Killer Heat

THREE

They didn't threaten me. They're way too smart for that." I dropped the case folder on top of my desk.

"Why can't Lamont just boot their asses out?" Mercer Wallace asked

They didn't do anything. Nothing except sound effects that won't show on the record. By the time we figured it out they were gone."

"And tomorrow?" Mercer was a first-grade detective assigned to the NYPD's elite Special Victims Unit. He had painstakingly reconstructed the case against Floyd Warren and wanted it to proceed without complications.

"Lamont says he'll deal with it if they come back. It's a public courtroom. He can tighten the security but you know he'll never seal it."

"More than that, I know you can't play with the Latin Princes, Alex. To Posano, you're the face of evil. You're the one who put him in jail, when he figured he had everyone else scared away. You stood in front of him day after day, building your case and arguing to the jury, dancing circles around his mouthpiece. It became way too personal with him."

"He's got years to get over it."

"His crew is too vicious. They may not realize you've got some tough innards beneath that pretty packaging. And some powerful reinforcements covering your tail."

I didn't question Mercer's warning. In the last year alone, the Dominican gang leader had ordered the unsuccessful hit of a federal judge who had presided over a drug case that sent three of his lieutenants to jail and intimidated scores of witnesses from appearing in a handful of related grand jury investigations.

"If harassing me is what they wanted, consider it done." I sat down in front of the air conditioner and lifted my hair to let the cool air blow on the back of my neck. "What's the word on Kerry?"

"The flight is on the ground in Chicago. Severe thunderstorms. I don't think she'll land before ten tonight, but I'll pick her up and take her to the hotel."

Kerry Hastings was a twenty-two-year-old graduate student when Floyd Warren broke into her Greenwich Village apartment and raped her. The 1973 trial had been another assault-on her truthfulness, on her integrity, on her spirit-and when the jury failed to agree on a verdict, she retreated from her once pleasant life even further. Mercer was one of the few people who had engendered her trust, from the time of his first phone call, astounding her with the news that she might achieve some measure of justice after all these years.

"I'd still like to have her here at seven thirty in the morning. I want to go over her testimony once more."

"I have the feeling she'll be better rested than you."

"I'm set. Who could imagine that this case would be easier for me to try now than it was for my predecessor thirty-five years ago? Easier for Kerry, too."

"Chapman's here to suck a little more of that energy out of you."

"Where?"

"Down the hall in the conference room. Got someone with him."

I stood up, fanning myself with the manila folder that held Pablo Posano's posttrial motions and his inmate number at the maximum security prison where he was serving time. "I'll check it out. You want to call Attica for me? See if we can get a list of Posano's visitors and his phone log?"

"Sure." Mercer reached for the file as I walked out of the room.

The corridors emptied out earlier than usual during the hot summer days. There were fewer trials as lawyers, judges, and witnesses escaped the city on vacation. Government workers were allowed to leave their offices on afternoons when temperatures, threatening to overload the electrical power grids, climbed above ninety-five degrees. It was six fifteen and the executive wing of the trial division was quiet.

I pushed open the door and saw Mike sitting across the conference table from a young woman who was talking to him. A handful of snapshots were spread out in front of her, and Mike was studying two of them as she spoke.

"Here she is," he said. "Alexandra Cooper, I'd like you to meet Janet Bristol."

The most obvious thing about her when she looked up was the redness and swelling around her eyes. I wasn't surprised. It was rare for me to meet someone for the first time, professionally, who had much to smile about.

"Janet showed up at the First this morning," Mike said. "She saw the squib in the Post. The one about the body."

"I haven't had a chance to read the newspapers today."

Mike handed me a story-three short paragraphs-buried deep in the back of the news section of the tabloid. "MARITIME BATTERY… AND ASSAULT: TERMINAL. The naked remains of an unidentified woman were found yesterday evening in the abandoned offices above the aging ferry slip…"

"Janet's afraid the victim might be her sister. We may need you on this, Coop."

"Thank you for coming in. I know how difficult it must be for you."

"I doubt that you do." Her comeback was fast and sharp.

"We're on our way to the medical examiner's office. Janet's going to try to make an ID."

Standing in front of the morgue's viewing window was one of the most painful steps a family member was forced to endure in the course of an investigation. Nothing could prepare Janet for the condition of the face and body she was about to see.

"How can I help?"

Mike got up. "Let's step out and I'll-"

"You can repeat what I said." Janet Bristol reached into her pocket for a tissue and blew her nose. "I know that's why we're here."

"Can you tell me why you think this might be your sister?"

Janet blotted her eyes and looked down at the photographs, handing me one. "That's Amber about a year ago."

I studied the image. The resemblance to Janet was striking. Long, narrow faces, lightly freckled skin, and thin, tapered noses. Everything was consistent with the shape and size of the woman we had seen last night.

"We're not close, like I told Detective Chapman. But we had this deal that we always went out together on our birthdays," she said. "Her birthday was the Sunday before last. She just turned thirty-two."

By this past Sunday, the woman decomposing behind the cast iron façade of the old building had already been dead for more than a week, if Mike and Dr. Magorski were right.

"When's the last time you spoke to Amber?"

Janet straightened up. "Christmas. I think it was right after the holidays. I had gone home-to Idaho-to see the family. I called her when I got back."

"And not once during the last eight months?"

"I told you, we're different. We don't really get along."

"Can you tell us something about her?" I sat down next to Janet to look at the other photographs. I wanted to know what would lead this woman to the conclusion that her sister had been the victim of a murder, rather than that she simply chose to celebrate the event with someone else.

"Amber is-well, she's quirky, like I told the detective. She moved to New York about nine years ago, after college. Worked for a temp agency. Wound up doing word processing at a law firm. That's where she's been for the last five years. Masters and Martin."

"One twenty Wall Street." The offices of the small firm that specialized in patent law placed Amber a short walk from where the body was found. "And how long has it been since she showed up there?"

Mike crossed his arms and sat on the windowsill. "She was let go in July."

"She quit," Janet said defensively. "That's what the receptionist told me."

"Have you called her at home? Or gone to her apartment?"

"Her answering machine is full. It's not taking any more messages. And her cell phone is shut off."

"Are there neighbors?"

"She didn't have any friends in the building, really. I called the super. He hasn't seen her since last week."

"I've got the address, Coop. The East Nineties. You should know they wanted her out of there."

"Behind on the rent?"

"Nope. People didn't like the company she kept. If Janet can-well, if she's able to make an ID," Mike said, "we'll go straight there."

"Did you have a plan to meet on Amber's birthday?"

Janet shook her head. "I started calling on that Friday. Left a few messages then that she didn't return. We go to the same place every year. I just assumed she'd show up."

"Where's that?"

"Dylan's Brazen Head. It's a pub on First Avenue, near her apartment."

I glanced at a photo of the two sisters together, both smiling for the camera. Behind them was the mirrored wall of a bar, lined with bottles of booze. The Brazen Head had been in business for more than twenty years, a magnet for prep school kids from the Upper East Side because of the affable owner's willingness to turn a blind eye to underage drinkers. It was named for the oldest pub in Dublin, which dated back-according to legend-eight hundred years.

"Did you go?" I asked.

"Yes. I went early, at six, and waited there until ten o'clock."

"Tell Ms. Cooper why Amber picked Dylan's."

Janet looked at me sideways before she answered. "Jim Dylan and Amber-well, she's been, I guess you'd say, dating him for three years."

"What she means is that Jim Dylan has a wife and six kids, three of 'em still at home in the nest," Mike said. "So I wouldn't exactly call it 'dating.' "

"Did you ask Mr. Dylan about your sister?"

"He told me he hadn't seen her since May. Jim didn't want to talk about it there. One of his sons was tending bar."

"Is there anything else about your sister that you think puts her in harm's way?"

"Like I told you," Janet said again. "Amber's quirky. I'm afraid this stuff might end up in the newspapers. I just want to protect her if I can."

"What do you mean?"

"My sister supplemented her income with another job, Ms. Cooper," Janet said, blowing her nose again. "She tried to talk me into the same thing a couple of years ago, but I thought it was disgusting. It broke my heart to think of what she was doing."

"What kind of job?"

"A dating service."

I wanted to find a tasteful way to get Janet where she was going. "An escort?"

Mike lifted his blazer from the back of the chair, slipped his finger under the collar, and draped it over his shoulder as he stepped behind me.

"I told her how dangerous her lifestyle was, and nothing I said could get her to stop." Janet rested her head in her hands and started crying again. "Doesn't matter what you called her, she laughed it off like it was a compliment. An escort, a prostitute, a whore, a hooker."

Mike leaned over and whispered in my ear. "I'm thinking she's a dead hooker now.