Linda Fairstein - Hell Gate

“Class. Ballet class.”

“Can you get the fact that I am totally out of sorts, Mike?”

I had studied ballet since earliest childhood. It was my favorite form of exercise, and I spent an hour at a studio on the West Side almost every Saturday morning.

“You’ve missed class for two weeks in a row ’cause of the holidays and your trip. You’re going to lose that fine shape, Ms. Cooper. Then I’ll have a wallflower on my hands for the rest of my life.”

“I’m going to hang up on you, Mike.”

“Just open up, Coop. There’s something important I have to tell you.”

The timbre of his voice had changed. He was dead serious.

“Are you all right?”

“I don’t know. Just open the door.”

I threw the phone on the bed and got up, wrapping a robe around me. I ran to the door and slid off the chain, unlatched the dead bolt, and pulled the handle.

Mike was on his knees in the hallway, his head bent over so that I couldn’t see his face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, putting both my hands on his shoulders.

“I’m such a jerk, Coop.” He looked up and smiled at me. “There are some things a guy just has to say face-to-face and this apology is one of them.”

“You don’t have to-”

“Sure I do. There was a bogeyman after all, and I let you walk out into the night without a second thought. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry I made fun of you for being so yellow-bellied. I was wrong. Now, can I come in, Coop? I got to put these in water.”

Mike bent over to pick up the newspapers and to the side of the door was a pile of lilies, huge white ones-maybe six dozen in all. He scooped them up in his arms and brought them inside.

“How’s the whiplash, kid?”

“Who told you about the accident?”

“The CO was a lot smarter than the two cops who took the report. He knew exactly who they were dealing with and called Lieutenant Peterson,” Mike said, referring to his boss at the homicide squad. “The loo woke me up this morning, and I was just worried about you going out before I got here. Move along. Point me to the vases, jump in the shower, and let’s get this beautiful day up and running.”

“Vases are in the cabinet below the window in the dining room. Don’t tell me I’m on the hook for all the flowers?”

“Nope. Bodega lilies. They might be dead by tomorrow, but they make quite a statement, don’t they? You can tell I’m sincere.”

It was hard to pass many street corners in commercial areas of Manhattan that didn’t have small grocery stores with outdoor flower markets. You could buy an extraordinary array of flowers for very low prices, even if they didn’t live too long.

“I’m going to skip class. William will understand.”

“You’ll skip nothing. You’re always telling me how your ballet lessons relax you, help you focus, take you to another zone.”

That was true. It was hard to think about anything else while I stood at the barre engaged in the disciplined physicality of the dance, concentrating on positions for the pliés and relevés that warmed us up at the beginning of each class.

“Let me get ready,” I said. “I’ll be quick.”

I ran a steaming hot shower, toweled myself dry, pulled my hair up into a ponytail, and dressed in a black leotard and tights. I threw an oversize sweater and leg warmers on top of the outfit, and grabbed the bag with my ballet slippers.

When I got to the living room, I could smell something cooking. I kept little in my refrigerator except English muffins and an assortment of strong cheeses to serve with cocktails, the only serious entertaining I did in the city.

“What did you possibly find to cook?” I asked.

“Brought my own eggs. Knew it would be slim pickings.”

Mike whipped up scrambled eggs with onions and fried some bacon while I showered. He had poured us each a glass of orange juice and was ready to serve the food and coffee.

“Talk about a full-on apology-on your knees, armloads of flowers, and a hot meal. Keep this up and I can think of a whole lot of things you should be sorry about,” I said.

“Start with last night.”

“After you made light of the car taking pictures in front of Parrish House, I didn’t want to get myself all jacked up again. I never thought GPS.”

“Why would you?” Mike asked.

“I’ve had enough cases now to know it’s a problem.”

The brilliant navigational system formed by twenty-four satellites orbiting the earth, transmitting time and location to receivers on the ground, was one of the most dangerous tools in the hands of offenders. It had become especially popular in domestic violence cases, in which estranged spouses and stalkers could know the whereabouts of their victims as soon as they got into the family car, often with deadly results.

“You think it’s connected to what we’re working on?” Mike asked, chewing on a strip of bacon.

“How could I know when the device was stuck in there? Wednesday, when I drove out to the shipwreck, was the first time I used my car since the holidays. And then I took it to work with me yesterday.”

“Where were you parked?”

“On the street near the office.”

“And the garage in this building is public, too, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“It wouldn’t take two minutes for someone to slip a GPS under the fender. Pretend he was checking out a tire. Anybody could do it.”

“It’s that easy?”

“Coop, they’ve tagged snow leopards in the mountains of Pakistan and Yunnan snub-nosed monkeys in China. Maybe they can’t get a GPS on Bin Laden, but your car would be an easy target at home or at work.”

“But why do it?”

“That’s what Mercer and I gotta figure out. You think you were followed to the shelter with Olena and Lydia, right?” Mike asked.

“No one doing that would need a photograph of you. They could pull one off the Internet. So it’s more likely that the snapshots were something to do with the Ukrainian girls.”

“I’ll buy that. But last night, following me from Mercer’s?”

“Put a good scare into you like it was supposed to.”

“You had to see the curve, Mike. It could have put me into a coma, not just a scare, if I’d taken a header with the SUV into the utility pole.”

“So somebody owes you an even bigger apology than I do.”

I carried the dishes and put them in the sink, pouring us each a second cup of coffee.

“When you find out who, I expect more than bacon and eggs.”

“Get a move on, kid. You need a good workout,” Mike said.

I picked up my bag and reached into the closet for my ski jacket.

“Better bring a suit.”

“A suit? I’ll shower and change when you drop me off after class. I promise I’ll stay here all day. I’ve got bills to pay and calls to make. I need some down time.”

“Get it another day, Coop. I suggest you clean up at William’s studio. That nice gray flannel pinstriped suit with one of your fancy scarves will do fine, and take your blow-dryer so you get your hair out of that ridiculous topknot.”

“You have plans for me?” I asked.

“The mayor wants to see us this afternoon. He wants us to meet him at Gracie Mansion.”

The guard in the small booth at the East Eighty-eighth Street walkway that led to the Gracie Mansion grounds was expecting us when we arrived at one o’clock. I had gotten to William’s studio in time to do my stretches for the eleven A.M. class, while Mike ran errands and came back for me after I showered and dressed in my professional clothes.

“Front or back?” Mike asked.

The elegant formal entrance was the original front of the house, facing the river, since most guests arrived by water those hundreds of years ago. A newer access had been designed for the rear of the building, closest to the street, the way most people came to the residence now.