Linda Fairstein - Cold Hit

“Not unless he’s got answers for me, Guffey. Excuses I got plenty of. It’s answers I want. You guys doing the obvious? Running fingerprints through Safis?” The new, automated fingerprint-matching system was solving scores of cases that used to require tedious hand searches. “Checking with surrounding precincts to see if they got anything like this going? Parole-probation-informants? I assume you’ll study these charts and decide how to redeploy your manpower to address the situation more aggressively.”

Guffey said his men had been doing all of the above and that he would certainly make use of the time charts. He got through the other crime categories fairly gracefully and back to his seat without a great deal of damage.

Inspector Jaffer was next up. A real breath of fresh air for the department. As I ran my eyes around the table, Joanne Jaffer and Jane Pearl were the only two women inspectors I noted in the room. They were both young, bright, and attractive, and were changing a lot of opinions about female bosses in the department, held by too many of the hairbags, those dyed-inthe-wool old-timers who were petrified in their traditions.

Jaffer’s numbers in the Twentieth Precinct were excellent. The Upper West Side had always been one of the safest residential areas in Manhattan. Robberies, burglaries, and car thefts continued to be lower than ever. No homicides in over six months. Her only problem was a serial rapist who had been operating for more than two years-hitting sporadically, and not even linked to a pattern until DNA tests on the rape kits had confirmed that the most recent attack was committed by the same assailant as the first one, which had occurred more than twenty months ago. Battaglia had been asked to address a community meeting about the case in a few days and would be pleased if I could come back to him after this morning with a sense about the chief’s role in the investigation.

Jaffer gave her report and began to answer Lunetta’s questions about the rapist.

“How many cases you up to now, Inspector?”

Jaffer answered sharply. “Eight, sir. That we know of. Eight with an identical M.O., and two of those have been linked to each other by DNA. Serology is working on two others this week.”

“What took you so long to put this pattern together? Somebody asleep in the station house?”

She started to answer, as a hand went up on the right side of the room. Sergeant Pridgen, who was assigned to Special Victims, was responsible for the task force handling the investigation. He had been running the cases long before Jaffer became involved and was trying to jump in to take some of the heat.

Lunetta ignored Pridgen’s waving arm. I knew he’d like to see Jaffer sweat, and I kept my fingers crossed that he would fail to make it happen.

“Serology finally came up with a cold hit, Chief. That’s what broke it for us.”

Her answers were clipped, to the point, and good. The investigation had floundered until the Medical Examiner’s Office made a computer match-known in the still-evolving language of genetic fingerprinting as a “cold hit”-between DNA samples left by the rapist in his victims’ bodies more than two years ago and those found in the most recent case. Cops who had argued about whether or not the older attacks bore any connection to the current crimes were silenced by the stunning ability of the database to definitively link an assailant’s targets to one another.

“Why can’t serology match it to a perp in their data bank?” Lunetta asked.

“Because the bank is just up and running in New York. It’s only been in operation since last year, and they’ve got fewer than a hundred samples from convicted rapists and murderers.”

Legislation created genetic data banks in most states across the country during the late nineties, but few of their labs were equipped to process the information collected from inmates and create the pools from which to search for repeat offenders, until quite recently. It would be unlikely to get a hit on this serial rapist, who had been operating on the streets of Manhattan since the days before the law enabled the collection of blood samples from incarcerated prisoners.

Jaffer continued to describe the team’s approach. Last week the department sketch artist, working with several of the victims, had completed a composite that was being distributed to stores and residences throughout the precinct-the “generic male black,” as Mercer liked to describe the suspect. Medium complexion, average height, average build, between twenty-five and thirty-five years old, possible mustache, close-cropped hair, no distinguishing features, scars, or marks. Before too long, every African American adult male who set foot north of Sixtieth Street and south of Eighty-sixth Street, between Central Park West and Riverside Drive, would be stopped and questioned. Neighbors would be turning in their deliverymen or elevator operators, and good citizens would be frisked by anxious and weary cops, each one hoping to get a lucky break and catch the compulsive rapist.

“Stop dancing around, Pridgen. I’m getting to you. What else is your crew doing about this one?”

The sergeant stood to answer. “We’ve got Traffic giving out summonses on the midnight tour, tagging all the unregistered and uninsured plates. Mounted’s working the area on weekends, which is mostly when he hits.”

I could see Lunetta rolling his eyes even as I stared at the rear of his head. Mounted cops riding up and down West End Avenue at midnight on a Saturday. Not the most subtle way to patrol the neighborhood. Even the rapist might catch on and change his movements.

Pridgen continued. “We’ve called in the Profiling Unit at Quantico and-”

Say the magic word and the duck comes down, hitting Lunetta square on the head. “Feds? Feds? Whose stupid idea is that? Aren’t you guys up to handling this one yourself? Answer me, Pridgen. Whose idea was it?”

Lunetta saw Pridgen flash a glance in my direction. “ District attorney calling the shots on this one, Sarge? You just sit back and let them take right over and run the show, huh? Maybe you’re moonlighting on the side, too busy to do major investigations? We got an opening over at the auto pound, looking after towed vehicles, if you think this is too tough for you. What does Cooper use on you guys anyway, a nose ring? Just leads you around on a leash all day? Let me know if you start rolling over on your back or baying at the moon.”

The woman researcher from Justice bit into her lip and looked at me for a reaction. I didn’t know whether I was blushing for Pridgen or for myself. I ripped some paper from my legal pad and dashed off a note to Lunetta, passing it forward, in which I asked his permission to explain where we were going with the investigation. By the time it reached him, was opened and read, he had continued to pepper the sergeant with questions and then kept on going at Pridgen even harder, choosing to ignore my offer. If he had intended to call on me before I asked to speak, I had just sealed my fate by assuring him that I wanted to give him answers to these questions.

“Last week’s attack-was this girl coming from one of those Columbus Avenue bars, too?”

“No sir,” Pridgen answered.

“Where from, then?”

“Actually, her boyfriend drove her home, just before two in the morning. Let her out of the car about half a block from her apartment, up at the corner. She walked to the front of the building alone. The rapist pushed in behind her, after she unlocked the vestibule door.”

“So much for the boyfriend. I guess chivalry’s dead, wouldn’t you say, Sergeant? I want some progress on this one before the next time you come back here. Take your seats. I want the Three-four up now. Let’s hear about last night’s homicide.”