Bad blood

by Linda Fairstein

  “If what Mercer says is right, Quillian didn’t have any reason to connect these past events to me. He just wanted to get out of there-out of the courtroom, out of custody,” I said, shredding the napkin with my fingers, the soup stains on it a pale imitation of Elsie’s blood.

  “You got it,” Mercer said.

  “Elsie was the weakest link. He just overpowered her and started shooting. He wasn’t after her any more than he wanted to kill me. I wasn’t an obstacle to his freedom at that moment. Brendan Quillian just wanted to be gone.”

  We kicked around ideas for more than fifteen minutes. Rose interrupted us when she opened the door, and Battaglia snapped at her before she could speak.

  “I told you no calls.” He was waiting for the commissioner of correction to tell him how they planned to handle this fiasco before he went public on it.

  “It’s Judge Gertz, Mr. Battaglia. I thought you might want this one.” Rose knew him better than he knew himself.

  His lips widened into a broad smile around the cigar stub as he reached for the telephone. “A real profile in courage,” he said, winking at Mike. “Freddy, what the hell were you running up there, the O.K. Corral? Where are you now? You got a panic room here in the courthouse I ought to know about?”

  Whatever the answer was, and it was a long one, erased Battaglia’s smile.

  “She’s okay. She’s here with me now. Naturally, she’s shaken up about the woman who was killed, seeing her friends shot and all that. But you know Alex. One hundred percent business when she needs to be.”

  “More like ninety percent blended Scotch whiskey in her veins and ten percent hair spray that makes her look like she’s glued together from the outside,” Mike said. “Blow on her gently and I think she’ll be down for the count today.”

  “Lay off it, Mike,” Mercer said, putting the lid on my coffee cup. “I’ll drive you home as soon as Mr. B lets us go, Alex. Enough with the caffeine.”

  “You did what?” Battaglia asked, crushing the cigar’s remains in his ashtray. “Yeah, I got Chapman here with me. I’ll tell him. Thanks, Freddy.

  “Now, see, Alex? Sometimes you shouldn’t be so stubborn about listening to Pat McKinney. There’s an old saw that says, ‘All politics is local.’ Well, I guess all crime is personal, too.”

  “He’s got me in this mix?” Mike asked.

  “Looks like Gertz did some thinking while he was resting under the bench this morning. He’s got a real hard-on for Brendan Quillian now, if he didn’t have one before today. Wants us to leave no stone unturned in the effort to find Quillian, and to put him behind bars for the rest of his life.”

  “So?”

  “He’s already called the Bronx district attorney to tell him about that old murder case-the Hassett girl. He’s about to call the chief administrative judge of Bronx County, see if he can move that tough old bastard to order an immediate exhumation. Gertz wants to know what your plans are for tomorrow, Chapman. If he gets the court order, can you be there at the cemetery and get things rushed through at the morgue?”

  Mike put his feet on the floor and saluted Battaglia. “I’m on the job, Mr. B.”

  “Check with the Hassetts, too,” Battaglia said. “It goes even easier if you get consent from a family member. I know you told me the father was killed years ago. Is the mother still…?”

  “She died recently,” I said. “Mike asked Trish about that just before we left her.”

  “The brothers, then. Contact the brothers. We may not even need the damn judge.”

  The door opened again and Nan Toth came into the room. “Rose sent me in,” she said to Battaglia, talking to him as she walked to take the seat beside me, rubbing my back with her hand and asking how I was.

  “You have something new?”

  “Lawrence Pritchard just canceled our meeting. I thought you’d want to know right away.”

  “What’s got him backing off?”

  “Frightened isn’t exactly the word he used. But he won’t sit down with me as long as Quillian is on the loose. He’s worried about who’s going to be shielding Quillian on the outside. Pritchard thinks he’s got too many enemies of his own in the sandhog community, so he doesn’t want anything to do with cooperating until Quillian’s caught.”

  Battaglia was through with us now. He was waving Mike away from his desk, or, more precisely, from the humidor behind his desk chair. “All right, then. You’ve all got things to do. Take care of yourself, Alex. Do whatever Mercer thinks is best. You got a mistrial here, so you can rest up before you go at Quillian again. I’m sure they’ll have him back in custody before the end of the day.”

  “I just saw the chief of detectives flying out of the lobby on my way in. Didn’t you get the latest word about the car?” Nan asked.

  Battaglia held a match to the cigar tip and inhaled as he lit it. “What car?”

  “Patrol just found the Toyota that Quillian stole when he broke out of the courthouse. Abandoned along the East River beneath the FDR Drive. He’s on foot now, somewhere loose in the city. All the APBs and highway notices for the stolen vehicle have been canceled.”

  Mike shook his head. “So now we’re just looking for a one-eyed white man-with a couple of guns-who’s a subway ride away from freedom.”

  31

  Mercer had me home before five o’clock. Ignacia Bliss had done a midnight tour the night before, so she would not be ready to take a shift safeguarding me until later in the evening. Mercer would stay with me-along with two uniformed cops in the lobby of the high-rise building-until Ignacia arrived.

  I had settled in under the comforter on my bed to try to nap for a couple of hours before what would be a long spell in front of the television. The dramatic events of the day would be replayed ad nauseam on the news, while well-meaning citizens would contribute useless interviews whenever they saw anyone who remotely resembled the escaped prisoner.

  Court TV anchors had already left messages on my home machine, asking for comments on a retrospective they were planning with comparisons between today’s shooting and the Atlanta courthouse massacre of several years earlier. I turned off my telephone before shutting off the lights.

  I was awakened by voices in the living room. Mercer was talking to someone, so I got up to wash my face and try to regain some control over my hair before going inside.

  “I came by to apologize,” Mike said. “I was out of line with-”

  “Don’t bother. I wasn’t even listening. That’s the way I’ve learned to protect myself from your barbed tongue. No apology necessary. Anything new?”

  “Correction confirmed that Quillian had more than fifty bucks on him. His commissary money. His protection stash. Whatever. More than enough for a MetroCard or taxi ride.”

  “And a sweatshirt and baseball cap off the tourist stands near the seaport,” Mercer said. “Board a rush-hour train and be on Long Island in an hour.”

  “Or Jersey or Westchester or Connecticut.”

  “Odds are he’s staying close. He still doesn’t have enough dough to get him very far, and now we know he’s got no family out of town. Where’s he going to go?”

  “That one dead eye could be a giveaway,” Mike said. “You might be right, Mercer.”

  “Am I the only one in this with-with a security detail?”

  “Nobody’s taking chances with any of you. Artie Tramm’s in the hospital for a few days,” Mike said. “Even he’s got cops around the clock. Lem, too, and Gertz.”

  “He had his chance at all of us.”

  “Yeah, but desperate men do desperate things, Coop. If he finds himself trapped, who knows what he’ll try? Besides, your theory about Amanda’s murder is that Brendan had an accomplice. So what if he’s still around?”

  “You sleep?” Mercer asked.

  “Look at her, man. If she did, she must have been having a nightmare to come out of it looking like that.”

  “I keep replaying the courtroom scene in my head, hoping for a different ending
. Thinking of some way to stop him from getting his hands on Elsie’s gun.”

  “Repeat after me: ‘It’s not my fault.’ How many times have I heard you tell that to your victims?”

  “I’ve planned a little something different for the evening,” Mercer said, guiding me away from Mike and into the den. “We’ll get you through this.”

  “I don’t want different. I just want calm, quiet-”

  “That’s what you’ll have. I mean a real home-cooked meal instead of takeout. In the privacy of your own apartment. Vickee’s coming over, okay?”

  Mercer’s wife, Vickee Eaton, was a second-grade detective who worked in the office of the deputy commissioner for public information. Her father had been a decorated police officer who had been killed in the field when she was fifteen, and she had split with Mercer years ago for fear she couldn’t deal with the dangers to which he was constantly exposed.

  They had remarried more than two years earlier, and their baby son, Logan, had become the center of their lives. I hadn’t seen Vickee as often as I used to because of the demands of her schedule-the delicate balance of a tough job and motherhood.

  “I couldn’t ask for anything better. Is she okay about leaving Logan?”

  “Her sister’s only too happy to babysit. Comfort food-that’s what you’re going to have. Today was her RDO,” Mercer said, referring to Vickee’s regular day off. “She roasted a chicken this afternoon after I called her and made mashed potatoes from scratch. Some monkey bread and veggies. She’ll bring it on over and reheat it here.”

  I reached my arms around his neck and kissed him.

  “I’ve already ransacked your wine cabinet for something to go with it. Something smooth, something pricey.”

  “You’ve got immunity for that. Anytime.”

  “I’ll set the table,” Mike said. “The good stuff, right? You don’t have to do anything except try to relax. And use your brain a bit. Figure out who Quillian’s connections might be. Who would he trust to give him cover?”

  “Sandhogs?” Mercer asked.

  “That underground-boys-club shit only goes so far,” Mike said, opening drawers to find my silver and china. “He hasn’t been linked to any of them for years.”

  “C’mon. You know better than that. Duke’s still a hero to lots of hogs. So was their father,” Mercer said. “I’m not so sure he couldn’t find some old family friends to lean on.”

  “We’ve also got all those pals he did business with,” I said. “All those guys who stood up for him during the investigation. The ones who were willing to be character witnesses at the trial despite whatever they knew about how bad his relationship with Amanda had become.”

  “That’s the spirit, Coop. You do the thinking, Mercer and I will take it from there. Dig out those lists of names from your files.”

  Mike followed us into the den, took off his blazer, and rolled up his sleeves. “Gimme some Trebek, Mercer. Grey Goose and trivia, and I’ll be happy.”

  Mercer poured drinks for each of them while Mike set the table. I stretched out on the sofa with a glass of seltzer.

  “Can’t we watch some news until the final question?” I asked.

  “You know what the news is, Alex. Don’t beat yourself up any more.”

  I closed my eyes and rested-the volume muted-until the last segment of the show, when Mercer clicked on the sound.

  “Tonight’s category is Royal Blood. Royal Blood,” Trebek said. “We’ll be back in a minute to see what each of you has wagered. Stay with us.”

  “Double or nothing,” Mike called from the dining room.

  “Either way, I’m the loser,” Mercer said. “Warriors or princesses, you two have a lock on this one.”

  “Blood,” I said, for no reason at all. It was the only word I heard.

  “Paper napkins?”

  “No. The linen ones are in the armoire. Second shelf, on the right.”

  Trebek stepped aside and the final answer was revealed as he read it aloud for the viewers. “‘First British king who required his subjects to call him Majesty.’”

  Two contestants put on their best puzzled game-faces while the third one began to scribble an answer.

  “You know it, Coop?”

  “Why, Mike? You got anything in your wallet? Take a stab at it.”

  “See, Mercer? That means she knows something,” Mike said, coming into the room and perching on the arm of the sofa, behind my head. “Must be a cultured king, not a soldier statesman.”

  “Same guy who invented the handkerchief and insisted spoons be used at all court events.”

  “What a wuss.”

  “‘Who was Richard the Second?’” I asked.

  I held up my hand for Mike’s forty dollars. He grabbed my fingers and squeezed hard before letting them drop-empty.

  “Now that’s a ridiculous clue,” Mike said. “I mean, I could have been a contender if they’d asked it the right way. Like, ‘Son of the Black Prince.’ No offense, Mercer. Not a homey, bro-just the guy who wore a black cuirass at the Battle of Crécy. Or they could have said, ‘British king who lacked the hereditary thirst for battle. First casualty of the Wars of the Roses.’ Then she’d have been stumped. Coop doesn’t know from history-she just relies on Willy Shakespeare.”

  “‘The worst is death, and death will have his day.’”

  “Yeah, well, he’s had his day many times over,” Mike said. “And usually when I’m catching cases.”

  The intercom buzzed and he got up to answer it. “The only thing more miserable than Coop being in a dark mood like this is Coop being in a dark mood like this when she’s not drinking.”

  He came back and smiled at Mercer. “Dinner is served. Vickee’s here with the vittles.”

  I got up and went to the door with Mercer to greet her. She handed the packages to him and put her arms around me.

  “Don’t get her started again, Vickee,” Mike said. “We’ve barely got the tear ducts and tissues under control. None of this estrogen emo-show, okay?”

  “Just help Mercer heat up the meal, Mike. Can you handle that?” Vickee said, turning to him and running her hands up and down his sides. “You better go double on my potatoes, Mr. Chapman. You’ve dropped too much weight.”

  “What can I get you?” I asked.

  “I’d love some white wine. And your doormen asked me to thank you for their dinner. They said it was delicious-some kind of veal? Now where did that come from, girl?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Mike was holding one of Vickee’s shopping bags. “Yeah, I meant to tell you. They wanted me to bring the food up on my way in. The cops said that some guy from a restaurant came by-one of your snooty French bistros, no doubt. Must have been a waiter who was sent to surprise you with food. A care package. Mercer had already told me we were getting a special delivery from Vickee, so I just told the guys to split it up. No note or anything. Your bloody puss was all over the news. Everyone in town knows you had a rough day.”

  I bit my lip. It was almost worth laughing at the notion of Luc being taken for a waiter. He had probably tried to get through to me with a four-star meal. “Guess so.”

  “When do we eat?” Mike asked Vickee.

  “Half an hour.”

  “You mind if I call Teddy O’Malley?” he said to me, after depositing the food in the kitchen. “See if he’s got any ideas about who might hide Brendan Quillian.”

  “Go right ahead. I think it would be harder to go undercover with sandhogs than to infiltrate the Mob.”

  Mercer busied himself in the kitchen with the food and Mike took out his notepad to make a series of calls from the den, where he was watching the local news. Vickee and I curled up on the living room sofa while she listened to me vent about the day while Dr. John sang background about his gris-gris.

  At eight thirty, Mercer called us to the table and served the meal.

  The breakout of Brendan Quillian seemed as if it had happened in a ba
d dream. Here, safe in my own home with my loyal friends, it was almost easy to think of murder for hire, domestic abuse, and dynamite blasts as other people’s problems. But then I would have a flashback to the face of Elsie Evers on the courtroom floor, and I knew we’d all be back to business as usual by daybreak.

  “Take some more, Alex,” Vickee said, passing the platter of chicken. “Alex likes the breast. Give her that piece of white meat, Mike, will you? It’s her favorite.”

  “Speaking of that, Coop. You ever do Lem Howell back in your rookie days?”

  I laughed and shook my head.

  “They were just replaying that shot of him walking you out of the courtroom today, you wrapped in his jacket and him looking at you like he wanted the rest of your dress to just slice off in two.”

  I pushed my plate away. “I’m full. And if I wasn’t, you once again have the flawless ability to take my appetite away.”

  Mike reached for a third helping of potatoes and tore off a fistful of bread. “You were good buddies, right? Don’t you credit him for half of your courtroom success?”

  “I had a lot of help from a lot of guys. And from the handful of women who broke me in. And I didn’t do them all, thanks.”

  I stood up to clear my place, but Vickee pointed at me and told me to sit.

  She came out of the kitchen with a pecan pie and a carton of vanilla ice cream. “Nobody says no to this dish. My mama’s recipe and it’s the very best.”

  “Your money on Lem Howell and Coop, Detective Wallace?”

  “I spent a lot of time in Ms. Cooper’s office in those early years,” Mercer said, gnawing on a chicken wing. “I may have to go to the grave with some of the messages that steamed off that telephone when I sat out those long days at her desk while she was upstairs on trial, but Mr. Howell was not among those in hot pursuit.”

  I wagged a finger at him. “Don’t give me up, Mercer. We’ll see how good Mike’s detecting skills are. I don’t have a lot of secrets from you guys, but the ones I do, I’m keeping close to the vest for the time being.”