“She stayed through the end of the day Thursday,” Mike said. “Pretty much ripped raw. She was really helpful to Prescott and the detectives, going through Battaglia’s desk—”
“An unenviable task,” I said. Papers, clippings, notes, phone messages, were stacked more than a foot high in piles on his desk and on the credenza behind it. The ones on the bottom were yellowed with age—calls that had never been returned, applicants who had been pushed on the DA by some political hack to whom they were related, and stock market tips that had not been taken seriously. “But I’d like a go at his appointment book. Where’s Rose now?”
“Her daughters took her away for a vacation, just to calm her down. I don’t know where,” Mike said, “but she’ll be gone all next week. We can put in a call.”
“I’ll try her cell tomorrow,” I said, washing the sandwich down with wine. “Does Prescott have the appointment book?”
“I can ask. What would it give you?”
“He had his own code for things—for people he liked and people he despised. Maybe Chidra Persaud is in there somewhere,” I said, thinking of the black leather-bound desk diary Rose kept for the DA, an oversize volume that detailed all his meetings, in the office and out of it.
“You think Battaglia had the balls to run a witness like this himself?” Mike asked.
“I know he did,” I said. “He’s done it before.”
“What for?”
“Whenever he thought he had something to gain by it.” I was done with food, totally reinvigorated with thoughts of Paul Battaglia’s penchant for secrecy. “That whole dustup with the Reverend Hal Shipley—the DA ran that by himself, just as one example. He wanted to lock in Harlem in case he ran again. He compromised himself by letting Shipley call the shots on his own investigation.”
I’d had a complaint from a teenager—a statutory sex crime—in which she’d named the publicity-hungry Shipley as her seducer. Before I could make a determination about her credibility—in the end, she had none—Paul Battaglia had already assured the Reverend Shipley that he was not in danger of being charged. Shipley had bought him. Battaglia had compromised me in the letter he wrote to Shipley, and that had set us off on our final series of uncomfortable encounters.
“Did he have a code name for the rev?” Mike asked.
“Not very subtle. Slippery,” I said. “He called the flimflam man Slippery, instead of Shipley.”
“So—Diana?”
“I imagine it’s how he referred to Chidra Persaud.”
“Not subtle either,” Mike said.
“Prescott must know that. It’s probably why he jumped on it—on her—so quickly last night,” I said. “There must be references to her in the desk diary. Prescott’s coming up here to meet with me Monday morning. We can tell him to bring the diary and go through it together. I may spot some references that others who knew the DA less well might have missed.”
“Say Battaglia didn’t bring anyone in to work on Persaud with him; how long could he go on that way?”
“Who’s to stop him?” I said. “Most of that front office is a bunch of head-bobbing yes-men. He’d milk her till he had what he wanted and then pass it on to Frauds. There would be simply no one to stop him at that point.”
“What do you say about his plan to go back to Montana?”
“Persaud claims Battaglia reserved a cabin for November first,” I said. “Taking a guest.”
“Could be that was the climax he wanted to get to,” Mike said.
“Yeah. Killing Horace,” I said, going inside to shower and brush my teeth.
“You’re holding out on me. Is Horace his nickname for someone?” Mike said. “One of Battaglia’s put-downs?”
“It’s a freaking ram,” I said, undressing and willing the water to get warm. “A good-looking ole boy who’s sort of king of the hunting preserve, and Battaglia was ready to blow him to oblivion with—I guess with a ghost by his side.”
“A ghost with no name,” Mike said. “Don’t you think it’s got to be George Kwan?”
“If it looks like a duck, as the saying goes. Yes, my money’s on Kwan.”
“There’s got to be a way into this for you and me.”
“Prescott will try to run it down, unless we get to it first,” I said. “You can start your guys checking out who won the Montana auctions for sheep tags, just in case.”
I stepped into the narrow shower and soaped up. I got out and wrapped myself in a towel, wringing the water from my hair.
“I know it was an old technique in mental hospitals to bathe patients in ice water—slow the blood flow to the brain to stop their agitation. But I’m really not enrolled here for the hydrotherapy treatment, and I’m not all that agitated at the moment,” I said, coming out of the bathroom. “Warm me up, will you?”
Mike was sitting on the edge of one of the twin beds. I took the iPad out of his hands and stood between his legs, stroking his hair. He put his arms around me and squeezed tight, opening the towel to kiss me on the flat of my abdomen.
“When’s the last time you slept in a bed this small?” I asked.
“Can’t remember.”
“Are you ready to turn out the lights?” I said. “I’m wiped.”
Mike undressed and climbed in beside me. I wanted to be held and be made to feel secure. Mike did that for me. I was asleep before I could say good night to him.
When I awakened in the early morning, Mike was already up and dressed.
“Are you going to church?” I asked, knowing that on Sundays he often took his mother to mass.
“I’ll take a pass. Mom will have to say a few novenas for me anyway. She might as well add missing today’s mass.”
“Then why are you up so early?”
“To spirit you out of here so we can get back before Tinsley and North know you went for a constitutional.”
“You’re springing me,” I said, throwing back the covers and reaching for clean clothes. “AWOL. What a great feeling this is. A walk in the woods?”
“I was thinking more like a ride to the city,” Mike said.
“Risky business,” I said, lacing up the sneakers I had worn to Montana with a burst of energy I didn’t know I possessed. “James Prescott won’t like this one bit.”
Mike must have been to the main house earlier and returned with a pot of coffee. I poured him a second cup and a first for me, while he worked his Google app.
“Did Chidra Persaud mention anything about a grand slam?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No baseball. All hunting all the time.”
“I’m talking hunting.”
“What’s the grand slam, then?”
“There are apparently four kinds of wild sheep in North America,” Mike said.
“Yeah. She told us that much.”
“Your pal Horace is just one of them.”
“Where are the others?”
“Desert bighorn in the Southwest,” he said. “Something called Dall’s in Alaska and British Columbia, and Stone’s sheep in the Yukon.”
“How does that connect to Chidra Persaud?” I said.
“I’m working on that,” Mike said. “You were right about the state auctions for sheep tags, Coop. You led me straight to it.”