SAT ON MY LIVING ROOM SOFA at five o'clock in the morning
with a copy of the mock-up of the front page of the day's
New York Post in my hand, looking at my own
obituary. The headline I was reading had been prepared
hours earlier, when the cops thought that it was my head
that had been blown apart by a rifle blast on a quiet
country road in a little Massachusetts town called
Chilmark.
SEX PROSECUTOR SLAIN -- FBI, STATE TROOPERS JOIN SEARCH
FOR KILLER
Mike Chapman sat opposite me as he worked on his second
egg sandwich and lukewarm cup of coffee. He had brought
them along with the news story, and in the fashion of an
experienced Homicide detective he continued chewing even
as he described to me the details of the murder scene --
bullet holes, blood spatter, and body bag.
"Good thing you've been a source for so many stories at
the Post all these years. It's a very complimentary
obit..." He stopped eating long enough for that familiar
grin to emerge, then added, "And a great picture of you --
looks like they airbrushed most of your wrinkles out. Your
phone'll be ringing off the hook once all those lonely
guys in this city realize you're still alive -- maybe
you'll get lucky."
Most of the time Mike could defuse every situation and get
me to laugh, but I had been crying for so many hours that
it was impossible to respond to his lousy cracks or to
focus on anything else but the dreadful day that lay
ahead. A woman had been killed on the path leading to my
country house, driving a car that had been rented in my
name. The body of the tall, slender, thirtyish victim was
missing her face, so most of the local cops who arrived on
the scene assumed that I had been the target.
WE WERE MORE THAN TWO HUNDRED miles away from the crime
scene, twenty stories above the noise of the garbage
trucks that rolled through Manhattan streets every morning
before dawn, in the safe confines of my high-rise
apartment on the Upper East Side. Too many years of
investigating break-ins of brownstones and townhouses,
with rapists climbing in from fire escapes or pushing in
vestibule doors behind unsuspecting tenants, had driven me
to a luxury building -- low on quaintness and charm but
high on doormen and rent. My mother had come into town for
two weeks to decorate for me when I moved a few years
earlier, but the French provincial antiques and lavish
Erunschwig fabrics were an incongruous backdrop for this
deadly conversation.
"How'd you get the call?" Mike asked, brushing the crumbs
off his slacks and onto the carpet, ready to give me his
undivided attention.
"One of the guys in the unit is about to start a trial in
front of Torres and grabbed me just as I was going to
leave the office for the night. His victim is a junkie --
she came in to be prepped for court and was so high she
couldn't hold her head up. God knows if she remembers
anything about the rape. I had to make the arrangements to
get a hotel room for her overnight so we could try to dry
her out before she gets on the witness stand. By the time
we finished it was nine-thirty, and I just called my
friend Joan Stafford to meet for a late supper."
"I didn't ask you for your alibi, for Chrissakes. How'd
you hear about this?"
"I can't even focus straight, Mike. You've got to take me
down to my office so I can be there before everyone starts
to arrive -- I'll never make it through all the
questions."
"Just talk to me, Alex."
Reliving the events of the past few hours as a witness and
not a prosecutor was an unsettling role for me. I tried to
reconstruct what had happened after I walked into my
apartment shortly before midnight and headed to the
answering machine to play back the messages as I started
to undress.
Beep one: "Hi, Alex. I'm on the Ventura Freeway, taking
the baby to his play group. Tell me more about the case
with the therapist who seduced his patient. It sounds
fascinating. How many people do you think he's fucked up?
Speak with you later." Nina Baum, my college roommate,
still my best friend, making her regular phone car call
from one of the endless L.A. roadways on which she seemed
to spend her life.
Beep two: Just the deliberate click of a hang-up call.
Beep three: "Yo, Coop. Wallace here. The lieutenant asked
me to give you a heads up. The Con Ed rapist hit again
today. Nothing for you to do now. Lady's been to the
hospital and released, so we put her to bed for the night.
You do the same, and we'll be down at your office
tomorrow. Behave. G'night." The deep, familiar voice of
Mercer Wallace, formerly of Homicide, who was now my lead
detective in the Special Victims Squad, the unit which
investigated all of the sexual assault and child abuse
cases that occurred in Manhattan.
Beep four: "I'm trying to reach a friend or next-of-kin to
Alexandra Cooper. This is an emergency. Please call me,
Chief Wally Flanders, Chilmark Police -- Martha's
Vineyard. It's urgent -- give a call as soon as you get
this message. Area code 508-555-3044. Thanks."
Of course I had known Wally for more than a decade -- I
had been going to the Vineyard since I had been in law
school, and Wally was as much a local fixture as the
fishing boats and the general store.
I picked up the phone to dial, wondering why he was
looking for a friend or relative at my apartment instead
of asking for me. When he got on the line, he expressed
how surprised he was to hear my voice. "Where are you?" he
asked.
"In Manhattan, in my apartment, Chief."
"Well, Alex, there's been a terrible tragedy here.
Terrible. Was there somebody stayin' at your house,
somebody you let use it?"
"Yes, Wally, a friend of mine is there. It's okay, she'll
be staying there for a week or two. It's no problem, I've
arranged everything."
My mind was racing but I had never connected the Vineyard
with any kind of crime problem except the occasional house
burglary. That's why it has always been such a refuge for
me, a world away from the grim business of investigating
and prosecuting rape cases. Someone must have noticed an
unfamiliar person coming or going into Daggett's Pond Way
and suspected a burglary.
"Not so easy, Alex. Your friend isn't staying for as long
as you thought. She was shot sometime tonight, see, and my
guys found the body a few hours ago. She's dead, Alex,
real dead."
"Oh my God!" I repeated quietly several times into the
telephone mouthpiece. I was incredulous, as people always
are when they get this kind of news. And as intimately as
I have worked with violence and murder for more than ten
years, it had never ruptured the fragile line that
separated my personal from my professional life.
"Alex? Alex? Are you alone there?"
"Yes."
"Can you get someone over to give you a hand with this?"
With what? I thought. What else could anyone do except
stare at me while I spun out of control? Wally
continued, "See, the big problem is that we thought it was
you who got killed. That's why we were tryin' to find your
family, for notification. The press already thinks you're
the dead woman."
"How did that happen?" I shrieked at him.
"Well, it's really ugly. We figure that you -- I mean she -
- was riding in a convertible, top down -- and she had
turned off the state road onto that wooded path that leads
in to your house. Someone must have been waiting in there
for you, and -- excuse me -- just let out a blast which
hit her square in the side of her head."
I don't suppose Wally could hear me but I was sitting on
my bedroom floor, crying as he finished his story.
"We had a call during the evening to go up to the
Patterson house, out your way. My boys found the body --
couldn't tell much about anything from looking at her and
she didn't have no ID. They called in the license plate
and found that the Mustang had been rented in your name.
Hell, it was your driveway, a rented car, and a girl with
a similar build and size -- it made sense that it was
you."
"I guess so," I whimpered back to him.
"Well I'm glad it's not you, Alex. Everyone will be glad
to know it's not you. I figured the investigation would be
a monster, tryin' to track down every pervert and madman
you've sent to jail. That's why I called in the FBI -- I
figured we'd be huntin' all over the place."
Wally actually laughed a few times at that point. "It's a
relief, really. I guess the off-island papers won't even
bother with us now."
The chief had no idea how wrong he was and how bad this
was going to be for that tranquil little island.
"Can you help us, Alex? Can you give us her name and who
to notify?"
I mumbled the name into the phone, but Wally heard it loud
and clear. "Isabella Lascar."
The news wires were about to explode with the information
that the face of the dazzlingly beautiful actress and film
star, Isabella Lascar, had been obliterated, and that what
was left of her body lay in the tiny Vineyard morgue, with
a toe tag mislabeled in the name of Alexandra Cooper.