Linda Fairstein: Lethal Legacy

The young cop passed the bulb to Mercer Wallace, the six-foot-six-inch-tall detective from the Special Victims Unit who had called me to the brownstone on the quiet block between Lexington and Third avenues in the East Nineties.

Mercer reached overhead and screwed it in, illuminating the drab, cracked paint on the ceiling and walls of the hallway. “Somebody-most likely the perp-shattered the other one. There are slivers of glass everywhere.”

“Thanks, kid,” Mike said, dismissing the rookie. “No progress here, Detective Wallace?”

“We haven’t got a homicide,” I whispered to Mercer. “And they sell lightbulbs at the bodega on Lex. I don’t know why you think we needed Mike, but please get him off my back.”

“Damn, I’ve listened to Blondie charm full-on perverts into boarding the bus for a twenty-five-to-life time-share at Sing Sing. I’ve seen her coax confessions from the lying lips of the deranged and demented. I’ve watched as weak-willed men-”

Mercer put his finger to his lips and pointed at the staircase.

“Tina, these two detectives are my friends. I’ve worked with them for more than ten years.” I paused to cough and clear my throat. There was still a bit of smoke wafting through the hallway. “Can you tell me why you don’t want to open up? Why it is you won’t trust us? We’re worried about your safety, Tina. About your physical condition.”

Mercer pulled at my elbow. “Let’s go up for a break. Get some fresh air.”

I stayed at the door for another few minutes and then followed Mike and Mercer to the small vestibule of the building and out onto the stoop. It was a mild October night, and neighbors returning to their homes, walking dogs, or hanging around the ’hood were checking on the police activity and trying to figure out what was wrong.

The uniformed sergeant from the Twenty-third Precinct, whose team had been the first responders, was on the sidewalk in front of the building, talking to Billy Schultz, the man who had called 911 an hour earlier.

“What’s the situation behind the house?” Mike asked Mercer as I caught up with them on their way down the front steps.

“Two cops stationed there. Small common garden for the tenants. Back doors from both the first floor and Barr’s basement apartment, but no one has moved since they’ve been on-site.”

“What do you know about the girl?”

“Not much. Nobody seems to,” Mercer said. He turned to the man standing with the sergeant, whom I guessed to be about forty, several years older than Mike and I. “This is Mike Chapman, Billy. He’s assigned to Night Watch.”

Mike worked in Manhattan North Homicide, which helped staff the Night Watch unit, an elite squad of detectives on call between midnight and eight a.m., when precinct squads were most understaffed, to respond all over Manhattan to murders and situations, like this one, that the department referred to-with gross understatement-as “unusuals.”

“Billy lives on the first floor,” Mercer said. “He’s the guy who called 911.”

“Good to meet you,” Mike said. He turned to me. “What’s her name?”

“Tina Barr.”

“She your friend?” he said to Billy.

“We chat at the mailboxes occasionally. She’s a quiet girl. Keeps to herself. Spent a lot of time gardening on weekends in the summer, so I ran into her out back every now and then, but I haven’t seen her much since.”

“Lived here long?”

“Me? Eighteen years?”

“Her.”

“Tina sublets. A year, maybe more.”

Mike ran his fingers through his thick black hair, looking from Billy to me. “You sure she’s in there?”

“I could hear a woman crying when I first got here,” I said. Whimpering was a more accurate word.

“Tina was sobbing when I knocked on her door,” Billy said.

“But she wouldn’t open up for you?”

Billy Schultz adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose while Mike scrutinized him. “No, sir.”

“Why were you knocking? What made you call 911?”

“Mercer gave us all this, Mike. Let me get back inside.”

He held his arm out at me, palm perpendicular like a stop sign. “Don’t you want the chronology from the horse’s mouth? Primary source. Catch me up, Billy.”

I had one hand on the wrought-iron railing but stopped to listen. “I’m a graphic designer, Detective. Worked late, stopped off for a burger and a couple of beers on my way home,” Billy said. He was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. There were smudges of ink or paint on his jeans, too dark in color to be blood, I thought. “It was about twelve-thirty when I got near the building. That’s when I saw this guy come tearing out the front door, down the steps.”

“What guy? Someone you know?”

Billy Schultz shook his head. “Nope. The fireman.”

Mike looked to Mercer. “Nobody told me about that. The fire department got here first?”

“Not for real,” Mercer said.

“I mean, I assumed he was a fireman. He was dressed in all the gear-coat, boots, hat, even had a protective mask of some kind on. That’s why I couldn’t see his face.”

“Did you stop him? Did he talk to you?”

“He flew by me, like there was a forest fire on Lexington Avenue he had to get to. Almost took me out. Even that didn’t seem odd until I looked up the street for his truck but there wasn’t one around. Just weird.”

“What did you do then?”

“I unlocked the door to the vestibule, and as soon as I got inside, I could smell smoke. I could see little waves of it sort of spiraling upward from the basement,” Billy said. “We don’t have a super who lives in the building, so there was no one for me to call. I figured whatever happened had been resolved. By the guy I thought was a fireman. But I wanted to check it out, make sure there was nothing still burning.”

“Sarge, you want to get me that mask?” Mercer said.

The older man walked to the nearest squad car and reached in for a paper bag while Billy Schultz talked.

“I went downstairs first. It was pretty dark, but I could make out a small pile of rubble in the corner of the hallway, a couple of feet from Tina’s door. Nothing was burning-no flames-but it was still smoldering. Kicking off a lot of smoke. That’s when I knocked on her door.”

“Did she answer?” Mike asked.

“No. Not then. I didn’t hear anything. I figured maybe she wasn’t home. I ran up to my apartment, filled a pitcher with water, and came back down to douse whatever was still smoking. Figured the other firemen must have gone off to a bigger job and that the last one-the guy who almost plowed me down-was trying to catch up with them.”

The sergeant passed the bag to Mercer, who put on a pair of latex gloves from his pocket before opening it.

“It’s when I went downstairs the second time that I heard Tina.”

“What did you hear, exactly?” I asked.

Billy cocked his head and answered. “I knocked again, just because I was worried that the firemen might have left her there even though there was still something smoldering in the hallway. She was weeping loudly, then pausing, like to inhale.”

“Words,” Mike said. “Did she speak any words?”

“No, but I did. I told Tina it was me, asked her if she was all right. I was coughing myself from the smoke. I told her she could come up to my apartment.”

“Did she answer you?”

“No. She just cried.”

“How do you know it’s Tina Barr you were talking to?” Mike asked.

Billy hesitated. “Well, at that point-I, uh-I just assumed it, Detective. She lives there alone.”

“What next?”

“I went home to get a bucket and broom. Swept some of the trash into the bucket to throw out on the street-”