Linda Fairstein - Final Jeopardy

My counterpart in the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office had been helpful to me in the past, so I reached out for him again and asked him to pull the closed case files on the suspect, just to see whether there was any other nexus? to Jersey that might be useful. Don’t cross the Hudson, I urged Montvale silently. I don’t want to deal with the delays of an extradition proceeding I just want to grab you here, let these women have a chance to confront you and put you behind bars till you outlive the ability to do this to anybody else.

Another lunch at my desk, this time consisting of a; container of light yogurt and a seltzer. I checked Mercer’s office every half-hour, but the entire squad was out in the field and the civilian aide who was handling the phones didn’t know which end was up.

Shortly after two, Laura buzzed me to announce that we had a walk-in. The last thing I needed right now was a witness without an appointment, but that’s exactly what I had. I couldn’t pass her off to Sarah, whose hands were already full with my overflow. Angela Firkin had presented herself to the lobby security officer with a crumpled piece of paper that had my name printed on it, along with the address of the building.

I invited her into my office and seated her opposite me.

“How did you get my name, Miss Firkin?” I asked, as I took out a fresh pad to begin to make notes of our conversation.

“I called the crisis hot line, told them my problem, and they told me to come talk to you.”

“I see. Did anybody mention reporting to the police first?”

“I can’t go to the police, Miss Cooper. I appreciate your seeing me without an appointment, but I was very upset and I just couldn’t go to a police station. This is a situation about a man in an official uniform, and I’m just not comfortable talking to the police.”

“All right,” I said, after getting the pedigree information I needed, ‘why don’t you tell me what happened?“

Angela Firkin was a twenty-eight-year-old woman who lived alone in a brownstone in the East Eighties. She supported herself on disability insurance and a modest inheritance, but was unable to work because she had a long history of treatment for schizophrenia.

“I don’t go out much, just walking for some exercise in the neighborhood, and getting my groceries. Almost everything else I do by mail order, by sending away for things.

“A couple of weeks ago, our regular mailman had a heart attack and we got a new guy. I have to see him a lot, ‘cause some of the things that I order are too big for the mailbox.

My book club delivery, my home shopping network things, you know.“

“Sure.”

“Well, this new guy started off fine. Then, one day, when he rang the doorbell to give me a package, he told me the Post Office had new rules. Said it was because of all the trouble the government was having with drug smugglers and, um, I think the word he called it was ”contraband.“ He told me I had to open the wrapping in front of him, so he could see what was in the box. It was just a pair of cubic zirconia earrings I ordered for myself for sixteen dollars, so I showed it to him.

“A few days later, he did the same thing with my mystery book order, even though it had a return address and everything, from the book club.”

She was telling the story easily, in a coherent narrative, so I let Angela go on without interruption.

“Then the guy, his name is Oscar Lanier it’s right on his name tag the guy comes back this Monday they with another delivery for me. This time it’s some pills,: on but over-the-counter stuff From ABC Vitamin Company. I’m on a lot of medication for my well, you know, my, as condition but I also sent away for some vitamins. So Oscar says, ”I have to search you before I let you have this the package.“ est ”I said, “What? I never heard of this before.” He said, her “New rules, I told you, new Post Office rules. I’m sure you’re okay, but it’s gotten very dangerous to go into people’s homes these days. They’re doing this to protect us.”

“I felt kind of bad for him, I mean, I wouldn’t want to go into a lot of apartments in this city. People with pit bulls and drug dealers and who knows what. So I stepped into the hallway, Oscar puts down his bag, and he starts to frisk me, like in the movies. But I’m telling you, Miss Cooper, he’s running his hands back and forth over my breasts. I say, ”That’s enough, Oscar.“ And he gives me the package and thanks me a lot.”

I asked Angela how long the encounter took and exactly where and how the mailman touched her. She explained it all.

“Then he was back this morning. I’m telling you I never got my mail so early as this week. He’s got a box for me, no return label. So he tells me it looks suspicious. I see it’s got a postmark from Philly, and I know it’s my cousin Muriel, sending me the sucking candies I like. She never puts a return address in case there’s not enough postage on it, she doesn’t want it coming back to her. Wants me to pay it. But no, Oscar says he has to search me and then see the candy for himself. This time, he puts his hand inside my blouse and actually touches my breast. Can you believe it? I smacked him across the face and stepped inside and bolted the door. Never even got the candy.”

I asked some more questions and told Miss Firkin that I would like her to wait in our reception area while I called the Post Office.

“I already did that, Miss Cooper. No new rules. Oscar was full of baloney thought he had an easy mark, just ‘cause I like my packages. They don’t have any new rules like that.”

I hadn’t thought they were actually new rules, but I did want to check to see if Oscar was, in fact, an employee of the United States Government. Laura got Angela a seat down the hall and a cold drink, and I made my calls.

Yes, there was an Oscar Lanier and indeed that was his postal route, although he was only a probationary worker at the moment. Just to satisfy my curiosity, I punched his name into the criminal justice computer network AJIS and within seconds, got the response that Lanier had a misdemeanor conviction earlier this year in Queens County. Not surprisingly, it was for sexual abuse.

My next call was to the head of the Special Victims Bureau in the Queens District Attorney’s Office. I explained the story and asked her to tell me what the case was about.

Fifteen minutes later, she called back to let me know that Oscar’s previous job had been as an airport security guard ttorney pert on mestic ises as Jogger her the jghest ith her at JFK. He was arrested after several women passengers complained that he took them out of line, into his office, and tried to do a body cavity search, looking for smuggled drugs. Fired, convicted, and rehired by the United States Post Office, all within the last six months. You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.

I brought Angela back in, reassured her that this particular postman would not ring a third time, and told her that I would assign a female detective to work with her on the case. After she left, I made the necessary calls to arrange a temporary suspension of Lanier while we investigated the matter. It was almost five o’clock by the time I finished those details and attended to the rest of the paperwork on my desk.

Mark Acciano called to say that the judge would keep his jury only until ten this evening, and if there was no verdict by that time, he’d declare a mistrial. I tried to shore up his spirits, and told him I’d stick it out with him as long as there were no developments on the Montvale case.

Laura asked if she could leave a bit early to go to the dentist, and I told her I would get the phones myself. I sat at my desk, going through the pile of mail that had come with the afternoon delivery. Two demands for letters advising the Parole Board what position our office would take on cases coming before them next month, one request to lecture to a women’s group at a college in Pennsylvania, and several offers to test software programs designed to expedite the preparation of lawyer’s briefs were on the top of the stack.