Death Dance (3 page)

Jean was quick. I had told her not to be confrontational with
Selim, knowing that might anger him and cause him to hang up the phone.
Roll with him. Bring him back to talking about the cocktail he mixed
for you.

"That drink you gave us tasted kind of weird. Lucky I didn't
have more of it."

"Hmm."

"Hmm" didn't tell me anything I needed to know. Selim was
probably trying to think of an excuse for her observation. I scribbled
a note to Jean and slid it across the table. I wanted on record that
she had not been drinking more alcohol than she told Mercer and me. I
wanted to hear it from Selim. The defense at a trial like this would
just try to convince the jury that she and Cara were blottoed.

"I mean, you saw me, Selim. I don't think I even had more than
a few sips, did I? I didn't finish a fraction of the drink you poured."
Jean was wide awake now, the receiver in one hand and her other one
gripping the papers I had prepared.

"No, no, you didn't. You hardly touched it. Maybe you were
already feeling sick before you came there."

"I felt fine when we got to the apartment. Both of us did. I'm
worried about Cara. She's been throwing up and everything. C'mon, what
was in the drink you gave us?"

"Bourbon. Just the bourbon that you brought me."

"You gotta be kidding, Selim. It wasn't even the same color as
what was in the bottle. It was all fuzzy and white." Jean didn't like
being challenged any more by him than she had by my questions. Her
green eyes were focused with determination now.

He was silent.

"You still there, Selim? I mean, I don't have to tell Cara,
but it would help me to know that we can get on that bus and she's not
going to need to have her stomach pumped or be throwing up on me all
the way home. I can't think of much worse than that on a long ride, can
you?"

Still, silence.

"My problem has all cleared up—you don't have to
worry about that. It's just between you and me, but you gotta give me a
hand with Cara."

Good pitch, girl. Let him think it's no big deal.

"Bourbon and what?" Jean said. "I heard you working the
blender in there."

A nervous laugh. "Oh, that. I usually put a little cordial in
with my drink. Do you know Bailey's?"

"I know what it is, but I've never had it."

"I think you two just weren't used to the taste of the
bourbon."

"But that combination of liquors wouldn't make me feel all
drugged up, would it? So quickly?"

"Oh, sure. It could do that. Everybody has a different
reaction, depending on their metabolism." .

"Really?" Jean paused for several seconds before her next
question. She put down the crib sheet, gnawed once at her cuticle, and
stared down at the tabletop. "Selim, did you have sex with me last
night?"

Again he seemed to snap at her. "Why are you asking me that?
You wanted to do that?"

I held my hand up at Jean to try to get her to back off, but
it was clear to me that she was frustrated by the doctor's answers and
understandably anxious to know whether she had been violated after he
sedated her.

"No. You know I didn't have any interest in having sex with
you. I made that clear the first night we got there. But I had this
sort of dream that you were—"

"Maybe you drank the bourbon too fast. Maybe you're just
imagining things. I never touched you. Look, it's really late and I
have to go to—"

"How about Cara? She swears you made love to her."

I had written out that choice of language for Jean to use. If
she'd confronted Selim with a highly charged word like "rape," he would
have known immediately that she was talking about a crime. I was hoping
that an expression like "making love" would cause him to lower his
guard and explain away the conduct to his accuser as consensual.

"I think you better go home, Jean. I think you're acting
really crazy. Nobody's going to believe the stuff you're saying.
They'll just think you were drunk."

The call ended abruptly. Jean tried to keep him talking, but
Selim wasn't having any more of it.

I dialed Mercer's cell phone number and walked out of the room
so Jean wouldn't hear my conversation with him.

"Where are you?" I said when he answered.

"Right down the hall from the doc's apartment. Top of the
stairwell," he whispered. "I got two guys with me for backup, and Kerry
Schreiner, in case the girlfriend's inside. Four of us ready to roll."

"The judge authorized nighttime entry, didn't she?"

"Yeah, Sarah argued exigent circumstances so we could go in
any time. By morning, the kitchen sink might be clean as a whistle.
Before I put my finger on the doorbell, did Jean get any admissions
from him?"

"Not enough to collar him yet. Denies drugging them. Denies
sex. She did a really good job but he got spooked when she pressed too
much. It's all up to what you find inside. Keep me posted." I wished
him luck and clicked off the phone.

I took Jean back to the Special Victims office to reunite her
with Cara McDevitt. When Cara saw us enter the squad room, she stood up
and rushed forward to embrace her friend.

"What took so long?" Cara asked. "Are you okay?"

She was tearful and anxious. Jean nodded without emotion and
stepped away to sit in one of the chairs. "I'm fine. Exhausted is all.
I just talked to the pervert—"

"You did?" Cara asked, wide-eyed and still sniffling.

"Can I let her know about it now, Ms. Cooper? I'm only sorry I
couldn't tell him what I really wanted to say."

"I promise to give you that chance down the road. It's better
for the case that you stuck to my script. You nailed down some very
important points, and I know how hard that was to do." I smiled at
Jean, admiring her courage and her fortitude. "Sure you can tell Cara
about it."

One of the detectives from the squad was waiting to take them
to the hotel room we had arranged so they could get some rest. I wanted
them to stay in town to testify before the grand jury the next week if
we came up with evidence of the commission of a crime.

My file was still in the Homicide Squad office, so I went back
to retrieve it and wait for Mercer.

"What's got you up past your bedtime?" Mike asked. "You're
looking a little short in the beauty sleep department."

"Think we've got a DFSA."

Drug-facilitated sexual assault had been around for a very
long time. There were mickeys slipped to femmes fatales in half of the
noir films and pulp fiction of the forties and fifties. And the
occasional Mata Haris who used similar techniques to betray their
seducers. But the nineties had ushered in a roster of designer drugs
that made it sport for college kids, street thugs, and professionals to
lace drinks of unsuspecting dates with ecstasy and Seconal, roofies and
GHB— known more formally as Rohypnol and gamma
hydroxybutyrate. Not only did the druggings often lead to sex crimes,
but also to lethal combinations of chemical substances in these muscle
relaxants that triggered a range of reactions, from seizures to comas,
and even death.

"Why don't you go home?" Mike asked.

"The call didn't go as well as I had hoped. The guy didn't
give us much, so I want to see what Mercer comes back with. Anything
new on Natalya?"

"The artistic director of the company wants to lowball it.
She's got a bad rep as a prima donna—"

"She
is
a prima donna. She's one of the
best dancers in the world. Julie Kent, Alessandra Ferri, Natalya
Galinova—they're breathtak-ingly brilliant artists. What does
that have to do with the fact that she disappeared?"

"Your pal Talya sports a fierce temper and a foul mouth. She
had a battle backstage in her dressing room after the second act,
stormed out of there, and wasn't around to take her bow at the end of
the evening."

"She's too much of a pro not to finish the performance."

"No, no, Coop. She was dancing only one piece. It
was—what do you call it? A gala or something. They weren't
doing a full-length ballet, just excerpts, and hers was done."

"That makes more sense. Who was she fighting with?"

"Maybe her lover. Maybe—"

"Her lover? I'm sure her husband back in London will be
thrilled with the news."

"Could be why the director wants to keep a lid on this one for
a few hours, till we see where she shows up," Mike said, looking over
his notes. "Thirty-eight. That's pushing it for a dancer, isn't it?
It's even an advanced age for a prosecutor."

"I'm not there yet. Don't rush me. And yes, ballet is ruthless
in that regard," I said. "Who called in the scratch?" I asked.

"Talya's agent. He phoned the precinct to ask how to file a
missing persons report. The desk sergeant told him it was too early but
kicked it up here to cover his ass."

The long-standing NYPD policy didn't allow adults to be
declared missing unless they hadn't been heard from in more than
twenty-four hours. More than eighteen thousand reports of missing
persons came in to city cops over the course of an average year, and
all but a handful turned out to be runaways or people who had chosen to
leave whatever scene they had disappeared from.

"Who's the lover?"

"Depends who you ask. The artistic director claims the guy's a
major producer. Theatrical, like Broadway shows. He says they've been
working the couch in her dressing room pretty hard. The agent admits
Talya knows the man, but claims it's just a professional relationship."

"What's his name?"

"Joe Berk. Ever hear of him?"

"I've seen it in the papers but I don't know anything about
him."

"Seems there's no accounting for the lady's taste. He's twice
her age, thick like a stuffed boar, filthy rich, and vicious as a
rattlesnake, according to Talya's agent. But he's sleeping at home like
a baby tonight. Rinaldo Vicci—that's her
agent—tried calling Berk to find her. Says if the guy did
anything evil, it's not keeping him awake. Besides, Talya also argued
with the stage manager about the lighting, and earlier in the evening
with the guy who partnered her about nearly dropping her on a lift at
today's rehearsal. Might have just pirouetted off in a huff. Something
you've done to me more times than I can count on all my fingers and
toes, blondie."

The door opened and Sergeant Maron from Special Victims
signaled to me. "Need you inside, Alex. DCPI wants a briefing in case
anything goes down."

The deputy commissioner of Public Information had to be ready
for reporters when any police matter threatened to be high profile. I
picked up my folder and started out.

"Hey, Mike," Maron said. "Where you been holed up?"

"Took some time off." He wouldn't turn his head in Steve's
direction.

"Sorry to steal Alex away from you."

Mike waved the back of his hand at us. "You're doing me a
favor. Coop was threatening for a month to plaster my picture on the
side of milk cartons, send a task force out searching for me. It's a
relief to be back on the job."

Mike's girlfriend had been killed in a freak accident on a ski
trip a few months back. The grief had overwhelmed him and he had
distanced himself from even his closest friends as he tried to find a
way to deal with the loss.

Steve Maron and I were still in his office half an hour later
when Mercer and his team of detectives walked into the squad room. He
was holding the arm of a man whose hands were cuffed behind his back.

Mercer led his prisoner into the barred holding cell, unlocked
the cuffs, and told him to take a seat on the wooden bench against the
wall. The sullen suspect was about five-foot-eleven, looked to be in
his early thirties, had short brown hair parted neatly on one side, and
large dark eyes that swept the room as though he was trying to figure
out who each of us was and why he had been brought here.

"Dr. Sengor, I presume?" I asked Mercer, as he crossed the
room to talk to me in Maron's office, our backs to the larger room.

Mercer nodded.

"And probable cause to go with him?" I asked.

"Check out the boxes," he said, closing the door and pointing
at the cartons that the other two detectives placed on Maron's desk. I
opened the lid of the large one and saw a blender and three dirty
drinking glasses. Two of them were coated with residue that streaked
their sides and bottom.

"Where were these?"

"On the kitchen counter. The sink was full of dirty dishes."

I lifted the top off the shoe box next to the carton. Pills.
Dozens of pills. All of them in vials with prescription labels or
sample cards from pharmaceutical companies.

Mercer removed a glassine envelope from his pants pocket. In
it was an empty pill bottle. "This was sitting beside the bourbon the
girls brought him last night. See what those red letters say next to
the warning symbol?"

I twisted the bag and looked at the highlighted print. "Avoid
alcohol while taking Xanax. Alcohol increases drowsiness and dizziness."

Mercer picked out one of the samples from the shoe box. "You
don't have to read the fine print on this to find out what we already
know—an overdose of the drug causes unconsciousness. It's up
to you to make the charges stick, Alex. I just couldn't walk out of
that apartment without cuffing the bastard."