Gertz closed his statement with a self-congratulatory description of how he had used the power and dignity of his judicial status to restore calm after the chaos of the shooting.
He thanked Lem and me for our assistance and waved at Lem to remain seated when he tried to stand to put something on the record.
“There will be no interviews of Mr. Howell and Ms. Cooper. They are still involved in these matters, and while I’m not going to gag them, I think it would be most inappropriate if they make any public comments.”
Then Gertz walked off as briskly as he had entered, and the reporters raced out to call in their stories.
Lem crossed over to talk to me. “That gets the man his fifteen minutes of fame, I’d guess. Or do you think he didn’t want us to talk because he’s afraid we might say that when he was hiding in the kneehole under the bench, I didn’t quite think he was doing much to restore order in the court?”
“He can’t really believe his own statement, can he?”
Lem had clutched my forearm in his usual style. “You okay, Alexandra? I hope you understand that I was as shocked, as surprised, as appalled, as you were by what happened in here with my client.”
“I know that, Lem.”
“Miss Cooper,” the substitute clerk called out. “There’s a call for you on the DA’s phone over here.”
I broke away from Lem and signaled for Mercer to wait for me in the well of the courtroom while I took the call.
“Alex? It’s Laura. I’ve got Jerry Genco on the phone. He said it’s urgent. He asked me to patch him through to you.”
I was standing in the same place I had been when the door had opened on Tuesday and the defendant had grabbed Elsie’s gun to shoot her. I was tethered to the wall by the long beige extension cord, waiting for Genco to come on the line.
“Alex? Forensic biology ran our sample overnight for that prelim I promised you.”
“Yes, Jerry?”
“I never expected to have a result as fast as this, but the match comes up in our own linkage database.”
“To whom? Can you be more specific?”
“The fetal tissue I extracted yesterday, that’s what I submitted to the lab. I don’t know much about the old case, but I never thought I’d be ready to give you confirmation on the paternity as fast as this.” Genco paused to take a breath. “Rebecca Hassett was pregnant with Brendan Quillian’s baby.”
38
“God, my heart breaks for that kid,” I said to Mercer as I slumped into the chair at counsel table in the empty courtroom. “Why didn’t we think of this?”
“Hey, I missed the same signs you did. Mike told me all that talk about how Bex had spent so much time at the Quillians, practically living in their house.”
“Of course she wanted to come into Manhattan with Trish the day she went to have lunch with Brendan and meet his fiancée,” I said. “No wonder he became so upset when he saw Bex in the rowboat. He probably thought she was going to do something to break up his engagement, act out in front of Amanda Keating. Who knows how long she’d been sleeping with him at that point, on his infrequent visits home?”
“Or playing hooky, slipping into town to meet up with him somewhere. Then she appeared at the church the day of the wedding and went home to the Bronx, all furious with Trish. By then, Bex was pregnant.”
“You should have seen that pitiful sight when they opened the coffin yesterday. And I’m thinking she was buried with a stuffed animal like it was a childhood toy.”
“And wasn’t it that?” Mercer asked.
“A little brown-and-white bulldog? Try Jack the Bulldog, the mascot of the Georgetown Hoyas. A present from Brendan, no doubt. I suppose some family member put it there beside her without having any idea what it stood for.”
Mercer and I had been to enough college basketball games at the Garden to recognize the symbol of Brendan’s alma mater.
Mercer said, “So if we suppose Brendan knew Bex was pregnant-”
“Of course he knew,” I snapped. “He was calling her house, up until the day of the marriage. He was probably trying to reason with her, checking on whether or not she’d told anyone about it. Wondering how she would be able to deal with it, knowing that terminating a pregnancy wasn’t an option with the religious upbringings they’d both had.”
“There’s his whole golden opportunity-a new life as part of the Keating kingdom-just weeks away from being formalized, and he’s messing around with his kid sister’s best friend.”
“And she’s the only one-the only person in the world, little Rebecca Hassett-who stood a chance of getting in the way of Brendan’s shot at the entire Keating fortune.”
Mercer was leaning against the edge of the table, working the points over and over, and shaking his head from side to side. “Alex, it still doesn’t change the fact that Brendan was out of the country on his honeymoon the night Bex was killed.”
I tossed my head back and grimaced. “But look at the weight it adds to his desperate breakout this week. Who else stood to know that in a careful reexamination of the body, there was physical evidence that connects him to a murdered teenager?”
Mercer patted my hand. “Look, he may have been afraid an exhumation would reveal the girl’s pregnancy. Maybe even tie him to it, since you gotta figure he knows more than the average Joe about DNA after the investigation of Amanda’s murder. Somebody was smart enough to kill his wife without a trace of any forensic clues. That still doesn’t link him to Bex Hassett’s murder.”
“Let’s let them lock up the courtroom,” I said, standing up to leave. “You want to call Mike and break the news to him? I think it’s time we sit down with Trish Quillian. Maybe he can have her picked up. And you double-check with your friend Kate Meade.”
“I know, I know. Did Kate save anything that proves that Amanda and Brendan were in Europe the night Bex was killed? Souvenir postcards or photographs she might have in a scrapbook somewhere?”
“Exactly. I’d better tell Battaglia about what’s been going on at the morgue.”
Mercer made his calls to Mike and Kate, then went down to wait for me in the car while I briefed the district attorney. Then we drove together uptown to the Manhattan North Homicide Squad.
Mike was sitting in the lieutenant’s office, his feet on the desk. He was wearing the same clothes he’d had on the day before and was unshaved as well. He was eating an egg sandwich and greasy french fries at one o’clock in the afternoon.
“Breakfast?” Mercer asked.
“I think it’s yesterday’s dinner. We didn’t spend much time aboveground. It was a long night with Teddy O’Malley nosing around the water tunnel and a few other sandhog holes.” Mike stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it around. “I can’t get that sound of dripping water out of my head. And I was just about to go home for a while when you called.”
“Go ahead, then. Mercer and I can handle this.”
“If I remember correctly, you and Trish Quillian didn’t exactly bond when you met. I’ll run this one my way.”
He was more likely to have success with her than I was. “Are you going to tell her about Bex? About the baby?”
Mike looked at Mercer. “I don’t think so. Not yet. I’m not looking to fuel her up with information. I want to see what she gives us.”
Mercer nodded in agreement.
“Maybe this is what old Phinneas Baylor meant about Trish. About saying she should dig for the bones in her own backyard. Maybe these are the bones he meant.”
“You have anything to hit her with?”
Mike wiped his hands on his chinos and reached for papers on the desk. “From the phone company. Our boy Brendan finally called his sister after his shooting spree on Tuesday. Here’s the incoming right here on the dump of her phone.”