Likely To Die

There was a bedside arraignment at Bellevue for Coleman Harper and I was pleased when Battaglia called me himself to tell me that Judge Roger Hayes, a sage and intrepid jurist, had remanded the defendant without bail.

Laura would need an extra week’s vacation even more than I did. She spent the better part of each day dodging the calls from the press, everybody looking for an exclusive. I hated to say no to Katie Couric, so Battaglia reluctantly agreed to go on camera himself to do aToday show interview about the issue of violent crime as it occasionally involved health care professionals. Mike Sheehan was begging me to leak something to him for Fox 5, but I knew there were enough of the guys he used to work with in the Police Department to take care of that impropriety for me.

Most of the week I spent working with Tom Kendris and the detectives so that I could testify before the grand jury on Thursday afternoon. We devoted hours to analyzing the evidence in the case, with Gemma’s voluminous records from ten years of her guardianship of Minuit’s neurosurgical program spread out on every flat surface in Kendris’s office. I kept coming back to the pictures of the crime scene floor trying to divine whether the dying woman had actually been writing some message to us in her blood.

Now the unfinished letter looked to me like an R, and so, in hindsight, I had her spelling out the word “Reject.” Every time he saw me glance at the picture, Chapman pulled it from my hand and told me to get real. “She didn’t have the strength to write anything at that point.” I would always be willing to believe that she did.

Maureen and her husband Charles had been brought back from their safe house on Sunday night, so Mercer drove me out to see them after work on Monday. We hugged each other until I thought I would crack her rib cage. Then we took out our date books and picked a May weekend for our trip to a spa.

The lab results had confirmed that the “nurse” who drugged Mo had given her a massive dose of a horse tranquilizer-nothing that would kill her but something that would call to everyone’s attention that she had been made as a cop.

There hadn’t been any progress on figuring out who had done it, although Mike suspected it was Coleman Harper trying to divert the police from looking at him and get them to focus their attention on DuPre, who was one of Mo’s attending physicians. No one was able to convince Mo, though, to blame it on her pal John DuPre. She was having trouble with the fact that he wasn’t really a doctor at all since she had liked his ma

Joan Stafford had returned to New York on Tuesday evening and insisted that I come for di

I smiled at her across the table. “It’s the new me, Joanie. I’m ready.”

I wanted to go home to the Vineyard and nothing could be easier than having my two best friends at my side when I drove into Daggett’s Pond Way for the first time since last October.

Nina Baum took the red-eye and arrived early on Friday. I had left my spare keys with the doorman so she could shower and relax before coming down to hang out with me at the office. Our friendship had started the first day we both arrived at Wellesley when we had been assigned by lot to be roommates, and I had never found a more loyal or loving friend.

Sarah had called in early to say she was taking the day off and fortunately, for a change, the Sex Crimes Unit had a quiet one. Nina and I went to Forlini’s for a long lunch, came back to close up my desk for the weekend, and hopped into a taxi to meet Joan at La Guardia.

The flight was smooth and easy. Joan had arranged for a Jeep rental at the airport so we didn’t have to bother to get my old car out of storage. The fifteen-minute ride up-island was magnificent as we caught the last light of the spring day. Green buds were starting to sprout on most of the trees and daffodils dotted the yards and roadsides with cheerful yellow fringe.

My stomach churned as Nina braked for the turn onto the path that leads to my house. Isabella Lascar had died there and I would never again be able to make that turn without thinking of that. I was pleased to see, though, that Joe, my caretaker, had planted wonderful beds of tulips and bearded iris all along the drive and placed a granite marker at the base of the tree where Isabella’s life had been taken.

The little farmhouse had the wonderful smell of fresh paint, which had also removed every sign of the fingerprint powder the police had used and gave my home a cheerful accent with its hand-drawn stenciling and clean linen-white trim.

I put my things down in the master bedroom and walked out to meet Nina and Joan on the deck. “I couldn’t have done this without both-”

“Shhh. I haven’t seen this view in three years,” Nina reminded me. “I just want a glimpse of it before it’s completely dark.” It was my own little piece of heaven and I sat on the railing to absorb its beauty, taking in the hillside with its fields of wildflowers, the ponds that were emptied now of all the boats of summer people, and the sea beyond.

Joan was on her feet. “Okay, ten minutes to get yourself out of that ridiculous lady-lawyer suit. We have an eight o’clock reservation for di

“I didn’t even realize they’d be open before the begi

“You haven’t had time to realize anything lately. If I’d left it in your hands, we’d be having popcorn for di

“Don’t knock her. Itis one of the few dishes she does well, Joan.”

I went inside and changed into jeans and a blazer, then sat in the back of the Jeep while Nina drove us out to the western tip of the island-Gay Head-where Hughie and Jean Taylor built and ran the most wonderful i

We were too late for that feature tonight, but their chef, Barbara, was a graduate of the Culinary Institute and could do some pretty special things in that kitchen. I carried a couple of bottles of wine under my arm because, like this whole end of the island, Gay Head was dry.

We walked across the lawn to the entrance of the i

I led the way out onto the porch and froze in the doorway. Hughie was playing the piano and a chorus of familiar faces was singing “Happy Birthday” to me, champagne glasses in everyone’s hand. Mike was behind the bar, of course, helping out Hollis, the regular bartender. Mercer had brought Francine with him and they were flanked by Sarah and Jim, Charles and Maureen, Rod Squires, and Renee and David. Joanie and Nina had filled every room at the I