Blood Oath

by Linda Fairstein

  I was being polite now, more for Helen Wyler’s sake—and the salvation of her case—than my own.

  “You ready for the grind?”

  “You know I love it. My friends and family have been great, and my shrink is amazingly solid. Nobody seemed to like me when I was whining and needy, so I might as well do the one thing I know how to do.”

  Bud Corliss turned around to face me, half sitting on the radiator cover below the windowsill. “You think they got the right guys? I mean, Battaglia’s killers?”

  “I do.” I had been involved in that investigation up to my eyeballs.

  “There were so many rumors floating around,” Corliss said.

  “Most of them were groundless and stupid, but you know how that goes,” I said. “Some of them even had me as a conspirator in his murder.”

  “Then there’s all the gossip about you running to take his place.”

  “That’s just what it is, Judge. Gossip,” I said, laughing with him. “You’ve known me a long time. Do you think I have the temperament for politics?”

  “You’d be easier on the eyes than that mean old bastard you worked for,” Corliss said, tiptoeing toward the line that he had crossed so many times before, as he looked me up and down, from the ankles to the crown of my head. “And your perfume smells a lot better than his foul, cheap cigars.”

  I took a step toward the door. “I’ll miss the cigars, actually. That smell wafting my way always gave me ninety seconds’ warning that Battaglia was coming to my office to needle me about something.”

  “There was also talk about you and that detective—Mike Chapman—eloping to the Vineyard together.”

  “Eloping?” I said, reaching for the door handle. “That’s one I hadn’t heard. Way too many rumors for me in one day. Be good to Helen Wyler, Judge. She’s well on her way to becoming an outstanding trial lawyer.”

  “About rumors, Alex,” Corliss said, walking toward me and pressing his hand against the door to keep it closed, “you’re going to hear something about Janet and me, and I’d just like to be sure you’re in my corner.”

  I didn’t know what he was talking about, and my expression gave that away.

  “So word hasn’t reached you yet?” he asked.

  Bud Corliss was better known for his infidelities than for the legal reasoning in his opinions. His wife, Janet, had inherited a substantial sum of money from her father and added to it with a successful career as an interior designer sought after by Manhattan socialites and bicoastal movie stars.

  “Which word would that be?”

  Corliss had carried on a two-year affair with one of the women in my office that had prompted Battaglia to move her to the Appeals Division, to avoid the conflict of trying cases in front of her lover. The DA had used just about every favor owed to him to keep the entanglement off Page Six of the New York Post.

  “Janet’s unstable. I’ve tried to get help—”

  “Look, Judge,” I said, “this conversation is making me terrifically uncomfortable. I’d like you to take your hand off the door so I can quietly go on my way.”

  “A drink, then? One night this week?”

  “That’s not in the cards,” I said, shaking my head. “Not happening. I don’t know Janet well, but I’m not stepping in the middle of whatever you’ve got going on.”

  Bud Corliss removed his hand from the door. “This stays between us, Alex, because I might need your help, your advice.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Janet told her best friend something,” Corliss said. “She was desperate, I guess, and you know what these times are like.”

  “Her best friend writes speeches for the senator, doesn’t she?” I asked.

  “Yes, and that’s the friend who’s encouraging her to go public.”

  “What—with the fact that you’ve been unfaithful again?” I said. “I’d hardly call it breaking news.”

  Bud Corliss had both hands on his hips. I could see the gold cuff links and Patek Philippe watch that Janet had given to him, catching the sunlight that beamed through the dirty window of the robing room.

  “That’s all in her imagination, Alex,” he said. “Janet has cried ‘wolf’ so many times that even her friends don’t believe her.”

  I turned the knob and tugged on the heavy oak door. “When you’re ready for my help—and to tell me the truth—give me a call.”

  “I’ll make it quick, then,” Corliss said, his jaw tightening as he spoke the words. “Janet’s claiming I hit her.”

  I spun around to face him, with barely a foot separating us.

  “You hit your wife, Judge? And you’re coming to me for help?”

  “You know the reasons women claim this kind of thing,” he said. “You know how people exaggerate when a marriage seems headed for the rocks.”

  “Did you hit her?” I asked, pushing against the door with my shoulder and backing into the dark, narrow hallway that led to the public corridor. “Because that’s really all I need to know. And if the answer is yes, Bud, then you’d better get yourself a lawyer and not a prosecutorial stooge to try to hide behind.”

  “You’re talking to me like I’m a common criminal, Alex,” the judge said, holding his arms out to his sides in apparent disbelief. “Harvard College, graduate degree from Oxford, Columbia Law School—law review, in fact. I left a partnership at Dewey to come on the bench. I’m not some street thug you can threaten with a prosecution.”

  “Wife beaters come in every shape and size, Judge,” I said. “Too bad you live in Bronx County, because it’s out of my jurisdiction. Is that where you threw the punch?”

  “I didn’t punch—”

  But I wasn’t in the mood for mealymouthed excuses, so I cut off Corliss at his first hint of a denial. “After three months away, there’d be nothing like a domestic violence case to whet my appetite for a guilty verdict.”

  TWO

  I opened the door to my office and smiled at the unexpected sight of Mike Chapman sitting in my chair with his feet propped up on my desk.

  “What a nice surprise,” I said. “If you’re here to check on me, Detective, you might be pleased to know that I’m back in the saddle again and loaded for bear. Felony bear.”

  I started toward the desk to circle round and plant a kiss on top of Mike’s head of long, dark hair, but he put up his hand to stop me. There was a time when we had to keep our personal relationship under wraps in order to continue working cases together, but since my kidnapping earlier in the year, there were no more secrets from any of our colleagues.

  “You’ve got a visitor, Coop,” Mike said. “Save the Romeo-Juliet bit for after hours.”

  I turned my head and saw a young woman sitting on the corner of the couch closest to the office door. Her face was expressionless, without the trace of a smile nor the tears or tension of distress.

  “Hello,” I said. “I’m Alexandra Cooper.”

  She nodded her head, avoiding eye contact with me. She probably knew, from Mike, who I was.

  “This is Lucy Jenner, Coop.”

  Mike was staring at her, as though waiting for her to react to something.

  “Hi, Lucy,” I said. “Good to meet you.”

  It was never good for anyone to meet me in my professional capacity as a Special Victims prosecutor. Something bad had happened to put each visitor within my orbit.

  Lucy was silent.

  “Maybe we ought to make Lucy comfortable in the waiting area,” I said to Mike. “My paralegal can get her a soda and something to eat while you fill me in.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend that,” Mike said. “My peeps tell me Lucy makes Usain Bolt look like he’s dragging his feet on the way to the finish line. She’s lightning fast.”

  “I’ve got nowhere to hide any longer,” Lucy said. “I’ve stopped running.”

/>   There was no point in my pushing buttons yet.

  “You two are way out ahead of me on this,” I said. “Want to let me know why you’re here?”

  I had run the Special Victims Bureau for more than a decade, handling and overseeing sexual assault cases, domestic violence matters, child abuse, and murders related to those crimes. Mike Chapman was a first grade detective assigned to Manhattan North’s elite Homicide Squad. Sometimes our work overlapped, but this meeting was completely unanticipated.

  “I told you about Ms. Cooper,” Mike said to Lucy, removing his feet from my blotter and offering me my chair.

  I shook my head. If I sat on this side of my desk, I’d be closer to my visitor—with no official-looking piece of government furniture to separate us.

  Lucy Jenner tried to size me up by staring at me, as if that would give her an indication of whether what Mike had told her fit with my physical appearance, for whatever that was worth.

  I turned the wooden chair that normally faced my desk in Lucy’s direction and sat down on it. “I guess whatever Detective Chapman said to you about me or my job didn’t put you at ease coming here. Maybe I can help with that.”

  “Whatever.”

  “I’m a prosecutor, Lucy. I handle cases that are—”

  “I know what you do.”

  “Then would you mind if I ask you some questions?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Everybody else does. Go ahead. Maybe I’ll answer yours.”

  Not even a full day after returning to work and already my professional life was settling back into a familiar rhythm.

  I turned to Mike. “What’s the endgame here?”

  People didn’t go to their doctors, leave out the most important symptoms, and see whether the guy was smart enough to guess the illness just by having the patient in the room. Why did so many witnesses come into my office and refuse to open up to me, expecting me to play “What’s the Crime?” with them?

  “You’re going to tell us,” Mike said. “That’s why we’re here.”

  “Have you two been working on something together?” I asked.

  “For about two hours,” Mike said. “Brooklyn South Homicide called me this morning. The lieutenant asked me to go over there to meet Lucy. Bring her to you. Let you figure out what to do.”

  I turned to square off with Lucy. “That’s a start.”

  “He said he’d call and bring you up to speed,” Mike said. “I’m just doing the delivery.”

  “Laura wasn’t at her desk when I came down from court,” I said, referring to my secretary. “I have no idea if there are messages.”

  “And the Brooklyn squad was in a frenzy about a headless body of a runner found in Prospect Park, so maybe the Loo just got hung up.”

  “Good excuse,” I said. “I assume you have some role in a murder investigation, Lucy, if that’s what took you to the Brooklyn South Homicide Squad. Why don’t we start by talking about that?”

  “Yes, I was a witness,” she said. “That was ten years ago, when I was fourteen.”

  Lucy Jenner. Twenty-four years old. I was actually getting facts to work with.

  “But the killer was only caught recently? I mean, just now?”

  “No, ma’am. He was arrested back then.”

  I looked around at Mike. “Did you ever consider fast-forwarding so I have some idea of what I’m dealing with?”

  “Lucy wouldn’t say anything at all to the detectives in Brooklyn,” he said. “And I hit a brick wall, too, trying to get started for you. She insisted on talking to a woman.”

  “I can honor that request,” I said. “But when you walked into the police station this morning, you wouldn’t even tell anyone why you were there?”

  “That’s not true,” Lucy said. “That’s not what happened. I got arrested last night. That’s how come I wound up with the cops. I didn’t walk into the station. I didn’t want anything to do with the police.”

  I softened my tone. “Why were you arrested?”

  Lucy didn’t answer.

  “Would you rather speak to me without Detective Chapman in the room?”

  “He’s been nice to me so far,” she said. “He can stay.”

  “He’s been nice to me, too,” I said, smiling at her. “For a very long time.”

  Lucy’s expression didn’t change.

  So I asked again. “Why did the police arrest you?”

  “Because I stole things. Clean clothes to wear and food and stuff.”

  “Yesterday? You were caught stealing things yesterday?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Five years ago. Last time I was in New York.”

  “When you were eighteen?” I said sympathetically, thinking how sad it was that she had to steal just to get basic necessities, especially at such a young age. “That’s crazy.”

  She looked up at me and cocked her head, as though she was trying to tell if I meant what I had said, or if I was going to inflict more damage on her.

  “Lucy was driving her father’s car last night,” Mike said. “Taillight was busted, so uniformed pulled her over. They did a name check and the old warrant—a Manhattan warrant—dropped from five years back.”

  “And they brought her in instead of giving her an appearance ticket?” I asked.

  “Cuffs, fingerprints, mug shot—the whole nine yards. The original charge was a felony.”

  “Grand larceny,” I said, smiling at her. “So you stole a lot of clothes and a good bit of food.”

  “I didn’t know a soul in the city, ma’am. Except the man—the man who hurt me—and he wouldn’t give me anything.”

  “Do you mind if I go back and write down some information about you?” I asked. “Get some details to put this all in perspective?”

  I wanted to get to the part about the man who hurt her.

  “Are you keeping me locked up?” Lucy said.

  “I think the detectives suggested you come to my office so I could get the Manhattan arrest warrant cleared, then get you out and on your way. They had no jurisdiction to do that in Brooklyn.”

  “Then ask me what you want.”

  I went to my desk and got a clean notepad from the top of the pile. Mike handed me a pen.

  “Lucy Jenner,” I said, sitting down again. “Twenty-four years old. What’s your address in Brooklyn?”

  “I don’t have an address.”

  “Well, then. Your father’s home.”

  “He’s dead,” she said, looking down at a spot on the floor. “My father died last spring.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “You couldn’t know unless I told you,” she said. “I hardly knew him. I only came back a few days ago, when my half brother told me I could have the car and some money he left me.”

  “Were you raised by your mother?”

  “When she was alive,” Lucy said. “Till before the murder case, when she got real sick. Before the murders happened and before the trial. Then I went off to live with her sister.”

  “Where? Where were you born?”

  “Chicago.”

  “Would you tell us something about your family?”

  She leaned her head back on the couch. “Like what?”

  I needed to connect the young woman sitting in front of me—eyewitness to murders, teenage thief, and now orphaned adult who seemed rootless and ill at ease—to a background that would give context to what brought her into my office.

  “A bit about your parents—who they were and what they did—and who you can be with now.”

  “Be with?”

  “I want the judge to dismiss this warrant from six years ago, okay? I want to do that as soon as possible, and in order for that to happen, I have to be able to answer questions the judge will have, so he knows that your life has changed from that ti
me.”

  “It’s changed all right,” Lucy said. “And it’ll get worse before it ever gets better.”

  “Mike and I can try to fix that,” I said. “Can you tell me about your mother?”

  I was hoping some memory would emerge to bring a smile to her face.

  “She was a teacher,” Lucy said. “She taught math in an elementary school in our neighborhood. But she was sick for as long as I can remember. So sick that she had to quit working by the time I was eight or nine.”

  “That’s hard.”

  “She was white. I know you didn’t ask me that, but people say I look a lot like my mother, except for being just a little bit darker.”

  Lucy’s skin was a very pale shade of brown—tawny and warm. She had a beautiful face—almost heart-shaped—with fine bones, framed by jet-black hair that hung to her shoulders.

  “Did your father live with you?”

  She sat up straighter now. “He never married my mother, and he left by the time I was three years old. He moved home to Brooklyn, and back in with the wife he’d been separated from when he started dating my mother.”

  I let her keep talking.

  “My half brother is four years older than I am. Our dad and his mother were from Barbados.”

  I was hoping that Lucy could give the judge her brother’s name as next of kin. That would add an element of stability to my application to dismiss the warrant. “Are you staying with your brother while you’re here? Is that an address we can use?”

  “Not advisable, Ms. Cooper,” Mike said. “Rodney Jenner lives in a real flophouse, according to the cops who brought Lucy in.”

  “My brother doesn’t want me there anyway,” she said. “Not with his girlfriend and his two babies.”

  “Where, then? Where have you been living?”

  She squinted, like she was trying to think of an answer.

  “Try the back seat of a twelve-year-old Toyota with a burnt-out taillight,” Mike said. “Casa Toyota. Short on closet space, but then so are most apartments in this city.”

  Lucy didn’t seem the least bit upset by that description.

  “That won’t work,” I said. “We can do better for you, I’m sure. Do you plan to go back to Chicago soon?”