“First we got to figure out who she was,” Mercer said. “I’m assuming you’re right, because of the tattoo, that she was trafficked in. When did she get to the States? Did the snakehead pick her out to breed her for high-end customers, and bring her to New York?”

“Who introduced her to Ethan Leighton and how often were they together?” Nan asked. “Was there any paper in her apartment? Passports, bank records.”

“Not that Hal and Jack had come up with by the time we’d left.”

“That’s really unusual. Most of the time, if these women make the transition and become legal, they cling to that documentation like a life jacket.”

“Maybe Salma thought she had a better form of protection,” I said. “Maybe her local congressman offered all the coverage she needed.”

“I’ll call Hal in the morning. If he took any paper out of there, I’ll let him bring it here to voucher and I’ll go through every piece of it,” Catherine said.

“So we’ve got to talk to Ethan Leighton,” Mercer said. “That’s clear.”

“Which means I have to offer Lem Howell everything under the sun to bring his man in to sit down with us.” Maybe I shouldn’t have hustled out of the limo so quickly.

“Look,” Mike said, leaning on the table, “Battaglia’ll toss the drunk-driving case to get a leg up on the murder investigation, don’t you think?”

“He tosses that, and what’s to prevent Leighton from keeping his seat in Congress?” I asked. “Not so fast. Battaglia may have a horse in that race. I have no control over offering to drop the charges.”

“Who’s handling the vehicular?” Catherine asked.

“Ryan Blackmer. But he’s cool with it. The front office has told him it gets folded into whatever direction we take with Salma,” I said.

“So we probably have to work with Ethan’s father too,” Mercer said.

“Moses Leighton? He’s tougher than nails. And not above trying to bribe his kid’s way out of any situation.”

Catherine walked to the board and added Moses Leighton’s name. “Let him give it his best shot. I’ve always wanted to wear a wire.”

“Well, then, how about Claire?”

“I don’t think I could look Claire Leighton in the eye,” Nan said. “She must be crushed.”

“Not half as crushed as she’s going to be unless she comes up with a decent alibi,” Mike said.

“Let me try to get Claire in,” I said. “We’ve got a number of mutual friends.”

“Don’t go there unless you’ve got Mercer or me with you. She’s got a shitload of proverbial beans she might be looking to spill, Coop.”

“Yes, but I think the source of all our trouble-all of Salma’s trouble-comes back to the spoofing. Who would have done that to her-and why?”

“Five days, at best, is how much time the phone company is telling me it’s going to take to see if they can source the calls,” Mercer said. “The software to do the scam and even the voice scrambler is available all over the Internet. Really tough to trace.”

Catherine hadn’t left the blackboard. Off to the left of the main list, she drew an arrow from Claire’s name and made a subgroup, including Moses Leighton and Lem Howell.

“Oh, Catherine,” I said. “That’s really a stretch. Lem’s all talk but he’d never do anything that unethical.”

Days ago, I would have said those words sincerely. Now I questioned everything that had been going on.

“He’s in this deep, Alex. I’m not saying he’s the player, but he’s capable of being the puppeteer pulling the strings. Don’t let your affection for him blind you.”

“Shit, Catherine. Coop never lets affection get in the way of anything. You know that,” Mike said. “Used to be I was her favorite guy on the planet. Now that X-ray vision of hers just slices through me like a laser.”

“You’ll always be my favorite, Mike,” I said, walking over beside him to hand him one of Laura’s chocolate chip cookies. “Would I take your kind of abuse from anyone else?”

“What’s in it for Lem?” Mercer asked.

“Get the congressman off the hook. Paid dearly to do that by Moses Leighton,” Catherine said. “After all, in Lem’s very first conversation with you in court yesterday, he was hell- bent on convincing you that Salma was wacky. He set you up for that from the minute you talked, didn’t he?”

I paused for a moment. She made a fine point. It would never have occurred to me that Ethan’s girlfriend was emotionally unstable had Lem not planted that seed.

“Good thinking, Catherine,” Mike said. “Now we need a common denominator between a dinghy full of Ukrainians and a bus-load of Mexicans.”

“Snakeheads aren’t partial to any ethnic groups, Mike. People are trafficked from every corner of the globe, wherever there’s poverty and hunger and a strong desire to get to a better place,” Mercer said. “The day laborers can work anywhere in this country they can get to, and there’s always a market for pretty girls, whether they’re twelve or twenty-five.”

“It’s a sick world we live in,” Mike said.

“Will you be able to focus tomorrow?” Nan asked me. “Do an interview here with one of the Ukrainian girls? I’ll do the other.”

“Sure. Mike will stay out of my hair and we’ll get the first few done.”

“I thought you said Donny Baynes was coming over tonight,” Mercer said.

“He should be here any minute. I don’t know what’s holding him up,” I said. “There’s Battaglia on the City Hall steps. Turn it up, Mike.”

On the television screen, I could see the phalanx of cameramen turning on their high beams as Battaglia joined Mayor Statler and Commissioner Scully at the top of the staircase.

“Good evening, folks. It’s cold out here, so we’re going to make this announcement mercifully short. You all know the district attorney,” Statler said, stepping back so that Battaglia could move to the microphone. “Paul, it’s yours.”

As they shifted positions I could see Tim Spindlis over Battaglia’s shoulder.

I nodded to Catherine. “Put Tim on your list. What if the rumor about him and Spitzer and the prostitutes has a basis in fact?”

Mike smiled. “So Battaglia tries to hide him in plain sight. I like that idea, Coop.”

“This afternoon, we unsealed the indictment of two aides to members of the City Council,” Battaglia said. He looked at the paper in his hand and read the names aloud, explaining that the charges were conspiracy, money laundering, and witness tampering.

“No wonder the lights are burning so bright in the council chamber,” Mike said, whistling before he spoke. “The DA trots Spindlis out, I guess, to keep his whipping boy’s credibility rating high. Tim rubs against the pure prosecutorial patina of Battaglia’s shoulder in front of all the reporters. What’s this about?”

“For months, my chief assistant has been overseeing the investigation looking into the council’s finances, which involves more than twenty million dollars in discretionary funds that were earmarked to entirely fictitious-I said fictitious-organizations. Tim, I’d like you to explain how this scheme worked.”

Spindlis’s opening line was inaudible-delivered with his usual lack of enthusiasm-and one of the reporters yelled to him to speak up.

“Last year, in addition to all of the city’s carefully budgeted monies, each council member received almost half a million dollars in discretionary funds-some allocated to youth programs, some for senior initiatives, some to be used as chosen by the individual council member.”

“Pork barrel spending, Coop. Isn’t that what it’s called?” Mike asked. “Which little piggy is it?”

“Much of the funding reached legitimate groups-neighborhood sports programs for kids and soup kitchens for the homeless-but it turns out that a good number of the designated charities were fake. They simply didn’t exist. For example, Informed Citizens for a Clean Water Supply is a bogus operation,” Spindlis droned on, naming several other phony setups.

“How would anybody know?” Mercer asked. “Sounds like a decent cause.”