'I thought you were going with Dickie Draper, out to see what the story is on Ruffle Bar. The real one.'
'Turns out Special Ops uses that place once a month for drills. Peterson asked their CO to send men to look it over. They keep a chopper on standby.'
'What do they use the island for?' I asked. I knew that Special Ops was a high-powered training division of the NYPD, made up of members of the Harbor, Aviation, and Emergency Services units. 'They stage disasters, Coop, so they can prepare for the response.
Terrorist attacks, plane crashes, boat accidents. The bodies-well, the mannequins-wind up on Ruffle Bar, and Special Ops has to swim in or fly in to triage the victims. If there's anything of interest on that sandbar-including a sample of the sand-they'll get it for us. What's new, Ryan?'
Ryan and Mike shook hands, and Mike listened to details of the morning's arrest.
'You really don't need to be here,' I said. 'Who's tailing Kiernan Dylan?'
'It's tough to tail a guy when you don't know where he is.'
'Didn't he go home after he got out of court last night?' Mike put both hands in his pants pockets and looked down at the floor.
'Peterson's got somebody sitting on his apartment, his father's place, the house at Breezy Point. No sign of him anywhere.'
'How about the bar?'
'Some jerk,' Mike said, making the sign of the cross on his chest, 'was stupid enough to want to shut that place down. Nobody home.'
'Let me get back downstairs,' Ryan said. 'I just wanted to know if you saw anything, heard anything. Sounds like you didn't. I'll draw this up with the cops who witnessed it. No injuries to you, right? Just your victim?'
'Exactly. You think you can keep him in?'
'Shouldn't be difficult. Throw in a reckless assault, too. Got myself a real case in the middle of the off-season. I can't imagine Antonio got to this level in the Latin Princes without a few visits to the can. If we don't have enough to hold him on this, I'm sure he's got a rap sheet that will help. I'll let you know as soon as it comes back.'
'Any idea who the driver was?' Mercer asked.
'Not yet. And Senor Lucido isn't saying nada. The car's being towed. They'll actually dust it for prints. Helps to have a victim with juice, Ms. Cooper.'
'Who's the girl?'
Ryan looked at the arrest papers folded in his rear pocket. 'She's been playing games with us. No ID on her, so we're waiting on her prints, too. The first thing she told the cops was that her name is Clarita Munoz. Then about five minutes later she changed it to Clarita Cruz. Then she clammed up completely. Had a pocket-size canister of Mace in her jeans. Love to know where she was going with that.'
'Thanks, Ryan. When you find out, let me know,' I said, as he walked out of the room. 'See you later.'
'Why does that name sound familiar to me?' Mercer asked. Mike was at my desk, helping himself to half of my turkey sandwich. 'Probably because you've been watching too much Telemundo, my pal.'
Mercer called out to Laura, who came to the door. 'Help me with this. You got Alex's book there?'
Laura turned to her desk and picked up my red appointment diary.
'Sure.'
'What's the name of the girl who was scheduled to come in at eleven today? Alex and I were standing right next to you while you were on the phone with Ed, in Witness Aid, making the date when we came down from court last Thursday.'
Laura found the entry. 'Clarita Munoz.'
I was rubbing my forehead again but nothing registered. Mike was chewing while he puzzled this out. 'You were supposed to meet with this girl today? And she's sitting in a car, waiting for you to show up at the building, with a can of Mace, a loaded gun, and two Latin Princes?
'They couldn't possibly have known I was coming to work in a cab. That I'd be squaring the block from Baxter Street,' I said. 'That's not my usual route.'
Mercer was pacing the room. 'Like everyone says, it's a stupid place to stage an accident. So suppose that crash was just a spur-of-themoment idea. The guys were there to accompany Clarita, who had an actual appointment to walk right in this door. Set her up for whatever she was going to do and be her getaway car-if she was getting anywhere. The cab pulled up, they see your platinum head in the window, and the driver makes a command decision, on the spot, to lock fenders. Just to shake you up, like they were doing last week.'
'Okay, so they certainly weren't trying to kill me,' I said, wanting to believe that. 'Not inside One Hogan Place.'
'But if Clarita is Posano's shortie, maybe she's trying to make her bones with him. Imagine she gets up here- right to the main floor of Battaglia's center of power-and sprays you with Mace. How much more in your face does it get?' Mercer said. 'Imagine her status when word gets up to state prison. Meantime, she hasn't caused you any serious injury. She'd hardly get more than a slap on the wrist.'
'I like your thinking, Detective,' Mike said.
'And you need to call Rodman's Neck,' he went on, wagging a finger at Mike. 'See what happened to those cartridges they were going to analyze from Friday morning's shooting.'
'The range?' Mike put down the sandwich and brushed the crumbs off his hands. 'What's this babe got to do with that?'
'You and Alex didn't think anyone knew you were going to be at the range on Friday morning. Didn't think that shooting had anything to do with her, right?' Mercer said. 'Well, when Laura was on the phone with Ed she was talking him through Alex's schedule.'
Laura's hand flew up to cover her mouth.
'I heard her tell Ed that she was checking Alex's availability, that if the jury came back as fast as expected, she'd be at the police range the next morning.'
Laura removed her hand and nodded. 'Maybe she heard me. Or Ed said it out loud. I know I could understand the girl perfectly well when I asked Ed to get me her name. She didn't wait for him to repeat my question. She said she was Clarita Munoz. I'd guess she could hear me just as well as I could hear her.
THIRTY-SIX
There's a lawyer named Frankie Shea on line one,' Laura said about an hour later, after I had gotten Gene Grassley's permission for Mercer to talk to Floyd Warren and met with Judge Lamont to tell him about Antonio Lucido and Clarita Munoz.
I picked up the receiver, not expecting the harangue that he began to unload.
'Slow down, Mr. Shea. I don't know what you're talking about.'
'You told the press you were going into Ruffles the other night? That sure as hell changes the complexion of any information you got out of my client.'
'What? There was no press involved. Neither Chapman nor I went in there expecting to make an arrest.'
'So much for your credibility, Ms. Cooper. You suckered my client right into a photo op just to top off the five o'clock news conference about the serial killer.'
'Listen to me, Shea. Nobody called the media. Nobody set Dylan up.'
'You know how my client's family is being harassed today? They can't open the door of their apartment, his father can't get into his business, his brothers-'
'Why? What's that got to do with us?'
'The newspapers. He's all over the newspapers.'
I covered the mouthpiece and asked Mercer to get the papers off Laura's desk. 'I haven't seen them yet. But I swear I haven't even had a chance to tell the public relations team what happened. Battaglia's out of the country and I'm waiting to update them now, for the first time. You have my word that the release couldn't have come from our end.'
'You did a perp walk in front of Ruffles. Admit it, okay? Kiernan's photo, his face-it's splattered all over the place.'
