“Pat McKinney’s already in there with him. Ellen Gunsher, too.” Rose knew me well enough to read my expression. I didn’t even want to mention in their presence that Baby Mo had been a customer in Luc’s restaurant and a social acquaintance for many years.
“Why don’t you stay on when this session is finished? I’ll hold off his next meeting.”
“Thanks. Mercer and Ryan are in my office. I’ll be back with them in two minutes.”
I crossed the hall to get the two people I trusted most in this mix to brainstorm with us. Rose waved us right in when we returned.
Paul Battaglia was standing at the head of the conference table at the rear of his enormous office. He was talking on the phone with a cigar dangling from the side of his mouth. He was shouting at one of the reporters in the press room about the coverage in this morning’s tabloids.
On one side of the table, closer to Pat McKinney, was the Post with its snappy FRENCH WHINE headline, remarking on the complaints of the European press about the American criminal justice system. Nearer to Ellen Gunsher was the Daily News with THE MAID OR THE MO? caption, painting Battaglia’s dilemma, like the Lady or the Tiger, in choosing which of the parties to champion.
The district attorney slammed the phone back in the cradle. “I guess it’s open season on me. It’s MGD’s sperm that’s all over the Eurotel, and it’s the housekeeper who can’t keep her facts straight, but somehow I think this whole fiasco winds up blackening my eye. Where’s your victim? Is Oprah coming back to TV to do a morning special featuring the maid who couldn’t keep her mouth shut?”
“I spent half of last evening bargaining with Byron Peaser,” McKinney said. “He’s producing Blanca here this morning, with a million conditions that we’re still-”
“Conditions?” Battaglia said, walking across the room, flapping his wings like an ostrich trying to get airborne. “What the fuck is he thinking, that he can impose conditions on us? When she walks in the door, slap a bright green grand jury subpoena in her hand.”
“I’m trying to mollify the old sleazebag, Boss. The only issue left to decide is whether we try to make our 180.80 deadline,” McKinney said, referring to the Criminal Procedure Law section that mandated a grand jury vote within this week to keep bail conditions the same.
“Or what? Gil-Darsin gets out and we never see him again?”
“If you sit down with us, Boss, we can lay out where we stand and give you our opinions on which way to go.”
Battaglia made his way to the head of the table. “Since when did this office become a democracy? Five of you each think you get a vote? Are your names going to be on that ballot with me next year when the editorial writers all claim they know this game better than I do?”
“If you’re worried about the Ivorian vote in Manhattan, Paul,” I said, “there are exactly one hundred twenty-three registered voters here who were born in the Republic of the Ivory Coast. I don’t think they’ll riot for Baby Mo.”
“If you go for the indictment today, who’s putting Ms. Robles in the jury?”
“Ellen is,” McKinney said, sneering in my direction. “Alex will be with her to oversee the presentation, but the victim doesn’t much like Alex.”
“What did you do to her?” Battaglia asked.
“Tried to get at the truth.”
“But you did it so heavy-handed,” McKinney said. “You’re the one always telling people how compassionate to be with rape victims.”
“Of course that’s true. But the first time the witness lies-I’m not talking about mistakes that everyone makes, or confusion as a result of trauma-but when she outright lies, then our most critical task is to find out whether that fib is a stand-alone, or whether lies permeate the entire underpinning of the story.”
“And what did all those hours together lead you to conclude, Alex?” Battaglia said.
I hesitated for fifteen seconds, fully aware that the district attorney had summoned me back from France to lead the charge on this case. “That I just don’t know what to believe.”
“Why not?”
“We all know something sexual happened in that room between MGD and Robles. But she’s the most facile liar I’ve ever confronted. One minute she’s staring me directly in the eye and I’m ready to fight to the death for her, and the next time she answers a question, it’s a complete fabrication.”
Battaglia’s annoyance with me was palpable. He put his elbows on the table and templed his fingers. “Mercer?”
“I think you have no choice but to indict the man,” Mercer said. “I’d like more time to get some background info on Blanca checked, but Alex says Lem Howell isn’t offering that option.”
“Ryan?”
The bright young lawyer leaned forward, pleased to have his say in a top-level powwow. “I hate to disagree with Mercer, but she’s not ready for prime time, Boss. Let MGD out with an ankle bracelet, hold his passport, and-”
That was all of Ryan Blackmer that Battaglia wanted to hear.
“Ellen. Are you ready to go?”
“’Bout as ready as a prairie dog heading out to meet an armadillo.”
“Save those little bits of Texas for home, missy. Got it?” Battaglia had been ridiculed in the media the last time Ellen spoke at a triumphant press conference, when dozens of guns had been confiscated by cops working with her unit. The Gunsherism-“If bullfrogs had side pockets, they’d have pistols, too”-wasn’t meant to turn the serious moment into a comedy show.
“Yes, sir.”
“Pat?”
“Full speed ahead. Ellen’s ready for a bare-bones presentation. Less margin for error that way.”
“Bare bones” was the leanest way to put the legal elements of a case before the grand jury. Only the essential facts were elicited from the witness-nothing requiring long answers or extraneous information.
“She’s still got to be telling the truth, Pat,” I said. “A single lie under oath at this point will undermine the entire case going forward.”
“So what do you want today, Alexandra?” Battaglia asked. “Right this minute.”
“More information. I want to know what Blanca swore to in that asylum application. I want to know what lies she told to get into this country. Have you heard anything back from your request to the State Department?”
“Monday at the earliest,” the district attorney replied.
“It’s irrelevant,” McKinney said. “The whole damn thing is irrelevant.”
“I’ll give that to you, Pat, for the purposes of the grand jury,” I said. “But doesn’t it bother you just a little bit, in getting to these facts, that she’s capable of lying under oath?”
“Everybody seeking asylum does it.”
“Fair enough.”
“What if one of the jurors asks about why she got asylum?” Battaglia countered.
“That’s why you’ve got your bureau chief in there, Boss,” McKinney said, waving a hand in my direction. “She’s their legal adviser. If they ask any questions when Ellen is finished, then Alex tells them it’s none of their business. She’ll keep them in line.”
“What else do you want?” Battaglia asked me.
“The recording of Blanca’s call to her boyfriend in federal prison after the attack,” I said. “I want to know exactly what she told him about it. I want to know if she talked to him about getting millions out of MGD.”
Pat McKinney shook his head. “Ellen’s questions don’t even touch the fact that she has a boyfriend. The jury won’t know about him, so they won’t know he’s in jail.”
“What if the facts she told him-which are on tape by the way-are different than what she told the police and all of us?” I asked.
“The feds can get that tape to us by the weekend,” Pat said. “I’m all over that.”