'Don't be telling me you had nothing to do with firing up my grandson. He practically tore through the whole place today looking for that damn thing.'
I took a breath. 'Did Skip find it? Did he take it with him?'
'You know where it is?'
'I believed that you had it, sir.'
'Skip's mad as a hornet with me. I told him to talk to Lola about it. Can't recall exactly the last time I saw it, but Lola knows. She's got it, maybe. Skip's coming back later to look through the garage. I'll tell him you were asking about it.'
Back to square one. 'Thanks, Mr. Lockhart. Sorry to trouble you.'
I dialed Sylvia Foote's number again. 'Check with your professors. Any of them have cars?' I thought for a moment about the weather. 'Four-wheel drive? I think we should take a quick trip to White Plains this afternoon. Perhaps if all of us are together with the Lockharts, senior and junior, we can make some headway. I'd like to start the meeting in your office and make a run up to see if the old man is hiding more than he's telling any of us.'
'But-'
'I'll explain when we get there. I think a field trip might help, Sylvia.'
Maybe my phone message to Sylvia last evening, when I was reading the Lockhart diaries, had been a mistake. I thought it might alert the small group of faculty members that we were onto something that one of them might have concealed from us, but I had only meant to rattle the cages in preparation for our meeting today. I didn't want anyone making an end run around us.
Mike's feet were propped on Laura's desk when I hung up the phone and came out to intercept the kid from the mailroom who was distributing the Monday delivery.
'What have you got for me, Gilbert?'
'Just the usual, Miss C.'
I sorted through the envelopes to see whether any subpoenaed information had been returned in the late- morning mail. The thicker-than-usual batch, rubber-banded together, consisted mainly of printed greeting cards from sleazy law firms and private investigators, complete with the tacky little calendars and wallet-size laminated business cards that served as clear reminders of whom
Halfway through the pack, I pulled out a legal-size envelope with a return address scrawled in sloppy handwriting that was practically illegible. I squinted and looked again, then read the name to Mike. 'Bart Frankel. Postmarked Saturday morning.'
'Where from, blondie? Heaven or hell?'
'What a weird feeling, to get this today. He's not even buried yet.'
'Think Shirley MacLaine. Think Dionne Warwick. Open the frigging thing, will you?'
I held the envelope in my fingertips by one corner, and used the letter opener on Laura's desk to slit a hole along the top. I withdrew the small slip of paper from inside and read the yellow Post-it that Bart had attached to the longer white page
Alex-Everything in my life is out of control. I never meant to lie about any of it to you. I'll try and make it right next week, when we sit down at your office. Had a scare tonight. Thought I was followed to my home. I'm putting this in the mail when I walk the dog later. It's the paper I took from Lola's desk the day she was killed. I swear to you I had nothing to do with her murder. B. Frankel.
I lifted the note and looked at the enclosure. It was a hand-drawn map of Blackwells Island-circa 1925- meticulously crafted and perfectly scaled to dimension. Every building, every tree, every bench, and every boulder was assigned a number. On the bottom of the page was the signature of Freeland Jennings.
30
'Looks like the weatherman may give us a break.
'It had taken us nearly an hour to drive from the courthouse to King's College. The radio continued to promise a winter storm, but was delaying its arrival until nightfall, and the wet flakes that deposited themselves limply on the windshield did not seem to be sticking.
Like any college community at Christmas break, the area around 116th Street and Broadway felt like a ghost town. The Barnard, Columbia, and King's students had scattered to their homes and families, and the normally lively sidewalks and footpaths were bare of young adults and earnest academics.
At one-fifteen, we knocked on the door of Sylvia Foote's office and were invited in. I glanced around the conference table, taking an informal inventory of the assembled guests. She ushered us to our seats, and I squeezed in between Chapman and Acting President Recantati. As I placed my pocketbook on the floor behind me, mY pager beeped loudly.
'Excuse me, please. I'll turn it off.' I removed it and checked the number, worried that Battaglia might be tracking me down, annoyed that I had blown him off when he had requested that I come in to talk to him. Relieved to see that it was only Jake, beeping me for the third time since we had left downtown, I clicked the mechanism off and tossed it inside my bag.
'Unhappy boss?' Mike asked.
'Unhappy boyfriend.'
Mike, in the meanwhile, was checking off the faces present against his list of names: Sylvia Foote, Paolo Recantati, Winston Shreve, Nan Rothschild, Skip Lockhart, and Thomas Grenier.
'As an aficionado of the detective story, Mr. Chapman, it appears to me that you've come here expecting one of us to stand up and announce that he-or she-is, in fact, Professor Plum, who killed Lola Dakota in the library with the lead pipe.' It was Grenier who tried to break the ice with a bit of facetious humor.
'This isn't a board game.' Mike glared at the biology professor, whom he was meeting for the first time. 'But if any one of you wants to save us some effort, I'd welcome the admission.'
'Are we waiting for Claude Lavery?' Grenier asked Foote, striking a more serious tone.
She turned to Mike. 'Professor Lavery won't be coming. He called an hour ago to say that since we've severed him from college affairs while he's under investigation for the grant impropriety, he doesn't feel obligated to participate.'
I watched pairs of eyes find each other across the table, silently affirming alliances.
Winston Shreve, the anthropologist, looked back at me. 'Per haps that message you asked Sylvia to deliver to us last night unsettled him. About the diaries and the so-called secret garden.'
'Why him in particular?'
'Claude Lavery and Lola Dakota confided in each other. They were neighbors, good friends.' It was Paolo Recantati who picked up Shreve's lead. 'I can't believe he didn't come here today. It's either arrogance, or it's exactly what Winston is suggesting. Claude won't discuss what he knows in front of the rest of us.'
Sylvia Foote tried to regain control of her herd. 'I thought it would be useful for those of us who worked with Lola to sit down together as a group and examine her professional circumstances. Most of us, of course, believe her death relates to her complicated personal situation. But perhaps if Miss Cooper and Mr. Chapman get a better sense of what was going on here at the college, they'll understand why we feel this way.'
And they'll get out of our hair, she seemed to imply.
Sylvia asked Nan Rothschild to begin the conversation. If the severe general counsel meant to set herself a smooth sail, then she had chosen well. As the quiet anthropologist began her description of the Blackwells project, I tried to focus on her words and keep my imagination from divining the real dynamic between the two successful women, Rothschild and Dakota. Had I been too quick to eliminate Nan's interests and possible motives simply because I had known her as a casual acquaintance from the ballet studio?
Mike was making notes, and I jotted a reminder to myself to ask him whether he thought the tension between the female professors was something to explore.
Nan started with how the working teams came to be formed, then moved along to the technical aspects of the dig, which I found fascinating now, in light of the stories of old Mr. Lockhart. Wouldn't the high-tech equipment used by the interns and volunteers have uncovered any of the legendary treasures that had been concealed on the
