“Got it,” Battaglia said, tossing the photo on his desk.
“There’s thirty-six guys, but only three of them, according to admin, are into inking tats.”
Battaglia lit a cigar, squinting at me as he struck the match to see if I was part of Chirico’s plan or as mystified as he seemed to be.
“And one of them, Mr. B, had a competency hearing on May 3rd to determine whether he was fit yet to stand trial.”
“So?”
“A competency hearing
at
Fishkill, instead of here in the courthouse. The perp’s in the loony bin with Tanner ’cause he killed his landlady and stuffed her in the incinerator. He’s up there pretrial—instead of at Rikers Island—’cause he’s a parole violator from an earlier conviction.”
“I know the case,” I said. “Kerry O’Donnell has it. Trial Bureau 80.”
“Exactly. And Kerry had to travel to Fishkill to do the hearing because the prisoner is considered too violent to risk the transport to Manhattan. Still incompetent to stand trial, Mr. B, but they had to go ahead with a hearing since it was mandatory. So they held it at the facility.”
I could see a flash of daylight. “And who conducted it, Sarge?”
“Judge Pell,” he said. “Judge Jessica Pell.”
Battaglia rustled the cellophane wrapper of his cigar into a ball, squeezing it into his fist. “She have any connection to Tanner when you tried him?”
“No, Paul. None at all.”
The district attorney leafed through the papers Chirico gave him. “Was she alone with Kerry’s prisoner at any point in time?”
“No. But his artwork came up during the hearing. Not ’cause his lawyer wanted it to, but Kerry says the guy just rambled on about how he’d found God through the tattoo needle.”
Battaglia held up his hands. “I’m missing the link.”
“I interviewed Kerry on Tuesday, to see what went on while she was there at Fishkill. But it wasn’t until Wednesday morning that Alex linked Raymond Tanner to a new case. Kerry recognized his name and called me back that afternoon. She told me to have the warden pull the log from the day of the hearing.”
“Why?” I asked. I wished that Kerry had told me this, too, but we were good friends and she had put whatever information she had into the proper hands by telling Chirico. That was so much smarter than confiding in me.
“Kerry said that when her proceeding was completed and she was about to leave the hearing room, one of the prison guards walked in with a special request.”
“For what?” Battaglia asked.
“Raymond Tanner—Kerry heard the guard say his name—had started work release. He wanted to get a relief from civil disabilities ruling,” Chirico said, “which is required for some of the licensing needs in the nursing home industry.”
“So he needed a judge to sign off on that application,” I said.
“And there was Jessica Pell,” Chirico said. “In the house.”
“But she didn’t know about my connection to him.”
“The warden gave him the folder, with your name on the cover page as the prosecutorial contact, Alex.”
“They couldn’t possibly have left the judge alone with this Tanner animal?” Battaglia asked.
“Seventeen minutes alone, according to Kerry’s timepiece. After all, Mr. B, he wasn’t guilty. He was just insane, and he was already deemed safe to be out and about among the general population of this big city.”
“Eight days after April 30th. Almost two weeks since Mike Chapman tried to get out of her clutches,” I said. “And within the week, the words
KILL COOP
are inked on his hand, perhaps suggested to him by a judge out to get Chapman and me for her perceived slights, just minutes after she had presided over a hearing involving his cell-block mate and tattoo artist.”
“April 30th?” Battaglia asked. “What’s that?”
“My birthday, Paul. Mike says it was one of the triggers for Pell.”
The embers on the tip of his cigar lighted up as he turned his head to me and puffed on it. “Sorry I missed it, Alex. Help yourself to a Cohiba. And she was set off because you were in bed with Chapman then?”
“Last time I’m going to address this with you, boss,” I said, pushing away from the table to stand up. “My sexual relationships—such as they used to be—are none of your goddamn business. But if you have Rose check your calendar, April 30th was the day of the confrontation at Stallion Ridge Cellars. Luc Rouget was my lover, as you may recall. The rest of the bullshit that set Jessica Pell off was a function of her own paranoia.”
Battaglia looked back at Manny Chirico. “You can’t prove that Pell talked to Tanner about Alex, can you?”
“He doesn’t have to,” I said. I was ready to tell both Battaglia and Chirico about my conversation with Jessica Pell, and that I had audiotaped it so there would be proof to back me up.
But the district attorney continued to ignore me. “Sergeant, you think she put him up to the tattoo as some kind of threat to Alexandra?”
“It’s not a threat,” I said. “It’s an advertisement. Pell had no idea Raymond Tanner would go AWOL. She’s twisted, Paul. She was just trying to get at me any way she could at that moment. I bet she saw my name on Tanner’s file and that set her off. She may have lit a fire under him without even knowing how far he might go with it.”
Battaglia scowled at me. “You keep saying Pell’s twisted and crazy. That’s not the woman I know, and the mayor vouches for her like she’s Sonia Sotomayor.”
“You gotta trust me on this one, Mr. B,” Chirico said. “She’s smart, but this broad is off-the-charts whacko.”
Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor had worked as a prosecutor in Battaglia’s office before my tenure. The well-respected jurist and amazingly grounded woman was the polar opposite of Jessica Pell.
“You want examples, Paul? You don’t think she’s crazy enough to just want to put the fear of God in me ’cause she thinks I’m after Mike’s ass?”
“Why? You’ve got ex—?”
“Buckets full,” I said. “What would you like to know? Pell went to some Innocence Project program and did a panel with a three-time loser who was exonerated last summer on a murder charge. Hooked up with him after the show. You know what that means, Paul? Hooked up? She took him home with her that night and had sex with him. He blogged about it on his website—www.outandoverit .com—shortly before he was arrested in Queens County for throwing lye in the face of his ex-wife.”
“Jesus.”
“I’m not done. In the fall, when Dan Berner tried that triple homicide in front of her, she sent him mash notes before the trial was over. Happily married guy who’s squeaky clean and she practically wanted to do him in the robing room.”
“Why the hell didn’t he—?”
“Tell McKinney? Of course he did. And defense counsel, too. There’s a whole file on Pell that Pat must have.”
“Calm down, Alex,” Battaglia said. “You catch more flies with honey.”
“I’m not a flycatcher, Paul. And Pell may have jumped on her moment with Raymond Tanner for sport—she’s just that crazy—but now he’s out of the blocks and running wild.”
“Does Scully know what you’ve got?” Battaglia asked the sergeant.
“I’m on my way over to him now. I thought I’d show you first since it’s Alex who’s in Pell’s crosshairs, in regard to Tanner.”
“I’ll talk to him later, Sergeant. Let’s let Pell run her course.”
“Well, that option is totally unsatisfactory to me, Paul,” I said. I couldn’t control my anger. “That whackjob gives an ultimatum to Manny about one of the best detectives in the city—and about me, whatever that’s worth to you—and you’re going to let her play it out in two hours, no matter what Manny has to say to you? No matter what we’ve just heard?”
“You got a better idea?”
“I do,” I said, walking toward the door. “You call the mayor right now and tell him he gets her resignation before six o’clock tonight. Hizzoner wants to know what a stalker’s like? Well, his deputy mayor gave us one—and the mayor appointed her himself, put her in robes, with a gavel in her hand—and I’d like to serve Pell right back to him on a silver platter. He listens to you sometimes, Paul. You tell him she resigns by the end of the day.”
Battaglia almost choked on the cigar smoke, he puffed so hard. “Or what?” he said, laughing at my show of temper. “What do you want me to tell the mayor?”
“Tell him to watch Brian Williams at 6:30.
Nightly News
.”
“That’s comical, Alex. You doing the weather this evening, are you? Is that your next gig?” He laughed again, but Manny Chirico’s handsome face was frozen in a grimace as he watched me open the door.
“Yeah, boss. Storm brewing on the bench. Tropical-force winds. What the mayor ought to know is that I have an audiotape of Jessica Pell that’s a bit incriminating. Made it myself, Paul.”
Battaglia took the cigar out of his mouth and crushed it in the glass ashtray on his desk.
“Who the fuck signed off on a wiretap of a judge?” he shouted at me. Smoke even seemed to be coming out of his ears.
“It’s not a wiretap, Paul, and I didn’t need your signature,” I said. “All I have to do is download the audio and e-mail it to one of the television producers. It’ll make a great scoop on the news tonight. Especially the sound of the judge smacking me across the face.”
“Rose is going to call you before I finish talking,” I said to Laura as I stuck my head in, barely pausing on my way back to the conference room. “You don’t know where I am, you don’t know when I’m coming back, and you’ll be happy to get a message to me if necessary.”
The light on the first line of her phone lighted up. She put her hand on the receiver to pick it up, but I put mine on top of hers.
“And if the man himself walks over to talk to me, just tell him I’ve stepped out.”
A second ring. I knew it was Rose Malone calling for Battaglia, who’d be looking for an apology first and then for more information about my taped conversation with Pell.
“Tell him I seemed very upset. That I flew out of here,” I said. “And if Manny Chirico drops by, remember to tell him that I love him. I absolutely love him. Or maybe give that message to Rose, and tell her to be sure to pass it along in front of Battaglia.”
Laura picked up the phone. “Alexandra Cooper’s office.”
She covered the receiver with her hand and mouthed to me that it was Rose. I shrugged and shook my head, and scooted down to the conference room.
“You look like you got hit by a truck,” he said.
“We have to get lost for the rest of the day, Mercer. I may have just talked myself out of a job.”
“C’mon, Alex. What’s—?”
“Insubordination. Rudeness. Untimely display of my ill-managed temper. Threats,” I said, sitting at the table with my head in my hands. “I think I just sort of threatened Paul Battaglia. And the mayor of the city of New York. Tell me I didn’t do that.”
Mercer walked over behind me and started to massage my shoulders. “I know you didn’t do that.”
“Quite sure I did. It’s Friday. I’m just going to take off early for the weekend. Unless you’ll hang with me,” I said. “Can we take the most critical papers we need with us and go to my apartment and keep working?”
“I’ll do anything you want. But let’s get your head on straight.”
“That feels good. Keep rubbing my neck.”
“Will do if you tell me what just happened in there.”
I got as far as Chirico’s presentation of Raymond Tanner’s prison photos. Mercer had been with us at Stallion Ridge on the day our last major investigation came to an abrupt end. He had helped to find a way to celebrate my birthday when my personal world imploded that afternoon, and so the timeline Chirico established made great sense to him.
“Jessica Pell and Raymond Tanner in the same air space up at Fishkill?” he said. “Mighty dicey. Being on her bad side’s a dangerous spot.”
“I think that tat is only about spooking me. Nothing more than that.”
“So what’s Battaglia’s problem?”
“I didn’t get to the end of the story, Mercer. I went up to court yesterday to see the judge, like I told you I was going to do.”
“You
what
?” He let go off my shoulders and sat down opposite me. “Pick up your head, look me in the eye, and tell me you didn’t do what I told you not to do, Ms. Cooper.”
“I didn’t mean to go against you, Mercer. There’s just too much on the line here for this laissez-faire approach everybody seems to have about Pell.”
“Spare no details, Alexandra.”
Every word of my conversation with Jessica Pell was still fresh in my mind. I repeated the story for Mercer, whose expression never changed throughout the telling. Then he stretched his arms out on the table and bowed his head.
“Who’s going to believe you, Alex? You think you’re getting jammed up so you went to her one-on-one? I would have gone with you if I’d thought for a minute you were serious.”
I pointed at the scratches on my cheek and Mercer reached across the table and held my chin in his hand to look at them.
“It’s not about you, is it, Alex? You didn’t crawl out on a limb for your own sake. You did this so Pell wouldn’t pull the plug on Mike.”
Tears welled up in my eyes. I shook my head from side to side.
“Damn, I wish I’d been there.” Mercer stood up and started to pack several of the manila folders into one of my canvas sail bags.
“One more thing you should know,” I said. “I had the guys from the DA’s squad wire me up. It’s not just my word, Mercer. There’s a tape.”
He dropped the file that was in his hand, and the papers spread over the floor. “Mother of—”
“Hey—it’s legal.”
“Ill-advised, Ms. Cooper. Risky but ballsy—and yes, legal. Where’s the audio?”
“At my apartment. And a copy in the squad safe.”
Mercer smiled at me. “Way to go, girl. Wait till Mike hears.”
“No way. Blood oath on this one. When Pell gives the all clear, let him just think the madwoman came to her senses. He can’t know I got into this battle.”
“I can respect that for now. Pick the files you want,” he said, bending down to retrieve the papers. “I’ve got mine. Now all we have to do is figure a way past McKinney’s door, and we can hustle down the rear staircase.”
“It’s Friday. McKinney’s shrink gets the first crack at him in the morning. We’re good to go.”
I called Laura from my cell. “All calm?”
“Not from my vantage point. Rose called three times before the DA came by. You do not want to cross his path today. He wants to hear from you as soon as I find you.”
“In about three minutes, two people who look a lot like Mercer and me will slink past your door. Bury your nose in a file cabinet and then we’re out of your hair. I promise I’ll respond to all your calls and texts. I just blew out of here. That’s all you know,” I said. “And I will try to find some way to thank you.”
“Stay safe, Alexandra. The radio says that Tanner bastard raped again last night.”
“I’m with Mercer, and he’s on top of that. Talk later.”
With a small fraction of the case folders in our totes, we raced down the short corridor between the conference room and my office. Instead of the main elevator, we took the service staircase down to the street.
Once inside Mercer’s SUV and headed uptown, I called Rose’s number.
“Alex? Let me put you right through. You seem to have started a small war.”
“No, no, no. I’m not in the office. I’m taking the day off. I’d just like you to tell the boss I’m sorry for the contretemps, and that I’ll call him later. No point his waiting for me to come see him because I’m gone for the day.”
“And if anything breaks on your murder case?”
“The detectives know how to find me. Sorry to be so disrespectful.”
We were setting up our work space at my dining room table by 11:15, air-conditioning at full blast and summer sunlight flooding the cheerful apartment.
There was a knock at my front door half an hour later. The doormen never let anyone except Mike or Mercer up to my floor without calling first. “Did you—?”
“Yeah. I buzzed Mike when I was looking for a parking space. Told him to spend some time here before he heads to the Park. And hush, I didn’t say a word about Pell, okay?”
I walked to the front door and opened it. “C’mon in, Mike.”
“How’s her mood, Mercer?” he said, practically tiptoeing past me, not even venturing a greeting.
“Better since I apologized for both of us last night.”
“I get it. It was the right thing to do, and the cops were perfectly nice,” I said.
“How nice?” Mike asked. “You get lucky?”
“Very. I actually got to sleep for a change,” I said. “You’ve heard about Tanner in Prospect Park?”
“Yeah. SVU and Homicide are jumping all over the place.” Mike was carrying a cardboard banker’s box, which he rested on the mahogany table.
“What’s that?”
“The Cold Case Unit pulled the Baby Lucy kidnapping papers for me. What’s left of them.”
The paperwork from cases that lingered for years—or decades—was often picked apart, unintentionally destroying the integrity of the investigation, while on the dusty shelves where it was stored. Cops would go back to them to review witness statements, or characters would reappear in a later investigation so their earlier questioning became relevant. Police reports sometimes vanished, and cases like the disappearance of Lucy Dalton would have generated mounds of documents and media reports, many of which wouldn’t survive long stretches of inattention.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“Six more like it. I just picked the first one up at 7:30 this morning. Sat in the squad room reading till you called, Mercer. I think I’m still on day two of the investigation. What a manhunt this was,” Mike said. “Why are you guys here and not downtown?”
“I’m exhausted, and it was kind of quiet at the office. Everybody ready to take off for the weekend. I just figured we’d be more comfortable at my house, and I’d be all set up to keep working over the weekend.”
Mercer gave me a thumbs-up.
“Is this what you’re doing today?” I asked Mike. “Reading ancient history?”
“That was the original plan. Peterson wanted to keep me on a leash, in the office. They were expecting fireworks from Judge Pell right around now.”
I busied myself labeling folders with colored tabs.
“Don’t go to the bank on this,” Mike said, “but Manny Chirico called right after Mercer did. He thinks she’s going to back off. He must have worked his charm on her is all I can say.”
“Must have. He’s got loads more of it than you do, and he’s too smart to misuse it,” I said. “So now what?”
“Fair game, kid. So I called Mia Schneider. Someone at the Conservancy is pulling out the original renderings of the Park from the 1850s so we can see if there are really any caves in it. That could set me up for tomorrow.”
“I’m with you,” Mercer said.
“Don’t you guys want a day off?”
“Maybe Sunday. I hate that the Park presence will already be so reduced by the end of the day,” Mercer said.
“And my next stop is the Dakota,” Mike said. “See what I can wheedle out of Ms. Sorenson.”
There was a manila folder on the top of the box, crisp and clean and new. Mike slid some photographs out of it and put them on the table. “Courtesy of Hal Sherman and his Panoscan man.”
This was my second photo exhibit of the day. I was hoping that it would be half as productive as the first.
The digital camera had captured its characteristic fish-eye images, a full 360-degree photo record shot from Bow Bridge just hours after Angel’s body had been pulled out of the Lake.
I started with the shots in order, scouring the ground around the Lake, spreading farther into the trees and bushes till it was too dense to see, hoping to find some jarring scene, something totally out of place, a clue that hadn’t been visible to the Crime Scene crew as they worked within short range of the victim’s corpse.
“Stumped?” Mike asked.
“I give up. Where’s Waldo?”
Mike reached among the photos for the blow-up of the Dakota apartments. “Count up from the ground floor, Coop. Lavinia Dalton’s got the entire eighth floor.”
“Of course. You told me you saw a shadowy figure on nine, in one of the eyelid windows.”
I went to my coffee table to take hold of a decorative antique magnifying glass and looked again.
I slid the horn-handled magnifier up to the tiny rectangular windows, which sat a flight above the grand long ones of the eighth floor but below the eaves of the roof.
“The servants’ quarters,” Mercer said, standing over my shoulder.
Directly above the living room windows of Lavinia Dalton was one of the openings. With my naked eye, I could see the outline of a tall object, maybe even a figure, framed in the narrow pane of glass.
I pushed the magnifier up and tried to focus the image more clearly.
“It’s a person,” I said, recalling the crush of cops and passersby who had huddled around Bethesda Terrace while the Crime Scene Unit was taking the pictures. “It’s a man, I think, his palms pressed against the window, looking down at the homicide detectives doing their work.”
Mike grabbed the photograph from my hand. “And I’m going to find out who he is.”