Terminal City

TWENTY-FIVE

“How would he know I’m in Grand Central Terminal? How could he possibly figure that out?”

I was sitting at the counter of the Oyster Bar with Mike and Mercer almost an hour later. They were watching me drink a second Dewar’s on the rocks. The first one hadn’t touched me.

“Rocco says there’s footage of us all over the six o’clock news,” Mike said, “rushing into the building when we got the call about the girl’s body.”

He and Mercer had taken off after Tanner, leaving me with a stunned and silent Metro-North officer on the subway platform. They thought they had jumped on the same train with the fugitive and rode a few stops, walking through the cars to search for him. But he had somehow given them the slip. On their return, they retrieved me from a police sergeant’s room behind the row of ticket booths and walked me down the ramp to the Oyster Bar.

“Why would anyone have news footage? It wasn’t a story then.”

“Mike and I were running with gold shields in hand. That attracted some tourist’s attention.”

“Forgot that.” They needed to identify themselves as detectives so they didn’t appear to be frantic citizens on a rampage, running into the terminal or any other building.

“Some lady from New Zealand filmed it on her smartphone and sent it in when CNN ran the story of the dead body shortly after that. At least one of the local news anchors identified you using your name, fingering the link to a crime-a sexual assault or homicide-that had you as part of our team.”

“And that brought the game out in Raymond Tanner,” I said, sloshing the ice cubes around in my glass. “Apparently my time is almost up.”

“I could have told you that,” Mike said. “Could have wrapped myself in a turban like a-”

“Don’t go there.”

“Could have covered my head in a ninja mask so the facial recog software didn’t match me, either. Maybe I’d be more appealing to you, kid. Never thought of coming on to you in quite so public a place.”

“Detective Wallace,” I said, lifting my glass toward Mercer while Mike inhaled his fifth or sixth Malpeque oyster, “would you please tell your good friend that there was nothing the least bit amusing about being molested by Raymond Tanner?”

“You call that molested?” Mike asked. “Sounds like foreplay to me.”

“You’re the guy who lays on ten years of foreplay and then freaks out after you kiss me once,” I said. “I don’t think you know the first thing about the subject.”

“Okay now, blondie. You’re beginning to feel the glow of that cool amber Scotch. I love it when you get fired up.”

“The man wants to kill me, Mike. Tanner’s a hideously dangerous rapist. An escaped felon, wanted for more violent crimes than I can remember.”

“He’s jerking you around. You’ve got such a bad temper you rise to the bait too easy. He could have clubbed you with one of his lead pipes right here if that was his goal. Stuck a knife in your ribs. He prefers playing with you, kid. The cat tossing the mouse between his paws. He likes making it personal.”

“Well, it works. I feel so disgusting right now. I just want to shower and get the touch of him off me, the smell of him out of my nostrils.”

Too many women had told me too many times how violated they felt in the hands of an abuser. The idea that Raymond Tanner was stalking me-doubly ironic that the high visibility of the cases I handled made the task so easy for him-was chilling. He was skilled at evading capture, brazen enough to make his way into Grand Central just as it was about to be flooded with police.

“Know what would help?” Mike said, pushing his plate toward me. “A bivalve. Pure protein.”

“I’m too nervous to eat.”

“You need to coat your stomach with something or that Scotch will bore clear through to your toenails, Coop.”

“Who’s out on the street looking for Tanner?”

“Everybody but us,” Mercer said. “And you need to slow down on the alcohol.”

“So he creates a complete diversion from the triple homicide, and I’m the patsy for it.”

“Maybe not complete,” Mike said. “The A team stays focused on the triple. Scully can use minor leaguers to hunt for your lunatic.”

“Thanks. Very gratifying. Minor leaguers on the hunt for my stalker. Maybe Scully can bring in some wannabes as well. Boy Scouts or Dora the Explorer.”

“I just mean that the perv is making it easier for them to find him. Showing himself at the courthouse and following your every move in the media.”

“You’d think some Good Samaritan would have noticed a madman pinning me to the wall.”

“You’re only the center of your own universe, Coop. Must’ve looked like you were pleased the guy was jumping your bones. You are such the image of a broad running home to her blond, green-eyed peeps in some white-bread part of Connecticut, saying good-bye to the inner-city dude who’s got your number.”

“Sick imagination, Mr. Chapman.”

“Tanner’s breaking your concentration, Alex.” Mercer was also working his way through a dozen oysters while he tried to get me to chill. “We need your brain back in the case.”

“It’s out to lunch.”

“Stick on it, girl. I know that’s easy for me to say right now. We’ll find that fool,” Mercer said, reaching over and taking my hand off the drinking glass. “Vickee’s got the guest room all made up. I told Rocco we’d stop and pick up your toothbrush and some clothes for the morning, and I’d keep your mind off things overnight.”

I looked at Mike. Why couldn’t I just stay at his place instead of being the third wheel at Mercer and Vickee’s comfortable home in Douglaston?

“Maybe Mike could just-?”

“Oh, no, kid. Can’t have you pawing at me all night. I’m twenty-four/seven into my work right now.”

“And Logan will be out of his skull to wake up and see you in the morning,” Mercer said, tousling my hair.

“Yeah, it’s not every four-year-old who has a full-on head case for his godmother,” Mike said. “Just don’t let him smell your breath when you give him a kiss. The fumes might kill him.”

The bartender told us that our table, a small corner one in the back, nestled under the vaulted white tile ceiling, was ready. There were still a few dozen diners lingering over their meals, many of whom seemed to be working their way through oversized seafood platters. The red-and-white-checked tablecloths added cheer to the room.

“You folks ready to order?” the waiter asked. “Young lady?”

“I’m not hungry. Just a glass of white wine, please.”

“She’ll have sparkling water,” Mercer said. “And a bowl of clam chowder.”

“I’ll have the chowder if I can have some sauvignon blanc, too.”

“Deal.”

“The Coopster’s in no position to make deals, Mercer.”

“Wine has a very calming influence on me, guys.”

“And for you, gentlemen?” the waiter asked.

“I’ll have the Maine lobster. I’d like a three-pounder,” Mike said. “All the sides, okay? Fries and onion rings and coleslaw. And have you got Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on draught?”

“Yes, sir. And for you?”

“The grilled salmon, please. Another Grey Goose martini straight up. Three olives.”

“Now here’s how you regain your center,” Mike said to me. “Where are we?”

“The best seafood restaurant in Manhattan. Is that what you want me to say? Landmarked and all that?”

“Nope. I want you to channel your favorite place on the planet.”

Martha’s Vineyard. My home on a hilltop in Chilmark. My escape from all things prosecutorial.

“Close your eyes for a minute,” Mike said.

I’d bought the old farmhouse with my fiancé, Adam Nyman, who’d been a medical student at the University of Virginia during my law school years. The night before our Vineyard wedding, on his drive from New York to the romantic island, another driver ran him off a bridge into a riverbed below and Adam was killed in the crash.

“Okay. I’m thinking the Vineyard.”

“Then take some deep breaths. Imagine the clam chowder you’re about to eat is from the Bite,” Mike said, referring to the tiny shack in the fishing village of Menemsha where the Quinn sisters served up the most spectacular chowder and fried clams. “And that Mercer’s oysters and my lobster are from Larsen’s Fish Market. You almost home, Coop?”

I opened my eyes and looked at Mike, who was naming my favorite island haunts. “Almost there. But my recurring nightmare is that Raymond Tanner will be along for the ride.”

“He’s got Mercer and me to contend with. And over your shoulder? Lieutenant Correlli’s about to crash our little soiree.”

I looked around. Rocco was walking toward our table from the bar, carrying a glass of red wine.

“Safety in numbers, I guess.”

“I just want to apologize to you, Alex,” he said, as he lowered himself into the fourth chair at the table.

“You didn’t do anything, Loo. No need to apologize.”

“I mean, this bastard keeps giving us the slip. I gotta say he’s really good at it.”

“Serial rapists? If they weren’t good at extricating themselves from every kind of situation, they’d be one-time offenders.”

“Scully talked to Battaglia,” Rocco said. “I told Mercer-”

“Right. That’s how you knew we’d still be here. The commissioner and the district attorney have got me under wraps for the night.”

The waiter arrived with a steaming bowl of New England clam chowder. The restaurant’s air-conditioning-and the chills I’d had since Tanner put his hands on me-made the soup a welcome sight, despite the temperature on the street.

“Just till we nab him, Alex,” the lieutenant said, gnawing on an unlighted cigarette.

“I hear you’ve got your best guys on the hunt. So I guess I should just hibernate until Groundhog Day? Don’t want to be a strain on your resources.”

“Don’t lose it now, Alex.” Rocco Correlli leaned in and clinked his glass against mine. “We figured out the link. Like Mike says, nothing’s a coincidence.”

“What link?”

“Between the sociopathic rapist who’s stalking you and the cannibal cop.”

I almost gulped a helping of my wine. “What’s that?”

“Gerardo Dominguez and Raymond Tanner,” Rocco said. “They both grew up in the same project. Fulton Houses, on 17th Street.”

I didn’t know whether to be relieved or more nervous. “How did-?”

“Scully had someone go back practically as far as the maternity ward. We’re with you, Alex. I promise. The pair of pervs have been linked together since childhood.”

Mike Chapman cracked the claw of his lobster. “Two scumbags under the same roof, Coop. Must have been something in the water over at Fulton.”