“You probably haven’t heard the whole story about Reverend Hal yet. I may have lots of time on my hands once the DA finishes with me.”
“The reverend don’t scare me. I got scores of snitches who’d drop a dime on him in a heartbeat. Federal tax fraud, which means city and state are bound to follow; kids out of wedlock that he supports with money from his phony church; ruining the life of an innocent prosecutor in the Twainey Bowler case ten years back, and still not paying his dues on that. Bring him on, babe, ’cause I’d like nothing better than to spit in his face.”
“Thanks. I hope whatever you spit is even half as toxic as Hal’s own venom.”
“Keep drinking, kid. It’s good for your attitude,” Mike said. “I’ve got three more midnights to work and then off for two days. You want me to drop you at home when I leave?”
“I’ll hang for a while.” I looked at my watch again. “I’m good. It’s nice to see everybody again.”
“I have to stop at the morgue to pick up the autopsy photos of yesterday’s stabbing. Lieutenant Peterson and the ME don’t see eye to eye on the nature of the wounds. I’m going to take off in a few minutes,” he said, patting my thigh under the table.
Mike was working a week of midnights. The lieutenant’s to-do list usually added a few hours to the grueling tour of duty he and his colleagues liked so much.
While he was leaning in, talking to me, Mike’s cell went off. He checked the phone number. “Let me step out and talk to the office.”
“I’ll get some fresh air with you,” I said.
Catherine looked up at me from her end of the table when she saw me stand. “I’m coming right back in,” I said to her. “Just walking Mike out to make a call.”
Vickee was a couple of feet away, coming back in our direction, hands raised over her head with double victory signs. “Spoke to my boss, gentlemen and ladies. Raymond Tanner, aka Raimondo Santini, aka Ronald Tanney, has appeared before the court and has been remanded without the possibility of bail. He’ll spend the night in leg irons and cuffs in the Men’s House of Detention before being transported tomorrow to Rikers Island.”
“That calls for another round,” Pug said. “I’m off for the next two days. Nothing would make me happier than a Tanner hangover.”
“I haven’t felt this good since the beginning of the summer,” I said, shaking off the courtroom drama of the day. “This arrest kind of puts Josie Aponte in perspective.”
“Good to hear. C’mon, Coop. I’m going out to use Vickee’s phone booth,” Mike said, referring to the patch of sidewalk in front of Primola that was a quieter spot from which to make and receive calls.
It was close to ten P.M., and although Mike’s tour didn’t start till eleven thirty, he and his team were often called in early if a case was breaking.
He dialed the number and waited for Peterson to answer the phone. “Hey, Loo. What’s happening?”
Mike listened, and I just leaned against the door of the restaurant. “Where?” he asked.
Murder investigations in Manhattan were split between two elite squads. Mike worked in North Homicide, which covered the island from the tip of Spuyten Duyvil, facing the Bronx, to 59th Street, the lower border of Central Park. The South squad handled everything down to the farthest end at Battery Park.
“Deep-six the morgue photos for now, right?” Mike asked, then waited again. “Got that.”
“What is it?” I asked after he ended the call.
“Eight million stories in the naked city and none of them are pretty,” Mike said, holding the door open for me. “Got a domestic in the two-eight.”
“The victim’s dead?” I asked, turning sideways to get through the bar crowd.
“That’s why they called the homicide squad and not auto theft, Coop.”
“How’d he kill her?”
“You keep making these sexist assumptions,” Mike said. “She offed her main man. Her boyfriend of two years. Shot him in the back of the head when he was sleeping. Wiped out the savings under his mattress, according to his daughter, who found the body.”
The Twenty-Eighth Precinct was a largely residential area of Harlem. The current policing tactics of the commissioner and a crime-prevention strategy by the DA had brought rates of violent attacks way down, and homicides in particular had plummeted.
“So she’s waiting there to be cuffed?”
“Now, you know my job isn’t that simple, Ms. Cooper,” Mike said, grabbing his glass from the table and taking a last swig of vodka. “The vic’s body was just found an hour ago, but this seemed to have happened late last night. No telling where the perp-lady is by now.”
“The girlfriend’s your prime suspect?”
“Like I say, she’s my perp till I learn otherwise.”
“Call me later, will you?”
“No, ma’am. You get a good night’s sleep tonight. I’ll give you a wake-up call instead. Get you ready to take on the district attorney. Feed you some breakfast of champions and all that.”
“Be caref-”
“I’ve already got a mother, Coop.”
Mike said his good nights around the table, kissed Vickee good-bye, and parted from me as though he was still just a professional colleague.
He was ten feet away before he turned and doubled back. “If it helps you count sheep tonight, I’ve got a crumb for you to feed Battaglia when you see him.”
“Always useful,” I said.
Paul Battaglia kept ahead of the game by trading on inside information. Those most loyal to him dropped nuggets of facts-literally as valuable as pieces of gold-which gave him the power to strategize on policy and politics before leaks hit the tabloids or the street.
“The lieutenant says the deceased was a worshipper at the church of the Reverend Hal. Might even have been his bagman, which would account for the mattress money. Use the info with Battaglia if it helps distract him, keep you out of his sights. I’ll be going into Holy Hal’s sanctuary with a search warrant before too long.”
EIGHT
“Things going okay for you?” Vickee asked, moving her chair closer to mine. “You’ve certainly got Mike in a good mood.”
“Can you remember what it’s like at this stage of a relationship?” I asked.
“First time or second?” Vickee and Mercer had split years ago, before Logan was born, because she feared his devotion to the job led him to take risks with his life. “It’s always tricky at the outset.”
“Even trickier with our work situation.”
“C’mon, now. Mercer and I are both on the job. We used to have cases together all the time. That can’t be the issue.”
“Totally different dynamic than yours, with one of us prosecuting and the other handling the investigations.”
“Why? You’ve always ridden these guys as hard as they’re able to go. Like you’re suddenly afraid Mike can’t take direction from you?”
“Nothing new about that, Vickee,” I said with a smile. “Mike and I will go right on doing what we’ve always done. He and Mercer are the best cops I’ve ever known, and that never changes. They do the heavy lifting and I get the evidence to hold up their collars in court.”
“So stop making a big deal about it.”
“I think the department bosses are watching us like hawks. Battaglia, too. I’m not exactly sleeping with the enemy, which is how they seem to be treating us, but it does make things very complicated sometimes. They figure I’m just playing with their ace detective. That once I toss him aside he’ll be useless to them.”
“Well, are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Just playing with Mike’s emotional well-being.”
“I’m out of here before I snap at you, okay?” I lifted my bag off the floor to pull out some cash and get ready to leave. “Are you turning on me, too? Everybody is pushing this relationship along because we’ve been in each other’s lives for so many years. We’re not even living together yet or anything remotely close to that. Mike’s a quirky guy, Vickee. You know that as well as I do.”