“Nothing, Madame Prosecutor. Now, is this inquisition going to go on all afternoon, or can we order something to eat?”
“I apologize, Luc.”
“You don’t doubt that Jacques is going to show up at Le Relais tonight, do you? I promise you he won’t be able to resist. It will only cost me a good meal—a big one—with some serious wine, and you’ll know all the dirt he’s dug up by nine o’clock.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“You’re like everyone else who comes to Mougins after all. You see our precious hilltop from the highway and you think it’s Camelot. You believe it’s a magical medieval village where time stands still and only good things happen.”
Since our relationship began, my frequent jaunts to the south of France had become a form of escape for me. I didn’t delude myself about that. More than a decade of prosecuting the most heinous crimes in a city where violence flourished 24/7 made me especially susceptible to the nonurgent lifestyle that Luc so enjoyed.
When I was alone in New York, I tried to separate out how much of the pleasure and excitement of the relationship was my love for him and how much was the fairy-tale aura of life in this romantic enclave. Once I reached Mougins, it was a hopeless task to even contemplate making that decision.
“Now I know it’s like every place else in the world. That’s a good reality check for me,” I said, pulling the crewneck sweater over my head and realigning the straps of my bathing suit. There was no purpose to a menu when I was out with Luc. “What’s for lunch?”
The waiter stepped forward to take our order. “We’d each like to start with the salad of tartare de crabe et saumon. And then we’ll have grilled langouste to follow, okay?”
The spiny Mediterranean lobster was entirely different from its American cousin. I had a home on Martha’s Vineyard, where I’d first met Luc at the wedding of two of my best friends. I’d introduced him to all the culinary treasures of my little island in the Atlantic—clam chowder and fried clams from the Bite, lobster hauled in the same day and harpooned swordfish from Larsen’s Fish Market, lobster rolls and root beer at the Galley, grilled striped bass at the Chilmark Tavern, and mussels steamed in garlic and oil at the Beach Plum Inn—and Luc reciprocated with all the most delicious foods in the South of France.
“I’ll never be able to eat dinner,” I said, sipping the cool champagne as he reached over to pat my stomach.
“It’s my goal to fatten you up.”
“You’ve got a good shot at it this time. I don’t know how many laps I can do after a few glasses of champers.”
I put my head back on the cushioned pillow of the lounger. This was only Sunday, and I didn’t have to fly home for another week—enough time to put behind me the trial of the serial rapist I had just taken to a successful verdict, and before I needed to prep for the more difficult child abuse case I would prosecute in June.
“Laps? I’m thinking more like a late afternoon nap, Alex.” We had both stretched out on our lounge chairs, facing each other. Luc was tracing the outline of my shoulder with his fingers. “You need to make up your mind about Saturday night, you know. It has to be exactly as you like.”
April 30 was my birthday—thirty-eight this year—and we were going to celebrate it together in a week. “I told you, Luc, no party. Last night was enough of that.”
“The restaurant, then?”
“No. You’ll end up working the room with your fancy guests instead of sitting with me.”
“Have you picked another place? Another chef?” He slapped his hand across his chest and feigned disappointment. “How many stars?”
I laughed. “Do you remember my first time here? The first dinner we had together? Because that was my very favorite.”
“Of course I remember it. I brought out all the stars in the heavens for you. Well, I shall do that again, if the weather gods cooperate.”
On my first trip, I had taken the direct flight to Nice, arriving in mid-morning. We drove to Luc’s home in Mougins, spent a day reacquainting ourselves with each other, and at nine that evening, fully refreshed and lovingly restored, I came downstairs to find a lavish table set for two on the terrace. The pool had been surrounded with votive candles, Smokey Robinson serenaded me from within the house, and two waiters from the restaurant ferried back and forth with silver-domed servers holding one delicacy after another. The sky had never seemed so star-filled.
“That’s what I’d like it to be—just the two of us.”
“Then it’s settled.”
I kissed my fingertip and placed it against his lips. “And you’ll be in New York just ten days after I go back, right?”
“Everything’s in place, yes. The decorating is practically done and the equipment has arrived. Almost all the hires are complete.”
“An opening date?”
“Not so fast. We’ll have a month of tastings first. Dinners to which we invite friends, sort of try out the whole deal on them. The spring and summer months will be a sampling, a transition, while we’re going full bore over here. Then I’ll be ready for a real launch in the fall,” Luc said. “I hope you’ve been collecting names for me. I’ll need plenty of gourmand guinea pigs.”
Luc was attempting a very bold move in a difficult financial market. With silent partners backing him, he had purchased a building on the east side of Manhattan and planned to re-create the elegant restaurant his father had started so many decades ago, the one that almost every critic on both sides of the Atlantic had for years and years declared the finest dining in the city: Lutèce.
I had a loyal group of friends in the district attorney’s office who would be only too happy to submit themselves to the haute cuisine of the new Lutèce kitchen. Luc was a restaurateur, an executive chef who owned and managed the restaurant here and would do the same in New York. He had his father’s sense of style and creativity, but wasn’t the guy in the kitchen, holding the food to the flame.
The waiter was back to refill our glasses and offer an amuse-bouche—something to excite our palate—in this case a medley of seafood, courtesy of the chef. Luc sat up and put his feet in the sand, readying himself for the delicious meal to follow.
“I thought the catacombs had been closed,” I said. “I didn’t realize you could still go down there and root around.”
Luc groaned. “Get this all out of your system—bones and bodies and burial vaults—before the langouste is set in front of me, darling; I’d like to enjoy eating it, if you don’t mind. Have you ever been inside the catacombs?”
“I made the mistake of accepting the invitation of a friend who’s a medical examiner in Paris, five years or so ago. A tour was his idea of an excursion, I guess, but it’s one of the creepiest places I’ve ever been.”
We had entered through a narrow spiral staircase to the dark chamber way below the street surface that led to miles of tunnels beneath the city. The only sound breaking the silence was the gurgle of a hidden aqueduct coursing through an adjacent cavern wall. There was hall after hall of carefully arranged remains, floor to ceiling—centuries of dead Parisians who had been moved here in mass burials after widespread contamination of the city’s cemeteries. Rusty gates barred visitors from reaching areas that were too unsafe—or perhaps too gruesome—to be part of the tour.
“They were closed temporarily after some vandalism three or four years ago. Then reopened. That happens now and then.”
“You’ve been there, too?”
“Many times, Alexandra. And no, I’ve never been tempted to carry off any bones.”
He was licking his fingers to savor every last bit of the marinade.
“Did you ever go to the catacombs with Lisette?”
“No and no and no and no to all the ridiculous things that cross your mind.”
I thought for a minute. “What if there’s any significance to the numbers?”
“Which numbers?”
“Three skulls in front of Le Relais,” I said. “And you’re the on
ly restaurant in town that’s got three stars.”
“And you’ve got a wonderfully fertile imagination that you should use to think about all the things we can do the next time you can sneak off for a visit here.”
We had started to eat in earnest when the maître d’ hurried to our chairs with a portable phone in hand.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt you, Luc, but it’s the police. He says it’s very important.”
Luc stood up. “Damn Belgarde. He’s determined to make himself look more stupid than Inspector Clouseau at this point.”
“Not for you. It’s for madame,” he said, extending his arm with the phone. “It’s American police.”
Luc threw his hands in the air. “I can’t believe this. You’re on holiday, Alexandra. Doesn’t anyone in your office get that? There are five hundred other prosecutors for Battaglia to lean on. Surely someone else is competent enough to do what you do?”
“Anyone and everyone on my team.” I blushed as I put down my glass on the small table between our chairs. I had promised Luc that I wouldn’t even charge my cell phone during the week here, so that we’d have a real chance to experience life together, without a professional interruption.
“Hello, Coop?”
Not even the static on the small phone that had been carried too far from its base could muffle the distinctive voice of NYPD homicide detective Mike Chapman.
“Yeah, Mike.”
“Did I catch you in the middle of a foie gras or anything? Is your profiterole melting?”
“Make it quick.”
“Forgive me for skipping the ‘bonjours’ and all that, but I had Luc’s secretary run you down.”
“Obviously.”
Luc folded his arms and walked away, but the maître d’ wasn’t ready to relinquish the phone to me at the height of the hour his reservations were calling in. He remained at my side.
“You’ve got to come home, Coop. Pronto. Next plane out of paradise.”
“Not this time,” I said, and though I was bursting with curiosity, I knew Luc would be furious if I even asked Mike why he had called.
“Mercer needs you. It’s serious, kid.”
“Something happen to Mercer?” The heightened concern in my voice got Luc’s attention. He knew that Mercer Wallace had covered my back more times than I could count. There was very little I wouldn’t do for him.
“Yeah.”
“He’s hurt?”
“Calm down, kid. He’s just fine, physically. What happened to him is that he’s saddled with the biggest case of his career and he wants you to help him. At the moment, it’s your archenemy who’s calling the shots.”
“Pat McKinney?” The chief of the Trial Division spent much of the average workday trying to stab me in the back with a serrated knife. “What does McKinney want with a rape case?”
“Visibility, I guess.”
I took Chapman’s bait. “What makes it so big?”
“I caught the squeal. Collared the guy in the first-class cabin on a flight to Paris.”
“The perp is French?”
Luc’s eyes were riveted on me as I started to talk and show interest. Now I was the one who took a few steps back.
“Lives in France, but he’s West African. Rich as Croesus. Son of an exiled African leader and he’s rumored to be the next president of the Ivory Coast, give or take a revolution or two in between. Head of the World Economic Bureau—called the WEB. You know who that is?”
“I have no idea.”
“I thought you specialized in Frenchmen.”
“You’re beginning to break up on me, Detective. You might find yourself disconnected if you get too snarky.”
“Mohammed Gil-Darsin,” Mike said. “Go on line and check him out. The French call him Baby Mo, even though he’s in his fifties, or they just use his initials—MGD. Anyway, a maid at the Eurotel Hotel down in SoHo claims he raped her.”
Everyone in the South of France knew Papa Mo, the overthrown dictator of the Republic of the Ivory Coast, who had gone into exile here—following the example of Haiti’s Duvalier—with millions of dollars stolen from his country’s cocoa-rich coffers. I didn’t realize he had a son who was a figure in the international economic community.
“Did you say a maid is the accuser?”
“Yeah, a housekeeper at the hotel. Best suite in the joint, at three thousand clams a night. She was doing turndown service in the room and he came out of the shower starkers. She tried to back out and he threw her onto her knees.”
“Nobody dead, Mike?” He was probably the best homicide detective in the city, assigned to Manhattan North, but he had never worked special victims cases.
“Nope. Alive and kicking back.”
“So what are you doing with a rape case?
“Working Night Watch, Coop. All the craziest shit happens on Night Watch.”
SIX
Luc was toweling down after a swim in the bay by the time I got off the phone with Mike. His voice was as ice-chilled as the champagne. “I’ll take you back to the house to pack up, Alex. You can fly up to Paris late afternoon and connect to home.”
“Not this time. I’m not going.”
“Detective Chapman losing his touch?” Luc asked, cocking his head.
“I’m on vacation. He just needed to be reminded of that.”
“He has no boundaries with you, darling,” Luc said, defrosting with the news that I wasn’t racing back to take the case, leaning over to kiss me on the forehead. “Big news?”
“Sounds that way.” I had handled more than my share of high-profile cases. Sex crimes could snag headlines like no other category of offense and usually for all the wrong reasons. The alleged perp is a celebrity, the victim is the daughter of a high-powered businessman, a junkie is attacked in a landmark location like Central Park, or the offender’s occupation shocks New Yorkers’ sensibilities—school principal, star athlete, elected official.
“Are you tempted?”
“I learned long ago there’s no upside to being handed the big case in the glare of the media spotlight. There’s already one supervisor who’s jumped all over this. I hope for Battaglia’s sake he gets it right.”
I leaned back against the cushioned pillow and tilted my face up to find the sun. Paul Battaglia was the district attorney of New York County. At sixty-five years old and in office for more than two decades, he was regarded as one of the country’s premier figures in law enforcement. He had appointed me to run his Sex Crimes Unit and relied on my superb team of colleagues to manage these cases that presented such unique issues to prosecutors as well as to the voting public. Hand-chosen for their combination of skills, the unit’s members were brilliant and compassionate, tough litigators and fierce advocates for our severely traumatized victim population, but only after they made factual determinations that the crime had occurred and the right offender was identified.
“Isn’t it odd that Battaglia didn’t call you himself?”
“It’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned. That’s why I’m staying put.”
“Why do you think he didn’t?”
“I’m not good at second-guessing him. I’ve told you that.” Battaglia’s political instincts were first-rate. And while I had come to question his gamesmanship in some of my more recent investigations, he had in turn relied more heavily on the longtime chief of the Trial Division, Pat McKinney, whose most valued trait was the consistency to which he played yes-man to the prominent prosecutor.
“The bad guy is French?”
“What else did you hear?”
“Nothing, nothing else,” Luc said.
“The tables are turned, aren’t they? I suppose you want me to talk shop now,” I said, wagging my empty glass in his face and grinning broadly. “I suppose this interests you more than your pyramid of skulls.”
“Okay, I’m an open book.” Luc spread his arms out in the air. “Ask me anything, then tell me all you know.”
I thought he would see
past my fake smile, but I tried anyway. “So when you told me you were going to the gendarmerie at three this morning, where did you really go?”
“Aha! So you’re taking your lead from Jacques now? Asking the questions that he asked? That’s beneath you, Alexandra. It’s exactly like I said. I took the bones to my office, but decided there was no urgency to involving the police in the middle of the night.”
“You were gone more than an hour.”
“Now you’re bluffing, Ms. Cooper. I may have to cut you off the booze,” Luc said, taking my glass from my hand and turning it upside down. “You were sleeping so soundly when I came in, you couldn’t have had any idea what time it was. If you’re implying that I was off clipping lotus blossoms in the pond, I’ll take you to the airport right this minute.”
“Just practicing my cross-examination skills, darling. If you fill me up, I promise to be more polite.” I righted my champagne flute and extended it to him. “You want to hear about your rapist?”
“Oxymoronic, darling. This is France. We don’t have rapists.”
Luc and I had argued about that issue more times than I could count. He was trying to return the insult. “Your women just under-report because of the general attitude toward sexual violence in this country. And you have a justice system that doesn’t know how to deal with these crimes.”
“So what happened?”
“Mike says the guy was staying at the Eurotel.”
“Not exactly the Plaza Athénée.” Luc wasn’t impressed with the perp’s choice, a French-owned chain of moderately priced hotels, fine for the business traveler but without the luxurious appointments he liked.
“Well, he was in the presidential suite. Twenty-eighth floor, with views down to the Statue of Liberty.”
“That should have cost him plenty.”
“It did. He arrived Thursday night for meetings on Friday and was due to leave last evening. The front desk gave him the courtesy of a late checkout at six P.M., because he was on the final flight to Paris.”
“Air France number nine from JFK. Eleven-twenty departure. I know it well.”
“Scheduled for a quick dinner with his daughter, who’s an assistant to the French ambassador to the UN, before the flight.”
Night Watch Page 4
