Linda Fairstein - Cold Hit

“I’m fine, thanks. This stop was just added to the itinerary, so I’m not expecting any trouble.”

From the information booth I called the emergency room, but Callie Emerson had already been treated and had been admitted for observation and tests concerning her inner ear imbalance. She was on 6 North, and the volunteer worker directed me to that wing.

When I reached her room, Callie was sitting in an armchair dressed in a hospital gown and answering questions from a physician and a resident. I explained who I was and why I was there. My purpose was not to question her in depth about the assault-since Catherine would do that in the morning-but rather to explain the proceedings to her and engage her cooperation. Witnesses and their families were always surprised to learn how much gentler the process had become with a specialized unit like ours, and how comfortable we could make the person who had been victimized.

I stepped back outside the room and waited for the doctors to finish their examination. When they were through, I returned and sat with Callie, telling her what would happen the next day and answering all her questions about the system. She and her husband should go to Catherine’s office, where the questioning would take place. The grand jury presentation would take less than ten minutes and the assailant would not be present for it, so she did not have to see him again or tell the story in front of him. After that, Catherine would be responsible for the motion practice in the case-presenting the court with information responding to defense requests for facts to which they were entitled. Three or four months thereafter, we would bring Callie back to New York for the trial, and with any luck Catherine would be working again in front of a jurist as sensitive and knowledgeable as Wetzel.

She seemed grateful for the overview and willing to participate.

“Were you examined in the emergency room?”

“Fortunately, I wasn’t raped. So they didn’t do an internal exam. They were more worried about my physical condition-that my blood pressure had dropped so dramatically and my vital signs were weak.”

I knew from my conversation with the sergeant that the attacker had put his mouth on Callie’s breast and sucked on it.

“Did anyone look at your chest?”

“I’m not sure. There was so much going on when we got here-I just don’t know.”

“Would you mind going into the bathroom and looking at yourself in the mirror?”

When she emerged, she was nodding her head. “There’s a large discoloration on my skin, where his mouth was. And there are a few scratches on my breastbone, which might have happened when he was ripping at the buttons.”

“I’m going to ask one of the nurses to come and look at you again, if you don’t mind. I’d like her to note those marks on your medical chart. And Laura, who’s one of our photographers, will take a few pictures of them tomorrow morning.”

“They seem so minor.”

“Even so, Callie, they corroborate exactly what you said this man did to you. It will be very useful for you at the trial.”

We talked for a while longer before I thanked Callie, reassured her about what a good witness she would be, and left the hospital.

The patrol car was waiting for me in the parking circle off York Avenue.

“What’s next, Miss Cooper?”

I checked my watch. It was almost an hour and a half since Mike had left for Jersey, and I was trying to control my curiosity about his encounter with the man who might be Bailor.

“Before we go to Chelsea, why don’t you just swing by 890 Fifth Avenue? It’s not too far out of the way. I want to check with the team that’s watching an apartment there.”

In ten minutes we were in front of Lowell Caxton’s building. There was an unmarked detective car parked next to the awning. I got out to talk to the men sitting inside, both of whom were eating hot dogs and drinking root beer. They worked with Mike at the Homicide Squad and were annoyed at being stuck on such an uninteresting post.

“Nothin’ happening here. Doorman says it’s business as usual with Caxton. This guy only does days, so he don’t know what time Lowell came home last night. But his chauffeur picked him up a little before eight this morning. I had him call up to the maid, too. She says Caxton’s due home sometime after seven o’clock this evening. You and Chapman planning to come over then?”

“Yes, unless you see something else we should know about earlier. Have you got my beeper number?”

“No, but I got Mike’s.”

“He’s not with me today, so why don’t you write mine down, too?”

The surly fat one in the driver’s seat took another bite from his tube steak and handed me the paper napkin that had been draped over his knee. I tore off the corner with the mustard stain on it and wrote down the number to hand back to him. He was as likely to call a D.A. with a hot lead as he was to run in the next marathon.

“Any other traffic in or out we should know about?”

“If you know a Mrs. Cadwalader on three, she’s either turning tricks on the side or she’s runnin’ a halfway house for retired hockey players. She’s got action comin’ and goin’ every twenty minutes, and most of her company’s sportin’ half their teeth and bowlegs. And there’s a schnauzer on five with a very weak bladder, so he’s out here peeing on my front tire once an hour, courtesy of his housekeeper, who’s carrying a pooper scooper looks like it’s made outta sterling silver. And she’s got a great ass-the housekeeper, not the schnauzer. Now, are you gonna sit here and watch us watching them, or are you gonna find some way to make yourself useful to Mr. Battaglia?”

Brigid Brannigan was leaning against the patrol car and opened the door for me to get in the backseat. She looked crisp and cool in the police uniform, and her neat auburn ponytail set off her fine features handsomely. “I used to think I had a hard time, breaking in as a prosecutor with all these tough old dinosaurs in my department who thought handling homicides was only a man’s prerogative. I bump into a guy like that one, and I bet you could tell me stories about what it was like for you to come onto this job that would make my experience seem like a cakewalk.”

She got in the car laughing and started to talk about her rookie adventures with some of the hairbags-the stiff oldtimers who never made it out of uniform-that she’d encountered in the four years she’d been on the force.

“Why don’t you take the Sixty-sixth Street drive through the park and head down Ninth Avenue? I’m going to a gallery called Caxton Due, on Twenty-second Street, between Tenth and Eleventh.”

Brigid continued to amuse me with her anecdotes while her partner weaved in and out of the midafternoon traffic on the approach to the Lincoln Tunnel. Once that cleared, Lazarro drove down to Twenty-first Street and came up Tenth Avenue, about to make the turn into the one-way westbound block on which the gallery entrance was located.

We could all see that it would be impossible to drive into the narrow street. In addition to the cars parked at meters on each side, there were three enormous trucks lined up in a row right in the middle of the pavement. Wooden stanchions were spread from the north corner of the curb to the south.

There didn’t seem to be anyone directing this operation. Officer Lazarro gave off a few whelps, and two men in T-shirts and jeans poked their heads out of the cab of one of the trucks. Since they weren’t moving, Brannigan got out of the car and walked over to them.

She came back and leaned in the window. “They’ve got a permit to block the street off for the afternoon. There’s a place farther down the way called the Dia Center for the Arts. They’re installing a major exhibition today, so this is legal while they’re unloading sculpture for the new show. Want me to walk you into your gallery?”