I saw Mike’s dark hair, his back to me, and we made our way through the hungry New Yorkers who were three deep the length of the room as they waited for turnover.
Mercer was the first to see us and raise a glass in our direction.
“I’d hardly call it waiting for us,” Catherine said. “The team seems to be throwing back some celebratory drinks in anticipation of our arrival.”
“Hey, Coop,” Mike called out to me. “Grab yourself something from the bar.”
I gave him a thumbs-up and we stopped at the end, next to the waiters’ station. I ordered a Dewar’s on the rocks and for Catherine a glass of pinot grigio. We mounted the two steps that separated the rear room from the main floor of the restaurant, and the detectives greeted us with whistles, cheers, and a toast to the young rookie-unknown to all of them-who was on his way down to the courthouse to take Tanner to his arraignment.
“Here’s to you, Alex,” one of the men said. “Bet you’ll sleep like a baby tonight.”
“I’ve slept well every night, because you guys were on the job.” No need to tell them about the times I closed my eyes and still was sure I could see the image of the letters that spelled KILL COOP on Tanner’s hand.
“They were all just a little slow on the draw, Coop,” Mike said.
“You leave my task force alone, Detective Chapman. They had a few things more urgent on their plates than my stalker,” I said. “Now, why don’t you sit and we’ll get some dinner for you?”
Vickee came around from the far side of the table to give me a hug. “Way to go, girl. Raymond Tanner was a great big accident waiting to happen, wasn’t he?”
“To put it mildly.”
“All good?”
I smiled at Vickee. “I guess stranger things have happened, but yes, all good.”
“Five more minutes till you take your seats, guys,” Mike said, motioning to me with his forefinger. “C’mon, kid. Time for the final question.”
Mercer, Mike, and I had a long-standing habit of betting on the last Jeopardy! question whenever we were together on a weeknight evening. These detectives were two of the smartest men I knew, and our vastly different areas of interest made it fun to be challenged, whether at the morgue or my place, crime scenes or chic restaurants.
The small television was in the short corridor behind the dining room, hung out of sight but close enough so that diners could track sports scores or breaking news.
Mike followed me into the space, off to the side of the busy kitchen. “You feeling okay?”
“About this news? I couldn’t be happier,” I said, sipping my Scotch. “The rest of my afternoon cratered, but that’s not your problem.”
“You’d be wrong about that, Coop. Antonio Estevez and his crew?”
“Correct. Possibly related to the Reverend Hal Shipley. I’ll tell you later.”
“Am I breaking something up?” Mercer asked.
“We were just waiting on you, Mr. Wallace,” Mike said. “Time for the big question.”
Mercer clinked his glass of vodka against my drink, and Mike reached over my arm to hit us both. At the same time, Alex Trebek had come onto the screen after a commercial break and was about to reveal the final answer to the trio of contestants.
Mike Chapman was a graduate of Fordham University, where he had majored in military history. He’d been obsessed by that subject since childhood and knew as much about it as any scholar I’d ever encountered. Mercer Wallace was raised by his widowed father in Queens. The Delta mechanic had papered the walls of his son’s bedroom with maps of the world, and there was barely a square foot of it with which Mercer wasn’t familiar. Geography was where his depth of knowledge was concentrated.
Mike grabbed the clicker off the top of the monitor and unmuted the sound.
“All right, gentlemen,” Trebek said. “You’re each within a hundred dollars of the others, so I assume any one of you can win.”
I had majored in English literature before deciding that a career in public service would be my focus. Reading the Romantic poets and dense nineteenth-century British novels was my favorite way to escape from dry legal briefs. All three of us were on sound footing when the categories touched on Motown music or classic movies of the 1930s and 1940s.
“Tonight’s Final Jeopardy category is ‘The Wild Wild West,’” Trebek said as the words were revealed on the giant game board. “What will each of you wager on the Wild Wild West? We’ll see in just a minute.”
“I’m in for forty,” I said, doubling our usual bet of twenty dollars.
“Just because you grew up on reruns of Bonanza?” Mike said.
“You obviously don’t know that my childhood dream was to be Annie Oakley.”
“Hard to imagine since you’re so skittish around guns. Double or nothing.”
“Don’t you two go all sky-high on me,” Mercer said. “I’m in at eighty bucks. I’ve got a little mouth to feed at home.”
Trebek’s voice boomed from the speaker as he revealed the answer. “He was the first man executed by the federal government in the Dakota Territory.”
“See that?” Mike said. The three contestants grimaced as they struggled-or appeared to be doing so-to write the proper question as the show’s iconic “Think” music played loudly. “We’re all on equal footing. It’s about murder.”
His encyclopedic knowledge of all things homicidal took Mike back through generations of killers and their weapons of choice.
“You’re up, Alex,” Mercer said as the music stopped and Trebek pointed at the first of the three men standing on the stage.
“Who was-?” I couldn’t pull up the name I wanted. “Who was Billy the Kid?”
“So wrong in every direction that you ought to pay triple the ante,” Mike said, reaching out his hand for my money. “Billy the Kid’s real name was William Bonney. Killed so far south of Dakota that it was practically part of Mexico. New Mexico. And shot by Sheriff Pat Garrett, not hung by the feds.”
The first two contestants had drawn blanks also.
“You’re next, Mercer,” Mike said.
“Who was Jack McCall?” Mercer asked, just as the contestant who had been in the lead revealed to Trebek that he had written, “Who was the man who shot Bill Hickok?”
“That’s almost the right question,” Trebek said, “but we were looking for his actual name. And that’s Jack McCall. Who was Jack McCall? I’m sorry, gentlemen. Let’s see what you wagered.”
Mike slapped Mercer’s hand in a high-five as he clicked off the TV. “Broken Nose Jack, they called him. Shot Wild Bill in the back of the head during a poker game. A pair of aces and a pair of eights. That’s why they call it the dead man’s hand when you draw those cards. McCall was acquitted by the first jury and then retried…”
“Now, that’s double jeopardy,” I said. “You can’t have a second trial after an acquittal.”
“First trial was in Deadwood,” Mercer said. “When the feds heard about the acquittal, they said the trial hadn’t been a formal legal procedure because Deadwood was an illegal town in Indian Territory, so double jeopardy didn’t apply. No constitutional violation.”
“Yeah, they nailed McCall in Yankton, tried him again, and strung him up from the tallest tree,” Mike said. “You gotta love a place where the prosecution gets two bites of the apple. It would have helped your batting average a whole lot, Coop.”
I smiled and took another sip of my drink. “We don’t keep scorecards, Detective. One and done works fine for me.”
Mike led us back to the tables where everyone in the group had seated him- or herself, counting the twenty-dollar bills to split with Mercer. Vickee motioned me to an empty chair beside her. One of my favorite SVU detectives, Alan Vandomir, was on my other side.
Mercer stayed on his feet to make the first toast. “I’ve got a candidate for rookie of the year,” he said, naming the young officer who had collared Raymond Tanner. “Puts all you gold-badged first and second graders to shame. You’ve been running around town for two months without a scintilla of perp progress and-”