“The grand jury is deemed a secret proceeding, by law, as I’m sure you know. You can’t accompany Blanca into that forum, and these meetings are preparation for her testimony there. So either my secretary will make you comfortable at an empty desk so you can make calls or do work, or you can go back to your office and Detective Wallace will bring Blanca to you at the end of the day. You are not driving this train, Mr. Peaser, so take your hands off the controls. Which will it be?”
“Neither option is acceptable to me, Ms. Cooper.”
I walked around my desk so that my back was to Peaser but I was directly in front of Blanca Robles. “Yesterday you told Mercer and the lawyers that your first interest was seeking justice against the man who assaulted you. Is that still the case?”
She hesitated and unenthusiastically said, “Yes.”
“If we’re successful in proving Mr. Gil-Darsin’s guilt-and the only person who can do that is you, Blanca-then not only does he face a serious prison sentence but we’ve also done all of Mr. Peaser’s work for him.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I thought I talked you through all this, Blanca,” Peaser said, but the puzzled look on the woman’s face belied his lame effort.
“Basically, the civil jury would learn that the man was convicted of terrible crimes at our trial, and they would just have to set a dollar number on the award to you,” I said. “They would learn that he’d been found guilty in this court, and they would have to decide only how much money to give you, and that settles how much money Mr. Peaser puts in his pocket at the end of the day. Has he explained that to you?”
Blanca tilted her head to try to look around me at him, but she couldn’t see him.
“Not exactly. Not yet anyway.”
“Yes, I did, Blanca. I started to tell you that last night. We’ll get to it,” Peaser said, sounding arch and angry. He looked as though snake oil would begin to ooze from his every pore.
“So here’s the choice you have to make today. You can go off with Mr. Peaser to his office and do whatever he has planned. In that case, I can’t promise you when we’ll be ready to take you into the grand jury. We’ll need all of today to prep you, at the very least. And if we haven’t obtained an indictment before Friday, Mr. Gil-Darsin will be released from jail and probably be on his way home to France.”
Blanca gasped. “But that’s not possible.”
“If you stay and work with us all day, then I don’t expect it will be a problem,” I said. “But Mr. Peaser is not part of our case. He has no role, no participation in what we’re doing here. Mr. McKinney-I think you met him yesterday-and Detective Wallace are in charge of the criminal matter.
“I’m not your lawyer, Blanca. I’m the state’s lawyer. I can’t make you millions of dollars, like Mr. Peaser thinks he can. But the district attorney has put together the best possible team to see that justice is done in your case. And if you meet us halfway, if you simply tell us the truth about everything we ask you, we’ll be the most spectacular advocates you could ever have at your side. Do you get what I’m telling you?”
Her dark brown eyes were tearing up. “Yes, Miss Alex. Yes, I do. But I don’t know who to trust in this. I’m very frightened.”
“Of course you are. Everyone who walks into our offices has good reason to be scared and nervous. We’re all here to help you get through this, I promise.”
An unexpected knock on the door startled me. Laura opened it and poked her head in. “Excuse me, Alex, but can you step out here for a minute?”
I gave her a look that rudely must have conveyed my wonder at what could possibly have caused an intrusion at exactly this moment. “What-?”
“It’s Mike. He says he’s got to see you immediately.”
“You want to deal with him, Mercer? I’m not in the mood for some slimy souvenir from the Gowanus Canal.”
“Let me talk to Blanca while you go about your business. Mike asked for you, not me.”
It was a smart idea for Mercer to work his magic on the victim. I could tell from her smile when she entered the room that she liked or respected him, and he would probably be more off-putting to Byron Peaser than I had tried to be.
I walked out, and Laura told me Mike was waiting in the empty office vacated by my former deputy. Ellen Gunsher was at the far end of the hallway. She held up her arm and tapped on her wristwatch. I spread my fingers to tell her we’d be with her in five minutes.
“Good morning, Detective Chapman,” I said as I pushed open the door.
“Hey, kid. I’m sorry to break up your meeting. I know you’ve got to get your indictment. I just wanted you to see this before I take it over to One PP.”
“See what?” I asked. “Headquarters? What’s that got to do with me?”
One Police Plaza was just a few blocks from the courthouse.
“Commissioner Scully wants a briefing on the floater in the canal.”
“Why?” I asked. “Who was the guy?”
“We don’t have a clue. That’s why Scully will probably go public if we can’t ID him in the next few hours.” Mike reached into his blazer pocket and pulled out a manila envelope with his gloved hand.
“I found this in his pocket after they fished him out of the water.” He removed the small matchbox and held it up so I could see it. The shiny white background was slightly mottled from submersion in the water, but the spring green letters were sharp and clear.
LUTÈCE was written on one side of the small box, then Mike flipped it to show me Luc’s name on the other.
FIFTEEN
“There are thousands of these boxes that Luc had made,” I said, practically shouting at Mike. “What’s the big deal that this dead man had one in his pocket? Why do you think it would upset me? Why would you think Luc is involved?”
“Take it easy, Coop. Nobody’s accusing Luc of anything. But don’t you think this is going to raise a few eyebrows at headquarters?”
“I can’t imagine why it would.”
“Don’t yell at me, kid. I’m on your side. It’s not my case, remember? As of eight A.M., it got handed over to Brooklyn Homicide. I’m just the messenger.”
“Keith Scully won’t even know what Lutèce is.”
“Are you joking? It was hands-down the best restaurant in the city for a couple of decades. If you walked the beat in the Seventeenth Precinct, you still know that presidents and kings and captains of industry made it their clubhouse at lunchtime and dinner. Maybe I never got to taste the crumbs, but you know how many security details I worked there over the years? Keith, too. He didn’t get to the top being stupid.”
“That’s the old place. That Lutèce has been shut down since 2004,” I said, my arms flailing in the empty space as I started to pace around the room. “How would Keith have a clue? There is no Lutèce at the moment.”
“Which is why it’s even stranger if you give it some rational thought,” Mike said. He put his hands on my shoulders and forced me to sit down. “How many of these little boxes could there be, Coop? The restaurant doesn’t even exist yet.”
“I told you it’s about to open. These are-they’re-” I paused, flustered that I couldn’t even think of the word that Luc used to describe them. “It’s a prototype. He and his partners had hundreds of them-maybe thousands of them-made up as a promotional thing. They’re being passed out in restaurants and bars and who knows where else.”
“In France, Coop, or here in New York?”
I looked up at Mike and took a deep breath. “I don’t know. For sure around Mougins.”
“Want to see if you recognize the dead guy?” Mike said, pulling up the photograph on his cell phone. “It’s not exactly his yearbook picture, so it may be hard to tell.”
A slit throat and time in one of the world’s foulest waterways wouldn’t do much to turn anyone’s features into a money shot. I stared at the man’s head from several angles before I answered. “I’ve never seen him. Was there anything else in his pockets?”