey detective. There was no reason for Parisi to have known them, but it worked perfectly to nag at his insecurity. His footsteps slowed.
"Twenty minutes, Tony. Just you and me. Blondie waits in the car."
My opportunity to participate in the search had just been sacrificed to the greater cause: male bonding.
"I must have a death wish. I'll meet you over at the office. Park a block away and leave her there." Parisi dismissed me with a heaving sigh and a look back over his shoulder. "Give me a ten-minute lead and I'll let you in the back door. Deal's off if any of the lawyers are in there working."