Blood Oath

by Linda Fairstein

  “I was standing on the platform, with this guy and this girl from Streetwork, and somebody was making a commotion. It’s just that when people starting pushing and shoving, I was the one that got jammed in the middle, and I just fell.”

  “Fell? How did you fall?”

  “Onto the tracks,” Lucy said. “Onto the subway tracks.”

  “What?” I shrieked into the phone. “How did you get up?”

  “Two guys. Two men who were standing there helped,” Lucy said, sounding both weary and scared. “One jumped down and helped lift me up on the platform.”

  “Stay right where you are, Lucy,” I said. “Mercer and I will be there as fast as we can.”

  “My counselor wants to take me back to Streetwork, but she listed you as my contact on the hospital papers, so the discharge nurse made us call.”

  “Stay put,” I said, jabbing my finger onto my desk blotter. “Don’t talk to anyone except your counselor and the nurse. Mercer and I are coming to get you.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  Mercer stuck the red flasher on top of his old Crown Vic and turned on the whelper. The combination of lights and sirens on an unmarked car always worked to move through traffic. We reached the hospital on Fifty-Ninth Street and Tenth Avenue in thirty-five minutes.

  I ran in ahead of Mercer. Many of our rape victims were treated there because of its outstanding Sexual Assault Forensic Examiner program. I knew the way to the ER as well as to my own office, and found Lucy sitting on the side of a gurney, her counselor with her.

  “Thanks for calling,” I said to the Safe Horizon advocate who was standing beside Lucy. “Would you mind stepping out while we talk?”

  Before I could pull the curtain around our cubicle, Mercer had joined me.

  “I’m going to ask your permission to do this,” I said to the girl, “but I’d like to put my arms around you. You look like you’ve been in a boxing match.”

  Lucy bit her lip and nodded her head. “That would feel good.”

  She didn’t start crying until I held her against me in an embrace. “Let it all out,” I said. “You’ve been carrying a load around for so long.”

  When she was finished crying and wiping her tears, I told her to sit down again on the gurney.

  “What hurts?” I asked.

  “Everything.”

  “Show us where you’re bruised.”

  There were abrasions and lacerations on Lucy’s hands, from trying to break the fall from the platform to the tracks. She pulled up her jeans legs to show us her skinned knees and calves. One side of her face was scraped and puffy.

  “Stitches anywhere?” I asked.

  She hung her head and spoke quietly. “No. Just black and blue.”

  “And bloody,” I said, dabbing at the area around a Band-Aid on her forehead. “Things that will heal.”

  That was in sharp contrast to what Mercer and I were dealing with in regard to Lucy’s time with Zach Palmer.

  Mercer took over asking the questions. He made Lucy be specific about the time and the exact platform location, the names of her companions, and everything she observed around her.

  “How crowded was the platform?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. It was sort of narrow where we were standing, on the side of the staircase, but I didn’t count the people.”

  “Were people pushing one another?” Mercer asked. “Or did you think there was someone pushing you in particular?”

  “How could I tell that?” Lucy asked.

  “Well, did you feel anyone’s hands on your body?” he said. He was a gentle examiner, but firm and able to search out details.

  “I was facing the tracks, looking out for the train,” she said. “I didn’t feel anything on my back, you know? But it was like someone cracked the back of my legs, not with a weapon or anything—well, maybe a shopping bag, but hard enough to make my knees buckle—and then all I remember is tumbling down.”

  “Where were your two friends?”

  “Close by me, I guess.”

  “Did one of them do something to you, do you think?” Mercer said.

  “No way. They were standing right beside me,” Lucy said. “Plus, they’re totally good people, in the same kinds of situations—without homes, without families—like I’m in.”

  “So no one was in front of you, and this probably came from behind,” he said. “How many people got shoved off the platform?”

  “Well, it was just me,” Lucy said. “The men who helped me up, one of them just jumped. There was no sign of the train yet.”

  “Did police—?”

  “Yes, police officers showed up right away. They took the names of the two guys, just so you know,” she said. “And they brought me to the hospital.”

  “That’s good, Lucy,” Mercer said. “Just let the drug take over and relax you, and we’ll talk about this more later on.”

  “I just want to ask you a few things,” I said to Lucy. “Would you tell me why you were at the library?”

  No answer.

  “Lucy?”

  “I—um—my orientation stuff doesn’t start until tomorrow, so I had permission to go to the library. Well, not exactly the library, but to go out for a few hours this morning, so I went where two of the other kids from the program were going.”

  “Why did they choose the library?” I asked. “Or did you?”

  “That’s where a lot of the kids go—the ones like me that don’t have phones and laptops and stuff like that. Don’t tell on them, will you?”

  “I won’t tell on anyone,” I said. “Mercer and I have one goal—and that’s to keep you safe. Did you use a computer at the library?”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “Not at all.”

  “The program has library cards for us,” Lucy said. “There are computers and laptops that the public can use there, as long as you have a card. For a lot of the residents at Streetwork, it’s the only way to keep in contact with people in their lives. The Wi-Fi is free.”

  “Did you go there to contact someone?” I asked her.

  She shook her head in the negative.

  “Have you emailed anyone since you got here to tell them where you’re staying in Manhattan?”

  Lucy had seemed so unconnected from everyone in her young life that I hadn’t given much thought to her being in e-communication with anyone.

  She shook her head again.

  “No one?” I asked. “Would you answer me out loud?”

  “No one.”

  “Did you tell anyone where you’re staying?”

  “No,” she said, rubbing her eyes and yawning. The painkiller was making her sleepy. “Not really.”

  I squatted beside the gurney to get her to look me in the eye.

  “‘No’ is not the same thing as ‘not really,’” I said. “Who did you tell?”

  “You’re not going to be mad at me, are you?”

  “I’m too concerned to be mad, Lucy.”

  “Last night, when I got to Streetwork, one of the guys had a laptop,” she said. “I don’t know whether he was supposed to have it or not. But he let me use it.”

  “For what?” I asked. “What did you do with it?”

  “So I—well, I just thought I’d check Facebook.”

  I rocked back and held on to the edge of the gurney. “Go on.”

  “It had been a long time since I’d been online, and I figured it would be good to let people know I was doing okay.”

  “People?” I asked. “What people?”

  “Like Facebook friends, is all. I’m not even sure who they are at this point, ’cause I’ve been so out of touch.”

  “How many friends do you have? How many people read your posts?”

  “Maybe twenty-five,” she said. “Maybe thirty-five. I�
�m not sure.”

  “And did you tell them where you were staying?” I asked. “Did you give them the address of the program, or say anything about it?”

  I didn’t want her putting herself or anyone else there at risk.

  “Nope. Nothing about Streetwork.”

  “That’s really good,” I said. “Did you say anything about being with Mercer or me, or coming down to the DA’s office?”

  I didn’t dare ask whether she had used Jake’s name.

  “Of course not,” she said, yawning again. “I wouldn’t talk about anything like that.”

  “I’ll get Max to pull up your post when I go in tomorrow,” I said, “so you might as well tell me what you wrote.”

  “It’s all kind of bland. Blah-blah-blah kind of stuff,” Lucy said. “And then I said I had a library card and I’d be going to the big library on Fifth Avenue tomorrow morning—I mean today—if anyone wanted to get online with me.”

  She had put it out there for anyone to find.

  “Did anyone comment on your post?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do you have a list of your friends?” I asked. “Can you give me all the names?”

  “I have no idea at this point.”

  “There’s a way to do it, Lucy. We’ll get them off your site.”

  She curled her legs up beneath her and put her head down on the slim pillow on the gurney. “I’m really tired. Are you almost done?”

  I was afraid that if Lucy had enemies—Zach Palmer or anyone else in her thorny young life—she was now being tracked on Facebook. I was afraid she had been pushed off the subway platform by someone who had been alerted by her innocent reference to the library, and then followed her to the train station. I was afraid that something she may have put up on the Internet would lead like a trail of bread crumbs back to the place I had thought would be her safe haven.

  “It’s the medication, Lucy,” I said, trying to figure out what to do. “That’s what’s knocking you out. I want you to eat something and I want you to have a good night’s sleep, so don’t get too comfortable here.”

  “Can’t my counselor just take me back to Streetwork?”

  “You’re not going there tonight,” I said, running out of realistic options. “You’re going to come home and sleep at my place.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  “I didn’t tell you it was smart,” I said to Mike two hours later. “It’s necessary, that’s all. Until I can get the full download on Lucy’s Facebook information and go through all her friends and exactly what she’s put up and out, she can’t be at Streetwork.”

  Mercer and I had dressed Lucy in surgical scrubs that the triage nurse gave us from one of the supply cabinets. Her Safe Horizon counselor had given us a baseball cap, and when Mercer brought the car around to a side door of the hospital, Lucy walked out and ducked down behind the rear seat. Then he drove back around the block to pick me up in front of the ER.

  “You think you fooled anyone?” Mike asked.

  “I’m just hoping we did,” I said. “At least no one saw me walk out the door with her, if anyone was watching.”

  Lucy was sound asleep in my guest room. It was eight thirty in the evening—I had been in no mood for Jeopardy!—and Mike had just returned to the apartment.

  “What are you thinking of doing with her after tonight?” Mike asked. “I’m a pretty good bodyguard for the late shift, but I have to report to work tomorrow.”

  “We both do. Can you hold out a while on dinner and I’ll order in a pizza when Lucy wakes up?”

  “Sure,” Mike said. “What about making her a material witness and finding a hotel room for her, with police protection?”

  “I hate to resort to that,” I said. “Hotels are where it all started with Jake. I doubt that atmosphere will add to Lucy’s emotional stability. I now think I have to deal with him—Zach—in the morning, so I can start my grand jury case on Monday. Get Lucy’s testimony under oath, and see if I can work a rapprochement with her aunt so she can go back there.”

  “Either way, kid, you need a team to guard her now that she’s broadcast her whereabouts,” Mike said. “Who are you going to ask for that?”

  “Used to be I’d lay it all out for Paul Battaglia. Then he’d call the commissioner and get me whatever I wanted,” I said. “I’m not sure now who to trust with Lucy’s story and with my plans to make a case against Zachary Palmer.”

  “The commissioner himself,” Mike said. “Scully respects your judgment.”

  “I can’t count on that anymore. I made him pretty unhappy a few weeks ago, and also I can’t count on the fact he won’t tell Mayor DeBlowhard.”

  “Sooner or later, this is going to be news,” Mike said. “Front-page news, top of the fold.”

  “Once I get the indictment against Zach—if I do—and unseal it, then Scully has to give me someone to partner with Mercer on the arrest.”

  “Mercer,” Mike said. “Why can’t he guard Lucy tomorrow? Do you need him for your conversation with Zach?”

  “I’m going solo for that,” I said, walking to the bar to pour us each a drink.

  “In your office?” Mike asked.

  “No. Too many ears and eyes.”

  “Not his office,” Mike said. “He’s probably got a trapdoor in the floor like a Bond villain. You’d be chum for some great whites he keeps in a tank down below.”

  “I’ve had that thought,” I said. “No, I’ll call him and pick a public place. Somewhere he can’t start screaming at me when I take out the plastic baggie with Lucy’s bloody handkerchief in it and pretend I’ve had it tested. Maybe a hotel lobby in Midtown, with a lounge area. Quiet, elegant, and for me, a feeling of safety.”

  “Use the Palace on East Fiftieth or the Four Seasons on Fifty-Seventh. There are ex-cop security guards all around both places, both have entrances on two sides, and neither one is far from his office.”

  “Good idea,” I said.

  We were watching an old movie on Turner Classics when Lucy walked into the den at nine thirty.

  I stood up. “Glad you’re back on your feet,” I said. “Do you feel any better?”

  “Nope. Everything aches.”

  “That’s the way it goes with big bruises,” Mike said. “They’re supposed to ache. You’ll feel better after you eat.”

  I ordered in a large pepperoni pizza and made sure Lucy drank plenty of water while we waited for dinner.

  “Can I watch TV, too?” she asked.

  “Anything you want,” I said.

  I left her in the den with Mike and went inside to call Catherine to see how her meeting with Janet Corliss had gone. My call went to voice mail.

  A few minutes later, Mike came to my office to talk. “Have you thought about tomorrow?”

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said and I think you’re right after all,” I said.

  “Which one of my bright ideas did you like?”

  “Kiss me,” I said. “Then I’ll tell you.”

  Mike leaned over and wrapped his arms around me, sealing the deal with a long, deep kiss—and then a second one.

  “I’m calling Keith,” I said, picking up my cell phone again from my desktop.

  “As in the commissioner?”

  “Look, Mike,” I said. “I’ll have to prepare him for whatever the grand jury does about Zach Palmer, maybe as early as tomorrow afternoon. And I’m ready to tell him that I know where Francie Fain is.”

  “You can’t give up Vickee,” Mike said, slamming his hand on my desk.

  “I’d never give her up—you know that. Vickee refused to tell us,” I said. “I can swear to that fact on a stack of Bibles. Just think of how many people I work with who are friends of Francie’s. I bet even Judge Corliss knows where she is.”

  I turned my back to Mike and speed-dialed
the commissioner’s cell.

  “Keith? I’m sorry, I meant to say commissioner. It’s Alex Cooper here,” I said. We had known each other long before we were chiefs in our respective departments. I’d slipped in his first name to remind him of that. “Sorry about the late hour.”

  “What have you got, Alexandra?” he said, with a hint of annoyance in his voice.

  “Something unexpected dropped into my lap this week,” I said. “At first, I didn’t know what to make of it, but I’ve spent the last couple of days doubling down on the witness and she tells a monster story. I could use your help.”

  “Explain yourself. I’m not a mind reader,” Scully said. He was clipped—more so than usual—but he was a man who didn’t like people wasting his time.

  “The perp is fairly prominent, so I think I should sit down with you and Vickee Eaton to prep you in case the grand jury returns a true bill next week.”

  “Who is he?” Scully asked.

  “I’d prefer to tell you in person, if you’ve got time late afternoon tomorrow.”

  “Are you taking your lessons in etiquette from Mike Chapman these days?” the commissioner said. “You’re asking for my personal involvement to help you with a case, but you’re refusing to tell me who your target is?”

  “I learned from Paul Battaglia,” I said, thinking that might make Scully understand my maneuverings and be somewhat amused by my channeling of the late district attorney—a master of manipulation.

  “It looked better on Battaglia,” Scully said. “May the old bastard rest in peace.”

  “Tomorrow afternoon? May I come to One PP?”

  “Yes,” he said. “When are you expecting an indictment?”

  “Next Wednesday at the earliest.”

  “Exquisite timing—to call me at ten forty-seven tonight when you’re six days out,” Scully said facetiously.

  “There’s a rather urgent piece of this,” I said.

  “How urgent?”

  “You’ll just have to trust me, Keith.”

  He paused before he spoke. “I used to.”

  “I’m back, operating on all cylinders,” I said. “This isn’t a Chapman operation—it’s all Mercer and me.”