“I’m going to begin by putting my experience up against yours, to give you a reality check,” Zach said. “You’re a one-trick pony. Prosecutor for your entire career. Putting people behind bars is all you do.”
“My team has exonerated more men who’ve been falsely accused than all the innocence projects in the country put together,” I said.
“I was an assistant United States attorney for a time, with a much greater scope than you’ve had. Then I went on to Justice, before teaching Con Law at NYU.”
“You obviously thought well enough of me to ask me to lecture for your classes, year after year.”
“Yeah, and you gave the same lecture every time,” Zach said. “Just added a few new war stories is all you did. I went back to Justice and was the liaison to Homeland Security.”
Both of his hands formed a giant circle in the air.
“I get it, Zach. You’re global, not that people voting to get criminals out of their neighborhoods care much about that fact in their local prosecutor.”
“Oh, they will care, Alex. The specter of 9/11 still hangs over this city like an albatross wrapping its wings around the neck of a drowning man,” Zach said. “I’ll bring up my Homeland Security experience in a post-9/11 city every chance I get.”
In between pressing me about how many times I’d been overturned on appeal and the record of the office on minority hiring, he ordered a steak and I opted for Dover sole. We both needed a strong second drink.
“What were you doing with Paul Battaglia the night he was murdered?” Zach asked.
“You know what?” I said. “I’m still not really sure how he wound up on the steps of the museum. It was a setup by the guy who wanted him dead.”
“The anti-Coops will be picketing with copies of the headlines that blamed you for his death.”
“They’d be wrong,” I said.
“Are you ready to relive it?” Zach asked “Or will it look like you put on some sexy pantyhose and your highest heels to step over his still-warm corpse to take his place? The people who voted for Battaglia for six terms will be shocked to find out that in the end, you really had no respect for him.”
“He was a complicated man.”
“Then there’s your love life,” Zach said, smiling at me again. “I seem to think voters like women who haven’t climbed in and out of bed with a lot of guys. Maybe you should have stopped along the way to rock a cradle.”
“Off-limits, Zach.”
“I’d like to help you, but nobody can stop the rumors that are out there.” He started ticking off names of men I had dated, whether or not I’d been intimate with them.
“What did you do? Have a GPS on my ass?” I asked, stopping for a double swallow of Scotch. “How about we turn those tables on you?”
“Take your best shot, Alex, but I just don’t think you have it in you to be tough enough to throw mud at any of the candidates—especially me. It’s not your style.”
“I’m a quick study when I put my mind to something,” I said. “How long were you married?”
“Six years. Amicable split. The ex is totally in my corner,” Zach said.
“Kids?”
“Fraternal twins, a boy and a girl.”
“You left them, too?” I asked.
“Joint custody. They’re killer cute,” Zach said. “Gonna be great on the campaign trail.”
“Did you ever sleep with one of your students, Zach? At the law school, I mean.”
“I like your style, Alex. Starting right at the jugular,” Zach said. “Only the one I married, is the answer to that.”
“How about the women you worked cases with?” I asked. “Ever hit on a colleague on your trial team?”
“That’s taking me way back,” he said. “Are you counting mutual attraction, or who hit first?”
“I’m trying to count any breathing being who might suddenly stand up and shout out what you did to her and when,” I said. Then in a mocking, breathy voice, “‘There I was, pounding out my closing argument late at night in my office, when I heard a knock on the door, and it was Zach—’”
“Not my MO, Alex,” Zach said, almost chuckling. “I never knocked. I just eased on in the door, if you know what I mean.”
“Josie Breed?” I asked.
“No way,” he said. “No test-driving the body man.”
“Agents? Agents in general, when you were out on the road, working some of your high-profile magic?” I said. “It’s lonely going from town to town, I’m sure.”
“You don’t know half of it.”
“Kathy Crain?” I asked. “Wasn’t she out on the road with you, back in the day?”
“Special Agent Katharine Crain,” Zach said, looking at me over the lip of his drinking glass. “Now, that was a fine woman. You knew her?”
“I—I, uh, met her somewhere—about two years back, maybe three. It must have been some kind of women-in-law-enforcement thing, and I know she asked about you,” I said. “She wanted to know if I knew you or had any experience with you.”
Zach’s brow furrowed. “That’s kind of weird. I thought Kathy had gone off the grid. Retired down south because she wanted to get away from the action.”
He was definitely distracted by my mention of her name. I didn’t know Kathy Crain, but she must be sitting on a gold mine of negative info about Zach, having observed him in such close quarters. It was her urging, in part, that put Lucy Jenner in his hands.
“Did Kathy talk about me?” he asked. “She worked a big case with me, for a very long time.”
“I remember that. I think in this business we all remember what you did to nail that bastard Welly Baynes,” I said. “You get total props for that conviction, and it will be a huge gold star for you on the campaign trail.”
Zach nodded his head.
“Kathy, by the way, only had nice things to say,” I said, “and, well, she mentioned what a rough time it was for all of you putting the Baynes prosecution together. Lots of bumps in that road. When I asked her to talk about them with me, she told me it wasn’t the time.”
“How long ago was that? I mean, when you had this chat with Kathy Crain?”
“Two, maybe three years ago,” I said.
He was biting his lip and staring into his drink.
“C’mon, Zach. You look concerned,” I said, teasing him. “You do it with Kathy Crain?”
“She was old enough to be my mother,” he said, still thinking of something else, it seemed to me. Then he shook off whatever cloud had passed through his mind and smiled. “I don’t do old, Alex.”
“Aha! So all I have to do is keep my eyes open for the barely legals who show up at your rallies, huh?”
“What you sound like now is my wife,” Zach said. “My ex-wife.”
“Tough assignment,” I said. “You remind me so much of Jake. Always sniffing around where he didn’t belong.”
Zach Palmer put down his glass and glared at me.
“What did you just say?”
“Trust me, it wasn’t a compliment,” I said, faking a laugh. “Jake—and looking for love in all the wrong places. That’s all I meant.”
“Jake?” Zach looked angry now, as he spit out words at me. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t go showing that mad face on the campaign trail,” I said. “I’m not sure what kind of line I crossed, but I’ve come close to a major nerve, I think?”
“Kathy Crain,” Zach said. “She was using the name Jake?”
I put out both hands in front of me. “Slow down, Mr. Palmer. You remember Jake Tyler?”
The wrinkles on his brow returned.
“I’m talking about Jake Tyler, the guy I used to date,” I said. “The NBC newsman—you know, he was third string for Brian Williams and Lester Holt. I introduced you to him because he did a really strong profile of you when you were at Justice.”
“Sure. Your news jock,” he said.
“Yes, the guy who cheated on me with that actress who was found dead on Martha’s Vineyard. Isabella Lascar—murdered while she was staying at my home,” I said. “With my lover. Jake Tyler. What you said about yourself just reminded me of my own lousy experience with an unfaithful man.”
He was examining me with his deep brown eyes as though he could measure my truth-telling by letting them bore into me.
“You’re free to use that story if I run against you,” I said. “It’s bound to have every woman in the room sympathizing with me.”
“Here’s the deal, Alex. I wanted to meet with you tonight to convince you not to run, okay?”
“You’re doing a fine job so far,” I said. “You’re hurling those slings and arrows at me like I did something wrong.”
“You did pretty well yourself,” Zach said. “Look, I want to be district attorney of this county for all the right reasons. The perception of justice in this town is completely skewed, and I’ve got the chops to get things fixed. Get the low-level criminals out of jail, stop prosecuting black and brown men for misdemeanors that white guys don’t get picked up for, reform Riker’s Island—which is a hellhole right now.”
“You think I don’t care about those things?”
“I’m here to make a deal with you, Alex.”
“You rip me to shreds and then you say you’ve got a deal to offer me?” I asked. “Not likely.”
Zach was laser-focused again. “Stay out of the race, which is going to get ugly.”
“Why are you so sure about that? Just because you’re going to stir things up?”
“No, not for that reason,” Zach said. “You know as well as anyone, this position is like a lifetime appointment. No term limits, and every DA we have stays in for six or eight election cycles.”
He was right about that.
“It’s the only job I want—the cap in my career—and this election will be my sole chance to secure it. I’ll be eighty years old by the time someone your age hangs up her hat and walks away from the job, if you were to get it. It’s a pretty powerful position, and I’m the right man to control it.”
The waiter set our plates down in front of each of us. I had lost most of what I thought was my appetite.
Zach sliced into his steak as easily as he had tried to cut up my character. He chewed for a minute before speaking again.
“I’d ask you to be my number two when I win,” he said. “My executive assistant DA. Basically run the show, do all the internal decision-making, be as innovative for the rest of the office as you’ve been for sex crimes.”
“That’s what you’re offering me?” I asked. “Where will you be?”
“Up front, dealing with the mayor as well as the mudslingers.”
“I’m not interested,” I said.
“Is it the number two thing that sticks in your craw? Do you really need to be the one who’s on top?”
“What I need is to do something that I care about, working for someone I respect.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t get what you meant by that last line,” Zach said. “The respect part. Try me. I think we’d do well together.”
There was a chill that had fallen over our dinner table. I took a few bites of the delicious sole, but the conversation confirmed to me that Zach wasn’t fit for any kind of public office.
We managed to talk about issues that interested both of us—where we thought Battaglia had lost his footing in the last year of his life, what needed to be updated in the criminal justice system, how hard it must be to manage more than five hundred lawyers who need to do “the right thing” every day of the week.
“Do you have time for coffee?” Zach asked.
“No. I’m going to stop off to visit a sick friend.”
“Can we drop you somewhere?”
“No, thanks. I’ll grab a cab.”
I put my credit card on the table to split the bill with him, and Zach put his hand on top of mine. “I’ll clean up my act, Alex. Put a lid on my loose tongue and slow down with the skirt chasing. You know that.”
“It may be a bit late.”
He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a business card. “This has all my contact information,” he said. “Think about some of this stuff I threw at you, if you need any help making your decision. And let me know if you hear anything about others who plan to jump into the race. We’ll have to start collecting signatures on petitions pretty soon.”
I picked up the card. “Zachary J. Palmer,” I said aloud. “What’s the J for?”
Zach rubbed his eyes. “Jacob.”
“Really? No wonder you got twitchy when I said the name Jake. You must have thought I was talking about you.”
“No such thing.”
“Nobody ever called you Jake?” I asked.
“Only my grandmother, and she’s been dead a really long time.”
“I know I’ve heard someone refer to you that way,” I said. “Maybe it was the agent—Kathy Crain. The one who worked with you on Welly’s case.”
Zach pushed back from the table and stood up. “Then she’d have been mistaken is what I’d say.” His teeth were clenched and his expression was sour. “And you’d be advised to stay out of my way and stick to what it is that you do best.”