“Global,” I said. “The dead man’s company was trying to get into every fashion market in the world.”
“And you knew about that case, even though you were officially on leave?” he asked.
“Yes, and Battaglia was peeved about my involvement,” I said. “But I can’t think of anything in the entire matter that put him at risk.”
“Then we should talk about the Reverend Shipley,” Prescott said, after twenty minutes of pounding me about the Wolf Savage murder.
“Hal Shipley?” I said. “He’s a total fraud.”
“What kind of relationship did he have with the district attorney?”
“A very complicated one.”
“Detective Stern said you worked on a murder case recently that involved a vic who used to work for Shipley’s community action network.”
“What about it?” I asked.
“I need to know more.”
“You tell me why you never prosecuted Reverend Hal for federal tax evasion, and maybe it will jog my memory.”
James Prescott rubbed his hands together. “So this is the way it’s going to be, Alexandra?”
“I don’t know who to trust in this—or don’t you get that yet?” I said, trying to keep my voice from wavering. I had been as wimpy and spineless as a jellyfish in the days following the release from my captors. Now I felt as though some of my vertebrae were regenerating.
“I don’t know who has my back in all this.”
“Give me the tools I need—the information I need—to get there,” he said.
“I promise to work on that,” I said. “Can we call it a day? I’ve got to get to the store to buy a new cell phone, unless you let me—”
“You’ll need a new phone,” Prescott said. “No question about that.”
“I hear you. And I’d like to get some rest before I go to the wake tonight.”
“Wake?”
“I know you’re a 24/7 kind of guy, James,” I said, “but I’d like to put in an appearance at Paul’s wake.”
Prescott shook his head. “There’s not going to be a wake, Alexandra. And the funeral service is going to be private, with a memorial several months from now.”
“I can’t believe Amy isn’t having a service,” I said, half laughing at the thought that Paul Battaglia would be deprived of the public expressions of his importance by the famous and well-to-do. “I’d bet he’s written his own eulogy, and it’s just short of Caesar’s in lavishing praise.”
“Amy can’t have a service now,” James Prescott said. “Not even by invitation only. Imagine what an embarrassment it would be down the line if the killer turned out to have been seated in the front row.”
EIGHT
“How are you feeling now, Alexandra?” Prescott said as he reentered the room.
It was after five o’clock in the afternoon. The United States attorney for the Southern District of New York had tried to play me like I was an unwitting witness he could break simply by isolating me from my world, my friends, and my family for half a day.
“You do this well, James,” I said. “You do this so much better than I do.”
I knew the drill. I had practiced it on lying perps and predators many times. First an hour of questions about the facts. Then expand the picture to motives and opportunities. That had been the piece about Savage and Shipley and public enemies. After that, leave the poor slob in an empty room with no phone, no iPad, no way to communicate with anyone. A cup of vanilla yogurt and a bottle of water. Station a cop or agent at the door to heighten the feeling that the next stop might be an empty cell.
I was beyond exhaustion. My head was resting on my folded arms on the long table. I picked it up at the sound of Prescott’s voice.
“Ready for waterboarding, if that’s what’s next,” I said.
“Diana,” Prescott said, sitting next to me, so close I could smell his bad breath.
“What?” I asked.
“Talk to me about Diana,” he said. “Tell me who she is.”
He had my attention now. I put my hand on my hip and arched my back in a late-afternoon stretch. I repeated the woman’s name out loud, three or four times.
“Diana who?” I asked.
“No, no, no, Alexandra,” Prescott said, wagging his finger at me like it was the tail of a dog. “You’re supposed to tell me.”
“There’s a woman named Diana in Special Narcotics,” I said. “There’s a paralegal in the hiring office, too.”
Prescott was writing on his pad. “Last names?”
I told him.
“What’s your connection to each of them?”
“None. Zero. Zilch,” I said. “We’ve got five hundred lawyers and a support staff twice that size.”
“But you don’t know these two?”
“No. I mean only to say hello to. And I didn’t know the Princess of Wales, either.”
“Who, then?” he asked, frowning at me.
“Who, then, what?”
“Stop playing games with me, Alexandra,” he said. “Have you had a victim named Diana?”
“Ever?”
“Ever or lately. Take your pick.”
“I can’t think of a single one,” I said, putting my elbows on the table and my head in my hands. “Call Catherine, like I told you. She’ll put the name in the computer system and all the Dianas who’ve been to our office or made a police report will pop right up.”
“Think harder,” Prescott said, blasting his foul breath at me. “I’m giving you a chance to help yourself, Alexandra. I’m throwing you a lifeline here.”
“Screw your lifeline,” I said. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You’ve got five minutes alone with me to rattle this around in your brain.”
“Then what? Off to Guantánamo?”
“Why do you insist on making a joke about this?” Prescott asked.
“Because that’s what I do when I get scared,” I said, as much as I hated to admit to him that his isolation technique was working on me. “I suppose Diana has something to do with the district attorney.”
“Keep going.”
“I’m supposed to know about their relationship?”
“Do you?” he asked.
“Does it have to do with the fact that he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring?” I asked. “Diana’s the mistress, right?”
Prescott threw his pen on the table. “Are you telling me or asking me?”
“I don’t know, James. I’m in the dark.”
“A few hours ago you said you were his confidante.”
“I was. Used to be. Past tense.”
He stood up and grabbed his pad. “I’ll be back shortly. If you think of something you’d like to tell me—without the cops or agents in here—just alert the guy outside the door.”
I walked over to the window and looked out at the dusky sky. I didn’t know a headache could hurt so much, be so blinding.
I sat on the foot-wide windowsill and wrapped my arms around my knees. It was at least ten minutes before Prescott returned, this time with Jaxon Stern and Kate Tinsley.
“Back to the table, please,” Prescott said.
I went to my hard wooden chair and seated myself.
“We’ve got something we’d like you to listen to,” he said.
Detective Stern had a small digital recorder. He placed it on the table.
“I got your phone from your buddy Vinny,” Stern said. “You might want to increase your tip come Christmas, Ms. Cooper. He gave it right up.”