Silent Mercy

TWENTY-TWO

IT was almost five o’clock when Mike dropped me off at the Hogan Place entrance to the District Attorney’s Office. Lawyers were pushing shopping carts full of case folders and evidence back from courtrooms in the overflow civil courthouse across Centre Street, ending wearying days on trial. I crowded into an elevator with two of the junior assistants and rode up to the eighth-floor office suites.

“Hey, Laura. Start with the good news.”

“Can’t think of any. You’re going to need a shovel to get through all the stuff that’s been piling up since you left.”

“Battaglia?”

“Better send out for a cocktail before you go in there. Something to steady your nerves. He’s been like a raging bull today.”

“Now?”

“Go rescue Nan. She and McKinney have been in with him for an hour.”

“Take off. See you tomorrow.”

“Not a prayer. You need an air-traffic controller for these messages. I’ll wait till you’re out.”

“Thanks.” I picked up a legal pad and headed through security to the executive wing. Rose looked as grim as an executioner.

Pat McKinney practically exploded with delight when Battaglia, who was talking on the phone, scowled at my entrance. “What was it? Chapman’s class reunion that took you back to the Bronx?”

“And to think Mike didn’t invite you to come along, Patrick. You could have been homecoming queen.”

News of our important find hadn’t reached the DA yet, or McKinney wouldn’t have been quite so snide about my absence.

I sat next to Nan at the conference table and leaned over to whisper to her. “I am so sorry to have dragged you into this mess.”

“I’ll get you back,” she said, patting my hand. “You’ll owe me for months.”

“Alexandra will be a little late for that meeting, Keith,” Battaglia said, crushing the cigar with his teeth as he raised his voice. “We’ve got some business here first.”

Battaglia had been talking to Commissioner Scully. I didn’t know whether that would be worse for Mike or for me, since we had both disappeared for the afternoon.

“So what else does your crystal ball tell you?” McKinney asked. “You sure nailed that St. Pat’s location for the second body.”

I didn’t answer. I was most anxious to ask Battaglia to find out from Bishop Deegan who the man in the courtroom during his testimony was. I was certain I had seen him at St. John the Divine the day before, but for the first time in my years under Battaglia’s watch, I worried about giving up information like that when there was clearly a backstory between the district attorney and the bishop to which I was not privy.

“They had a solution for that kind of prognosticating in Salem,” McKinney said. He was, as usual, the only one to laugh at what he thought passed for humor.

“Nan was just telling us that there might be a Bellevue connection,” Battaglia said, eyeing me, waiting for me to speak.

“Mercer come up with anything solid yet?” I asked her.

“Risk management’s doing their usual dance,” she said, referring to the legal arm of the hospital, always vigilant against the potential for lawsuits. “Patient privacy, medical privilege — we’ll be lucky to have our first shot at records by Monday.”

“Surely Chapman’s got a hot nurse or two he can lean on there to break the rules,” McKinney said.

“I won’t forget to ask him.”

“Scully’s having the Homicide Squad bosses in at six for a briefing. He wants you there,” Battaglia said.

I was certain McKinney had been lobbying to take me off the case. His girlfriend had just been dumped from the head of the Gun Recovery Unit for general incompetence, and Pat kept looking to insert her into other high-profile work. The fact that he hadn’t dragged her into this mess suggested he didn’t have any ready solutions for these murders and feared things would get worse before we made headway.

“All right if Nan comes along?” I asked.

“I’d prefer it. At least I can find her when I need something.” Battaglia had good reason to respect Nan’s professionalism. She had tried some of the most challenging cases — from murder to multimillion-dollar white-collar frauds — and was one of his most trusted soldiers.

Chapman obviously hadn’t reached Scully yet. “Just so you know, Mike didn’t take me on a wild goose chase. We found what we were looking for.”

“Are you serious? He found the woman’s tongue?” The DA put his hand on the black phone that connected him immediately to the police commissioner’s desk. “Tell me where it was. I can hold this one over the PC’s head.”

I explained what had led Mike to the campus chapel. A smile crept onto Paul Battaglia’s face. He liked the church trivia and the forensic finding almost as much as he relished being the first in a position of power to know something.

“I’ve got a slew of calls to make before I go over to headquarters,” I said, rising to leave. “We left Crime Scene at the chapel going over every inch of the place. The killer must have gone straight from St. Pat’s cemetery up to Fordham.”

“I can head out from here,” Nan said. “I’ll tell Mike you’ll be over in?…”

“By the time the meeting starts.”

We left McKinney with Battaglia and Nan asked me if I needed help with anything before she took the short walk from our office, through the cutaway next to the federal courthouse, to One Police Plaza, tucked away behind the United States Attorney’s Office.

“Thanks. Laura’s going to hang out and triage my list of calls. See you there.”

I went back to my office. Laura had just brewed a fresh pot of coffee and set me up with a steaming-hot mug.

Six of the lawyers from the unit were on trial. Only two had courtroom crises, and my longtime deputy had put out those fires. I clipped the notes together to take home with me, so I could check in on each of them that night.

There were case inquiries from victims, detectives who wanted investigative guidance, and one bureau chief complaining about a judgment call we had made in a new case. My internist’s office reminded me of the need for an annual checkup, my nephew wanted theater tickets when the family came to town for spring break, and a date had been set for the fall trunk show at Escada. It seemed that everyone but the man I loved was looking for me.

“This guy was beyond rude,” Laura said, handing me a slip with her red exclamation marks and underlining all over it. “Let him cool down a day before you call.”

The message was from Vincenzo Borracelli. My meeting with his wife had only been Thursday but felt like a week ago. “It’s imperative that I hear from you today. Do you know who I am?” The italics were Laura’s — it meant that Borracelli had been screaming at her. “You can’t treat my child the way you did. I’ll have you taken off the case at once. I’ll see that you pay for this.”

“Good luck to him if he can find someone else who wants the case,” I said, handing the slip of paper back to Laura. “Let him stew until Monday. I’ll return some of these others. Can you please remind me when it gets close to six?”

“Will do.”

I picked up my private line to deal with the more important matters and let Laura continue to fend off callers and passersby. I slipped a couple of Tylenol from my desk drawer and tried to make a list of details that might be useful for Scully’s meeting.

When Laura told me it was time to go, I left all the papers in discrete piles on my desk. We both put on jackets and walked to the elevator. She went into the revolving door first, and we parted on the sidewalk in front of the Hogan Place entrance.

“Good night. Stop pushing yourself so hard, Alex,” Laura said, walking off to head north to the Canal Street subway station.

“Thanks for everything. See you tomorrow.”

I took the shortcut along Baxter Street, crossing to avoid the loading dock that was blocked by a large truck. The small park that separated Chinatown from the courthouse was on my left. Schoolchildren who played kickball and tag there were long gone, and it was too dark for the seniors who did their Tai Chi exercises at the beginning and end of the day.

The wind picked up and shadows from the trees in the park danced under the dim glow of the streetlights.

I held my cell in both hands, texting Mike that I was on my way. I had forgotten that the new security system at One Police Plaza would slow me down by an additional five or six minutes.

I heard the footsteps before the man spoke. He came rushing out of the park after I passed the gate in the southwest corner, running at me from behind.

I turned to look at him and stumbled on the cracked sidewalk, falling to my knees, my BlackBerry skipping off the curb between two parked cars.

He was coming at me so fast that his feet caught on my extended leg and he landed on the ground, half of him squarely on top of me.

“Ms. Alice,” the slight young black man said. “I’m not going to hurt you, Ms. Alice.”

I didn’t realize I had screamed until two uniformed cops pulled the kid off and cuffed him.