Night Watch

SEVENTEEN

“I bet you didn’t get a chance to read your e-mails yesterday, did you?” Ryan asked, smiling at me as I watched the gunman and his victim brush off their clothes and reposition themselves in the crowd.

“Laura only printed out the ones related to this case.”

“So you obviously didn’t get the ‘Please disregard the sounds of gunfire in front of 100 Centre Street between eleven A.M. and one P.M. on Tuesday. The crew of Law and Order: SVU will be filming here at that time.’”

The mayor had lured scores of movie and television companies back to New York because of the exorbitant fees they paid for the privilege of filming scenes on city streets. The blocks around the courthouse were frequently peopled by Detective Olivia Benson and her crew as they brought down perps and unsubs far faster than Mercer and I could ever work. And the “please disregard” messages about shootings, stabbings, car bombs, and police sirens had become as commonplace as Rose’s reminders not to block the parking space reserved for Battaglia’s car.

I turned to Blanca and laughed. “See? I’m more nervous than you are. That was just a scene for a television show, but I nearly jumped out of my own skin.”

“It’s a good thing you don’t live in the projects like me, ’cause if you got scared every time you heard gunshots, you’d have a mental breakdown.”

No doubt there was truth in what Blanca said, but in that moment she also demonstrated a froideur-a chilled aloofness-that would have served her well when confronted by the naked Ivorian in his hotel room.

“Would you like to use the ladies’ room?” I asked.

“Yes, please.”

“Come along with me.”

I stopped at Laura’s desk and asked her to unlock the executive restroom for Blanca before she called out for coffee and snacks, while I reported to Battaglia. I continued on into the executive wing, stopping at Rose Malone’s desk to get the morning report on the district attorney’s mood as I delivered my updates.

“Good morning, Alex.”

I could barely see Rose behind the stacks of papers she had set in front of her. “Hey, Rose. Have I come at a bad time?”

“The Boss went out to a meeting at the Federal Reserve. I figured I’d get some filing done. He’s pretty chipper today. About to announce the indictment of a hedge fund guy in a case they sneaked out from under the feds.”

Battaglia was always happy to bring down a big target, especially when stepping on the toes of a rival prosecutorial agency.

“I’m just reporting in on the MGD investigation.” Rose shifted to her computer to take notes. “First, the complaining witness is in with us for the day-that’s Ellen, Ryan, and Mercer along with me. Forget notifying the archbishop for the time being-no organized religion-the crucifix is a prop and she’s never been to church since getting to America. Two, we got rid of Byron Peaser for the moment, but he’s greedy for a big score, and it’s hard to know where he’s pushing our vic. Three, she lied about her movements after the assault. Pressing her on that to see if it’s trauma-related or intentional. And four, if you can push anyone at the State Department to get her asylum records unsealed, I’d really like to see what she said on that application.”

“I’ll stick this under his nose the minute he’s back.”

I thanked her and went back to check with Laura about my messages, which she handed to me. “There are three about pending cases, which I forwarded to Catherine to answer for you. And a long one from Lem Howell, appealing to you on MGD’s bail situation.”

“Let me guess. Pat McKinney’s being unreasonable, unmovable, and un-?”

“Un-Cooper-like in his dealings with Mr. Triplicate. Lem wants to hear from you,” Laura said, chuckling as she balled up the paper and threw it away.

“Did Blanca say anything to you?”

“No. I let her into the restroom, then came back here to wait for her. She did ask to use your phone.”

Laura did better overheards than most detectives. “So who’d she call?”

“First one was Byron Peaser. She told him that she’d lied about something and you were unhappy with her. Then she asked me how to make a long-distance call. I connected her to the operator and she had a conversation in Spanish with someone. Sorry, couldn’t get that.”

I flipped through the phone messages and checked my watch for the time. “Nothing personal for me?”

“Two of your girlfriends. I’m not supposed to tell you, but birthday plans are afoot, Alex.”

“Can you subtly get the word out to skip the festivities?” I asked. “I’m not being crabby, Laura. I simply won’t have the time.”

“Understood.”

“No calls from Luc?”

Laura shook her head. I was churning inside, worried that the Brooklyn detectives had reached him and shut him down about calling me.

Mercer, Ellen, Ryan, and Blanca had regrouped in the conference room.

“Coffee will be here any minute,” I said.

“Then let me pick up where we left off,” Ellen said.

“I have a few questions before you do. Blanca,” I asked, “who did you call from my office?”

“’Scuse me?”

“You used my phone just now to make some calls. Who’d you talk to?”

“Dios mío. My daughter, okay? I called my daughter.”

“I see. And that’s all?”

“Yeah. Something wrong with that?”

“Not at all. She’s in the place Mr. Peaser moved you to, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You called him first, didn’t you?”

“Don’t I got no privacy rights?” Blanca was in a huff.

“Not in a government office you don’t. And the long-distance call, who was that to?”

She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.

“The truth, Blanca,” Mercer said, trying to keep her steady and calm. “That’s all she needs to hear. Remember that the switchboard will have the number that you called.”

She bit her lip as she opened her eyes to speak. “My boyfriend, okay. I wanted to talk to my boyfriend. Can you understand that?”

“I certainly can.” She had no idea how sincere my response to her was on that point.

“He’s home in Guatemala, isn’t he?” Ellen asked, looking down at her notepad. “Hector Escobar. You told me Hector went back to your village because his sister was dying.”

Blanca leaned forward, rocking her body back and forth, her feet planted firmly in front of her.

“That was true, what I said.”

“But there are no phones in the village, so how were you calling him?”

“That was true about last year, Ms. Ellen.”

“You mean it was true that he went home to help his sister last year?” Ellen asked.

Blanca had shut me out, trying to convince Ellen that she had been candid in the earlier sessions.

I stood up beside Ellen and pounded my forefinger on the table. “Today, Blanca. Right this very minute, where is Hector Escobar?”

Blanca wasn’t talking to me. “I never wanted to lie, Ms. Ellen. But I need you to believe me.”

“Mercer,” I said, still glowering at Blanca, “would you please go down to the seventh-floor switchboard room and get the number that Blanca called? Try dialing it yourself, will you?”

Blanca had prostrated herself on the conference table again, this time without crossing herself. The tears flowed as readily as the lies. “Hector’s in prison, okay? Federal prison. Arizona.”

“Charged with what?” I asked.

“Some kind of scam. Like credit cards. I don’t know ’xactly, but he’s been away for seven months.”

Illegal scams. Large enough to get the attention of the feds. “Scam” was the last word we needed connected to a woman who would be accused by the defense of trying to scam the future presidential candidate of the Republic of the Ivory Coast.

“And you wanted that break twenty minutes ago because you knew exactly what time Hector has phone privileges, didn’t you?”

Another penalty flag on the field for Blanca Robles. I pictured Lem practicing his bail argument in front of a mirror-watching the rhymes roll off his lips-barely able to stop at his customary three. Scam, sham, flim-flam. Damn.

Without picking her head up from the table, Blanca appealed to Mercer. “I don’t want this lady in here with me anymore. She’s very mean.”

Mercer pulled his chair up beside her. “Alex is doing her job, Blanca. We can help you only if you tell us the truth.”

“But I am telling you the truth about how this man attacked me. That got nothing to do with Hector and his problems.”

“I’d like you to sit up and look at me, Blanca,” I said. She continued to ignore me.

“You listen to Alex,” Mercer said, and she lifted her head from the table.

“You’re here because everyone on this team believes you and believes what you told us about your attacker.”

“Then why do you keep talking about my lies? They don’t have anything to do with my case.”

“They have everything to do with your case, Blanca. Because the most important evidence we have is you. You and your word. Only two people were in that hotel room, and only one of them is telling the truth about what happened. Gil-Darsin has a lawyer-an extremely good lawyer. When he questions you at the trial-”

“You just said he won’t be there.”

“This week is the grand jury, not the trial. In several months, when there is a trial, his lawyer will get to question you in detail. He’ll take the twenty minutes in that hotel room and he’ll keep you on the witness stand asking you questions about it for hours, maybe for days. Ellen explained this to you yesterday, didn’t she?”

Blanca took several deep breaths while I talked.

“I didn’t get that far,” Ellen said.

“The lawyer will be allowed to ask you about every action in the hotel room. And Gil-Darsin will feed him his own version of events, too.”

“But they won’t be true! That man is disgusting. He’ll say anything to get out of this.”

“Probably so, Blanca. But his lawyer can also ask you questions about other things in your life. His lawyer will claim you’ll say anything to earn yourself twenty million dollars, or whatever amount you sue him for. Maybe the judge will let him ask about your boyfriend.”

“Why? I didn’t go to jail. Hector did.”

“Well, was he living with you when he was arrested? Did the federal agents question you? Did Hector put any of the stolen money in your name?”

Both Blanca and Ellen were unhappy.

“Not ready to tell me? A subpoena will get me all the answers I need,” I said. “Did you know, Blanca, that your phone call to Hector was taped today?”

I thought fire was going to come out of her mouth when she opened it. “I can’t believe you would do that to me, Ms. Alex. I want Mr. Peaser here.”

“We didn’t do that to you. Every call to a federal prisoner-except when he’s talking to his lawyer-is taped by the prison authorities. We can find out everything you’ve said to Hector since you were assaulted. Every word.”

The angry woman slumped back in her chair.

“How about your application to the U.S. government for asylum, Blanca? Did you tell the truth to them, when you were under oath?”

“Of course I did,” she said, slamming both hands on the table.

“You’re sure about that? ’Cause if you did, you’d be the first witness I’ve ever worked with who did.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I know the circumstances that made you leave your home. They’re detailed in the police reports. I know how you and your family were tortured and mistreated, and how justly you deserved asylum in this country.”

“So why should I lie about that?” She raised her head, thrusting her chin at me, besting me with her life’s tragedy.

“Because just about every person who comes here for asylum, no matter how good the reason, tries to make his or her story a little bit worse. Everyone knows that his neighbors and his relatives and his friends are looking for exactly the same thing, and so each one tries to embellish-”

“Embellish? What this means?”

“Exaggerates, Blanca. Each one tends to exaggerate just a little bit, to get an advantage over the next person. It’s not a great big lie, because the Truth Commission did terrible things to your people. We know that happened. But suppose I came from your village, and suppose my cousin was applying for asylum, too. We were both raped by the soldiers, let’s say. And our fathers were made to disappear. She knows half the town is looking to escape just like we are, so she tells the Americans that her brother was killed, too, and that all her animals were slaughtered. Not true-she didn’t even have a brother-but all the rest of what she said can be verified, so she takes the chance on these facts. I want to leave the village just as much as she does, so when I hear what testimony she gave, I exaggerate my own story. I say both my sisters were killed and-”

“I had no need to do that, Ms. Alex,” Blanca said, lowering her voice and her head. “The worst things happened to me. Worse than anybody’s life. I told Detective Mercer all of them.”

I spoke softly, respecting the atrocities she had survived. “And they are exactly the same things you told the government lawyers, under oath?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So, when the State Department releases a copy of your affidavit to me-”

“When is that?”

“Maybe by Monday, maybe earlier. When I get those papers, there won’t be any surprises for Mercer and for me?”

Blanca’s arm darted across the table and swept Ellen’s notepad and pen into the air, so that they landed on the floor with a thud. “Those papers are sealed up, no? What do those papers have to do with my getting raped the other day? Are you crazy?” Her anger was on full display. “What happened to me in my country don’t have nothing to do with this man. This Gil-Darsin man.”

“Listen to me, Blanca. If you think you’ve seen my temper yet, I can promise you that you have not. I don’t care if you exaggerated to get asylum here. You wouldn’t be the first person to do that. I don’t care if you lied about Hector because you were afraid we’d think badly of you because you have a boyfriend in prison. But the judge will care about those things, and so will the jury. And the judge is allowed to tell the jurors that if you have lied to them, they can either disregard the lies and convict this man for what you tell them happened to you when you walked into his hotel room, or-”

“That’s what I want them to do. To-how you call it?-to disregard these other things.”

“Or the judge can tell them that because you lied about other things-things that have nothing to do with Mr. Gil-Darsin-they don’t have to trust you at all. They can throw out your entire case because you’ve lied to so many people-even under oath to the government. Do you understand me? Do you understand how important it is for you to tell the truth?”

Blanca Robles was not only angry. She was stubborn, too. Large teardrops formed in each of her eyes and clung to her lower lids for seconds, before rolling down her cheeks. They were the first sincere tears I thought I had seen today. She stared straight ahead and refused to answer.

“You get what Alex is telling you, Blanca?” Mercer asked. “She’s giving you another chance. She wants you to start all over again from the beginning, in your own words. It doesn’t matter what you told me and Ellen and the other cops on Sunday and yesterday. It doesn’t matter what you told Mr. Peaser. You’ve got answers for everything, including why you went into that other room in the hallway after you were attacked. You’ve just got to give us every one of those answers truthfully-not what you think we want to hear. That’s the only way this team can take you into the courtroom. You good with that?”

Blanca Robles slowly nodded her head. “I’ll talk to you, Detective Mercer, and to Ms. Ellen. But I don’t like you,” she said, pointing a finger at me.

“Then pretend I’m the judge,” I said. “Ellen will ask the questions and I’ll just listen.”

There was a knock on the door. I stood up to open it. Laura was there with the delivery order, which would make for a good late-morning break.

She put the cardboard box in the middle of the table and Mercer started to pass the coffee around.

Laura motioned me to follow her. I stepped outside the room. “Any calls?”

It was almost 6 P.M. in Mougins, and now Luc would be about to start the dinner service at the restaurant. If he hadn’t phoned yet, it would be hours before he would be free again.

“Nothing you’re hoping for. But you’ve got a visitor, Alex. Lem Howell’s here, and he says he’s not leaving until he talks to you.”