I looked down at my pants leg to make certain that I was still wearing that same suit. My pocketbook and case folder were either in Shreve's van or his apartment. Perhaps he had gone through them in search of the map or any references to it, but if he hadn't thought to search my clothing, he would not have found the map.
The adrenaline pumped again and I swallowed hard.] knew that what Shreve wanted was here under his nose, and if he found the small slip of paper, there would be no reason to maintain our dialogue. I would be as good as dead.
"But Lola was telling you all these things while she at Lily's house, doing the research. What did you two have to fight about the day she was killed?"
"I didn't go to see her to argue about anything. I was excited, thrilled that she might have solved the puzzle about my grandfather's fortune. I wanted to see the map for myself."
"Did she have it?"
"She was mad that I had come to her apartment. She stalled and tried to put me off. Told me she didn't have it with her. Told me the prosecutor from New Jersey was going to be arriving shortly and that she'd call me the next day. Of course, I didn't know at the time that she wasn't kidding about the prosecutor. He actually was coming over." Shreve sneered. "Not for Lola, but for his money."
"What money?"
"Apparently the guy had all kinds of financial problems. Lola was doling out cash to him to keep him afloat. Probably to keep him coming back to bed with her, which wasn't necessarily a pleasant place to be."
"How do you know that? I mean, about the cash?"
"After she died, Claude Lavery told me. That's what drove the two of them apart. Lola knew that Claude took an unorthodox view of his grant money. She pleaded with him to let her borrow some of it, claiming she needed it for the Blackwells project. Claude called me last week and asked me to return the money. I had to tell him she hadn't used a nickel of it for the dig. Then I remembered what she'd told me about the prosecutor and his financial problems. The money must have all been going to the deadbeat boyfriend."
Lola's shoe boxes full of cash. She had put the squeeze on Lavery to share some of his stash, pretending it was for her professional needs, but she was using it to solve Bart Frankel's personal problems.
I leaned forward and tried to look sincere when I asked the next question. I didn't believe what I was saying, but I wanted Shreve to think I did. "So why did Claude kill Lola? Was it about the money?"
He took too long to answer. I shivered again and put my hand to my side, trying to feel the piece of paper through the layers of clothing. Was it there? I could not be sure.
"She had called me earlier in the week to tell me she would be home that afternoon. Not to worry about the news stories Ivan's attempt on her life, if I should hear them. I stopped by the building-I was on the way to the college, actually. I tried her and she was home. Had just gotten there. She let me come was anxious to get rid of me."
"And Professor Lavery?"
A slight hesitation. Shreve wanted to tell a story that weave Lavery into the murder, but he was not doing it convincingly. "Lola wouldn't let me in the door. Kept me in the hallway. Lavery was inside, although I didn't know it was him at the time. Lola told me that she was going over to the island."
"Then? Right then?"
"The next day. I wanted to go with her. She had no right to my grandfather's possessions."
The wind seemed less ferocious now, and my tone had lowered as well. "She had figured out about Charlotte, Mr. Shreve. Hadn’t she? She was threatening to expose your-your accident." not to choke on the last word. "She let you know that she told Lavery that she'd figured out where Charlotte Voight was.”
I remembered Lavery saying that to Mike and me, but had interpreted Lola's words to mean that Charlotte was still alive. Shreve, on the other hand, must have panicked about Charlotte's body being found just as he was about to locate his grandfather's fortune.
"Lola wanted something in exchange for the map, didn’t she?”
"She had no right to any of those diamonds, Ms. Cooper. She was trying to blackmail me, just like she had coaxed Claude Lavery out of his grant money."
Shreve was standing now, poised in the doorway of the small room. "Lola slammed the door on me, but I wouldn't leave. She came out later, maybe five, maybe ten minutes. I asked where she was going but she wouldn't answer me. I knew she was going to the island. To Strecker, to find Charlotte. I tried to stop her but she pushed past me and got on the elevator."
"Just the two of you?"
"Claude. That's when Claude came out of her apartment. I was shocked to see him there. The elevator lurched and I grabbed at Lola to pull her off. All I got was her scarf, her long woolen scarf.
"But the doors closed and caught the ends of the scarf as the cab started to move. I yelled at Claude to push the buttons and I pried the sides apart with my hands. There was Lola, completely blue in the face, flailing her arms and trying to fight for air or to catch her breath to scream. She thought I had done it on purpose."
Perhaps that part was true. He had painted such a vivid picture of Lola, almost hanged to death by a piece of clothing caught in the elevator doors. A soft piece of woolen material, on top of the thick fabric of a winter coat collar, that would not even leave ligature marks.
"But she was still alive then?"
"Oh, yes. She couldn't speak, she couldn't loosen the scarf. 'It was an accident,'' I said to her. I reached for the coat to undo it and she recoiled.
"That's when she started to scream."
I imagined that she did, also having figured that Shreve had somehow been responsible for Charlotte Voight's disappearance. I would have been shouting what I wanted to say to his face right at that moment. Murderer!
He stumbled now, stuttering instead of delivering a clear narrative. "It was Claude who did it. He wanted her to stop screaming, to make her be quiet."
It made no sense to me for Claude to want to kill Lola. But I had given Shreve the opening to insert an accomplice into his recreation of the events.
"Claude grabbed at the scarf and pulled it tighter. He dragged her off the elevator and onto the floor of the hallway. He was calling her names, he was-"
It's not a fast death, strangulation. Not like a gunshot wound to the head or a knife in the chest. No doubt it had been hastened in this instance by the fact that she was almost hanged by the jaws of the elevator door. She was already weakened and had a compromised airway, so it would not have taken much effort to finish her off.
Shreve searched for words and actions to attribute to Lave but I knew better now.
"She, she didn't scream very loud. I, uh, I tried to pull Claude back but he wouldn't let go. He was so mad at her." He lowered his head and tried to add convincing facts. "That's when he told me that Lola had been blackmailing him for cash from his grant money."
"And Lola's body?"
"I wanted to call the police. I know you won't believe that because of-" He broke off midsentence and nodded his head the side, in the direction of the Strecker building. Toward Charlotte Voight's body. "This time it was Claude who refused. He was about to be indicted by the federal authorities for fraud. He, uh, he told me to leave. That he would handle this himself. And I did, assuming he would take care of things in an appropriate way.
"I never imagined that he'd roll her body into the elevator shaft. I mean, Claude's the one who lives there. I wasn't even aware anything was wrong in the building, that the elevator sometimes stopped between floors. How could I have possibly known that?"
He had me for a moment. It made sense for Lavery to know that fact. But any fool who had visited the old building and been on the elevator when it malfunctioned could have known it, too. It happened with the three elevators in our office building every day of the week.