Mike started the conversation and I pretended to busy myself in paperwork. He was at his most proper and polite, trying to get into the low-down sex life of Ethan Leighton.
“Look, Ethan,” Mike said. “We’re going to find Anita and we’d like to do it sooner rather than later. What happened tonight, huh? What’s this all about?”
He rambled for minutes before telling the story. “After I heard about Salma’s death, I knew Anita was out of control. And I knew she had the baby and that I had to reach out to her.”
“Didn’t Lem think that was dangerous?”
“I didn’t tell Lem. My father keeps a suite of rooms at the Waldorf that he uses to entertain business guests from out of town. I told Anita to move in to one of them for the weekend. To bring Ana there.”
“Because of your concern for her well-being and the baby, or because you were worried about how she was spinning things?”
“Both. Fair to say it was both.”
“More worried about yourself-your reputation-than about her?” Mike asked.
“Anita’s made of tougher stuff than I am, Detective. I also needed a place where Claire could go to meet the baby,” Ethan said, dropping his voice. “I mean, in case she was willing to do that.”
“And did she go?”
“No. Not yet. She-uh-she wasn’t ready for that.”
Score one for Claire Leighton.
“Did Anita actually move into the hotel with Ana?”
“Yes, she did.”
“Did you visit them there?”
“Briefly.”
“You didn’t think that was stupid, I mean in the event the paparazzi sniffed it out?”
“My family is well-known at the Waldorf. No one would think twice of my coming or going there.”
“So was the purpose of your visit to see Anita, or-?”
“Anita went out for a while. I gave her some cash so she could shop for some things she needed. I hope you understand this, Detective. I have to get to know my daughter, spend time with her. Let her get used to me.”
“Let me figure this,” I said. “Even though Anita suspects you had something to do with Salma’s murder, she left you alone with her-with the baby?”
“Not alone. She left her cousin there, sort of babysitting, in case I needed help.”
“A cousin?”
“Yes, a seventeen-year-old named Luci. Anita lives with Luci’s family.”
“What do you know about Luci?”
“Well, she comes from a good stock. Decent people. Hardworking. Her mother’s a nurse’s aide at one of the hospitals on the West Side.”
“I’m missing something here,” Mike said. “How’d you wind up in this dogfight on Edgecombe Avenue tonight?”
No answer.
“The stork drop the baby out of the sky?”
No reaction.
“Let me tell you something, Mr. Leighton. This is a neighborhood where the men are men and the women don’t have teeth, okay?”
The congressman’s head jerked up.
“A pretty young thing like Anita on the loose here in the middle of the night-well, it doesn’t always have a happy ending. I’m going out for a spin around the block. Kinda like looking for a needle in a very rotten haystack, so anything you can do to make things a little easier for me would be greatly appreciated.”
Leighton reached for his cell phone to see if there were any messages. “Anita lied to me.”
“Story of my life, Mr. Leighton. Everybody lies to me. Deal with it.”
“I thought she had gone home for the night to be with her family, like she told me she planned to do. About one o’clock this morning I got a call at my apartment from the front desk at the hotel. Anita’s cousin was in the lobby, with the baby. I raced over there.”
I wondered where Claire stood with this mess that must have turned her life upside down.
“What’d she want?”
“Anita had gone out around eight o’clock. Said she’d be home by midnight. When she didn’t show up, her cousin called her cell. She said Anita answered but was crying hysterically. Told her to have the desk find me. She doesn’t have our home number, but she wanted to get the baby to me so Ana would be safe.”
“Safe with you? Have you ever freaking diapered a kid?”
“That’s the least of my problems, Detective. I can pay any idiot to do that. I was in the hotel suite with her cousin, whom Ana adores.”
I stood up from the desk and moved closer to Mike and Mercer. “Did you call her? Did you speak to Anita on the phone?”
“She finally answered about the third time I called.”
“What did she tell you?” Mike asked.
“She was only worried about the baby. She was afraid someone was going to try to take the baby away.”
“Someone specific?”
“Yes. A man. She wouldn’t tell me who.”
Maybe it was the guy who had shown up at Salma’s apartment earlier on the night she was killed-the guy who claimed to be the father of the baby.
“She asked me to meet her. To pick her up and bring her back to the hotel.”
“So that’s what you did? And you took the baby with you?”
“I had no choice, Chapman. What was I to do? Leave Ana in a hotel room with a seventeen-year-old who doesn’t speak the language? Whose address I don’t have? I made Luci walk me to the hotel garage and put the child in the portable carrier she’d brought. Then I sent her back to the room to wait there in case Anita called.”
Mike yelled out to one of the uniformed cops who was standing by for a possible assist. “Get downstairs and tell the desk sergeant to get on the phone to the Waldorf security office. Tell them to sit tight on the Leighton rooms. Get a scrip on the broad in the suite, okay? Order room service for her, whatever she needs. Just make sure she doesn’t move.”
“What am I telling him?” the cop asked. “How long you want her?”
“Till the Seventeenth Squad finishes shining their shoes and gets over there. Till mañana and the day after that. Think for yourself, will you, kid? I’m occupied.” Mike turned around to Leighton. “Where’d you find her? Your friend, Anita?”
“She’d been working, Detective.”
“In this shithole of a precinct? Rough trade up here. A girl could get hurt.”
“Anita got in over her head is what it is. Salma said she took too many risks.”
“On her back? She got in over her head while she was on her back?”
I could hear crying from the far corner of the room. The baby had awakened and was beginning to wail as the policewoman picked her up. She was talking softly to Ana, going to the refrigerator to take out a bottle of milk that had been put inside, I guessed, when Leighton had been brought upstairs.