Blow Fly

78

LUCY MAY AS WELL BE shut off in a conference room on the fourth floor of the New York District Attorney's Office, looking out dusty windows at old downtown buildings pressing in from all sides, while Berger sips her black coffee from her paper cup with the Greek key trim around the lip, just like she has done in every interview Lucy has ever watched.

And she has observed many of them for many different reasons. She knows the noise and feel of Berger s shifting gears. She is intimately familiar with the modulations and revolutions of Berger s engine as she pursues, outruns or hits the perpetrator or lying witness head-on. Now the mighty machinery is directed at Lucy, and she is both relieved and petrified.

"You were just in Berlin, where you rented a black Mercedes sedan," Berger says. "Rudy was with you on the return flight to New York-at least I assume Frederick Mullins, supposedly your husband, was Rudy sitting next to you on Lufthansa and then British Air? Are you going to ask me how I know this, Mrs. Mullins?"

"An awful alias. One of the worst." Lucy feels herself breaking down. "Well, in terms of names. I mean…" She laughs inappropriately.

"Answer my question. Tell me about this Mrs. Mullins. Why she went to Berlin." Berger's face is metallic, her eyes reflecting anger born of fear. "I have a feeling that the story I'm about to hear is anything but funny."

Lucy stares at her sweating glass, at the lime sinking at the bottom of it, at bubbles.

"Your return ticket stubs and the rental car receipt were in your briefcase, and your briefcase-as usual-was wide open on top of your desk," Berger says.

Lucy's face remains expressionless. She knows damn well that Berger misses nothing and wanders at will in places she doesn't belong.

"Maybe you wanted me to see it."

"I don't know. I never thought I wanted you to see it," Lucy quietly replies.

Berger stares out at a cruise ship slowly being hauled in by a tugboat.

Lucy recrosses her legs nervously.

"So Rocco Caggiano committed suicide. I don't suppose you coincidentally happened to see him while you were in Europe? Not saying you happened to be in Szczecin, but I do know that most people traveling to that part of northern Poland would be quite likely to fly into Berlin, just like you and Rudy did."

"You'd make a great prosecutor," Lucy says drolly, still not looking up. "I would never have a chance under your direct or cross."

"A scenario I don't want to imagine. Jesus. Mr. Caggiano-Mr. Jean-Baptiste Chandonne's lawyer-former lawyer. Dead. A bullet in his head. I suppose that pleases you."

"He was going to kill Marino."

"Who told you that? Rocco or Marino?"

"Rocco," Lucy barely says.

She's in too deep. It's too late. She desperately needs to purge herself.

"Inside his hotel room," she adds.

"God," Berger mutters.

"We had to, Jaime. It's no different than, than what the soldiers did in Iraq, you get it?"

"No, I don't get it." Berger is shaking her head again. "How the hell you could do something like this."

"He wanted to die."