Night Watch

SIX

Luc was toweling down after a swim in the bay by the time I got off the phone with Mike. His voice was as ice-chilled as the champagne. “I’ll take you back to the house to pack up, Alex. You can fly up to Paris late afternoon and connect to home.”

“Not this time. I’m not going.”

“Detective Chapman losing his touch?” Luc asked, cocking his head.

“I’m on vacation. He just needed to be reminded of that.”

“He has no boundaries with you, darling,” Luc said, defrosting with the news that I wasn’t racing back to take the case, leaning over to kiss me on the forehead. “Big news?”

“Sounds that way.” I had handled more than my share of high-profile cases. Sex crimes could snag headlines like no other category of offense and usually for all the wrong reasons. The alleged perp is a celebrity, the victim is the daughter of a high-powered businessman, a junkie is attacked in a landmark location like Central Park, or the offender’s occupation shocks New Yorkers’ sensibilities-school principal, star athlete, elected official.

“Are you tempted?”

“I learned long ago there’s no upside to being handed the big case in the glare of the media spotlight. There’s already one supervisor who’s jumped all over this. I hope for Battaglia’s sake he gets it right.”

I leaned back against the cushioned pillow and tilted my face up to find the sun. Paul Battaglia was the district attorney of New York County. At sixty-five years old and in office for more than two decades, he was regarded as one of the country’s premier figures in law enforcement. He had appointed me to run his Sex Crimes Unit and relied on my superb team of colleagues to manage these cases that presented such unique issues to prosecutors as well as to the voting public. Hand-chosen for their combination of skills, the unit’s members were brilliant and compassionate, tough litigators and fierce advocates for our severely traumatized victim population, but only after they made factual determinations that the crime had occurred and the right offender was identified.

“Isn’t it odd that Battaglia didn’t call you himself?”

“It’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned. That’s why I’m staying put.”

“Why do you think he didn’t?”

“I’m not good at second-guessing him. I’ve told you that.” Battaglia’s political instincts were first-rate. And while I had come to question his gamesmanship in some of my more recent investigations, he had in turn relied more heavily on the longtime chief of the Trial Division, Pat McKinney, whose most valued trait was the consistency to which he played yes-man to the prominent prosecutor.

“The bad guy is French?”

“What else did you hear?”

“Nothing, nothing else,” Luc said.

“The tables are turned, aren’t they? I suppose you want me to talk shop now,” I said, wagging my empty glass in his face and grinning broadly. “I suppose this interests you more than your pyramid of skulls.”

“Okay, I’m an open book.” Luc spread his arms out in the air. “Ask me anything, then tell me all you know.”

I thought he would see past my fake smile, but I tried anyway. “So when you told me you were going to the gendarmerie at three this morning, where did you really go?”

“Aha! So you’re taking your lead from Jacques now? Asking the questions that he asked? That’s beneath you, Alexandra. It’s exactly like I said. I took the bones to my office, but decided there was no urgency to involving the police in the middle of the night.”

“You were gone more than an hour.”

“Now you’re bluffing, Ms. Cooper. I may have to cut you off the booze,” Luc said, taking my glass from my hand and turning it upside down. “You were sleeping so soundly when I came in, you couldn’t have had any idea what time it was. If you’re implying that I was off clipping lotus blossoms in the pond, I’ll take you to the airport right this minute.”

“Just practicing my cross-examination skills, darling. If you fill me up, I promise to be more polite.” I righted my champagne flute and extended it to him. “You want to hear about your rapist?”

“Oxymoronic, darling. This is France. We don’t have rapists.”

Luc and I had argued about that issue more times than I could count. He was trying to return the insult. “Your women just under-report because of the general attitude toward sexual violence in this country. And you have a justice system that doesn’t know how to deal with these crimes.”

“So what happened?”

“Mike says the guy was staying at the Eurotel.”

“Not exactly the Plaza Athénée.” Luc wasn’t impressed with the perp’s choice, a French-owned chain of moderately priced hotels, fine for the business traveler but without the luxurious appointments he liked.

“Well, he was in the presidential suite. Twenty-eighth floor, with views down to the Statue of Liberty.”

“That should have cost him plenty.”

“It did. He arrived Thursday night for meetings on Friday and was due to leave last evening. The front desk gave him the courtesy of a late checkout at six P.M., because he was on the final flight to Paris.”

“Air France number nine from JFK. Eleven-twenty departure. I know it well.”

“Scheduled for a quick dinner with his daughter, who’s an assistant to the French ambassador to the UN, before the flight.”

“Busy man,” Luc said. “Where was his wife?”

“At home in Paris. Or should I say at one of their homes. So the maid bumps into the headwaiter from room service, backing out of the suite with the tray table. She was anxious to get the room turned over so the manager could sell the suite again, or upgrade some VIP on a Saturday night arrival. So at five-forty-five, the waiter tells her he thinks the room is empty, ’cause he didn’t hear any noise inside when he opened the door to get the tray. But it’s huge, according to Mike. The living area alone is thirteen hundred square feet-and there’s a bedroom and two baths.”

“She went in?” Luc asked.

“Yes, the waiter told her she could get to work. So she announced herself and called out ‘housekeeping’ several times-just to be sure the guest was gone.”

“But he wasn’t.”

“How could she have known? The waiter closed the door behind her, and as she started to straighten up the room and strip the bed, out from the bathroom comes our perp.”

“He was-about to leave?” Luc asked.

“Apparently not. He was naked. Completely naked. Just out of the shower.”

“She should have taken off,” he said emphatically. “She should have left at once. She obviously caught him off guard.”

“I hope you’re just playing devil’s advocate. He obviously surprised her. She’d been told the room was unoccupied, okay? She announced herself, loud and clear, while the door was still open. She apologized and tried to back out. She told him she was sorry.”

“What stopped her from leaving?”

“The perp did. He grabbed her by the wrist and told her not to go, not to be sorry. She was scared, she told the cops. Frightened of him and just as frightened that she’d lose her job if she got into a screaming match with a high-rolling guest.”

“Did he threaten her?”

“I don’t know the exact words, but Mike said he did.”

“Well, if Mike told you, then it must be so,” Luc said flippantly, spearing a piece of crabmeat and devouring it.

“It doesn’t really matter what was verbalized, the guy threw her onto the bed. He lifted the skirt of her uniform, ripped her panty hose, and penetrated.”

Luc snapped his fingers. “Just like that?”

“Not just like that, okay? He had a head start by being naked, and aroused as well. He pinned her to the bed and was inside her briefly until she pushed him off, within a few seconds.”

“And that’s rape in your country?”

“I’m not done.” Forcible penile penetration, however slight and for however short a period of time, established the elements of the crime of first-degree rape. “Then he pushed her onto her knees, on the floor, and demanded oral sex. When he ejaculated, she spit it out.”

Luc had no smart answer for that fact.

“Semen on the carpet, on the wall of the room, and on her uniform. Sort of supports what she’s saying, don’t you think? And they’ll have DNA results by the end of the day.”

“So I guess he missed his plane,” Luc mused, stabbing another piece of the salad.

“To the contrary. The entire episode with the maid took twenty minutes, start to finish.”

“Not exactly a seduction, even for the most convincing Frenchman.”

“The hotel surveillance photos have him rushing out a bit later, toothpaste smeared across his cheek. A quick dinner with his daughter and he actually made it to the airport in time to board. If it wasn’t for the thick fog at JFK and an hour’s flight delay, he’d have reached home and be having brunch with his wife just about now.”

“I can’t imagine what makes that such an important case in the States,” Luc said, pushing the salad aside in anticipation of his langouste. “She’s just a chambermaid, after all.”

I hoped my sunglasses concealed the expression in my eyes. “I see. So that makes her-what? Not worthy of belief? Not entitled to justice? Or makes the perp too powerful to have our system bother with her?”

“No, no, darling.” Luc was searching for a way to back off his obvious prejudice. “I just mean it’s not international news, really, is it? That’s why Battaglia isn’t looking for you. Maybe one day of tabloid headlines, then back to business. Not likely to make the light of day in the French press.”

“I’ll bet you tonight’s caviar that you’re wrong.”

Luc was enjoying himself now. “And I was going to order up the finest beluga. Almas caviar, from Iran. It’s white, and among the rarest in the world. Shall we say a small tin for twenty-five thousand?”

“I’ll settle for something a little more subtle.”

“And why do you think you can win? It’s only seven in the morning in New York. I guess by dinnertime here we’ll have a clue.”

“Maybe if I tell you his name, you’ll concede on the spot.”

“So you buried the lede, did you? You know who he is?”

“I’m certainly betting that you do,” I said, as the waiter approached with a tray and Luc nodded approval of the large grilled langoustes that were set in front of us.

“I hope you don’t spoil my appetite, Alex. Who’s the guy?”

“Mohammed Gil-Darsin.”

Luc lost all interest in lunch and focused his attention on me. He let out a low whistle, clearly surprised by hearing the name. “MGD? The detectives must be pulling your leg, darling. It simply can’t be.”

“Why is that?”

“Well-well, he’s-uh-he’s brilliant, for one thing. He’s very popular in France, not to mention his political future at home. He’s got a fabulous wife.” Luc was stammering he was so agitated. “Mo’s a player, all right-but-uh-that’s different. I simply don’t believe he’d rape anyone. He wouldn’t have to, Alex. He’s quite attractive. Brains, power, money-all of that. I mean, really, darling-a chambermaid?”

I sat back on my chair and exhaled. It was as though every conversation I’d had with Luc about my work since we’d met had gone in one ear and out the other. If this was his attitude, I knew how most people hearing the news would also react.

“Do you know him?” I asked.

“Papa Mo has lived in a villa in Grasse for thirty years.” Grasse was the town adjacent to Mougins, whose thousands of acres of jasmine and hyacinth had long made it the perfume capital of the world. “He was my father’s client long before he was mine.”

“He was a dictator, Luc. And a thief.”

“A scoundrel, maybe. I didn’t care much for his politics, but he’s a charming man.”

“I asked if you know MGD.”

Luc looked away from me, at a distant point out in the bay. “Of course I do, Alex, though not very well. He isn’t a close friend or anything like that. He’s a client, a customer. He was just in the restaurant for dinner a week ago.”