“Dump out your bag, Ms. Cooper,” Stern said.
I laughed to myself. I had said that, to those witnesses whom I had caught in a lie, so many times my colleagues made fun of it. The bag dump had often revealed items of evidence that my complainants wanted to hide—a slip of paper with the accused’s phone number, suggesting they had arranged a way to get in touch; condoms she had taken along for the date; even a handgun, once, that a young woman carried to secure her demand for money after the sexual encounter.
“You dump it, Detective. That will give you more pleasure than it gives me,” I said.
Stern took my tote by the handles and turned it over on top of the conference table. Lipstick cases and mascara and a shopping list and more coins that rolled off onto the floor. But there was no phone.
Jaxon Stern threw my empty bag down. “She must have given it to Chapman, Chief.”
“Did you, Alexandra? Does Mike Chapman have it?”
I shook my head. “No, he doesn’t.”
“Help me, will you? Where is your phone?”
I was playing for time. I didn’t want Stern to get his hands on my device before I checked it myself.
“Will you let me see it before you take it to TARU?” I asked. The Technical Assistance Response Unit would know more about me than I knew about myself once they downloaded all the information on my smartphone.
“You’d better get your head around the fact that you’re not running this case, Alexandra,” Prescott said. “Give it up.”
I thought back to last evening. I had dressed for the Costume Institute gala at the home of my friend Joan Stafford’s mother. I had borrowed one of Joan’s gowns and her mother’s pearl necklace.
“On the way to the Met,” I said, “from a friend’s apartment on the Upper East Side, I dropped off my things with my doorman.”
“What things?” Prescott asked.
“My cell phone,” I said. “My ski jacket and my apartment keys.”
“I don’t believe it,” Stern said.
“All I needed for the party was my ID to get inside the museum, and a twenty-dollar bill for my carfare home.” I directed my words to James Prescott. “I wasn’t expecting a murder. I wasn’t planning a call to 911.”
“You didn’t stop on your way in this morning to pick up the phone?”
I met Prescott’s expression of disbelief with a defiant stare. “I made an unexpected detour to the morgue, James. I had a really rough go with a hard-ass detective who seems to want to see me in handcuffs and leg restraints.”
“Don’t exaggerate—”
“So when I reached my home I was pretty much shattered. I wasn’t thinking about making any calls or catching up on my correspondence.”
“Then how did you get into your apartment?” he asked, thinking he had nailed the “gotcha” question.
“Mike,” I said, remembering that he had opened the door, letting go of my shoulder to get out his key. “Mike Chapman has a key.”
Jaxon Stern snickered.
“And this morning?” Prescott asked.
“I—I showered and dressed and didn’t even stop to think about it,” I said. “I picked up my tote and just assumed my phone was in there.”
“I’m on it, Chief,” Stern said. “I’ll get it from the day doorman now.”
“Be sure you take a subpoena, Detective,” I said. “Vinny wouldn’t give you anything I left with him otherwise.”
“You think you tip that good, Ms. Cooper?” Stern said. “He’ll give it up to me.”
“Look, Alexandra,” Prescott said. “I haven’t opened a grand jury investigation yet. I haven’t had a minute to do it. So I can’t issue a subpoena, and you know that.”
“I’m counting on it, James,” I said. “I want my phone, too.”
“Call your doorman,” he said, offering his phone to me.
“Sorry. His number’s with the contacts in my phone, which I don’t seem to have,” I said, holding my hands up in the air. “I can’t recall what it is offhand. Anyway, I don’t know what has you so anxious to get hold of my emails and messages. I’ve been on a leave of absence for weeks. I’m not exactly loaded up with breaking cases and top secret information.”
James Prescott stood and pointed at Jaxon Stern. “Go get her phone, Detective. If the doorman gives you any problem, dial me up.”
“You know, Skeeter,” I said, “leopards really don’t ever change their spots, do you?”
He looked over my head and spoke to the AUSA who’d be working with him. “Get into the grand jury before they break for lunch and open a matter.”
“United States against—?” the young lawyer asked, looking blankly at me.
“No subject,” Prescott said. “We don’t have a perp yet, obviously. Just title it ‘Investigation into the death of Paul Battaglia.’”
I faked a sigh of relief. “Must be my lucky day, guys. I’m not yet the perp.”
James Prescott wasn’t amused. “We’ve got the district attorney’s phone, Alexandra.”
Sure they did. That would have been in his pocket. “I understand.”
“I’m just trying to find out why he called you three times on his way to meet with you,” Prescott said. “On his way to his death.”
SEVEN
“Again?” I asked.
The scene on the front steps of the Met, from the moment I walked out the door until Battaglia was hit, had lasted less than three minutes. Maybe two. James Prescott had taken me through it five times already, breaking each moment into longer and longer pieces.
“Did you see anyone else on the steps?”
“No.”
“Were you aware of the traffic going by on Fifth Avenue?”
“No.”
“What color was the car?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think harder,” Prescott said. “You must have noticed it.”
“I didn’t.”
“But you saw an arm extend out of the window?”
“I think so,” I said. “I mean, I assume that’s what it was. It was all so dark.”
“There are streetlights on Fifth Avenue, Alexandra,” Prescott said. “And the steps of the Met are illuminated too.”
“Then I was just tired, okay? I had no reason to be on the lookout for anything.”
They were dizzying rounds of questions, but my answers didn’t offer any more clarity—to James Prescott or to me.
“Let’s move on to some of the cases you’ve been handling,” he said.
“They were reassigned during my leave.”
“Start before your kidnapping. That was only a few weeks ago,” Prescott said. “We may find something relevant there.”
“Do you mind if we take a break?” I asked.
“Certainly,” Prescott said. “I’ll get my secretary to walk you to the restroom.”
“I don’t have a phone, James. Remember? I don’t have a Dick Tracy watch with a walkie-talkie radio built into the wristband so I can send out a rescue signal,” I said. “Or is it my escape you’re worried about?”
Prescott had perfected the art of ignoring my jabs in the short time we’d been together. “Bart, you want to get Ella to escort Alexandra to the ladies’ room?”
“Will do,” Agent Fisher said, stepping out of the room.
James and I were silent at first.
“Look,” I said, “if it’s not online already, the Post will have every fact I need to know by the time you and I have finished this standoff.”