Deadfall

“No one will notice you touch down on the small-town tarmac in his jet?”

“They come and go all the time—hunters, fly-fishermen, movie star ranch owners. That’s the preferred mode of transportation for this crowd.”

“Who is he?” I asked. “Who’s Battaglia’s friend? Why didn’t you tell me that first?”

“You come with me now and I’ll introduce you.”

“Do not play games with me, Skeeter,” I said, wagging a finger at him. “I’ve known that side of you for a very long time, and I don’t like it.”

I turned my back on the US attorney.

“Just step out of my way, Detective Tinsley,” I said, “so I can sleep off this intrusion.”

“Twenty-four hours and we’re back here, Alexandra,” Prescott said.

I was eyeball to eyeball with Kate Tinsley, who didn’t budge.

“What I’m about to tell you stays in this room,” Prescott said, talking to Tinsley and North, as well as to me. “The name of Battaglia’s host.”

I gave Prescott the courtesy of facing him. I was pretty sure I knew everyone on the DA’s Rolodex, so curiosity got the better of me.

“Chidra Persaud,” he said.

“Chidra?” I said, repeating the first name. “That’s a woman’s name.”

“Yes,” Prescott said. “Do you know her?”

“I’ve never heard of her, never heard Battaglia mention her,” I said. “What’s she doing at a billionaire boys’ club?”

“She seems to have been the only woman playing in the sandbox with the big boys.”

“Who is she?” I asked.

“One of India’s most successful young entrepreneurs,” Prescott said. “Raised there and educated at Oxford. Eight years ago, she created a start-up that makes high-end clothing gear for sportswomen—safari to kitesurfing. Her company’s called Tiger Tail.”

“Very high-end indeed,” I said. “I’ve seen her khakis at Bergdorf’s and Barneys. Classy stuff, quite overpriced. How old is she?”

“Forty-one,” he said. “Just a couple of years older than you are.”

I hated to tip my hand, but now I was intrigued.

“What’s her connection to Battaglia?”

“I don’t have the entire picture yet,” Prescott said. “I just learned about her at ten o’clock last evening, when TARU found cross-calls with her number on Amy Battaglia’s phone.”

“Where was she?” I asked.

“She’s got a penthouse in Tribeca.”

“So she lives here?”

I was untying the knot on my robe. I was going along for the ride, despite my desire not to give in to Prescott’s tactics.

“Chidra Persaud, according to the team, has two homes in India, a flat in London, a house on Nantucket, and a ranch in McLeod, Montana.”

“Battaglia,” I said. “She must have told you something about him.”

“Persaud told me she was introduced to him just recently,” Prescott said. “She wanted help with a business problem she was having.”

“What kind of problem?”

“Ask her yourself, Alexandra. I haven’t had time to download her information. Don’t hold us up.”

Kate Tinsley stepped aside. I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. Things were moving too fast for me now. I looked through the bag Vickee had packed for me and put on a pair of jeans and a navy-blue turtleneck sweater.

I grabbed a handful of toiletries and my ID and reentered the living room.

“Who’s coming with me?” I asked.

“Fisher and Frist,” Prescott said. “You’ve met them.”

“I want a cop. I want someone from the NYPD,” I said, pointing at Jimmy North.

“City cops don’t have any jurisdiction there, Alexandra,” he said, motioning me to follow him.

“Neither did Battaglia,” I said, knowing that he must have been stepping on the toes of the feds when he made the trip to Montana. “Neither do I.”

“But you’re useful,” he said, trying to be humorous. “You knew Battaglia so well, and you’ve got a jump on the conservation piece of this, on the exotic-animal angle.”

“We fly out now,” I said, “and come back when?”

“I expect we can get this all done today.”

I picked up a couple of bottles of water from the coffee table. Prescott turned to one of the agents behind him, asking him to pull the car up in front of the cottage.

“Does Ms. Persaud hunt?” I asked, pulling on my jacket.

“It’s in the blood, I think. Her grandfather was a guide for tiger hunts in India,” Prescott said. “Led Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip on one during their visit in the sixties, when they were the guests of the maharaja of Jaipur. Persaud’s father was also in that business, so she grew up with a rifle in her hands, my short Google search suggests.”

I saw headlights go on at the bottom of the driveway.

“I guess with tigers facing extinction at home, Ms. Persaud had nowhere to go but out west,” I said. “After all, our bison are bouncing back, I hear. And they’re bigger than tigers, so harder for her to miss.”

“Keep your temper under wraps for twenty-four hours, if you can. Your tongue, too,” Prescott said. “Let’s see where she leads us.”

“Am I warm, James? Were they shooting buffalo? Maybe Wyoming kangaroos crossed over the state line?”

“Not even close, Alexandra.”

“Clue me in,” I said, as the car pulled up to the door.

“They were hunting for sheep—”

“Sheep? For Christ’s sakes,” I said, interrupting Prescott. “Cats and dogs will be next.”

“Not domestic animals. Not that kind of sheep.”

“Like that makes it better?” I asked.

“Rocky Mountain bighorns,” Prescott said. “Chidra Persaud calls it the ultimate pursuit.”





THIRTY-FIVE


“Good morning. I’m Chidra Persaud.”

The brown-skinned woman with luminous dark eyes and long straight hair got up from the leather seat—one of a dozen on the plane—to greet me when I boarded. She was dressed in a blazer and tan pants—from her own fashion line, I assumed. Her foundation and blush had been applied flawlessly.

It was four A.M. when we boarded the sleek jet. I looked like I was a runaway from a psych facility—no makeup, snarled hair, sloppy clothes—stopped in my tracks by a cover girl from the latest issue of Town & Country.

“Alex Cooper.”

“Why don’t you sit across from me?” she said. “May I call you Alex?”

“Sure.”

“And call me Chidra,” she said. “Do you mind riding backwards?”

The ivory leather cushions were so plush I didn’t think I’d notice which direction we were headed. “It’s business, Chidra. I’ll be wherever you want me to be.”

“Thank you,” she said. “James, why don’t you sit there?”

Persaud pointed at the other backward-facing seat across the way. It was such a narrow space that one could hardly call it an aisle.

“Is it all right if the agents ride behind us, with my assistant?”

“That’s fine,” Prescott said.

We were three in the four front seats, and Persaud’s assistant—a young man—was in the grouping behind her back, with Fisher and Frist.

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