Someone spoke into the phone on the other end and I took a deep breath. Battaglia released the mouthpiece and answered. “Just a minute, Mr. King. I’m getting rope-a-doped by one of my lawyers here.”
He was already leaking information to James King, the straight-arrow, brilliant former IRS head who would be in the running to succeed Gil-Darsin at the World Economic Bureau.
“Don’t leave me hanging, Alexandra,” Battaglia said, wagging the cigar as he talked out of the side of his mouth.
“That’s all I’ve got, Paul. I just wanted you to know.” I could save the news about the matchbox in Luigi Calamari’s pocket for later. And the bloody skull. I wasn’t supposed to have known about either of those things yet anyway.
“Tell Luc to stay in the kitchen, will you? You look like the cat that swallowed the canary, young lady. I don’t want you slinking back in here later to tell me something else you wanted to say to me right now but it got stuck in your gullet.”
“Whatever happens, Paul, you can count on me not to slink.”
“Another minute, Mr. King. I just want to make sure we’re on a secure line,” Battaglia said, before turning his attention back to me as I moved toward the door. “I hope this-this nonsense didn’t have anything to do with your visit to Tiro a Segno last night. I hear you didn’t even wait long enough for the pasta to get al dente.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
I walked to the window bank at the end of the hallway that faced the short side street, Hogan Place, which was the actual entrance to the DA’s office. The bank was halfway between Battaglia’s suite and Laura’s desk and offered me the privacy to make a call.
“I am so steaming mad,” I said into my cell phone to Joan Stafford. Of course someone at the private club to which he had once belonged had given me up to the district attorney.
“Whatever happened to ‘good morning,’ Ms. Cooper?”
“So far I can’t say that it’s been very good. Did your mother ever tell you that she had eyes in the back of her head when you were a kid? Knew everything you did, no matter where you were? I feel like that all over again with my boss.”
“Then you should have asked him where Luc is,” Joan said. “All I can figure is that he’s off chasing the one-armed man.”
“What now? Didn’t you reach him?”
“Better take me off your payroll, girl. The bad news is that he’s not answering his phone at all, as irresistible as I think I am. The good news is that I called that she-devil, Brigitte, and he’s not with her.”
“So what do you think?”
“Didn’t you ever see that Harrison Ford movie-with the one-armed man?”
“Are you talking about The Fugitive?”
“Precisely.”
“Oh, Joanie, just when I need you to be sensible, here you go writing fiction again.”
“Think of it, Alex. Suppose the French detective-le flic-actually thinks Luc’s a-what do you call them these days?-a person of interest in the murder of Lisette Honfleur.”
“No one could possibly think that.”
“Say he’s Inspector Clouseau. Completely incompetent. He thinks that.”
“I’ll give you completely incompetent,” I said.
“So he leans on Luc, freaks him out. Wants everyone in town to believe Luc is guilty to sort of make him crack. Then Brigitte turns on him, ’cause she doesn’t want the kids involved. I’m telling you Luc’s running around out there like a fugitive, chasing the one-armed man who’s really the killer.”
“And I called you to calm me down. What was I thinking? I’ll talk to you later.”
“No, no, no, no, no! Don’t hang up on me. Where’s Mike? I bet he’d agree with me.”
“Joanie, I adore you, but I’ve got work to do. I don’t think Mike’s all that into Luc, if you know what I mean. Anyway, we’re about to be disconnected.” I turned off the phone and stormed back to my office.
“Don’t even stop at your desk,” Laura said, holding up both hands to stop me. “The whole team’s in the conference room with Byron Peaser and Ms. Robles. Better get yourself down there if you don’t want to miss any of the fireworks.”
I reversed direction and walked down the corridor.
From behind me I heard Ryan Blackmer’s voice. “Wait for me, Alex.”
“Are you making yourself useful?” I asked, forcing a smile.
“Checking the hotline.”
“Any messages about Gil-Darsin?” The Sex Crimes Unit had long had a dedicated phone line to take calls from victims or witnesses, many of whom were hesitant to notify the police but trusted the reputation of our pioneering office. Whenever a major case broke and there was a likelihood that the offender might have a recidivist history, the press secretary added our hotline number to the media releases.
“Nada.”
“So we’re still at one vic,” I said, continuing down the hall.
“Hold it a minute. Don’t you think it’s strange? Okay, so the guy’s a womanizer and all that. Plenty of stories to support how he comes on to every woman in his orbit. But rapists don’t just start with violent behavior when they’re fifty-eight years old, do they?”
“Never had a novice that age before.”
“It’s one thing to seduce someone, but it’s a different animal to come raging out of the bathroom and assault a complete stranger. The hotline is stone-cold. That never happens when you’ve got a serial rapist.”
“I’m with you on that.”
“And I’ve called every Eurotel where Baby Mo is likely to have traveled on WEB business. No reports, no complaints, no violence. Affairs, yes. Attacks, no. Only that whack job in France who waited eight years to decide that after she held hands with him during a professional interview, maybe he thought he had a green light.”
“That’ll go nowhere,” I said. “She’s beyond the statute of limitations.”
“She’s beyond belief, is what she is. So why didn’t you make that argument to Battaglia?”
“I just forgot, Ryan. Sorry, I know how strongly you feel about slowing this down.”
“Are you okay, Al? It’s not like you to forget to tell the Boss something like that.”
“Tired. Stressed out about doing the right thing on this.”
We were a dozen feet away from the conference room when I heard Byron Peaser ranting at someone through the closed door.
“She didn’t know it was there, don’t you understand that?” Peaser shouted.
Ryan opened the door for me and we went back inside. Peaser was having a standoff with Pat McKinney, and I didn’t want to get in the way of that.
“Look, Byron, Detective Wallace just got a call back from Citibank about the subpoenas he delivered last night. They told him there are five accounts in Blanca’s name. Five bank accounts-I’m asking her to explain that.”
Blanca Robles, dressed in a black suit that Peaser probably bought her for the occasion, started to answer. “I swear I didn’t know-”
“Hush up, now, Blanca. You see, Pat,” Peaser interjected, “that scumbag boyfriend of hers must have forged the signature cards and opened these accounts in her name. Whatever criminal enterprise he was up to, we simply don’t know. Just another jerk taking advantage of this poor woman.”
I couldn’t believe McKinney was letting Peaser give answers-or suggest scenarios-to rescue Blanca. “I find it works better, Pat, if we have Mr. Peaser wait outside.”
Peaser threw up his hands, obviously aggravated by my appearance. “So Ms. Torquemada comes to join us again, in case my client needs a little more waterboarding. You didn’t get your fill of questions yesterday?”
“We go where the truth takes us, sir,” I said. “Maybe Ms. Robles doesn’t like that, but it’s pretty much the way we operate here.”
“Well, is it taking you to the grand jury or not?” he asked, pounding his fist on the table.
“Two P.M. sharp, Byron,” Pat said. “If you’ll step out and let us get back to work with Blanca, I’ve reserved half an hour and we’ll be the first case of the afternoon session.”