Linda Fairstein - Final Jeopardy

“My God, I see him it’s number four. That’s ogger the man who was in my apartment this morning, that’s;r the him.” Her hand squeezed mine as though they were being best crushed together by a steamroller. h her She was perfect. She knew exactly who she was looking for and didn’t even have to wait for the motley crew to parade in front of her one by one.

Wallace asked her to go through the rest of the process anyway, and to study each of the men as closely as possible.

She did, but kept repeating, “I don’t have to I know it’s him.”

As Mercer took her out the door on the far side of the room, so she wouldn’t intercept her husband or the women who had not yet viewed, she reached up and kissed him on his cheek, telling him how grateful she was that he had made the arrest so quickly.

“I’m a very lucky woman, I know that. And thank you.”

He turned and gave me a thumbs-up.

“The first hit is always the best. Nice and solid coming out of the box. We got him, Coop. Let’s keep going.”

I backed out of the room and motioned to the sergeant to send Mr. Jeter up to us. An old uniformed cop who looked as if he could count the minutes to retirement and had been assigned to man the telephones walked through the rear of the squad.

“You had a couple of calls since you got here, Miss Cooper. I didn’t know you was up here.”

“Remember what they were? Anything more pressing than this?”

“Nah. Kid from your office, Acciano, says he’s got good news for you a guilty verdict. He’ll leave the details on your voice mail. And Chapman, Homicide. Says he knows what Final Jeopardy is tonight something like that. Wants you to call him when you get home. He’ll be at his office till 1 A.M. Lots of reporters asking what you were doing. That kind of thing.”

“Fine. Just hold everything till we’re all done and I’ll look for you on my way out of here.”

Mr. Jeter marched toward me, thrust his hand out to shake mine as we said hello to each other. He was feeling very proud of himself for having been able to thwart the attack on his wife. I started to describe the line-up but he cut me off.

“I’ve done this before. Mugged getting off work the year before last. Had to go to three of these before they caught the right guy. Take me in and let ‘er rip.”

I re-entered the room where Mercer was already standing at the window and we repeated the scene.

“That’s the little bastard. Number four. Right, am I right? Did my wife get him, too?”

Detective Wallace tried to steer Jeter’s attention back to the full panel.

“We’d really like you to let each one of them come up here and-‘ ”Waste your time anyway you like, Wallace.“ He stood still in front of the window and let the six men go through the motions, but shook his head back and forth the whole time “It’s four. I just saw him this morning. I hope my wife wasn’t too shook up to do this. Am I right?”

“Thanks, Mr. Jeter. We’ll let you two back together now and Detective Wallace will explain all this mystery to you in about ten minutes. Then you can take Mrs. Jeter on home, okay?”

“Great. You give my regards to Mr. Battaglia, will you?

This is the third time in six years I had a case with his office. He does a fine job. Met him once at a community meeting “Stic very decent man.”

“He is, Mr. Jeter. I’ll say hello to him for you tomorrow. gge Thanks for your help here.” I held the door open for him, the ushered him out, and asked Mercer to get Katherine Fryer, nest the twenty-four-year-old illustrator I had interviewed in her my office the morning after Isabella was murdered. Only one week had passed since that day, but it seemed like months.

Mercer went up to the fourth floor, where Fryer had been asked to wait, and brought her down to the viewing area himself. I recalled her extraordinary composure so shortly after her attack that day, and now felt the tremor in her hand as she extended it to meet mine. I asked how she had been doing as I guided her inside and repeated the instructions.

As Mercer reached back for the light switch, he mouthed something to me, which I realized were the words: “Stand close.”

I moved in to Katherine’s side as she advanced to the window and ohce again was glad for his advice. As she poked her head forward, nose almost against the glass, her knees buckled and she would have collapsed to the floor had Wallace not grabbed her at the waist and held her up.

“Sorry, sorry. I can’t help it,” she murmured, trying to steady herself.

“He’s in there.”

We both tried to soothe her and calm her down, but Katherine Fryer did not want to look through that window again.

“I really need you to take one more look. We’re right here with you. Just tell us whether or not you see the man who attacked you last week, and the number he’s holding, please.”

With great reluctance, the young woman pulled herself up and braced her body with an arm on each of us. She stared ahead for several seconds, then turned and glared at me.

“The rapist is holding the number four. I’ll never forget that face. Now will you let me out of here?”

I nodded at Mercer, thanked Ms. Fryer, and stepped out for some air while the next two women were located and brought up, one at a time, in the same fashion. It was no surprise that each of the identifications were so positive.

The Jeters’ attack had occurred in their home only hours ago this very day. And unlike muggings on the street that take only two or three minutes to commit, the rapes that Montvale had committed kept him with his victims for extended periods of time. These women had been forced to experience him through every one of their five senses, and it was because of that lengthy, intimate exposure that I would be able to argue to the jury that these identifications should be more reliable than those made by victims of any other kind of crime.

The question for William Montvale’s jury would not be how these witnesses remembered what he looked like, but rather, how they could ever forget the face of the man who so tortured them. they t on stic 5 as Jger the est her While Mercer made arrangements to get each of the witnesses home, the sergeant paid the satisfied stand-ins and sent them off into the night. I asked one of the guys on the team to take sandwich and drink orders and we called out to the deli on the corner of Columbus for a delivery.

“No beer till after all the work is done, agreed?” I asked, as I laid out the cash, noting that it was after nine o’clock as we moved into the next phase of the arrest process. Some of the guys grumbled but everyone knew there were still a lot of loose ends to tie up before the end of the evening.

“I’m gonna go in and try to warm him up for you, Cooper.

The desk says your video man is downstairs. I told ‘em to send him here so he can start getting set up.“

”That’s good. I’ll get on the phone and work on the search warrant. You certain he was living at his mother’s place?“

“Yeah. That all had to be confirmed for Paroleto approve the move to New York. Doesn’t mean he hasn’t flopped somewhere else a couple of nights. But if you look through the fives,” Mercer went on, calling my attention to the police reports known as Detective Division 5s, ‘you can make a list of some of the items of clothing the women described and some of the jewelry he stole. Maybe even the knife.“

“It’ll be drawn up and signed, ready to go so you can be at his mother’s door at the crack of dawn.”

“When do we worry about DNA?”

“Nothing to worry about. At the arraignment, I ask the judge for a court order to draw a vial of Mr. Montvale’s blood. If there were ever a case with probable cause, this one is it. Got the best serologist in the country right in the ME’s office. They’ve got the blood from each of the victims already, to develop their typings to do the eliminations for the DNA results, and in a few weeks, that nail’ll also be in Montvale’s coffin.”