The Deadhouse Read Online Free Page B
Author: Linda Fairstein
Tags: Fiction, General, Mystery & Detective
later, Chapman came out the same way, said
something to the uniformed cops still posted next to the entrance, and
crossed the street to the car to help me maneuver the icy road. We
walked down to 115th Street and into the alley that led to the rear of
the building. The heavy iron door was wedged ajar by the flashlight
that Chapman had been holding earlier. He picked it up from the ground
as he pulled open the door and took me inside through the basement. We
rode to the fifteenth floor on the one elevator that was still in
service, which creaked its way upward, slowly and noisily, then crossed
over to the south side of the building to get to 15A. When Chapman
tapped lightly on the door, Zotos opened it immediately and we joined
him inside the apartment.
Mike passed me a pair of rubber gloves, in exchange for the black
leather pair I'd been wearing all evening. "Don't touch anything
without showing it to me first. Just poke around and see what strikes
you as interesting."
"Some kind of slob, eh?" George was shaking his head, not knowing
where to begin. "You think it was ransacked, or she just liked to live
this way?"
I had been to Lola's office several times to discuss her case and
to try to pressure her supervisors into supporting her during the
process. "I think this is her natural habitat. It's pretty consistent
with what I saw on campus."
We were standing in the living room, which appeared to have been
decorated with the remains of a Salvation Army used-furniture sale. The
classic bones of a prewar six-room apartment were practically obscured
by the bizarre accumulation of odd-shaped chairs, a pair of Victorian
love seats covered in faded burgundy velvet, a beige Naugahyde lounger,
and cardboard boxes piled everywhere, with strapping tape still in
place. Whenever she had moved them in, Lola had not yet opened or
unpacked them.
I walked through the other rooms to get a sense of the layout. The
small kitchen, still decorated in the drab avocado tones of the
sixties, was quite bare, which fit with the fact that she had been
living in New Jersey for almost a month. The dining room featured an
old oak table, pushed up against the window, overlooking a glorious
view of the park and river. It, too, was stacked with boxes, with the
word BOOKS scrawled on the sides of almost every one.
The master bedroom had the same view, outside and within. Here, some
of the cartons had been opened and the volumes were spread around the
floor and partially scattered on shelves.
"What'd she teach?" Mike asked, moving into the room with me.
"Political science. When I first got the case and met her, she was
still on the faculty at Columbia. Had a spectacular reputation as a
scholar and a teacher. Lola was a brilliant lecturer."
I glanced at a small stack of books on her nightstand. They were all
novels rather than textbooks. I wondered whether they were favorites
she kept at hand to reread. A bookmark stuck out from the pages of the
one on top of the pile—an early Le Carre, one that Lola would never
finish.
"Students loved her because she brought the classroom alive. I
remember one day last winter, I was going up to the school for a
meeting with her. She said I could catch part of her class. Municipal
institutions in the early part of the twentieth century—the mayoralty,
the corrupt officials of Tammany Hall, the city jails and courthouses.
Of course I was intrigued, so I made a point of getting there in time
to walk in and sit in the back of the classroom."
"Busman's holiday," Mike said, opening drawers and examining their
contents.
"Lola lured me right into that one." I smiled, remembering the day.
"She'd spent the week on the politics of Gentleman Jimmy Walker, the
mayor of New York City in the late 1920s. But she had a unique method
of showing the students the tone of the period. She was parading around
the podium, doing a perfect imitation of Mae West, describing the
actress's arrest and prosecution for the stage performance of
something to the uniformed cops still posted next to the entrance, and
crossed the street to the car to help me maneuver the icy road. We
walked down to 115th Street and into the alley that led to the rear of
the building. The heavy iron door was wedged ajar by the flashlight
that Chapman had been holding earlier. He picked it up from the ground
as he pulled open the door and took me inside through the basement. We
rode to the fifteenth floor on the one elevator that was still in
service, which creaked its way upward, slowly and noisily, then crossed
over to the south side of the building to get to 15A. When Chapman
tapped lightly on the door, Zotos opened it immediately and we joined
him inside the apartment.
Mike passed me a pair of rubber gloves, in exchange for the black
leather pair I'd been wearing all evening. "Don't touch anything
without showing it to me first. Just poke around and see what strikes
you as interesting."
"Some kind of slob, eh?" George was shaking his head, not knowing
where to begin. "You think it was ransacked, or she just liked to live
this way?"
I had been to Lola's office several times to discuss her case and
to try to pressure her supervisors into supporting her during the
process. "I think this is her natural habitat. It's pretty consistent
with what I saw on campus."
We were standing in the living room, which appeared to have been
decorated with the remains of a Salvation Army used-furniture sale. The
classic bones of a prewar six-room apartment were practically obscured
by the bizarre accumulation of odd-shaped chairs, a pair of Victorian
love seats covered in faded burgundy velvet, a beige Naugahyde lounger,
and cardboard boxes piled everywhere, with strapping tape still in
place. Whenever she had moved them in, Lola had not yet opened or
unpacked them.
I walked through the other rooms to get a sense of the layout. The
small kitchen, still decorated in the drab avocado tones of the
sixties, was quite bare, which fit with the fact that she had been
living in New Jersey for almost a month. The dining room featured an
old oak table, pushed up against the window, overlooking a glorious
view of the park and river. It, too, was stacked with boxes, with the
word BOOKS scrawled on the sides of almost every one.
The master bedroom had the same view, outside and within. Here, some
of the cartons had been opened and the volumes were spread around the
floor and partially scattered on shelves.
"What'd she teach?" Mike asked, moving into the room with me.
"Political science. When I first got the case and met her, she was
still on the faculty at Columbia. Had a spectacular reputation as a
scholar and a teacher. Lola was a brilliant lecturer."
I glanced at a small stack of books on her nightstand. They were all
novels rather than textbooks. I wondered whether they were favorites
she kept at hand to reread. A bookmark stuck out from the pages of the
one on top of the pile—an early Le Carre, one that Lola would never
finish.
"Students loved her because she brought the classroom alive. I
remember one day last winter, I was going up to the school for a
meeting with her. She said I could catch part of her class. Municipal
institutions in the early part of the twentieth century—the mayoralty,
the corrupt officials of Tammany Hall, the city jails and courthouses.
Of course I was intrigued, so I made a point of getting there in time
to walk in and sit in the back of the classroom."
"Busman's holiday," Mike said, opening drawers and examining their
contents.
"Lola lured me right into that one." I smiled, remembering the day.
"She'd spent the week on the politics of Gentleman Jimmy Walker, the
mayor of New York City in the late 1920s. But she had a unique method
of showing the students the tone of the period. She was parading around
the podium, doing a perfect imitation of Mae West, describing the
actress's arrest and prosecution for the stage performance of