Free Devil's Bridge by Linda Fairstein Page B

on the district attorney. Feed you some breakfast of champions and all that.”
    “Be caref—”
    “I’ve already got a mother, Coop.”
    Mike said his good nights around the table, kissed Vickee good-bye, and parted from me as though he was still just a professional colleague.
    He was ten feet away before he turned and doubled back. “If it helps you count sheep tonight, I’ve got a crumb for you to feed Battaglia when you see him.”
    “Always useful,” I said.
    Paul Battaglia kept ahead of the game by trading on inside information. Those most loyal to him dropped nuggets of facts—literally as valuable as pieces of gold—which gave him the power to strategize on policy and politics before leaks hit the tabloids or the street.
    “The lieutenant says the deceased was a worshipper at the church of the Reverend Hal. Might even have been his bagman, which would account for the mattress money. Use the info with Battaglia if it helps distract him, keep you out of his sights. I’ll be going into Holy Hal’s sanctuary with a search warrant before too long.”

EIGHT
    “Things going okay for you?” Vickee asked, moving her chair closer to mine. “You’ve certainly got Mike in a good mood.”
    “Can you remember what it’s like at this stage of a relationship?” I asked.
    “First time or second?” Vickee and Mercer had split years ago, before Logan was born, because she feared his devotion to the job led him to take risks with his life. “It’s always tricky at the outset.”
    “Even trickier with our work situation.”
    “C’mon, now. Mercer and I are both on the job. We used to have cases together all the time. That can’t be the issue.”
    “Totally different dynamic than yours, with one of us prosecuting and the other handling the investigations.”
    “Why? You’ve always ridden these guys as hard as they’re able to go. Like you’re suddenly afraid Mike can’t take direction from you?”
    “Nothing new about that, Vickee,” I said with a smile. “Mike and I will go right on doing what we’ve always done. He and Mercer are the best cops I’ve ever known, and that never changes. They do the heavy lifting and I get the evidence to hold up their collars in court.”
    “So stop making a big deal about it.”
    “I think the department bosses are watching us like hawks. Battaglia, too. I’m not exactly sleeping with the enemy, which is how they seem to be treating us, but it does make things very complicated sometimes. They figure I’m just playing with their ace detective. That once I toss him aside he’ll be useless to them.”
    “Well, are you?”
    “Am I what?”
    “Just playing with Mike’s emotional well-being.”
    “I’m out of here before I snap at you, okay?” I lifted my bag off the floor to pull out some cash and get ready to leave. “Are you turning on me, too? Everybody is pushing this relationship along because we’ve been in each other’s lives for so many years. We’re not even living together yet or anything remotely close to that. Mike’s a quirky guy, Vickee. You know that as well as I do.”
    “And you’re all sunshine and light? Give me a break, girl.”
    “I have never in my life claimed I was easy. But this is a man who lives in a studio apartment so small and so dark that he nicknamed it ‘the coffin.’ This is a guy who is so used to his privacy and his man-cave ways, who keeps every ounce of his sensitivity bottled up inside him so far that even a suppository wouldn’t unglue him, that there are times I—”
    “Don’t you even think about bad-mouthing Mike Chapman to me, Ms. Cooper,” Vickee said, wagging a finger at me.
    I dug in my bag again to find my phone. “Why are we having this conversation? I think it’s a little too much Scotch on my part, for sure. I’d never bad-mouth him. I simply tried to give you an honest response when you asked me how things are going. And all I said is that some things are tricky with Mike and me. You want