The Kills

7

We finished picking our jury shortly after seven.

"Ten o'clock sharp, ladies and gentlemen," Moffett said, dismissing the twelve we had selected, along with two alternates.

"Tell you what I'm gonna do with regard to the boy," he announced to Robelon and me after the courtroom was cleared of the group. "I'll tell Ms. Taggart to have Dulles produced in my chambers after school tomorrow. Miss Cooper can try to talk to him and that other lawyer, what's his name?"

"Hoyt. Graham Hoyt."

"Yeah. He can sit in on it, too, on the boy's behalf. I'll hang around to iron out any problems that come up. How's that sound?"

I couldn't concentrate on the conversation. My mind was spinning, wondering whether the child was in any actual danger, where the foster mother might have taken him, how Nancy Taggart would respond when I told her about the call from the school, and why everyone in this case-except the victim-seemed to have his or her own agenda.

Robelon spewed out some form of objection and tried to make up for lack of case law to support his position by the sheer volume of his rhetoric.

"Alexandra," Moffett said, "I'm talking to you. We'll stop with your witness at five o'clock tomorrow and then I'll give you a chance to see if the kid'll cooperate."

"Fine, Your Honor." I had a better chance of winning the lottery than sitting in a room with Dulles Tripping by the end of the next day.

"Anything else?" he asked, unhooking the clasp of his robe and handing it to the court officer to hang until the morning.

"Judge, I'd just ask you to remind the defendant, now that proceedings have started, that the order of protection is in full force. He is not to attempt or have any contact with his son, whether in this courthouse, at his school, or-"

"That's really unnecessary, Alex," Robelon objected. "We don't even know what school the kid goes to or where he's living."

"I have no idea what you or your client know at this point. I'm in the rather unorthodox position of not having access to my own witnesses. It's quite clear that the family court, by allowing telephone calls and several meetings between Mr. Tripping and his son, undercut the order of one of the criminal court judges-"

I knew how to get under Moffett's collar. "Which she had no business doing. Alex is right about that. Be a good boy, Mr. Tripping, understood?"

"Yes, sir." The defendant seemed to be smirking at me as he answered Moffett.

The elevators stopped on the seventh floor and I ran my security badge through the scanner, walked down the quiet corridor and up to my eighth-floor office.

Ryan Blackmer, one of my favorite young lawyers, was keeping Mercer company in my office when I dragged in. "You need me?" I asked.

"Just a heads-up. Mind if I work on an investigation at Bayview?"

The prison facility on Manhattan's West Side was the only place in the county where female inmates were housed. "Be my guest. What is it?"

"Prisoner claims one of the guards-he's a captain, actually-has been having sex with her."

"Wouldn't be the first time. But those can be awfully hard to prove."

"She's doing seven years on a robbery with physical injury. Her lawyer claims she hasn't had a single visitor since Christmas, when her husband left her for her younger sister. Now she's four months pregnant. Might be as easy as a fetal DNA test."

"Go for it," I said as the phone rang.

Mercer answered it. "I don't think she's in the mood," he said, holding out the receiver to me.

"Chapman?"

"I'm running out of steam, Coop. Never shut my eyes for a minute last night and I'm just about to go lights-out."

"I'm too busy to tuck you in."

"I need a favor."

It was hard to refuse Mike. He had saved my neck on more occasions than I could count. "Shoot."

He laughed. "But first, what do you give for 'Famous Funerals'?" I glanced down at my watch. The "Final Jeopardy" question.

"Nothing. The subject's too close to home at the moment."

"Laid to rest in London's Highgate, his orator described him as the 'best hated and most calumniated man of his times.'"

From the days when I was immersed in my major in English literature, I knew that one of my favorite authors was interred there. "George Eliot's buried in Highgate. But she doesn't fit. And Bram Stoker's notorious vampire, Miss Lucy. Otherwise, not a clue. Skip the education and tell me what the favor is."

"That was Engels describing his buddy Karl Marx to the eight mourners who gathered at the graveside. Only eight. Imagine that. So can you stop at the morgue on the way home?"

"Sure. I didn't want to eat any dinner or polish up my opening statement."

"I know your style. You had your opening in the can a month ago. You've already written the summation."

Mike was right. I had learned from the old school, the guys who had mastered the art of criminal trial work under great prosecutors. Start your preparation with the closing argument. That way you could make a coherent presentation from the outset, building your case with a sound structure and layering in any new information that you gathered during the testimony of the witnesses. I had outlined those arguments weeks ago.

"What do you need?"

"You told me you were going to assign last night's homicide to someone."

"I forgot about it completely." I had promised Mike that I would tell Sarah Brenner, my deputy, to make one of the unit assistants available on the murder of the elderly woman.

"I know. I just tried to reach Sarah so I wouldn't bother you. She didn't know what I was talking about. I could hear her kids in the background-"

"She's got her hands full at this hour."

"I think I can make it easy for you. Just a quick detour. Dr. Kirschner thinks I'm wrong about the rape. Autopsy shows no sign of sexual assault."

"Nothing?" I asked.

"Not a single thing with a foreign profile. No semen, no loose pubic hair-"

"Bruising?" I would expect, in a woman as old as Mike's victim, that the vaginal vault would exhibit lacerations and swelling, because of the atrophy that accompanied the lack of sexual activity.

"Not internal. Not even on her thighs."

"Sounds like a blessing to me if she wasn't subjected to rape as a final indignity."

"Kirschner thinks the scene was staged to look like a sexual assault. He just finished up and if you can get there within the hour, he'd go over the results with you and show you the crime scene photos. Brainstorm and see what you think. That way I can get started in a new direction when I go in tomorrow morning."

"Okay."

"And Coop? Say good night to Queenie for me?"

"Is that her name?"

"McQueen Ransome. Known to her neighbors as Queenie. Lived in that same little apartment for the last fifty years. Never hurt a fly."

"Family? Next of kin?"

"Not a soul. Had one son who died before he got to high school. No sign that she was ever married, but there are pictures of the boy on the wall in the living room."

"Sounds like a stupid question to ask about an eighty-two-year-old lady, but did she have any enemies?"

"Not that I heard about today. Kids were hanging out all over the stoop. They loved her. Did all the errands for her in exchange for candy, and some entertainment."

"What do you mean?"

"She'd sing and dance for the kids, that's what they say. Put on her old vinyl records and cut a rug. I got a whole children's crusade working on the case with me. Told 'em all they could be my deputies if they catch the killer. Anyway, leave a message on my cell and I'll speak to you at the end of the day tomorrow."

"Last thing, Mike. You make any progress on Tiffany Gatts?"

"She won't be arraigned before morning. There was a labor demonstration over in the garment district, and the backup cause of all the extra arrests for dis con is cramming the system. Have Mercer walk you to your car. Mama Gatts'll be looking for blood."

"Thanks for the reminder."

"We may have a lead on the mink. Found an open squeal in the Seventeenth Precinct. UN delegate from France named du Rosier. Reported a theft six months back. He and his wife thought it was an inside job. His chauffeur had access to the apartment, even when the couple was back in Europe. A bunch of jewelry, two furs, and some pricey antique silver service."

"Any description?"

"The du Rosiers are traveling at the moment. I'll try and get something more detailed from their insurance company tomorrow. Speak to you then."

Mercer waited while I closed up and we headed out the door together. My car was parked near the intersection of Centre Street and Hogan Place, at the corner of the courthouse. The laminated NYPD plate displayed in the windshield was one of the privileges of rank in the office, and I was pleased that no one had double-parked me in place, as often happened when cops delivered prisoners to the courthouse.

The dump sticker from the town of Chilmark, where my home on Martha's Vineyard was located, and the Squibnocket beach pass on the rear window, were the only things that personalized my winter-green SUV. It was even more heartwarming to see that the Vineyard stickers had not seemed to draw the attention or wrath of Etta Gatts, who might have noticed the Vineyard posters in my office. The windows were intact.

I stepped off the curb at the rear of the car, keys in hand. Mercer went around in front to open the door for me.

"Looks like I'm your transportation for the evening," he said, taking the keys out of my hand. "Your car's in dry dock, Alex. Someone slashed your two front tires."