'In Manhattan?'
'I'm not sure, Mike.'
'Where, then?'
'Maybe Suffolk County. Jake said something about a summer-house on Long Island.'
The lieutenant had less patience than I had expected. 'Give me a place to start, Alex. There's five counties in the city and fifty-seven more in the rest of the state. You expect me to call every single one of them?'
He took a slug of his neat scotch and paced the floor. 'What else do you know about these people? How old are they? How many children are we talking about? What does she do for-'
'I told you everything I know, Loo, and I realize it isn't much to go on. I just thought if we checked with a few of the precincts, maybe someone would have reported that a colleague hadn't shown up for work, or a sister didn't make it to a family birthday party, or that the baby-sitter was alarmed 'cause the kids were gone.'
He looked at his watch as Mike walked behind me and stood at my back, rubbing my neck and shoulders. 'More likely people would think the whole family's away for the weekend. I'll have the guys call around, but I wouldn't expect to hear nothing until tomorrow.'
'Mind if we stay here awhile and use your phones?' Mike asked.
'Suit yourself. Seems like a shot in the dark to me.' He walked out of the room.
'That's what you want to do, isn't it?'
I leaned forward, pushing the bottle out of my way, and rested my head on the desktop. 'I just can't bear the thought that a woman's body is somewhere out there, exposed to this storm, while some member of my esteemed profession-for the right price-is probably arranging for the killer to get out of the jurisdiction.'
'They can't do
'Not supposed to. But while the lawyer gets all his ducks in a row, hoping to bargain for a deal before the surrender, who knows where a financier with international connections will wind up?'
Mike refreshed his drink and sat opposite me, trying to make eye contact. 'You and Jake going to be all right?'
I was silent.
'He hasn't got a choice in this, does he, Coop? He did what he had to do. You guys are good together.'
'Looks like I'm the one who has a choice to make. It never occurred to me that he'd have to cover criminal cases until this happened. I'm not about to sit on the floor of the closet with the door closed and my hands over my ears when the phone rings and somebody confesses to homicide in the middle of the night.'
'You want to come back up to my-?'
'I called David Mitchell as soon as I got here. He and Renee were still awake. David promised to take a spare key down to the doorman. I've slept on their couch dozens of times.' Mike knew my neighbor, a prominent psychiatrist who had become a close friend over the years. He and his fiancee lived down the hall from me, and I had often spent the night, sharing the sofa with their dog, Prozac. 'A wet nose snuggled up against my neck might be just what I need.'
Chapman was dialing the phone as I spoke. 'Mike Chapman, Manhattan North Homicide here. Who's this?' He paused to listen. 'You got any missing persons reports in the last forty-eight hours? Yeah, I'll hold.' A minute passed. 'Fifteen-year-old runaway. Left home Thursday after a three-week correspondence with some guy she met on the Internet-' I shook my head in the negative.
'-and a female black, topless dancer from a joint on Pine Street, last seen getting into a car with a Japanese businessman two nights ago. DWA oughtta be a crime, Sarge. Thanks.'
Driving While Asian was one of Chapman's favorite legislative proposals for an amendment to the Penal Law. He could never resist running his mouth at a politically incorrect target.
'Nothing unusual in the First, blondie. You keep thinking about how to put your love life back on track and I'll-' 'I'm not thinking. I don't want to think anymore.' 'I'm on the case.' He dialed again, working from the list of precinct numbers in the department telephone book in the top drawer of the desk. From the lower end of Manhattan moving north, Mike called squad after squad. At some, the phone rang interminably and he never got a response. At most, the answers were predictable. The occasional missing adolescent, the husband not back from a weekend jaunt with his pals, the family of a mentally handicapped adult who had wandered away from a vocational training program and hadn't been seen since Friday.
I walked out among the maze of old wooden desks and found the rest room. By the time I came back, Mike was waiting for a detective to check the blotter in the Twenty-fourth Precinct, on the Upper West Side. I lifted my empty purse from the metal tray of the out box and looked in the zippered compartment, knowing the cash was gone.
'Hope you had the good sense to take your Christmas present when you blew out of Jake's place. We could hock that heap of glass and run off to the Keys, live the rest of our lives down there without ever working again. I could go bonefishing all day and you could drink margaritas and listen to Jimmy Buffett. D'you bring it?'
I smiled and shook my head. It was Mike's way of making sure that my pin hadn't been stolen in the mugging, knowing I would be too embarrassed to want to tell him.
'Boa constrictor? West Eighty-third Street? No thanks.' He hung up and checked the number for the Twenty- sixth Precinct, talking as he dialed. 'Woman moved into a sublet last week. In the middle of the night, an eight-foot boa comes slithering up on the pillow next to her, trying to give her a kiss. Last guy who lived in the place raised 'em. Seems he left one behind as a housewarming gift. Speckled band and all that…
'Who's this? Yo, Monty, it's Chapman. Looking for a missing broad.' The guy who answered asked a few questions of Mike. 'No, schmuck. If I knew who or where then she wouldn't be missing very long, would she?' Chapman listened. 'Why'd they go up to King's College at this hour of the morning?' After a moment he placed the receiver back on the cradle.
'Time for forty winks, blondie. I'll look for your damsel in distress tomorrow. Somebody broke into the administration building at your favorite school after they locked up tonight. Must have gotten spooked in the middle of the getaway. Cartons of books were piled up next to the back door. The thief only made off with a few of them. They're the boxes marked with Lola Dakota's name on them.'
29
Renee and I caught up over morning coffee. I had finally fallen asleep about 3 A.M., and had not even heard David slip out to walk the dog at seven o'clock. I borrowed her bathrobe and the spare key to my apartment. It was too cold to shower there, with the window still not repaired, but I needed a set of my thin silk thermal underwear to put on beneath my charcoal-gray pantsuit. For once the weatherman's prediction seemed to be on target, and just the news reports of the impending snowstorm chilled me again.
At eight-thirty I went downstairs to wait for Mike. All of the Christmas tips had been distributed to the building staff in the preceding weeks, and they remained unusually responsive to opening car doors, helping women with baby strollers into elevators, and ferrying packages from the entrance to the elevator banks. Poinsettias fringed the tables and glass windows of the marble-trimmed lobby, and everyone except for me seemed especially cheerful as they set out to work on this last week of the year.
'How's my little Nanook doing this morning?'
I had left my coat in the apartment and opted to wear my ski parka over the long Johns and business suit. 'Overkill, you think?' I asked Mike as I opened the car door.
'Not if you're planning to spend the night in an igloo. You get any sleep?'
'Took a steaming-hot shower and went out like a light. Listen, I really want to apologize for showing up on your doorstep last night. It was rude of me not-'
'Yeah, it was.'
I turned to look at Mike's face, to see whether he was kidding. There was no smile. 'I mean, it just wasn't like you at all. I didn't know who the hell was ringing the buzzer at that hour on a Sunday night. I just figured most people would have called first. You're the last person I expected to hear when I answered the intercom.'
'But-'
'But what? You always get so grouchy when I show up in the middle of one of your romantic interludes, like it's
