district attorney. I nodded and smiled, explaining the history of the old church. “That’s why there may be significance to the victim’s religious affiliation.”
“You ever think about running for this job, Alex, remember what I tell you. There are three hundred seventy-one Catholic churches in the Archdiocese of New York. I’ve worshipped at one of them all my life, so I’ve got to attend. The rest are part of the must-do stops in every campaign. God knows how many Baptist and Protestant churches—the Separatists, as my mother called them all her life, even though they separated from Rome four hundred years ago.”
He laughed at his own remark. He often did.
“Ten minutes apiece on Sunday morning for every primary race, till the sermons come out your ears,” Battaglia went on. “Then Friday night or Saturday morning for the seventy-seven synagogues on this island. Shecky Feinberg contributes to your race? You’ve got to show up at his kid’s bar mitzvah—and that’s before you do the O’Donnell christening. Cold little piggies in soggy blankets and more rubber chickens than you can count. The one sure place you don’t want to find bodies is a house of worship. Got that? This one will cost me a month of Sundays at Mount Neboh.”
“Got it.” The campaign poster that hung in my office had Battaglia’s head shot over one of his favorite slogans: You Can’t Play Politics with People’s Lives.
“More likely you’ll come to your senses and settle down with your Frenchman and have a brood of little litigators who can also cook a mean omelet.”
“Now, that doesn’t sound very enlightened of you, Paul,” I said, wagging a finger at him.
“Be realistic. I got Sonia Sotomayor a seat on the Supreme Court, didn’t I? That kind of lightning won’t strike twice for my best staffers.”
He was in his late sixties and had been reelected five times, with no signs of slowing down.
“When you tell me you’re ready to step aside, I’ll have it figured out.”
I had my own unique piece of the criminal law in our Special Victims Unit, and loved everything about my ability to do advocacy for victims who’d been denied voices for so long. The political aspect of the DA’s job—trying to be all things to all voters—left me cold.
“Whatever you need, pull it together for this one. Don’t hesitate to ask for anything,” he said, reaching across his desk for the daily court calendar, the multipage roster that reported every trial case and disposition in the Supreme Court parts, where all the felony cases were argued. “How’s that Koslawski matter going? You’re doing a good job keeping it under the radar screen.”
“Flip to page five—you’ll see it there. We’re in front of Lyle Keets. I left an update memo with Rose before I went home last night. I just assumed you’d seen it.”
“Must be in this pile,” he said, twizzling the cigar butt between his lips as he looked for the memo.
“Barry Donner caught the case when it came in. He’s a good junior assistant, so I didn’t want to take it away from him. But once the defense waived a jury in front of Keets and we figured out there might be a surprise witness, I decided to second-seat Barry in the event he needed a hand.”
A second seat in the courtroom—literally an extra chair at counsel table—was usually occupied by the less-experienced lawyers who were assigned grunt work for the bigger guns. In our office, they wheeled the evidence cart of exhibits to and from the trial, put on witnesses of lesser importance, and made routine notifications to get cops and civilians to court at the proper day and hour, often haggling with police bosses about bringing essential players in on overtime.
This time we turned the tables on the tabloids. The defendant—a private-school teacher charged with molesting a fourteen-year-old student—had no name recognition to attract media attention, and by listing Barry Donner as the lead prosecutor, the crew in the press room failed to attach any high-profile connection to the case.
“I made a lot of promises there’d be no grandstanding on this one, Alex.”
“Promises to? ...”
Battaglia ignored my question. “No grandstanding. I made that clear to you.”
I could see the memo I’d dashed off the previous evening about what was going to happen today at the Koslawski trial on top of the in-box file. Of course the district attorney had read it first thing this morning. It was the real reason I’d been summoned, to be given an extra admonition.