“I’m Mercer Wallace,” Mercer said, reaching out his hand.
“I figured that,” she said, smiling at him before looking down at me. “How are you feeling, Ms. Cooper? Ready to get this done?”
I was in no mood to be played against the good cop/bad cop bullshit setup. I had a very short story to tell and I was anxious to put it in their hands.
“Sure.”
“Are you and Mike going to wait for us to finish with Ms. Cooper?” Tinsley asked Mercer. Mike was already out of sight.
“Yes. We’ll be down the hall,” Mercer said.
“I’ve got separate rooms set up for you, Detective,” Stern said. “We’d appreciate it if you each keep to yourself.”
“Understood.”
“And best to stay off the phone with your wife,” Stern said to Mercer, “if you don’t mind.”
“Actually, that’s one thing I do mind,” Mercer said. “I owe her a call, Stern. My kid has a fever and I’m checking in regularly. I won’t dish about your case.”
Mercer’s wife, Vickee Eaton, was also a first-grade detective, with a senior post reporting to the Deputy Commissioner of Public Information. She virtually ran the department’s press office. Their four-year old son, Logan, had spiked a fever a few hours ago, and Vickee had raced home from headquarters to take charge from the babysitter while the three of us were still unraveling facts on the fashion runway at Dendur.
“You waiting for the feds?” Mercer asked, on his way out the door.
“Not for this,” Stern said. “Cooper and you guys are our piece of the case. They’ve got Battaglia’s other jurisdictional assets.”
“Stay chill, Alex. They’re just doing what you do every day.” Mercer pressed two fingers to his lips, then held them up and closed the door behind him.
I wriggled in my chair opposite Detective Stern as he opened his memo pad and got ready to write. I couldn’t settle into a comfortable position, so I kept shifting my weight from side to side.
Kate Tinsley positioned her chair at an angle, next to mine, so that she could see both of our faces.
Jaxon Stern looked me directly in the eye and began to speak to me, slowly and purposefully. “First, Ms. Cooper, I need to tell you that you have the right to remain silent.”
THREE
“I have what?” I yelled back at him, grasping the arms of the old wooden chair.
Stern rested both arms on the desk in front of him. “The commissioner thinks it best to proceed with every caution in this case, treat you like any other ordinary witness who had a very conflicted relationship with the deceased—till we know where we’re going, that is.”
I was on my feet. There was nothing that would wake the dead in this place, but I was pretty sure my voice could shatter glass.
“I didn’t shoot Paul Battaglia, Detective. For all you know, the killer could have been taking aim at me when he nailed the district attorney.”
Kate Tinsley was leaning forward, trying to calm me down, urging me to sit and to lower my voice.
“You got a bad temper, Ms. Cooper?” Stern asked. “See, that’s part of what makes this investigation so complicated. I come into this without a clue whose side you’re on.”
“Let me talk to Mike Chapman,” I said, feeling like a caged animal, pressed against the wall of Palmer’s office.
“Not an option, Ms. Cooper,” Stern said, standing up, his hands on his hips. “Are you telling me you want to stop and bring in a lawyer, just because I give you the courtesy of informing you of your rights?”
“Of course I don’t want a lawyer,” I said, just like every other arrogant witness who should have seized the opportunity as soon as the moment presented itself. “I’m not in custody, am I?”
“No,” Stern said. “I’m just reading your rights as a precaution. It’s not just what the commissioner asked for. I do it every time I question—”
“I want Chapman and Wallace in here. I want to see Commissioner Scully. What you do ‘every time,’ Detective Stern,” I said, making exaggerated air quotes around his words, “is of no more interest to me—no more an indication of your professional bona fides—than watching Charlie Chan solve murder cases.”
He smirked and tried to interrupt me.
“You’re just an amateur dick out of a cheap movie trying to play like the big boys,” I said to him. “Pretending you’re a grown-up who knows what he’s doing in a homicide case. And you, Detective Tinsley, must be trying to put on a good front and let this horse’s ass think he can bully me. You’re better than that, and I don’t believe for a minute that your cheesy smile is meant to disarm me.”
“Stop it,” she said to me.
“I’ve been bullied by real thugs, and you two don’t begin to scare me.”
“Sit down, why don’t you,” Tinsley said, “and let’s just get this over with.”
She had lost her smile in the process of walking me off my tantrum. I took my seat and threw back my head, staring at a chip in the paint on the ceiling to refocus myself.
“Give it your best shot, Detective Stern,” I said. “Skip the rights and move on.”
He played with his pen while he watched me blow off steam.
“Concentrate on the real victim here,” Stern said. “Paul Battaglia. Stop feeling so sorry for yourself. Word on the street suggests your head is so swollen, Ms. Cooper, that if you had indeed been the target of the shooter, you would have been hard to miss.”
“If there are as many words on the street as you seem to credit, you should have a short story under your belt by this hour,” I said. “You’d hardly need me.”
There was a sharp rap on the door before it opened. Mike stuck his head in and I covered my eyes with my hand so he couldn’t see how fired up I’d become.
“Here’s some caffeine,” he said to me, passing the soda can to Tinsley. “And some dinner.”
He threw me two packages of red licorice Twizzlers.
“So you all know, if you hear any wailing,” Mike said, “Battaglia’s wife just arrived. Dr. Palmer and some brass from headquarters are talking to her, before they bring her in to see the body.”
I looked across the desk at Jaxon Stern. “Would you mind if we take five minutes so I can speak with Mrs. Battaglia? I’d like to offer my condolences while I have the chance for a private moment with her.”
Mike Chapman spoke before Detective Stern could state his objection. “Keep on keeping on, you guys. You, Alexandra Cooper, are the last person in the world that Amy Battaglia wants to see right now.”
“Why me?” The entire scenario continued to spin out of control. Nothing I said or did seemed to be right.
“At the moment, Coop, Mrs. B is blaming you for the death of the district attorney.”
FOUR
“What did you see, exactly, when you stepped out of the museum and stood on the top of the steps?” Stern asked me.
Stern had raced through the events of the evening before, including the famed Costume Institute’s gala tribute to a designer named Wolf Savage. He had moved too quickly to get a thorough overview of the investigation into Wolf’s death that had had its finale on the runway. He was not as good a detail man as Sherman had pitched him to be.
“There wasn’t actually much to see at that hour of the night,” I said, rubbing my eyes with my thumb and forefinger, as though it would help me see that scene repeated more clearly. “Mike and I waited inside the lobby—in the Great Hall—so that I was out of sight of the reporters and photographers while the commissioner spoke to them from the front steps.”
“For how long did he talk?”
“Less than five minutes,” I said. “Maybe just three. Scully didn’t have a full picture of everything that had gone down. He just wanted to get the message out via the media that a big case had been solved, and one suspect was still on the loose.
”
“Then you walked outside?” Stern asked.
“I remember waiting until the camera crews had dismantled everything and packed up the gear in their vans. In fact, security was in and out of the door, letting us know the group was thinning and encouraging us to wait until people were gone.”
“And the commissioner? You got him in your pocket too, Ms. Cooper? Didn’t he get some face time with you?”
“I’ve known Keith Scully for a decade, Detective Stern. He’s in nobody’s pocket,” I said. “He left me in good hands at that point, with Mike and Mercer. He’s well aware of what I went through last month.”
“Yeah, that’s right. I almost forgot. You were a kidnapping vic,” Stern said, flipping back through his notes. “Big news at the time. Full-court press by the department. Want to tell us about that now?”
“Another time, if it’s a yes-or-no question.”
I knew exactly what his interviewing technique was. I’d used it often with skittish witnesses who might be on their way to a breaking point.
Stern had jumped off questioning me about the confrontation on the museum steps at the moment of maximum impact in order to rattle me, to bring up an event that was even more personal, more stressful to me than Battaglia’s death: my own abduction and days of captivity by depraved monsters.
He would count on unsettling me with flashbacks to my kidnapping, and then bounce over to the shooting again, hoping the cutaway would upset any narrative I’d put together in advance of his arrival.
“Stay on the kidnapping, Ms. Cooper,” Stern said, ignoring the plaintive look on Kate Tinsley’s face. “You didn’t know the men who abducted you? It had nothing to do with one of your old cases, am I right?”
“Nothing.”
“Something to do with Mike Chapman?” he asked.
“Indirectly.”
“But you were already lovers by then, weren’t you?”
I looked over at Kate Tinsley and threw up my hands. “You know, in my own job,” I said, “I could say ‘objection’ and we’d all just move on to something relevant.”
“Yeah, but I could say ‘overruled,” Stern said, “and put the ball right back in your court.”
“Yes, Mike and I were lovers—are lovers now. Asked and answered, Detective. Why don’t you take your next shot?”
“Paul Battaglia put you on leave after the kidnappers released you, right?” he said, more than a dozen questions later.
“My shrink recommended the leave of absence,” I said. “I was in no condition to work on cases when I was discharged from the hospital.”
Stern hadn’t known about the shrink. He gave himself away by raising his eyebrows when I made the remark, and stopping to scribble a note in his pad.
“How long have you been seeing a psychiatrist, Ms. Cooper?”
“Not quite as long as I’ve been sleeping with Mike Chapman,” I said. “And his repressed sexual drive isn’t what brought me to therapy, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Kate Tinsley bit her lip. Even Stern almost smiled.
“So, you’ve known Chapman since your first year in the DA’s office,” Stern said. “And you became intimate when?”
“Two months ago, Detective.”
“That could hold a record for foreplay, Ms. Cooper.”
“I’ll answer your questions, Stern, but filter out your nasty commentary,” I said.
“Why don’t you eat something, Ms. Cooper?” Kate said. “I can send out to the bodega on First for food that’s more nourishing than Twizzlers.”
“No, thank you,” I said.
“You must be starving,” she said, continuing to play good cop as the tension between Stern and me mounted.
“Not even hungry.” I was growing more and more nauseated on an empty stomach, but not hungry.
“So the museum security guards gave you the all clear, is that right?” Stern asked.
“They did.”
“That’s when you and Wallace and Chapman walked out the door?”
I had to think. “It was just Chapman and me,” I said. “I don’t remember seeing Wallace at that point.”
“What did you do before leaving the museum?”
“Do? I didn’t do anything,” I said. “Chapman took off his jacket and put it over my shoulders. I remember double-checking with him about whether anyone was outside.”
Jaxon Stern leaned in toward me. “What did he say to you?”
“‘New York at night,’” I said, smiling despite myself and quoting Mike. “‘Only pigeons and perps on the street.’”
“You think that line is funny, Ms. Cooper? Is that why you’re smiling?”
“At the time, I did, Detective. In hindsight, nothing’s the least bit humorous.”
“Why did you ask Chapman that question?” Stern said. “About whether anyone was waiting on the street.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t want to be sandbagged. I didn’t want to be photographed by some lone paparazzo, waiting for a gala guest who had lingered behind the others,” I said. “Maybe waiting for the suspect that Scully just announced had escaped from the museum, hoping to get the money shot.”
“You’ve been a poster girl for the tabloids before. Tell me the real reason for your concern.”
“That was my only reason, Detective.”
Jaxon Stern tapped the tip of his forefinger on the desktop. He did it four or five times, with force. A pause, and then four more again. It was annoying and disconcerting.
“You knew Paul Battaglia was on his way to talk to you,” Stern said, lifting his finger to point it at my face. “That’s why you had Chapman on the lookout, wasn’t it?”
I had walked right into that one. That thought had not occurred to me at all.
“That’s ridiculous, Detective,” I said, throwing back my head and exhaling to blow off steam. “I had no idea that Battaglia was on his way to the museum. I still have no idea what he was doing there.”
Kate Tinsley stood up and started to pace, walking behind me and facing Stern. His eyes shifted up and down in her direction. They were trying to box me in, thinking they had me on the ropes now that my concentration was slipping.
“Well, I sure don’t have any idea why the district attorney was making his way up those steps in such a hurry,” Stern said, “but I’m willing to bet my entire paycheck that you do.”
“That would be a losing proposition for you, Detective,” I said.
“When’s the last time you talked to Battaglia before you saw him coming at you?”
“I was on a leave of absence, or did you forget that?”
“Now, why would that stop him from talking to you, Ms. Cooper?”
Damn. There was Battaglia’s bodyguard, who would eventually let out that the DA had dropped by to see me earlier in the week.
“A few days ago is when I spoke with him,” I said. “Saw him, actually.”
“Saw him, did you?” Stern said, picking up his pen to make a note. “Tell us about that. Did you drop by the office?”
I shook my head in the negative. “Not the whole time I’ve been on leave,” I said. “He was in his car. He stopped me as I was walking down the street to my apartment.”
“House calls,” Stern said. “Who knew the DA made house calls? Was he worried about your health, Ms. Cooper? Your mental health, that is?”
“He’d heard I was being drawn into a murder investigation,” I said, admitting the fact because it would be readily available to Stern and Tinsley. “And he wanted to remind me to keep my nose out of it.”
“We’ll come back to that, Ms. Cooper,” Stern said.
I had no doubt he would.
“Did you speak with him after that day?”
“No,” I snapped.
“You can take your time, Ms. Cooper,” Stern
said. “Think before you blurt out a reply.”
“Nothing to think about, Detective. That was the last time we spoke.” It had been such an unpleasant conversation that I wasn’t clear how a follow-up would have gone.
“And he didn’t call you tonight,” Stern asked, “telling you he wanted to talk to you? Tell you he was on his way to the Met? Text you to wait for him?”
“No.”
“No point telling you that cell records and texts—well, they’ll all be subpoenaed in a homicide investigation like this,” Stern said. “Sometimes that reminder just jogs the memory a bit. Makes people remember a phone conversation that seemed so unimportant at the time.”
“I’m familiar with your technique, Detective,” I said. “I’ve used it with my fair share of witnesses. The ones I expect are lying to me, though. Not the honest ones.”
“You never know, Ms. Cooper, do you? I’ve been fooled by the best of them.”
“Don’t you hate when that happens?” I said, fumbling with a package of Twizzlers, bending the wrapped licorice sticks in half and then bending them back in the other direction.
“Did you see him again, after that drive-by?”
“No,” I said, just as quickly as I’d answered the question about the phone call. “Not until he came charging up the steps of the museum.”
Jaxon Stern made another note. “Like I said, take your time.”
“I didn’t see him again. No,” I said, firm and fast, holding my ground.
“You’re certain?”
“I’m sure,” I said, tired and angry at being challenged on every fact.
And then I remembered. Shit. I had spoken too fast.
“What’s troubling you, Ms. Cooper?” Stern asked. “You’ve got a funny look on your face.”
“That’s just my face, Detective, like it or not.”
I had seen Paul Battaglia after the day he had chewed me out in front of my building. Mike Chapman and I were together. I had seen Paul Battaglia but he hadn’t seen me.
“Tell us what you’re thinking, Ms. Cooper,” the detective said.
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