Linda Fairstein - Cold Hit

It pained me to admit that Pat McKinney might be right about anything, but there was no point in my asking Mike to go along with him on the ride to New Jersey. If Anthony Bailor was the person under guard in a hospital, then it was likely that he had been the gunman who had aimed at me, shot Mercer, and killed the young receptionist in Chelsea on Sunday. I had no business being anywhere near him.

“What’s your plan?”

“To get my ass down there to Piscataway before that pair of clowns from Major Case find out about it.”

Physicians were required by law to report gunshot wounds, and some clever detective in the town where Bailor sought treatment, recognizing that there were no open cases in his jurisdiction in which anyone had claimed to have injured an assailant, had the great sense to notify police in the tristate area about the suspect’s appearance.

“It looks good?”

“Yeah, the guy’s a transient, a walk-in. Used a common name but has no I.D. to back it up, and gave a phony address- a street that doesn’t exist, in a neighboring town. Fits the physical scrip of Bailor. Elsa, she’s all yours for the next fifteen minutes. Loo got a uniformed detail from the North to ferry you around and keep you safe till I come back this evening.”

There was no point arguing. Mike wasn’t going to undercut Battaglia’s direction that someone escort me from place to place. “Should I keep working on trying to find Caxton?” I asked.

“Yeah, as long as you do it from behind your desk. If you get a lead on where he is, we can confront him tonight or tomorrow morning. What you could do, in the meanwhile, is let these cops take you to Denise’s new gallery on your way downtown. See if you can charm Daughtry into telling you what he found out last night about Lowell Caxton’s exodus from the city. You may do better with him if I’m over the border, Coop. Maybe you could coax him into letting you look around the storage area.”

“Remind me what I’m looking for, exactly. The Vermeer? The Rembrandt?”

“Maybe I’ll have a better idea of that after I talk to Bailor.” He looked at his watch. “Give me an hour to get out to Piscataway, and another hour to talk to him, then I’ll either beep you or call Caxton Due looking for you.”

“Meet you at Mercer’s room when you get back tonight?”

Mike was distracted. “Suppose you were Deni and you had something-a painting, in all likelihood-that someone else wanted. Where would you hide it?”

“Let’s begin by recognizing that she had more options than most of us could even imagine. And who’s she hiding it from ? I mean, if it’s Lowell, then I doubt she’d have it at home or anyplace they use together. If it’s Daughtry, then she wouldn’t hide it at their gallery. Depends, in part, on who she’s avoiding, don’t you think? It would help to know that first.”

“Forget who it is. What I’m thinking is, if it’s any kind of artwork, she could have hidden it in plain view, if you know what I mean. She could have had Marco Varelli undo any restoration. He could re-create the cover of a restored painting, or obscure a masterpiece. She could hide something like that in a warehouse, and if she treated it casually, maybe nobody would pay it any attention. You’d need her eye, her knowledge, her tutor. Maybe Deni could even carry it around in a shopping bag and nobody’d think twice of it. Maybe what’s at the heart of this case is one giant optical illusion, Coop.” Mike’s idea wasn’t altogether crazy.

“So I’ll crank up the search for Lowell, stop in to schmooze with Brian Daughtry and scan the gallery’s warehouse at the same time. Will I jinx things for you if I buy a bottle of champagne to open at Mercer’s bedside when you come back from checking out Anthony Bailor?”

“Dom Pérignon. But you gotta promise that I can be the one to break the news to him. If you get over there before I do, don’t even raise his hopes. I’d hate for this to be a false alarm. If it’s the real deal, I want to tell Mercer myself.”

Mike was ready to take off. “Great to meet you, Elsa. Keep an eye on blondie till the precinct cops get here.”

I called Laura to check my messages. There was a note from McKinney, who wanted to talk to me as soon as I got back to the office. I had a couple of hours to kill until I could expect to hear from Chapman about the identity of the man with the gunshot wound, and I had no intention of returning to Hogan Place until I knew whether this new development could turn the investigation around.

The more urgent message was from the sergeant at the Special Victims Squad, about a new case that had come in several hours ago. I phoned him immediately.

“What have you got?”

“Victim’s at New York Hospital. Twenty-six-year-old businesswoman from Georgia, staying at a hotel in town. She’s being treated for an inner ear disorder, comes to town to see a specialist. Woke up this morning but blacked out on her way out of the bathroom. She was able to call her husband back home, and he phoned the manager. Two hotel security guards got into the room and radioed for an ambulance. Then the older one told the second guy to go downstairs and wait for the EMS crew. He assumed the woman was unconscious, but she was just too weak to respond. In any event, he ripped her pajama top off and started to molest her. Finally she came around and was able to tell him to stop. Reported it to the ambulance driver as soon as she got inside and they closed the doors.”

“What hotel?”

“Would you believe the Sussex House?”

“On Central Park South?”

“You got it. She paid six hundred fifty-three dollars for the privilege of being abused by a member of the staff.”

“What do you need?”

“Her husband’s flying up from Georgia this afternoon. Can you get her interviewed and set up the grand jury, so she can get back home when the doctor releases her?”

“Absolutely.” I checked my watch. “I’ll go over and talk to her now-I’m just ten blocks away from the hospital. I’ll assign somebody senior to handle it. Need any help at the hotel? Are they being cooperative?”

“One of her girlfriends met us there to pack up her belongings. She’s the one who found the two buttons on the floor- ripped off the shirt of the pajamas.”

“Did you get the guy?”

“Yeah, but he’s not talking. Ponied up with a lawyer right away. Just doing his job.”

I called Catherine Dashfer to tell her about the case.

“I’m doing a hearing this afternoon in front of Judge Wetzel,” she told me. “But I’m free the rest of the week. If she’s released in the morning, just have her be in my office at ten, and I’ll put it right in the jury. We can have her at the airport by this time tomorrow.”

“Thanks a million. Would you do me another favor? Call McKinney for me and tell him I just got called out on a new case, and that I won’t be back until late in the day, okay?”

Elsa had ordered two salads from the local deli, and we were eating our lunch when a policewoman in uniform presented herself at the reception desk. I finished up before saying good-bye and heading off on my rounds.

Police Officers Brigid Brannigan and Harry Lazarro had been told that their assignment was to take me wherever I needed to go until they were relieved later this evening by another unit. On the short ride to New York Hospital I gave them a brief rundown on what had been happening in the Caxton case. The rest of the story they knew from newspaper accounts. One of them had been gravely wounded, and there was no more serious situation than that to a cop.

Brannigan got out of the car at the Sixty-eighth Street entrance to the large facility. “Want me to take you in?”