The Bone Vault - Linda Fairstein by Linda Fairstein Read Free Book Online Page A

before I did."

    My face reddened. "Boss, I've talked to no one about this, except--"

    "Just find out who the girl is, where she was when she was killed, some reason for anyone to want her dead, and then we'll figure out what to do with this mess you've created for me."

    "I'd like you to understand that I had Jake's word that he would not tell anyone about the case."

    I tried to convince myself that I believed what I was saying, but Battaglia wasn't even interested in my denials. "Maybe McKinney's right about this. You can't be expected to keep confidences while you're personally involved with a newshound. We should leave you off some of these high-profile cases." I opened my mouth to protest, but McKinney spoke over me.

    "This might be the perfect place to start."

    5

    "What did you do to that pitiful-looking kid who's sitting in the conference room crying?"

    "Get away from my office before Pat McKinney sees you talking to me or I'm dead."

    "That case anything I should know about? She the girl who was attacked outside Port Authority last week?"

    I grabbed Mickey Diamond's sleeve and dragged him to the top of the stairwell opposite Laura's desk. TheNew York Post courthouse reporter was trolling for stories and he had come to the wrong place at the worst possible moment this morning. "You do remember, don't you, that it's against the law for me to identify a rape victim to you?"

    Diamond had been a fixture at 100 Centre Street for more years and more tabloid headlines than anyone could remember. Our public relations director was headquartered a short walk down the corridor from my office, and Diamond hung out in her anteroom when he wasn't watching trials, trading tales with reporters from the other papers in the pressroom on the ground floor behind the information rotunda, or making up stories out of whole cloth to keep his byline lively. "Is she crying in spite of you or because of you?"

    "Somebody ought to put a `Do Not Disturb' sign on the entire eighth floor, meant only for you. Just stay here a minute. I need your help. Did you call Battaglia this morning?"

    "What for? I got that triple from last night with the transgender victim and the two thugs who were three- card-monte dealers on the Deuce. Right in front of one of the Disney theaters."

    Forty-second Street--the Deuce, in perp parlance-- had undergone a major face-lift during my tenure in the DA's office, but it still attracted sharks who preyed on the tourists who flocked to that neighborhood. "My editor wants to know if the deceased was shtupping Minnie or Mickey, but I didn't think to bother your boss with that."

    "That's all you're working on?"

    "Unless you've got something sweeter."

    "Nothing yet. But somebody leaked a breaking story and Battaglia's blaming me. I need you to check with everyone in the pressroom, keep your ears open, be discreet--"

    "I was with you until you got to that part."

    "Then forget I said it. Just listen. You're going to hear something interesting later on. That much I can promise you. Find out for me who had it first. Find out where it came from."

    "I'm gonna give you a source when you won't even give me a clue about that bawling little adolescent you got in there?"

    "You're going to give me a direction. I don't need a name, I need to get out of the sinkhole I'm in right now."

    "What's in it for me?"

    "You got any space left on the wall of shame?" Diamond had wallpapered the courthouse pressroom with his page-onePost headlines. He turned every human tragedy and violent crime into an alliterative eye-catcher or tasteless punch line to help sell the tabloid rag. Unfortunately, the work of my unit had provided a rich source of material.

    "I might have to cover up some of your old cases, but they're turning yellow anyway."

    "Get me what I need and I can assure you you'll be so busy for the next couple of days that you won't know what hit you. Meanwhile, get lost before McKinney eyes the two of us together."

    "Give me