Linda Fairstein - The DeadHouse

For the better part of the next two hours, we went through the encounter between Chester and Tina, with Herron clarifying the language whenever Tina's verbal utterances were incomprehensible. By the end of the cross-examination, the patient had exhausted herself by the combination of her concentration on the retelling of the story, and her apprehension about being close to Chester.

When Vexter ruled that there was sufficient evidence to hold the matter for the action of the grand jury, he released Tina from the room and dealt with the business of finding an appropriate facility in which to secure the defendant, away from Coler Hospital.

At four-fifteen, I thanked the doctor and retraced my steps to the lobby of the building, where Chapman was waiting. "Proud of yourself, blondie? Chester the Molester moving on to a better place? Can't believe they actually got a psychobabble disorder named for a bad disposition."

"Yeah. 'Intermittent explosive disorder'-temper tantrums that the perp's unable to control."

"And a medication that works for them?"

I nodded.

"Get a double dose and I'll keep it in my desk drawer, to have on hand for those days you lose it with me. C'mon, that student who was supposed to meet you had to leave for the day. One of the guys from the one-fourteen is going to cruise us around for ten minutes. Will that do?"

We went outside, where the sky was already darkening and the wind had picked up force. A blue and white RMP-radio motor patrol car-sat in front of the hospital. The two uniformed cops in the front seat looked less than thrilled to be chauffeuring us around the quiet little island.

They pointed out the landmarks as we wound our way south, past the remains of the Octagon, the apartment houses, the meditation steps, the observation pier. Near the southern tip, we came flat up against the heavy metal fencing that blocked off the ruins of the Smallpox Hospital.

"Can we get in there to see it?"

The driver flashed his annoyance at his partner, who answered more politely. "Nothing to see, really. You can't go inside the building 'cause it's all crumbled and full of falling blocks of granite. And broken glass. And then there's the rats."

I got the point. "Can we just drive up closer so I can take a look?"

With some hesitation, the driver started the car again and drove us to the locked fence. He got out of the RMP, inserted his card in the automated locking device, and watched as the gate slid open. He stepped back into the car and drove slowly through the entrance. In the wintry darkness of the late afternoon, I could barely make out the shapes of the large boulders on the darkened landscape. "You won't see much, and I can't let you out to walk around. Last guy I took in needed a tetanus shot from tripping and cutting himself open on some old can or bottle."

"What are these huge rocks?"

"The walls of the old City Penitentiary. That's what it all was, once. Came down in the 1940s. It's just been sitting here ever since. Kids used to really get hurt on this stuff. That's why they finally fenced it off."

He drove south until he stopped at the abandoned ruin of the Smallpox Hospital. Chapman and I stepped out of the car and walked to the waist-high wooden fence that kept trespassers at bay.

"Isn't it glorious?" The facade looked like an old castle, the dark gray stone porch of the entry now draped in icicles and bare of all the ivy that cascaded down its sides in summer. Through its paneless window frames, the enormous bright red neon letters of the bottling factory's Pepsi-Cola sign lighted the black sky above the river. On the Manhattan side, the glitter of the United Nations complex sparkled with the outline of its distinctive shape.

"This all that's here?" I could see Mike's breath forming the words in the chilled air.

The driver of the RMP nodded in response.

"Now you've seen it, kid. Let's hoof it back to the mainland. Must be like a girl thing. The place doesn't do anything for me. Mercer's gonna meet us at your place at seven-thirty."

The cops dropped us at the station and we waited with two other passengers until the cable car landed and disgorged its returning commuters.

Mike and I stood in the front of the tram, hanging on to the overhead straps, as the red behemoth lurched from its berth and lifted toward the first tower. For just a few moments we were below the roadway of the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, and then we reached the height that put us almost at eye level with the huge girders that spanned the river. The wind was fiercer now, and I could feel the play in the tension of the steel wires.

Mike turned to say something to me when a burst of shots resounded on the side of the moving cab. They pinged and smacked against the steel sidings and the thick glass of the upper body of the tram. Before the second volley was fired off, and without a word between us, Mike had tackled me to the ground and covered my body with his own.

The window had shattered as the hail of gunfire continued, a second round and then a third. The car swayed and frigid air rushed in to fill the small heated space of the wounded tram. The remaining two minutes of the crossing seemed endless, and my mind flashed to those desperate moments almost five months earlier when Mercer had taken a bullet meant for me.

My face was pressed against the muddy tiled floor of the cab. I could hardly breathe from the combination of terror and the weight of Mike's body flattened against my back. I closed my eyes to keep the glass particles from blowing into them, and heard the sound of Mike's gun scraping against the floor of the tram as he positioned it alongside my ear to cover the opening of the door as we docked.

Startled commuters awaiting the short ride home gasped at the spectacle of the four of us, crawling on the bottom of the cable car, and a gun in the hand of Mike Chapman, who had been unable to reach into his pocket to display his badge.

"I'm a cop. It's okay," he said. He stood up and went to check on the older couple who had been sitting on the bench in the rear of the tram before they had dropped to the floor. "You two all right? I'm a police officer."

The elderly woman was clutching her chest and began to cry as Mike helped her to her feet. "He's got a heart condition," she said, pointing at her husband. "Is he-?"

Mike was assisting her husband onto the bench and restoring the cane to his hand. "You wanna call for an ambulance?" he shouted to no one in particular, as the trembling man assured Mike that he was fine.

A bystander said that someone had already called 911 after the first shots were heard.

"How's your wife?" the old gent asked, pointing to me. I was standing up, brushing the slivers of glass off my knees and trying to maintain my composure.

"Nothing a six-pack of Dewar's won't fix in a minute. She takes a flop like that every couple of days, just to keep me on my toes." Mike was doing his best to defuse the situation, to keep everyone calm until he could sort out what fears were appropriate.

Within minutes, six cops bounded up the steps to the departure platform. Two of them recognized me and one of them had known Mike for years. They helped the older couple make their way down the staircase to an ambulance, and put me in the back of one of the patrol cars. One cop stayed with me to take the details for a police report, while Mike and the others examined the inside of the cab.

By the time Mike got back to the car, the uniformed sergeant had arrived and introduced himself to me. "They're doing stops at both ends of the bridge, Mike. What do you think it was?"

"I left 'em up there for Crime Scene to photo, but it's pellets of some kind. Meant to kill somebody? I doubt it. But you could send a loud message that way. Could be somebody just goofing around with a shotgun, could be somebody looking to break windows and scare the shit out of people, could be somebody thinks you're running a shooting gallery in the Nineteenth. I'll leave it to you to figure out."