CHAPTER 8
The rain had stopped by the time my alarm went off at seven o’clock, and I opened the curtains to reveal a glorious October morning. It was Thursday, and I tried to remember what the day’s line-up looked like in my red desk calendar as I showered and thought ahead to the weekend. I had planned to spend it with Jed, so I daydreamed instead about a whirlwind shopping hinge, (a haircut that would announce a new ‘me,“ and assembling a few of my girlfriends for a ladies’ night out at an elegant restaurant. 9 I didn’t feel like dealing with a yellow cab so I called a car service to deliver me to the office. I read my Times I most of the way downtown while Imus kept me diverted I on the radio, and I was pleased to note when I entered I the building through the revolving door that Battaglia’s car had not yet pulled into its reserved space directly in front of the office.
Laura was drinking her coffee down the hall with Rod’s secretary and the phones were quiet. I turned on my computer and brought up the screen for e-mail to send some messages before starting on my response to the motions I had to file in the Reynolds case.
“Mind if I come in?” I looked up to see my old friend, Mickey Diamond, the veteran court reporter for the Post, standing outside my door. He had worked the courthouse beat for almost thirty years and was the revered dean of the school of the tabloid crime story. Diamond was tall and lean, with silvery hair and an irresistible grin, even when he was at his most offensive. We never ended a press conference on a rape case without his asking what the victim looked like, and even when Battaglia refused to give an answer, Mike would invent a description of his own. If he assumed the victim had been African-American because the crime had happened in a housing project in Harlem, she would appear in print as a ‘raven-haired beauty,“ and if the rape had occurred in a townhouse on the Upper East Side, the woman was invariably a blonde.
“Enter,” I said, trying my best to be cheerful, knowing that this visit was uncharacteristically overdue, given my tangential involvement in the death of a movie star.
“Anything new?”
“All quiet, Mickey. Nothing to report.”
“No, I mean, off the record.” Right. There was no such animal as ‘off the record’ for Mickey Diamond.
“I’m not kidding. I’ve got nothing for you, really.”
“Did you see ”Page Six“ today?” he asked, referring to the Post’s gossip column.
“Nope.” I hated to admit it, but I usually bought the tabloid because so many of the office stories were covered in it. The last few years, the Metro section of the Times, which used to be too classy to report on all the city’s sex and violence, now read like the tabs on any given day.
“Johnny Garelli’s in town for the Lascar investigation.
Says he was at Rao’s with an unidentified blonde last night. Probably a starlet or hooker. Thought maybe you’d as know who she is, give me a scoop. Chapman and Peterson jer must keep you on top of things.“ he Could he tell I was blushing?
“I’m out of the loop on this st one, Mickey. Just a witness.” He smiled that impish grin that usually worked on me.
“C’mon, it’s really slow. Haven’t you got anything for me?”
Unfortunately, the subject matter of my cases was prime fodder for Diamond’s stories, and every available space in the tiny courthouse press office was literally papered with headline stories that he proudly called his “Wall of Shame.”
I had been a cover girl in more of those tales than I cared to count.
“Get out of here before Battaglia sees you with me and thinks I leaked something to you. Scoot.”
“Just give me a quote on the murder case, something I can use as an exclusive, please?”
“Are you out of your mind? I want to keep my job, I honestly do, Mickey.”
“Can I make up something, like how bad you feel about I Isabella? I promise it’ll be tasteful.” I I picked up my box of Kleenex and threw it across the room at him, laughing at that prospect. Frequently throughout the last three or four years, before I could even ask Battaglia for permission to talk to any of the reporters about a case or an issue a firm office rule Diamond would have some pearls of wisdom, in quotation marks, attributed to me. Even the District Attorney had stopped berating me and come to realize I was not guilty but that Mickey had simply fabricated the statement, trying to keep it consistent with what he thought my views would be on a given subject.
“Hey, you owe me. My editor wanted me to do a story about you and Jed Segal. Even had a headline: ”THE LEGAL MISS WHO MISSES KISSES,“ but I refused-‘ I was out of my chair and making my way toward the door in a flash. ’I’ll break your fucking neck if you even think about a story like that.”
“Easy, easy,” he said, putting his hands on top of his head, as if to shield himself from a strike by me.
“Don’t be so sensitive, I was only joking.” He backed out past Laura’s desk.
“City desk’s Working on an anonymous tip. D’ya hear that Garelli killed a guy once, when he was in the Marines?
Not the enemy, I mean one of his buddies. Beat him into a coma over nothing an insult the other guy threw at him.
Guy died four months later in a military hospital. We’re trying to check it out before anybody goes with it in print.
Hear anything like that?“
“No, I haven’t heard a word about it,” I responded, shaking my head in amazement. Not one of the things Johnny had chosen to confide in me, but that was hardly surprising.
Mickey left me with a last effort at a story line: “Call me if you get anything decent. My imagination isn’t as sharp as it used to be. I’m not so good at creative writing anymore.”
I called Mark Acciano to see how late the judge had kept the jury working last night.
“They deliberated till almost midnight, then he sent them to the hotel. Started again at nine-thirty this morning.” “Could you get any sense of the split?” ey “Nah. They all just looked tired and grumpy by the time he dismissed them. Impossibleto tell what the problems were.” as “Any guessing from the court officers?”;er Although it wasn’t cricket, if the court officers liked the he lawyers, they often reported back what they could hear of st the arguments from their stations outside the door of the er locked jury rooms. If the twelve were fighting like cats and dogs it was one thing, and quite another if eleven were ganged up against one.
“Not a whisper. I’m going up to sit it out in the courtroom.
I’ll let you know what happens. And, Alex, thanks a lot for your advice about the summation. I never would have thought to put all that detail in, but I think it helped a lot.
Your notes were a godsend.“
“That’s what I’m here for. Go get him.”
Laura buzzed me.
“Dr. Mitchell’s secretary just called.
Said to tell you he’s going to see Jed in his office at seven-thirty tonight, and that you’d know what it’s all about.“
“Yes, Laura, I do. Be right back, I’m going for a refill.”
I was on my way next door to the Legal Hiring Office, which kept fresh coffee going all day to impress the applicants who applied for positions in Battaglia’s office by the thousands every year. When I returned with a steaming cupful, Laura was standing at the side of her desk.
“It’s Mercer, I’ve got him on hold. It’s urgent.”
I picked up Laura’s phone.
“Yeah?”
“Coop, it’s almost over.”
I had to think for a minute to realize that he wasn’t talking about Isabella’s case.
“What happened?”
“An attempt this morning. Two blocks away from the last hit. M.O. was identical same approach, same description, same language. Woman lets the guy in the house, he’s got the knife. Only surprise was that her husband was in the bedroom. The husband hears a commotion and comes into the kitchen, Mr. William Montvale gets so shook up he drops everything and runs out the door.”
“Wait, wait, wait. You’re losing me. Who’s William Montvale? The husband?”
