“Sure he did.”
“The crime was federal,” Mercer said. “So how did the local DA prosecute it?”
“Same way as always,” I said, “by being creative. I think he nailed them for presenting fraudulent bills of sale and forged documents, all well within his jurisdictional limits. Paul did the legwork himself and stood on the podium at the presser with the two big rhino horns—quite a sight—and when the spotlight went off, he quietly turned over the underlying Lacey Act violations to Prescott to carry over the finish line.”
“Ouch,” Mike said. “That must have been a sticky day between the two of them.”
“One of many,” I said. “I bet Prescott goes berserk when this Hubertus stuff hits the airwaves. He’s likely to be so tempted to point out Battaglia’s hypocrisy.”
Reporters would quickly uncover the animus that had surfaced during Operation Crash, when Battaglia presented himself as a wildlife champion and pointed the finger at Prescott, who hadn’t gotten off the mark on the issue. Now, the worm seemed to have turned, and the press would be trying every which way to find out about the Saint Hubertus lifestyle.
“First the tabloids will try to put the district attorney in a green velvet robe,” I said, “and then they’ll drill down on Prescott.”
“What’s to find?” Mercer asked.
“I told you he was a southerner. A good ole boy from Middleburg, Virginia,” I said. “If I remember correctly, Skeeter specialized in game birds—pheasants, quail, partridges. And occasionally rode to the hounds for foxes.”
Mike’s phone rang. “Chapman here.”
The caller spoke to him.
“Hey, Vinny. What’s up?” Mike said. “You’re right, she left home an hour ago. I’ll give him a call. Thanks.”
“Vinny, the doorman? What did he want?”
“The US attorney sent two agents to your apartment to fetch you,” Mike said.
“Unfetchable. That’s what I am.”
“Why don’t you step outside for a few minutes,” Mike said.
“Why?”
“That way when I call Prescott back, I can tell him we’re not together right now,” Mike said. “I can tell him I’m not really sure where you are.”
Mercer nodded at me. He and I got up and strolled out the door, leaving Mike with the bill and a chance to get to James Prescott.
We were standing on Second Avenue, next to the new subway entrance that had finally opened. I put on my sunglasses to avoid the glare of the one P.M. brightness.
“What’s the sport in shooting living things?” Mercer asked. “I’ve never understood it.”
“Neither do I.”
Mike followed us out a few minutes later. “Prescott’s getting steamed up, Coop.”
“What now?”
“I told him we ran together this morning—just in case anyone spotted us in the park—but I couldn’t be sure where you were right now.”
“You’re living dangerously, Detective.”
“He wants me to find you and take you to buy a phone,” Mike said. “And he wants me to tell you to call him, when I see you.”
“Mission accomplished,” I said. “You’ve done your bit.”
“And he wants you to be in his office first thing tomorrow morning.”
Mike offered me his phone.
I shook my head. “I’ll be sure to tell him I got the message to call, but I’ve got other things to do first.”
“Like what?” Mike asked.
“Prescott told me yesterday that I had an assignment, actually. He told me I had to figure out two things—who Diana is, and which person was the mutual friend of Battaglia’s and mine who was at the Met Monday night.”
“So?”
“I say we start with the WCS. I say we jump all over this Saint Hubertus mystery before I meet with Prescott tomorrow, so I go in ahead of the game.”
“Wildlife Conservation Society,” Mike said. “That’s WCS?”
“Yes,” I said. “Where’s your car?”
“Exactly where we left it last night. Do they have an office here?”
“Sure they do,” I said. “When’s the last time you went to the zoo?”
“Zoo?” Mike asked.
“That’s the local home of the WCS,” I said, starting into the crosswalk when the light changed. “The Bronx Zoo, gentlemen. We’re going ape.”
FOURTEEN
“Why do we have to go overseas?” Mike asked as he showed his laminated NYPD pass going through the tollbooth on the Triborough Bridge, over the Hell Gate waterway.
“Because the Wildlife Conservation Society is headquartered at the Bronx Zoo,” I said. “They work alongside Animals Without Borders—the one that honored Battaglia—because that group doesn’t have an office in New York.”
“Good idea,” Mercer said.
“Go to the source,” I added. “Isn’t that always the best way to get reliable information?”
“Yeah,” Mercer agreed with me. “It beats a website. Maybe people in that organization can reconcile something like the DA’s membership in a hunt club with his conservation concerns.”
“What’s wrong with the zoo in Central Park?” Mike asked.
“It’s not the real deal,” I said. “That’s mostly a children’s zoo.”
“It was good enough for you the first time you wanted to spend the night with me,” Mike said. “On the roof of the Arsenal.”
We had been working a murder of a girl in the park’s rowboat lake. The rooftop of the Arsenal, overlooking the tiny zoo, had been magical—the backdrop for the dramatic change in my relationship with Mike.
“I’m not complaining about it. Not that night, anyway,” I said. “It’s just that it’s only six acres within a huge park, versus the two hundred sixty-five acres in the Bronx. And it’s a menagerie. It’s not where the conservation efforts are centered.”
“A menagerie?”
“That’s what the Central Park Zoo was called when it was founded,” I said. “Eighteen fifty-nine. It was only for the exhibition of animals.”
“We heard all this when we were scouring the park on the Bethesda angel murder,” Mercer said. “The zoo wasn’t even designed as part of the park.”
“Yes,” I said. “At least two of us were listening. People just started donating exotic animals that they brought back from trips out west or abroad. Everything from swans and snakes to bear cubs.”
“Then all those fancy buildings went up along Fifth Avenue—Vanderbilts and Astors and Fricks and Mellons,” Mercer said. “Millionaire’s Row.”
“And the rich folk who moved uptown didn’t like the smell of the animals all that much,” I said. “So the creatures went from being housed in open enclosures to having some structures built to keep them off the city streets. But the real plan called for a zoological park—like the great ones of Europe. The only place left to build it, in the city, was in the wilderness.”
Mercer laughed. “I guess that’s what the Bronx was, back in 1900. Wilderness.”
“Did you come here to the zoo a lot growing up?” Mike asked.