Alafair Burke: City of Lies

Ellie found herself tiring of the invest-in-Sam-Sparks-for-your-future sales presentation and began doodling on the notepad she had removed from her purse. She let her gaze move to the left, where the head of what Sparks Industries called its Corporate Security Division, Nick Dillon, sat on a bench behind Sparks and Guerrero.

Before Dillon was associated with either Sparks or Mancini, he’d been a member of the NYPD. After a stint working for a private military contractor, he’d moved on to Sparks. Now he was one of those lucky former cops who collected both a city pension and a private paycheck. Dillon had been Mancini’s immediate supervisor. He had also been his friend.

Ellie and Rogan had spoken to Dillon at least once a week since that initial callout four months earlier. He had done his best to play mediator, but they’d nevertheless wound up here in court. Dillon nodded along with Guerrero’s argument, but Ellie knew from earlier conversations that Dillon would like nothing more than to elbow his boss in the throat for his refusal to cooperate with the police. She liked the image.

‘Your Honor,’ Max protested, ‘counsel’s argument assumes that any information disclosed as part of this investigation will become public. The suggestion is an insult to the fine detectives who have worked –’

‘Which brings us back to Detective Hatcher,’ Guerrero jumped in. ‘Our background information shows that in the short time she’s been in the homicide division, her name has appeared in forty-nine newspaper articles in a LexisNexis search. Prior to that, she granted various interviews to outlets like People magazine and Dateline NBC about her own family background –’

Ellie looked up abruptly from her notepad. Dillon glanced over with a barely perceptible shrug. The thought of his coaster-sized elbow crushing Sparks’s windpipe was growing more appealing by the second.

‘Counsel’s comments are wholly inappropriate,’ Max said.

Complete and utter bullshit. She continued to scribble as she listened to her boyfriend’s voice rise half an octave. ‘Two of the NYPD’s biggest collars in the last year. A Police Combat Cross for rescuing another officer in the line of duty. Personal interviews granted only at her peril and only to help her mother, who was widowed in Kansas when –’

Judge Bandon cut him off. ‘I’ve been known to read the occasional People magazine myself. I’m familiar with the circumstances of her father’s death.’

‘My point,’ Guerrero continued, ‘is that Detective Hatcher is relatively inexperienced, and although she has created quite a record for herself in a short period of time, she also has a knack for finding herself in the public eye. She also made it clear with her outrageous arrest of my client that she has a personal grudge against him.’

‘I would hardly call it an arrest,’ Max argued. ‘She placed him in loosened handcuffs after he twice disobeyed a request that he leave the crime scene. Once he was out of the apartment and in the hallway, she immediately removed the cuffs and gave Mr. Sparks another opportunity to stay out of the way, which he wisely took advantage of. Any other citizen in the same situation would have spent the night in Central Booking.’

Judge Bandon cut him off. ‘Are you seriously suggesting that Mr. Sparks should be treated just like any ordinary citizen?’

Max had warned Ellie that Judge Bandon might be starstruck by Sparks, but she had never imagined that she would hear a judge admit on open record the favoritism shown to the rich and powerful. She turned to glance at Genna Walsh, who was shaking her head in disgust.

‘What I mean to say,’ the judge said, catching himself, ‘is that Mr. Sparks was at that point known to Detective Hatcher, both as the owner of the property in question and as a respected member of this community. Those considerations would appear to undercut her decision to arrest him, however briefly. I must admit, I am troubled by what I see here.’

‘As well you should be,’ Guerrero added. ‘That same obsession with Mr. Sparks that caused her to jump the gun on that first night has distorted this investigation from the outset. Your Honor, we are outsiders to this investigation, and even we are aware of at least two far more credible theories as to motive for Robert Mancini’s murder.’

Guerrero ticked off his theories on two stubby fingers. ‘First, the police still – four months after the murder – have not identified the woman who by all appearances had sexual relations with the victim prior to the murder. Second, and separately, we have recently learned that the NYPD is conducting a drug investigation of the apartment directly next door to the apartment where this murder occurred.’

The movement of Ellie’s pen against her notebook stopped.

‘Could this have been a home invasion at the wrong address?’ Guerrero continued. ‘Have the police looked into that possibility?’

Home invasions were often the m.o. of choice in drug-related robberies, so one of the first steps she and Rogan had taken was to look into the possibility of a mistaken entry. Immediately after the murder, she had personally checked the department’s database of ongoing drug investigations. They even reached out to Narcotics to be certain. They found no addresses that might have been confused with Sparks’s apartment, let alone one on the very same floor.

‘With these two very important unanswered questions, Your Honor, it strikes us as quite audacious indeed for the police and the district attorney’s office to stand here demanding private information from my client as part of a fishing expedition while a killer runs free.’

‘I don’t like it either,’ Judge Bandon said, settling back into his overstuffed leather-backed chair. ‘The court is granting Mr. Sparks’s motion to quash the state’s subpoena –’

‘But, Your Honor –’

‘I’ve heard enough, Mr. Donovan. Interrupt me again, and there will be consequences. Under Zurcher v. Stanford Daily , the prosecution does have a right to obtain evidence from nonsuspect third parties, but only upon a showing of probable cause that the party has actual evidence to be found. There has been no such showing here. A written order will follow.’

Max lowered his head momentarily before he began packing his hearing materials into a brown leather briefcase. It was a subtle movement, but Ellie noticed. He was disappointed, and not merely about the court’s ruling. He’d warned her that morning that their chances weren’t good. But that small motion revealed a worry that he had let her down.

He glanced over his shoulder in her direction. His brown curly hair was bushier than usual; for a week he’d been trying to find time for a trim. His gray eyes looked tired, but when she lifted her chin toward him and winked, they smiled back at her.

The private exchange did not last long.

‘Your Honor!’ Guerrero’s exclamation was quickly followed by an audible sucking of air from Sam Sparks. They were both staring at her notebook, still open on her lap beneath her pen.

She felt Judge Bandon’s eyes follow their gaze.

‘I take it there’s more to see than tic-tac-toe boards and vector cubes?’

Silence fell across the courtroom.

‘Your notes, please, Detective Hatcher.’ It took him only the briefest glance before he called her back up to the witness stand. ‘I have a few questions of my own, Detective.’

2:45 p.m.

Megan Gunther

The twelve letters formed just two words – one name – on a screen filled with many other words about scores of other people on the NYU campus. But those two words – her name, as the header on a subject link of the Campus Juice Web site – had made the last three hours the longest one hundred and eighty minutes of her lifetime.