FORTY-TWO
“Are you okay, Ms. Cooper?” one of the detectives asked me as we got back into the squad car for the trip downtown to my office. “You look shaky.”
“I’m okay,” I said, settling into the rear seat and looking over my shoulder to see if Palmer and Breed were coming out the same door of the hotel. “I’m hoping Mr. Palmer was more rattled than I am, or I wasn’t all that effective.”
“Ready to go?” he asked, pulling away from the curb before I could answer.
“Sure. But let’s make a quick stop on the way.”
“Commissioner Scully said we’re to return you to One Hogan.”
“I’ll call and clear it with him, but let’s stop at the DNA lab. I want to leave a piece of evidence there.”
I didn’t have to dial Scully. My phone rang before I could get it out of my pocket.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
“He denied everything—not that I expected him to roll over,” I said. “He’ll probably pony up with a lawyer this weekend, and then we’ll have a real dogfight.”
“The tech guys will take the wire off you and make us each a copy,” Scully said. “I’ll let you know what I think.”
“I’ve asked the detectives to make a stop at the Forensic Biology lab on our way back,” I said, referring to the state-of-the-art center for DNA analysis—a branch of the ME’s office—on East Twenty-Sixth Street.
“That piece of rag?” the commissioner asked. “That handkerchief is useless.”
“I just want to run in there, in case Zach has his body man or anyone else following me, to call my bluff.”
“In and out,” Scully said. “No nonsense.”
I held my tongue. “Of course not.”
We pulled up in front of the building and I sprinted out of the car, showed my ID, and went to the sixth floor to my friend Noelle, one of the top forensic biologists in the country.
Noelle’s desk was surrounded by staffers looking for answers from her.
I held up my hand and waved. “Got five minutes for me?”
She laughed. “Take a number, will you?”
“Happy to wait my turn.”
Noelle stepped away from her desk and walked to the window with me. “What have you got? Something that has to go to the front of the line, I’m sure.”
“Consistency is a great thing,” I said, smiling at her and letting her peek inside the manila envelope. “So this handkerchief is more than ten years old, and its owner has carried it around for most of that time, just in her pocket as a memento. Would you expect to find anything of value on it?”
“Yes,” Noelle said. “A great many contaminants.”
“But you’d test it for me, wouldn’t you?” I asked.
“A handkerchief. Hmmmm. Looking for what substance?”
“This faint stain next to the embroidery might be human blood.”
“No guarantees, but I can have this worked up.”
I didn’t want to suggest to Noelle that it might be a mixed sample. She was the pro, and submitting it without prejudice was the better way to go.
“For Monday?” I asked. I wanted to know if there was any chance of the stain providing evidence against Zach.
“I’ll call you a week from today,” Noelle said, walking back to her desk with the manila folder. “Fill out the paperwork.”
“C’mon, pal. Rush it for me.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll see what I can do. No promises.”
“I’ll buy dinner,” I said. “Anywhere you’d like. Just aim for something earlier than next Friday.”
I scribbled out the necessary information on the forms and went back downstairs to the car.
The detective got on the FDR Drive and I was back at my desk at three thirty.
The tech guys came down and removed the wire, promising to make copies immediately.
My first call was to Mike, telling him what had gone on with Zach, and arranging to meet him later.
I reached Mercer, who was still at the hospital, hanging out with Lucy.
“She was going a little stir-crazy, and as a matter of fact, so was I,” he said. “The nurses found me a lab coat big enough to cover me, and they gave Lucy a baseball cap. I covered her with a blanket and stuck her in a wheelchair, and we spent part of the day exploring the Rock U campus. Incognito, I think.”
“You’ll have to show me around.”
“It’s a fascinating place,” Mercer said. “A whole bunch of new buildings to mix with the original ones. I’d say there are more geniuses per square foot in these five city blocks than anywhere in the world.”
“That was kind of my father’s point, too.”
“We had lunch in the faculty dining room, no questions asked.”
“Great. I’m glad you got her out,” I said. “I’m going to spend the night again. Mike will keep me company. We should be able to get there by seven.”
“I’m fine with that.”
“Cops and agents still on the corridor?” I asked.
“Yes. Francie’s body is still in the room—being guarded by cops and feds,” Mercer said. “Scully hasn’t let anyone in on his plan, but he must be cooking one up.”
“Damn. I was just talking to him,” I said. “I could have asked. Why do you say that?”
“In case you haven’t heard,” Mercer said, “the docs apparently took tissue from the embryo a few days ago, not knowing how long Francie would make it on life support.”
“Francie’s fetus?” I said, clutching my hand to my chest.
“Yes.”
“So they’ve probably done the DNA,” I said, my heart beating a little faster. “They’ll be able to tell who the father is.”
“When they have someone to compare the profile to,” Mercer said. “Actually, I’m told Scully invited Quint Akers in to be tested.”
“That’s insane,” I said. “Francie and Quint were never an item.”
“The commissioner wants Quint to be the guinea pig, since he was her boss. To open the doors to other guys she worked with to be tested.”
“He has no business making Francie’s private life a hotbed of rumors at Legal Aid,” I said. “I’ll call him right back and tell him his methodology sucks.”
“No, you won’t,” Mercer said, his biting tone coming right through my iPhone. “I have this story line deep-throated from Vickee. You have no business knowing any of it, so just forget about it.”
“For Vickee’s sake,” I said, “I’ll do my best.”
“Why, you have a better idea?” Mercer asked.
“Every now and then I do,” I said. “If it were my plan, I’d ignore the idea of an office romance with Quint. I’d dive right into the belly of the beast.”
FORTY-THREE
I sat down on a bench in the rear row of the courtroom and waited for Helen Wyler to finish the questioning of her witness. It had only been a few days since I’d been summoned up to her trial to help her navigate the issue of discovery material that she’d neglected to turn over to the defense.
Bud Corliss spotted me the moment I entered. He sat up straight and glared at me for three or four minutes.
“Nothing further, Your Honor,” Helen said.
“Ten-minute break,” the judge said, stepping off the bench and motioning to me. “Come on into my robing room, Ms. Cooper.”
I walked down the center aisle, stopping to assure Helen—and defense counsel—that my appearance had nothing to do with her case. One of the court officers ushered me in through the well of the courtroom and out the door behind the clerk.
“You got a problem with me, Alexandra?” he asked, lighting a cigar and puffing on it, with his head out of the window of the small room. “Has my wife been to see you?”
“Not yet, she hasn’t,” I said. “I th
ought I’d check on how the trial was going.”
“You’re right about Wyler,” he said, not turning back to me. “Good lawyer. She’s got potential.”
“I’m also here because I think we have a friend in common,” I said. “A friend who isn’t doing very well.”
“Doing well” was a perverse euphemism for “dead,” but Bud Corliss wasn’t supposed to know about Francie Fain’s medical condition.
“We have a lot of friends in common.”
“I’m terribly concerned about Francie Fain,” I said. “I think you must be, too.”
Corliss brought his head back in through the window so quickly he almost cracked it against the frame. “What do you know about Francie?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “I can’t get any information, not even from the police commissioner. I was hoping you might know something.”
He crushed his lit cigar against the windowsill before looking up, then balanced the stub on the edge of his desk. It had been years since smoking was allowed in city buildings. That legislation had slowed the judge down a bit, but hadn’t stopped him.
“Who’s been talking to you?” Corliss asked.
“No one. Not now,” I said. “But Francie told me about coming to work with you as your law secretary, just Monday, my first day back.”
Corliss’s eyes narrowed as he looked at me. “You? She told you?”
I opened the Redweld folder. I had taken an eight-by-ten picture frame off my office wall. In the photograph, Francie and I were side by side, arms around each other’s shoulders, after last year’s softball game between Legal Aid and the DA’s office women.
I passed the frame to Corliss. “I guess she never mentioned that we were good friends.”
He held the picture with both hands, brushing off the dust front and back, then staring at it for thirty seconds.
“Francie’s a fine young woman,” Corliss said, handing it back to me. “I hope she accepts my offer.”
“I—uh—I just wanted you to see that we’re friends, which gave her good reason to confide in me—you know, about things.”
“Things? What do you mean, ‘about things’?” he bellowed. “What else beside the job offer was there?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all,” I said. “But if you ever want to talk about her—about Francie, I mean—you can always give me a call. Like you, I just want the best for her.”
“That’s why you came up here?” Corliss asked. “Take a hike, Alexandra. I’m trying to finish up for the week with all this testimony and get out of here.”
Bud Corliss didn’t wait for me. He stormed out of the robing room, across the short hallway, and back into the courtroom. I heard the heavy door slam shut behind him.
I used a tissue to pick up the cigar stub from Corliss’s desk. He was known to be cheap enough to put out the butts but leave what remained of them on desks or tables or the edges of bookshelves, to finish at a later time.
I dropped the half-smoked stogie into my Redweld and slipped out through the corridor that led to the elevator bank. I was back at my desk five minutes later.
Then I dialed Mike’s number.
“Whaddaya got?” he asked.
“Something that stays between you and me,” I said. “No Mercer, for the time being, or he’ll get Vickee busted.”
“Roger that.”
“I’ve used up all my favors at the DNA lab,” I said. “But I’ve got Bud Corliss’s DNA—saliva on his cigar butt and touch DNA on a glass picture frame. I’ll tell you where I’m going with it when I see you, but you have to get it to the lab for me as soon as humanly possible.”
“Oh yeah? In regard to what?” Mike asked.
“The possible paternity of Francie’s unborn child.”
“Jesus, Coop. I thought you just meant the judge was using his tried-and-true inappropriate language on Francie. I didn’t take it a step further than that.”
“I’m not trying to blindside you,” I said. “But I think I’m on solid ground.”
“Who’d you use to collect the evidence—the butt and the picture frame—and where are they now?”
“I’m just back from Corliss’s court part,” I said. “The items are right on my desk.”
“I’ll shoot down to you and pick them up myself,” Mike said. “But what are you going to do about proving the cigar came from the judge, and that he touched the frame, too? Who was your undercover, kid?”
“I did it myself, Mike. I am the chain of custody.”
FORTY-FOUR
Mike left my office at five to voucher the two items and deliver them to the DNA lab. I closed up my office shortly after—taking as many of the Zach Palmer files as I could carry with me—brushing off offers from friends to go to Trial Bureau 50’s TGIF weekly keg party and the wine tasting in the Child Abuse Unit.
I flagged down a yellow cab in front of the courthouse, putting my head back and closing my eyes for the slow ride uptown. The driver was fighting rush-hour traffic and the catnap was refreshing.
At my apartment, I dropped all my case folders on my desk, and went into the bathroom to take a steaming-hot shower. I was happy to be out of my work clothes, and dressed in a crisp white polo shirt and straight-leg jeans.
Then I packed a small sail bag with my cosmetics and clean underwear for the morning. By tomorrow, I expected the commissioner would work out an arrangement to move Francie’s body to the morgue, change the bodyguard assignment, and help me figure a secure place to keep Lucy Jenner.
“Need a taxi?” the doorman asked as I walked toward him.
“Thanks, Oscar, but I need fresh air,” I said. “I’ve been stuck indoors way too much all week, and I don’t have far to go.”
I was about ten steps away when I turned back. “When Mike Chapman comes by, would you tell him I’m stopping at PJ Bernstein Deli for sandwiches, and I’ll meet him at the hospital?”
“You got it, Ms. Cooper.”
The old-fashioned New York–style deli was between my Park Avenue apartment and York Avenue—the entrance to the hospital campus—on the corner of Third Avenue and Seventieth Street. I waited at the counter for the order of an assortment of ten thick sandwiches—enough for Mike, Mercer, Lucy, and me, as well as for Billy and others on the nursing staff.
It was a beautiful fall evening—mild and clear—and I knew there wouldn’t be many of them left before cold weather moved in.
I walked past the entrance to New York/Cornell Hospital—thinking of my vain effort to get to see Francie there a few nights earlier, and kept going the extra two blocks south to the Rockefeller gates.
My name was on the security guard’s list at the entrance booth. He checked my ID and watched me head up the short hill toward Founder’s Hall, then off to the right to the hospital.
In the lobby of the hospital, there were now two officers stationed next to the front door, one a uniformed cop and the other a fed. I said hello to them and kept on going. I wondered why they had been added to the security detail and figured that Mercer would know.
I took the elevator upstairs and got off on the third floor. The hallways were still and dimly lit. I only passed one physician and saw three nurses between the front door and the quiet corridor where I had seen Francie’s body this morning, in a small room, guarded by one federal agent and one cop.
Lucy’s door was ajar. I tapped on it and pushed in. She was sitting on her bed with a stack of magazines piled up next to her, flipping pages of one while Mercer watched the news on television.
“How’s everything?” I asked.
“Boring,” Lucy said. “Totally boring.”
“Glad to hear that,” I said, smiling at her. “Nothing could make me happier than you having a boring day.”
“Yeah, I was going to tell you that it’s silent as a grave around here,” Mercer said, “bu
t then . . . well, that’s exactly what it is.”
I nodded at him. “I hope you’re both starving,” I said, placing the plastic bag filled with PJ Bernstein goodies on the tray table beside Lucy’s bed.
“Where’s Mike?” Mercer asked.
“He should be here soon.”
“Do I have to wait for him to get here to eat?” Lucy asked.
“Of course not,” I said. “What would you like?”
“Did you bring a turkey sandwich?” she asked.
“Several,” I said, reaching into the bag and handing her the sandwich and chips, and a napkin.
“There’s a vending machine down the hall,” Mercer said. “I’ll get some sodas. Just step out with me a minute, Alex.”
Mercer took my elbow and guided me just outside the door. The two security officers looked up at us. Mercer turned his back to them and whispered to me.
“I’m not sure those two guys even know, but the docs removed Francie’s body from that room—downstairs and out to the morgue—not long after you left for work.”
“In a medical examiner’s van?” I asked, surprised that Scully would tip his hand when he seemed so adamant about having a plan that involved Francie.
“Get real, Alex. How long could they keep a body here? She’d be decomposing and—”
“I get it. No more details needed.”
“Scully used a hearse from a funeral home in Brooklyn,” Mercer said. “Just made it look like a routine DOA going on her way.”
“Yeah, but nothing about Rock Hospital is routine,” I said. “And why is there still a cop and a Feebie outside that room if Francie’s body is gone?”
“Because there’s another body in there.”
“What?”
“Keep your voice down,” Mercer said. “About twenty minutes after you left, one of the docs and two orderlies came to the room with a gurney. They were all dressed in Hazmat outfits.”
“Nerve agent gear, I guess?”
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