Linda Fairstein - Likely To Die

Mike shook his head and suppressed a snide remark as all our business stopped so McGraw could admire himself on the screen, telling the public that his detectives had a lot of great leads and expected to have someone in custody by the weekend. The guys in the room didn’t appear to be surprised by his phony optimism, just annoyed. The moment the camera lens shifted to the Mayor’s face, McGraw rejoined our group.

“Who’s got the autopsy?”

“The Chief’s doing it himself in the morning,” Chapman answered. “I’m observing.”

Good news for me. I had enormous respect for the Chief Medical Examiner, Chet Kirschner, and an easy relationship with him. I was likely to have preliminary results of the procedure by tomorrow afternoon.

“Motives,” McGraw went on. “Who’s thinkin‘ what?”

“Could be a straight-out sexual assault,” Jerry McCabe offered. “Pick from any one of your categories of guys walking around these empty halls at night. Late Monday, around midnight, say, he comes across a woman alone in her office. She’s strong. Thinks she can fight him off. Can’t overcome the knife. Bingo.”

“Just as easy for it to be a burglary, and Dogen surprised him in the middle of it,” countered Wallace. “Even though the wallet’s still there, doesn’t mean there isn’t something missing and we’re not yet aware of what it is.”

Wallace was one of the most thorough detectives I had ever worked with. His methodical mind would be certain to go over every object in the doctor’s office, looking for any paper, file, or book that had been moved or rifled through. He went on. “Maybe he was in there, starting to look for something to steal, when she showed up in the office. He panicked and what started as a robbery became a sexual assault.”

“Yeah, but which came first, the rape or the stabbing?”

McGraw was too stubborn to throw that question directly at me and too stupid to know that I wouldn’t be able to answer it, either. Most people liked to think that logically the forced sex act had occurred before Gemma Dogen’s firm, trim body had been shredded into ribbons of bloodied skin. But there is no logic in this world of murderers and madmen. I had seen just as many cases in which the attacker had become aroused by the frenzied act of killing and then committed the sexual assault as an afterthought.

Chapman said, “Let’s wait and see what Kirschner finds. We’re all just guessing at this point.”

McGraw was still looking for a motive. “Say it’s not one of these lunatics, for the sake of argument. Keep your eyes open for somebody who had a reason to do this. When you talk to her colleagues, see who benefits from getting her out of the way. Who replaces her as head of the department. Get hold of her will and see who gets the money. Don’t overlook the usual stuff here just ‘cause it’s in a hospital.”

The men around the table were closing up their pads and getting ready to stand up for a stretch. They had heard what they had come in here for, and were ready to blow off McGraw in favor of food and a night’s rest. Despite what he had said on the news about closing this case quickly, they knew the greater likelihood was that there were going to be endless round-the-clock shifts of interviews and interrogations for weeks to come unless or until one of them got very lucky.

I walked toward Lieutenant Peterson as I remembered to ask him about the eight men who had been in the holding pen when I entered the squad room. “What are they in here for, Loo?”

“Jeez, Alex, those are some of the guys we found living in the hospital corridors. This was just on the first sweep of the Mid-Manhattan building today. I’m not talking about the tunnels or the psych wing or the grounds. A couple of ‘em were in empty patient rooms, and one was sleeping on a gurney in a hallway near a storage area. Ramirez’ll have to tell you exactly where they were. He’s got it all charted out. I got a couple of men talking to each one of ’em now.”

“Are they sus-”

“I don’t know if they’re suspects, or witnesses, or simply poor old souls without a roof over their heads, so don’t ask me. They were just somewhere they ain’t supposed to be, living in a hospital, so now they’re in the middle of a homicide investigation and I don’t know what to do with them myself.”

We were both thinking the same thing. Each one of them was a potential lead in our case and the moment we let them out the door of the precinct we were not likely to find them again. I was treading on sensitive territory. If they were being kept here, in a holding pen, then any questioning of the men by detectives would be viewed by the courts as custodial interrogation. The police conduct would be considered coercive. The judge eventually assigned would criticize the length of time each man had been detained without legal counsel and examine the conditions under which he had been confined.

It was obvious Peterson’s team could not ignore these Mid-Manhattan freeloaders, but we had to think of the legal ramifications. And we had to do it now. The value of any information we got from these individuals would be compromised by the manner in which we obtained it.

I tried again. “What are you going to do with the men after they’re interviewed?”

McGraw snapped at me as he picked up a telephone to dial out, almost inhaling his cigarette butt in his haste to open his mouth and respond. “They’re ourguests, Miss Cooper. Understand that? I’ve extended the hospitality of the precinct to them-for tonight and for as long as they want it. So before you write me up and snitch on me to your boss, take a good look around out there.”

Peterson shrugged his shoulders as McGraw dropped the receiver and motioned for me to follow him to the archway that led into the main squad room. His booming voice continued to ring out. “The door to the pen is wide open. See it? These gentlemen are free to sleep on the bench or the floor. We’ve been feeding them better than they’ve eaten in years. Haven’t we, Scrubs?”

A grizzled old man with no hair and dried scabs all over his forearms looked up at McGraw from his perch on the edge of a detective’s desk.

“That one’s called Scrubs. Says he can’t remember his real name. Had nowhere to go when he was discharged from Stuyvesant Psych four and a half years ago, so he just made the hospital his home. His shopping cart is down by the precinct garage, full of green uniforms and God knows what else. He steals-make that ‘borrows’-surgical scrubs from the linen supply closets and sells them to other homeless guys without clothes.

“You hungry, Scrubs?”

“No, sir.”

“Any of my boys feed you today?”

“Yessir, Mr. Chief. Had me two sweet rolls and a pastrami sandwich. And five Coca-Colas.”

“Tell the lady what else you did today.”

“Watched television. Right in that room where you is. Saw cartoons, saw wrestling, saw a picture of the lady doctor what got killed over at my place.”

“You know her?”

“Never seen her ‘cept on television.”

“Where do you want to go tonight, Scrubs?”

I had the distinct feeling the poor old guy had been asked this question earlier in the day, before he was made to perform for me.

“Happy to stay right here with you, long as you’ll keep me.”

McGraw turned to eyeball me. “Tellthat to Paul Battaglia, will ya? I don’t want anybody thinking I’m rough riding over these nutjobs. I’m taking very good care of them until I know what we got here. Those are my orders.”

I figured I’d better save the $64,000 question for Peterson. As McGraw stormed away from me, I looked over at the lieutenant and quietly asked, “What if any of them told you he wanted to walk out of here tonight. Are they free to leave?”