In the corridor behind Anna’s chair was the door to the office of the squad’s commander. Whoever he was, he had been displaced for the foreseeable future by Peterson, who would be under pressure to make an arrest in such a high-profile matter as speedily as possible.
Mercer Wallace, the biggest, blackest man in the room, was the first to notice my arrival as I let the door swing shut behind me and took off my coat and scarf. “Don’t look so surprised, Cooper,” he called to me, waving me in and bending his head toward the motley collection of strays in the holding pen. “Welcome to our Salvation Army outpost. C’mon aboard.”
I knew most of the cops on the team, and chatted with those who had not been at the hospital this morning as I worked my way through the group to reach the desk at which Mercer had seated himself.
Wallace continued when I reached his post. “Peterson’s inside waiting for McGraw to get here. The Commissioner and McGraw did a stand-up on the evening news broadcast. The usual crap-urging the public to stay calm, asking for help. Mayor offered a ten-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to the conviction of the killer. Hotline started to ring immediately, everybody looking to give up their nearest and dearest for the money.”
I looked over Anna’s shoulder and saw that she was up to the forty-seventh entry in the tips book. Years ago she had given me the odds that only one in sixty calls usually had any relevance to the investigation, so it didn’t surprise me when she leaned her head back, rolled her eyes at me for dramatic effect, and went back to recording the notes that were most probably an exercise in futility. It would be the job of a couple of members of the team to follow through on every one of the messages no matter how far-fetched they seemed, because sandwiched in among them might be the real thing-a call from someone who knew the killer and was willing to sell his soul for the financial reward.
“Hey, Blondie, get your cash on the table. We’re up right after the commercial break.” Chapman’s voice boomed into the squad room as he emerged from the hallway adjacent to the lieutenant’s office, chewing a mouthful from the slice of pizza he held in one hand. “TV’s back here in the detectives’ locker room. Move it!”
Mercer pushed away from his desk and prodded me in the back. “Let’s go, Alex. My money’s on you. Besides, that’s where the food is, so we might as well humor him.”
I followed Mercer around the corner and down the corridor to its end. Rows of battered dark green lockers lined the walls of a twenty- by fifteen-foot room. The furnishings featured a Mr. Coffee machine, a vintage 1940s-style Amana refrigerator, a television set, and a large rectangular table that was covered with soda cans, three pizza boxes, a carton that at one time had held two dozen Dunkin‘ Donuts in a variety of flavors, and half-empty packages of nachos, pretzels, and assorted brands of cigarettes. The sole artwork displayed on the only wall without lockers was a centerfold from some old issue ofPenthouse, with a head shot of Janet Reno superimposed on the voluptuous body of the nineteen-year-old manicurist who had posed for the layout. I remembered that Reno had visited the precinct in late ’96 for a photo op when she delivered some of the Crime Bill money to the Police Commissioner and I chuckled at the fond memento that her visit had inspired.
“Category tonight is Famous Leaders, Coop. I’m going for fifty. Gonna start this investigation on an optimistic note.”
Chapman took the bill from his wallet and placed it on the table while reaching for another slice. He shoved the box across to me and I opened the lid for Mercer, noting that it was ice cold and covered with grease spots. “Damn, that stuff’s been sitting here since four o’clock this afternoon, girl. Pass. My fifty’s on the filly, Chapman.”
“Hold it, Mercer. This is his field,” I cautioned as he reached for his money. Chapman had majored in history at Fordham and it was one of the topics he could beat me at easily.
“You used to have balls, Cooper. What happened? Famous leaders-you read the newspaper every day-maybe it’s current, not old, news. If it’s some relative of Mercer’s heading a Tutsi tribe on the Dark Continent or the Baltic president of an abracadabra-stan that didn’t exist until three weeks ago, you’ll drop me in a heartbeat. Get it up, here’s Trebek.”
“I’m good for it. I left my wallet in the other room.”
Alex Trebek had just revealed the Final Jeopardy answer to his three contestants. I saw the name Medina Sidonia on the screen and was clueless.
Chapman was poker-faced, waiting for me to guess first. With all of the vocal authority I could muster, I gave him the question: “Who was the head of the Brooklyn faction of the Gambino family before John Gotti?”
“Bad answer,” he shot back at me, washing his pizza down with a jelly doughnut. “Señor Sidonia-a Spanish nobleman, by the way, and not a goombah, Miss Cooper-was the commander in chief of the Spanish Armada, leading the doomed sailors up the coast with the backup assistance of the land army of Alessandro Farnese, the Duke of Parma-”
“I guess I’m buying dinner,” I threw back over my shoulder as I walked away from Mercer and Mike, impressed anew with Mike’s almost encyclopedic knowledge of military history. “Sorry to take you down with me, Wallace. I owe you on that one. I’m going back out to talk to Anna.”
I emerged from the locker room to see Chief McGraw standing in the open doorway of Peterson’s office. The lieutenant had an old wooden easel next to his desk, on which was propped a large sketch pad opened to the first sheet on which someone had neatly lettered “ Mid-Manhattan Hospital.” McGraw was suggesting that they go into the back for the briefing, so he could see how the story was playing on New York 1, a local TV station that repeated the news headlines every half-hour.
Mercer had stopped short behind me, whispering in my ear: “McGraw has probably only seen himself on the tube six or seven times since the press conference an hour ago, but he never seems to get enough, does he?”
As the two of them came out, Peterson signaled to us to go back inside the locker room, handing the easel to Mercer, while he walked to the edge of the squad room and called out the names of the three other men he wanted in attendance for the briefing. Since McGraw was ignoring my presence, I walked on in ahead to make sure that Mike wasn’t standing in front of the tube doing his imitation of the Chief. He was watching the newscast, which was running with a print of the next morning’s tabloid headlines over the familiar image of the entrance to the hospital:MAYHEM AT MID-MANHATTAN. Reporters were clustered around the mayor as he decried the fate of Gemma Dogen and affirmed his confidence in the city’s medical centers.
“Wait ‘til superdick finds out he didn’t get any air time,” Chapman chuckled. “He hates getting bumped by the mayor.”
“Maybe you’ll want to tell him yourself. He’s about five steps behind us,” I cautioned.
Mercer followed after me and set up the easel. He flipped over the top sheet and revealed the first in a series of sketches that one of the police artists had already prepared with a layout of the hospital buildings in order to familiarize the bosses with the territory. Though the rough diagram didn’t show it, we all knew the complex had a larger population than half of the towns and villages in the entire country. There were dozens of entrances and exits to streets, garages, and other structures; there were miles of corridors lined with offices, laboratories, storage rooms, and surgical theaters; and thousands worked in, visited, or used its facilities every day of the year.
Lieutenant Peterson led McGraw into the crowded area in the back of the locker room, followed by three detectives from the task force. They were the ones who had spent the day starting the groundwork at the hospital, patiently speaking to witness after witness to see whether anyone had seen or heard anything unusual during the preceding day or night. Peterson shoved his glasses on top of his head, told us all to take our seats around the table, and directed Mercer to begin with what he had learned about the deceased. Chief McGraw stood off to the side, arms folded and cigarette dangling from the corner of his tightly pursed lips, positioned so he could see each of us as well as the TV screen, which had been muted but continued to replay the frenzied scene in front of the medical center.