“Yeah, but he’s not talking. Ponied up with a lawyer right away. Just doing his job.”
I called Catherine Dashfer to tell her about the case.
“I’m doing a hearing this afternoon in front of Judge Wetzel,” she told me. “But I’m free the rest of the week. If she’s released in the morning, just have her be in my office at ten, and I’ll put it right in the jury. We can have her at the airport by this time tomorrow.”
“Thanks a million. Would you do me another favor? Call McKinney for me and tell him I just got called out on a new case, and that I won’t be back until late in the day, okay?”
Elsa had ordered two salads from the local deli, and we were eating our lunch when a policewoman in uniform presented herself at the reception desk. I finished up before saying good-bye and heading off on my rounds.
Police Officers Brigid Brannigan and Harry Lazarro had been told that their assignment was to take me wherever I needed to go until they were relieved later this evening by another unit. On the short ride to New York Hospital I gave them a brief rundown on what had been happening in the Caxton case. The rest of the story they knew from newspaper accounts. One of them had been gravely wounded, and there was no more serious situation than that to a cop.
Brannigan got out of the car at the Sixty-eighth Street entrance to the large facility. “Want me to take you in?”
“I’m fine, thanks. This stop was just added to the itinerary, so I’m not expecting any trouble.”
From the information booth I called the emergency room, but Callie Emerson had already been treated and had been admitted for observation and tests concerning her inner ear imbalance. She was on 6 North, and the volunteer worker directed me to that wing.
When I reached her room, Callie was sitting in an armchair dressed in a hospital gown and answering questions from a physician and a resident. I explained who I was and why I was there. My purpose was not to question her in depth about the assault-since Catherine would do that in the morning-but rather to explain the proceedings to her and engage her cooperation. Witnesses and their families were always surprised to learn how much gentler the process had become with a specialized unit like ours, and how comfortable we could make the person who had been victimized.
I stepped back outside the room and waited for the doctors to finish their examination. When they were through, I returned and sat with Callie, telling her what would happen the next day and answering all her questions about the system. She and her husband should go to Catherine’s office, where the questioning would take place. The grand jury presentation would take less than ten minutes and the assailant would not be present for it, so she did not have to see him again or tell the story in front of him. After that, Catherine would be responsible for the motion practice in the case-presenting the court with information responding to defense requests for facts to which they were entitled. Three or four months thereafter, we would bring Callie back to New York for the trial, and with any luck Catherine would be working again in front of a jurist as sensitive and knowledgeable as Wetzel.
She seemed grateful for the overview and willing to participate.
“Were you examined in the emergency room?”
“Fortunately, I wasn’t raped. So they didn’t do an internal exam. They were more worried about my physical condition-that my blood pressure had dropped so dramatically and my vital signs were weak.”
I knew from my conversation with the sergeant that the attacker had put his mouth on Callie’s breast and sucked on it.
“Did anyone look at your chest?”
“I’m not sure. There was so much going on when we got here-I just don’t know.”
“Would you mind going into the bathroom and looking at yourself in the mirror?”
When she emerged, she was nodding her head. “There’s a large discoloration on my skin, where his mouth was. And there are a few scratches on my breastbone, which might have happened when he was ripping at the buttons.”
“I’m going to ask one of the nurses to come and look at you again, if you don’t mind. I’d like her to note those marks on your medical chart. And Laura, who’s one of our photographers, will take a few pictures of them tomorrow morning.”
“They seem so minor.”
“Even so, Callie, they corroborate exactly what you said this man did to you. It will be very useful for you at the trial.”
We talked for a while longer before I thanked Callie, reassured her about what a good witness she would be, and left the hospital.
The patrol car was waiting for me in the parking circle off York Avenue.
“What’s next, Miss Cooper?”
I checked my watch. It was almost an hour and a half since Mike had left for Jersey, and I was trying to control my curiosity about his encounter with the man who might be Bailor.
“Before we go to Chelsea, why don’t you just swing by 890 Fifth Avenue? It’s not too far out of the way. I want to check with the team that’s watching an apartment there.”
In ten minutes we were in front of Lowell Caxton’s building. There was an unmarked detective car parked next to the awning. I got out to talk to the men sitting inside, both of whom were eating hot dogs and drinking root beer. They worked with Mike at the Homicide Squad and were annoyed at being stuck on such an uninteresting post.
“Nothin’ happening here. Doorman says it’s business as usual with Caxton. This guy only does days, so he don’t know what time Lowell came home last night. But his chauffeur picked him up a little before eight this morning. I had him call up to the maid, too. She says Caxton’s due home sometime after seven o’clock this evening. You and Chapman planning to come over then?”
“Yes, unless you see something else we should know about earlier. Have you got my beeper number?”
“No, but I got Mike’s.”
“He’s not with me today, so why don’t you write mine down, too?”
The surly fat one in the driver’s seat took another bite from his tube steak and handed me the paper napkin that had been draped over his knee. I tore off the corner with the mustard stain on it and wrote down the number to hand back to him. He was as likely to call a D.A. with a hot lead as he was to run in the next marathon.
“Any other traffic in or out we should know about?”
“If you know a Mrs. Cadwalader on three, she’s either turning tricks on the side or she’s runnin’ a halfway house for retired hockey players. She’s got action comin’ and goin’ every twenty minutes, and most of her company’s sportin’ half their teeth and bowlegs. And there’s a schnauzer on five with a very weak bladder, so he’s out here peeing on my front tire once an hour, courtesy of his housekeeper, who’s carrying a pooper scooper looks like it’s made outta sterling silver. And she’s got a great ass-the housekeeper, not the schnauzer. Now, are you gonna sit here and watch us watching them, or are you gonna find some way to make yourself useful to Mr. Battaglia?”
Brigid Brannigan was leaning against the patrol car and opened the door for me to get in the backseat. She looked crisp and cool in the police uniform, and her neat auburn ponytail set off her fine features handsomely. “I used to think I had a hard time, breaking in as a prosecutor with all these tough old dinosaurs in my department who thought handling homicides was only a man’s prerogative. I bump into a guy like that one, and I bet you could tell me stories about what it was like for you to come onto this job that would make my experience seem like a cakewalk.”
She got in the car laughing and started to talk about her rookie adventures with some of the hairbags-the stiff oldtimers who never made it out of uniform-that she’d encountered in the four years she’d been on the force.
“Why don’t you take the Sixty-sixth Street drive through the park and head down Ninth Avenue? I’m going to a gallery called Caxton Due, on Twenty-second Street, between Tenth and Eleventh.”
Brigid continued to amuse me with her anecdotes while her partner weaved in and out of the midafternoon traffic on the appr
oach to the Lincoln Tunnel. Once that cleared, Lazarro drove down to Twenty-first Street and came up Tenth Avenue, about to make the turn into the one-way westbound block on which the gallery entrance was located.
We could all see that it would be impossible to drive into the narrow street. In addition to the cars parked at meters on each side, there were three enormous trucks lined up in a row right in the middle of the pavement. Wooden stanchions were spread from the north corner of the curb to the south.
There didn’t seem to be anyone directing this operation. Officer Lazarro gave off a few whelps, and two men in T-shirts and jeans poked their heads out of the cab of one of the trucks. Since they weren’t moving, Brannigan got out of the car and walked over to them.
She came back and leaned in the window. “They’ve got a permit to block the street off for the afternoon. There’s a place farther down the way called the Dia Center for the Arts. They’re installing a major exhibition today, so this is legal while they’re unloading sculpture for the new show. Want me to walk you into your gallery?”
“This might work even better. There’s a rear door on Twenty-third Street, through the warehouse of the gallery. We saw the sign for it, like a service entrance, the first day we came here. Maybe Daughtry’ll let me in that way. As Chapman said then, Daughtry might even prefer we use it.” Again, I checked the time. “Chapman should be calling soon. C’mon, let’s go around the corner.”
We drove up to Twenty-third and Lazarro signaled left, then made a U-turn to pull up to the curb in front of the spot I pointed out as the garage entrance to Deni’s gallery. Brigid got out of the car when I did and walked with me over to the rusty-colored door frame, which had an intercom system with two buzzers next to a small enamel plate. One was marked caxton due-service, and the other said caxton due- gallery.
I pressed the second bell and waited a couple of minutes.
“Any idea how long we’ll be here?” Brigid asked.
“With some luck, if he lets me poke around the warehouse, I might be an hour or more. If Chapman turns up anything important, be ready to fly out of here with me, okay?”
The gray haze seemed to be lifting, as the forecasters had promised, and the sun was beginning to filter through. I was hot and looked forward to being received in the cool of the airconditioned art display space.
We both heard the sound of the intercom click.
“Yes?” Judging from the crackling quality of its sound, the system was as old as the building.
“Alexandra Cooper. From the District Attorney’s Office,” I identified myself to Daughtry.
“I’ll buzz you in. Come on up-is not-but I’ll-top-”
The entrance led directly up an old iron staircase, which bypassed the storage area to lead into the gallery itself. Before the door swung shut behind us, I heard Lazarro calling Brigid’s name.
“Sergeant Danz wants to talk to you. Needs an idea of how long we’re going be tied up here. Wanna take it?”
Brigid looked at me. “Do you mind?”
“Of course not. I do the same thing when my boss calls.”
“Can you wait down here a few minutes while I report in? The sergeant’s gonna have to get permission for us to work over the end of the shift at three thirty.”
I pointed up. “You know right where I am. I’ll be out as soon as Chapman calls.”
As I climbed the steps, I could see scores of paintings arrayed in bins beneath, most of them covered in bubble wrap or kraft paper, and all labeled by the artist’s name and some kind of numerical code. They varied in size from tiny objects, not larger than four by six inches, to giant canvases that were best suited for museum walls.
I rang at the door at the top of the stairs and the buzzer sounded to unlock the way into the small lift, which descended to this ground floor area to take me up to the top of the atrium, where Daughtry awaited my arrival. When the door slid back, I was again overwhelmed by the beauty of the open atrium space. Emerging from the elevator on the north side of the building, I was facing the glass wall of the southern exposure and its great view of the city sky.
As I stepped off into the room, I felt the relief of the cold surge of air that I had anticipated. It contrasted with the unexpected brightness of the afternoon sun at the end of a gloomy day, which lit up the gallery space and beamed down on the tracks of the deserted Hi-Line Railroad.
I took my sunglasses out of my jacket pocket for the first time that day.
“Over here,” called a voice that was familiar to me, but it was not Daughtry’s.
I looked around and saw Frank Wrenley sitting on one of the couches in the exhibition area one flight below me.
“Welcome, Ms. Cooper. I’m baby-sitting the art for Bryan. He should be back anytime now. May I offer you a cold drink?”
I remembered that this morning, in my office, Wrenley had told us that Daughtry was going to allow him to look through Denise’s belongings to see whether any of his property was included there. He was holding a sheaf of papers in one hand and a tall glass in the other.
“Shall I come down?”
“Please.”
I followed the catwalk around the bend until I arrived at the metal staircase that led to the level below. I walked down, shook Wrenley’s hand, and accepted his offer to sit on the couch. I could see the documents he had laid out on the glasstopped table between us. He had a red pen and appeared to be going through lists that he was checking against his own.
“Will you join me in a Bloody Mary?”
“No thanks.”
“Ah, the constable doesn’t drink on duty, does she?”
“I’m so exhausted, Mr. Wrenley, that I’d probably curl up and take a nap if I so much as smelled a whiff of the vodka. Your inventory?”
“Bryan’s off trying to solve the mystery of Lowell Caxton’s hasty retreat. He’s been good enough to let me attempt to reconcile some of my records with Deni’s things before I return to Palm Beach.” He waved his receipts in my direction as though to convince me that he had proof of title for anything he needed. “Where’s your sidekick? I was beginning to think you and Detective Chapman were joined at the hip.”
“He’ll be along soon. We were-I was hoping to get Mr. Daughtry’s permission to look around a bit at some of Denise’s things.”
“I thought that first day I met you here you’d gone all through this place with warrants and everything short of commando troops. Bryan was sure he was going back to prison.”
I smiled at his exaggerated description. “That’s one of the problems when you do a search before you know just what it is you’re looking for.”
“But now you do know?”
Not really. But I saw no reason to tell that to Wrenley. We’d try again with some of the information we had picked up after Varelli’s murder and during our conversation with Don Cannon. “Do you have any idea when Mr. Daughtry is due to return?” I didn’t know whether to try to wait it out or get down to my office and face the music with McKinney.
“Pretty soon, I should think. He’s got to lock the place up for the night.”
It was now going on three hours since Mike had left the city. I reached in my bag to get the cell phone to try to beep him. When I turned it on, the failure of the three green icons to light up reminded me that the battery must have run down. I kept the charger set up on my desk at home and plugged the phone into it every evening as a matter of habit, but since I had spent the last two nights at Jake’s apartment, I had neglected to recharge it.
“Would you mind if I use the telephone for a moment?”
Wrenley pointed to the portable unit on the table next to his papers. “Help yourself.”
I picked it up and dialed Chapman’s beeper, punching in the number of the gallery as I read it off the plate on the receiver. Then I set it back down, knowing he would return the call to the unfamiliar number only when he was ready to take a break.
“I can’t give you access to the storage area, but I don’t imagine B
ryan would mind if you look through the gallery and the office while you’re waiting. After all, you’ve done that once already, haven’t you?”
I was feeling even more foolish as I stood up and glanced around. There was nothing in the midst of this thoroughly modern exhibit that I could connect by my wildest stretch to the art treasures that I associated with Deni Caxton’s troubles. I started to work my way about the place, reading the descriptions and trying to make sense of the works.
Within several minutes the phone rang and I hurried back to the area where Wrenley was sitting. He had answered it by saying, “Galleria Caxton Due,” and passed it off to me when I approached the table.
Instinctively, I turned my back to him and started to walk a few steps off. I was aware that it was rude, but I also wanted whatever privacy might be necessary. “No, that was Wrenley. Frank Wrenley,” I said, responding to Mike’s question about whether the man who had spoken was Bryan Daughtry.
“Can you talk?”
“About what?”
“Never mind. You’ll explain where Daughtry is later, I guess.”
“Sure. No big deal. Is it our guy?” I whispered into the receiver.
“Order a magnum of the champagne, Coop. Anthony Bailor is about to have an incurable case of gangrenous balls. He’s not talking, but he’s the man.”
“What do you mean he’s not talking?”
“He still denies everything, including his name. But I’ve got his mug shots, and the Jersey police ran his prints this morning.”
“Have you arrested him?”
“Why? You gonna give your pal Jake a scoop for the nightly news? No leaks on this one till we know who’s behind it. Bailor took the fall for someone in that last theft he was involved in. There’s got to be a link to somebody in this investigation.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I just want to know what to do next. Should I go down to the office and draw up a complaint on Deni’s homicide? You’re going to have to lodge a warrant so we can start extradition proceedings from New Jersey.”
“Take it easy. I haven’t even told the lieutenant yet. Let me see how the boss wants me to handle it and what the Jersey cops want to hold him on out here. You find out anything useful about Caxton?”
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