Linda Fairstein - Bad blood

Mercer patted my hand. “Look, he may have been afraid an exhumation would reveal the girl’s pregnancy. Maybe even tie him to it, since you gotta figure he knows more than the average Joe about DNA after the investigation of Amanda’s murder. Somebody was smart enough to kill his wife without a trace of any forensic clues. That still doesn’t link him to Bex Hassett’s murder.”

“Let’s let them lock up the courtroom,” I said, standing up to leave. “You want to call Mike and break the news to him? I think it’s time we sit down with Trish Quillian. Maybe he can have her picked up. And you double-check with your friend Kate Meade.”

“I know, I know. Did Kate save anything that proves that Amanda and Brendan were in Europe the night Bex was killed? Souvenir postcards or photographs she might have in a scrapbook somewhere?”

“Exactly. I’d better tell Battaglia about what’s been going on at the morgue.”

Mercer made his calls to Mike and Kate, then went down to wait for me in the car while I briefed the district attorney. Then we drove together uptown to the Manhattan North Homicide Squad.

Mike was sitting in the lieutenant’s office, his feet on the desk. He was wearing the same clothes he’d had on the day before and was unshaved as well. He was eating an egg sandwich and greasy french fries at one o’clock in the afternoon.

“Breakfast?” Mercer asked.

“I think it’s yesterday’s dinner. We didn’t spend much time aboveground. It was a long night with Teddy O’Malley nosing around the water tunnel and a few other sandhog holes.” Mike stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it around. “I can’t get that sound of dripping water out of my head. And I was just about to go home for a while when you called.”

“Go ahead, then. Mercer and I can handle this.”

“If I remember correctly, you and Trish Quillian didn’t exactly bond when you met. I’ll run this one my way.”

He was more likely to have success with her than I was. “Are you going to tell her about Bex? About the baby?”

Mike looked at Mercer. “I don’t think so. Not yet. I’m not looking to fuel her up with information. I want to see what she gives us.”

Mercer nodded in agreement.

“Maybe this is what old Phinneas Baylor meant about Trish. About saying she should dig for the bones in her own backyard. Maybe these are the bones he meant.”

“You have anything to hit her with?”

Mike wiped his hands on his chinos and reached for papers on the desk. “From the phone company. Our boy Brendan finally called his sister after his shooting spree on Tuesday. Here’s the incoming right here on the dump of her phone.”

“What’s that worth?” I asked. “From a booth? From what location?”

“Not so lucky. He called from the cell phone of the guy he carjacked. Only used it once, best I can tell. May have thrown it away after that. But this clocks him in for four and a half minutes with his baby sister. We can start there.”

“Is Trish here?”

“Yeah. Across the hall in the captain’s office. Roast beef on rye with a root beer. I don’t think she’s eaten in a week. Two of the guys picked her up at home after Mercer called. Peterson wants a team sitting on her house full-time now in case Brendan makes a guest appearance.”

I waited for Mike to finish eating. Mercer left the room and came back with our vending-machine lunch. A choice of entrées-M amp;M’s, red licorice Twizzlers, or a Milky Way-and a soda for each of us.

“Kate Meade seals the deal. Very sentimental type. Saved an album with photographs of the wedding party and letters Amanda wrote on her honeymoon. There’s a snapshot of Amanda and Brendan at the Trevi Fountain, with a date stamp on the back. All in sequence with the rest of their travels. Get Brendan Quillian out of your brain, Ms. Cooper. He didn’t kill Rebecca Hassett.”

Mike rolled up his empty bag and tossed it in the garbage. “Why don’t you come with me, Mercer? Alex, you can watch through the one-way mirror. Better you don’t set Trish off, okay?”

“She’s all yours, Detective.”

I took my soda and went off into the room adjacent to the one they would use for the interview. A few minutes later, Mike opened the door for Trish Quillian, who looked nervously around the small, bare rectangular space before sitting down and resting her elbows on the table. She was wearing a black polyester track suit that zipped up the front and clung to her thin frame.

“I have to be getting home, Detective. I’ve got to be feeding my mother some lunch.”

“It’s been a pretty rough time for you, Trish, with Brendan going wild on us right on the heels of Duke’s funeral. Are you managing okay?”

Trish picked up her head and stared into the mirror. She couldn’t see me, I knew, but I was staring right into the hard, sharp features of her unsmiling face. “Is it concern for me now that you sent two cops to pick me up?”

“No. You might say it’s concern for your brother.”

“For Brendan?” She slowly circled the palm of her hand on the tabletop and looked at Mike. “You’re playing me for a fool, aren’t you? You make some hokey case about him killing Amanda that wouldn’t stand up in a kangaroo court, and now that he’s beat you at it, I’m supposed to think you’re worried about him?”

Mike sat across from her. “He shot a woman to death at pointblank range, Trish. Killed a court officer in front of a judge and lawyers and several other decent people. Wounded three others. He stole two guns and he hijacked a car. Brendan’s what they used to say was ‘armed and extremely dangerous.’”

The lean woman looked a decade older and harder than she had a week ago, rocking in her chair as she continued to trace designs on the wood with her fingertip.

“What do they call it now?” she asked.

“I’d say he’s more like a fucking bull’s-eye. I’d say your brother’s a walking target, Trish, with a great big X painted on his forehead. Some cop sees him and knows how trigger-happy he is, Brendan gets nailed by the first shot, before he can even focus the only eye he’s got.”

One side of Trish Quillian’s mouth pulled back, almost in a grin. “My brother’s been dead for me a really long time, Detective. You trying to make me think you care what happens to him? I gave up worrying about Brendan years ago. Right after he gave up worrying about us.”

“I talked to Phin Baylor.”

The smile faded. “I’m the one who told you to, wasn’t I?”

“He said you shouldn’t be pointing fingers at any of the Hassett boys. Phin said there were things about your own brothers-about Brendan and Duke-that we ought to talk about with you.”

There was no change in Trish’s expression. She kept on rocking back and forth, rubbing her finger around and around on the wooden surface. “Like what?”

“Tell me what else you remember about Brendan. Tell me how he got along with your friends.”

“My friends? That’s a long way to think.” Trish Quillian sat still for more than a minute. “Maybe you know how it is with big brothers, Detective.”

She made eye contact with Mike for the first time, and he nodded at her.

“All the guys I went to school with, they looked up to Duke. He was the strong one, he was the street fighter-took on anybody’s cause for a friend. Sick as he was, when they thought he was going to die of the cancer, he came back tough as a bull. Wasn’t a soul who’d mess with me ’cause they knew Duke would take care of business.”

“He hurt people, didn’t he?”

Trish’s eyes narrowed to the size of slits. “He never hurt anybody who didn’t cause trouble first. And you can be sure no one complained about it to me. I wouldn’t have listened.” She wagged a finger at Mike as she spoke.