Hell Gate (26 page)

“I’m here because you never even bothered to call me today about the autopsy on Salma, and you got to help me figure something out.”

We’d had mixed messages before, but this one caught me totally off guard.

“You drove out to talk to me about the case?” I asked. I sat up and folded my legs beneath me, feeling like a fool for having put any kind of personal spin on his Friday-night drop-in. “You could have just called, you know?”

“Yeah, but then I wouldn’t have seen Logan, and I didn’t want to bother Mercer before the big family prom.”

I was embarrassed by my ridiculous assumption that Mike had driven out to see me for some reason other than the case. Of course this hadn’t been a social visit, or at least it was no more personal than two friends and colleagues catching up before inevitably turning the conversation back to our work.

“What’s the news on the autopsy?” I asked. I tried to focus again.

Mike stood up with his glass in one hand and leaned against the mantel. “Cause of death was obvious. The wine opener pierced Salma’s trachea. Asphyxia due to blood inhalation.”

I’d had cases like that before. Death was usually quite rapid, the victim often convulsing as blood obstructed the air passages. It was as ugly a picture as I had imagined.

“You expected that.”

“Yeah, well, what do you know about pregnancy?”

“Precious little.”

“Dr. Kirschner says he’s willing to bet that Salma never gave birth.”

I put my glass down to try to clear my head and rethink things. Claire Leighton had told Mercer that Ethan admitted fathering Salma’s little girl. The baby had been in the apartment shortly before Mercer’s visit. The doorman described the woman who had taken her.

“What do you mean, Mike?”

“You know MEs, Coop. They’ll never say never. But it’s something about the cervix that has Dr. Kirschner convinced.”

“Like my Riverside Park homicide victim two years ago. When a woman has given birth to a full-term baby,” I said, “there are changes in the cervix. The opening gapes a bit—the medical term is
patulous.
”

“That’s the word. He said she wasn’t patulous. There’s nothing in Salma’s body to reflect any signs she gave birth. No scars on the abdomen to suggest a C-section. He took one look at the uterus and said there was no way anything that small had ever held a baby.”

Now, there was an entirely new set of concerns to deal with. Whose baby was it and what had become of the child? Who was the man who had shown up on Wednesday night, claiming to be the baby’s actual father?

“So Ethan Leighton probably bit the bullet on a phony DNA test,” I said. It wouldn’t take much for a forger to fake a genetic test result to convince the congressman that he had indeed impregnated his lover.

“And you can add a touch of extortion to the list of motives that’s growing deadlier by the hour.”

I got up from the sofa a bit later to check on Logan, who had barely shifted positions since I tucked him in and turned out the light. When I returned to the den, I put another log on the fire and settled into a comfortable armchair.

Mike found a college football game on ESPN and stretched out on the sofa. I pretended to watch while I wondered whether he would always be as much of an enigma to me as he had proved to be tonight.

Vickee and Mercer got home shortly after one o’clock in the morning. They had seen Mike’s car down the street and figured we had planned to spend the evening together. They were as mistaken as I.

“How was the party?” I asked.

“We had a good time,” Vickee said. “The relatives behaved and the bride-to-be is happy as anything. All fine with Logan?”

“If he wakes up fighting with people-eating dinosaurs, I’m not the perp,” I said, pointing a finger at Mike. “He’s good as gold and I loved the chance to be with him for a few hours.”

Vickee stepped out of her shoes while Mercer took off his jacket and undid his tie.

When she went upstairs to look in on the baby, Mike told Mercer about Salma’s autopsy and I started to relate the details of my interview with Olena.

“What can I fix for you, Alex?”

“I’m good. I’m going to drive back into the city.”

“Why don’t you stay? Guest room’s all made up.”

“I need a decent night’s sleep, Mercer. It won’t even take half an hour for me to get home.”

Mercer poured himself a drink from the bar and Mike helped himself to another glass of wine. “This is taking the courthouse rent-a-baby scheme to a new low.”

It was commonplace for felons—especially those facing a sentence date—to show up with a woman who’d been nowhere in sight throughout the trial. The plea for sympathy worked best if she carried an infant in her arms, not likely to be any relation to the defendant, but something to tug at the heartstrings of judge or jury.

“It also explains how sterile it was in Salma’s apartment,” I said. “Sure, she had a crib and a high chair and enough toys in the bedroom when she needed to convince the congressman that she’d had his kid. But no photographs, none of the out-of-place disorder you’d expect with a nineteen-month-old—well, it was a setup, in all likelihood.”

“Probably worked for as little time as he had to spend with her,” Mike said, “between being in Washington and his own home here in the city.”

“I would so love to corner Ethan Leighton and just confront him with all this,” I said, picking up my jacket and tote. “Too bad Lem’s in the way of that.”

“You blew the chance.”

“I’ll walk you out to your car,” Mercer said.

“G’night, Mike. Thanks for bringing dinner.”

“I put it on your tab, Coop. The least I could do was make the delivery.”

“Watch it on the steps,” Mercer said, opening the door and steering my elbow. “There are a few icy patches.”

I didn’t say anything as we walked to my SUV. I was thinking that Mike was staying on behind to drink with Mercer because he didn’t want to deal with following me back into Manhattan—his usual style if we were in separate cars—and saying good-bye at my door.

“You okay, Alex?” Mercer asked. “You’re so quiet.”

“Yes, of course. I’m just tired,” I said, reaching up to kiss him. “Tell Vickee I’ll call her tomorrow. What an absolute joy to get to spend time with Logan.”

He opened the car door and I got in, letting the engine warm up before I pulled away from the curb.

The CD picked up where Smokey had left off when I arrived.
“Ooh, baby, baby . . .”
I wasn’t up for brokenhearted love songs at that moment, so I shut off the music for a quiet ride home.

I turned left at the end of the long street, retracing my route to the expressway through the dark, quiet neighborhood. I was driving slowly, concerned about the ice on the streets of the outer borough, always among the last to be plowed.

There was a right turn after a stop sign, and as I eased the heavy SUV around the corner I noticed a car approaching behind me.

I tried to pull over so that the driver, who seemed to be in more of a hurry than I was, could pass me, but there wasn’t room for anyone to get by on the one-way residential street, lined on both sides with parked cars.

I sped up and my car fishtailed on the icy road. I glanced in the rearview mirror and was grateful that the driver in back got the point. He—or she—had slowed considerably and seemed to have accepted my pace.

Another three or four blocks and I knew I would see the large green sign that marked the entrance to the highway. I took my time, looking in the mirror at every turn to see if the car was still there. I wasn’t really concerned because the route I was taking was the one to the main artery leading both into the city and out to Long Island. I’d expect other drivers to use it.

I crossed a large intersection and the driver stayed on the same path. The car was a larger SUV than mine, a light silver color—nothing like the minivan that had alarmed me at the shelter in the afternoon. But its windshield had the same kind of dark tint.

The street I was on narrowed and doglegged to the left, so I braked again going into the curve, careful to avoid the piles of slush bordering the pavement.

Suddenly, the driver behind stepped on the gas and plowed into me, ramming my SUV and aiming it at the large utility pole straight ahead.

I swung the steering wheel as hard as I could, sharply left, and the powerful machine responded like a small sports car. I veered into the driveway of the last large house on the block and leaned on the horn for a full minute as I came to a stop inches from the garage door.

The SUV that hit me sped off as my horn blared and lights went on in all the houses on the street.

The two uniformed cops who answered to the flurry of 911 calls in the still Douglaston neighborhood asked for my license and registration.

I apologized to the man whose driveway I’d entered in such a wild fashion, before I backed out and waited for the police. I’m not sure he believed my story about being followed and forced off the road, but he seemed to want me out of his hair so that he could go back to bed.

“Where were you coming from, Miss Cooper?”

I decided not to pull out my badge and tell them I was an assistant district attorney. I didn’t need to wind up in a tabloid gossip column or be the butt of any more of Mike’s jokes. Maybe I really was seeing too much of the bogeyman.

“A friend’s house,” I said. I gave them Mercer’s name and address.

“You have anything to drink?”

Officer Tarranta was talking to me as he eyeballed the damage to my car. His partner was sitting in the RMP, using the laptop now in each radio motor patrol car to see whether I had a criminal record or vehicular violations.

“Half a glass of wine about four hours ago. I’ll blow for you.”

“I tell you,” Tarranta said, “these TV shows are too much. They even got the lingo down. All of youse learn your cop talk on
Law and Order,
I guess. Most of the people I stop aren’t so willing to blow for me.”

“This was ice, I think. Not on the rocks, but on the street.”

“I seen you walk fine, your breath don’t smell, and you’re totally coherent, ma’am. I just have to ask about the liquor. It’s routine.” He squatted by my rear fender and jiggled it. The right side was badly dented and hanging off the end of the vehicle. “You may not be hammered, but your car took a hit. How’s your head?”

“I’m fine.”

“You want to go to the ER? Be checked out?” Tarranta asked.

“No. Nothing’s wrong with me.”

“You got to sign this for me, then,” he said.

If I told him I knew it was an RMA form—that I had refused medical attention—he might have figured I had something to do with law enforcement. “Sure. What is it?”

He explained the procedure and then told me to get in the car to stay warm. I watched as he walked down the street, in the direction from which I’d come.

When he got back to me, he was shaking his head. “I don’t understand it, ma’am. This roadway is clean as a whistle. Nothing to skid on, unless you were wide to the side of the main lane.”

“Maybe I was.” I smiled lamely at him.

“I put a call out for a speeding silver SUV. See if anything comes from that. You think it was intentional? Some guy follow you from the party?”

“No, Officer. It wasn’t a party. It was just four of us at the house, and no one followed me when I left the street,” I said. One of the city’s best detectives had packed me into my car and waited as I drove away.

“Did you see him in the rearview mirror?” Tarranta asked. His partner approached and gave a thumbs-up, confirming that I had no record.

“I saw the car about a block after I pulled out from my friend’s house. I think I was just going too slow for the guy.”

I could tell Mercer about it tomorrow, but no need making a big deal out of it with these officers.

“Anything come back on the radio about the silver SUV?” Tarranta asked his partner.

“Nothing yet.”

“I’ll give you this number, Miss Cooper. You can call in for the police report tomorrow, for your insurance company.”

“But it’s okay for me to drive it, don’t you think?”

The two cops looked at each other. Tarranta got down on his knees and tugged on the fender, then stuck his head beneath the rear of the SUV, probably to see how firmly it was still attached.

He stood up and talked to the younger, thinner cop. “Give it a feel, will you? I don’t want to send this lady out on the highway and have the damn thing dragging behind her.”

Officer Richards didn’t seem too happy to have to get down on the pavement to examine the underside of my car. He knelt and then flattened out on his back. His head disappeared from sight as he tried to jam the loose fender back up in place.

“I’m so sorry to have caused all this trouble. Please get up. I’ll be fine.”

“Hey, Anthony,” Richards called up to his partner. “It’s not the bent metal that I’m worried about.”

He was sliding out and sitting up, holding a black object in his hand. “The problem is, she’s been tagged.”

I didn’t have to rely on television cop shows to learn the latest lingo. I knew exactly what that little object was. The young cop was telling Officer Tarranta that a Global Positioning System monitor had been concealed in the undercarriage of my SUV.

“I know what that means too,” I said to the startled cops. “This wasn’t an accident, guys. Someone’s been using a GPS to chase me around all day and night.”

“Why didn’t you just tell us you were a district attorney when we got to the scene?” Tarranta said, as we pulled into the garage at my apartment.

His boss had given the pair permission to drive me home, and Richards had followed in the RMP.

“It seemed easier not to make the connection at the time,” I said, as Tarranta trailed me through the locked door that led up the back stairwell into the lobby. “I had no reason to think anyone was targeting me for trouble.”