Silent Mercy

THIRTY-THREE

NAN Toth had set up our team in a conference room in her building, which was directly across the street from the main office on Hogan Place. At one point, the courthouse held the entire district attorney’s staff, but thirty years ago we’d annexed an adjacent government building as we more than doubled in size to close to six hundred lawyers.

I was on the phone with my secretary while Mike searched for a parking space. “Laura doesn’t even want me to show my face on the eighth-floor corridor. She’s given Pat McKinney the impression that I’ve taken the day off, like I’m taking the commissioner’s advice seriously. She’s sending Maxine over with all my papers on the case.”

“Excellent.” He backed into a no-parking zone and tossed his laminated police plate in the windshield. “So Nan’s your shill today.”

“She’s the ideal cover to take the lead. Battaglia thinks she walks on water.”

“Perfect talent for this case.”

We made our way into the 8 °Centre Street offices, which were so antiquated that the elevators still required operators to ferry the hundreds of lawyers and support staff up and down all day.

The tired machine groaned its way to the fourth floor, and I led Mike through the maze of security checkpoints and cubicles the size of rabbit warrens — homes to the rookie prosecutors — to the small conference room that serviced the Cold Case Unit and the Child Abuse team.

Nan and Mercer had established themselves at corners of the long table. My supersmart and good-natured paralegal, Max, was just unloading stacks of my Redwelds, already overstuffed with police reports and paperwork related to the two murders.

“Anything else you need?” she asked.

Mike and I staked out territory opposite each other. “Don’t you dare leave,” I said to Max. “We’re going to suck that powerful brain of yours dry today. Grab a seat.”

She was obviously pleased to be part of the team, and I valued the fresh pair of non-law enforcement eyes to reexamine all the facts that we had.

“Make yourself useful, Max,” Mike said. “You take dictation?”

“No, but—”

“I’ll talk slow. Turkey and Swiss hero. Lettuce, tomato, and mayo. Plenty of onion. Two Cokes. Big bag of chips. Get everybody’s order and have lunch here at one sharp.”

“I can handle that.”

She wrote down his order and passed the pad around so we could add our choices while he talked.

“Let’s all get on the same page.” Mike spent the next ten minutes summarizing the minister’s interview for the others. “Faith’s going to try to track down some of the women who knew Ursula best, who may have been with her last week. And get more info on these extreme ministries.”

“Faith sounds so interesting,” Nan said.

“Yeah,” Mike said. “I think I’m in love.”

“That would be a full-time ministry for the good woman,” I said. “You were making a good play for Chastity.”

“A bit more of a challenge there, I’d have to say. I like the idea of a sister act,” Mike stroked his chin and pretended to be giving the choice between the women a serious thought. “Have you given Max copies of those scraps of paper that Daniel Gersh tried to flush down the toilet?”

“I got them from Laura last night.” Max reached for one of my folders and extracted a much thicker stack than I recalled assembling. “I’ve put together a few hundred words and phrases, just pushing around the letters. I can refine the search once I hear more about what you know. Maybe certain words will make sense.”

“What else is new?” Mike asked, looking to Mercer. “What have you got to say for yourself, my man?”

“I stopped at the Chelsea Square Workshop on my way in this morning,” Mercer said, flipping open his notepad. “Lucky to find anyone there at all. Nothing running at the moment, so the house was dark, as they seem to say in the theater.”

“Who’d you talk to?”

“Guy says he’s the stage manager. He doesn’t have anything to do with the business end of the shows, but he hires the crews to work them.”

“Daniel Gersh?”

“Yes.”

“Does he know where that weasel is?” Mike asked.

Mercer shook his head. “Just like Gersh told you, he got to town in the late fall. He worked a couple of shows in November and December. Double-Crossed was one of them. He was still around in January, but they’ve only had two stagings since then, and Daniel Gersh wasn’t involved in either of them.”

“He must have information on Gersh,” I said. “Where he lives and how to reach him, no?”

“Unfortunately for us, it’s not a union operation. The place is like a funky, oversized coffee shop. The stage is just a raised platform with a homemade curtain. Doesn’t look ready for prime-time.”

“Latte and lowbrow drama,” Mike said. “How’d Gersh get to him?”

“They advertise in all those supermarket giveaways. Don’t pay scale and don’t really care who signs up to work. When they haven’t got a live play, they show classic cinema. This guy runs the projector and his wife makes the brew.”

“What does he remember about Daniel Gersh?” Nan asked.

“Precious little. He’s the cranky sort. He didn’t like anything to do with Ursula Hewitt’s play — not the subject, not the script, not the shots at the church. So he kind of shut down to everyone around him.”

“How about the team who worked the show with Gersh?”

“Two regulars — he gave me names and numbers — and another drifter.”

“Did he describe the drifter?” I asked.

“Nothing distinctive. You know the type. You could ask him to describe his wife of thirty-two years and he’d probably say ‘nothing distinctive.’”

“He’d probably be right,” Mike said. “Was there a Christmas party? I think maybe that’s what Daniel was talking to us about. A party after the performance Naomi attended.”

Mercer held a printout of the story that Nan had pulled up on the computer the night before, about the play. “I showed him this. He remembered that night because — you’re right — there was a celebration of sorts after the show.”

“That’s a start. Did he recognize anyone in the picture, besides Ursula Hewitt?”

“No. But it reminded him there was a man in the audience that night who got really angry during the performance.”

We all sat up at attention.

“How angry?” Nan asked.

“Angry enough to stay for the party so that he could have it out with Ursula Hewitt. A loud argument that Gersh and the other hands had to break up. He thinks Gersh took him outside to cool him down, maybe even left with him. My witness says the guy was about as angry as the thick red blisters on his cheeks.”