Linda Fairstein - Cold Hit

“Thank her for letting me know. I’ll be there.”

“You’re not invited, Alex. That’s the point. That’s what Catherine wanted me to get across to you.”

Damn it. McKinney would do everything in his power, as deputy chief of the Trial Division, to make me uncomfortable as a witness to Mercer’s shooting. I wanted to have a say in who would prosecute the gunman when he was caught. “Can you find a number for Rod Squires? Scout around for me, will you?” The chief of the division, my friend and ally, was also on summer vacation. If I could enlist his aid before morning, I’d have some control over the selection process.

“Let me call Rose Malone. I’m sure she’ll know how to find him. And you also need to know that the man who tried to run you down last week, Wakim Wakefield? Well, he was back here at the building today, trying to get upstairs to file a complaint with Battaglia about you.”

“Did security let him through?” That’s a bit too close for comfort.

“No. His name was on their daily chart.” The security crew in the lobby at 1 Hogan Place kept a roster of names of people not welcome in our office-an ever-expanding list of psychos, malcontents, and cranks who were expert at creating disturbances once they got inside.

“Was he arrested?” I asked with some hesitancy.

“No. The guard called up to the squad to get some detectives to come talk to him, but there’s only one elevator working today, and by the time somebody got downstairs, Wakefield was already gone. Mr. Battaglia himself called about it. Made me promise to ask you if you were using your bodyguards.”

“Don’t mention to him that I groaned when I told you yes,” I answered. “I’m smack in the middle of a police station right now, and unless Chapman goes ballistic ’cause I tell him to wipe the mustard off the side of his mouth, I’ll be perfectly safe. I’ll stay with him a few more hours, and then he’ll pass me back off to the D.A.’s Squad. Tell the boss I’m being a very good soldier, okay? And please see if you can get a number for any government officials in Florence. We need to find Marco Varelli’s widow.”

“Alex, it’s after ten at night over there. I’ll see what I can do, but I doubt I’ll have anything for you until tomorrow. And one last thing.”

“Some good news, right?”

“Not exactly. Pat McKinney dropped by. He told me to remind you that you are to stay away from the hospital. No visits to Mercer, no talking about the case. He doesn’t want you comparing notes and conforming your stories to fit each other’s recollections. Sorry, Alex.”

“Don’t worry, Laura. I know you’re just the messenger.”

I hung up and Chapman asked what the news was, so I told him about Wakefield.

“Jeez, blondie, if it wasn’t for me you’d have no friends at all. Let’s take off. Preston Mattox will see us at his office whenever we get there.”

“I thought you said everyone else would have to be interviewed here. ”

“What happened to your sense of humor, kid? D’you lose it yesterday? This guy’s got his architectural offices in a penthouse suite on Fifth Avenue, overlooking Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, with about fifty employees in the surrounding rooms. I’ll get you home in one piece tonight.”

Mike called the hospital and spoke with Mercer’s dad, who told him that Mercer had been sitting up for a few hours in the early afternoon and now was sleeping again. We gathered our things to leave the squad. Jimmy Halloran had been kept over to do back-to-back tours, to man the phone and hot line, since City Hall had announced a reward for information leading to the arrest of the shooter.

“Hey, K.D., give me a beep if anything comes in on Bailey before your shift is done. We’ve got an interview to do before we stop off at the hospital.”

With that we were on our way to the offices of Mattox Partners, and our first introduction to another one of Deni’s suitors, Preston Mattox. His secretary announced us and we were led into the stark glass-enclosed headquarters of the prominent architect, which looked south toward the spires of the great church below.

My first reaction was surprise. He appeared to be about fifty years old. He was in good shape and dressed in a navy suit, exuding a much more businesslike air than the art-world denizens we had encountered throughout the last week. But what struck me most about Mattox was that he looked truly distraught, and as though he had been crying for days on end. There was a hollow contour around his eyes and a lifelessness emanating from within, which hit a chord in the core of me that wanted someone to be mourning for Denise Caxton.

Once more Chapman and I made our introductions.

“Why don’t you have a seat?” he said, coming out from behind his desk and pulling three chairs around in a circle. “Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. I really had to get away from here after Deni was killed. Lowell made it clear that I wasn’t welcome at the service, and I just needed to be somewhere else.”

Mattox was cordial, but he seemed distracted and unable even to muster a smile.

“Have you made any progress in solving Deni’s case?”

“Not as much as we’d like,” I answered.

“I’ve stopped reading newspaper accounts, so I don’t know what you’re up to. The stories about her all made her sound so vacuous and unpleasant. She was a most unusual creature- clever, funny, warm. She craved affection, and I loved giving it to her.”

Mike showed unusual restraint in not mentioning Deni’s other liaisons. He let Mattox do it for us. “You’ve probably talked with some of Deni’s other friends. Obviously, I wasn’t the only man in her life, but I was fighting hard for that slot.” He stood up and walked to the window, looking out and not speaking for several seconds. “I had asked Denise to marry me.”

“But she wasn’t even divorced yet,” Mike said.

Mattox rested against the ledge of the windowsill. “No, but I was urging her to speed up the process. Stop fighting with Lowell and walk away from him. Frankly, it made me sick just to think of them living under the same roof. I don’t quite have the art collection that her husband does, but short of that, there wasn’t anything she wanted that I would not have given her.”

“Do you know why she didn’t leave?”

“Really why? Probably I don’t know. None of the reasons she ever gave me made much sense. ‘Just wait,’ she used to say. ‘Don’t rush me.’ She was obstinate about it and I was madly in love, so I didn’t push her. It was the only thing we ever fought over. And she could fight,” Mattox said, almost amused at the memory of it.

“What do you mean?”

“Deni was a battler. She looked so soft, so fragile. But she had an iron will, and if something got under her skin, she’d go to the mats for it. It was one of her best traits as a friend-a tenacious loyalty that endeared her to anyone who got close enough.” He took a handkerchief from his pants pocket and held it over his mouth as he cleared his throat, and then tamped the cloth against his eyes. “I keep thinking of how she must have died. I know it wouldn’t have been without a struggle.”

So many victims of sexual assault had described to me their reactions to the assailant. The greatest number submitted to life-threatening words or display of a weapon. Others chose to attempt to fight back. Some were successful and became survivors. For many, the resistance served only to aggravate the attacker and caused him to use more force, which resulted sometimes in serious injury to the woman, and often in her death. No one could second-guess the decisions each victim had to make in the seconds when she was confronted by a rapist.