I didn’t want to say that this week’s news made prison bars a strong possibility for Councilman Reid.
“I’m guessin’ I can read your mind, Ms. Cooper. How can I talk about being better than criminals when your office just came gunnin’ for me?” Reid reached behind him and grabbed the weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal. He swatted his hand a couple of times with it as he spoke. “I’m just a scapegoat for this practice that’s been goin’ on in this here city council for more than twenty years.”
“I really don’t want you talking about that to us, Mr. Reid,” I said.
“You read this yet?” he asked, offering the newspaper to me. “I’ve got nothing to keep from you. Like the Journal says, it was a bookkeeping maneuver that dates back to 1988. I don’t even know who the speaker was then, but he set up these fictitious groups, just to pool the money till it was distributed to council members. Nobody’s takin’ a piece of Kendall Reid’s hide for this. That money’s goin’ to the community, just like I promised. Read this editorial.”
I took the paper from him and put it on my lap. “We’d just like to ask you some questions about Ethan Leighton,” I said, “and about Salma.”
“Such a pity, such a tragedy.” Reid was shaking his head back and forth.
“You were the first person Ethan called after the accident early Wednesday morning, I understand.” I had read that in the police reports.
“I told you, ma’am, he’s like my brother.”
“You got to the scene before anybody could find the congressman. You were willing to take the weight for him?”
“Now, don’t you be puttin’ words in my mouth. There was a lot of confusion at that car wreck. I was just doin’ my level best to help sort things out. I had no plans to take no weight for anybody, you hear?”
“He’s not that heavy,” Mike said. “I thought-like-he’s your brother.”
“Good try, Detective.”
“What exactly did you tell the police when you got to the scene of the crash?”
“That paperwork those boys were so busy fillin’ out? I bet everything I said is as clear as day. I don’t want to be saying different things to you. Won’t help Ethan any.” Reid winked at me and went on. “Besides, I know how y’all be crisscrossing us up on the witness stand, you prosecutors. Bet you’re good at it, ma’am.”
Mike and the councilman were squaring off with each other. Reid had the habit of bouncing back and forth between a very crisp accent that matched his educational opportunities, and the g-dropping lingo of the streets. I could tell Mike was getting the sense that Kendall Reid was more flimflam than substance.
“Why don’t you tell us when you met Salma Zunega?” I asked.
“Dates and me, we just don’t get along too good.”
“Roughly, Mr. Reid. About what year?”
“Goodness, I would have been working for Ethan at the time. Three, maybe four years ago.”
“Do you remember where?”
“Does Ethan remember?” Reid tilted his head and pointed a finger at me.
“Yes.”
“I’m kind of afraid to say. Don’t need to mix him up none.”
“Take your best shot,” Mike said. “A speech, a party, a funeral, a Bar Mitzvah. Some other rubber-chicken dinner where you politicians hang out?”
“I’m quite sure it was a fund-raiser. That would be it.”
“That’s what Ethan said.” Mike was luring the councilman along, opening his steno pad to pretend he was confirming Reid’s answers with what Ethan Leighton had just told us an hour ago. “So you remember who brought her too?”
“Oh, Lordy, yes,” Reid said, scratching his head. “That could have been ugly.”
Mike flipped pages as though he were trying to find the name, even though Leighton had claimed it was no one memorable. “Yeah, the congressman said he dodged a bullet on that one.”
“Salma came in with Rod Ralevic,” Reid said. “Am I right?”
“You got it.”
“He was a state senator at the time, before he became lieutenant governor. It was a big-ticket Democratic fund-raiser. There was Salma, looking so sweet, just getting on her feet after-you know her background, right?”
“We do,” I said.
“Well, she was really fragile and vulnerable. And there’s that fool Ralevic, so much hair on the guy’s head he’s looking like he’s wearin’ a mop instead of a hairpiece.”
So Salma Zunega had already graduated to the political scene before she met Ethan Leighton.
“But she couldn’t have been too wrapped up in Ralevic,” Mike said, “if she made such a play for the congressman?”
“Rod? He was just in town for a few days from the boonies. Goin’ hog wild over women and wine and whatever other people’s money could buy him,” Reid said. “He didn’t care about the girl.”
“How do you think Ralevic met her?” I was trying to get back to the common thread among the trafficked women.
“I couldn’t begin to guess.”
“Pay for play?” Mike asked.
Kendall Reid stood up straight and stretched his neck back. “Maybe so. That’s before Salma found her way. Fell in love with Ethan.”
“Ralevic never got mad when he learned about Ethan and Salma?”
“Learned what, huh? That affair was a better kept secret than my grandmother’s recipe for monkey bread.”
“No rivalry there? It has nothing to do with Ralevic rushing in to pull the strings on replacing Ethan’s congressional seat?”
“Where you think Ethan’s goin’, dude?” Reid asked. “Sure as hell you don’t know Moses Leighton if you think anybody’s got a plan to take Ethan’s seat away. The lieutenant governor ain’t got no chance against Moses. That’s for sure.”
“What can you tell me about the little girl,” I asked, “-about Ana?”
Reid’s mouth tightened and he closed his eyes. “No way.”
“But, we’re terribly worried about what’s become of the child.”
“And I want to know who’s the baby’s father,” Mike said. “Couldn’t be the lieutenant governor, could it?”
“You know what?” He started to walk around to sit at his desk. “Let me get Ethan on the phone. Let me hear from him that he wants me to talk to you about all this, okay?”
“Try Lem Howell’s office,” Mike said, getting up and closing his pad. He knew Reid was about to end our interview. “My guess is that’s where your brother is.”
“Don’t be goin’ all holier-than-thou on me, Chapman. You want to know about Ethan meeting Salma? Ask your friend Baynes.”
“Donovan Baynes?” I asked, shocked to hear his name in that context. “The head of the task force?”
Donny had denied from the first moment the news broke that the congressman had been having an affair.
“Yes, ma’am. He’s part of the club.”
“Club. What club?”
“You’re all so high-and-mighty, don’t you think? I find it nice myself when there’s something you just don’t know.”
“What club?” I repeated.
“A gentlemen’s social club, Ms. Cooper. By invitation only. I don’t think you’d really be welcome.”
THIRTY-SIX
“The mayor isn’t back yet,” Mike said. “I just left him a message. Told him he could call me anytime he remembered the story about Levi Weeks and the girl in the well.”
I had waited for Mike in the lobby of City Hall, trying to figure out whether Donny Baynes really knew more than he had offered us. It was troubling to think that he was sitting on valuable information that might compromise his own position.
Kendall Reid wasn’t able to reach Ethan Leighton, nor was he willing to go forward with our conversation.
“Statler’s as likely to call you back as Judge Crater is,” I said. “What do we do about Donny Baynes?”
“We take him head-on. Could be just this guy Reid’s nonsense. He’s not into prosecutorial love at the mo
ment.”
“I can tell.”
We walked out the door and Mike pointed at the late afternoon sky. There was a gorgeous streak of pink that cut through the gray backdrop, lightening the dull winter landscape.
“See that dame?” He was shoulder-to-shoulder with me, pointing to something in the distance.
“Who?”
“That golden girl, on top of the Municipal Building.”
Directly to the southeast of City Hall was the enormous structure, straddling an entire street, that housed scores of government offices. It was capped by the dazzling figure of a woman-several times larger than life size-cast in gilded copper. The famous statue, known as Civic Fame, held the city’s coat of arms in one hand and a crown with five crenellations-the boroughs of New York-in the other.
“She’s really gleaming against that pink sky.”
“She reminds me of you, Coop. Not just the tiara and the veneer.”
“What, then?” I asked, stepping down as Mike talked.
“See how she’s standing? She’s on top of a ball, spending her entire life trying to keep a delicate balance.”
“That’s me?”
“To a T. You’re probably feeling sorry for Donny Baynes right now. Why? That’s not your problem. If he didn’t tell us something he should have, then screw him. That golden girl? She fell once.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope. The pose was too much for her. Toppled right over. Her arm broke off. I don’t know how many stories down it was, but she crashed right through the skylight in the cafeteria. Nearly killed a couple of locals. Get my point? You’re always trying to balance too much. Know who she was?”
“The statue?”
“The statue was a person. I mean a model. Back in the nineteen twenties.” Mike stopped again and looked off at the great golden symbol of the city. “Audrey Munson. I’m telling you her name because it’ll never be on Jeopardy! Otherwise, I’d try to score the dough off you.”
“So how come you know it?”
“ ’ Cause she fascinates me, ever since I was a kid. Artists used her for half the famous monuments around town. She’s that strong-looking woman, you know, at the foot of the archway of the Manhattan Bridge. She’s in marble at the Firemen’s Memorial on Riverside Drive. I used to go there with my pop all the time. Fifteen statues in this city, and that one woman inspired them all.”
“She must have been magnificent.”
“That’s not the part that reminded me of you, kid. It didn’t stop her from going mad. Couldn’t live with it when her career ended. Spent more than sixty years in an insane asylum, till she died at the age of a hundred and five.”
“This is my object lesson for the day, Detective?”
“I’ve been thinking about it since you got tagged last night. Then I looked up and saw my girl Audrey just now. It’s a delicate balance you’re living, Coop. You need to step down off that ball every now and then. I’d hate for you to take a fall.”
I hesitated before moving on, staring up at the gilded figure. “Okay, so I forget all my personal feelings about Donny Baynes.”
“He’s made his own bed. Let him sleep in it.”
“Got it. When do I get to do my lifestyle lessons for the Chapman retort?”
“I’m hopeless. Get that through your thick skull,” he said, trotting down the steps. “You’ll never change me.”
As I descended behind Mike, I heard a voice calling my name. Ahead of us, at the southern end of the park, was the grounds supervisor Alton Brady, who had responded when I fell in the ditch on Thursday morning.
“Ms. Cooper? I thought that was you standing up there,” he said, reminding me of his name and introducing the two workers who were trailing behind him.
“We found some things when we cleaned up the site,” Brady said. “I’ve had the men out here all day, after that news story the other night made us look like we couldn’t take care of our own place. Thought you might have dropped stuff when you fell.”
“I don’t think so. But nice of you to ask. What did you find?”
“The police took all the weapons and metal things from us. But we went back to clean everything out and picked up a boxful of odds and ends. It’s in a cardboard carton, right by security. You lose any makeup?”
“You gotta ask that question?” Mike said. “Just look at her. She lost it ages ago.”
“I don’t know, everything dropped out of my bag. I guess I could have left something behind. I definitely had my wallet and keys, but I haven’t looked for anything else. Besides, makeup would be too dirty to use after this.”
“No femurs or clavicles?”
“Say what?” Brady answered.
“Take a look, Coop. Not every day you get a graveyard lost and found.”
Brady trudged up the steps and we went along with him. The cop on duty handed him the box when he asked for it. He untied the string that latched it and opened it up.
“I threw out all the garbage, of course. Food and soda cans and such.”
He scrambled around and came out with a small plastic freezer bag. I could see that it held three black plastic pieces-a compact, lipstick, and a mascara applicator.
“It’s actually the brand I use,” I said, studying the damp baggie. “Do you mind?”
I reached for the corner of the bag. “You found this around the side of the building, where I fell?”
Brady turned to his men. “That where it was?”
“No, not the makeup,” the taller man answered. “I got some other things out of that hole. This was right here in the trench at the bottom of the steps.”
Mike pulled back the lid of the box and poked around inside.
“Not my shades, but it’s all Chanel,” I said. “What are you looking for in there?”
“A smoking gun. A straw, so I can grab at it.”
“I may have the straw after all,” I said. “Look at this, Mike.” I held up the bag between my fingertips.
“What?”
“These three makeup cases. It’s the same brand Salma used. We can check the colors against others in her bathroom. It’s too expensive for most of the women who work in City Hall.”
“Long shot but I’m with you.”
“It gets better. See those nubby little things that are caught in the zipper of the baggie? Sort of off-white wooly threads.”
“Yeah?”
“They look like the same color wool as the blanket that was covering Salma’s body when she was thrown in the well.”
“I suppose the lab could give us an answer on that for certain,” Mike said. “Now just find me the perp. I’ve always wanted to put lipstick on a pig.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
“What do you mean who’s been here lately?” I said, tossing a glance back at the burial ground as we walked out of City Hall Park.
“Like Donny Baynes,” Mike asked. We were crossing Chambers Street at five o’clock for the short walk to the entrance of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, practically on the doorstep of One Police Plaza. “I wonder if he’s done any business at City Hall this week.”
“We’re about to find that out,” I said. “Think of it. The mayor goes up those steps every day, along with his bodyguards. Kendall Reid’s office is here. Ethan Leighton came by to see him-against Lem’s orders yesterday-which is really interesting.”
“And you know what, Coop? After the news story about the burial-ground ditches the other night, it would be the perfect place for someone out to nail Statler-like old man Moses-to have evidence planted, if that’s what your little baggie actually is. But don’t get too bent out of shape yet. Maybe the Avon lady dropped her stash.”
We passed through another security post and took the elevators to the task force quarters on the sixth floor. Most of the doors were closed and the corridor was quiet. The federal prosecutors’ offices were much newer and cleaner than our distressed old surroundings. We reached Baynes’s room and I knocked before trying the knob, but
it was locked.
“Go around the corner,” I said to Mike. “He’s got a small conference room.”
As we made the turn I could hear voices. One man was shouting at another who kept talking over him-it sounded like Ukrainian to me-and again I knocked.
The shouting ceased. Someone called out, “Yeah?”
I waited for the door to be opened. Seconds later, I was rewarded by the sight of one of the federal agents, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, who begrudgingly cracked it a hair.
“Who you looking for?” he asked as he eyed us.
“Donovan Baynes,” I said.
Chairs scraped the surface of the floor and I heard Donny’s voice calling my name. “Alex? I’ll be out.”
The agent stepped away and Donny emerged from the room. He, too, had removed his suit jacket and tie, and appeared to be as exhausted as I felt.
“Sorry to interrupt you.”
“Everything all right?”
“Yes. We’ve had an interesting day.”
“What are you up to?” Mike asked.
“The agents started with some of the boat crew yesterday, trying to reconstruct all the events. Find out what they know.”
“Who you got in there?”
“A couple of my guys, one of the young task-force prosecutors, an interpreter-and that’s one of the engineers from the boat.”
“He doesn’t sound happy.”
“If his happiness were my goal, Mike, I would have gone to clown school, you know?”
The shouting had begun again in earnest, voices overlaying each other, punctuated by the sound of a fist banging on the table.
“You waterboarding in there or just surfing?”
Donny smiled. “This is either the dumbest bunch of seamen who ever crossed the Atlantic, or the crew’s been paid a king’s ransom to take one for the team.”
“Can we talk to you for a couple of minutes?” I asked.
“What’s up?”
“In your office.” I gestured at the sterile corridor.
“Oh, yeah. Sure.”
He took us back, unlocked the door, and invited us in. It was already beginning to look like the war room of a major investigation. New file cabinets were standing catty-corner to old ones, drawers open, and boxes of documents-just the tip of the iceberg of those that would be collected in the coming months-sat waiting to be organized and filed.
Hell Gate Page 26
