Linda Fairstein: Hell Gate

“Who fed you this story?” Baynes said, charging after Mercer, challenging him to answer. “I want to know where you picked that up.”

Mercer turned and put his arm out to bring Donovan to a stop. “You got a sea of misery right here, Donny. Let’s deal with that. Don’t be getting in high dudgeon over Leighton.”

“He’s my closest friend, Mercer. I need to know where this is coming from.”

“It’s Ethan’s wife who told me, okay? I heard every sorry detail from Ethan Leighton’s wife.”

Shouts went up from the beach as a small speedboat nosed into the sand, the driver lifting and tilting the engine as he came to a stop. Five guys stepped out of it into the shallow surf to the roaring cheers of their friends, and one of the rescuers hoisted a young woman over his shoulder and carried her in. When he reached a dry spot at the foot of a low dune, he lowered her onto her feet, steadying her while she caught her breath.

A man broke loose from the group and ran to embrace her. Before any cops could reach them, both dropped to their knees and began praying together, the girl’s body wracked by sobs.

“Cooper! Give me a hand,” one of the homicide detectives yelled to me as he tried to break them up.

I took off running and Mike jogged beside me until we reached the terrified pair. The girl picked up her head and noted the dozens of people staring at her. She dissolved in tears again as I knelt beside her.

I stroked her back and tried to calm her. “The interpreters, Mike, get me one stat.”

“Is okay, lady,” the male said to me. “I speak little English.”

The girl looked back and forth between our faces, fearing that I was the enemy.

“My name is Alexandra. I’m a lawyer for the government,” I said, “and I’m going to help you.”

He repeated my words to her, but the idea of government and help in the same sentence didn’t seem encouraging to either of them.

“Are you related to her?”

“Is girlfriend. Is my girlfriend.”

This was not the time to break investigative rules. One victim, one friend or relative, should not be translating for another. There was nothing I could ask her about her ordeal in his presence that she wouldn’t try to filter as she answered questions through him.

“What are your names?”

“Cyril,” he said. “Am Cyril. Her is Emilia.”

I looked back over the beach to see whether any other shelter had been put up, but the only covered area was the morgue.

“Let’s get Emilia warm first. Let’s make her more comfortable,” I said. Then I whispered to Mike. “Find a place where I can talk to her without the boyfriend.”

“We’re waiting on buses to take all of them to the hospital to be examined.”

“Good. I’ll ride with her. Get her alone. See what she knows, where she thought she was going.”

“I don’t mean ambulances.” They were known in police parlance as buses. “I mean big yellow school buses that can take groups of them at a time.”

“What’s that building behind the cabanas?” I asked, pointing past the morgue. “What does that sign say, Sun and Surf?”

“Yeah, it’s a private beach club, all closed up for the winter. They’ll be calling it Surf and Turf if any more dead meat washes up in front,” Mike said. “Wait till she’s been examined and treated. Then you’ll have her by herself with all the support you need.”

Cyril had wrapped his own blanket around Emilia’s shoulders. A strong gust of wind blew the woolen cover off and revealed a large, raw patch of skin on her forearm.

“What happened to her, Cyril?” I shouldn’t have asked him the question but I worried about particles of sand becoming embedded in the open wound.

“Was so crowded below docks-decks? What you call it in the boat? Decks. She was burned against one of the engines in boiler room.” He raised Emilia’s arm so that I could see the injury.

“Please tell her she’ll be examined by a doctor in a few hours.” I could only imagine the inhumane conditions during the ocean passage.

I wanted the travelers to be made safe and I wanted the criminals behind this operation to be identified as quickly as possible.

Plainclothes officers were setting up folding tables at the foot of the dunes as a food station. Others were carting coffee urns and passing snacks out to the bewildered victims.

“Yo, Chapman,” one of the new arrivals called out, his gold shield case hanging out of his jacket pocket. “You want a shot of vodka with your coffee? A little hair of the dog?”

“The dog didn’t bite last night, Rowdy. Didn’t even lick me. Why, I look hung over to you?”

“Nah. I thought maybe you stopped for a few pops with the congressman.”

“You heard about Leighton already?” Mike asked. “I never drink with guys I can’t stand. Irritates my throat and my mood. Didn’t know word was out.”

“The parking lot’s buzzing,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “The reporter from the Post wants to clone himself so he can get exclusives on that story without missing any of this one. You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Alex.”

“Sorry, Rowdy,” I said, feeling the blush running up the side of my neck and coloring my cheeks. We had a professional history together, history I didn’t relish reliving. “I didn’t know you were back.”

“Never left. Just hit a bump in the road that had me sidelined for a while. The department kept me rubber-gunned for eighteen months but restored me full blast in the fall,” Rowdy Kitts said, the right side of his mouth drawing back into a grin. “And that paragon of congressional virtue-Ethan Leighton-was one of the people who made my life stink.”

“Am I interrupting a personal reunion here? What’s your problem, Coop?”

“No problem at all.”

“I think she’s still peeved at me ’cause the jury tossed one of her unit’s cases when I got jammed up. The judge threw out my testimony. Didn’t find me credible. Can you imagine that?”

“Coop doesn’t hold grudges, Rowdy. She takes body parts,” Mike said.

The last time Rowdy and I had worked together it hadn’t ended well. He was a smart cop who had chosen the wrong professional allies and paid a price for it. I could never tell if the chip on his shoulder was permanent or a result of his political troubles on the job.

Roland Kitts had been an active rookie in a rough neighborhood in Washington Heights, with a great record for getting guns off the street that earned him the nickname Rowdy and led to his promotion to detective after only four years on the job. While working on a special antiterrorist project after 9/11, he caught the attention of Bernie Kerik, who was commissioner at the time.

Kitts was glib and self-promoting-like Kerik-and it was no surprise to most cops who knew him that the brash, freewheeling commissioner chose him to serve on his personal detail. A few years later, when Kerik was charged with accepting tens of thousands of dollars in illegal gifts while serving in office, the feds cast a wide net, which landed the young hotshot back in uniform during the lengthy investigation. He’d only recently been able to work his way up again.

“You remember that case, Alex?” Kitts asked.

“Let’s not go there now,” I said. “We’ve got enough real grief right here.”

“We start moving these folks off the beach before we bring everyone in safe or there’ll be a riot,” Mike said. “Where you working these days, Rowdy?”

Kitts was a bit taller than I, with straight blond hair slightly darker than mine, slicked back without a part, and sharp features that matched his lean physique. “I’m on the mayor’s security detail. Same stuff I was doing for Kerik.”