Night Watch (17 page)

How did he get her from the bedroom to the bathroom and onto her knees? If he held her down with one or both of his hands, what was she doing with her hands? And—the argument that Lem would undoubtedly tease the jury with—why didn’t she bite him when she had the opportunity to end the attack?

There might be perfectly logical answers to these questions, but Ellen hadn’t coaxed them out of her witness yet, and I wanted to know them before Blanca took an oath to tell the truth to the grand jury.

“Now, there’s something you said yesterday, Blanca, that we have to go over again. You explained to me, just like you told Detective Wallace on Sunday, that you left the room before Mr. Gil-Darsin did, isn’t that right?”

Blanca’s thick eyebrows met over her nose as she frowned at Ellen Gunsher. “I did.”

“And you told us that you hid yourself at the far end of the twenty-eighth-floor hallway until you saw him leave the room and get on the elevator, right?”

Blanca eyed Ellen distrustfully. “So?”

“Well, one of the detectives talked with a guest from that floor who checked out just two minutes before Gil-Darsin. He was in the room opposite the place you said you were hiding,” Ellen said, pointing to the diagram. “And he says there was no one there—no one in the hallway at all when he left his room. Now, he could be wrong—”

“No, no, no,” Blanca said, moving forward in her chair and waving her right hand back and forth. “What I told you? I made a mistake. I was very very nervous and what I told you is a mistake.”

The expression on Ellen’s face froze. She stared at Blanca and then continued. “So you were mistaken on Sunday, when you talked with the detectives?”

“Yes. I’ve been wanting to correct that with you today.”

“And you were mistaken again yesterday when you told all of us the same thing? When did you first realize you had misspoken?”

“I knew it yesterday,” she said, crying again and wringing the handkerchief she took out of her bag. “But I thought you’d get mad at me if I changed my story. I don’t want you to be mad at me, okay?”

Mercer moved his chair closer to Blanca Robles. “Nobody’s going to be mad at you for what you tell us, so long as it’s the truth.”

“As God is my witness, Mr. Mercer, everything I’m telling you is the truth,” she said, making the sign of the cross on her chest before stretching her arms out on the table and putting her head down. She sobbed as I watched her tears flow. “You believe that pig over me?”

“Calm down, Blanca. Everyone is with you here because we believe you. Do you remember what you did when you left the room after you were attacked? That’s what we need to know,” Mercer said.

“How about a fifteen-minute break? You’ll feel better after that,” Ellen said, standing up as she checked the time on her watch. “Maybe Laura can get some coffee ordered in.”

This was the worst possible moment to give Blanca a breathing
spell. She had just been caught in a significant inconsistency about the moments after the crime occurred. She was on the ropes, and I wanted to keep her there to find out whether it was just a mistake occasioned by her trauma or an intentional lie.

“I’ll ask Laura to call out an order as soon as we’re finished here,” I said. “Let’s let Blanca explain what happened.”

Blanca picked her head up from the table. “I’d really like some coffee, Miss Ellen.”

“Right away,” Ellen said, walking to the door and opening it. “Alex, you want to show her where the restroom is?”

“Sure.”

Ellen stepped out and I shook my head at Mercer and Ryan.

“I bet you haven’t even had a chance to meet with your priest yet, have you, Blanca?” I asked.

She wiped her tears with the tissue I handed to her.

“Not yet.”

“What church do you go to?”

“’Scuse me?”

“What’s the name of your church?” I asked, walking to the row of windows that faced out on Centre Street, over the courthouse steps.

“Why you want to know?”

“Perhaps I can take you there for an hour or so at the end of the day,” Mercer said. “It might help you to talk with your priest.”

And perhaps I could get one of the answers Battaglia wanted, so he could go to work on the archdiocese to prove his bona fides. The crucifix, the comments relying on God as her witness, the religious gestures—Ellen was convinced of Blanca’s credibility in some measure because of those things.

Blanca’s eyebrows came together again as she tried to figure what Mercer really wanted. “I don’t have time for no church.”

“I don’t make it there every Sunday either,” Mercer said with a smile. “When’s the last time you went? Maybe we can get you back. Maybe you’d like that.”

She waved her right hand over her shoulder.
“Dios mío.
I haven’t been to church since I left my country. I carry my religion here,” she said, now patting her heart.

Mercer looked over at me and shrugged. So much for Ellen’s reliance on the depth of Blanca’s faith.

“That crucifix you’re wearing,” I said, “is very beautiful. Have you had that for a long time?”

“My boyfriend bought me this, before he left to go back to our country. He likes me to wear it ’cause he says it will keep other men away from me,” Blanca said, fingering the handsome cross as she answered. “I guess it didn’t bother so much this pig in the hotel room. I guess it didn’t do me no good after—”

Her sentence was interrupted by the sound of two gunshots that rang out from the street eight floors below. They startled me, and I turned to look down at the crowd that had gathered on the sidewalk directly beneath our windows.

I glanced back to check on Blanca, who didn’t even fidget while I trembled with fear that someone in our small universe at the courthouse—a cop, a lawyer, a court officer, a witness—had been hurt.

Mercer rushed toward me. “It’s okay, Alex. It’s—”

I looked down again to see someone staggering to get back on his feet, falling again as the man being wrestled to the ground by onlookers got off a final shot before the gun was kicked out of his hand.

“I bet you didn’t get a chance to read your e-mails yesterday, did you?” Ryan asked, smiling at me as I watched the gunman and his victim brush off their clothes and reposition themselves in the crowd.

“Laura only printed out the ones related to this case.”

“So you obviously didn’t get the ‘Please disregard the sounds of gunfire in front of 100 Centre Street between eleven
A.M.
and one
P.M.
on Tuesday. The crew of
Law and Order: SVU
will be filming here at that time.’”

The mayor had lured scores of movie and television companies back to New York because of the exorbitant fees they paid for the privilege of filming scenes on city streets. The blocks around the courthouse were frequently peopled by Detective Olivia Benson and her crew as they brought down perps and unsubs far faster than Mercer and I could ever work. And the “please disregard” messages about shootings, stabbings, car bombs, and police sirens had become as commonplace as Rose’s reminders not to block the parking space reserved for Battaglia’s car.

I turned to Blanca and laughed. “See? I’m more nervous than you are. That was just a scene for a television show, but I nearly jumped out of my own skin.”

“It’s a good thing you don’t live in the projects like me, ’cause if you got scared every time you heard gunshots, you’d have a mental breakdown.”

No doubt there was truth in what Blanca said, but in that moment she also demonstrated a
froideur
—a chilled aloofness—that would have served her well when confronted by the naked Ivorian in his hotel room.

“Would you like to use the ladies’ room?” I asked.

“Yes, please.”

“Come along with me.”

I stopped at Laura’s desk and asked her to unlock the executive restroom for Blanca before she called out for coffee and snacks, while I reported to Battaglia. I continued on into the executive wing, stopping at Rose Malone’s desk to get the morning report on the district attorney’s mood as I delivered my updates.

“Good morning, Alex.”

I could barely see Rose behind the stacks of papers she had set in front of her. “Hey, Rose. Have I come at a bad time?”

“The Boss went out to a meeting at the Federal Reserve. I figured I’d get some filing done. He’s pretty chipper today. About to announce the indictment of a hedge fund guy in a case they sneaked out from under the feds.”

Battaglia was always happy to bring down a big target, especially when stepping on the toes of a rival prosecutorial agency.

“I’m just reporting in on the MGD investigation.” Rose shifted to her computer to take notes. “First, the complaining witness is in with us for the day—that’s Ellen, Ryan, and Mercer along with me. Forget notifying the archbishop for the time being—no organized religion—the crucifix is a prop and she’s never been to church since getting to America. Two, we got rid of Byron Peaser for the moment, but he’s greedy for a big score, and it’s hard to know where he’s pushing our vic. Three, she lied about her movements after the assault. Pressing her on that to see if it’s trauma-related or intentional. And four, if you can push anyone at the State Department to
get her asylum records unsealed, I’d really like to see what she said on that application.”

“I’ll stick this under his nose the minute he’s back.”

I thanked her and went back to check with Laura about my messages, which she handed to me. “There are three about pending cases, which I forwarded to Catherine to answer for you. And a long one from Lem Howell, appealing to you on MGD’s bail situation.”

“Let me guess. Pat McKinney’s being unreasonable, unmovable, and un—?”

“Un-Cooper-like in his dealings with Mr. Triplicate. Lem wants to hear from you,” Laura said, chuckling as she balled up the paper and threw it away.

“Did Blanca say anything to you?”

“No. I let her into the restroom, then came back here to wait for her. She did ask to use your phone.”

Laura did better overheards than most detectives. “So who’d she call?”

“First one was Byron Peaser. She told him that she’d lied about something and you were unhappy with her. Then she asked me how to make a long-distance call. I connected her to the operator and she had a conversation in Spanish with someone. Sorry, couldn’t get that.”

I flipped through the phone messages and checked my watch for the time. “Nothing personal for me?”

“Two of your girlfriends. I’m not supposed to tell you, but birthday plans are afoot, Alex.”

“Can you subtly get the word out to skip the festivities?” I asked. “I’m not being crabby, Laura. I simply won’t have the time.”

“Understood.”

“No calls from Luc?”

Laura shook her head. I was churning inside, worried that the Brooklyn detectives had reached him and shut him down about calling me.

Mercer, Ellen, Ryan, and Blanca had regrouped in the conference room.

“Coffee will be here any minute,” I said.

“Then let me pick up where we left off,” Ellen said.

“I have a few questions before you do. Blanca,” I asked, “who did you call from my office?”

“’Scuse me?”

“You used my phone just now to make some calls. Who’d you talk to?”

“
Dios mío.
My daughter, okay? I called my daughter.”

“I see. And that’s all?”

“Yeah. Something wrong with that?”

“Not at all. She’s in the place Mr. Peaser moved you to, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You called him first, didn’t you?”

“Don’t I got no privacy rights?” Blanca was in a huff.

“Not in a government office you don’t. And the long-distance call, who was that to?”

She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.

“The truth, Blanca,” Mercer said, trying to keep her steady and calm. “That’s all she needs to hear. Remember that the switchboard will have the number that you called.”

She bit her lip as she opened her eyes to speak. “My boyfriend, okay. I wanted to talk to my boyfriend. Can you understand that?”

“I certainly can.” She had no idea how sincere my response to her was on that point.

“He’s home in Guatemala, isn’t he?” Ellen asked, looking down at her notepad. “Hector Escobar. You told me Hector went back to your village because his sister was dying.”

Blanca leaned forward, rocking her body back and forth, her feet planted firmly in front of her.

“That was true, what I said.”

“But there are no phones in the village, so how were you calling him?”

“That was true about last year, Ms. Ellen.”

“You mean it was true that he went home to help his sister last year?” Ellen asked.

Blanca had shut me out, trying to convince Ellen that she had been candid in the earlier sessions.

I stood up beside Ellen and pounded my forefinger on the table. “Today, Blanca. Right this very minute, where is Hector Escobar?”

Blanca wasn’t talking to me. “I never wanted to lie, Ms. Ellen. But I need you to believe me.”

“Mercer,” I said, still glowering at Blanca, “would you please go down to the seventh-floor switchboard room and get the number that Blanca called? Try dialing it yourself, will you?”

Blanca had prostrated herself on the conference table again, this time without crossing herself. The tears flowed as readily as the lies. “Hector’s in prison, okay? Federal prison. Arizona.”

“Charged with what?” I asked.

“Some kind of scam. Like credit cards. I don’t know ’xactly, but he’s been away for seven months.”

Illegal scams. Large enough to get the attention of the feds. “Scam” was the last word we needed connected to a woman who would be accused by the defense of trying to scam the future presidential candidate of the Republic of the Ivory Coast.

“And you wanted that break twenty minutes ago because you knew exactly what time Hector has phone privileges, didn’t you?”

Another penalty flag on the field for Blanca Robles. I pictured Lem practicing his bail argument in front of a mirror—watching the rhymes roll off his lips—barely able to stop at his customary three. Scam, sham, flim-flam. Damn.

Without picking her head up from the table, Blanca appealed to Mercer. “I don’t want this lady in here with me anymore. She’s very mean.”