The day ended at five forty-five with Mercer's testimony about the arrest of the defendant.

When Mercer and I got back to my office, there was a note taped to my door from Laura Wilkie. She assured me that Kerry Hastings had been driven to her hotel by two detectives from the District Attorney's Office Squad and that Mercer should call her there.

He picked up my phone to dial just as Mike Chapman entered the room.

"Heard you had a good day in court, if you don't count the shoutouts." Mike was wearing a navy blue windbreaker, with the crisp white logo of the NYPD on his chest, and jeans with a freshly pressed crease down the front.

"Even better for Kerry. I think she's really relieved."

"You got your summation ready for tomorrow?" He knew my habits. I'd been taught by the great litigators who broke me in to craft my closing arguments before the trial began. It always gave tighter structure to the presentation of the case.

"Would you like a sneak preview, Mr. Chapman? I could use some practice on a thoroughly skeptical citizen of the state."

"No, thanks. Floyd Warren's dead meat, unless you blow it for us."

"You taking Mercer for a drink? That's a very dressed-down look for you, Detective."

"It's my body-in-a-swamp best, Coop."

I lowered my summation folder and looked at Mike. "What body? What do you mean swamp?"

"This time it's Elise Huff."

Mercer hung up the receiver. "Where?"

"An anonymous call came into 911 an hour ago. Some old guy found her body in a desolate corner of Brooklyn, off the Belt Parkway, wrapped in a blanket and dumped in a muddy stretch of reeds and weeds."

I closed my eyes.

"It won't be yours, Coop. But if you want to see the scene so you can report back to Battaglia, you'd better come along with me now.

The Brooklyn DA is holding a press conference at nine tonight. This one's on his turf.

A phalanx of police cars was parked along a dead-end street not far from the Belt Parkway. Huge spotlights rigged atop Emergency Service vehicles brightened the area as the late-summer twilight descended on the city. Cordoned off beyond the last patrol cars were the vans of camera crews from local news channels.

I couldn't see the water of Jamaica Bay, but I could smell the salty sea that was only hundreds of feet away, where the marshy stretch of land bordered on an inlet.

Mike led Mercer and me onto the path that had been trampled in the tall grasses by the first-response teams that had recovered the body. Crime scene tape was wrapped around the lone telephone pole on the side of the road and draped loosely over the bushes. We followed its yellow plastic trail

What brings you to the sticks, Chapman? A pudgy red-faced man, not quite as tall as Mercer's six foot six, waddled toward us. It was hard to walk in the muck without lifting one's feet above it with each step, and his extra weight made his movements even harder

Somebody has to make sure you get it right this time. Dickie Draper, this is Alex Cooper. I think you know Mercer."

"Pleased to meet you," he said, removing a small aerosol can from his pants pocket and spritzing it around his head. "You could survive a gunshot wound to the head out here and these frigging mosquitoes would still kill you with West Nile."

"The Huff girl, that's how she died? A gunshot wound?"

"Nah. I'm just saying, you don't have this kind of real estate in Manhattan. You need safari gear to survive out here."

Draper lifted his feet, one at a time, and made an about-face. "Where's the girl?" Mike called after him.

"At the morgue," he said with a wave of the hand. "Had to get her out of here before the press ghouls overran us."

Rising above the brown tips of the reeds, off in the distance, I could see rows of uniformed cops. There were dozens of them, walking in two lines perpendicular to each other, arm's length apart, flashlights in hand. They formed grids, combing the wild landscape for clues, in this unpopulated area east of the parkway and west of Kennedy Airport. "You want to tell us about it?" Mike said.

Dickie Draper looked like he had twenty years of experience or more under his imitation alligator belt. "You got a need to know, or you just slumming?"

"Paul Battaglia assigned the investigation to me when Elise went missing. I've interviewed some of her friends, which may be helpful to your guys. And I'd also like to be able to give my boss a report tonight.

I know he's been talking to her father since she disappeared." Draper took another step away from us. "CPL 20.40. We got a body, we got the case."

"You're quoting the criminal procedure law to Coop?" Mike said.

"Maybe if the bar association has a prom this year, you two can take each other. Talk the law. Recite CPL passages."

"I don't want your case, Detective," I said. "It's obvious, unless you've already got a suspect, that this one has to be worked from both ends. Elise was last seen by her friends in Manhattan, and no matter where she was actually murdered, I realize the fact that her body is here gives you jurisdiction."

"Mr. Raynes will be by in an hour," Draper said. "He's made it clear he wants the ink on this one, okay?"

"Even if it means hauling himself off a bar stool to get it?" Mike said. "I'm impressed."

The rivalry between the district attorneys of New York and Kings County had been long-standing. Battaglia's prestige was unparalleled, both for the many violent crimes that he vigorously prosecuted and for the innovative methods he undertook to police the white-collar community. Jerry Raynes had been in office for almost as long but had never achieved the same prominence. Both men had six hundred lawyers to do the heavy lifting, but Raynes constantly struggled for press coverage to further his political ambitions.

"I didn't say he'd be sober, did I? I just said he'd be here," Draper answered, looking up at a low-flying 747. "And I don't think he's looking to share the stage with Battaglia."

"How'd she die, Dickie?" Mike asked.

"Looks like a blow to the front of the head. Three or four of them, maybe. Blunt force trauma. Maybe bashed in with a rock or a brick." Mike and I exchanged glances.

"Badly decomposed?"

"Not so bad as you'd think," Draper said, swatting the side of his neck. "Especially with all these bloodsuckers around. She was wrapped up in a blanket-olive green, old army style. It's back at the station house. Red hair all over it, clumps of it. All that red hair is how come we could ID her so fast."

"Is there a label on the blanket? Something to trace?"

"Partial. There's some really faded writing. I got it in my notes."

"Any sign of sexual assault?" Mercer asked.

"The kid was naked, there was duct tape covering her mouth, and there were marks on her breast-scratches or bites. We won't know about DNA till the ME does the internal exam."

The last piece of the sun-a glowing red ball-was setting behind us. Like clockwork, jumbo jets passed overhead every few minutes on their way to the landing strips.

"Who found Elise?" I asked. "Why would anyone be out here?"

"Raynes is gonna offer an award to the caller at the press conference tonight. Whoever was sniffing around this place didn't want to leave his name. Got in a car and drove to a diner more than a mile away, but directed us right to the spot."

"What is this here?"

"No-man's-land, stuck between some low-end housing projects,"

Draper said, gesturing off in the distance, "and the bay. You know Arlington Cemetery?"

"Sure."

"Well, this is where the Brooklyn mob likes to bury its dead. Hallowed ground to them. The Mafia has probably dumped more bodies here than we'll ever be able to find. It's the only marsh I can think of where you can go bird-watching and find big old Sicilian canaries wrapped in cement overcoats."