Night Watch (10 page)

He waited about fifteen minutes before dialing again. “Ignore me all you want, kid. I’m down with that. Just call Mercer pronto.”

As fast as I hit the erase function, the next message loaded. “Pat
McKinney knows as much about how to deal with a rape victim as Al Sharpton would. Don’t blow this one on me.”

Someone must have cautioned Mike to back off me for an hour. Then another call. “This will rattle you, Coop. McKinney showed up at the office with his lover. He’s making this case a team project—benching you and sticking Ellen Gunsher in as a DH.”

Pat McKinney was involved in an affair with an assistant who’d been nicknamed “Gun-Shy” for her reluctance to take cases to trial. She was the daughter of a television journalist who’d been the kind of celebrity Battaglia liked to court until her career imploded because of a series of on-air temper tantrums. Gunsher had failed in a number of other positions, but the chief of the Trial Division had left home for her last year and sought to inject her in every possible new position in hopes of a fit.

“I’m warning you, Coop, you can’t taunt an alligator till you cross the creek, you know that?” In Chapman’s fifth call, he was imitating Ellen Gunsher’s Texas drawl, using the tired aphorisms with which the clueless prosecutor regularly peppered her conversations. Mike knew they would get under my skin, as they always did. “McKinney gets a hold of Baby Mo, and that half-breed Frenchman will think a West Texas rattlesnake has its teeth in his dick.”

I smiled instinctively but realized at the same moment that one of McKinney’s goals was to elbow out the talented members of the Sex Crimes Unit by taking advantage of my absence. That would give him complete control of the case.

I heard Vickee Eaton’s voice next. She was Mercer’s wife—also a detective—and one of my closest friends. She worked at DCPI, in the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Public Information, with access to inside scoops since she would be providing the minute-by-minute updates to Commissioner Keith Scully. She was not-so-subtly leaning on me to help her husband, and that meant more to me than just about anything.

Now there were friendly calls from the women and men who
worked with me in the unit. Catherine Dashfer, Ryan Blackmer, Marisa Bourges, and Nan Toth, each giving me the heads-up that a big case was on the table. Like the district attorney, I had developed an aversion to being the last to know when something happened in my professional orbit, and my good friends always covered my back. These were interspersed with a robocall from a political candidate, the new dry cleaner in the neighborhood surfing for business, an invitation to the resort season trunk show at Escada, and my local bookseller reminding me that the novels I had ordered were in stock.

I deleted them all and held the phone to my ear again. More of the same. Nothing I couldn’t ride out from this side of the ocean.

The voice on the next-to-last message was Rose Malone, Battaglia’s executive assistant. As close as she and I were, she was also my barometer to read his moods. The fact that she was working on a Sunday was unusual enough, and the edge in her voice meant she was calling on orders from him, not as a favor to me.

“Alex? It’s Rose. The Boss would like you to phone in immediately. We’re in the office—it’s Sunday afternoon around three. He knows you’re in France but he needs to talk to you.” There was a long pause. “Mr. Battaglia said he’s got only one question for you. He won’t tell me what it is, or I’d let you know, of course. Please get back to me.”

I slumped down against the thick pillows. Ugh. Now I was sorry I’d made the decision to take my phone out of the bag. One caller to go and then I could shut it off and figure out what to do.

“Alexandra Cooper?” Paul Battaglia had placed the call himself. I hadn’t been sure he knew how to do that, since he’d been spoiled for so long by Rose’s efficiency. I sat up straight, as though he was in the room with me. “There’s just one thing I want to ask you, young lady. Do you really think you can hold on to your job by ignoring everyone’s efforts to reach you while the goddamn sky is falling down over here?”

The sound of the receiver hitting the phone cradle as Battaglia hung up on me was jolting.

I got to my feet and walked to Luc’s desk to use the landline to call New York.

“Rose? It’s Alex.”

“I’ll put you right through to him.”

“Is it—?”

She didn’t take the chance of displeasing him further by talking with me.

“Alexandra?”

“Yes, Paul.”

“I got a mess on my hands and it’s your bailiwick. The mayor and most of the media want to know what you figure went on and I can’t—”

“Last I knew, neither you nor the mayor thought too much of my opinion. The archbishop seemed to have had your ear at the time.”

Battaglia didn’t like to be reminded of the few missteps he had made in his long career. I knew he wouldn’t respond to my cheap shot about the last major case I’d worked this winter. He’d rather ignore it.

“Mercer Wallace and his team would like some guidance from you,” Battaglia said. “And so would I.”

“I’m happy to help.”

“This case is more complicated than it looks on the surface. I’ve got the feds interested in the World Economic Bureau implications, the French president pushing me to let the perp out on his own recognizance, the West African leaders—at least those with democratic governments—screaming ‘foul,’ and the Latina Women’s Caucus holding a rally in front of City Hall to empower the victim. I’ve got the country’s pioneering sex crimes unit, but nobody’s here to run it, Alex. When did you make this a part-time job?”

“I’m yours 24/7, Paul. I get it.”

“Rose has you booked on an eight
A.M.
flight out of Nice in the morning. You’ll connect through Paris on the one-fifty-five
P.M.
, which will have you at Kennedy at four-thirty-five. Port Authority cops will meet you and bring you to the office.”

“Excuse me?” I could hear Luc talking to the dog in the garden below the window. I was doing a slow boil at Battaglia’s presumptuousness.

“Talk to Rose. She’s got all the details. And I told them not to charge you for changing your flight.”

The district attorney put me on hold and Rose picked up. “I’m so sorry, Alex. He left me no choice.”

“Don’t be silly, Rose. I know it’s not your doing”

“There’ll be e-tickets for you at the airport.”

I held my tongue, instead of saying to her that I hadn’t yet decided whether or not I would change my plans. I wanted to get off the phone before Luc came upstairs.

“Thanks. Talk to you tomorrow.” I hung up, put Luc’s laptop back on the desk, and started to make myself comfortable on the bed.

Luc seemed pleasantly surprised to find me awake. “Everything calm, darling?”

“Guess so.”

He took off his clothes and went into the bathroom to shower. By the time he slipped into bed beside me, I had dimmed the lights and propped myself up on the pillows so that we could complete the conversation that Jacques Belgarde had prompted with his mention of what had happened at Brigitte’s house.

Luc took my face between his hands and kissed me—first my forehead, then on each cheek, and then my mouth. He was ready to make love, but I was in another time zone altogether.

“Did you tell Jacques about the guys on motorcycles? About the gun?”

Luc was nuzzling my neck. His muffled answer sounded like yes.

“What did he have to say about that?”

He picked his head up, so that our faces were just inches apart. “He assumes they were just ordinary thugs, looking to steal your jewelry or my sexy motorcycle.”

“But you saw the gun.”

“Maybe a gun, maybe a black glove, maybe a—”

“Maybe what—a baguette pointed at you? You were terrified, Luc, and you scared me to death, too. Something spooked you for real.”

He rested his elbow on the bed and held up his head with it. His other hand was stroking my hair. “Can we discuss this tomorrow?”

“After we talk about what happened between you and Brigitte today?”

He rolled over onto his back, clearly deflated by my cold response to his touch. “Okay, Alex, if that will make you happy.”

I didn’t know what would make me happy at this point, or any time in the immediate future.

“Tomorrow won’t work for me, Luc. I just spoke to Paul Battaglia. I’m going to fly home in the morning.”

I was in my seat in the business-class section of the Air France flight, about to depart from Charles de Gaulle Airport. I had been texting and e-mailing all morning, confirming that I would meet the team in the office as soon as I got into Manhattan, which I expected to be after six on Monday evening. The BlackBerry vibrated again and I saw Joan Stafford’s name flash. I pressed to answer and held the phone to my ear. “Are you crazy?” she asked me without saying hello or greeting me.

“You have two minutes before they close the door on this plane for takeoff. I am neither crazy nor entirely stupid. You’re my pal, Joanie. You’re supposed to slobber over me with love and support. Don’t lay any more guilt on me than I’m already lugging around.”

“I spoke to Luc this morning. He’s
désolé
, Alex. I thought you two had a deal.”

“I envy you the writer’s life. You make your own schedule, your work is portable, nobody’s well-being depends on your output. But that’s not the kind of job I have.”

“You promised him—”

“It’s not like I cheated on him, Joan,” I said, drawing a sidelong glance from the man settling in next to me. “Yes, I used my phone.
I blew off Mike and Mercer and Vickee and all the peeps I trust in that job. And then Paul Battaglia himself called.”

“He doesn’t own you, Alex. You’re entitled to a vacation. If Battaglia has a primary challenger next year, I’ll bet he’ll step down. How old is he already? He’ll be a lame duck by then.”

“I work for the man, Joan. I can’t just twiddle my thumbs for eighteen months till the next election. He’ll stay in this job till he’s ninety.”

“I still think Battaglia’s lame, whether he’s a duck or not.” She was laughing as she talked. “Do you have any idea what Luc planned to do on your birthday?”

“We talked about a quiet dinner at the house.”

The announcement came on that all electronic devices would have to be powered down in two minutes, when the doors closed.

“Obviously dinner, Alex. I didn’t mean that. What’s happened to your sense of romance? Do you remember that day I took him shopping after you two came back from the Vineyard last month? Do you understand the man has been looking at rings?”

I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth.

“Are you still there? Can you hear me? Great big shiny diamond rings, girl. His money, my uncommonly good sense of taste and style. Luc’s madly in love with you.”

The butterflies in my stomach were fluttering wildly. “Don’t go there, Joan. If you’re really my pal, back off this subject. Way too premature.”

“Is it the commitment thing? Swear to me it’s not that.”

“I don’t know him, okay? The last forty-eight hours have proved that beyond—”

“Don’t give me ‘beyond a reasonable doubt,’ babe. Forget the law in your brain and flex those underused muscles in your heart.”

“You’re spoiling Luc’s surprise, Joan, if that’s what it was supposed to be.”

“Well, clearly the Hope diamond won’t be jumping out of your birthday cake if you’re spending that evening alone. Forget I said anything.”

“Forgotten.”

“He told me you’re bent out of shape about Brigitte.”

“Not true.”

“What are you hoping to find at our age? A guy who’s a forty-year-old virgin with no prior love life or involvements? No ex, no kids—maybe even an orphan so you won’t have in-laws either? The Dalai Lama’s been off the table for quite some time.”

“How well do you know Brigitte?”

“Total pain in the ass.”

“Would you trust her, Joan? I mean between Brigitte and Luc, who—?”

“Luc, of course. How can you even ask that?”

“Because if he’s so over her, why does he keep her photograph in the drawer of his night table?”

“What were you doing going through his drawer?”

“I wasn’t going through it. I was looking for some nail clippers, okay?”

“He probably hasn’t cleaned it out in months. What is it, like a family shot with the boys?”

“Like Brigitte on the beach in Cannes. Topless.”

The man next to me coughed and lowered his newspaper to look at me again.

“Get over it. Everyone in France is topless, especially those fat old tourists from Eastern Europe you’d rather not see, even when they have clothes on.”

The flight attendant signaled me to turn off my phone. “Gotta go. I’ll call you tomorrow. We’re taking off now.”

By the time we climbed out of Paris and through a cloud cover that blanketed the view for the first half hour of the route, I found a comfortable position, reclined my seat and covered myself with a blanket.

Hurtling across the ocean miles above the earth gave me a surfeit of hours to think about my personal situation. When I was immersed in the work that I found so challenging and rewarding, it
was easy to put off analysis of my emotional state. Until this weekend, all my time spent with Luc was joyful and loving, and I often fantasized about leaving behind the high pressure of my prosecutorial position for more intimacy with him. Neither one of us had talked about marriage yet, but Joan had succeeded in delivering a shot across the bow of my unsteady ship.

I was a natural for a life of public service because I had been encouraged by my parents to use the opportunities they’d bestowed on me to “give back” to others less fortunate. But it would have been more logical for me to have put down roots in the medical community from which they both came.

My mother, Maude, was the daughter of Finnish immigrants, raised on a dairy farm in New England and later moved to New York to study nursing. She had the skills and compassion of a superb RN, and that talent—along with the deep green eyes, winning smile, and great long legs—attracted the attention of my father.

Benjamin Cooper—my father—was the son of Russian Jews who fled political oppression there, the first of their three boys to be born in America. It was during his medical internship that he fell in love with Maude, who converted to Judaism when she married him.