I spun around and saw Mike standing at the back of the large room. He was holding the door open for the exiting line of prospective jurors.
“Speak of what?” Fleming asked.
“I told you Alex had detectives lined up to break my legs. Seems not to be an idle threat if she’s got Chapman on board.”
“Did your man Estevez kill somebody?” the judge said to Moretti as she motioned to Mike to approach the bench.
“Chapman has nothing to do with this case,” I said. “I have no idea why he’s here.”
“Don’t get flustered, Alex,” Moretti said to me. “I think we all have a good idea why he’s here, or haven’t you heard, Judge Fleming?”
“Can we take a break, Your Honor?” I asked. “I can assure you it’s nothing personal.”
“Ten-minute recess, ladies and gentlemen. You’re not to leave this room, but you’re free to check your messages and talk among yourselves,” Fleming said. Then she snapped at the captain as she stepped down from the bench. “Make Mr. Estevez comfortable in his office.”
The fact that any defendant on trial was a prisoner at Rikers Island was supposed to be withheld from the jury. They dressed in civilian clothes, and but for being escorted back to the holding pen behind the courtroom surrounded by four armed men, most jurors would have to guess the fact that Estevez was actually incarcerated.
“Let’s see what Chapman’s got,” Fleming said. “We’ll go to my robing room.”
“Don’t you have a disrobing room for them?” Moretti asked.
I walked ahead of Fleming and Moretti, into the short hallway that connected her robing room to the courtroom. Mike caught up with us, offering apologies to the judge, greeting Moretti and me, and closing the door behind him.
“Sorry to break up your trial, Judge. Commissioner Scully asked me to come over to deliver the news to Ms. Cooper face-to-face. Let you know there’ll be a passel of reporters swarming around her when she leaves your courtroom.”
“I have no intention of letting her leave till the close of business, Mr. Chapman. Now, what’s the story?”
My heart was racing. I couldn’t make a connection between Mike and this defendant. I couldn’t think of a reason for Mike to interrupt the middle of my working day, especially since our relationship had now become an intimate one. I was embarrassed by his presence.
“Bad news first. We had an attempted murder early this morning. Rape and stabbing of a teenager in Riverside Park. Likely to die when I got the call, but she seems to be coming around.”
“You’re not getting Ms. Cooper on this one,” Fleming said.
“Not a problem,” I said, avoiding eye contact with both Mike Chapman and the judge. “He’s not here for me. I had a call on this case at nine A.M., before I knew there was anyone in custody, and assigned it to Marissa Bourges.”
Bourges was one of the best lawyers in my unit.
“The commissioner wanted me to deliver good news for a change, and make a plan with the judge about the media. We nailed the bastard who did the girl in the park an hour ago, Coop. It’s Raymond Tanner. You’re out of harm’s way.”
TWO
“Sit down before you fall over,” the judge said to me. “Take a deep breath.”
“I’m fine, Your Honor. Really I am. This is great news.” I was shaken by the mention of Tanner’s latest attack, and the reality that I would now have to face him from the witness stand.
“Maybe he needs a good lawyer,” Moretti said. “You might whisper my name in his ear, Chapman.”
“This is the scumbag-excuse me, Judge-that’s got KILL COOP inked on his hand, Gino. I’m looking to do more to him than whisper in his ear. Some of his other body parts have my more immediate attention.”
“Don’t tell me anything else about him,” Fleming said, clapping her hands over her ears. “I don’t want to have to recuse myself if this guy winds up in my courtroom. Siberia might not be cold enough for him.”
“The commissioner wants to know whether your court officers can take Alex down to her office at the end of the day. Just so the press guys don’t throw microphones in her face.”
“Sure. We can put her right on the judges’ elevator. Nobody has access to that bank.”
The tiny elevator kept the judiciary away from the great unwashed, so they didn’t have to ride up and down with perps and witnesses, snitches and scoundrels of all sorts. It opened directly into the back room of the office of District Attorney Paul Battaglia on the eighth floor of the massive courthouse.
“Perfect,” I said, trying to control the tremor in my hand by steadying it on the judge’s desk. “Where’s Tanner now?”
“Look,” Fleming said. “Why don’t you two take five minutes in here? Answer all her questions, Detective, so she can get back to concentrating on the business at hand.”
Gino Moretti winked at me as he followed Janet Fleming out of the robing room, a stark space with only a desk, three chairs, and an empty bookcase. There were no curtains on the windows that overlooked the narrow passage of Hogan Place. Elsewhere in the courthouse the judge had chambers with a large office, well decorated and watched over by her secretary.
“You’re okay now, Coop,” Mike said, bracing his back against the door to the room.
I bit my lip and nodded.
“This is weird, don’t you think, kid? That you’re just standing there staring at me?”
“What’s weird about it? I’m not staring.” I shifted my eyes from Mike’s face, focusing on a button on his navy blazer.
“Six months ago, if the same thing had happened, the judge would have walked out and you’d be clinging to me for dear life, asking me to tell you details and stop you from shaking.”
“It’s different now.”
“Yeah, it’s different,” he said, brushing back a shock of dark hair. “It’s supposed to be better. C’mere.”
I walked toward Mike and let him wrap his arms around me. Inside that embrace had always felt like the safest place to be. We had started working together more than a decade ago, and throughout those years had become best friends. Just two months earlier, in August, we had crossed the line and turned our friendship into a romance. I still wasn’t clear on how that would affect things on the job-at crime scenes, the morgue, my office, or his squad room.
Mike took my chin in his hand and tipped my face up to look into his. “It’s over for Tanner, Coop.”
“Don’t kiss-”
“You think I was going to kiss you? Get over yourself, girl. I know where we are.” Mike threw his hands up in the air and walked to the window.
“Sorry for being so awkward,” I said. “Where’s Tanner now?”
“The lieutenant’s going to hold him up uptown at the squad till you leave the building tonight. Whatever time that is. He just doesn’t want you under the same roof at the same time.”
“Crazy to slow down his arraignment for that reason.” I walked to one of the chairs and sat down. “Is he talking?”
“As in a confession? Not a word,” Mike said, walking to the desk, leaning on it as he looked into my eyes. “We don’t need anything from Tanner. Put together all the stuff he’s been doing since he slipped out of his work release program and his rap sheet will reach to Cleveland.”
“The girl, Mike. The likely from this morning. How’s she doing?”
“Collapsed lung from the stab wound, but she’s out of surgery and expected to make it.”
“No lead pipe?” The lethal weapon had been his signature in several cases.
“Except for the crater in this vic’s head, you’d hardly know it was Tanner. Yeah, he had a pipe. Yeah, he tried to smash her skull with it. The guys just haven’t found it yet.”
“Who collared him?” I asked, over my own reaction and interested now in the details. “Please tell me it was Mercer.”
“That’s a better attitude. Show me those whites, Coop.”