The DeadHouse

'I'm sorry, dear. He ate his dinner at six o'clock and I'm afraid he's sound asleep now. Why don't you try him again tomorrow?'

I called Sylvia Foote's machine at the office to leave her a message, too. 'It's Alex. I'm expecting to hear from you in the morning about the faculty meeting you may be planning later in the day. I'd like to be there for part of it, to explain to the group exactly what's going on and what I might need from them.' As casually as I could, I dropped in an additional request. 'And when you speak to them, Sylvia, tell them I'm interested in talking to them about the Lockhart diaries. You know, the ones kept by Skip's grandfather. And what any of them know about the model of his secret garden on Blackwells. Thanks a lot.'

The old volumes had been kept in Lola Dakota's office, without any particular safeguarding. Even now, no one had claimed them or spirited them away. I assumed that any of the people with a particular interest in the project had already scoured the books for information anyway, and that there were likely to be dozens of photocopies floating around.

I didn't think the mention of the diaries would trigger any unusual response, but I was curious to see whether my inquiry about the miniature model of the island fueled a reaction.

Jake was seated at the dinner table when I returned to join him. The salmon and baby asparagus awaited me, and he had already begun eating. He was annoyed, and rightly so. Now, I wish I had put off those calls until after the meal, as he had suggested.

shapeType20fFlipH0fFlipV0lineWidth3175posrelh0fLayoutInCell0fLayoutInCell0'I apologize. I'm sorry for getting so carried away with this investigation. Why don't you tell me about the rest of your afternoon. Any calls?'

'Joan called about New Year's Eve. Wants to know if you can bring some of that great caviar you served at her birthday party. I reminded her that we had to fly back first thing in the morning for Mercer's wedding. I lined up most of my plans for next week. Nothing as exciting as what you're in the middle of.'

He was cool and removed now. Not the right moment to remind him that prepositions weren't good words with which to end sentences. I could usually tease him about grammar whenever he made an on-air slip.

'I'm going to have to pick up some things from my apartment after work tomorrow. I'll need an outfit for Joan's dinner and my travel kit.'

'We're not even going to be away for twenty-four hours.' Jake realized he was snapping at me and tried to bring it down a notch. 'If Mike can't drive you by there after work, we can meet at my office and I'll take you over.' We were both thinking about Shirley Denzig and whether she was still lurking in the neighborhood.

I reached over and put my hand on top of his, and he loosened up as we both ate and chatted. It was my fault that the fish was dry and overdone, so I finished all of it, so as not to be berated for that, too.

'Go ahead inside. I'll clean up.' The job was quick and easy, and ten minutes later I joined him in the living room, where he was reading briefing papers for his next day's assignments. I sat on the far end of the sofa and entangled my legs in his while I carefully read the 1935 volume of the Lockhart diaries from cover to cover.

At 10:35 the phone rang.

'How've you been?' he asked the caller. Usually he mouthed to me the name of the person he was speaking to, if I could not recognize who it was from the context of the conversation. This time he did not.

'No, I don't remember ever meeting him. I've heard of him, of course. I think Tom did a feature piece about his firm, if I'm not mistaken.'

The other party spoke.

'You're kidding.' Jake sat bolt upright, both feet on the floor. 'When?'

Presumably an answer.

'In Montauk? Where is he now? Where are the kids?'

Another brief reply.

'What makes you think it was murder?'

I put down the book and stared at Jake, who was looking straight ahead.

'Just hold on a minute, will you? I want to go into the den.' He turned to me. 'Darling, would you mind if I take this one inside?' He didn't wait for an answer. 'Just hang it up for me when you hear me get on, okay?'

He walked toward the den and I held the receiver until I heard him ask if his caller was still there. She answered, 'Yes.'

For almost fifteen minutes while they talked, I sat in the living room and fumed. Less than a week ago Jake had invited me to move into his home. I had done so reluctantly, encouraged by the circumstances inside and outside my own apartment. The intimacies that had begun to make me savor our days and nights together were fragile enough to be shattered by one conversation he refused to have in my presence.

I got up to pour myself a drink.

'Don't I get one, too?' he asked as he came back into the living room.

'Sorry. I didn't know when you'd be off the phone.' I returned to the bar and fixed him a scotch. The mood shift had been completed. Now I was cool and abrupt to Jake and he was fired up with the adrenaline rush created by an exclusive piece of breaking news.

He sensed my pout immediately. 'You're not jealous, are you?'

'Of whom? I don't even know who called.' He didn't offer to tell me her name.

'She's just an old friend. A paralegal at one of the big white-shoe firms.'

'I wouldn't care if it was Gwyneth Paltrow or Emma Thompson. I am just stunned that there is something you can't talk about in my presence.' I steered away from the sofa and sat in an armchair across the room. 'You go through this whole big deal about me needing to let you more into my life and me needing to open up to you. You try to convince me that I should move in with you, and then the first time you get a serious telephone call you fly out of the room because there's a conversation that I'm not permitted to be privy to.'

'There's your preposition, darling.'

'I'm not amused, Jake. You can be damn sure'-I got up and walked in a circle around the chair as I talked- 'damn sure that I'm not ever about to live with someone who takes private calls in a separate room. And especially when I hear the word 'murder.' Now, do you want to tell me what that was about?'

He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his thighs, his glass in one hand. He was smiling as he looked over at me. 'Am I talking to my lover, or am I talking to a prosecutor?'

'When you say 'murder' and 'kids' in the space of a few minutes, I regret to inform you- darling-that I am a prosecutor.'

He sat back. 'That's the problem. My sources are privileged. I got this information in confidence, so don't ask me anything I can't tell you.' He was too anxious to repeat the story not to go on. 'She was working-'

'She?'

'The source. My friend. She was called in to assist a partner who had a business appointment with a client. Emergency meeting on a Sunday evening because the client's a stock analyst, specializing in foreign securities. He was supposed to be off to Europe in the morning. Very well-known guy in the financial community.'

'What's his name?'

Jake looked at me. 'Can't do that.'

He paused. 'They sit through half an hour of the meeting, then the senior partner takes a break to go to the men's room. Client follows him in and, standing next to him at the urinal, tells him that he killed his wife on Saturday and-'

Mike Chapman would have had an appropriate comment about the guy's timing, but the moment and its humor were lost on me. 'In Manhattan?'

'They live here, but this happened somewhere between New York City and their beach home on Long Island. Nassau or Suffolk County, Madam Prosecutor. Not your jurisdiction.'

He couldn't possibly think that I would fail to be appalled about a homicide that had occurred outside the confines of the city limits of my legal responsibility. 'And the kids? What's the part about children?'

Jake paused slightly before answering. 'This guy actually put his wife's remains in the trunk of his car. Then he got the two kids and drove upstate to dump the body.'

'Where?'

'Where what?'

'Where is that woman's body right at this very moment? And where the hell are the children?'