Killer Heat (24 page)

Iwas sitting at my desk at one o'clock that afternoon when
Mercer came back from the hospital. Laura had instructions not to
let anyone else in to see me after I returned from Judge Lamont's
chambers, having adjourned Floyd Warren's sentencing till the next
day

What's the matter, Alex? Does your head hurt?" Mercer closed
the door behind him and walked to my desk, opening a bag with
sandwiches and coffee for each of us.

I wasn't even aware that I was rubbing a small knot on my
temple, where it had smacked against the cab's partition. “I can't
remember whether there was a time before last week when my head didn't ache. How's Kerry?”

“She's going to give new meaning to the colors black and blue by
the time her bruises are in full bloom tonight. Everything checked
out fine, but she's hurting. I took her back to the hotel. I assume
you postponed the case?”

“Yes. No problem, of course.”

“Well, Kerry just wants to get on a plane and go back home.”

“I don't blame her. Did you bring up the subject of talking to
Warren?”

“I did. She's okay with it, Alex. Anything that might prevent
some one else from becoming a victim. He's sixty-one years old, and
Lamont is threatening to hit him with the full fifty. Half of that
will be fine, if he gives us anything.”

“It's not the time behind bars. It's the symbolism. It's a
statement on behalf of what he took from Kerry's life and all the
other women who were attacked.”

“Call Gene Grassley now,” Mercer said. “Let's give this a go.”
He was unwrapping the foil on our sandwiches when Laura buzzed me
on the intercom.

“Ryan Blackmer's here, Alex. It's about this morning's
accident. The Latin Prince from court last week who crashed into
your cab.”

“Let him in.”

Ryan was one of my favorite colleagues, smart and creative and
always willing to go the full nine yards with any cop who brought
him an interesting case.

“Hey, Mercer. Alex. I didn't know you were at the vortex of a
Dominican jihad. I always figured you for getting trampled to death
at a sample sale of designer dresses. This rocks.”

“And what's 'this'?”

“Tu amigo Antonio Lucido, carida. I'm
supervising in ECAB today,”

Ryan said, referring to the intake section through which every
arrest passed for processing-the early case assessment bureau.
“Laura told me this guy and his buddies were stalking you in court
last week. I went up to Lamont to get a statement from him before
coming here.”

“He was in the car, this Lucido kid?” Mercer asked. I had left
a message on his cell shortly after I came upstairs, telling him
about the involvement of the Latin Princes in the crash.

“Yeah. The guys brought him in for leaving the scene. He was in
the passenger seat, according to one of the cops who made the
grab.”

“Is he talking?”

“You know Alex likes the strong, silent type. Not a word. Turns
out the car is stolen, too. Taken out of long-term parking at
Newark Airport just after midnight, so that adds a little heat to
the charges.”

“Will you keep this yourself?” I asked.

“Absolutely. And then there's the matter of the gun under the
front seat. Fully loaded semiautomatic.”

“Damn,” Mercer said. “You got raps back on him yet?”

“Waiting on that now. You want to tell me what happened?”

“I didn't see anything. I really didn't,” I said. “If that
street was a bit wider so the Plymouth could have gotten around
us, I would have thought we'd been rear-ended accidentally and
they just ran off scared.”

But I knew it was no coincidence that Posano's posse had been
waiting for me outside my office with a loaded gun.

“We've got a lot of witnesses, Alex.”

“Add Justin Feldman to the list. He thinks maybe they could have
seen me inside the cab, through the open window.”

There was a sharp rap on the door and before I could ask who was
there, Mike opened it and came in. “You're like a frigging
heat-seeking missile, Blondie. What is it with you?”

I frowned as I glanced at Mercer.

“I had to call him, Alex.”

“You didn't take me away from anything important. Yes, the
troopers found human hair in the back of Dylan's van. Yes, they
found his fingerprints-as well as prints that don't match his.
Yes, they've swabbed it for DNA. Be patient and we'll have
comparisons in the next fortyeight. And-oh, yeah, you'll like this
one 'cause it was your idea. They got results back from the swabs
of the inside of the handcuffs they found on Saturday. Turns out
they were used on both Amber Bristol and Elise Huff. Like you
said, link the cases by the vics if you can't do it by the perp.
Otherwise, I had nothing to do today but worry about you.”

“I thought you were going with Dickie Draper, out to see what
the story is on Ruffle Bar. The real one.”

“Turns out Special Ops uses that place once a month for drills.
Peterson asked their CO to send men to look it over. They keep a
chopper on standby.”

“What do they use the island for?” I asked. I knew that Special
Ops was a high-powered training division of the NYPD, made up of
members of the Harbor, Aviation, and Emergency Services units.
"They stage disasters, Coop, so they can prepare for the
response.

Terrorist attacks, plane crashes, boat accidents. The
bodies-well, the mannequins-wind up on Ruffle Bar, and Special Ops
has to swim in or fly in to triage the victims. If there's anything
of interest on that sandbar-including a sample of the sand-they'll
get it for us. What's new, Ryan?"

Ryan and Mike shook hands, and Mike listened to details of the
morning's arrest.

“You really don't need to be here,” I said. “Who's tailing
Kiernan Dylan?”

“It's tough to tail a guy when you don't know where he is.”

“Didn't he go home after he got out of court last night?” Mike
put both hands in his pants pockets and looked down at the
floor.

“Peterson's got somebody sitting on his apartment, his father's
place, the house at Breezy Point. No sign of him anywhere.”

“How about the bar?”

“Some jerk,” Mike said, making the sign of the cross on his
chest, “was stupid enough to want to shut that place down. Nobody
home.”

“Let me get back downstairs,” Ryan said. “I just wanted to know
if you saw anything, heard anything. Sounds like you didn't. I'll
draw this up with the cops who witnessed it. No injuries to you,
right? Just your victim?”

“Exactly. You think you can keep him in?”

“Shouldn't be difficult. Throw in a reckless assault, too. Got
myself a real case in the middle of the off-season. I can't
imagine Antonio got to this level in the Latin Princes without a
few visits to the can. If we don't have enough to hold him on
this, I'm sure he's got a rap sheet that will help. I'll let you
know as soon as it comes back.”

“Any idea who the driver was?” Mercer asked.

“Not yet. And Senor Lucido isn't saying nada. The car's being
towed. They'll actually dust it for prints. Helps to have a victim
with juice, Ms. Cooper.”

“Who's the girl?”

Ryan looked at the arrest papers folded in his rear pocket.
“She's been playing games with us. No ID on her, so we're waiting
on her prints, too. The first thing she told the cops was that her
name is Clarita Munoz. Then about five minutes later she changed it
to Clarita Cruz. Then she clammed up completely. Had a pocket-size
canister of Mace in her jeans. Love to know where she was going
with that.”

“Thanks, Ryan. When you find out, let me know,” I said, as he
walked out of the room. “See you later.”

“Why does that name sound familiar to me?” Mercer asked. Mike
was at my desk, helping himself to half of my turkey sandwich.
“Probably because you've been watching too much Telemundo, my
pal.”

Mercer called out to Laura, who came to the door. “Help me with
this. You got Alex's book there?”

Laura turned to her desk and picked up my red appointment
diary.

“Sure.”

“What's the name of the girl who was scheduled to come in at
eleven today? Alex and I were standing right next to you while you
were on the phone with Ed, in Witness Aid, making the date when we
came down from court last Thursday.”

Laura found the entry. “Clarita Munoz.”

I was rubbing my forehead again but nothing registered. Mike was
chewing while he puzzled this out. “You were supposed to meet with
this girl today? And she's sitting in a car, waiting for you to
show up at the building, with a can of Mace, a loaded gun, and two
Latin Princes? Que pasa, Coop?”

“They couldn't possibly have known I was coming to work in a
cab. That I'd be squaring the block from Baxter Street,” I said.
“That's not my usual route.”

Mercer was pacing the room. “Like everyone says, it's a stupid
place to stage an accident. So suppose that crash was just a
spur-of-themoment idea. The guys were there to accompany Clarita,
who had an actual appointment to walk right in this door. Set her
up for whatever she was going to do and be her getaway car-if she
was getting anywhere. The cab pulled up, they see your platinum
head in the window, and the driver makes a command decision, on
the spot, to lock fenders. Just to shake you up, like they were
doing last week.”

“Okay, so they certainly weren't trying to kill me,” I said,
wanting to believe that. “Not inside One Hogan Place.”

“But if Clarita is Posano's shortie, maybe she's trying to make
her bones with him. Imagine she gets up here-right to the main
floor of Battaglia's center of power-and sprays you with Mace. How
much more in your face does it get?” Mercer said. “Imagine her
status when word gets up to state prison. Meantime, she hasn't
caused you any serious injury. She'd hardly get more than a slap on
the wrist.”

“I like your thinking, Detective,” Mike said.

“And you need to call Rodman's Neck,” he went on, wagging a
finger at Mike. “See what happened to those cartridges they were
going to analyze from Friday morning's shooting.”

“The range?” Mike put down the sandwich and brushed the crumbs
off his hands. “What's this babe got to do with that?”

“You and Alex didn't think anyone knew you were going to be at
the range on Friday morning. Didn't think that shooting had
anything to do with her, right?” Mercer said. “Well, when Laura
was on the phone with Ed she was talking him through Alex's
schedule.”

Laura's hand flew up to cover her mouth.

“I heard her tell Ed that she was checking Alex's availability,
that if the jury came back as fast as expected, she'd be at the
police range the next morning.”

Laura removed her hand and nodded. "Maybe she heard me. Or Ed
said it out loud. I know I could understand the girl perfectly well
when I asked Ed to get me her name. She didn't wait for him to
repeat my question. She said she was Clarita Munoz. I'd guess she
could hear me just as well as I could hear her.

There's a lawyer named Frankie Shea on line one," Laura said
about an hour later, after I had gotten Gene Grassley's permission
for Mercer to talk to Floyd Warren and met with Judge Lamont to
tell him about Antonio Lucido and Clarita Munoz.

I picked up the receiver, not expecting the harangue that he
began to unload.

“Slow down, Mr. Shea. I don't know what you're talking
about.”

“You told the press you were going into Ruffles the other night?
That sure as hell changes the complexion of any information you got
out of my client.”

“What? There was no press involved. Neither Chapman nor I went
in there expecting to make an arrest.”

“So much for your credibility, Ms. Cooper. You suckered my
client right into a photo op just to top off the five o'clock news
conference about the serial killer.”

“Listen to me, Shea. Nobody called the media. Nobody set Dylan
up.”

“You know how my client's family is being harassed today? They
can't open the door of their apartment, his father can't get into
his business, his brothers-”

“Why? What's that got to do with us?”

“The newspapers. He's all over the newspapers.”

I covered the mouthpiece and asked Mercer to get the papers off
Laura's desk. “I haven't seen them yet. But I swear I haven't even
had a chance to tell the public relations team what happened.
Battaglia's out of the country and I'm waiting to update them now,
for the first time. You have my word that the release couldn't have
come from our end.”

“You did a perp walk in front of Ruffles. Admit it, okay?
Kiernan's photo, his face-it's splattered all over the place.”

Mercer opened both tabloids to the pages with the grainy
blackand-white photograph of Kiernan Dylan, flanked by Mercer and
Mike, frozen under the sign that said Ruffles Bar.

“I don't have much else of value in this business except my
word, Mr. Shea,” I said. “I'm looking at the picture right now. It
was actually taken by a friend of your client's, with a cell
phone.”

“Right. And it just found its way into the papers.”

“The sad truth is that there are a lot of people out to make a
buck who sell photos, information, evidence-all of that-to whatever
media outlet will buy it. They do it without a second thought of
giving it to the police. Every local news broadcast ends with some
version of 'If you see news happening, call us.' It's a nightmare
for law enforcement that there are people who would rather score
the money than make themselves available as witnesses.”

Shea didn't speak.

“Last year, two weeks after I finished a murder trial, one of
the perp's friends sold a videotape he'd made of my defendant
telling jokes about how he'd killed the victim. He was high on coke
and entertaining his buddies at a party. We never knew the tape
existed, but a reality TV show bought it for twenty-five grand. So
don't point your finger at me, Mr. Shea. Ask Kiernan who the
schmuck with the camera was.”

“Well, your pal Chapman seems to have gone out of his way to
make this as unpleasant as he can for the Dylans.”

“You want to sit down with us, talk about cooperating?”

“Now that you've driven Kiernan under a rock? Who knows when
he'll come out.”

“Where is your client, Mr. Shea?” There was no harm in
asking.

“He's got a court date, Ms. Cooper. He'll be there. In the
meantime, you might as well call off your dogs.”

Mike took one of the newspapers from my desk to look at the
photograph. It had been blown up to fill a quarter of a page buried
pretty far back in the tabloid, opposite one of the gossip columns.
But the text made no connection to the serial killer cases. It
appeared under the headline RUFFLED FEATHERS, with a two-line
description of the police, flanked by the unsmiling bouncers,
taking Kiernan Dylan out of the bar-a “popular nightspot for hot
chicks in cool plumage”-which was being closed for underage
beverage service. It only made news at all because of the history
Jimmy Dylan had had over the years at the Brazen Head.

“Surprised my mother didn't call yet,” Mike said, examining his
own image before closing the paper and dropping it on my desk.
“Tell me I need a haircut.”

“Will you check with Peterson?” I asked. “Am I still invited to
tonight's briefing? I assume we'll be going over some of the stuff
the troopers found in the van.”

“I spoke to him this morning. You're good to go until some other
agency boots you out. Has Battaglia tried driving this train from
London yet? How long's he supposed to be away?”

“The family's on vacation until Labor Day. Don't worry, he's
left messages for me three times today and I'm to keep Tim Spindlis
informed of every detail,” I said. “I stopped in to see him on my
way down from Lamont. I asked if Marisa, Catherine, and Nan could
work with us on the case.”

Spindlis was the chief assistant district attorney, in charge of
the office during Battaglia's absence, and he would be responsible
for oversight of the investigation while the boss was away. My
three senior lawyers had proven themselves over and over, and I was
certain Spindlis would have no objections to bringing them into the
case.

“You're in luck. He left Spineless in charge? That guy couldn't
make an important decision to save his life.”

“I'd rather deal with a jellyfish than have my usual head
butting with Pat McKinney.” Spindlis was the yes man to Battaglia's
strong personality, which is why I often skirted him and went
straight to the district attorney with matters of great importance.
To those on the staff below his position, Spindlis procrastinated
endlessly and never had the backbone to take a forceful stance in
support of the young lawyers in the office.

McKinney, on the other hand, was head of the trial division and
looked to cut my legs out from under me every chance he could.

“He's on vacation, too?”

“For the moment. But he's got no life, with his girlfriend back
in Texas and his wife not on speaking terms with him at the moment.
It's a break for all of us that he's still away. No chance to
second-guess my every move or sabotage it. The only person he
detests more than me is you, Mike. Everybody wants a piece of this
case. That's why I had Laura hold all my calls this morning. The
less interference the better.”

“Is there a time set for you to conversate with Floyd Warren?”
Mike asked Mercer.

“Alex said that Gene Grassley asked for four o'clock, when he
finishes the hearing he's got in front of Judge Wetzel.”

The three of us discussed the plan for Mercer's interrogation of
Warren, and I took notes on the issues they raised.

Laura stuck her head in again and told me Ned Tacchi was on the
phone.

I took the call. “What's up? You find Kiernan Dylan?”

“Not happening. Peterson's got me on the tip line in the
meantime. You won't believe the crap that comes in on this thing.
But I got a lady who just called. I think you better talk to her.
She's completely freaked out.”

“Is she making sense?”

“Not to me. But you guys know the case. Besides that, she only
wants to talk to a lawyer.”

I grabbed a pen. “What's her name?”

“She wouldn't give it to me. She just kept saying she knows who
the killer is. It's a Jersey number, 201 area code.”

I took down the other digits. “So why'd you single this call
out? Why do you think it's any more worth pursuing than all the
others?”

“Hey, we're getting back to every damn one of these dial-ins,
call by call. But this woman's talking about the picture in the
newspapers today. The one of the Dylan kid,” Ned said. “I saw it
this morning, Alex. It doesn't even mention the murders. She put
that together herself.”

“I'll do it right now. Mike and Mercer are with me.”

I flopped into my chair, threw back my head, and exhaled loudly,
then reached for the newspaper so that I had the photo in front of
me when I spoke to the woman.

“Get ready for the next wild goose chase,” I said. “Ned's got me
calling someone from the tips hotline.”

“What's the reward money for information up to?” Mike asked.

“Twenty-five grand if it leads to the arrest,” Mercer said.

“The higher it goes, the more nuts come out of the woodwork.
Make like you're the Home Shopping Network, Coop. Chat her up nice
and offer her two front row seats at the trial.”

I dialed the number, and a woman answered on the second ring.
“Hello?”

“Hello. I'm Alexandra Cooper. I'm a prosecutor in the Manhattan
District Attorney's Office. Detective Tacchi gave me your number
and asked me to call.”

There was no response.

“Hello? Can you hear me? I'm working with the police on the
investigation of the murders of-”

The conversation ended abruptly as the woman hung up the
phone.

“She disconnected me.” I hung up, too, and exhaled again.

“Uneasy lies the head that wears the tiara, Coop. Give it a
rest.”

“We'll check out that number in the reverse directory,” Mercer
said.

Laura buzzed me. “The switchboard has a caller on the main line.
Wants to put it through. Says she was just talking to you.”

I picked up the receiver again. “Hello, this is Alex
Cooper.”

“I'm sorry I cut you off, Ms. Cooper. I wanted to make sure you
were really calling from the DA's office. I wanted to be certain
you are who you claim to be. I called information and got the
number. I know it sounds rude, but I'm-well-I'm terribly
nervous.”

“I understand completely,” I said. The woman's voice was soft
and she spoke with some hesitation. There was no point in asking
her name until she was ready to identify herself.

“I'm calling from my home, Ms. Cooper. I suppose you can figure
that out pretty quickly yourselves, with all your sophisticated
surveillance information. I had to leave my office, you see. This
call could cost me my job.”

“Is that what you're nervous about?”

She paused for fifteen seconds. “That, of course. But I'm also
terrified of becoming a target. A target of the killer.”

“Is there something we can do right now-I've got two detectives
here with me-something to make you feel safe?”

“I told the man who answered the hotline that I wanted to speak
to a lawyer.”

“Yes, and I'm a lawyer.”

“Obviously. But you can't be my lawyer, can you? I may
lose my livelihood if-if the fact of this phone call gets out.”

“I have no reason to betray your confidence, Miss-?”

“Not now, maybe. But I know the system, Ms. Cooper. I know I'm
putting myself in the eye of the storm. I know you'll have to use
me at some point in the court proceedings. I need some legal
guidance about privilege.”

I rolled my eyes at Mike and Mercer. My caller was intelligent,
but she was clearly conflicted about talking with me and I couldn't
make a judgment about her credibility.

“If you need to talk to a legal adviser before you tell us what
you know, then I would urge you to do that as quickly as possible.
But if your personal safety is your concern as well, I just want
you to understand the need for speed. That's help we can give
you.”

Again, silence.

“If you're assuming that Kiernan Dylan is still in custody
because the photograph you saw-the one that you called the hotline
about- showed him being taken away by police, I just want you to
know that he was released by the court.” I hesitated before I told
her what I hoped would be the tipping point to put herself in our
care. “We have no idea where Dylan is today, but he's not been seen
anywhere in the city.”

“I don't give a damn where he is, Ms. Cooper.”

I took my pen and drew a large X through the caller's phone
number. This was turning out to be a waste of my time.

“Well, you have my office number, and of course the hotline that
you first called, if there's something you want to get back to us
about. Thank you-”

“Would your detectives come to my house, Ms. Cooper? I live in
New Jersey, in Harrison. It's not far from Newark.”

“For what reason, ma'am? Come to your house to protect you, is
that what you mean? I'm sure we could arrange for the local police
to do that if it's necessary.”

“I mean that I can't talk at my office. I've brought some of the
records home with me, but I couldn't take everything. You need to
see them, to understand that this should never have happened.”

I tried to remain patient but the woman's flat affect and her
ability to draw me back in when I thought the conversation had
ended were annoying me.

“I don't know what records you're talking about, and I don't
know where you work. When you think you can help us, I trust you'll
call again. Now I've got to hang up and-”

“I work at the Department of Corrections, in New Jersey. In
Kearny, at the Northern Regional Unit. Do you know what that
is?”

The woman had my complete attention now. “I do. Yes, I do. It's
the maximum security psychiatric center, isn't it? Where the sexual
predators are held. Won't you tell me, please, what this has to do
with Kiernan Dylan?”

I knew that Dylan had no criminal record. What could possibly
connect him to one of the most violent collection of criminals in
the country? “Nothing at all, Ms. Cooper. I told you that.”

“But you called the police because of the photograph in today's
newspapers, didn't you?”

“I called because the man-see the black man standing on the far
right, over the detective's shoulder? He's Troy Rasheed, a prisoner
here for more than twenty years. He was released from this facility
six weeks ago, despite my testimony at his hearing,” the woman
said, clearing her throat before she spoke again. “I don't know
what he's doing in that photograph, but you want to talk to that
guy. My name is Nelly Kallin. I supervise the unit at Kearny.”