“I never meant to hurt anyone, Alex.” Leighton held his arm out as though to stop my response. “You’ve got to believe I never meant to do anything to bring my wife into this.”
“Ethan-”
“Don’t muzzle me, Lem.” Ethan was on the edge of the seat now, demanding to speak for himself. “None of this was supposed to happen, Alex. I’m a public servant-just like you. I’ve given every ounce of my wisdom, my soul, my energy, my good works-all for the people of this city and for building a better government.”
I opened my mouth to speak but he was directly in my face, punctuating his remarks with his bony fingers. He may have thought he was pitching to help his case, but he was scaring me instead. Leighton was leaning too close to me, jabbing at my shoulder, boring into me with those icy eyes.
“I can’t be drummed out of office by rumors and innuendo, by things that don’t matter in the grander scheme. You’ve got to make Paul Battaglia keep his perspective on all this.”
The driver braked to a stop and Leighton lost his balance, tipping forward so that his hand landed on my thigh. He gripped it for just a moment to regain his seating. I brushed him away.
“Get off me,” I said. The thought of his touch was revolting. “Save the laying on of hands for Mr. Howell. He does it so much more deftly.”
There was a gas station at Houston Street that all the cab fleets used to fill up. As we approached it and the driver paused for the light, I reached over Ethan’s shoulder and knocked on the glass panel dividing the rear compartment from the driver.
He pulled it back and I asked him to stop on the left, so that I could get out.
“You call me when your cops get snarled up in all the lies they’re going to hear, Alexandra,” Lem said, following me out of the limo to put me in a yellow cab. “I wanted you to look Ethan Leighton in the eye for yourself. He’s got a bright future ahead of him, if he isn’t sidetracked for some inappropriate horseplay. Let him speak the truth, is all I wanted.”
“Creative thinking, Lem. But he’ll have to tell it to the judge.”
SEVEN
“Battaglia’ll be over it by morning,” Mike said. He was sitting in Dr. Pomeroy’s chair, his feet on the desk, throwing back a mouthful of M &M’s while he riffled through autopsy photos of a young man who’d been shot in the head and chest. “No need to go downstairs and lay down on a slab in the fridge, blondie.”
“He totally jammed me up. Even had that sycophant Spindlis along for the ride, just to humiliate me even more. Battaglia didn’t want me giving anything to the mayor without his permission, but then Mercer called before I could get him alone to tell him about the conversation.”
“Don’t get yourself in a swivet. We got work to do.”
“I’m telling you, something’s got the boss in a horrible mood. Something bigger than today’s news. He tried to control me like a puppet. Didn’t do anything when we walked out of City Hall but berate me for holding out on him. The world is upside down when Paul Battaglia is nipping at my tail and Rowdy Kitts is trying to save face for me.”
“Tell me you took the subway. Good for you to mingle with the people every now and then.”
“That’s not my favorite station,” I said. I hardly needed to remind Mike about our trip together around the loop that snakes under City Hall, an incident neither of us would ever forget. “Beside that, I was totally sandbagged. Lem was waiting for me in front of the office.”
“You ride up here in his pimp-buggy?”
“The first ten blocks. It’s worse than that. Ethan Leighton was in the car.”
“Talk about burying the lead. What was that about?”
I told Mike exactly what happened. “It was creepier than I can possibly describe. So if Battaglia’s already set off at me, imagine when I tell him I actually got in the car.”
“You take that little factoid to the grave with you. I know. We’ll tell Mercer. Sit on that piece of information for now, okay?”
“Maybe Kelli’s right. Maybe Lem’s trying to use me for something I’d rather not be in the middle of. Where’s Dr. Pomeroy?”
“Scrubbing down. Give him ten.”
“And Mercer?”
“I thought he’d beat you here. He must be close. You mind turning on the telly?”
Pomeroy kept a small set on a high shelf in a corner of the room that he used to monitor stories of fatalities that would involve his staff.
I reached up and pressed the power button. The TV was set to the local all-news station. The reporter was describing the still-unfolding scene on the beach in Queens, the hood of a parka pulled over his head, muffling his voice.
Mike searched the desktop, then opened drawers till he found the remote clicker. “Almost time. Get your twenty bucks ready.”
For as long as I had known him, Mike had a habit of tuning in to the last five minutes of Jeopardy! to bet on the final question. Although the son of a decorated police officer with a legendary reputation in the department, Mike had set out on a different track, majoring in history at Fordham College. When his father dropped dead of a heart attack just two days after retiring from the job, Mike decided to honor that legacy by following in his footsteps.
“Any autopsy results yet?”
“Waiting on Pomeroy. He wanted to get two done today-one of the supposed drowning victims, and the girl with the mysterious injuries. Compare and contrast the findings.” Mike switched channels and muted the commercial. “What did the mayor have to say?”
“Nothing to me. Keenly interested in Ethan’s situation.”
Mike saw Alex Trebek on the screen above my head and clicked on the sound. “That’s right,” Trebek said, “the category of tonight’s question is THE COLOR PURPLE. THE COLOR PURPLE, folks.”
“I spoke too fast. Literary stuff.”
“Double or nothing.” I had majored in English literature at Wellesley before deciding that my interest was a career in public service, and went on to study at the University of Virginia School of Law.
“That’s taking candy from a baby, Coop,” Mike said, offering me the small brown bag of chocolates. “Wipe the grin off your face. All I’ve got is my M and M’s and twenty-four bucks. It’s almost payday.”
“Spent too much on the holidays?” I bit my tongue to prevent myself from making a crack about New Year’s Eve.
“Back to purple. Spielberg movie,” Mike said. “Eleven Oscar nominations.”
“Walker novel. Pulitzer Prize.” I could take him on a handful of topics like literature, but Mike knew more about military history than anyone I’d ever met. Mercer’s father had serviced planes for Delta and he’d grown up with maps of the world’s airline routes papering his bedroom walls, so he took the kitty whenever the subject was related to geography.
One of the attendants came to the doorway. “Dr. Pomeroy would like to see you downstairs.”