Seven ways to die

9

Kate Winters had met Cody about two years before. She was prosecuting a murder case and he was sitting in the back of the courtroom. She knew immediately who he was: the ponytail, the dark, handsome good looks, the cool stare, the wisp of a smile on his lips.

After the verdict she had turned and he was standing there.

“Nice show,” he said. “Congratulations.”

He was gone before she could thank him. She had caught a fleeting glimpse of him moving gracefully away through the crowd that had gathered around to shake her hand.

Phyllis Martingale, one of her best friends, had been the first assistant DA Cody had hired for the squad. She had set the legal standard to which the crew was held. An integral part of the team, she was leaving to accept a powerful job for which Cody generously had recommended her.

When Phyllis told Kate she was being considered as her replacement, Kate asked, “What’s he really like, Phil?”

“Mystical,” Phyllis answered. End of discussion.

Kate was obviously nervous about the interview.

“Hi, Kate,” Cody said, offering his hand and a pleasant smile. “Sorry I’m late. Got coffee? Good.”

He poured himself a cup and led her into his office. Two of its walls formed the corner of the room. The other two were glass from floor to ceiling; a glass box which made him part of the team but afforded privacy if he needed it. He left the sliding glass door open. His desk was like all the others. A battered chrome floor lamp arced over it. His chair was an old-fashioned arm chair, its leather padding scarred and faded by age.

On the floor beside his desk was a large, fleece dog pad, a well-gnawed bone near one edge and a tan water bowl nearby.

On one of the solid walls was a large yellow flag dominated by a rattlesnake partly coiled, partly rising as if to strike, its body dissected by several cuts. Under it were the words “Don’t Tread On Me.”

Behind his desk chair on the other solid wall was a small, framed, calligraphed quote:

I am always doing things I can’t do. That’s how I get to do them.

Pablo Picasso

Otherwise, the walls were bare.

Cody sat on the corner of his desk and sipped coffee.

“So, what have you heard about the TAZ?” he asked Kate.

“What little Phil has told me. A lot of rumors. Nobody talks much about it.”

“That’s the way we like it.”

“Don’t the precinct guys resent it? I mean, when you take a case away from them?”

“It’s a trade-out, Kate. Our objective is to get in first. Make the entry. Keep the scene clean until Max Wolfsheim is finished. We work the case and when our AD feels it’s solid, we turn the files over to the precinct. So, we do the work and they get the collar.”

“And the TAZ ADA tries the case.”

“Right. In simple terms, we are attached to the precinct as long as the case is alive.”

“But you run the show.”

“The team runs the show.”

“Interesting concept.”

“Let’s get one thing straight, New York has the best police force and the best cops in the world. We’re all overworked and underpaid. Our job isn’t to show them up. It’s to help make them look as good as we can. That’s why we get the luxury of having our own full-time ADA.”

“Phil said TAZ was a lot like a family. One for all, all for one. That kind of thing. She said never talk about a case except with the crew and avoid the press.” She smiled. “She said if I got the job my end would be to keep you guys straight.”

“That’s right. Phyllis set the rules. She was great and we all admired her and we miss the hell out of her. There are no grandstanders in this outfit. We argue, disagree, kick wastebaskets when we get frustrated, work twelve to fourteen hours a day without bitching. When somebody gets burned out they come to me and I make them take a day off. If I get burned out somebody will tell me to go home and I do.

“I guess the main thing we all have in common is that when we’re working a kill we’re totally focused. We all know the law. One thing we try to do is sit in on a trial now and then, see what mistakes witnesses make, how good the prosecutors are. Everybody here knows if they screw up they can blow a DA’s case right out the window. But we still can make mistakes. That’s your job, Kate. If we start to step over the line, call us on it.”

He pointed to the framed aphorism on the wall.

“If we have a slogan, that’s it,” he said.

“Picasso was an artist. There’s no art in the law, Captain.”

“No. But there is in how one practices it, and you know that as well as I do. That’s why we picked you. Three months ago when I told Phil to take that job in Atlanta? Our big question was, who’s gonna fill her shoes? Phyllis said you’d be her first choice. We all checked you out and we all agree.”

She smiled. “I wasn’t sure,” she said. “I thought maybe this interview was a narrowing the field thing.”

“This isn’t an interview. You’ve got the job if you want it.”

Her mouth popped open for a second and she smiled.

“I’ll be damned,” she said.

“I’ll warn you, a lot of people would take a pass. It’s not a job for sissies or family people or cops who grumble about overtime or not getting to go to Grandma’s with the family for Thanksgiving.”

“Phil told me all that. Did she tell you I’m a lesbian?”

He hesitated for a moment then shook his head.

“Nope.”

“I would have thought she had.”

“She’s a good lawyer, Kate. She knows what’s immaterial.”

Winters sighed with relief.

“It’s kind of an unwritten law in the squad, Kate. We don’t talk politics, religion, sex, or family unless one of us has a problem and wants to share it or maybe get some advice.”

“Well,” she said, “Cocteau once wrote, ‘There is no art without risk.’ If you’re willing to take a chance on a gay black woman, I’m your gal.”

“Great. Welcome aboard.” He stuck out his hand and they shook. The skin of her hand was silky, her handshake was anything but.

“You draw the line, we’ll listen. Phil was our first ADA, you’ll be the second. Thing about Phyllis? She set her own rules. Very demanding on the crew but not intransigent. And I will tell you, we can be contentious as hell at times.”

“I’m a trial lawyer, remember? Contentious is my middle name.”

“Here’s the deal. There’s only two things you can’t do. Because you’re the ADA, that means you can’t actively work a case. Might be considered conflict of interest. But you can be an observer so you’ll do everything everybody else does. You’ll watch how we make entries, how we sweep a crime scene, how Wolf works the scene, even occasionally sit in on an autopsy. You’ll monitor the case as we work it and the crew will consider you one of us. And you will be except you will tell us what we can and can’t do and when a case is ready.”

“You said there are two things I can’t do.”

“You can’t carry a detective’s badge. Also a conflict of interest. It always pissed Phil off, the thing about the badge. When she left I gave her one as a going away present.”

“I know. It’s pinned in her wallet. Works like a charm for speeding and parking tickets.”

“But you do get this,” Cody said and put a small baby blue Tiffany box in front of her. She took the box and shook it like a kid on Christmas morning. Then she opened it slowly and unfolded the tissue paper. It was a sterling silver whistle with “KW” engraved on it.

“Just like the cops used to carry in the old days,” she said without looking at him. She caressed it as if it were a diamond ring.

“Wear it all the time. We all have one. You ever get in trouble blow the tweeter out of it.”

“Thank you,” she said, stroking it with a finger. She was in, part of the gang. For her money, a dream job. The hint of a tear crept into the corner of one eye.

“And don’t get weepy on me,” Cody said. “It’s like baseball, there’s no crying in copville.”

The phone rang, ending the interview.