Lovers and Other Killers (eBook)

2

Vance’s body was still warm. Cass sat back on her heels. She would do CPR. She interlocked both hands in the middle of his chest and pressed down. She blew into his mouth. Lips warm. Blow. Thirty moves. Count. His chest did not rise. Keep going. Rod Stewart continued to blast out They Can’t Take That Away From Me.

Then she heard the wail, a heart-breaking lament coming from the center of her soul, all of the Americanization and Girl Scouts and Columbia School of Journalism washed away. Smelling Vance’s lime after-shave, she yowled with grief. She wept and screamed like an ancient Greek woman tearing out her hair at the death of a beloved one, a primitive country woman who had lost purpose and the center of herself.

A blond police officer tugged at her shoulder. “Come now, Ma’am.” Her dress and hands were smeared with Vance’s blood. The officer reached up to forcefully pull Cass off of Vance’s body and lead her into the next room. “Detective Adams is on his way.”

Cass sat down in a green chair by a window overlooking a sunlit courtyard. Turning away from glaring light, she looked back towards the bedroom, now invaded by men and women, New York Police Department professionals. They photographed, measured, inspected, a small army equipped with cameras, tape, moving back and forth, collecting evidence, examining every inch of the floor, the furniture, the walls. Scientists. Technicians. Cold, objective strangers who did not know or care about the late Vance Elliott Cooper.

Cass shivered as the brutal sunlight blasted in her face. As she stood up to close the blind, a burly gentleman approached. He had a round face, a forehead etched with lines, a big nose, chubby cheeks, hazel eyes, wispy beige hair. A skeptical face, as if one eyebrow would always be raised as it was now. There was a slight paunch and the beginnings of a double chin. He looked weary, as if he had just been dragged out of bed or the local bar.

“I’m Robert Adams, homicide detective. You can call me Adams, because that’s what everyone else calls me. I’ve seen your byline, Cass. Can I call you Cass? It’s easier if we proceed that way, on a first-name basis. It facilitates communication.”

“Of course.” That weird, spaced out feeling was creeping up on her -- intimation of a dread anxiety attack. She took a deep breath. She would fight it. Inhale slowly. Exhale. This was not the time to whip out a small paper bag and breathe into it, or reach for a drink. “Please, I would like to call my lawyer. My bag with my phone in it is in the next room.”

The young cop brought Cass her bag. She phoned Donaldson in Vermont, surprised at the level sound of her own voice. “Vance has been murdered. He was stabbed to death. Here. In your house. I found him. I am with the police.”

“Vance dead.” Donaldson’s voice shook. “My God, no. Are you alright?”

“I would be lying if I said yes. I could use a lawyer.”

“No more questions. I’m chartering a plane. I’ll leave immediately. I’ll come directly to the 67th Street Precinct station. Try not to talk to the police without me.”

The police drove Cass to the 67th Street Precinct station, an imposing five story red brick and grey granite building that dominated the block. Adams turned her over to a team of technicians. First a young woman took swabs from her blood-covered hands, which she was then permitted to wash. As the blood mingled with water in the washbowl, she realized it was Vance’s blood disappearing down the drain, felt it was a waste and a sin, a desecration. She did not want that to happen, wanted to bottle that blood.

Next the finger printing. “You’ll want to get out of those clothes,” the officer said, her voice cool and in-command. Cass took the big T-shirt, sweater and running pants offered to her, went to the bathroom and put them on as the justice system continued to methodically chip away at her persona. The officer put Cass’s own clothes in a bag and labeled it with her name.

Detective Adams moved towards her. Despite the beginnings of a paunch and wispy hair, he moved gracefully as dancer, light on his feet. “Come.” He led her to an elevator and then downstairs to an interrogation room, a grey room with a table, three chairs and a mirror that Cass knew one could see through from the other side. Another young police officer had joined them. “Meet Officer McGrath.”

“Is there any new information?” Cass asked. “Anything you can tell me?”

“Everything’s always new in a homicide case. We are constantly going back over evidence and finding new angles. Discovering what might have appeared insignificant at first and realizing that it is crucial. Or a new witness who has been holding back comes to the station and spills. A case is not inert. It is alive.”

Cass was seated by the table, with the two men at a short distance away.

“First, let me read you your Miranda rights.” Adams proceeded. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you do not have an attorney, one will be appointed for you.” He paused. “Is that clear?”

“Perfectly clear.”

“Now let’s begin. What’s the last time you saw Vance Cooper alive?”

“Would it be presumptuous of me to ask for a cup of coffee?”

“Of course not. McGrath, get Mrs. Cooper a container of coffee. Cream and sugar?”

“Cream, please.”

McGrath swiftly returned with a large cardboard container and handed it to Cass, who thanked him, gratefully opened the lid and took a sip.

“Better?” Adams asked.

“Somewhat.”

“I’m not asking you to spill your guts,” Adams said. “All I want are the facts.”

Donaldson had advised her against talking to Adams. But she felt the need to reassert herself. She had nothing to hide. She was a practiced interviewer. She could hold her own. “I last saw Vance alive at 3 A.M.” She looked up at Adams and the large mirror behind him

“Don’t worry about observers. Talk to me.”

Adams did not interrupt her as she recounted the night’s events. He sat back in his chair, fingers hooked in his belt. “You speak of your late ex-husband as if he was a man you were just getting to know, not somebody you had been married to for twenty years. I’m not sure if that’s charming or pathetic. You were divorced from Cooper. Why the reunion?”

“The night before he was leaving Balaban, I had this amazing dream about him,” Cass said. “I called him and we made the date to meet at midnight. We planned to remarry today.”

Adams stroked his chin as if there were a beard although not even a hair sprouted there. “Cass, I don’t want you to get your panties in a tangle, but there appears to be a reality that you haven’t been able to deal with. Your late husband was far from a perfect person.”

“I was aware.”

“In fact, he had been supremely lucky in having both a brilliant lawyer and psychologist defending him before he went to prison. He got five years. Bernie Madoff, another man who bilked people with a Ponzi scheme, got a life sentence. Madoff was short and ugly. Vance Cooper was handsome and charismatic. Women fell in love with him – including yourself -- and men related.” Adams quirked an eyebrow at Cass.

“You have learned a lot about Vance in a few hours.” The accusatory tone of her own voice surprised her.

“I am a New York police detective and a speed reader. You loved him but what kind of a husband was he?”

“He was my kind of husband.” Cass felt as if she had to defend Vance and herself. “Our relationship was not straight out of the happily-ever-after books but it suited me. We talked, we cooked, we drank, we fought and made up.” She would hold nothing back. “We had one physical drag-out fight when I emerged with a scar at the top of my forehead. There.” Cass pointed to the scar on her forehead.

Adams mouth turned down. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that you had great sex.”

“I never discuss my sex life.” Cass sipped coffee, now grown cold.

“Why did you divorce Cooper?”

“He had an affair. I couldn’t handle it.”

“And yet were ready to marry him again. Why?”

“We are all entitled to one mistake.”

“Think of all the people Vance antagonized, the double dealings, the gambling debts. Cooper went through his life with the aura of a born winner, the American success story. Poor boy makes good. Scholarships to NYU and Wharton, plus his rumored charm led to dazzling success that acted like a cover for his dark side. If you did remarry him, what did you anticipate?”

“It might be difficult, but it’s what I wanted.”

“You decide to remarry Cooper. You leave and go home to pack a bag and to retrieve your wedding ring, you claim. But there was no wedding ring among...