Linda Fairstein - Hell Gate

“Yeah.”

“Damn it. Nobody watching him?”

“Curb your annoyance,” I said. “As long as he didn’t take the baby, we had nothing to hold him on.”

“The baby’s safe, ma’am. She’s doing fine.”

Mike slammed the flashlight against his fist. “So Ethan Leighton is roaming the streets like a loose cannon, and we’ve got his old man’s car.”

“C’mon, Mike. He wasn’t any help. He’ll catch hell on the other end when he gets home.”

The second cop leaned against the window to say hello. “Hey, Counselor. Remember me? I had that domestic with the baseball bat last spring.”

“Yeah. Sure, I do.”

“You know this place is haunted,” he said, opening the door for me.

“Actually, I had no idea it existed.”

“The ghost of Eliza Jumel,” he said, laughing at me. “That was one unhappy hooker. The folks say she stands up on the balcony and bays at the moon. At least it keeps all the neighborhood kids away. Regular ghostbusters, they are.”

“When you guys aren’t doing comedy, you have time to help me with this?” Mike asked.

“We’ve only got three cars on patrol this tour for the whole precinct. We’ll stay as long as we can.”

“I’d like one of you to come in with me,” Mike said. “The other waits here. Coop? You in or out?”

“I’m with you.”

Three of us made the approach to the elegant old house. “This place get a lot of use?” Mike asked.

“Just functions. It’s open two afternoons this time of year. More in the summer. But there’s people in and out some. Doesn’t give us any trouble.”

“Not a fixer?”

“No need,” the cop said. He meant that the mansion was never made a “fixed post” patrolled by the department, like many sensitive security sites had been. “It’s got some kind of fancy trust that runs it. They come and go on their own.”

We were at the front door, and the cop was working the set of keys that opened the two locks.

“So you drive by at night and see lights on inside, it’s not unusual?”

“Nah. They got dinners, they got parties. They got ladies’ lunches and garden tours. Like I said, they got functions. That’s what my boss tells me. That’s the word he uses, supposed to cover everything that goes on in the place,” the cop said. “Here we go. Let me just disarm the alarm code.”

The door swung open and Mike pushed it wide, stepping inside. The officer followed him and pressed the keypad. “Whoever was here last didn’t reset it. The alarm’s not on.”

Mike glanced at me. “Figures. Could be our guy, Coop.”

“Or ghosts,” I said.

It was like stepping back into another century to come in the house. The light I’d seen from outside was a wall sconce that illuminated the entrance and hallway. The Federal Period furniture-an ornate crystal chandelier, an elegant grandfather clock, settees, and sofas-had been carefully restored and beautifully maintained, just as in Gracie Mansion.

The officer led us off to the left, into the dining room. The polished surface of the table gleamed in the dim light, but gave no sign of a recent dinner party. To the rear of the first floor was a large room, shaped like an octagon.

The back door of the house, probably the one that we’d heard slam, was in the octagonal room. Mike turned the knob and the door gave easily. He pushed it closed and locked it.

Then he doubled around and came to the staircase. I stayed behind him, with the cop trailing me. The floorboards creaked but that was the only sound beside our voices.

“Well, hold on,” Mike said, waving me into the master bedroom.

An elaborate antique sleigh bed was centered beneath reams of powder blue silk drapery and lace trim that almost shrouded it from view. But I could clearly see that the spread had been removed, the linens had been disturbed, and it appeared someone had left the room in disarray.

“I can’t say if it’s Eliza Jumel, or Mama and Papa Bear,” Mike said. “But I can tell you one thing, Ms. Goldilocks-someone’s been sleeping in this bed.”

“Lock it up and set the alarm, will you?” Mike asked the cop as he let us out.

We walked down the front steps as Mercer pulled in and parked behind the Jaguar.

“You want Crime Scene to take the sheets for DNA?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’ll send somebody over to voucher them tomorrow,” Mike said. “Process the room for prints.”

Mercer rolled down his window. “Hope you did better than I did. Came up empty.”

“Any sign of the guy who ran out of here?”

“I don’t think so. Everything’s shadows and branches blowing in the wind. My eyes were playing tricks on me. How about the house?”

“Well, if this is where Anita spent her evening with a gentleman, there was a very light dinner served. But the bed saw some action.”

“Guess she’s up to her old tricks,” Mercer said.

“You didn’t happen to see the congressman on the prowl?”

“Leighton?”

“Yeah. The uniformed guys tell us he got bored waiting on his wheels. Walked off into the night. Keep an eye out for him. I think he’s getting desperate.”

“He probably knows more about where Anita might be than he told us. And stupid enough to be trying to find her.”

“I think Coop’s right. It kills me to go through Tim Spindlis on this,” Mike said, “but we need to understand those phantom funds Kendall Reid set up.”

The sky was beginning to lighten as dawn eased into the city.

“What are you thinking?” Mercer asked.

“There are only three Federal Period mansions still standing in Manhattan-this one, Gracie, and the Hamilton Grange. Reid’s phony operation was snagging cash for the Grange, right?”

“And they’re the places that were used when Moses Leighton staged his private dinners,” Mercer said. “The Tontine Association.”

The uniformed cop nearing the end of his night shift loped down the front steps of the old house.

“But that association was retired,” Mercer said. “Too many boys with bad behavior.”

“Let’s talk it out over bacon and eggs,” Mike said. “I’m thinking, what if Kendall Reid took a page out of Leighton’s book. I mean, the old guy was his mentor. Taught him everything.”

“Like he re-created the gentlemen’s club?” I asked.

“Maybe they look like gents but they’re scoundrels instead. Sub rosa-the secrecy symbol of medieval councils.”

“And Reid’s in the council,” Mercer said. “It’s got possibilities.”

“Every one of these fabulous houses stands empty. Even Gracie Mansion,” Mike said. “The mayor doesn’t sleep there. No mayor has been in residence there since long before Bloomberg took office.”

“So you’re saying forget the dinner, and rent out the bedroom to the highest bidder. Pay for play.”

“Like a tontine, with scads of cash being raised from its members, going to import these young women from wherever the cargo is most readily available. Mexico, Asia, Eastern Europe.”

“History, politics, sexual intrigue,” Mercer said. “It’s a heady mix.”

The cop in the RMP was calling out to his partner. He started the engine and turned on the red emergency light.

The second officer picked up speed and hurried to get into the car.

“Where’s the fire?” Mike asked. “What’s your hurry?”

“High Bridge Park. Sector Charlie just called in. There’s a woman down.”

“What happened? Have they ID’d her?”

“Not yet. A couple of dog walkers found her beneath the bridge. Looks like she screwed up a suicide attempt. The bus is on the way to take her to the hospital.”

“She’s alive?” Mike asked.