“So was everyone in the Tontine Association involved with the trafficking business?”
“None of us believe that,” I said. “I think the perps counted on the reputations of guys like Donny Baynes to give them cover. They built the social club around that. And then the bottom feeders got to work.”
“The judge is going to ask me about Ethan Leighton, Alex. I don’t want to go on the record and make him a target if we don’t believe he’s mixed up in anything worse than last week’s accident.”
“Of course not.”
“Tell Liz about the house call you had,” Mike said, crossing his arms after he passed me a bottle of water. “That coffee’ll rot your gut.”
“The district attorney dropped by my apartment on his way home last night. To check on me, make sure I was okay.”
“Nice.” Liz smiled at me.
“Bullshit. Battaglia did the drop-in to make sure she wasn’t holding back anything,” Mike said. “And toadying along beside him was Tim Spindlis.”
There was a knock on the door and Liz Arrington’s assistant started to come in. She held up her hand and told him to step back. “Tell the judge I need some more time.”
“Will do. Sorry. And some of Ms. Cooper’s friends are here.”
My prosecutorial posse, no doubt. I almost let myself relax.
“They’ll have to wait,” Liz said. “What about Spindlis?”
“Battaglia wanted me to hear right from him-”
“She means right from the mouth of the jellyfish,” Mike said.
“Battaglia wanted Spindlis to tell me himself that he had never played any part in Leighton’s introduction to prostitutes. The two had been close enough for Tim to come to realize-long before Claire caught on-that Ethan Leighton had an addiction that no one seemed able to help him control.”
“So Ethan was a client of Rowdy Kitts all along?” Liz asked, taking notes while she listened to me talk.
“You’ll have to meet with Tim Spindlis for more details. He told me Salma wasn’t the first.”
Mercer leaned forward and picked up the story. “We can point you in the right direction, Liz. Rowdy and his partners-Kendall Reid, some other politico riffraff, and a slew of ex-cons-they put together this Sub Rosa operation. They grew and grew it, in part from the money Reid was stealing from the City Council, and fueled by the appetites of rich men like Ethan Leighton, who were willing to pay through the nose for these women.”
“Look at the hold it gave these guys on Leighton,” Mike said. “Not just now, but for what they saw as his powerful political future.”
“So you don’t think the paternity scam was dreamed up by the girls-by Salma and Anita?”
Mike answered before I could open my mouth. “Rowdy Kitts all the way, Liz. Remember Kitts had a role model for bad behavior. He cloned himself from Bernie Kerik, the corrupt former commissioner. Hell, Kerik almost became the head of homeland security-a presidential appointment-before he got nailed for his crimes.”
“So why kill Salma?” Liz asked again.
“Reid’ll turn on a dime,” Mike said. “He’ll tell you why, if you sweeten his deal.”
I raised my head. “Sweeten nothing. We’ll help you build a case.”
“Yo, blondie,” Mike said, clapping his hands as he did a double take. “The phoenix is rising, Ms. Arrington. You’ll get her back in the game.”
“I don’t want to see any deal for Kendall Reid, Liz. Once you meet some of these victims and see the lives he’s destroyed, I think you’ll understand.”
“I’m sure I will.”
“Claire Leighton thinks Salma signed her own death warrant,” I said. “She confided in Battaglia yesterday. Salma fell in love with Ethan, or at least thought she could make a run for the whole package. Without the baggage of the baby.”
“So their argument the night of the car accident?” Liz asked.
“It was about Ana’s fever, to start,” Mercer said, filling in from what I had told him. “But Salma wanted Ethan to leave Claire, and she was tired of the charade about Ana being their child. Truth is, she didn’t want anything more to do with the baby.”
“That means Rowdy Kitts was about to lose the goose that laid the golden egg,” Liz said. “His blackmail ammunition to follow Leighton for life, up the political ranks.”
“Kendall Reid knew,” I said. “How cold-blooded can he be? That’s his very own baby. It’s unthinkable.”
“He certainly knew part of his seed money was stored in Salma’s closet,” Mercer said. “And since Rowdy was holding on to her papers, she had no choice but to sit there with it. She had nowhere to run.”
“And a rich sugar daddy to give her whatever she desired,” Mike said, folding a sheet from a legal pad on the table. “Salma didn’t want for cash.”
Liz walked toward Mike. “You think Rowdy went to Salma’s apartment intending to kill her?”
“Yeah, I do. Check the phone and e-mail action between Kendall Reid and Rowdy Kitts all day. That’s the whole plan behind the spoofing.”
“What kind of plan?”
“I gotta say, I was wrong. Coop called it on the spot. Spoiled my dinner, but she was right. She didn’t know about the murder, but she figured the idea behind the spoofing.”
I glanced at Mike-it was so rare for him to give me credit for anything-and Mercer patted my hand, winking at me.
“Those repeated nine-one-one calls did just what they were supposed to do,” Mike went on. “We haven’t tried to make a match to the woman who actually made them for Rowdy-voice print technology will help us do it-but you can bet she’s one of the young Mexicans trafficked in by him and by Reid. Setting Salma up as an out-of-control hysteric, Rowdy Kitts knew exactly what would happen.”
I picked up the thread. “The responding cops told Salma that they wouldn’t come back the next time she called. That’s what prompted me to fuss about going there with Mercer in the first place. Salma didn’t want detectives snooping around, but didn’t think she was in any danger with Kitts coming over. And he knew that even if things got out of hand when he attacked her, the next nine-one-one call-the one she tried to make from her cell phone before he killed her-would be ignored by the cops, who thought she was acting irrationally all through the day and evening.”
“The spoofed calls set the scene for Salma’s murder,” Liz said. “Now I see it. Let Kitts get the job done and gave him time to dispose of the body. The precinct cops had washed their hands of her.”
Another rap on the door and a federal marshal pushed in without waiting for an invitation. “Fifteen minutes, Ms. Arrington.”
She scowled at him. “I get it. We’d like some privacy.”
“You, Counselor,” he said, pointing at me. “You’ve got a fan club.”
Mike tossed the paper plane he’d been crafting in my direction. “Coop never travels light. Those girls are loyal, I’ll give her that.”