the head of the Gun Recovery Unit for general incompetence, and Pat kept looking to insert her into other high- profile work. The fact that he hadn’t dragged her into this mess suggested he didn’t have any ready solutions for these murders and feared things would get worse before we made headway.

“All right if Nan comes along?” I asked.

“I’d prefer it. At least I can find her when I need something.” Battaglia had good reason to respect Nan’s professionalism. She had tried some of the most challenging cases — from murder to multimillion-dollar white-collar frauds — and was one of his most trusted soldiers.

Chapman obviously hadn’t reached Scully yet. “Just so you know, Mike didn’t take me on a wild goose chase. We found what we were looking for.”

“Are you serious? He found the woman’s tongue?” The DA put his hand on the black phone that connected him immediately to the police commissioner’s desk. “Tell me where it was. I can hold this one over the PC’s head.”

I explained what had led Mike to the campus chapel. A smile crept onto Paul Battaglia’s face. He liked the church trivia and the forensic finding almost as much as he relished being the first in a position of power to know something.

“I’ve got a slew of calls to make before I go over to headquarters,” I said, rising to leave. “We left Crime Scene at the chapel going over every inch of the place. The killer must have gone straight from St. Pat’s cemetery up to Fordham.”

“I can head out from here,” Nan said. “I’ll tell Mike you’ll be over in?…”

“By the time the meeting starts.”

We left McKinney with Battaglia and Nan asked me if I needed help with anything before she took the short walk from our office, through the cutaway next to the federal courthouse, to One Police Plaza, tucked away behind the United States Attorney’s Office.

“Thanks. Laura’s going to hang out and triage my list of calls. See you there.”

I went back to my office. Laura had just brewed a fresh pot of coffee and set me up with a steaming-hot mug.

Six of the lawyers from the unit were on trial. Only two had courtroom crises, and my longtime deputy had put out those fires. I clipped the notes together to take home with me, so I could check in on each of them that night.

There were case inquiries from victims, detectives who wanted investigative guidance, and one bureau chief complaining about a judgment call we had made in a new case. My internist’s office reminded me of the need for an annual checkup, my nephew wanted theater tickets when the family came to town for spring break, and a date had been set for the fall trunk show at Escada. It seemed that everyone but the man I loved was looking for me.

“This guy was beyond rude,” Laura said, handing me a slip with her red exclamation marks and underlining all over it. “Let him cool down a day before you call.”

The message was from Vincenzo Borracelli. My meeting with his wife had only been Thursday but felt like a week ago. “It’s imperative that I hear from you today. Do you know who I am?” The italics were Laura’s — it meant that Borracelli had been screaming at her. “You can’t treat my child the way you did. I’ll have you taken off the case at once. I’ll see that you pay for this.”

“Good luck to him if he can find someone else who wants the case,” I said, handing the slip of paper back to Laura. “Let him stew until Monday. I’ll return some of these others. Can you please remind me when it gets close to six?”

“Will do.”

I picked up my private line to deal with the more important matters and let Laura continue to fend off callers and passersby. I slipped a couple of Tylenol from my desk drawer and tried to make a list of details that might be useful for Scully’s meeting.

When Laura told me it was time to go, I left all the papers in discrete piles on my desk. We both put on jackets and walked to the elevator. She went into the revolving door first, and we parted on the sidewalk in front of the Hogan Place entrance.

“Good night. Stop pushing yourself so hard, Alex,” Laura said, walking off to head north to the Canal Street subway station.

“Thanks for everything. See you tomorrow.”

I took the shortcut along Baxter Street, crossing to avoid the loading dock that was blocked by a large truck. The small park that separated Chinatown from the courthouse was on my left. Schoolchildren who played kickball and tag there were long gone, and it was too dark for the seniors who did their Tai Chi exercises at the beginning and end of the day.

The wind picked up and shadows from the trees in the park danced under the dim glow of the streetlights.

I held my cell in both hands, texting Mike that I was on my way. I had forgotten that the new security system at One Police Plaza would slow me down by an additional five or six minutes.

I heard the footsteps before the man spoke. He came rushing out of the park after I passed the gate in the southwest corner, running at me from behind.

I turned to look at him and stumbled on the cracked sidewalk, falling to my knees, my BlackBerry skipping off the curb between two parked cars.

He was coming at me so fast that his feet caught on my extended leg and he landed on the ground, half of him squarely on top of me.

“Ms. Alice,” the slight young black man said. “I’m not going to hurt you, Ms. Alice.”

I didn’t realize I had screamed until two uniformed cops pulled the kid off and cuffed him.

TWENTY-THREE

“IT was Luther Audley,” I said to Mike. I was forty-five minutes late for Scully’s meeting, but the commissioner himself had been called to City Hall to explain things to the mayor, so we were all on hold waiting for him.

“How’d you recognize Luther? By the crack in his rear end?”

Guido Lentini, the deputy commissioner for public information, had given us his office to use until Scully arrived. Nan was standing behind me, kneading my shoulders. She knew I was rattled and was just trying to calm me down.

“Where is he now?” Mercer asked.

“I asked the cops not to arrest him. I believe his story. I’m fine. If I hadn’t tripped on that jagged piece of cement, he wouldn’t have become entangled with me.”

“C’mon, Alex. Where’s Luther?”

“I told them you’d call. It’s two guys from the Ninth Precinct,” I said, unfolding a piece of paper with their numbers. “They’re holding him in Central Booking till after we sort this out.”

“What did Luther say to you, exactly?” Mike asked.

“He might have been calling my name to get my attention. I’m not sure, but I thought he said ‘Alice’ so it didn’t concern me. Anyway, I thought it was street noise and I ignored it ’cause I was texting you. I didn’t hear him speak until after—”

“After he brought you down.”

“He didn’t bring me down, Mike. I really don’t think that’s what he had in mind.”

“He was waiting for you, wasn’t he?”

“How could he possibly have known I’d take Baxter Street?”

“Your office is the only place he’d think to find you,” Mercer said. “Maybe he just skulked around till he figured you’d be getting out of work, saw you walk out and separate from Laura, and got lucky when you took the darker route.”

Вы читаете Silent Mercy
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату