Hell Gate

THIRTY-THREE

“Oh, Alexandra,” Lem called to me from the top of the steps. “There is one more thing. I assume you know about the bad blood between Ethan’s father and the mayor?”

He had left his client at the top and was walking down to join up with Mike and me.

“That’s part of the buzz we’ve heard,” I said. “Going back to what?”

“Vin Statler has it in his head that a man with his business experience is what’s needed to run the country.”

“Vin tested the water at the beginning of the last presidential campaign, didn’t he?”

“Well, he was getting ready to, but when he saw what happened to Bloomberg’s effort, he gave up. I think he’s hoping he’ll still be viable when Obama’s eight are done.”

“He’ll be in his late sixties then,” Mike said.

“And Ethan Leighton won’t even be fifty.”

“Ethan’s dead in the water, Lem.”

“Mr. Chapman, I’m not giving you my point of view. Who do you think makes my hourly rate possible?”

“Moses Leighton.”

“And if that man believes he can resurrect his son’s image in the public eye, let me tell you, he’ll move heaven and earth to do that,” Lem said. “Mayor Statler would love to bury my client in the middle of this scandal. Don’t ever lose sight of that dynamic, okay?”

“You didn’t know anything about Ethan’s meeting with Kendall Reid yesterday?” I asked Lem.

“I don’t want my man anywhere near someone as toxic as Reid is right now.”

“Who’s representing him?”

“I’ll leave you a message. So far, I haven’t heard.”

Ethan Leighton came jogging down the staircase, calling Lem’s name. “I thought of something else Ms. Cooper and Mr. Chapman should know,” he said. “Did you tell them about the well?”

Lem tried to restrain Leighton but he was like an eager puppy. “That’s a story for another day.”

“Actually, I’d like to hear it,” I said.

“It simply can’t be a coincidence that Salma’s body wound up in this well,” Leighton said.

“And why is that?”

“Do you know the story of Levi Weeks?” he asked.

“Never heard of him.”

“It’s quite a famous case. We studied it in law school-at Columbia-because it was the first American murder trial that was ever transcribed.”

“Maybe it was a New York thing. Coop was studying too many mint juleps down in Virginia and too few landmark cases,” Mike said.

Leighton was sincerely animated for the first time today. “Perhaps you know who Ezra Weeks was? Levi’s older sibling?”

Neither Mike nor I had heard of the Weeks brothers.

“John McComb was the architect who designed City Hall. A fellow named Ezra Weeks was the actual builder,” Leighton said. “When he saw the plans for that beautiful structure, Archibald Gracie hired Ezra Weeks, who’d become very popular with the mercantile elite in Manhattan, to build this house.”

“Gracie Mansion?” Mike asked.

“Yes, the mansion. And inspired by the beauty of this home, Alexander Hamilton hired McComb and Weeks to create a country place for him.”

“Hamilton Grange.”

“Exactly. Well, Levi Weeks was a carpenter who did most of the work in both of these homes that his brother was building. While Ezra had become quite wealthy, Levi still lived in a boardinghouse downtown on Greenwich Street. A bit edgier than Ezra. He met a young woman who was also boarding there-Gulielma Sands-and had an affair with her. He probably impregnated her, then refused to marry her.”

“Why?” Mike was biting his tongue, ready to make some crack, I was sure, about the circumstances so similar to Leighton’s.

“She was too far below his social station. Or at least what he aspired to be. One winter night, Levi and Ms. Sands went out together, but she never returned home. Witnesses reported later that they heard a woman’s voice call out ‘Murder!’ and ‘Lord help me!’ but no one did. The only thing witnesses saw was a fancy one-horse sleigh, just like the one Ezra Weeks owned, carrying two men and a woman, near the site where Gulielma’s body was found.”

“Where was that?” I asked.

“Near the intersection of Spring Street and Greene,” Ethan Leighton said. I could visualize the location, not far from the DA’s office, in the heart of what was now the very fashionable SoHo district. “In a well, Ms. Cooper. The girl’s body had been dumped in the Manhattan Well.”

“But nothing to do with this mansion, right?”

“Everything to do with it,” Leighton said, doing his best to filibuster. “The foreman of the grand jury that brought the indictment against Levi Weeks in 1800 was Archibald Gracie.”

“Interesting.”

“The mayor of the city at the time-Richard Varick-presided at the trial. A future mayor-Cadwallader Colden-was the prosecutor. And Levi Weeks was represented by his own dream team-the defense attorneys were Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.”

“Working as partners?” I asked, surprised by their alliance.

“Absolutely so. Four years later, Burr killed Hamilton in their duel. But at Levi’s trial, with his famous brother, Ezra, and John McComb testifying on his behalf, the jury took five minutes to acquit Weeks, despite the evidence pointing to his guilt.”

“So all politics is indeed local,” Lem said.

“Not to mention dirty and occasionally deadly.” The story of an old Manhattan murder case caught Mike’s attention. “What became of Levi Weeks?”

“He left town. His brother’s business was thriving, but his own reputation didn’t rebound here. The public wasn’t happy with the verdict,” Leighton said, thrusting his hands in his pants pockets, perhaps reminded of his own dilemma. “Levi became the toast of Natchez, Mississippi. He married well, and went on to design and build some of the most beautiful antebellum houses in the city.”

“You got a point here, Mr. Leighton?” Mike asked.

The congressman’s smile vanished. “Well, Lem seems to think you’re convinced I had something to do with Salma’s disappearance.”

“You think you’re doing yourself a favor with the dead-lady-in-the-well story?” Mike asked. “Puts you right in the driver’s seat, sir. Takes you directly from Salma’s apartment to the only well in town. Not a bad place to dispose of a body if you were a longtime fan of Levi Weeks.”

“I didn’t even know the mansion had a well on the property. It’s not my house, Detective.”

“So you didn’t know about the well at Gracie Mansion,” I said, “but there’s nothing to say the mayor knows the story of the Weeks murder case.”

“Lem says you don’t like people telling you you’re wrong, Ms. Cooper,” Leighton said, wagging a finger in my face. “But you are.”

“Go for it, pal,” Mike said. “She hasn’t had her tail kicked in almost twenty-four hours. I’m all ears.”

“The mayor’s Christmas party was held here at the mansion on December twenty-second-just three weeks ago,” Leighton said. “That’s the anniversary of the icy night that Gulielma Sands disappeared. One of the historians working on the mansion conservancy told the story during the cocktail hour.”

“You were here?” I asked.

“Yes, I was invited. It was quite a gathering, Ms. Cooper. Ralevic, the lieutenant governor, was here, half the City Council members, at least.”

“Kendall Reid?”

“Of course. And your boss, the district attorney, with his trained chimp Tim Spindlis in tow.”

Mike looked over at me as he spoke to Leighton. “Donny Baynes?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. Donny was here. He remembered the story from law school too. He hasn’t mentioned that coincidence?”

I remembered how incredulous Baynes had been on Wednesday morning, on the beach, when Mercer Wallace showed up with news of Leighton’s accident and affair. Maybe he was just subconsciously protecting his old friend.

“And, of course, Mayor Vincent Statler. He loves regaling folks with all the history of the city fathers and their antics,” Leighton said sarcastically. “That’s why I’m so surprised he didn’t take the opportunity to tell you himself.”

“Tell us what?” I asked.

“That it was old news to find a woman’s body in a well.”