The Deadhouse

Zusatztext The Washington Post SuperbŠ. The Deadhouse allows Fairstein to display her firsthand knowledge of crime and investigation. Informationen zum Autor Linda Fairstein was chief of the Sex Crimes Unit of the district attorney's office in Manhattan for more than two decades and is America's foremost legal expert on sexual assault and domestic violence. Her Alexandra Cooper novels are international bestsellers and have been translated into more than a dozen languages. She lives in Manhattan and on Martha's Vineyard. Klappentext A New York college professor is found strangled in an elevator shaft with a few strands of hair clutched in her lifeless hands and a piece of paper in her pocket that reads "The Deadhouse." Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper sorts through the case! but suspects abound! including the woman's violent husband and her professional colleagues. Chapter One It was hard not to smile as I watched Lola Dakota die. I clicked the remote control button and listened to the commentary again on another network. "New Jersey police officers have released a portion of these dramatic videotapes to the media this evening. We're going to play for you the actual recordings the three hit men hired by her husband to kill Ms. Dakota made to prove to him that they had accomplished their mission." The local reporter was posed in front of a large mansion in the town of Summit, less than an hour's drive from where I was sitting, in the video technicians' office of the New York County District Attorney. Snowflakes drifted and swirled around her head as she pointed a gloved hand at the darkened facade of a house ringed with strands of tiny white Christmas lights that outlined the roof, the windows, and the enormous wreath on the front door. "Earlier this afternoon, before the sun went down, Hugh," the woman addressed the news channel's anchorman, "those of us who gathered here for word of Ms. Dakota's condition could see pools of blood, left in the snow during the early morning shooting. It will be a grim holiday season for this forty-two-year-old university professor's family. Let's take you back over the story that led to this morning's tragic events." Mike Chapman grabbed the clicker from my hand and pressed the mute button, then jabbed at my back with it. "How come the Jersey prosecutors got to do this caper? Too big for you to handle, blondie?" As the bureau chief in charge of sex crimes for the New York County District Attorney's Office for more than a decade, sexual assault cases -- as well as domestic violence and stalking crimes -- fell under my jurisdiction. The district attorney, Paul Battaglia, ran an office with a legal staff of more than six hundred lawyers, but he had taken a particular interest in the investigation of the professor's perilous marital entanglement. "Battaglia didn't like the whole idea -- the risk, the melodrama, and...well, the emotional instability of Lola Dakota. He probably didn't know the story would look this good on the late news broadcast or he might have reconsidered." Chapman lifted his foot to the edge of my chair and swiveled it around so that I faced him. "Had you worked with Lola for a long time?" "I guess it's been almost two years since the first day I met her. Someone called Battaglia from the president's office at Columbia University. Said there was a matter that needed to be handled discreetly." I reached for a cup of coffee. "One of their professors had split from her husband, and he was stalking her. The usual domestic. She didn't want to have him arrested, didn't want any publicity that would embarrass the administration -- just wanted him to leave her alone. The DA kicked it over to me to try to make it happen. That's how I met Lola Dakota. And became aware of her miserable husband." "What'd you do for her?" Chapman worked homicides,...

Product details

• Authors: Linda Fairstein, Linda A. Fairstein
• Publisher: Pocket Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 15.01.2003
• EAN: 9780671019549
• ISBN: 978-0-671-01954-9
• Dimensions: 105 mm x 170 mm x 27 mm
• Series: Pocket Star Books Fiction; Pocket Star Books Fiction
• Subject: Fiction > Suspense