“No.”
“Does the Chelsea Square Workshop mean anything to you?” I asked Mike as he flipped through his notepad.
“Yeah. That’s where Naomi’s brother was working this winter.”
“So Daniel Gersh,” Mercer said, “is the common denominator between our two victims. I’d call that fact into the PC’s office right now. Somebody better ramp up the effort to find him.”
We had set midnight as a time to quit.
Nan and I would work from our offices in the morning, trying to contact some of Ursula Hewitt’s colleagues and waiting for her uncle to give us the information needed to retrace her last steps. Nan would try to press Bellevue to speed up their record search. Mercer would tackle the Daniel Gersh piece of the case, going to the theater itself and expecting that the DCPI would have blasted the young man’s photo and information to the media. Mike was heading back to the Jewish Theological Seminary to try to talk to other students about Naomi Gersh.
“What time should we talk?” Mercer asked.
“Why don’t we check in with each other at nine? In case anything breaks overnight,” I said. “Then again at noon.”
“I hate to leave you with all this mess,” Nan said, carrying some of the glasses to the sink.
“Nothing to it.” I lifted the lids of the pizza boxes. “Mike was good for five slices. There’s not much garbage to deal with.”
“How are you going to handle Pat McKinney?” she asked. “What if Scully calls him?”
“Scully’s one of those boss-to-boss-only guys. If Rose tells him Battaglia’s out of town, and I sit there chained to my desk like an obedient dog, he’ll think I’ve seen the light and wait till Monday to confirm with the district attorney. Is Mercer driving you home?”
“Yes.”
Nan lived in Brooklyn, and it wasn’t far out of his way to drop her as he headed for Queens.
“Give my love to the prince,” I said, our nickname for Nan’s adorable, smart, long-on-patience husband. “And a kiss to the kids.”
“Will do. C’mon, guys,” Nan said. She had packed up her laptop and folders. “See you tomorrow, Alex.”
I closed the door and went inside to shut off the lights. Nan had stacked the napkins in a pile for my housekeeper to launder.
The last thing I wanted to wake up to was the smell of pizza crust and tomato sauce. I took the garbage with me and shuffled down the hallway, through the swinging door at the end, to throw the empty wine bottle in the recycling bin and the flat cardboard boxes in the incinerator.
I came out of the service area to return to my apartment.
The only thing between me and my front door, twenty-five feet away, was a tall stranger with his hands in the pockets of his black overcoat and a vicious expression on his face.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“WHAT do you want?” I hoped the feeling of panic that seized my chest didn’t show as obviously on my face. “Who are you?”
I thought of making a break for the stairwell, but I didn’t know if the man had a weapon in his hand or not.
“Keep your voice down, Ms. Cooper,” he said calmly. “My name is Vincenzo Borracelli.”
“You are so far off base, Mr. Borracelli.” I clasped my hands together to stop them from trembling. “Get out of here right now or I’ll call the police.”
“They’ve just left, Ms. Cooper, haven’t they? I’ve had to wait way too long as it is to get answers from you.” His accent was heavier than his wife’s. I kept telling myself that he had nothing to gain by becoming physically violent, but it was shocking to me that he had found a way to impose on my personal space in the middle of the night.
I raised my voice and shouted at him. “Get out!”
If I couldn’t rouse my good friend David Mitchell in the adjacent apartment, then perhaps I could get Prozac, his gentle Rottweiler, to start barking.
“Your voice, Ms. Cooper,” Borracelli said, holding a finger to his lips. “You gave my daughter your cell phone number, in case she wanted to contact you. That was a lovely courtesy. Uncharacteristic of you, as it turned out, but lovely.”
He withdrew his hands from his pockets, and they were empty.
“May we step inside for a few minutes? That’s all I need of you.”
“You must think I’m insane. Say what you want, right here. Then go.” It was no surprise that a well-dressed businessman had gotten through the concierge desk where our doormen stood. There was a steady flow of traffic in the large building, and I was certain Borracelli had used his charm to convince one of them he was attending a cocktail party or dinner.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Gina’s father.”
He laughed, and I sensed the same arrogance that Laura had when he left his message earlier that afternoon. “That, of course, Ms. Cooper. I mean, do you know—”
“How important you are? Is that what you’re trying to tell me, by trapping me here in a hallway tonight? Do you think I give a damn about whatever it is that you think entitles you to threaten and harass me?”
“Have I threatened you, young lady? That’s nonsense. You were rude not to return my phone call.”
“I had a bad day at the office, Mr. Borracelli. Two women are dead and—”
“And that’s reason to abuse my child?”
I took two steps back toward the swinging door in the service area. There was an elevator inside that was for the maintenance crew, although it was the slowest-moving piece of machinery in the world. I didn’t speak.
“I’m the CEO of a major international telecommunications company, Ms. Cooper. Once I had your phone number, it was easy for me to get the rest of your personal information.”
“Everybody seems to know how to find me. A house call really wasn’t necessary, Mr. Borracelli. I’ll be at my desk all day tomorrow. Now, press the down button by those two elevators or I’ll scream.”
“I don’t imagine you as a screamer. Just listen to me. Two minutes.”
I continued backing up, closer to the service area, and just a few steps away from David Mitchell’s door.
“Gina is my baby. She’s a very, very sensitive child. I know she has issues.”
“Issues” was one of those dreadful weasel words that didn’t begin to articulate what Borracelli referred to. Binge drinking, substance abuse, sexual promiscuity, and the ability to look someone in a position of authority straight in the eye while lying. Gina had more issues than her box of bad things could begin to contain.
“She’s trying to act like one of the big girls. You’d better rethink the whole ‘baby’ idea.” The law still protected Gina, but she had chosen to start playing with fire.
“There was an urgency to my phone call, Ms. Cooper. Anyone who works for me and didn’t return a call by day’s end wouldn’t have a job.”
“I apologize.” Days like this, I’d be willing to give up my job too.
“Gina has been talking to my wife about hurting herself. She’s distraught about having to face this boy at school. She said she has pills. She has razor blades,” he said, his anxiety apparent for the first time in this confrontation. “She says that she’d rather kill herself than face the embarrassment of seeing Javier at school.”
“That’s quite serious, Mr. Borracelli. I can get her a counseling appointment first thing in the morning.”
“And until then, Ms. Cooper? If she hurts herself tonight, it will be all your fault.”
I closed my eyes and took a breath. It wasn’t the kid’s doing that her father was a horse’s ass. “What is it you expect of me right now?”
So far today I was responsible for everything from the next Holy Wars to a teen suicide.
