“Not a word,” Mercer said.
“So what if the guy—what if Kwan Enterprises is into some other kind of illegal operation?” Mike said.
“Like what?” I asked. “What made you think of that today, besides the word-association stuff, at the zoo—the zoological park—of all places?”
“What Deirdre said about traditional medicine and how many of the Asians don’t even care about killing their own endangered species to get the ingredients,” Mike said. “I can’t put my finger on it, but the late district attorney, if it’s true he was at the hunting preserve where Scalia died, and the ghostlike Mr. Kwan, who doesn’t put any stock in the lives of the humans who work for him, seem out of place in the world of animal conservation.”
“Did you bring any of that up to Kwan tonight?” Vickee asked. “Did he react to it?”
“I couldn’t read him,” Mike said, shaking his head back and forth. “He’s totally without emotion on the surface. Oozes confidence, but he didn’t convince me that anything he said—about his relationship with Battaglia or his interest in wildlife—was sincere.”
Vickee turned her head to me. “How about your impression?”
“Pretty much the same,” I said. “Kwan managed to express how important the conservation issue is, but both he and the DA really seem like misfits in that world,” I said, “especially if you get confirmation on Battaglia and the Saint Hubertus story.”
“I would have pressed him more on the animal stuff,” Mike said, “but I didn’t want to make my interest too obvious, since he wasn’t giving us a minute more. He practically slammed the door in Coop’s face as it was.”
“What does tomorrow look like?” Vickee asked.
“I start the day with Prescott,” I said.
“I’m going to take you home so you can get your ducks in a row for that one,” Mike said, ordering a round of decafs for the table. “I’ll go down to his office with you.”
“He’s not going to let you in, Mike. He’ll make you sit and wait downstairs again.”
“You did that to me for ten years, kid. I can take a few hours more.”
“How about you?” Vickee asked Mercer.
“I’ll go to the squad for the morning. Make an appearance. See if anything needs doing.”
“I think we take Deirdre Wright up on her offer to have someone on staff give us a tour of the entire park tomorrow afternoon,” I said. “Tell us about the animals—where they come from and how they live. Which ones are endangered and which ones interest smugglers.”
“You’re back into the idea of smuggling, then?” Vickee said.
“That doesn’t mean it’s the Kwans,” I said. “But the rhino horns and other contraband certainly don’t get here legally. Someone has to have the means to transport them to this country.”
“That zoo is still two hundred sixty acres of wilderness in the middle of a big city,” Mike said. “If it’s part of the backdrop for the death of the district attorney, then we have to figure out why.”
TWENTY
“I won’t answer another question with Detective Stern in the room,” I said.
James Prescott was standing face-to-face with me. Jaxon Stern was sitting near the door. It was nine thirty Thursday morning, and I wasn’t in the mood to be intimidated.
“We’re a team, Alex,” Prescott said. “What you tell me, you tell all of us.”
“Let me repeat, in case you didn’t understand me. Detective Stern leaves the room—maybe he can keep Mike Chapman company downstairs in the library—or I leave the room.”
“I remember that streak from your younger days,” Prescott said. “Irascible, some called it. Others had stronger words, with less pleasant connotations.”
“Fortunately, it’s part of my nature that hasn’t changed over the years. It’s a trait I practice and polish all the time, because it’s served me so well in the face of adversity,” I said. “Stern goes or I go.”
“Detective Stern is here because I need him to run your piece of the case. You’re here,” Prescott said, turning to his desk and reaching for a piece of paper, “because I had a chance to open this matter before the grand jury yesterday and I came out with a subpoena for your appearance to testify before them.”
I took the paper from him. A prosecutor doesn’t need a perp in custody to start a grand jury proceeding. He just needs evidence of the commission of a crime, and the fact that he wants to dig further to investigate it. Prescott certainly had that.
“Looks like I have to come back in a week,” I said, looking at the date on the document. “That works just fine for me.”
I turned to leave the room.
“You know I can’t put you in cold, Alex,” Prescott said. “You know I’ve got to prepare you beforehand. I have to know what you’re going to say. That’s what today is for—and the next several days.”
“You’ll have to take your chances on this one,” I said. “You’ll just have to trust me, the way you used to do.”
“You know I trust you.”
“Jaxon goes.”
Stern got to his feet when I used his first name.
I turned to look at him. “James and I have been close for so long that I just feel it’s time for you and I to be on a first-name basis, too—much as you don’t like that.”
“Suit yourself,” Stern said.
“After all, you’re so far up and inside all my business—or haven’t you told that to the US attorney yet?” I asked.
Stern didn’t flinch.
“You never met each other until the night before last,” Prescott said. “You don’t know each other. I went to great lengths to find a homicide detective who hadn’t worked with you, Alex, so we don’t get burned by a defense attorney once we have a case to mount. We’re all in your business now, and we’ve got every right to be.”
“I wouldn’t care if Jaxon had just been tough on me the other night because he imagined I’d be uncooperative before he actually met me or he tagged me as a coconspirator in Battaglia’s assassination,” I said. “But that isn’t the case.”
“That’s his style,” Prescott said.
“Tell him, Jaxon,” I said.
“We’ve never met,” Detective Stern said.
“Did you know I prosecuted the detective’s brother-in-law?” I asked Prescott. “Convicted his ass of rape in the first degree—for drugging and molesting a Columbia grad student?”
Prescott looked quizzically at Stern, who was stone-faced.
“Jaxon came to the arraignment himself and posted bail, ’cause the perp used every ounce of the influence he counted on his brother-in-law to bring to bear, once the cuffs were tightened around his wrists.”
The detective was looking right through me.
“Jaxon asked the SVU detectives to charge the case as a misdemeanor so his brother-in-law could make bail, and when they refused to do that, he had his sister call in anonymous complaints against them to the CCRB.”
“Any of this true?” Prescott asked the detective.