“Bad choice of words,” Mercer said.
“Stalking me, if you think that’s any more suitable language, to the Met Museum to confront me about having something to do with a friend of his who was also there,” I said. “Are you following my theme? Is it any surprise that what brings the great man down is a sharpshooter? A professional hunter of some sort who tracked a moving target and nailed it. That, I would suggest to you, has nothing to do with any disgruntled felon Battaglia has ever prosecuted.”
Mercer cocked his head and nodded, putting the pieces together.
“Don’t forget Diana,” Mike said.
“Oh, I haven’t let that one slip, Detective. Skeeter Prescott charged me with figuring out who she is,” I said, “and he’s the last guy I want to let down.”
Mike squinted and looked at me, clearly puzzled. “You got Diana?”
“I think I do, gentlemen,” I said, sitting back on the rear seat. “Goddess of the hunt, guys. Roman mythology. Diana was goddess of the hunt—and wild animals.”
“Now all we have to do”—Mike nodded as he spoke—“is figure out what human form this goddess takes.”
FIFTEEN
“Do you remember meeting any of these fellows back in the day?” Mercer asked.
The three of us were standing in front of the magnificent Rainey gates—the bronze sculptures, oxidized now so that their patina was the same shade of green as the Statue of Liberty, that have been the iconic images of the entrance to the Bronx Zoo since the 1930s.
“I do,” I said. “Isn’t that Sultan the lion, posing on top of the arches?”
“My department,” Mike said. “A Barbary lion—a gift to the zoo just after 1900.”
“What are Barbary lions?” I asked.
“The largest in the subspecies,” Mike said. “North African. They were massive beasts, with really plush manes. They’re the lions that were brought to Rome to fight the gladiators in the Colosseum.”
“Of course you would know that,” I said.
“There was also a menagerie at the Tower of London,” Mike said. “They’ve actually dug up remains of Barbary lions at the tower going way back before Sultan took up residence here. Big, bold creatures, but extinct now.”
“That’s the fate of too many of these animals,” Mercer said.
The sculptor had captured the mane brilliantly—with layers and layers of waves worked into the bronze material.
I walked beneath the gated archway—under the white-tailed deer and great hornbill, the penguin and pelican, the baboon and flamingo and trio of bears. All of them seemed to be resting on the shell of Buster, a three-hundred-year-old Galapagos tortoise. The handsome animals had drawn me into the zoo for as many years back as I could remember.
“You know they posed for the sculptor?” Mike said.
“C’mon.”
“No kidding, Coop. Each of these animals was taken into one of the cages for his sitting. And Rainey was a big-game hunter,” he said. “He captured and brought some of the earliest animal specimens back here from Africa.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You remember this from childhood?”
“He’s cheating,” Mercer said, slapping Mike on the back.
“Where are we, Coop?” Mike asked.
“How stupid of me,” I said. “This is the Fordham Road entrance to the zoo.”
Mike had gone to Fordham University, which was a stone’s throw away.
“It wasn’t that long ago that I could tell you the name of every animal in the whole place,” he said. “What they ate for breakfast and dinner, and what time they got fed. When I didn’t have the cash to dine out with my dates—no trust fund like you, kid—I’d bring my ladies here, for a hot dog and some peanuts.”
“I bet it worked every time,” I said.
“Pretty much so, as long as I stayed out of the reptile house,” Mike said. “There’s something about slithering pythons and constrictors. I used to think they’d make the broads want to wrap themselves around me once we got back to the dorm, but they were simply repulsive cold-blooded vipers. A total buzzkill.”
“So you’re going to be our guide at the zoo,” I said, stepping off the walkway as a group of schoolkids ran past me. “I may never get another phone. If you keep me by your side day and night, I won’t need one.”
“You and I would last side by side for about forty-eight hours. Then all your usual control-freak habits would kick in and I’d be out on the street, trolling for homicides.”
“You know where we’re going, Alex?” Mercer asked.
“I don’t remember my way around, but the woman who helped me with the information for Battaglia’s speech, when he was honored, was from the Development Office of the WCS—which lent a hand to Animals Without Borders,” I said. “I had to call her a good bit to get the facts right.”
“You remember her name?” he asked.
I laughed. “It’s in my contacts. On my phone,” I said. “It’s Deirdre—Deirdre something.”
Mercer dialed 411 and asked for the Bronx Zoological Society. It was no longer conservation-speak to call these places “zoos.” When information put him through to the switchboard, he asked the operator for the Development Office, passing the phone to me.
“Deirdre, please,” I said, and waited for the call to transfer. “Hello, Deirdre? This is Alex Cooper.”
“Who?”
“Alex Cooper. We’ve never met, but we’ve had a few conversations. I’m the prosecutor who worked with you on the fund-raising dinner honoring Paul Battaglia in—”
“Oh, of course,” she said. “I’m so sorry for your loss—and for your, well, your own terrible—what can I say—your experience.”
“Thank you for your condolences,” I said. “In fact, I’m calling about the district attorney.”
“Really?” Deirdre asked. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“There is, actually,” I said. “Just unofficially. I mean, I’m not asking as a prosecutor. There won’t be a memorial service for the district attorney for weeks, maybe months. But I thought it would bring such a personal element to the event if I could start to organize some of the speakers around the things he cared about most. Maybe bring in some of the people from your world that we don’t even know about.”
“To contribute to our fund in his honor?”
That, too, I thought, although it hadn’t been on my mind. Most of the staff would donate to our favorite advocacy group—Safe Horizon—in his memory, but this would be a fine tribute and a cause we could all respect. “Certainly.”
“That’s so generous of you,” Deirdre said. “I’d need to pull my files, of course. When would you like to talk?”
“Meet. I’d like to meet with you.”
“That’s fine. Why don’t you give me some dates that suit you?”
“How would this afternoon work?”
Deirdre chuckled. “I like fund-raisers with a sense of urgency. But we’re up in the Bronx, you know? It’s not like I’m around the corner.”
“Yes, that’s what reminded me of you,” I said. “Coincidentally, I’m just a few blocks away, at Fordham, with a couple of my friends.”