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say would not put Mike in harm's way. "Detective Chapman has that copy. And I
can help you get it from him."
"How can you do that?"
I would have to think of something specific by daybreak, less than an hour or
so away. "Because he'll do whatever I ask him to do."
"No wonder you've got some problems with your boyfriend. Rather confident of
that, aren't you?"
"Chapman's a very intelligent man, Mr. Shreve. If you let me call him and
arrange for him to meet us, you can tell him exactly what you've told me about
Charlotte Voight and Lola Dakota."
"Surrender?"
"If Charlotte's death was accidental, and Lavery killed Lola, then you've got
nothing to worry about."
I needed to talk myself out of this black abyss and into the open areas
outside the building where someone might actually be able to see us once the
morning came.
"I'd rather get back home to the Sixth Arrondissement and let you break the
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news to the NYPD. Where's the Blackwells Island miniature that my grandfather
had Bennino make, Ms. Cooper? Do you know that, too?"
I moved my head up and down, slowly trying to think of a possible answer.
"Was that a'yes'?"
"Yes, I do." Shreve himself had given me the idea when he had talked about
Lola's weeks in hiding. "It's at Lily's house, Lola's sister." Why hadn't I
thought of that possibility in all the days since the murder? Lola must have
taken a lot of things with her to occupy her during the weeks in New Jersey.
She was too much of a workhorse not to have done so. If that's where she was
when she figured out Jennings's deadhouse scheme, that's probably where the
model was concealed.
I went on weaving my tale, which seemed to interest Winston Shreve. "There's a
key to a trunk that's in Lily's garage. It's where Lola left the miniature
when she came back to the city. Chapman has that key. I'm supposed to meet him
at nine o'clock this morning to go with him to pick up the model."
"And all that charade about old man Lockhart and going up to listen to his
story?"
"To try to determine who else knew about the map and the diamonds. If you let
me call Chapman now, on your cell phone, know he'll agree to meet with us."
And I know he'll get the tech unit to trace the call immediately. They could
do amazing thing with satellite systems, even pinpointing the location of the
caller in a matter of seconds.
"I wouldn't want to alarm him in the middle of the night. He might be busy."
Shreve was right. Mike might be much too involved with Valerie to be giving me
a second thought.
I didn't want to end my life in this godforsaken ruin like one more of the
outcasts sent here and left to die. Slowly, I raised my head to meet his eyes.
"I've studied your grandfather's map, Mr. Shreve. I believe I could recognize
the shapes of some of the areas, the pieces of land where the wooden sheds
once stood, if I saw them. If you want to walk outside with me, I can try to
help you find the rocks that correspond with the locations noted on the map."
"That's a good way to start, Ms. Cooper." He turned to look out the hollowed
window frame. It was still dark, and the storm had subsided. The precipitation
had stopped and large wet flakes of snow blew lazily upward from the ground
instead of falling in sheets. "The positions on the map, were they numbered?"
"Yes, yes, they were numbered." The first time I said that word aloud I
recalled another set of numbers. In the pocket of the black sweater that we'd
found in Lola Dakota's apartment just hours after her murder was the slip of
paper that we had removed. The paper that bore the words the deadhouse,
followed by a list of numbers. They meant nothing to us at the time, and now I
realized they must have been the key to the map that Lola had deciphered while
holed up at her sister's home.
Lola had come back from New Jersey wearing that sweater, but removed it at
some point before she walked out of her apartment for the last time. Shreve
had gone to intercept her, looking for the map and the numbers that might
correspond to it and lead him to the diamonds.
"The numbers, Ms. Cooper. Tell me how they were ordered." "I honestly can't
remember that. I know that the lower numbers started at the southern tip of
the island. I, uh, I could probably show you where some of the areas that were
highlighted on the map are, if I could actually see the terrain."
"Nice try, Ms. Cooper. That's hardly the way it was half a century ago."
"But some of it is exactly the same. I, I when I saw the map, I didn't even
realize what the outline of the Strecker building represented. But I know
there were areas to the east of the seawall, that were starred by Professor
Dakota on her map." After Shreve's explanation this morning, it didn't take
much else to figure out where the wooden sheds had been built, close to the
morgue and out of view of patients arriving from Manhattan.
He was too smart to trust me entirely.
"You've got nothing to lose." I tried to say it casually, not to reveal how
anxious I was to get out of this hellhole. "I can't get very far." Surrounded
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as we were on three sides by water that was so cold it would kill the
strongest swimmer within minutes of submersion, even before the current could
carry one away, and bounded on the fourth side by a razor-wire fence, Shreve
could hardly disagree.
He picked up one of his neckties and rewound it around m hands, binding them
in front of me rather than behind so could move more easily. He carried the
long piece of rope in his left hand, while lifting me to my feet with his
right. "I'll call your bluff, Ms. Cooper. You've got a bit of time to see if
you can find me a gem or two."
It took me several seconds on my feet before I was able to walk a few steps.
The cold air had numbed them, and I was fearful frostbite. That was a good
thing, I reminded myself. It at le meant that I thought I was going to survive
this ordeal if I was worried about losing a few toes.
Shreve led me through the shell of the building and out the rear door, the
same way we had come in hours before. It was the only side of the structure
that was not lit by floodlights, and so he knew he could guide me out to the
shoreline without detection, in the event anyone had even thought to look for
me in this unlikely place.
The city nightscape was more visible to me now. The grey-black sky had cleared
to cobalt blue, in the final hour of predawn darkness on the last day of the
year. Off in the distance on the Manhattan side, the Art Deco crown beneath
the spire of the Chrysler Building was bathed in the red and green lights of
the holiday season. Closer to me, in Queens, the Citicorp tower dominated the
skyline, standing behind the Domino Sugar, Silvercup, and Daily News signs
that stood atop the company plants that fronted the river.
Below the neon lights and factory smokestacks, on the streets and piers, I
could not make out a single human being across the water.
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