The rooms in which misdemeanor cases were heard were on the lower levels of the courthouse. The sixth through ninth floors, in the bizarre architectural scheme of the WPA building, were occupied by the District Attorney’s Office. No access was possible from the courts except where they connected on the seventh floor.
“Then he’s somewhere in the building?” I asked. “You know he’s still got a fully loaded piece-he took Oscar Valenti’s gun with him, too.”
“Too bad there are no metal detectors when you exit the damn place,” Blakely said.
“Why? You think he can escape? There are hundreds of cops and court officers around at this hour of the day,” I said.
“He was out before the word spread-out before any of them knew.”
“What do you mean?”
“If Quillian crossed over on the fourth or fifth floors, he must have gone down on the public elevators from there, passing off like a lawyer with the rest of you suits,” Blakely said, fingering the lapel of Lem’s jacket.
“What makes you think he got away?” I was shocked that a breakout of this magnitude could happen at 100 Centre Street.
“’Cause a man fitting his description just hijacked a car on the corner of White Street, opposite the courthouse steps. Shot the guy who was putting his money in the meter and drove off in a black Toyota,” Blakely said. “Brendan Quillian’s on the loose.”
30
Flashbulbs popped as Captain Blakely swung back the wooden door to lead us into the corridor, still full of reporters and press photographers held there since the lockdown two hours earlier. The EMTs had treated the injured court officers, and a deputy medical examiner had declared Elsie dead-long after the fact-before she was loaded into a body bag and removed from the courtroom.
Lem took off his suit jacket. He held it open, and I slipped my arms into it, wrapping it around my dress to cover the bloodstains and the long tears in the fabric. He put his arm around my shoulders as we entered the gauntlet formed by the eager press hounds.
“Hey, Alex! Who’d he shoot at first-you or the judge?” a voice called out.
Court officers and cops formed a human chain, holding back the impatient spectators.
“Lem! Hey, Howell!” It was Mickey Diamond’s voice. “Give me three words, Lem. We’ll make the headline your signature triplicate.”
We both stared straight ahead as we walked, counting the steps left to the elevator doors, half a corridor away.
“‘Gunned. Gone. Guilty.’” Diamond was relentless.
“Is it true Judge Gertz is still hiding under the bench?” A local crime reporter thrust his microphone over the linked arms of two cops.
“‘Murder. Mayhem. Manhunt.’” Diamond was stuck behind one of the film crews and I could barely hear him now.
Lem stepped up the pace. “Shit. I could write better copy in my sleep. Can you keep up with me? We’re almost there.”
“You get paid up front, Mr. Howell?” another news jock asked. “You bank your money before Quillian skips town?”
A detective-his gold shield flopped over his breast pocket-was holding the elevator open for us. “I got you from here.”
He held up his hand and the cops who had been following us from the rear turned to face the crowd as the doors closed.
“You okay?” Lem asked, letting go of me.
“I will be. It’s Elsie-it’s what happened to Elsie that just breaks my heart. And you?”
“You know me well enough to understand how much I hate it when I can’t see something coming. I thought I had Quillian convinced he was walking out a free man. I was going to blow every argument you had right out of the water.”
“Did you talk with him last night?”
“After the funeral? Yeah, he called.”
“Did you tell him what McKinney said about the possible exhumation of Bex Hassett’s body?”
Howell’s face twisted into a grimace, but he wouldn’t answer my question.
When the doors opened on the seventh floor, four detectives from the District Attorney’s Office Squad were waiting to take both of us upstairs to the Trial Division conference room, one flight above. All friends, all trusted colleagues, they surrounded me in a cocoon as we moved down the hallway and up the dark staircase-a protective shell that would have been more useful several hours back.
The chief of detectives himself was at the head of the table. He greeted both of us and had Laura standing by to get anything we needed. Jude Rutling, the head of the office’s elite Homicide Investigation Unit, had been put in charge of the investigation.
“Let’s get you comfortable first,” the chief said. “Why don’t you each go to the restroom. Alex, we’ll need you to give us your clothes. Did they get pictures of you-that blood and all-upstairs?”
“Yes. Yes, they did. Crime scene.”
“We’ll be debriefing you one at a time. Jude can start with Alex, and my men will take you in another office, Lem.”
“I’d like some coffee, please,” I said, shivering, even though Lem’s jacket was still over my shoulders. “May I talk to Laura?”
A detective escorted me down the hall, past Laura’s desk, on the way to the ladies’ room. Laura reached out to give me a hug and I pushed back. “Wait till I clean myself off. Can you dig anything up in the closet? I used my jeans for that trip to the tunnel last week.”
“Marisa’s already been over,” Laura said, walking into my office to grab a hanger from the closet.
“These should fit.”
I took the black track suit into the restroom-the same one in which Carol Goodwin had cut herself a day before. My head was spinning as I looked in the mirror-blood smears had been transferred from my hands to my face, and the layer of dirt that had previously coated the courtroom floor was on my skin and in my hair.
I undressed and changed into Marisa Bourgis’s gym clothes. I filled the sink with warm water, leaned over it, and plunged my entire head into the bowl. There were no showers in the women’s bathrooms throughout the old offices-built in the days when there had been no women on the legal staff of the district attorney.
I scrubbed my face with brown-paper toweling and ran my fingers through my wet hair. The detective standing guard at the door was startled to see my new look when I emerged minutes later. He walked me back to the conference room where Jude-and my coffee-and two Major Case Squad detectives were waiting to take me through the details of the morning’s events.
Quillian’s outburst had been sudden and short. I knew this drill as well as the men who were questioning me and tried to be patient as they went at me again and again for every nuance, every sequence of how each of us in the room had responded to the gunshots and action.
The door opened behind me and I rested my head against the back of the tall leather chair. Laura interrupted the grilling. “Excuse me, Jude. Mr. Battaglia’s back from City Hall. He’d like to see Alex.”
“We’ll be done shortly.”
“Right now.”
I stood up, grateful for the break, even though I knew I was in for a different kind of interrogation from the boss. “You think the hallways are safe enough for me to make it the next fifty feet by myself?”
“Laura’s in charge. But the chief’s giving you a detail once you leave this building-Lem Howell, too-till they find Quillian. Two detectives with you round the clock. You’ve got your choice of someone sleeping at your place during the night. The other one will be in the lobby.”
“Ignacia Bliss,” I said, smiling at Jude. “Unless Lem picked her first. Or Sue Morley. It’s just more comfortable for me to have a woman there.”
“I understand. See you later.”
Laura walked me across to the executive wing and stopped to fill Rose Malone in on what had been happening, as Rose waved me into Battaglia’s suite.
Mike Chapman was sitting at the district attorney’s desk, his feet on top of a file drawer and a Cohiba between his lips. “You gotta be the most high-maintenance broad in the universe, Coop. You can’t even be in the courtroom without drawing fire.”