Blood Oath

by Linda Fairstein

  “What—?” I started to ask.

  “Hold your horses, blondie. Mercer tells me that Ms. Lucy’s aunt claims that she has loose fingers and lying eyes. But first, I just want you to know that the NYPD has done its job again.”

  “Which job?” I asked.

  “The slightly distressed bowling bag found beneath the seat of an empty Q train on Ninety-Sixth Street an hour ago—proving the validity of the motto ‘See something, say something’—contains the very severed head of the Brooklyn jogger who ran his last mile this morning in Prospect Park.”

  “Have they got a name?” Mercer asked.

  “They do now. Seems to be payback for a shoot-out in a social club last weekend,” Mike said. “They should be able to put their hands on the killer pretty quick.”

  “That’ll lighten Lieutenant Creavey’s spirits,” Mercer said. “Identify the dead man and know who the killer is in the space of the same day.”

  “Now all Creavey has to make him miserable,” I said, “is me.”

  SEVEN

  “You’re telling me that Lucy’s aunt won’t take her in?” Mike said.

  It was six o’clock. Mike, Mercer, and I were leaving the building, turning off Hogan Place onto Baxter Street. Forlini’s was a short walk away, behind the courthouse and across the street.

  “Not yet. I’ll keep trying. She has a few conditions and I’m figuring that if Lucy is willing to work with me, we can meet them.”

  “I thought for sure she’d end up in the Gray Bar Hotel for a few nights,” Mike said, tossing his thumb in the direction of the city prison building—the Tombs—which was attached to the courthouse.

  “No, we’ve got no hold on her. So I’ll send her to Streetwork and hope she engages long enough for them to try to hook her up with benefits and figure out where she wants to settle for the next while.”

  “Didn’t your shrink tell you to start back up slowly when you returned to the office?” Mike asked.

  “Can’t go any slower than a case that’s ten years old,” I said. “Maybe I jumped the gun this afternoon, but Lucy’s happier now that she’s getting freed, and I think we’ll do fine going forward.”

  Mercer pulled the handle on the heavy red door at the entrance to Forlini’s. I walked in and turned right to go into the bar.

  The minute I entered the room, the crowd of fifty or sixty of my friends who’d been waiting for my arrival burst into shouts and whistles, a few Bronx cheers, and the occasional “Surprise!” My hand flew over my mouth—I had no clue this was coming—as I looked from face to face at the prosecutors, detectives, defense attorneys, and staffers who had packed into the long room to welcome me back.

  Max and Laura—both of whom had left unusually early—were laughing and waving at me, happy to have pulled off their surprise. I nodded and waved back.

  Just about every member of the Special Victims Bureau was in the bar—except for Kerry, who had accepted her mission to handle Lucy’s dismissal with a poker face and no complaints.

  Paper signs were taped to the walls above the narrow booths. KID COOP IS BACK, FRAGILE: HANDLE WITH CARE—written in red marker but with a big black X through the letters—and several others saying COOP FOR DA—DEWAR’S AGENT.

  Catherine pushed forward through the group to put her arms around me. “I know how you hate surprises, but we all wanted to do something for you.”

  “Well engineered, my friend,” I said. “How can I mind something as cheerful as this?”

  Kerry would text me when she was back in my office and I would swap my barstool for my desk chair.

  Mike was calling over my head to Dempsey, the longtime bartender, and ordering drinks for us, and for anyone who wasn’t already holding a glass. I was sidestepping my way through the rowdy group, greeting everyone I hadn’t seen on my first day back at work.

  Toasts were spontaneous and irreverent and totally in keeping with the black humor of the work we all did. The murder of the district attorney, Paul Battaglia, seemed like a distant memory—though I had been at his side when he was shot—and people were already joking about who would inherit the mantle of the big job.

  An hour into the festivities, Mike moved in behind my red leather stool. “You’d better eat something if you’re going to work on Lucy after this.”

  “One drink, Detective, and I’m nursing it.” I was also nibbling at some of the jumbo shrimp that was on a platter at the bar. “My shrink insists that I go back to being myself.”

  “Well, that would be a six-pack of that smooth amber liquid, wouldn’t it?”

  “I’m still on the job. I’m counting on you to keep the bar at my place open until I get home later.”

  “Hey, Demps,” Mike called out, “would you tune that TV volume up for me, for Jeopardy?”

  I looked at my watch and saw that it was getting close to eight P.M., and wondered how much longer Kerry would have to wait to be heard by the judge.

  “Listen up, everybody,” Mike shouted to the women and men who were still hanging around. “Mercer, Coop, and I have been betting on the Final Jeopardy! question for a dozen years. I gotta interrupt the festivities for a few minutes, and you’re welcome to watch. Winner takes all and the loser buys a round for everyone.”

  Our good friends had been through this routine with us. Mike didn’t need a clock to know when it was 7:55. He found the closest TV set at the morgue, in the public relations office at DANY, in our favorite restaurants, or stepping over the bodies of the deceased at crime scenes.

  Alex Trebek was about to do the reveal on the final category.

  Mercer had grown up with world maps all over his room because of his father’s job at Delta, so he was an expert in geography and all related subjects. Mike had studied military history at Fordham and knew more about wars, battles, generals, and the horses they rode in on—ancient and modern—than anyone I’d ever met. And I had majored in English literature at Wellesley before deciding to go to law school at the University of Virginia and devote my career to public service. Give me a Brontë sister character’s name or a quote from Anthony Trollope and I’d wipe the floor with General Custer’s spirited bay, Dandy.

  Trebek stepped to the side of the giant blue board, and the small group of hearty revelers still left at Forlini’s gathered in closer to us.

  “The final category tonight,” Trebek said, repeating the phrase twice, “is ‘Southern Discomfort.’”

  I turned to look at the friends behind me for moral support. Nobody could guess any better than I. It seemed likely to involve geography, which favored Mercer, unless it was a trick turn of phrase. I’d be fine if the reference was to writers like Harper Lee or Truman Capote or Flannery O’Connor, each of whom had elements of disquiet in their work.

  “I’ll go twenty,” I said.

  Mercer was quick to double my bet.

  “Feeling good about yourself, m’man?” Mike said to him, slapping his back. “I’m in for that, too. In fact, I’ll double down on your number.”

  Some of the guys were clapping for Mike, admiring his bravado.

  My iPhone buzzed and I pulled it out of my pocket. It was a text from Kerry. “All clear. Headed for your office.”

  “Let’s just get this done,” I said.

  “Don’t be a bad sport before the fact,” Mike said.

  “Tonight’s Final Jeopardy! answer is ‘Two Southern colonies loyal to England in Revolution.’”

  “Totally misleading title,” I said, scrawling an answer on my napkin in desperation.

  “Sucker,” Mike said to me as he and Mercer both wrote answers.

  “Kerry’s waiting for me,” I said, turning over my napkin, raising it over my head, and waving it around so the troops could see it. “What was Georgia and that other place?”

  “Dead wrong, Ms. Cooper,” Mike said, sweeping the money in front of me cl
oser to him. “The Battle of the Rice Boats in the Savannah Harbor—kind of like the Boston Tea Party—pulled those Georgians right into the cause.”

  “Take all I’ve got,” Mercer said, leaning in with a laugh. “I figured all those Georgia and Carolina convicts were loyal to the king because he promised they could sail home after they served their time over here.”

  “Penal transportation, Mr. Wallace. It suited the Brits just fine before the Revolution,” Mike said. “Actually, it was Maryland that received more felons than any other colony, and it would appear that very few of them ever returned to the Mother Soil.”

  Before Trebek announced the winner, Mike turned his back to the TV and told our pals the winning question, “What are East Florida and West Florida?”

  Trebek had just told the viewing audience that there were no winners this time, so Mike gloated even more obnoxiously.

  “Those were British colonies?” I asked. “Seriously?”

  “You bet, Coop. Founded in 1763,” Mike said. “So just leave your money where Dempsey can see it—’cause this round is on you—and get on with your work.”

  “You want me with you for this talk with Lucy?” Mercer asked.

  “If her mood has changed, she might let you sit in,” I said, picking up my bag and high-fiving Dempsey. “It’s worth a try, if you don’t mind.”

  All my colleagues knew that I had a rule that a victim was never interviewed without a witness to the statement in the room as an observer. There were so many nuances to these cases—cases that were eventually made in a courtroom by the detail extracted from memories—sometimes no matter how remote in time the occurrence of the crime. Every prosecutor had to deal with the survivor, when prepping for trial, who startled one of us with an “I never said that!” or “You must have written it down wrong.”

  Mercer and I said our good-nights—stopping to thank Catherine for putting the welcoming surprise together—as we wiggled our way out to the front door. Mike was at my heels.

  “You’ve got Mercer to do this, right?” he asked.

  “Yes. Stay and enjoy the rest of the evening.”

  Mike moved ahead of us and pushed open the door. “See you at home, blondie. Don’t use all your energy up on Lucy.”

  I stepped down and looked left, down Baxter Street, toward the back of the courthouse.

  There were three or four cars with flashing red lights and a commotion of some sort, right beside the entrance to the Tombs.

  “Stay put, kid,” Mike said as he and Mercer started to run toward the pack of people gathered around the vehicles. “Might be an escape.”

  I didn’t follow them but walked out into the middle of the street to see if I could get a sense of the problem. It was obvious why the traffic had been cut off because the first set of flashing lights was an ambulance, not a car.

  I broke into a trot. Whatever had happened must have occurred while we were in the bar, less than half a block from the Tombs.

  Mike was standing over the shoulder of an EMT who was giving CPR to a woman who was lying on her back on the ground. He was yelling at the ten or twelve rubberneckers to stand off and give her air.

  “What happened?” I asked Mercer, trying to get close enough to see.

  “Don’t know.”

  “Was she shot?” I asked. There were so many people with licensed guns who worked in and around the building—cops, prison guards, court officers, and then there were the perps, who carried them anyway—that shootings were more likely to happen on this street than any other.

  “Can’t tell.”

  Now the second EMT was working over the victim’s mouth and chest while the first one pulled a wheeled gurney closer. I could see the woman’s slender legs—bare feet, low-heeled shoes taken or kicked off to the side—but not her face.

  “Let’s move on this,” the first EMT said. “Let’s load her.”

  The second man sat back on his heels, ready to get up and lift her onto the gurney.

  That’s when the woman’s legs began jerking violently. They were out of sync with each other, flailing like a chicken whose head had been cut off. She was making guttural noises, as though unable to speak, and as the EMTs lifted her and raised up the gurney, I could see that she was foaming at the mouth.

  I was trembling at the sight of the woman, who appeared to be beyond medical help, before I was even aware that I was. I watched the foam on her lips and cheeks turn to liquid and run down the side of her face, then down her neck while she shook uncontrollably.

  One of the EMTs standing opposite me positioned the gurney closest to the doors of the ambulance, while the second guy and Mike got ready to hoist the rear end and push it inside.

  “I’m Homicide,” Mike said. “Let’s get her in and I’ll ride with you.”

  “Thanks,” the EMT said.

  I could finally see the woman’s face as the gurney was raised and loaded into the bus—police shorthand for ambulance.

  “My God,” I said to Mercer, grabbing his wrist and clinging to him. “It’s Francie Fain.”

  I reached for the open door and stepped toward it. I had known Francie—a talented former prosecutor who was a defense lawyer now—since I’d started in the DA’s office.

  Mercer grabbed me by both shoulders and held me in place while Mike vaulted himself up next to the gurney and reached for the door to shut it as the bus began to move, sirens blaring.

  “Don’t let her die, Mike. Please don’t let her die!”

  EIGHT

  I was leaning against the side of the enormous courthouse, beneath the shadows of the Bridge of Sighs.

  “Compose yourself, girl,” Mercer said. “What makes you think you can put out every fire, no matter what the cause?”

  “I’m counting on the medics to deal with that end of things,” I said. “I wanted to go with her, just to hold her hand. Give her some comfort.”

  I knew what it was like to be alone when the darkness of some unforeseen trauma envelops you.

  “I’ll bet you she was walking to Forlini’s, to my little party,” I said. “She probably just finished up in court and was on her way over.”

  “Those convulsions would have happened to her no matter where she was headed, don’t you think?” Mercer said, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to pass to me. “Has she been ill?”

  “No. Nothing wrong with Francie. She ran a 5K race in Central Park last week,” I said, “and before that she flew overseas to go to that conference at Oxford on gun violence. I was supposed to debate her there. She said the best thing about my—my, uh, situation—was that I couldn’t show up and butt heads with her.”

  I blew my nose into Mercer’s handkerchief and wiped my eyes.

  “Text Mike, please, to keep in touch with you while I’m interviewing Lucy,” I said.

  “That’s one thing he doesn’t need to be told.”

  I looked overhead at what was known as the Bridge of Sighs, the covered walkway with iron bars on its small windows that connected the criminal courthouse to the Tombs. Those criminals not set free—as Lucy Jenner had been—were condemned to cross that bridge to be taken to their cells in the city prison.

  “What if it’s a head injury?” I said, still staring up at the old structure, built nearly a century ago and named for its counterpart, the Venetian Bridge of Sighs, which was built in 1600. “What if Francie was mugged or assaulted here? Every kind of scumbag hangs around the courthouse after release, looking to score.”

  “Trust the docs on this one,” Mercer said, encouraging me to move along. “The EMTs weren’t looking for injury. They were just trying to stabilize her. Keep her airways open.”

  “But right here, at this spot,” I said. “Isn’t that ironic?”

  “How so?” Mercer said. He towered over me at six feet four inches, leaning his head back to see where my finger
was pointing.

  “Bridge of Sighs,” I said. “You know, Venice?”

  “Yeah. The limestone arch that crosses the Rio di Palazzo—”

  “Separating the convicts from the Doge’s Palace,” I said. “Condemned prisoners sighed as they took their last look at Venice through the stone grillwork of the bridge.”

  “And when this courthouse was built,” Mercer said, “the skybridge you’re looking at was named for its Venetian ancestor. Before the state began to use the electric chair, there was a gallows right here at the Tombs. This really was the last bit of earth the condemned men saw.”

  I squinted at him. “C’mon. A gallows, in nineteenth-century Manhattan?”

  “At least fifty prisoners were hung right here where we’re standing. Executed beneath the Bridge of Sighs. Maybe that’ll get you moving along on your way.”

  I started to walk toward Hogan Place, the entrance to the DA’s office, following a step or two behind Mercer.

  “You should have a team from Major Case check on who Francie’s clients were, especially today and tonight,” I said. “Maybe someone she represented didn’t expect to do the bridge walk, didn’t expect to be kept in the slammer. Could be an unhappy thug or cohort who followed Francie out of the courthouse as payback.”

  “Did that shrink put you on psychotropic meds?” Mercer asked, cocking his head to look at me. “Your imagination is more vivid than ever.”

  “No drugs,” I said, laughing at him. “I told her the only thing that brought on panic attacks anymore was the thought of no Dewar’s at the end of my workday. And that soothing drink is contraindicated for drugs.”

  “Let’s wait and get ourselves a diagnosis on Francie, and that will tell us whether it’s a police matter or not.”

  Mercer put his gun on the table next to the metal detector, and the security guard waved us both through.

  The building was usually still after eight o’clock. Lawyers hunched over their desks planning the next day’s cross-examination, detectives being prepped for testifying at hearings or trials, paralegals helping with research on issues that had arisen during the day. The hallways were long, dark, and airless. The late-night work was often intense, and the quiet hung heavily throughout the corridors.