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  6:00 P.M.

  “ADA Donovan has an update for us on the Sparks case.” Robin Tucker leaned back in her chair and smiled in Ellie’s direction. “We should thank him for the special attention he’s shown by coming here in person to deliver the news.”

  Ellie knew it was a dig from her lieutenant about her personal relationship with an assistant district attorney—a relationship that was undoubtedly behind Max’s decision to make the trip from the courthouse.

  “Apparently yesterday wasn’t a big enough win for Sparks. I got papers delivered to my office this morning from Ramon Guerrero.”

  “What more could they possibly want? Our motion for access to Sparks’s files went down in flames. I got smacked with a contempt charge.”

  “They fucking slaughtered us,” Rogan said.

  “Well, Guerrero wants another pound of flesh. His motion demands access to all evidence gathered by the NYPD in relation to the death of one Robert Mancini.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Ellie said.

  Rogan chimed in. “Tell them to take their motion and stick it up—”

  Robin Tucker made a T sign with her hands. “Will you two let the man speak? He’s trying to tell you where things stand.”

  “Well, of course the motion’s frivolous,” Donovan said. “The mere fact that Sparks has a connection is insufficient to give him any claim to access to the investigation. And they can’t rely on public records laws because it’s obviously an ongoing investigation.”

  “So is this just a big-firm lawyer trying to run up his bill?” Rogan asked.

  Max ran a hand through his already tousled brown hair. “No, or at least, that’s not the only reason. Guerrero’s good. He knows he’s got a judge who wants to please him.”

  “But supposedly Bandon’s solid,” Rogan said. Judges earned reputations with law enforcement. Bandon was known as a straight shooter—tough on crime, but fair to both sides.

  Max nodded. “That he is, but for a reason. Bandon’s not the kind of guy whose career ends with the state trial court. He was a major player in DOJ in the nineties, then got a sweet special counsel hookup at a major law firm. He’s only pulling duty as a local judge to perfect his resumé for the federal bench, and rumor is, his name’s finally coming up. No more elections. Better cases. Higher prestige. It’s basically every lawyer’s dream gig. So, yeah, for three years, he’s been as solid as solid comes. But for our purposes, on this case, at this particular time, he might be a little too solid. Someone like Sparks’s got the ear of the machine that pulls those political appointment strings.”

  “So he’s just going to turn over our entire case to Sparks? That’s blatantly illegal.”

  Max shook his head. “No. Bandon knows there’s no merit to Guerrero’s motion. In fact, his clerk called me this morning right after the papers were served and basically said the whole thing is bullshit. But then something must’ve changed his mind, because Bandon’s clerk called back again about”—he looked at his watch—“a little under an hour ago.”

  Rogan threw Ellie a worried look as she was already picturing a loose-lipped Kristen Woods, with freshly arched brows, dishing to her boss about this afternoon’s surprise fishing expedition.

  “So what exactly are we looking at?” she asked.

  Max frowned. “Bandon wants to throw Guerrero a bone. I figure he’s trying to send a message to Sparks that he did all he could.”

  “Which is?” Rogan asked.

  “Bandon wants a briefing, under oath, about where things stand. And then from there he wants updates on the case.”

  Ellie and Rogan were only two people, but from the cacophony in Tucker’s office, they could have been the entire studio audience of The Jerry Springer Show.

  “Can he do that?” Rogan finally demanded.

  “Not typically,” Max said. “There’s a separation of powers issue. We’re the executive. He’s the judiciary. He has no claim to a general right to access information that we possess in an investigation.”

  “Okay, so once again, tell them where they can stick that motion.”

  Max looked at Ellie, and she knew what was coming. “He says this isn’t a typical case. He says there’s at least a colorable claim that the NYPD is harassing Sam Sparks—”

  Rogan was already shaking his head, but Ellie held up a hand, wanting to hear the rest of the explanation.

  “Bandon says it’s a colorable claim, that’s all. And that in light of the jurisdiction he has over the matter given Guerrero’s demand for discovery, he’s ordering this process as temporary relief. It’s basically a middle ground. The way he explained it to me, he’s essentially protecting us—you, really, the police”—he looked again at Ellie—“from a harassment suit by intervening.”

  “Tell him to bring it on,” Rogan said. “He’s gotten kid gloves compared to anyone else who’d be in his position. Bring it the fuck on. Let him sue.”

  Rogan looked to his partner for validation, but Ellie just stared at the speckled earth-tone linoleum of Tucker’s office floor. If Max was here, instead of the courthouse, it was because he had already tried to fight on her behalf.

  “I already ran it up the chain,” he said, confirming her suspicions. “Knight thinks it’s best if we play along.” Knight was the chief prosecutor of the trial unit at the district attorney’s office and was also Max’s boss. “It’s just a matter of meeting with Bandon in chambers—in camera—no Sparks, no Guerrero, not even a court reporter—and then I’ll informally notify him of any further material developments. Like I said, it’s really just for show. Bandon comes out looking good to Sparks. Nothing on the record shows he’s doing some rich ass a favor—”

  “And we’re going to play along,” Rogan said. He didn’t bother to hide the sarcasm.

  Ellie finally spoke up. “Donovan’s right. Bandon’s probably helping us out.”

  Robin Tucker looked at Ellie with raised eyebrows. It was a look of surprised approval.

  “And Rogan should be the one to do the in camera session with Judge Bandon.”

  “What? So I can serve some time, too?”

  “So I won’t be an issue. So Bandon will see we’ve dealt with Sparks on the up-and-up.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Max said quietly. “Thank you.”

  “Okay, so we’re all done here?” Tucker said. “Happy campers all around?”

  No one looked happy, but no one was protesting. “That was easier than I thought. Now get out of here. I’ve got a kid waiting at home for dinner.”

  Rogan didn’t bother waiting until they were back to their desks before reconstructing the events that must have led to Judge Bandon’s phone call to Max Donovan that afternoon.

  “Your girl Kristen Woods gave us up,” he said once they had both crossed the threshold of Tucker’s office.

  “I assumed the same thing.”

  “So much for the sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits,” he said.

  “Well, Woods is more of a miniskirt and stiletto heels type anyway.” Ellie tried to muster a smile as she lowered herself into her worn vinyl-upholstered desk chair. “Given the timing, she must’ve called Sparks the second we left her on the street.”

  “And then Sparks makes a call to Bandon.”

  “Or, more likely, he calls his lawyer, and then Guerrero calls Bandon. That way it at least looks like an actual legal process.”

  “Instead of the bullshit rich-boys club that it is.”

  Ellie felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to find Max Donovan smiling down at her.

  “I’m gonna get my gear from the locker room,” Rogan said.

  “You okay?” Max asked once Rogan was out of earshot.

  “Yeah, I’m good.”

  “I know this has to be hard on you.”

  “Really, it’s fine. I’m actually grateful that Rogan will be the one to deal with Bandon this time. I probably need some distance.”

  “I’ve got another couple hours of work at the courthouse,
but meet at my place when I’m done?”

  “I’m sorry, Max. I’m really tired. Last night wasn’t exactly the Ritz-Carlton, you know?”

  “That’s fine. Why don’t you go home and get some rest, and I’ll come to you.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be very good company.”

  “That’s all right. I’m used to doing all the talking while I watch you chew,” he said, smiling.

  Ellie knew she should be grateful for his response. She should be thankful that he wanted to support her, to comfort her, to watch her sleep the way she’d sometimes catch him in the morning. And she wanted to accept his offer. She wanted to be the kind of woman whose first instinct was to run to a man who cared about her when she was under pressure.

  But one of the things she loved about Max was that he seemed to understand her, even when she had trouble understanding herself. And he was comfortable and confident and took everything in stride. Unlike other men she’d dated, she never had to worry about Max making it all about him. It was all the more reason to wish she could give him what he wanted.

  “I’m sorry. Tomorrow, okay? I promise. Tonight I just need to kick the blankets, squish the pillows, drool onto the sheets, and snore like an old fat man. And I really don’t want you to see me like that.”

  “Might kill the magic.”

  “Exactly.” She held his gaze and brushed his forearm.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “I’m holding you to it.”

  “You better.”

  “Well, get some rest, all right? You’ve earned it.”

  Outside on Twenty-first Street, to the west, Ellie spotted a familiar figure leaning against the white stone of the building, smoking a cigarette. Jess.

  She smiled at her older brother as she imagined all of the one-liners he must have come up with at her expense since she’d called him the night before from jail.

  “Hey, you.” She caught a whiff of smoke and wondered when she’d stop missing it.

  He removed an unopened pack of Marlboros from his faded jean jacket and handed them to her.

  “I quit, remember?” She had, for the most part.

  “I hear they’re currency where you’re from.”

  “Funny.”

  “I’m serious. Anything you want. Soap. Candy. Porn. A shiv. Reefer. The white pony. These bad boys can get you anything on the inside.” He shook the cigarettes for emphasis.

  “Is that all you got?” she asked dryly.

  “Of course not. I figured I’d go with the prop comedy first. Let the rest of my lines trickle out over the next few days. Weeks. Months, if necessary.”

  “Oh, good. Something to look forward to.”

  “Are you up for a drink, or are you too jacked up on bootleg hootch from your time in the joint?”

  “Oh, I think I can stay awake long enough for a drink.”

  “You know I only treat at one place.”

  “You know the torment that awaits me in there?”

  The bar in question was Plug Uglies, a classic old watering hole around the corner on Third Avenue. Thanks to its proximity to the precinct and an absurdly cheap happy hour, one could always count on finding a row of cops drinking there at this time of day.

  “C’mon. Cheap drinks. A little darts. Some shuffleboard. You’ve got to take your lumps from the house sometime, or it’s only going to fester.”

  “The house. Listen to you with the cop talk.”

  “Jesus, I’ve been spending too much time with you.”

  Ellie and Jess had been raised in the same home, with the same intense homicide detective as a father, but had dealt with their police-dominated environment in opposite ways. Jess had rebelled, shunning any kind of hierarchy or ordered regime that might even begin to resemble a law enforcement culture. Ellie, on the other hand, had breathed it all in and had allowed it to define her.

  She pulled the wrapper from the Marlboros. Just one drag. She’d earned it.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  6:15 P.M.

  Inside the tiny efficiency studio that Glen Forrest Communities called her mother’s “apartment,” Katie Battle filled a green-tinted glass with water from the sink and placed it on the small rosewood table that doubled as both nightstand and end table between the empty bed and the chair that her mother currently occupied. Once she received the e-mail about her mother’s latest fall, she’d wrapped up the tour with the Jenning couple and made it to the assisted living center as quickly as she could.

  Katie sat on the bed and watched as her mother slowly raised the glass to her lips with a quivering hand.

  “Don’t you…even..think…about grabbing…one of those…ridiculous children’s toys…on top of my icebox.”

  Katie had purchased a box of plastic straws for her mother four months earlier, but they still sat unopened on top of the refrigerator. “Those are for children,” her mother had said. “I start using one of those, and the next thing I know, you’ll be trying to feed me with a miniature spoon passed off as an airplane.”

  Katie noticed that her mother placed her right hand on her chest during the three-second gaps between words. She knew that the falter in her mother’s usually strong voice was the byproduct of doctors tinkering with her heart medication again. They’d assured Katie that the occasional skipped beat wasn’t itself a danger, but she could tell that the irregularities in something we all took for granted—our beating hearts—scared her mother, causing the pauses in her speech.

  None of this was easy for Katie’s mother. Phyllis Battle had always been a woman who had known what she wanted. When her first daughter, Barbara, had been killed in a car accident in 1974, she had known—and insisted to her husband—that they would adopt another, even though they had each already celebrated their fiftieth birthdays. And she had known—and insisted to her husband—that they would name the girl Katie, after the confident and independent woman who leaves Robert Redford behind in The Way We Were. And when her husband passed away ten years ago, leaving behind debts he had never mentioned to his wife, Phyllis had known—and insisted to her daughter, Katie—that she would continue to live in the family home alone.

  The highest hurdle Katie had ever faced had come a year ago when she told her mother she needed to move. For the first time, someone for once was insisting on something to Phyllis. Katie had eventually won that initial battle between the Battle women, but that didn’t mean her mother was going to forfeit what might remain of the war. No plastic drinking straws. No arts and crafts in the common room with the women whom her mother called the “pathetic old biddies.” None of the loose, maintenance-free cotton housedresses that were practically a uniform at Glen Forrest.

  And definitely no wheelchairs.

  “Mom, I know you don’t want to hear this, but another fall could be really bad.”

  “I can…take care…of myself.”

  “I know. But you’d find it’s a lot easier if you’d take advantage of some of the things they have here to help you, like a chair, Mom.”

  Katie leaned forward and rested her hand gently on top of her mother’s. At eighty-two years old, her mother had maintained her full cognition and spirit, but her hand had never felt so thin and frail, her blue veins bulging beneath the loose and wrinkled skin.

  “You mean…a wheelchair. I’m not…an invalid.”

  “We could ask for a really crappy one if that would make you feel better. None of this high-speed electric power stuff. You’d wheel yourself. Think of the upper-body workout you’d get. I can even request a bum wheel so it would be like a bad shopping cart if you want.”

  Katie was happy to see her mother smiling, but then the smile turned into a laugh and her mother wheezed and then coughed. Her hand moved reflexively to her chest again.

  “Shhh,” Katie said soothingly.

  Her heart. The stroke. The falls. Keeping track of her mother’s ailments required Mensa-caliber mental juggling.

  The second her mother caught h
er breath, she was back on message. “No wheel…chairs.”

  “You scare me, Mom. I know you like to think it’s just a fall. But this isn’t something you can play around with. Falls in the elderly—”

  Her mother shot her a look of darts.

  “Falls now can be fatal. Do you know how stupid it would be to survive everything you’ve survived, just to go out by falling down? Phyllis Battle is way too tough—and much too smart—to allow that.”

  Her mother set her jaw, but she at least wasn’t arguing anymore.

  “I’ve asked Marj to bring a chair up tonight.” Now her mom shook her head, but still no verbal resistance. “Just for you to experiment with. She’ll work with you out in the hallway when the others are listening to a music group that’s coming in tonight.”

  “Horrible, horrible…they call themselves singers. Like someone threw…a cat…in a washing machine.”

  “OK, so when all the old biddies are down there clapping along with the terrible music, you be nice to Marj. I’ll check in with her tomorrow about how it went, and we can go from there.”

  Still, her mother said nothing. Progress.

  Katie rose from the bed, picked up her purse from the floor, and leaned over to place a kiss on the top of her mother’s head.

  “Good night, Mom.”

  Katie had already opened the apartment door when she heard her mother’s quiet voice behind her.

  “I’m…sorry, Katie. For…falling. For…being old.”

  “Don’t you ever apologize. Just be nice to Marj tonight. I want you around for a long, long time.”

  On her walk to the F train, Katie retrieved her BlackBerry from the depths of her oversize black leather satchel. Pulling up a phone number, she hit the dial button, only to hang up after one ring. She wanted someone to take her place tomorrow night. With Mom’s latest fall, the last thing she wanted to deal with was tomorrow night.

  Ironically, though, it was her mother’s situation that required her to handle this appointment herself. It was only a few hours. She’d get through it, just like she always did.