I couldn’t help but think about Mercer and Mike, and what these last twenty-four hours had been like for them. Mercer Wallace, five years older than I and whip-smart, had earned the coveted gold shield with daring undercover exploits in his early days on the job, then continued to be promoted because of the brilliant detail work he had put into a series of homicide investigations.
But like me, he didn’t thrive on murder cases. The department valued them as the most important crimes and the most elite units, but Mercer preferred the more sensitive matters of a special victims detective squad. He surprised the top brass years ago by asking for a transfer to the Manhattan unit that corresponded to my prosecutorial bureau, after solving a serial rape case involving more than seven teenage girls who’d been brutalized on East Harlem rooftops and in project stairwells.
Mercer’s work, like mine, was a specialty that combined his investigative talents with a measure of compassion that allowed him to earn the trust of the most traumatized survivors—victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse. The feature that Mike Chapman relied on most—no need to take up any time hand-holding the dead—was what made special victims work so satisfying to Mercer and me.
Mercer’s mother died in childbirth, and he’d been raised in Queens by his father, Spencer, a mechanic for Delta Air Lines assigned to LaGuardia. He turned down a football scholarship at Michigan to join the NYPD. His second marriage was to Vickee Eaton, with whom he had a four-year-old son named Logan. There was as much heart in Mercer as his six-foot, six-inch frame could hold, and he had covered my back in court and on the street more times than I could count.
My relationship with Mike Chapman was more complicated, both professionally and personally, in style and in substance. Mike’s father, Brian, had been one of the most decorated officers on the force throughout the twenty-six years he’d served. He raised his family—Mike had three older sisters—in the then working-class section of Yorkville in Manhattan. His great pride was his only son’s success as a student whose knowledge of military history ranked him near the top of his class at Fordham University, guaranteeing the father that his son wouldn’t be risking his life every day on the city streets.
But Brian suffered a massive coronary two days after turning in his gun and shield, and although Mike Chapman stayed on course to get his degree, he enrolled in the police academy immediately after graduation because he admired his father so deeply. Even in his rookie year he distinguished himself with arrests made in the drug-related Christmas Day massacre of a Colombian family in Washington Heights. His only interest was in working homicide, and he fast won a place in the Manhattan North squad, which was responsible for every murder case on the island above 59th Street.
I met Mike my first year as a prosecutor. All the men and women who’d taught me the ropes—evaluating case merits and witness credibility, giving the job every ounce of one’s intellect and intuition, learning when it was essential to visit the scene of a crime and how to interrogate the vilest of criminal types—all of them required of us the most professional responses.
Then I was introduced to the Chapman modus operandi. Mike trusted no one except the closest of his colleagues, had a sixth sense about people that was rarely off target, was able to keep an emotional distance from his victims and their families, and without ever breaking the law he had a keen ability to go a bit rogue, a bit wild cowboy, and constantly tried to push me to take that ride with him.
Somewhere along the line, Mike Chapman had become my closest friend. Maybe it was because even though I had fiercely loyal bonds to Nina, Joan, and the girlfriends who kept me grounded, there was no one else with whom I’d spent so many days and nights who understood the pressures of the job and what it meant to live with such extraordinary responsibility—the fate of victims and perps alike—while going about the ordinary business of daily life.
Mike’s intelligence was often unexpected by adversaries or upper-crust witnesses who figured the blue-collar background limited him in some fashion. His dark humor, whether appropriate or not, undercut almost every situation in which we’d found ourselves. His courage was a constant reminder to me of my own irrational phobias. And then there were his good looks—at about six-two, he was three or four inches taller than me, with a thick head of jet-black hair, strong features, and a ready smile.
It was an attraction that confused me as much as it delighted me. There were times I had felt the pull of a romantic entanglement, but I knew that it wouldn’t work because of the jobs we had. If I gave any thought to dating Mike—even though he’d never suggested as much—I knew that Battaglia would relieve me of my position. He wouldn’t allow the impression that a top detective was closing cases or eliciting confessions because he was sleeping with a supervising prosecutor.
Mike’s one great love—an architect named Valerie Jacobson—died in a skiing accident two years back, and he had slipped into one of his darkest moods as a result of her death. I thought he was beginning to come out of that depression, but there was so much of himself that he kept encased in an impenetrable shell that there were times I was the last to know what went on inside his head.
I ate a bit of the snack that was offered and read a few news articles. In the feature section of the paper was a photograph of a woman, strikingly pretty and dressed to the nines as she exited a restaurant near the Champs Élysées after dinner on Saturday. The subject looked vaguely familiar to me—a light-skinned black woman, tall and too thin to be anything but a model. It wasn’t Iman, but I looked down for the caption because I thought I recognized her from similar single-name runway fame. Kali. Of course, Kali. Her magnificent face had graced scores of magazine covers. KALI BLESSÉE! the headline read.
The French word blessé seemed oxymoronic to me. It caught my eye because the Anglo-Saxon meaning was so benevolent—to sanctify or make holy—so I scanned the piece to see what good luck had befallen the glamorous woman. It took me a second to recall that the translation here was “wounded.” I read on.
The supermodel Kali, also Ivorian, was the wife of Mohammed Gil-Darsin, as this article made clear. I was dumbfounded to learn that. The piece quoted her closest friends who had been with her Sunday morning when she got the call about her husband’s arrest. “Her screams pierced the air like a wounded animal,” the reporter claimed, when Baby Mo’s lawyers told her the story.
The wounded wife. I had spent countless hours in the presence of women who sat in the front row of a courtroom behind husbands charged with rape, murder, child abuse, and every other brutal act. Some obviously believed in the men they stood by, others were advised by counsel to suck it up through trial because jurors would be impressed that the women loved their spouses enough to disbelieve the charges, and yet a few more had been known to stick close first, then lash out later at the offenders, after the verdict was delivered.
I had heard those shrieks of wounded wives, had seen them scratch and kick at Mercer Wallace as their husbands were handcuffed and taken away. I’d been cursed by them in just about every dialect under the sun, on my way out of station houses or into the courtroom, even stalking me through the streets when I left the office at night.
My seatmate saw me staring at the photo of Kali. “You know her in the States?”
“She’s very famous, actually. Very beautiful.”
“Show that to your police, will you? They think a man who gets into bed with a woman like that any night he chooses wants to get it on with a peasant who takes out the trash? An illegal immigrant, I heard today, from Central America. Gil-Darsin’s got filet mignon at home, but he’s forcing down a helping of rice and beans on his way to the plane? It’s too ridiculous to believe.”
For some, it always comes down to the physical appearance of the accuser. If she’s too good-looking, then she must have asked for it. If she’s homely or overweight, then what sane man would bother with raping her?
“It happens every day.” Not just with the rich and famous, the prominen
t and powerful, but in every variable of human interaction one might imagine.
“What did you say?” he asked.
I didn’t have the energy to take him on. I turned my head away, pulled the blanket up to my chin, and slept for most of the rest of the flight because I expected long hours of work ahead.
The descent into JFK was smooth. We taxied to the gate as everyone turned on cell phones and waited impatiently for the plane to dock and doors to open.
I stayed in my seat while those with connecting flights crowded the aisles to make their exit. I hefted my small tote onto my shoulder and started the long walk to retrieve my luggage from the carousel and get to Customs. I knew Rose had dispatched one of Battaglia’s security team to meet me, so it was likely that I would be whisked through the process.
As I approached the queues separating citizens from foreigners, I had my passport in hand and looked on the far side of the customs agents for familiar faces but saw none.
Off to the left, in the last line marked U.S. PASSPORTS ONLY, I saw the striking figure of Kali—all six feet of her—with oversized dark glasses, dressed entirely in black, arguing with a government official. Two men behind him, probably private investigators from the defense team, looked like they were trying to pull strings to get her through.
Kali must have been in the first-class section of my flight and one of the passengers to reach the checkpoint earliest. But she had chosen the wrong line and was meeting resistance from the agent.
I was summoned to the booth next to her and extended my passport.
The agent stood up to look at my two bags and then the dates stamped on my arrival in France. “Not much time for shopping, was there?”
“Not a minute.”
“I take it you’ve got nothing to declare?”
I laughed. “This is a first, but I don’t.” It was also the first time I hadn’t stopped to buy Battaglia the Cuban cigars—Cohibas, still contraband—that he loved so much and counted on whenever I traveled.
He waved me on, and as I closed my tote, I could see that Kali was agitated. She was arguing for an exception despite her foreign passport, in order to move through more rapidly. The louder she got and the more the two private eyes tried to lean on the customs agent, the firmer he stood, pointing to the back of the line.
The automatic doors swung open, and against the waist-high metal fencing were relatives and friends waiting for passengers from around the world. Behind them were dozens of black-suited limo drivers, holding up placards with names of clients they’d been hired to meet. I stood on tiptoes to look for one of the men from the DA’s Squad—an NYPD unit assigned to our offices who had the detail to guard Battaglia.
Instead, I spotted a large cardboard placard on a wooden handle, raised above the heads of the greeters.
Below the logo of the New York Post was the mug shot of Gil-Darsin and the bold headline: MOMO’S MOJO: DNA ENTANGLES WEB HEAD.
I walked through the groups of drivers directly to Mike Chapman, who was holding the jerry-rigged sign. “Welcome home, kid. The DA’s all puffed up like a peacock ’cause he got you here when the rest of us couldn’t make you budge.”
“He’s got a special way with words, Mike. Just charmed me right back to the office.” I reached up and kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks for picking me up.”
“Never learned to travel light, did you?” he said, taking my oversize duffel and large wheeling bag from me.
“You might want to dump the sign. Madame Gil-Darsin will be coming through right behind us. She’s having her ‘Do you know who I am?’ moment with customs.”
“Sweet. She might do better if they don’t know.”
“I take it the DNA match is today’s update?” I said as we headed for the exit.
“Confirmed by the lab this morning. The Post hasn’t tweaked yet to half how good the guy’s mojo is, Coop.”
“What do you mean?”
“We just picked up the surveillance tapes from the hotel. He had another woman with him for a nooner that same day. The card swipe clocks her arrival, and she left—hair all tousled and clothes messed up a bit—just after two P.M., a few hours before he jumped the bones of our vic.”
“You know who she is?”
“They’re working on it. We should have her ID’d by morning. Meanwhile I’m fielding all the calls from the senior set. Everybody wants to know Mo’s secret.”
“Secret what?”
“The man is fifty-eight years old. He had a tryst at noon and was loaded for bear again at five. Don’t you listen to those ads, Coop? If it lasts more than four hours, give your doctor a call.”
“Beside the Viagra jokes, is any serious work getting done on this case?”
“Wait till you see the war room McKinney’s set up,” Mike said, grabbing my arm as we reached the curb, then letting go to point out Kali, being rushed to a waiting limo by the pair of bodyguards who’d met her inside.
“Any real progress?”
“Hey, Sunday’s take from the media and the defense sympathizers was that a sexual assault could never have happened. MGD was rushing to meet his daughter and catch a flight. The accuser must have made the whole thing up. The old ‘he said, she said’ crap. Today’s DNA results level the playing field, don’t they? Now he can’t claim nothing happened or that he wasn’t there with her, can he? The perp’s legal eagles have to shift their argument to consent.”
“Here’s where it really gets ugly, Mike. Now the defense will want us to believe that she asked for it.”
TWELVE
“You must have come lights and sirens all the way from Paris,” Pat McKinney said when I entered the conference room with Mike shortly before seven o’clock Monday evening. He was standing at the head of the long table, flanked by the team of prosecutors and investigators he had patched together to work on the case. “Welcome back.”
“Thanks.”
“You want to take over the hot seat? I’ll step aside.”
“You’re in charge, Pat.”
The lawyers and cops seated between us were studying the interplay. McKinney ruled by fear, often mocking the young assistants who reported to him. I never understood why Battaglia tolerated that kind of leadership, so I worked hard to keep our personal animosity from spilling into public view.
“I guess that’s it, Mr. Chapman,” McKinney said. “You wanted to play taxi driver and bring Alex to us, but now I think we don’t need your services any longer.”
Mike didn’t have a real role in this investigation or any reason to argue with McKinney. “I got places to go, people to see,” he said, with his hand on the doorknob.
“Sit yourself down over there,” Mercer said to Mike. He pointed to an open chair next to June Simpson, one of the best senior prosecutors in the Trial Division. Someone had convinced McKinney that neither he nor his girlfriend Gunsher could handle a trial that was difficult to any degree, and although June didn’t have a sex crimes background, she was a great choice for the team.
“Getting crowded in here, don’t you think?” McKinney said.
“I want Mike in this,” Mercer said, his deep voice underscoring the sense of control he exercised when he was in charge of matters on the police side. “I want his ideas, his experience—”
“Of course,” McKinney said, “a team misogynist to give us some balance on the victim’s story. Now, why didn’t I think of that?”
Ellen Gunsher laughed, June Simpson and the two paralegals cringed, the Sex Crimes assistant—Ryan Blackmer—just looked wide-eyed at McKinney, and Mercer smacked his palm on the table, causing everyone to jump.
“Catch you later, Detective Wallace,” Mike said, waving to Mercer as he backed out the door. “And, Pat, if you think leaving your wife for some stolen moments with the yellow rose of Texas here is a gift to the women’s movement, you’re not firing on all cylinders.”
“Okay, children,” I said. “Let’s all get in the sandbox and hunker down together. Looks like we have a l
ong haul ahead. Mike, why don’t you stay and—?”
“I’m on again at midnight. Mercer can pick my brain whenever he chooses. I’m outta here.”
Mercer didn’t need to speak his contempt for Pat McKinney. His expression said it all.
“June, would you ask my secretary to call the DA?” Pat said. “He wants to be in on today’s briefing.”
As June Simpson stepped out, I walked to one of the open spots at the table, sat down, and introduced myself to the paralegals I hadn’t met. Mercer passed me the case folder he had prepared for me with copies of all the police reports, medical records, employment history, and media clips.
“Was the victim in today?”
“Yeah,” Mercer said. “We had her all day yesterday, what with the first report to uniform, then interviews with the outcry witnesses at the hotel.”
“Treated?”
“Sexual assault forensic examiner at Bellevue. Plus a victim advocate who explained everything to her. That’s when I got called in.”
“Does she have a name?” I asked.
“Blanca. Blanca Robles,” Mercer said.
It was illegal in New York for law enforcement personnel to release identifying information about a rape victim to the public. The American media wouldn’t tag her by name. It was the first time I’d heard her name, and I rolled it off my tongue. Within hours, the European press would print it, and if they could come up with a photograph of Blanca, they would use that as well.
“Who interviewed her today?” I wanted to hear Ryan’s name. I wanted to know it had been anything except a group session.
McKinney barged right in. “Ellen and I talked with her. Ryan sat in. One of the paras took notes. And Mercer, of course. I didn’t get the idea to bring June in on this till just a couple of hours ago.”
“Five on one? Not the way we usually make our witnesses comfortable.”
“You know how it is on these major cases, Alex. Nothing goes according to plan. I needed to explain the process to her and tell her what we expect of her this week. The tabloids are hounding her like crazy. They’ve already found out where she lives. The Witness Aid Unit is working with Safe Horizon to relocate her.” McKinney was talking as though he did this kind of victim advocacy all the time, rather than his administrative duties.
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