“I’m in,” I said.
“Double or nothing.”
“Well, damn, man. Seems to me you’ve heard the answer. And your enthusiasm suggests you’ve already got a good guess tucked away. So I’m holding at twenty,” Mercer said.
“Picture your boyfriend Trebek reading the answer, Coop. ‘Steel Wheels’ it is. Fastest speed at which New York City subway trains are designed to run.”
I held up my empty glass to signal to Fenton that I wanted a refill while I stalled. “What is…?”
“It helps if you ride underground every now and then, even though you act like you’re allergic to public transportation.” Mike hummed the
“What is forty-five miles an hour?” Mercer asked.
“Not a bad guess, Mr. Wallace, but not the right one. Don’t be thinking of that City Hall station, Coop. You got big curves like that and grade, the steel wheels go much slower.”
“Thanks for the reminder. An afternoon with you two on that platform was enough to keep me in taxis for a lifetime. I’m going with thirty-five.”
“And once again, you would be wrong, ma’am. What is fifty-five miles per hour, folks? I’ll trust you to pay up after we eat. It’s a speed rarely reached because it requires long, uninterrupted acceleration, but that’s what they’re made to do. My pop used to ride me up front on the trains when I was a kid. Loved all that stuff. No subways in the suburbs, kid. That’s one of your problems.”
My privileged upbringing in Westchester County, along with my education at Wellesley College and the University of Virginia School of Law, had been made possible by the loving encouragement of my mother and father, Maude and Benjamin Cooper. In addition to her long legs and green eyes, I’d inherited a fraction of the extraordinary compassion Maude exhibited as a nurse. My father and his partner’s great contribution to cardiac surgery-a small plastic invention called the Cooper-Hoffman valve-had endowed me with more tangible assets. Despite the enormous differences in our backgrounds, I had never made better friends than Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace.
“Fortunately,” I said, “it’s way too late tonight to ask what you think my other problems are.”
I pushed the soup bowl away and concentrated on my scotch. The image of Karla Vastasi’s crushed head would be with me all through the night.
“There’ll be no more picking on you for now,” Mercer said. “Soon as Mike finishes his dinner, I’ll drop you at home.”
My feelings about Mike had grown more complicated over time. His teasing and humor got me through the worst situations imaginable-some devastatingly traumatic to witness, like the one this evening, and others actually life-threatening moments in which he and I had faced off against deranged killers. Occasionally I questioned whether my concern for maintaining our productive professional relationship stopped me from exploring the attraction I felt for him.
“I’ve got the autopsy in the morning,” Mike said. It was part of his duties to attend the medical examiner’s procedure. “You’ll call me when you finish up with Battaglia?”
“Will do,” I said, getting up from the table.
“I hope they’ve got good insurance at the morgue,” Mike said, taking a last slug of his drink. “Between that murder weapon and the little psalm book, there’s enough burglary bait there to tempt the dead.”
NINE
I was surprised to hear voices when I approached the door to Battaglia’s suite. I had assumed that I would beat him to his office, even though he told me to be there at eight a.m. Rose Malone wasn’t at her desk yet, so I turned the corner to present myself.
The district attorney stopped midsentence, a cigar gripped between the knuckles of two fingers. “C’mon in, Alexandra. Figure out how to get that damn coffeepot working and then we’ll get started. Jill, I’d like you to meet Alex Cooper.”
“Hello, Alex. I’m Jill Gibson.”
I walked behind the conference table at which the pair were seated, measured the coffee, and started the machine, reminded of how much Rose had spoiled Battaglia.
“Good to meet you,” Jill said.
The tabloids were spread out in front of Battaglia. I had picked up copies on my way downtown and seen that the item about Karla Vastasi’s murder was buried in a single paragraph near the end of the news section. The difference in status between the housekeeper and the heiress had put this story on the back burner and given us breathing room to work on the case without a media frenzy.
“Jill’s an old friend, Alex. Came here two years ago from Yale, where she ran the Beinecke Rare Books Library,” he said. “She’s the deputy chief executive at our NYPL now-the number three job-and the first woman in that position.”
“That’s impressive.”
There was a quiet elegance about Jill Gibson. She was probably in her mid-fifties, with frosted hair and an easy smile.
“I want you to describe what happened last night,” Battaglia said, planting the unlit cigar in his mouth. “It’s okay, Alex. I’ve already told Jill the little I know.”
The DA had caught my momentary hesitation. It was unlike him to debrief me about a pending case in the presence of an outsider. It was clear that Jill Gibson had his confidence and might even be the person who alerted him to the situation earlier in the week about Tina Barr.
I described the events from the time Mercer, Mike, and I had arrived uptown to wait for Barr to get home. Battaglia double-tasked, making notes in the margin of a wiretap application that one of my colleagues from the Frauds Bureau had submitted for his signature. He didn’t look up until I mentioned Minerva Hunt’s name.
Then he asked Jill, “Do you know Minerva?”
“No, I don’t. I’ve seen her around from time to time, but we’ve never been introduced.”
“She’s not involved with the library?”
“Not in any major way. Her father’s still on the board, and she’s called in occasionally on matters that concern him. He was chair at one time, as you probably know. Jasper Hunt the Third. A hugely powerful force there for quite a while, in the 1980s and ’90s. And Tally, her brother, is also on the board. From what I understand, Minerva has other interests.”
The super rich have plenty of avenues for charitable giving, whether for causes about which they are passionate or for structuring the tax benefits of their estates. Art, ancient or avant-garde; dance, classical or modern; museums, paintings or extinct animals, cultures or ethnic heritage; and poverty, local or global, are among the competing enterprises that attract major donors.
“I think she’s disease,” Battaglia said, pointing at the coffeepot. “Used to be ballet, but I’m pretty sure Minerva Hunt is running the capital campaign for one of the hospitals.”
Naming opportunities at medical centers for pavilions and wings and research facilities were fast becoming ways for baby boomers to insure a jump to the head of the line when a family member needed a heart transplant or an experimental drug for an aggressive illness.
“Ms. Hunt told me her father was very ill,” I said. “Do you know what’s wrong?”
“He’s a recluse,” Gibson said. “Old and frail. That’s what I’ve been told.”
“I haven’t seen Jasper Hunt out and about for the better part of two years now,” Battaglia said, putting down the sheaf of papers. “Go back to the murder scene. Tell me exactly what went on. How did Minerva react when she arrived?”
I took Battaglia through the details of the entire evening, including the way Karla Vastasi and Minerva Hunt were dressed. I described the conversation at the squad with Mike and Mercer as I got up to pour coffee for the three of us.
There was only one thing I left out of the conversation. I didn’t mention the Bay Psalm Book. I didn’t know Jill Gibson or the reason the district attorney trusted her enough to include her in this meeting. The little jeweled
