Linda Fairstein: Likely To Die

“We’ll have your video guys take some shots of it, too, Alex, but I’m sure it’s wishful thinking.”

“Get me a Polaroid of it, Mercer.”

He nodded his head but was already whistling the old Temptations tune “Just My Imagination” as he made another notation on his pad.

Mike held the door open for us and closed it behind Mercer and me, telling the uniformed cop beside it not to let anyone in without authorization, as he mimicked me on our way down the hall. “I can hear the summation already-that’s what you start prepping for as soon as you get a case, isn’t it?-with one of your dramatic lines about the hand from the grave, pointing a finger at the killer. Good try, Cooper. The jury may laugh but the press corps will love it.”

IT WAS EIGHT-THIRTY WHEN I PARKED THE Cherokee on the narrow street in front of the entrance to the District Attorney’s Office and dug into my pocketbook to remove the identification tag that would get me through the metal detector inside the main door. I picked up my third cup of coffee from the vendor who wheeled his cart of bagels and pastries to the corner of Centre Street every morning and walked inside past the security guard who was too engrossed in a skin magazine to notice my arrival.

I liked to get to my desk at least an hour before nine o’clock, when the huge office comes alive with lawyers, cops, witnesses, jurors, and miscreants of every description, in addition to the noise of thousands of telephones ringing constantly throughout the day. In the quiet of the early morning, I can read and respond to motions in my pending matters, screen and analyze the case reports forwarded to me by assistants in the unit, and return some of the calls that inevitably pile up by the end of each working session.

There was no one else on my corridor yet, the executive wing of the Trial Division, so I flipped on the hallway lights, unlocked my door, and passed by my secretary Laura’s desk to hang my coat in the tiny closet in the corner of the room. It felt as though it was fifty degrees in my office, so I slipped off my shoes, climbed on top of Laura’s computer table with a screwdriver to reach the thermostat that some sadistic city engineer had locked into a metal grid out of human reach, and readjusted the heat to a comfortable level so I could settle in at my desk and get to work. My colleagues and I were entrusted with the safety and well-being of the millions of inhabitants and daily visitors to Manhattan but not with the temperature control of our decaying little cubicles in the Criminal Courts Building.

I dialed my deputy’s extension to leave a message on her voice mail. “Hi, Sarah. Call me as soon as you get in. Caught a murder with Chapman at Mid-Manhattan and we’re going to have to do a search on all our cases involving health care professionals, hospitals, and mental institutions. I’m probably going to need some help with my schedule, too.”

Next call was to my paralegals, who shared an office on the adjacent corridor. They were both smart young women who had graduated from college the preceding spring and were apprenticing with me for a year before going on to law school. “There’ll be a meeting in my office at ten. New case with lots to do. Forget about going to that lecture at Police Headquarters today-I’m going to need you here.”

I speed-dialed the number of my friend Joan Stafford, who was undoubtedly in the middle of her daily workout with a personal trainer, and got her machine. “It’s Alex. Scratch the dinner and theater plans for tonight and see if Ann Jordan wants my ticket. I’ve got to work. Apologize to the girls and I’ll speak to you tomorrow.” Joan had bought tickets for a group of friends to the new Mamet play that had opened two weeks earlier, but I would not be able to join them.

Rose Malone, the District Attorney’s executive assistant, was already at her desk when I called to ask for him. “What time is Paul due in?”

“He’s addressing the City Council at nine but I do expect him here before noon. Shall I add you to the list?”

“Please, Rose. I picked up a homicide this morning and he really ought to know about it.”

“He does, Alexandra. He just called me from the car and mentioned that the Commissioner’s Office had alerted him. I don’t know if you’re aware of it but Mrs. Battaglia’s on the board at Mid-Manhattan.”

Just once I’d like to tell Paul Battaglia something that he didn’t already know. The man had more sources than McDonald’s has hamburgers.

“I’ll be at my desk, Rose, so just call when he wants me.”

I flipped through my appointment calendar and made a list of the meetings and witness interviews that Sarah could cover for me, circling in red the handful that I would have to keep for myself. The computer screen lighted up when I logged on and I quickly typed a response to the boilerplate motion my adversary had submitted in a marital rape case in his halfhearted effort to suppress the admissions his client had made to the cops. Laura could format and print it when she got in, and I would proofread and sign it and have it in front of the judge well before his three o’clock deadline for my papers.

By the time I had finished writing, Sarah Brenner turned the corner into my office, both arms full of legal pads and case folders. “This is just a start,” she announced to me, shaking her head. “Let me grab some coffee and come back-the raptor had me up half the night. She’s teething.”

Somehow this meticulous young lawyer with enormous charm and a delightful disposition worked every bit as diligently as I did but managed to do it all while also being the devoted mother of a demanding toddler nicknamed for her uncanny ability to cling to Sarah and wail, usually in the middle of the night when she was trying to sleep. Now she was pregnant with her second, and still had more energy and enthusiasm for our work than half of the lawyers I had ever been shoulder-to-shoulder with during the most intensive investigations.

Sarah came back from the vending machine and sat in the chair on the far side of my desk. “Want to keep her for a few nights? Bring out your maternal instincts and all that?”

“I’ve got my own raptor. Chapman. Woke me up this morning to give me a case. I’d like to keep it, if the boss lets me, but I won’t do it if it’s too much for you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not due for another five months. I’m perfectly healthy, and I’d much rather be here than at home.” Sarah hesitated. “I’ve been waiting for something to engage your interest again. You need a tough case to get you moving. I’ll handle all of your overflow. Promise. What’s this one about?”

I explained what I had heard and seen at Mid-Manhattan and what Lieutenant Peterson had assigned everyone to do.

“Just be sure it’s solved before I go into labor. I don’t want any home delivery job, likeRosemary’s Baby, but it’s chilling to think of some madman loose in a hospital. Wait until you start to review the cases we’ve had. I mean, they’re all in different facilities, and over periods of time, but it’s certainly eye-opening.”

I had investigated and tried some of them myself during the years that I had run the Sex Crimes Unit, but we had never tracked them as a single category. Sarah and I started anecdotally from memory, calling up to each other the cases we remembered from recent interviews and precinct referrals. When the paralegals Maxine and Elizabeth joined us at ten, we gave them the task of doing a hand search through our screening sheets, the record of every victim and suspect who had made a complaint about or been the subject of a sexual assault investigation in Manhattan going back almost a decade.

“Pull each one of them in which there is any mention, other than the victim’s examination, of the words ‘hospital,’ ‘doctor,’ ‘nurse,’ ‘technician,’ ‘psychiatric patient,’ or anything else that seems to be related to a medical setting. Xerox copies for Sarah and me. I want everything you can find before I leave here at the end of the day.”