“Since the beginning. Six years ago. I was one of the first guys he hired. I was in the Master’s Program at Rensselaer. One of my teachers is Cap’s best friend. He knew what the Captain wanted to do and he recommended me. Cap flew up to Boston, told me the mission of the squad and what he wanted me to do.”
“’Can you do it?’ he said.”
“And I didn’t even think twice. I said ‘Absolutely.’”
“You were that sure of yourself?”
“Nope. But I didn’t think I couldn’t either. And he didn’t want to hear maybe. I moved down three days later.”
He nodded toward an elevator in a corner of the room. “Here he comes now. Grab some coffee or tea. Excuse me.” She watched him walk briskly toward Cody.
Whew, she thought and poured herself a cup of coffee.
Cody started talking as Hue reached him. “Here’s what we need to know,” he said hurriedly. “The victim made a stop somewhere downtown on his way home last night. He cut his limo driver loose at eleven-fifty. Call Annie and have her check his overcoat pocket for a sign-off receipt. I want to know where Handley got out and we don’t want to set off any alarm bells in the driver’s head. You and Si start calling every hack company in town and find out what time a taxi dropped Handley off at the 73 ^ rd Street address. If you get a hit find out where the cabbie picked him up. If we get two arrivals at the 73 ^ rd Street address we may have a line on the killer but don’t count on that. I need ten minutes with Ms. Winters. Get on it.”
9
Kate Winters had met Cody about two years before. She was prosecuting a murder case and he was sitting in the back of the courtroom. She knew immediately who he was: the ponytail, the dark, handsome good looks, the cool stare, the wisp of a smile on his lips.
After the verdict she had turned and he was standing there.
“Nice show,” he said. “Congratulations.”
He was gone before she could thank him. She had caught a fleeting glimpse of him moving gracefully away through the crowd that had gathered around to shake her hand.
Phyllis Martingale, one of her best friends, had been the first assistant DA Cody had hired for the squad. She had set the legal standard to which the crew was held. An integral part of the team, she was leaving to accept a powerful job for which Cody generously had recommended her.
When Phyllis told Kate she was being considered as her replacement, Kate asked, “What’s he really like, Phil?”
“Mystical,” Phyllis answered. End of discussion.
Kate was obviously nervous about the interview.
“Hi, Kate,” Cody said, offering his hand and a pleasant smile. “Sorry I’m late. Got coffee? Good.”
He poured himself a cup and led her into his office. Two of its walls formed the corner of the room. The other two were glass from floor to ceiling; a glass box which made him part of the team but afforded privacy if he needed it. He left the sliding glass door open. His desk was like all the others. A battered chrome floor lamp arced over it. His chair was an old-fashioned arm chair, its leather padding scarred and faded by age.
On the floor beside his desk was a large, fleece dog pad, a well-gnawed bone near one edge and a tan water bowl nearby.
On one of the solid walls was a large yellow flag dominated by a rattlesnake partly coiled, partly rising as if to strike, its body dissected by several cuts. Under it were the words “Don’t Tread On Me.”
Behind his desk chair on the other solid wall was a small, framed, calligraphed quote:
I am always doing things I can’t do. That’s how I get to do them.
Pablo Picasso
Otherwise, the walls were bare.
Cody sat on the corner of his desk and sipped coffee.
“So, what have you heard about the TAZ?” he asked Kate.
“What little Phil has told me. A lot of rumors. Nobody talks much about it.”
“That’s the way we like it.”
“Don’t the precinct guys resent it? I mean, when you take a case away from them?”
“It’s a trade-out, Kate. Our objective is to get in first. Make the entry. Keep the scene clean until Max Wolfsheim is finished. We work the case and when our AD feels it’s solid, we turn the files over to the precinct. So, we do the work and they get the collar.”
“And the TAZ ADA tries the case.”
“Right. In simple terms, we are attached to the precinct as long as the case is alive.”
“But you run the show.”
“The team runs the show.”
“Interesting concept.”
“Let’s get one thing straight, New York has the best police force and the best cops in the world. We’re all overworked and underpaid. Our job isn’t to show them up. It’s to help make them look as good as we can. That’s why we get the luxury of having our own full-time ADA.”
“Phil said TAZ was a lot like a family. One for all, all for one. That kind of thing. She said never talk about a case except with the crew and avoid the press.” She smiled. “She said if I got the job my end would be to keep you guys straight.”
“That’s right. Phyllis set the rules. She was great and we all admired her and we miss the hell out of her. There are no grandstanders in this outfit. We argue, disagree, kick wastebaskets when we get frustrated, work twelve to fourteen hours a day without bitching. When somebody gets burned out they come to me and I make them take a day off. If I get burned out somebody will tell me to go home and I do.
“I guess the main thing we all have in common is that when we’re working a kill we’re totally focused. We all know the law. One thing we try to do is sit in on a trial now and then, see what mistakes witnesses make, how good the prosecutors are. Everybody here knows if they screw up they can blow a DA’s case right out the window. But we still can make mistakes. That’s your job, Kate. If we start to step over the line, call us on it.”
He pointed to the framed aphorism on the wall.
“If we have a slogan, that’s it,” he said.
“Picasso was an artist. There’s no art in the law, Captain.”
“No. But there is in how one practices it, and you know that as well as I do. That’s why we picked you. Three months ago when I told Phil to take that job in Atlanta? Our big question was, who’s gonna fill her shoes? Phyllis said you’d be her first choice. We all checked you out and we all agree.”
She smiled. “I wasn’t sure,” she said. “I thought maybe this interview was a narrowing the field thing.”
“This isn’t an interview. You’ve got the job if you want it.”
Her mouth popped open for a second and she smiled.
“I’ll be damned,” she said.
“I’ll warn you, a lot of people would take a pass. It’s not a job for sissies or family people or cops who grumble about overtime or not getting to go to Grandma’s with the family for Thanksgiving.”
“Phil told me all that. Did she tell you I’m a lesbian?”
He hesitated for a moment then shook his head.
“Nope.”
“I would have thought she had.”
“She’s a good lawyer, Kate. She knows what’s immaterial.”
Winters sighed with relief.
“It’s kind of an unwritten law in the squad, Kate. We don’t talk politics, religion, sex, or family unless one of us has a problem and wants to share it or maybe get some advice.”
“Well,” she said, “Cocteau once wrote, ‘There is no art without risk.’ If you’re willing to take a chance on a
