Hell Gate

SIX

“Get everything you can on that nine-one-one call before I see you in the morning,” Battaglia said. He was in the front seat of his official car, and I was trying not to choke on the cigar smoke that wafted back into my face. “Keep Tim in the loop on this. All of it.”

“Will do.” I hated it when Battaglia inserted Spindlis as an intermediary. I was never sure what he filtered out of conversation with the boss when I passed facts along through him.

“We’re going to the West Side for a community council meeting. Can we drop you off?”

“The office is good. I need to pick up some work to take home with me.”

When the driver stopped for the light at the corner of Centre and Worth, a block south of the courthouse, I took the opportunity to say good-night and hop out.

I was going against the flow. Lawyers and secretaries waved at me as they rushed downtown toward the large subway hub at the City Hall station. I envied the few who weren’t carrying briefcases or litigation bags full of work, and would be home in time to enjoy dinner with family or friends.

“Alexandra!” A car door slammed and as I turned into Hogan Place, I saw Lem Howell step out of a black limousine. “Time to call it a day, Ms. Cooper. Let me deliver you home on the way uptown.”

I blew him a kiss, shook my head, and continued walking toward my office.

“I promise I won’t say a word about Karim Griffin.”

“Going home isn’t in my immediate future. Remember those all-nighters at the morgue?” I turned to say good-night to Lem, and he waved me on again.

“Get your case folder. My chariot awaits.”

“The cameramen all gone?”

“Would I be talking to you, young lady, if I had the slimmest of chances, the shortest of moments, the briefest of sound bites to make my case to a tristate viewing audience of millions? Check out the eleven o’clock news. I gave them my best stuff. Be quick.”

It was a combination of the cold evening, my long friendship with Lem, and the thought that he might reveal something to me about Leighton-whose personal problems seemed more intriguing to the higher-ups than the mass disaster in Queens-that moved me to accept his ride up to Thirtieth Street and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

I pushed through the revolving door, went up to my office to grab the last batch of messages Laura had stacked on my desk, and took a new Redweld with colored folders-blue for the autopsy notes, red for witness interviews, green for the first day’s pile of DD5s-the Detective Division reports of the shipwreck that would grow to overwhelm us within a week’s time.

When I got back downstairs, Lem was leaning against the limo, talking into his cell, the collar of his trim black overcoat turned up against the wind. I walked toward him and he opened the door so that I could slide across the backseat.

He got in beside me and before he slammed the door and the driver stepped on the gas, despite the dark tinted windows and the dim lighting in the overhead panel, I could see there was someone sitting across from me.

“I think you two have met before,” Lem said.

Ethan Leighton leaned forward out of the shadowy corner. “Hello, Alex.”

“You taught me well, Lem. But never dirty tricks,” I snapped, trying to keep my temper under control. “Be honorable, you used to say. All you’ve got to trade on is your reputation.”

“I asked him to do this,” Ethan said. “It wasn’t Lem’s idea.”

Leighton’s face was lined, his eyes were bloodshot, and his voice quavered. It was completely inappropriate for us to be meeting in secret, given the circumstances, yet I couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for him. I had met him years before when I was cross-designated on a sexual assault investigation that the feds were conducting at a Veterans Administration hospital. He was handsome in a nontraditional way-a prominent, slightly crooked nose, wavy brown hair that was thinning on top, and green eyes set a bit too close, but when he smiled the whole package presented attractively. He wasn’t smiling tonight.

“I don’t care whose idea it was. It’s lousy.”

“Look, I used to be a prosecutor. I understand how you feel.” Tonight, in the dim lighting of the limo, Leighton’s eyes resembled the beady stare of an animal in the sights of a predator. The long, bony fingers of his hands twisted and then untangled from each other, knuckles cracking as he tried to find the words to calm me.

“My least favorite introduction. ‘I used to be…’ ” Every new defense attorney opened with the lame attempt at bonding by claiming former prosecutorial understanding.

“Don’t throw a scene and storm out of the car,” Lem said.

“I’m actually too tired to do that. Too tired and too disappointed in you.”

“Sit back, Ethan. Listen to me, Alex.” Lem eased himself forward to try to get me to look at him while he talked. “Ethan was in the holding pens while I was in your office. He wasn’t arraigned for another hour after that. Then I did my little dog-and-pony show on the courthouse steps. Already one of the detectives has called to accuse us of threatening Salma. I swear to you, Ethan hasn’t left my sight.”

There was no point arguing with Lem. Mercer hadn’t yet heard a translation of Salma’s 911 call. The threat she reported could just have easily been phoned in from 100 Centre Street.

I leaned my head against the padded headrest. “What are you guys setting me up for?”

“It’s nothing like that, Alex. Please don’t take this the wrong way. I have nothing but respect for you, professionally. Donny Baynes says you’re reasonable and measured. He suggested-”

Lem held his hand up to stop Ethan’s sudden flow of information. The congressman dug his front teeth into his lower lip, almost deep enough to draw blood, as though it was the only way to stop himself from spilling his guts.

“When did you talk to Donny?” I asked.

Had Baynes been playing dumb when Mercer told him about the car crash this morning? Or if Ethan had reached his best friend from the jailhouse, maybe he had managed to place a call to Salma too.

“Let’s slow this train down,” Lem said. “You will always be my go-to person in that office, Alexandra. I’m the one who called Donovan Baynes. Then Ethan reminded me you’d once worked together. I’d like to lay a foundation here before certain aspects of this case snowball out of control.”

“I swear to you I never called Donny,” Leighton said, lurching forward at me, almost as though unable to control his movements. Instinctively, I pressed back against the cushioned leather seat.

Lem Howell reached out an arm to push Leighton back. “What’d I tell you, son?”

“What’s your suggestion? I tell Battaglia the three of us cruised around town to celebrate Ethan’s release? I’m missing the point where I describe to him how honorable this meeting has been. Sort of the minute after he tells me I’ve lost my judgment.”

“Let’s say you don’t tell Paul Battaglia anything, Alex. This is just you and me together for a short ride. Ethan’s not talking to you. It’s only me, my idea. I just want you to see there’s a human being behind these tabloid headlines that his enemies will try to use to bring him down. Flesh and blood. There but for the grace of God go you and I.”

The space between the streetlights played games through the tinted windows of the car. There were seconds when I couldn’t see Leighton at all, and then he darted forward and his close-set eyes bored into me with a frightening intensity.

Lem saw me clutching the door handle. “Well, then, Alex. Maybe not you. Maybe you’re above that. Surely we all make mistakes, we all-”

“I’ve made my share of mistakes, too, Lem. I try not to drag down people I love when I do.”

“I never meant to hurt anyone, Alex.” Leighton held his arm out as though to stop my response. “You’ve got to believe I never meant to do anything to bring my wife into this.”

“Ethan-”

“Don’t muzzle me, Lem.” Ethan was on the edge of the seat now, demanding to speak for himself. “None of this was supposed to happen, Alex. I’m a public servant-just like you. I’ve given every ounce of my wisdom, my soul, my energy, my good works-all for the people of this city and for building a better government.”

I opened my mouth to speak but he was directly in my face, punctuating his remarks with his bony fingers. He may have thought he was pitching to help his case, but he was scaring me instead. Leighton was leaning too close to me, jabbing at my shoulder, boring into me with those icy eyes.

“I can’t be drummed out of office by rumors and innuendo, by things that don’t matter in the grander scheme. You’ve got to make Paul Battaglia keep his perspective on all this.”

The driver braked to a stop and Leighton lost his balance, tipping forward so that his hand landed on my thigh. He gripped it for just a moment to regain his seating. I brushed him away.

“Get off me,” I said. The thought of his touch was revolting. “Save the laying on of hands for Mr. Howell. He does it so much more deftly.”

There was a gas station at Houston Street that all the cab fleets used to fill up. As we approached it and the driver paused for the light, I reached over Ethan’s shoulder and knocked on the glass panel dividing the rear compartment from the driver.

He pulled it back and I asked him to stop on the left, so that I could get out.

“You call me when your cops get snarled up in all the lies they’re going to hear, Alexandra,” Lem said, following me out of the limo to put me in a yellow cab. “I wanted you to look Ethan Leighton in the eye for yourself. He’s got a bright future ahead of him, if he isn’t sidetracked for some inappropriate horseplay. Let him speak the truth, is all I wanted.”

“Creative thinking, Lem. But he’ll have to tell it to the judge.”