his father’s great culinary creation that had once been New York’s swankest French restaurant. Until that time, the elegance and quality of Patroon made it his favorite dining experience whenever he reached Manhattan.
“Dead right about that,” I said, thinking about the assistant DA who was my trial partner in the case. “One more thing. Would you please call Barry Donner?”
“Damn. Back to business. I so prefer the social side of your life.”
“Me too.” I looked at my watch. “Ask him to meet me here at ten thirty so we have a little time together before we go up to court.”
“Sure. And Rose says the boss is in a perfectly good mood. Somebody just comped him four tickets for opening day at the stadium.”
“That always helps,” I said as I left Laura to pass yet another security officer in order to enter Battaglia’s inner sanctum.
Rose Malone, my good friend and the DA’s longtime executive assistant, was the most trusted person in the office. She was the personification of a loyal and devoted employee who knew where all the bones were buried, with the side benefits of great looks and style that belied her age. Battaglia and his predecessors had no secrets from Rose, nor did any young assistant who caught the attention—for better or worse—of the front office.
“Good morning, Alexandra. That’s a handsome suit,” Rose said. “How is everything?”
“Too good to be true, till last night.”
The city’s murder rate had dropped to an all-time low. The mayor claimed credit for it, Police Commissioner Keith Scully went on air regularly to remind voters that dynamic policing techniques were responsible, and the DA ignored them both with arguments that he had jailed most recidivist criminals and successfully used diversionary programs to rehabilitate the rest. There was no logical explanation for the phenomenon. We all knew that such trends were cyclical and that the numbers would eventually spike again.
“You can go right in. He’s alone.”
Rose was my barometer for the measure of Battaglia’s temperament. In the few seconds I had before entering his office, the warmth of Rose’s greeting let me know how the DA’s day was going. The strong odor of cigar smoke that wafted over her desk suggested that he had just walked away from her post to settle back into his own suite.
“Have a seat, Alex.” The cigar—a contraband Cuban, no doubt, that someone had given him to curry good favor—was plugged into the middle of Battaglia’s mouth, and would be replaced throughout the day by one after another. If you hadn’t worked with him for a period of time, you’d need an interpreter to understand the words that leached out around the thick stub. “Rough scene last night, I take it?”
“Unimaginable.”
“What does Chapman think?” I could barely see his mouth over the top of the Wall Street Journal. He was examining yesterday’s market results while he talked to me.
I was tempted to tell him that I had a full plate and he was welcome to call Mike for his thoughts, rather than my own, if that was the reason he’d brought me in here. Battaglia had a much more welcoming attitude about women in the criminal justice workplace than the lead prosecutors who came before him did, but like most of the guys who had been in this business a long time, he still viewed homicide investigators as members of an elite professional men’s club.
“That the killer knew his victim, chose her purposefully. That this isn’t his first kill, nor will it be his last. That he picked his venue for a reason.”
“Good people at Mount Neboh. Don’t let the guys hassle them.”
If Wilbur Gaskin described that little encounter as a hassle, I thought, wait till he sees Mike and Mercer close in on a suspect. “Of course not. There’s no reason to.”
“Who was she?”
“We don’t know.”
“I realize no face, no fingerprints, but no paper in her pockets?”
“No clothes, Paul. A dump job. Naked, with a blanket that was torched.”
“Cops hold anything back from the press?”
They always did, in hopes that when a suspect was confronted and interrogated, he would reveal a scintilla of evidence that had never been made public.
“She might be Jewish. Or the killer is. There was a Star of David found beneath her body—a delicate piece of jewelry.”
Battaglia flattened the newspaper on his desk. “For all his bullshit, Chapman always comes up with the goods.”
No point correcting his conclusion. Mike needed the credit for occasions on which his outspoken manner and his gallows humor offended the