Mike, at thirty-five, seemed hopelessly single, living to a tiny fifth-floor walk-up studio apartment he called “the coffin.” He and Mercer Wallace had worked together in the Homicide Squad, before Wallace transferred to Special Victims, where he was the lead man on most of the serious rape investigations in Manhattan.
Mercer, now thirty-nine, was almost five years older than I. His mother had died in childbirth and he was raised by his father in a middle-class neighborhood in Queens. Spencer Wallace worked as a mechanic for Delta at La Guardia Airport and liked to remind his son that it nearly broke his heart when Mercer turned down a football scholarship to the University of Michigan in order to become a cop.
In whatever command or precinct he had worked, Mercer Wallace was known for his meticulous and detailed approach to investigations. His brief marriage to a woman who had owned a small clothing business in his old neighborhood ended in divorce. He claimed she never understood or believed the demands of his job, which kept him away from home such erratic hours of the day and night. A second marriage to a detective he had worked with at headquarters ended just as unsuccessfully for reasons she never articulated to him. And this big, sweet guy was always looking for someone to give him his distance, his freedom, but also his three squares a day.
My parents were both alive, enjoying good health and a comfortable retirement on an island in the Caribbean. It was strange for me to enter this world of a medical center as crime scene because I had always been so at ease among healers in white lab coats and medical professionals who saved lives.
Benjamin Cooper, my father, was a cardiologist who had invented a plastic valve that had revolutionized open-heart surgery. It was used in nearly every such operation in this country for more than fifteen years after he and his partner created it, and I was vividly aware of the lifestyle that little piece of pliable tubing made possible for me.
No aroma from any kitchen impressed itself upon me in my childhood as it does for so many children. My clearest olfactory memory is the strong odor of ether that permeated my father’s handsome face and graceful hands from long days spent in the operating theater and was passed along to me when he bent down to kiss me goodnight after he came through the door late in the evening. It was before the use of sodium pentothal as an anesthetic, and I welcomed the unpleasant smell because it signaled the return home of my busy and adoring father.
Conversation at the dinner table, on those nights Ben made it home in time to eat with us, was always about medical subjects. My mother’s nursing degree made her equally conversant in the field and my brothers and I were exposed to the day’s surgical procedures throughout most of our meals. I had often accompanied my father to his office in the hospital on weekends and so was accustomed to the sights and smells, antiseptic and medicinal, of every wing of the medical center.
“Watch this guy move that machete,” Mike urged.
I stopped daydreaming and rejoined Chapman and Wallace in conversation, as the waiter hacked at the carcass of the duck with amazing speed and accuracy, wrapping and twisting the slivers of fowl in paper-thin pancakes stuffed with scallions and hoisin sauce.
“That’s one I never had yet, Mercer, have you? I mean, I’ve had lots of killings by Latino machetes, but I’ve never had a Peking duck carver. This guy’s like lightning.” Mike was biting into his first serving before ours even hit the plate.
“What’s new with your love life, Miss Cooper, anything I should know about?” Mercer asked.
“I think I’ve been waiting for the spring thaw.”
“I’m giving her another few months before I sign her up with the Sisters of Charity. Don’t you think she’d make a great nun, Mercer? All those little parochial school boys would remind you of me or McGraw, Blondie, and you could go around all day whacking ‘em on the ass with rulers. Wouldn’t have to moan about getting your roots done, and there’d be no feeling sorry for yourself when the phone doesn’t ring on Saturday night. Oscar de la Renta could design a special habit for you, Mercer’d get Smokey Robinson to craft some tunes-”
“Stop laughing, Mercer. Don’t humor him. Let’s switch it toyour love life, shall we? What’s with you and Francine?”
Wallace had been dating one of my colleagues, Francine Johnson, who was assigned to the Special Narcotics Division of the office.
“It’s still alive, Cooper, still alive. If I don’t mess this one up, you can be a bridesmaid, okay?”
Mike was eager to divert the conversation away from the topic before it turned to his own social life. “What do you know about neurosurgery? We’re going to need to find out exactly what Dogen’s practice consisted of and what her duties were, so we know what we’re looking for when these docs start to talk to us. Both in the hospital and in the medical school ‘cause they’re really two separate roles she had.”
“Who are you scheduled to see after the autopsy?” I asked.
“William Dietrich, the director of the hospital who toured me around today, is setting up the first interviews. I’ve got most of what I need from him. Then I’ll sit down with Spector, the guy who invited Gemma to assist in the surgery.”
“Neurosurgeons really consider themselves the elite of the profession,” I offered. “It’s a prized specialty, brain surgery, and one of the highest-paying fields in medicine, too.”
“After Spector, I got a couple of other professors lined up, and a mix of students and practitioners. Dietrich wants me to see the two guys who subbed for Dogen in the OR when she didn’t show up. Whaddaya think, Coop, it’s like42nd Street, no? Ruby Keeler as the understudy who steps in for the star and makes it big on Broadway.
“This time-” he flipped open his steno pad to check the names on his list with his left hand, while his chopsticks kept working the sea bass with his right. “Yeah, it’s a combination. A Paki and a WASP, the kind with two last names. The Paki-Banswar Desai-I know that guy is destined to wind up in my HIP program. I ought to tell him not to bust his ass working too hard in this classy joint. Every doctor on my list has a turban, I swear.”
“When are you going to learn that it’s really obnoxious to talk that way?” Mike’s ethnic slurs were a constant irritant in our conversations.
“Easy, Coop. I’m an equal opportunity offender. The other guy is Coleman Harper-don’t you hate those fancy names? I’ve probably insulted him already-he’s undoubtedly a third or a fourth or a fifth, named after granddad’s maternal great-grandmother.”
“My favorite’s that orthopedic surgeon who had the office next to Dogen,” said Mercer, “the young guy with the slicked-back hair and the phoniest grin I’ve ever seen. Bonded teeth, of course. D’you see him? I swear he thinks he’s Ben Casey. I think the only thing he’s worried about is whether they can get the bloodstains out of Dogen’s office so he can move into it. It’s one doorway closer to the dean’s office, and he’s awfully keen on moving up.”
I was full long before the fish arrived, and fading quickly. Patrick had taken the imprint from my American Express card. I told him to give the guys whatever they wanted and add on twenty percent for service.
“I’ll see both of you tomorrow,” I said, pushing away from the table.
“Don’t you want a nightcap?”
“No, thanks. I’m ready to fold.”
“Can’t leave without a fortune cookie. Hey, Patrick, give Miss Cooper a good one, will you?”
“Only have good fortunes at Shun Lee, Mr. Mike. No bad news.”
I ripped off the cellophane wrapper, split the crisp cookie in half, and pulled out the small white strip to learn my fate. “Thanks, Mike, I needed this news: ‘Things will get much worse before they get better. Be patient.’ ” Not my long suit.