The DeadHouse

She glanced in my direction. 'Where's Ivan now? He's not loose is he, just because Lola can't testify against him?'

'He's locked up over here on the attempted murder charge. He's being held without bail.' Mike had gotten through to the sheriff's office before he picked me up. 'Who's the prosecutor you've been working with? We'd like to talk to him, too.'

'Her name is Anne Reininger. She was very good to Lola. You think Ivan isn't capable of controlling this thing from inside the Jailhouse? He's got money, he's got connections to every scumbag on both sides of the river, and he wanted Lola dead.'

'Do you know why?' I asked. It was one thing to attack her himself, in the middle of a fight when they were alone together. But a hired killing, after they were separated and living out of each other's way, suggested another kind of problem. Avoidance of alimony payments? Something that Lola knew about Ivan that she threatened to expose, personally or professionally? A matter, perhaps, that was connected to the cash she kept hidden in a shoe box? I was willing to consider that it might be an issue less obvious than marital discord.

Lily Pompian thought my question was a stupid one. She had already explained why. It was becoming obvious to me that this was going to be Chapman's interview. I was being dismissed without an answer, and the repeated hits of Chablis, as Lily refilled her glass, were making Mike look like the warm and fuzzy one on our team. She shifted her weight on the bench and leaned in on her elbow to talk directly to Mike.

He took advantage of that dynamic and, armed with his most sensitive gaze, responded to her approach. 'Let's start with Ivan. I think Alex knows a lot about him, from the earlier incidents, but why don't you tell me what kind of business he's involved in?'

'Yesterday or today?' Lily laughed at what she thought was her own joke. 'Ivan started out with an MBA from Columbia. Worked on Wall Street for twenty years. Left his company after a merger and went out, quite comfortably, on his own. Then he got involved in all kinds of penny-stock deals. Stuff I didn't understand at all.'

'Did you and your husband invest with him?'

'Not for a minute. He was always trying to get us to pour money into his deals, but we've got two kids in college and my husband wasn't falling for any of Ivan's tricks. You'll have to talk with Ms. Reininger. Maybe she can tell you who he was scamming lately.'

Lily got up from her bench to open another bottle of wine. 'You comfortable there?' she asked, gesturing toward the table. 'Either of you want to join me in something stronger?'

We both thanked her for the offer and Mike stood to refill our coffee cups.

'Tell us about Lola. I mean, from your perspective, as family. Before Ivan. And after him.'

She closed the refrigerator door and leaned her back against it, pausing before she motioned to us to follow her into the adjoining room, a wood-paneled library. Two walls were stacked with bookshelves and the one behind the sofa was lined from floor to ceiling with family photographs.

'To understand any of us, you'd probably have to start with my mother, Ceci Dakota. Ever hear of her?' Before we could answer, she went on. 'That's your problem, Detective. You're too damn young.' One of her hands clutched the glass firmly, while the other rested on Mike's broad shoulder. 'Mother was a Broadway showgirl, a hoofer, really. Better dancer than she was a vocalist, but in the days of the great American musicals, those girls had to be able to do it all.'

I moved behind Lily to examine the early black-and-white pictures. 'Cecile-she hated that name-made her debut in South Pacific, playing one of the nurses in the chorus. April seventh, 1949, Majestic Theatre on Broadway. Ask me anything about those days, and I can tell you more than you'll ever want to know, just from listening to Ceci. That show played one thousand nine hundred twenty-five performances-five years-and she stayed with it for two full seasons. How many times do you think anybody can wash a man right out of her hair and never get beyond the chorus line? She actually understudied Mary Martin for a few weeks, but the woman was never sick a single day, so Ceci moved on.

'Bottom line was that each of us kids was named for a character from one of the shows. For some reason she got hooked on the ?'s. I got Lily, from Kiss Me, Kate, which isn't at all bad. My middle sister wound up with Liat, from South Pacific. Bloody Mary's daughter, y'know? It's not easy to grow up Tonkinese in Totowa, New Jersey.' She took another drink. 'And then came Lola.'

The memories had made her smile, but her own mention of Lola's name brought Lily up short. 'Ceci was still dancing.' She aimed her glass toward a still of her mother, dressed in a pinstriped shirt over black fishnet tights, hands on her hips and mouth wide open. 'Closest she ever got to a lead. Three performances subbing for Gwen Verdon in Damn Yankees. Stayed with it most of the run, from opening night on May 5, 1955, through another one thousand and nineteen shows. Even got a part in the movie, in fifty-eight. Then took some time off to have another kid. That gave us my baby sister, Lola.'

Mike was staring at a photo of three long-legged little girls in tutus standing around a basinet draped with blue ribbon. 'A younger brother?'

'Yeah, he'll be over later, if you want to talk to him.' 'Lemme guess, Guys and Dolls}'

'He should have been so lucky. Might have had a tough guy's name. Louie or Lefty or Lucky. Maybe missed out on a few school yard fights. But it was the sixties, and Ceci was madly in love with Robert Goulet. Try Camelot. Lance, she named him. Lancelot Dakota.' Lily sunk down into a tapestry- covered sofa and put her feet up on the glass-topped table that faced it.

'So your mother was a Broadway gypsy, and your father?' 'Taught history at the local high school. Let Mother go her own way, take us to dance classes and sneak us into town to go to Saturday matinees if she knew some of the girls in the chorus line. Dad thoroughly immersed himself in local politics when he wasn't reading history books. Liat and I wanted to go the show biz route. Endless auditions and the deafening sound of tap shoes all over the house, day and night. Lance was my dad's clone. Very serious, very studious. His favorite place was the public library, in part to escape the constant screeching sound of Ceci making us sing 'Let Me Entertain You' to the milkman, the mailman, and anyone else who made the mistake of knocking on our door, and in part because he loved all the things he could learn from books.'

'And Lola?'

'Like a perfect combination of their genes. She was smart as a whip. Couldn't keep her nose out of my father's history texts. Adored going with him to listen to the wheeling and dealing at the political clubhouses in town. But give her a sequined costume and a stage to dance on and she'd drop her schoolbooks, as long as there was an audience for her. No chorus line for Lola, and no understudy roles. She was the star or she didn't play. Being second banana to anyone wasn't acceptable to her.

'By high school, when she realized she didn't have the talent to make it to the big time, she threw herself into her studies. Got a full scholarship to Barnard. Majored in political science, with a minor in history. Got her master's and her Ph.D. at Penn. Never looked back. Liked every minute of what she was doing with her life. Her professional life, not her marriage.'

Mike's wheels were turning. 'Was there another woman in Ivan's life? Competition for Lola?'

'We didn't know about it if there was one. I believed my sister when she said she was rid of him for good. At this point, I think she would have welcomed the fact that he could focus his attention-and his rage-on someone else.'

'How about her love life? Did she confide in you about that?'

'There was nothing to tell. Lola didn't have the time or the interest to get involved in a relationship at this point. She was all tied up in a new project at the college, and she had no desire to pique Ivan's anger by letting him find her with another man, until the divorce was final.'

I sat in a chair opposite Lily and tried to ease my way into the conversation. 'Perhaps you can take a look at some of the shirts and sweaters we found at Lola's apartment. It would help us to know how she was dressed when she left here on Thursday afternoon. And then, well, some of the things in the new place were men's clothing. You might recognize them, too.'

'They must have been Ivan's. Or maybe one of her faculty friends. Sure, you can show them to me, but it's not very likely they'll be familiar to me. I signed a power of attorney yesterday, giving Vinny's office the right to go in and take any of her property they needed to help their investigation.'

I grimaced at Chapman, sorry that Lily was still in the hands of the Jersey prosecutors, and thankful that the