Linda Fairstein - Likely To Die

“Maybe you’ll want to tell him yourself. He’s about five steps behind us,” I cautioned.

Mercer followed after me and set up the easel. He flipped over the top sheet and revealed the first in a series of sketches that one of the police artists had already prepared with a layout of the hospital buildings in order to familiarize the bosses with the territory. Though the rough diagram didn’t show it, we all knew the complex had a larger population than half of the towns and villages in the entire country. There were dozens of entrances and exits to streets, garages, and other structures; there were miles of corridors lined with offices, laboratories, storage rooms, and surgical theaters; and thousands worked in, visited, or used its facilities every day of the year.

Lieutenant Peterson led McGraw into the crowded area in the back of the locker room, followed by three detectives from the task force. They were the ones who had spent the day starting the groundwork at the hospital, patiently speaking to witness after witness to see whether anyone had seen or heard anything unusual during the preceding day or night. Peterson shoved his glasses on top of his head, told us all to take our seats around the table, and directed Mercer to begin with what he had learned about the deceased. Chief McGraw stood off to the side, arms folded and cigarette dangling from the corner of his tightly pursed lips, positioned so he could see each of us as well as the TV screen, which had been muted but continued to replay the frenzied scene in front of the medical center.

Laura had sent me off with a standard D.A. Office’s homicide Redweld, the rust-colored accordion folder that would expand and then multiply quickly throughout the course of this kind of investigation. I removed the legal pads she had placed inside-several blank and two filled with the notes Sarah and I had assembled during the day for this meeting-while each of the cops opened the pocket-sized steno pads that would be their lifelines to the case. We would all be taking notes as Mercer began to speak.

“Gemma Dogen. As you know, gentlemen, the doctor was fifty-eight years old, white, a fitness nut, and a real loner. She’s a Brit, born and raised in a small town on the Kent coast called Broadstairs. Got all her degrees in England and moved here about ten years ago with an invitation to join the neurosurgery department, and eventually took it over. Quite a plum for a woman doc. Add to that the distinction of an endowed chair at the medical college. Well respected as an academic, not only a practitioner. Divorced before coming over here. No kids. The husband, Geoffrey Dogen, is out of the picture. Also a physician; met Gemma in medical school. Remarried in ‘91, and his young bride has him trekking in the Himalayas this very week. They live in London and from some of the letters I found in Dogen’s apartment, still have a pretty nice relationship. He’s due back next week, so we’ll need to talk to him and see what he knows about her personal life, but he’s certainly not a suspect.”

The Chief wasn’t engaged yet. His eyes were still fixed on the tube and as usual he seemed oblivious to the fact that the cigarette in his mouth had burned so far down that it was about to be extinguished by his saliva. Then he would automatically reach into his pack and light up the next one, as we had all seen him do thousands of times.

Wallace continued. “Dogen lived on Beekman Place, walking distance from the hospital. Doorman building, high rent, large one-bedroom with a terrace overlooking the river. George Zotos is still over there now. There’s tons of papers to go through. Lady was like a real pack rat with her files, so it’s hard to tell if there’ll be anything useful or not. But it’s the same as her office-not a lot of signs of a personal life. Most of the photos are old family shots from her childhood or pictures of herself getting degrees and awards.”

McGraw’s mouth opened to exchange cigarettes. “Find any neighbors or doormen with gossip?”

“Guy on the door confirms the erratic schedule. Back and forth to the hospital, lots of airport trips, jogging along the river early in the morning and often around sundown. Very few visitors. Occasionally, some sleep-over parties with a guy-with different guys, actually-but no names that he could remember. And so far, next-door neighbors were no help at all. One couple just moved in two months ago, the ones on the other side weren’t home all day, and the building canvass is still going on.”

Mercer flipped his pad to the next page. “We started the location check, Loo-looking for other crimes in the medical center itself, but I’m not going to have computer results on all that ‘til sometime tomorrow. Alex probably knows more about those things than I do at this point.

“On the professional side, we’ve got all her colleagues lined up for interviews the rest of this week. Neurosurgery’s a really small department-we’ll get through most of them by the weekend. The short version we’re getting is, she was no Mother Teresa but didn’t seem to have any obvious enemies, either. A tough taskmaster, but she’d have to be-it’s a specialty where a nanofraction of a millimeter is the difference between a patient’s life and death.

“My other piece was checking for similar cases in major cities on the East Coast. Washington Metro had two docs shot and killed in parking lots leaving their offices, a month apart. Both males, both seemed to be robberies, looking for drugs and prescription pads. Bullets match. No suspects. One of Philly’s private hospitals had a patient-get this, a quadriplegic-raped by a junkie who broke in during the night to steal hypodermic needles, but he was caught by a nurse on rounds before he dismounted. The Boston cops didn’t know of anything, but I expect a call back in a day or two. That’s all I’ve got for you, Chief.”

McGraw grunted and Peterson nodded to Chapman to move to the easel. Mercer joined me at the table while Mike rose to speak.

He picked up the black marker that hung on a string from the top of the sketch pad, humming the theme music from theTwilight Zone TV show and launching into his best imitation of Rod Serling. “Good evening. You are about to enter a new dimension, Chief McGraw-a place where the sick and tired come for balm, the wounded to be made whole, the lame to walk again. What do we find instead? The Mid-Manhattan Zone.” Serling became Chapman again. “A space invaded by every frigging lunatic who’s been let go from Bellevue and Creedmoor and Manhattan State and all the other psych wards you could think of, living in the hallways and bathrooms and basements of this hospital like they’re paying guests at the Pierre.”

Wallace whispered to me, “He’s got the Chief’s attention now, Cooper. Hold on to your seat.”

McGraw shifted his focus onto Mike and lit up another Camel.

“Sorry, Chief, but it’s really a disgrace. By the time we get done with this case, none of us is ever gonna close our eyes in a hospital again. The place is the size of a small city, without a single real cop in its borders, and it’s a frigging security nightmare of the first frigging order.”

“All right, Mike,” Peterson interrupted. “Clean it up.” I knew he hated it when his guys cursed in front of women.

“Don’t worry about Cooper, Loo. Her friends from Wellesley tell me she spent junior year abroad-at the Marine training camp on Parris Island. Don’t blush for their benefit, Blondie-you got a bad mouth.”

No point even protesting. Truth, as they tell us in law school, is an absolute defense. Chapman was clowning like Charlie Brown, and the Coasters were right-some day he’d get caught.

“Okay, back to the crime scene. Like the lieutenant suggested, I spent a couple of hours touring the place with the director of the hospital, William Dietrich. Every one of us in this room has been to that complex, every one of us in this room has visited a patient or had an appointment or interviewed a witness in one of those buildings. I’m telling you I saw things there today that would scare the living daylights out of you and make you long for the days when doctors made house calls.