Our breakfast plates were served. Smoked salmon with capers, fresh cream, and toast points. It was better than starting my day at Three Sisters.
“I guess what surprises me,” I said, trying to infuse my voice with some sincerity, “is that on both ends of your issues—taxes and possible theft by your cohorts—well, they seem to fall exactly into the purview of the United States attorney. Don’t you think these were matters for your office, James? Not for ours?”
He was chewing on a large chunk of salmon when I turned to him. I appreciated how difficult it was to criticize one’s hostess while cruising in her jet at thirty-six thousand feet and nibbling on her well-catered snacks.
“But Swenson said you had no comparable tax problems here?” Prescott asked her.
“So far as he could tell,” Persaud said. “That’s correct.”
“How about Chidra’s victimization, too?” I said to Prescott. “Not my bailiwick, of course, but the long arm of the law reaches so much further with federal powers than what we’ve got. Wouldn’t you think?”
James was washing down his meal with some freshly squeezed orange juice. “It depends on so many factors, and Battaglia was very creative that way, as you know.”
I was sure James Prescott could read this situation exactly as I did. It was as blatantly transparent as a pane of glass. Charles Swenson, sensing some tax liability in his client’s case, had gone for the preemptive strike. Make Chidra Persaud a victim of a crime before she’s outed in England—and perhaps in the United States—as a perp. Wrap her in the respectable embrace of Paul Battaglia, who was Swenson’s longtime friend, in the office where Swenson could help control the narrative.
“I hate to suggest this in front of Chidra,” I said to Prescott, “but since all cards need to be on the table at this point, I guess it also makes sense for Swenson to walk it into our office, knowing how Battaglia would enjoy sticking a shiv in your back, too, if he could make a case for her.”
Prescott blushed and looked at Chidra to see if she seemed to get what I was saying. But she was stone-faced, checking her iPad for mail as we bickered.
“Don’t speak ill of the dead,” Prescott said to me.
“That’s not speaking ill at all. Battaglia prided himself on being able to do that to you,” I said. “He’d rather like knowing I could say it to your face.”
A second round of coffee was offered.
“What trading company do you use for getting your company’s goods to market?” I asked Persaud.
“Different ones in different parts of the world.”
“Did Battaglia assign someone—a lawyer from our Frauds Bureau—to work on your case? Were you interviewed by one of my colleagues?”
“I’m scheduled for an interview in December,” Persaud said.
“He let it go until then?”
“My fault entirely,” she said, making eye contact again. “He tried to have me sit down with someone, but I was abroad through most of the last few months. I spent a lot of time at home in India, and some in London. I didn’t get the meeting done.”
I guessed there was no urgency to Chidra’s claims of foul play. Swenson had set her up for exactly the reasons I suspected.
“Charles will know the name of the young prosecutor I’m supposed to meet with,” she added. “I neglected to add him to my contacts.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I can call Charles tomorrow.”
“I have some questions, too,” Prescott said.
“If I may finish with a few,” I continued, leaning in toward Persaud. “Do you know a man named George Kwan?”
Chidra Persaud’s brow furrowed. “I know his name. I’m aware of his business holdings,” she said. “Kwan Enterprises, isn’t it? But I’ve never met the man.”
“Do you use his company—his trading company—for any of your shipping or marketing needs?”
“No. No, I’ve never had dealings with him,” she said. “I know at one time his associates in the London office were pressuring me to use their services, to hire them to ship our products, but we never did.”
“Did Kwan’s people—his associates—ever tell you about his interest in wildlife conservation?”
“Maybe so,” Persaud said. “But so do lots of people I meet.”
“Did you and Paul Battaglia ever discuss Mr. Kwan?” I asked.
The furrow deepened. “No. Not that I remember.”
“Think hard,” I said. “That sounds like exactly the kind of connection the DA would like to know about.”
“For any particular reason?” she asked.
“My boss is dead, Chidra,” I said. “Murdered. And no one—so far as James and I can tell—no one in Paul’s professional world knew anything about this piece of his life. This interest in hunting wild animals.”
“But you knew he was interested in wildlife conservation too, didn’t you?” she asked. “You knew he’d won a major award for a case he handled. Operation Crash, I think it was named.”
“Conserving the endangered species and killing them as well,” I said. “Seems pretty oxymoronic to me. I can’t manage to reconcile the two.”
“I’ll help you with that,” she said. “You’ll see.”
“Didn’t you meet George Kwan at the Metropolitan Museum on Monday night?” I asked. “Weren’t you at the gala that honored Wolf Savage?”
“Don’t mistake me for stupid, Alex.”
“That’s the last thing I would do.”
“You planted the fact of my presence in your question,” she said. “Did you think I’d walk into that trap?”
I sat back. “I apologize to you. I thought there was a good chance you would have attended, owning an international sportswear company of your own.”
“Tiger Tail has a royal warrant in the UK, Alex,” she said. “Do you know what that means?”
“I don’t.”
“It’s granted to tradespeople by the queen, allowing us to advertise that we supply our goods to the royal family,” Persaud said. “Wolf Savage created a fine business thirty years ago, but it’s a bit dated—and very much in trouble, in terms of financial stability. I didn’t want to be seen at his show, to be mixed up in his branding.”
“George Kwan was there Monday night. He was trying to buy a piece of the Savage business,” I said. “I was thinking, if you’d been at the Met, you might have met him.”
“Apology accepted,” she said with a nod and a smile.
“Of course, that’s where Paul went when he left his home so abruptly,” I said, ready to take my chance with Chidra. “I understand now that you didn’t attend, but it had crossed my mind for a minute that maybe it was you Paul saw on the late news—that maybe he rushed out to meet you to discuss something of importance to you both, or just to rendezvous.”
Chidra Persaud was not amused. “I Googled you on my way to the airport, Alex. One might say the same of you, isn’t that true? That Paul Battaglia had some professional matter of great urgency to discuss at that late hour on Monday—or could it have been personal?”
There was daylight outside the window now. We were somewhere over one of the Great Lakes, with hours of flying still to go.
“It must have been about a case,” I said, “about a crime or an investigation I knew nothing of. But no, we didn’t have that kind of personal relationship.”