Linda Fairstein - Final Jeopardy

He was much too accomplished and much too professional to be a first-timer, so Mercer and I were looking for the key, the little slip he might eventually make that would lead us back to him. In reality, as we looked, we were praying for a lucky break, which was the far more likely way the case would be solved.

Laura Wilkie knew that I would not take any calls while I was interviewing a rape victim, but I reminded her that she had to hold everything, as Mercer came back around the corner with Katherine Fryer and ushered her into my office.

I came out from behind my desk as Mercer made the introductions, and we sat on three chairs drawn into a small circle. It was a way to avoid the appearance of formality imposed by a desk between subject and interviewer, and it encouraged the intimacy occasioned by the topic of the conversation. I didn’t do it in every instance, but this was a case which needed that rapport established immediately.

There was no time to develop a relationship politely.

Katherine Fryer’s night had been even worse than my own, so I was struck by her composure and apparent calm.

“Do you understand why you’re here today?” I asked her.

“I’m sure Detective Wallace explained it to me, but I’m not sure I absorbed everything. Everybody’s been wonderful, but I was at the hospital for hours and I’m a bit dazed at this point.”

“I know that. I just want to explain what’s going on. My name is Alexandra Cooper, and I am the assistant district attorney who’s going to handle your case. I’ll be with you from today through the day Mercer catches your attacker and we convict him. I know he’s already asked you a lot of questions, and I’ll have to ask most of them again. But from now on we’ll be working on this together, and my job is to get you through this as comfortably as I can. Do you want to ask me anything before I begin?”

Katherine Fryer wanted the normal assurances that her name wouldn’t be in any newspapers and that her parents in Pennsylvania wouldn’t have to be told about the rape.

“And if there is a trial, will they be able to question me about my personal life, about my sexual activity?”

“No, Katherine, there have been a lot of improvements, a lot of changes in the law. In a case like this, when you’ve been attacked by a man you never saw before, nothing about your sexual history is relevant to the trial. I promise you: this stuff isn’t like all those awful made-for-TV movies.

Detective Wallace does the heavy lifting in this case the worst is behind you. Once he finds the man and you identify him, we won’t have you on the witness stand for more than an hour.

“Let me just go through the story with you one time, then you can help with the sketch and go home and get some rest.”

“I can’t go home, Miss Cooper. I’ll never feel safe there again. I’m going to my sister’s house in New Jersey. Mercer is going to go with me to the apartment to pack some clothes, but I’ll give you my sister’s number until I find a new place to live.”

This stuff really sucks. A woman alone in her home, minding her own business, is victimized there then has to move out because it’s so saturated with the memory of that devastating violation.

I asked Katherine what had happened yesterday afternoon, shortly before one o’clock, as she sat alone in her kitchen.

“Well, I was eating my lunch when the doorbell rang and I said, ”Who is it?“ and a voice outside the door said, ”It’s Con Edison.“ I said I wasn’t expecting anyone from Con Edison, that I didn’t have any problems. He told me, as I looked through the peephole, that the super had called him in because there was trouble on the gas lines in all the rear apartments. So I could see that he was, you know, dressed like a Con Ed workman and I opened the door.”

I already knew the answers to the questions I was about to ask, and I already knew how many times Katherine Fryer had blamed herself for the same things, but I had to ask them anyway.

“When you say he was dressed like a Con Ed repairman, can you tell me more about his clothing?”

“Well, it was just a flannel shirt and jeans, with a work jacket over them, and a hard hat.”

“Did the hat say ”Con Ed“ on it, specifically? Did it have any lettering on it?”

“No. It didn’t say anything.”

“Did he have any kind of identification that he showed you, like any tag on his shirt or anything he pulled out of his pocket?”

Katherine was avoiding eye contact now, admitting, with regret, that she hadn’t asked for any ID, she had just assumed he was telling the truth.

“I let him in and he walked right into the kitchen, where my lunch was on the table, and he opened the stove and looked in. And I kept talking to him as he looked, and I said I didn’t ever report a problem with my oven even though the gas had been kind of poor. It’s an old building everything needed repairs at one point or other. Then he said, ”Maybe you could get your husband to come out here and give me a hand with this.“ Katherine paused and winced as she went on, ”So I told him, “I don’t have a husband I mean, maybe I can just help you.”

That’s exactly what he wanted to hear, as Mercer and I were well aware. Home alone. “That’s when he stood up from the oven, turned around and faced me. That’s the first time I saw the knife.”

“Take a breath, Katherine,” I said, leaning over to put my hand on top of hers.

“You’re doing fine. Just take it easy I know this is difficult to do.”

“It was a long knife it had a long, narrow blade. I think he pulled it out of the tool belt he had around his waist.

It seemed like it was fifteen or sixteen inches very, very long. He grabbed me and held the knife right in front of my face. He told me not to make a sound or he would cut up my face. Then he said he’d kill me if I didn’t do what he wanted.

“So he walked me into the bedroom and told me to undress with my back toward him, to take all my clothes off and get on my knees. That’s when he made me do oral sex on him.”

When she stopped, Mercer offered her a glass of water, and as she sipped it I talked softly to her.

“You’re doing fine, Katherine. I’m going to interrupt you from time to time to ask for some details. The questions may sound stupid and trivial, but I need to ask them. You may know some of the answers, and you may not remember others. Just tell me what you can, okay?”

She nodded.

“Did he undress himself, Katherine, or did he just expose his penis?”

“He didn’t undress completely. But he did take off his jeans and the heavy belt. He kept his shirt on. And he wasn’t wearing any underpants.”

“When you say ”oral sex,“ you mean he made you put your mouth on his penis?”

“Yes, yes, he did. He kept saying he’d kill me if I didn’t.

Then he told me to stop. He picked me up, he lifted me up, and he put me on my bed. He pushed me down on the bed face up and he put a pillow over my face.“

“Was he talking during any of this, Katherine, or was he not saying anything at all?”

“Yes, he talked. He talked a lot of the time. But, but… I really can’t remember too much of what he said. It was disgusting.”

I leaned in to try to get her to look me in the eye. There aren’t many honest people who can lie when they look you right in the eye just the pathological types. I knew Katherine Fryer could tell me exactly what her assailant said to her if I forced her through it.

“Katherine, you can remember the things he said to you you may not want to, but I know you haven’t forgotten them. And as unpleasant as it is, and as much as it may make you mad at me, I want you to say every one of them to me. They’re part of his signature, Katherine; they’re part of what will help Mercer find him, because he’s probably said them to someone else and he’ll say them again the next time. And there will be a next time unless we stop him. It’s what helps him get off on this stuff, so it’s one of the ways you can get back at him. Please help us with this, trust us.”