Cold Hit (11 page)

Mercer chided me. “Judge shopping, Alex? My money’s on AR 1. I’ll check in with both of you as soon as I get back from Brooklyn.”

Mike, Armando, and I took the circuitous route to the first-floor arraignment parts, down the interior stairway one flight and over to the elevator bank that serviced the courtrooms and stopped on only a single floor of the District Attorney’s Office, as a security measure. As usual the wait for a functioning elevator going in the right direction seemed interminable. And walking the hallways with Chapman was more of a social occasion than a business trip. He had worked with and partied with every senior assistant in the office at one time or another. He was a legendary storyteller, a great foil for people’s jokes, and the best investigator that most of us would ever encounter in the NYPD.

The double swinging doors of AR 1 pushed open as I entered behind Mike. Families and friends of prisoners arrested within the last twenty-four hours and awaiting their first appearances before the judge filled rows of benches on both sides of the room. Some mothers looked tearful and anxious, waiting for word from the Legal Aid attorneys that their sons would be coming home today, while other relatives slept soundly despite the noise and activity, clearly accustomed to the routine of this process.

We made our way down to the front row, saved for attorneys and police officers, and I scooted into the only available seat, between two uniformed cops who were dozing until their cases were called. Mike and Armando sat behind me, scrunched between an elderly Hasidic Jew dressed in his traditional black overcoat and an obese Latina woman who was whining some kind of prayer over and over again under her breath.

The air-conditioning wasn’t working and the windows were so tall in the two-story room that there was no way for the crew to open them for fresh air. Everyone in the well of the courtroom — lawyers, stenographer, officers, and clerks — was fanning with different files or sheaves of papers. The stench was unbearable.

As soon as Judge Hayes made eye contact with me, he waved me up to the bench. As I rose, Chapman grabbed my shoulder. “I’m coming with you. This place smells like a broad I used to date.”

“May we approach, Your Honor?” I asked as I closed the swinging gate that separated the benches from the counsel tables.

“Absolutely, Ms. Cooper. We’ll take a ten-minute recess, folks,” Hayes announced, eliciting groans from almost everyone in the gallery. “Why don’t we all go into the robing room? Will we need a reporter?”

“Yes sir.”

Hayes had been one of my first supervisors in the District Attorney’s Office when I started there, more than ten years ago. I respected his judgment and valued his guidance and friendship enormously.

Mike, Armando, and I followed Hayes out of the courtroom and into the small chambers behind it that served the arraignment part. He normally sat as a trial jurist in Supreme Court but was serving a week’s rotation in this duty since so many of the judges took vacation time during July and August. Hayes greeted Mike and me warmly, and we introduced him to Armando.

“I’d tell you to make yourselves comfortable, but that’s obviously not possible.”

The small room was bare except for an old wooden desk, three chairs, and a black rotary telephone that hung on the wall. It was painted the institutional green that must have been bought in vatloads by the city of New York fifty years ago and was now chipped and peeling from every corner and molding. Next to the phone, written on the wall in ink, were the numbers of most of the delis and pizza joints within a mile’s radius, jotted there by lazy court officers who called out for deliveries during the meal break of night court.

I explained our visit to the judge, and we went on the record with the stenographer so that he could make the appropriate inquiries before signing the warrant.

“Everything seems to be in order, Alex.” He initialed the papers and chatted with Mike while I went back to the clerk to have the official seal put on the documents. As the court officer gaveled the crowd back into order and Hayes resumed his position on the bench, we left the courtroom with exactly what we needed to move the investigation forward.

The rear entrance of the immense Criminal Courts Building was adjacent to AR 1. Mike took his copy of the paperwork from me, and he and Armando headed for the door while I started to retrace my steps back up to my office.

“I’ll call you as soon as we’re done checking out the wagon. Wanna meet Mercer and me for dinner?”

“Sure. Cocktails and
Jeopardy
! at my place, then we’ll go somewhere in the neighborhood.”

Upstairs on the eighth floor, Laura greeted me with word that Patrick McKinney, deputy chief of the Trial Division, wanted to see me. The chief, Rod Squires, was on summer vacation and McKinney would use all the muscle he could to make me answer to him and try to micromanage my case. I thanked Laura for the message, then did my best to ignore that she had given it to me. I knew I could deal directly with Battaglia on something as major as the Caxton murder.

I called my friend Rose Malone, in the D.A.’s suite, and told her that I was ready to update the boss whenever it was convenient for him. Things looked good, I assured her, since the cops had already found a critical link to the deceased’s disappearance. I was optimistic enough to think this early break would signal a speedy conclusion to the investigation. Battaglia was on his way to Albany for a meeting with the governor on the legislative agenda, so I knew I was off the hook for the rest of the day.

The intercom buzzed. Laura reported there was a woman on the line who refused to give her name and would speak only to me. She said she had some things to tell me about Denise Caxton.

“Put the call through on my private line and close the door so no one interrupts me.” I pressed the flashing light on my dial pad. “This is Alexandra Cooper.”

“Thank you for taking the call. I thought you might be interested in some personal information I have about Deni Caxton.”

“Yes, but it would also help me if you would tell me with whom I’m speaking.”

My request was met by silence.

“Hello?” I asked, getting no response. At least she hadn’t hung up, so I didn’t want to push her too hard. “I hope you can understand that we get an awful lot of crank calls whenever our names appear in the paper on a sensational case. It just helps me to know that I’m dealing with someone who really has something useful to say.” And who isn’t wasting my time.

Still a pause. Then, “I’ll give you my name, but I’d like a few assurances first.”

“That’s not unreasonable. May I ask what they are?”

“I can’t have my name connected with this case in the papers. Not in any way. Can you promise me that?”

Impossible. “All I can promise is that no one will get your name from
us
. You have my word that it is not the kind of thing we would ever give to the press. But obviously, since I have no idea what your connection is — either to Denise or to the investigation — I simply have no idea how you figure in the matter at all. Perhaps reporters already know who you are.”

I was clearly fishing now, and she was just as clearly getting agitated. “I have nothing to do with the case. I’m a friend of Deni’s, that’s all. One of her oldest friends. I know things about her that I doubt anyone else knows. Very intimate things. Perhaps they’ll be useful to you, perhaps they won’t. But I thought I’d be more comfortable talking with you than with a bunch of detectives.”

“And your other requests?”

“Just one other, really. Lowell Caxton must never know I’ve spoken with you.”

“That’s easy. He’s a witness in this matter. We’d have no business telling him where or from whom we get our information.”

“He’s terribly well connected, Ms. Cooper. I’m afraid it’s more difficult to keep secrets from him than you might think. That was one of Deni’s biggest problems.”

“Would you be willing to meet with me this afternoon?” I glanced at the clock on the wall, and it was already after three. “Or this evening?”

“I’m coming into New York late tonight. I can meet with you tomorrow.”

“Let me give you the address of my office—”

“No, I won’t come there. I don’t want some tabloid photographer camped out on your doorstep snapping witnesses as they go in and out of the building.”

Rivera Live, Burden of Proof
, and Court TV had been real wake-up calls to the public about the way high-profile cases frequently spin out of control.

“We’re closer to a solution than you might think,” I said to ease her concerns, sure in my own mind that Omar Sheffield would be the key to Deni’s disappearance. “But I’ll be happy to meet you at your home, if you prefer.”

“My hotel, if you don’t mind. I’ll call you during the day, and perhaps you can meet with me by late afternoon. The name is Seven. Marilyn Seven.”

“Thank you for that, Ms. Seven. I appreciate it. Where will you be staying?”

The click on the other end of the phone reminded me that she didn’t trust me or the system all that much. I went back into our office E-mail and sent one of my regular messages to my colleague who ran the computer section’s Investigative Support Services, Jim Winright.

Cooper A to Winright J: Can you please run me a background check on a woman named Marilyn Seven? Sorry, I’ve got no date of birth, no social security, no residential address. Nothing but a name. It’s a long shot, but could you see if you can come up with anything before I meet with her tomorrow? Thanks, as always.

With Jim’s skills and a bit of luck, the not-so-common-name search might call up something on his database, whether out-of-state driver’s registration records, licensed professional information (if her occupation required some kind of government control), property ownership records, or even a Dun & Bradstreet report. It would help me not to go to the meeting blind, so that I could better evaluate whatever it was that Marilyn Seven had to barter.

When I finished drafting the subpoenas, which Laura could format and print, I ran upstairs to the ninth-floor grand jury room, to open an investigation into the death of Denise Caxton. Several of the jurors whispered to one another as I spoke, recognizing the deceased’s name from the newspaper accounts. I was out of the chamber as quickly as I had entered it, and on my way back to my desk.

“Call Catherine or Marisa,” Laura told me. “They want to make arrangements to go to the hospital tomorrow to see Sarah and the baby. And Kim McFadden, from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, called. Here’s her extension.”

I took the slip of paper from Laura and dialed the number immediately. I hadn’t seen Kim, who was a federal prosecutor, in months. Our offices often tangled when investigations crossed jurisdictional lines and our bosses became territorial, but she and I had been friends since she started to date one of my colleagues, several years ago.

“Sorry I’ve been so out of touch,” I began our conversation. “Can we make a lunch date for later in the month, when things slow down here?”

“That’d be good, Alex, but it’s not the reason I’m calling. Got the clearance from the top to give you a heads-up on this, once I saw you were handling the Caxton case.”

“Just when I was beginning to think this was a ground ball, don’t tell me it’s going to get muddier. My guys think it’s a disgruntled employee — raped and dumped her in the water. Probably just hired the wrong guy. I’m waiting for the results on his rap sheet now, with a team of detectives out looking for the subject.”

“That’s probably what you’ve got, then. Just thought that you should know — and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone other than Battaglia — that we’ve had a major investigation under way with Justice. Price-fixing by auction houses and art dealers. We’ve had subpoenas out for months — you may have seen the story in the
Times
. ”

“Well, if I did, I didn’t pay any attention to it. I don’t remember a thing about it.”

“We’re looking at it as an antitrust matter. Know what bid rigging is?”

“Not in the art world. Bring me up to speed, Kim, and the next time you get a sexual assault on federal property, I’ll walk you through it.” I said it only half in jest, since once every few years their office actually claimed jurisdiction for a rape in a Veterans Administration hospital or on a military base.

“The claim has been that some of the biggest art dealers in the city have formed a ring agreeing not to bid against each other on paintings in which they all have an interest. That collusion keeps the price down at auctions — an illegal restraint, really. Then the participating dealers hold what’s called a ‘knockout.’ ”

“Which is…?”

“That’s a second auction — but a secret one. The dealer who got the piece at the public auction sells it off for a much higher price, and then the members of the ring all split the profits. The agents who’ve been investigating this for years can lay out the whole thing for your team.”

“Any direct connection to Denise Caxton?”

“Nothing certain yet. But records have been subpoenaed from both Lowell and Denise Caxton, Bryan Daughtry, and quite honestly, a cast of thousands. All the big dealers are being called down here — Leo Castelli, Knoedler, Pace Wildenstein. They’re all in the contemporary field. David Findlay and Acquavella in modern and Impressionist works. Even Sotheby’s and Christie’s have gotten those unfriendly little slips of paper. I’m not saying any of these places are targets — there’s no allegation they did anything wrong or participated in the knockouts — but we’re trying to get a handle on the nature and extent of the scam.”

“Any results yet?”

“We’re getting buried in an avalanche. Travel logs, phone records, invoices from business transactions, correspondence between the auction houses and some of the dealers.”

“Can I bring my detectives over later in the week if we don’t settle everything in the next twenty-four hours?”

“That’s why I called. No reason for you to reinvent the wheel. If you’re going to have the legal authority to request the same kind of documentation, maybe we can shortcut some of this for you.”