Linda Fairstein: Cold Hit

Mike spent most of the short walk over to my office, three blocks north of One Police Plaza, trying to worm his way back into my good graces. I was used to being the butt of Chapman’s humor and had long ago stopped letting it get to me. It was not even ten thirty and I was already more bothered by the oppressive heat that had blanketed the ugly stretch of asphalt that ran in front of the city and state buildings along Centre Street.

“Aren’t you going to be late for court?” he asked me as we rounded the corner and I stopped at the cart to buy us each another round of coffee. Mike called up to the vendor to throw in a cruller for him, too. “Couldn’t eat a thing last night. Kept looking into that hole in the back of Gert’s head every time I closed my eyes.”

“No court on Friday. The defendant’s a Muslim. Today’s his holy day,” I answered, hanging my identification tag on a chain around my neck as we approached the entrance to the District Attorney’s Office.

“Reggie Bramwell’s a Muslim? I collared him on a gun case five years ago, and he was a full-press Baptist then. I’m sure of it.”

“Jailhouse conversion, Mike,” I said, pushing through the revolving doors and holding the security gate open for one of my colleagues who was on her way out of the building, headed toward the other courthouse, pushing a shopping cart loaded with evidence. “A week ago Thursday, in fact. Must have been a deeply religious experience. Someone at Rikers Island convinced him of the joys of the three-day workweek. The judge uses Wednesday as a calendar day, and the prisoner-Reggie Bramwell, now also known to the court as Reggie X-gets to worship on Friday. Just prolongs my agony for a few days. In fact, I think he’s just doing this because he knows I wanted some vacation time this month-and if he can’t go to the beach, why should I?”

We waited for one of the three elevators to return to the lobby floor, while a small commotion started behind us. “Alex, tell this jerk who I am, will you please?” a familiar voice called out.

My colleague Pat McKinney was standing in front of the security counter dressed in his running clothes, which were drenched with sweat, arguing with the officer on duty. Pat’s already reddened complexion was deepening and appeared to spreading to the tips of his ears and down his neck.

“I’m telling you I left my I.D. on top of that pad next to the telephone before I went out at nine thirty. Now, if somebody moved it or walked off with it, that’s your problem and not mine.”

The cop, obviously a summer replacement who was stuck with this security detail, didn’t recognize the deputy chief of the Trial Division. Most of us who jogged from time to time during our lunch hours had taken to leaving our photo identification tags at the entrance desk and picking them up on our way back in. The officers from the Fifth Precinct who regularly worked the desk knew most of us by sight and held the tags in a pile on the corner of the counter, behind the bank of telephones. I had no time for running these days, because of my hearings, and no inclination either, because of the intense heat. McKinney, who liked to take his daily jog earlier than the lunch hour break during the hot summer months, was probably more aggravated by the fact that this police officer didn’t recognize him than that the officer had misplaced his only means of official access to the building.

I held the bucking elevator door open with my left arm and started to explain to the officer that I would vouch for McKinney, despite the fact that he hated my guts.

Chapman nudged me out of the way by bumping his hip up against mine and clamping his hand on the button that said Close. He was also calling out to the cop as the doors came together in front of my face. “Hey, Officer. Don’t let that guy in. He’s a whack job-comes around here all the time, looking to get in. The real McKinney has a huge wart on the tip of his nose and foams at the mouth a lot.”

“That’ll do wonders to break the ice between me and my supervisor, don’t you think?” I asked as I pressed the button for the eighth floor and replaced my sunglasses in their case.

“What’s the difference? McKinney hasn’t had a decent word to say about you in the entire time you’ve been here. Screw him. Who’s going to miss him for the next half hour, his girlfriend?”

“What girlfriend? You mean Ellen? She just works for him, she’s not his girlfriend.”

We got off the elevator and headed for my office.

“Don’t tell me you’re as gullible as his wife, Coop. All that platonic crap? ‘Beep me, darling, I’m working on a gun bust tonight with the cops. Field assignment. Midnight grand jury.’ You know anybody else in the Trial Division who gets the kind of close supervision Ellen does? One on one, behind closed doors? Trust me. Next time he gives you any trouble, I’ll run interference for you.”

My secretary, Laura, had a smile on her face by the time we came into view, no doubt hearing Mike’s voice as we made our way down the hall together. He broke into his best Smokey Robinson imitation as she began to go through the morning’s messages with me. She sailed through the first six, all of which could be returned later, accompanied by Mike’s humming and finger snapping. When he broke out his modified lyrics-“And in case you go to court, then a lawyer is the one you want to see… but in case you want love, Laura… call on me”-I gave up the battle and went in to my desk to see what else awaited me.

I opened the desk drawer and took three extra-strength Tylenols. The fatigue of the trial schedule on top of my usual duties supervising the Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit had been wearing me down. Sarah Brenner, my close friend and second in command, had been ordered by her obstetrician to stay at home, since she was already three days overdue with her second child. I had all weekend to complete the legal memorandum the judge in the Reggie X case expected from me on Monday, so I decided to focus first on the queries from the other lawyers in the unit.

“Who sounded more critical?” I called out to Laura.

“If I were you, I’d get Patti down here first. Want me to call her?”

“Yeah. Then back her up with Ryan, please.”

Mike took off his navy blazer and hung it on the back of one of the chairs before picking up the pile of morning newspapers that had been delivered to my desk. He was looking to see whether any clever reporter had scooped him on some aspect of the Gert murder that he might have missed.

Patti Rinaldi was one of my favorite young assistants-a solid lawyer with sound judgment and dogged courtroom style. Her enthusiasm for her work, and for resolving the plight of her victims, seemed to emanate from her when she entered my small office carrying the case file of her latest problem.

“A vision in lavender, Ms. Rinaldi,” Chapman said, eyeing the tall, thin brunette carefully over the top of his New YorkPost. “You look ravishing today. You’re not cheating on me, are you?”

“Cooper doesn’t leave me any time to even think about it, Mike. I worked the four-to-twelve shift on intake last night. Thought you’d want to know about this one, Alex. Have you had any cases at a sleep disorder clinic yet?”

“Not so far.”

“I think we got our first.”

Mike’s interest was piqued. “What’s a sleep disorder clinic?”

“Latest psychobabble moneymaker. Almost every medical center has one at this point. Patients who have trouble with sleep-insomniacs, sleepwalkers, snorers, you name it-come in to be ‘examined’ while they sleep. Idea is to find a cure for the problem.”

Patti added to my description. “And they pay dearly-a thousand, fifteen hundred dollars per visit-just to spend the night on a cot and let somebody ‘watch’ them sleep, measure their dream time and the intervals between dream segments.”