“We’re not interested in drinking with you now. I asked you what you drink.”
I knew the answer to the question. I’d heard Jed order it dozens of times, usually having to explain to the bartender except in his regular joints exactly what it was.
“Booker’s, Mr. Chapman. I like Booker’s.” I mouthed the next phrase along with him, knowing he would feel the need to describe it to Mike.
“It’s a single malt Bourbon, from Kentucky. Quite pricey. I’ve always had a preference for Kentucky Bourbons over Tennessee. I’m sure there’s a reason you need to know this.”
“And when the barkeep runs dry on Booker’s, what’s your second choice?”
“It doesn’t much matter then. Something comparable from Kentucky, before I cross over the border into Tennessee.”
Nice start, Mikey, although I had been slow to catch up with you. Mike was thinking back to the arrangement of the bottles in my liquor cabinet on the Vineyard, when he had noticed that the Stoli and the Jack Daniel’s were in front of the Dewar’s. I never associated the Jack Daniel’s with Jed because he had never ordered any in all our time together.
But that Tennessee sour mash was the only Bourbon I had in my house, and he had obviously had to settle for it when he and Isabella were drinking together.
“Where’d you buy me that perfume, Jed?” I wanted to get back in the game.
“Paris, Alex. Are we at the point where I have to produce receipts for gifts I brought you?” In the typical fashion of a guilty defendant, Jed hadn’t even asked us what all these questions were about. Someone who was really in the dark would be more outraged and demanding explanations for our conduct.
Instead, he seemed to think that we were bluffing and as long as he was smarter than we were a woman and a blue-collar civil servant he could simply hold his course and continue to mislead us.
“What store, Jed? You so rarely go shopping I’m sure you remember which store in Paris you nipped into to buy the perfume.”
He took what he assumed was the safest way out of that one. This is a no-brainer, you dumb broad, he was probably thinking as he smiled smugly at me.
“Chanel. Chanel 22 direct from the salon on Avenue Montaigne.”
I had been hoping he might have even tried to say the duty-free shop, as I had joked at my apartment on Saturday ‘ evening. But no, he was determined for some reason to make me think I had been in his consciousness in Paris. The irony was that Chanel 22 is the only one of their perfumes that is made in America. It isn’t sold in a single place in France, not even in the company’s own stores.
“Make a note to check with American Express for his charges, Mike. See where and when he bought it.”
“Look, I agreed to come up here with you two because I wanted to resolve what I assumed were some petty issues that had arisen in your work. I didn’t know you were so damn paranoid, Alex, and this is a pretty ugly way to find it out. But if you think you can make these absurd allegations about me because I agreed to help your friend Isabella sort out her financial difficulties, you’re both out of your very unprofessional minds. I’ve never been to Martha’s Vineyard, I’ve never been involved with Isabella in any other way, and I’m not going to let you derail my plans by breaking up this evening for Warmack. Alex, if there’s an explanation for any of this, maybe we can talk about it by ourselves tomorrow.”
“You’ll have time for that after you finish at my office, tomorrow at four,” Mike said, drawing a business card out of his wallet and handing it to Jed. “We’ll need to do a set of fingerprints for elimination purposes, and we’ll have to get the medical examiner in to draw a vial of blood. I guess Alex has explained the potential for DNA evidence here. And bring your airline tickets and boarding passes for the flight to Paris, too. We’ll need a copy of them for the file.“
Jed exploded as Mike went from liquor and perfume discussions to submission to evidentiary tests for a murder investigation.
“This is a goddamn insult. You’re just trying to embarrass me for whatever it is you think I’ve done to hurt you. Have you gone mad? Does Battaglia know you’re playing these games with real people, not some bum you picked up in a homeless shelter? You want evidence from me you better call my lawyer or get a warrant.”
“You watch too much television, Jed. Why don’t you just give it up?”
“Hey, Alex,” Mike said, pushing himself away from the table and standing up, “I guess this is when I’m supposed to do my Columbo imitation, huh?” He slouched a bit, stuck his left hand in his pocket and faked a cigar in his on right, closed one eyelid and sounded more like Peter Falk than Peter Falk ever did.
“Ya know, I’m-just-a-stupid-cop! Mr. Segal, but I gotta ask ya, d’ya know anybody who Her drinks Bourbon and maybe put his hands all over a bottle of Jack Daniel’s when he couldn’t come by any Kentucky mash up in Chilmark last week, who wasn’t in Paris when he was supposed to be in Paris but went to Paris afterward anyway so he could come home from Paris, who’s got a really classy blue-and-green-plaid shirt that ain’t sold by the gross at Kmart or Wool worth’s like my shirts, and who left a wad of semen in some condoms in a house where a very famous lady he knew was murdered, even though he wasn’t a real prince for being there at the time because it woulda made some other nice lady who liked him a lot very unhappy? You know anybody like that?
“Cause, jeez, if you do, a dumb cop like me could sure use your help.”
I didn’t think anything could have made me laugh when we had walked into the club half an hour earlier, but Mike’s imitation of Columbo was perfect and refreshing, causing Jed to storm out of the library and down the staircase as we pressed for the elevator to take us back to the lobby.
“I dare you, blondie. The only thing you can do to beat the way you got us into the club tonight is if we both take all our clothes off in the elevator right now and just walk out of the building stark naked. Game?”
“Nah, Mikey. It would be my luck to run into Anderson Warmack on his way out of here, and it might just give him too much pleasure to see my bare ass. I’ll take a pass.”
We were down and out without incident, through the lobby, which was quiet as a mausoleum, and back in my driveway ten minutes later.
I opened the car door, said good night to Mike, and started to get out.
“Talk about role reversal, we’ve really come full circle,” he remarked to me. “Remember those lectures you used to give me during the Quentiss trial?Go directly home no gin mills, no drinking all night with the guys, no dropping in on flight attendants who are here on a turn-around. Go home and go to bed ‘cause you’re gonna get pounded on cross tomorrow.”
Remember the perky young prosecutor trying her first high-profile case, reading me the riot act whenever I had to be in court the next day? Well, same goes for you, Coop. Get upstairs, go directly to bed, don’t drink anything alcoholic, screen your calls in case that weasel tries to worm his way back into your affection, stay clearheaded for the morning. Understood?“
“Yeah, boss.”
“Alex, can I leave you alone, really? I mean, if you want company or you’re, well, you know…”
“Thanks, Mike. I’m really okay. This whole thing since the first phone call about Isabella’s murder last week has taken on a life of its own. I just feel like I’m being dragged along in a vicious riptide. I’ve sort of stopped fighting it now. I think I’ll just try to ride it out and see where I land.”
“Hang tough, blondie. The most important lesson for tonight is to think Aretha. No Tammy Wynette. No ”Stand by Your Man.“ I’m talking ”Respect“ all capital letters. You tell the doormen not to let Jed in if he shows up, and not to take his calls. We know he’s a liar and I know you don’t want to admit this to yourself but he may be more dangerous than that.“