Cold Hit

by Linda Fairstein

  “Marklis make a decision? Listen, he’s got two toilets in the robing room and it usually takes him twenty minutes to figure out which one he wants to use. All depends on the troll factor.”

  Mercer and I both smiled. The officers referred to the petite law secretary, Ilse Konigsberg, as “the Troll.” Whatever she whispered in Marklis’s ear was bound to be the law of the case.

  It was exactly eleven twenty-eight on my watch when Marklis, short and stout, waddled through the door and took his seat at the bench as the clerk called us to order and asked everyone in the courtroom to rise. The defendant had been brought out from the pens minutes earlier, when his lawyer had entered the well.

  “Good morning, gentlemen. Miss Cooper. Why don’t you all state your appearances for the record, and then we’ll get started.”

  “Alexandra Cooper, for the People.” I spoke aloud and remained standing while the defense attorney, Danny Wistenson, spelled his name for the stenographer.

  “It’s now nine thirty-five, and we’re going to resume argument in the Bramwell case.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at Mercer and rolled my eyes in disgust. Marklis had long protected himself by making a phony record of the time of the proceedings. My colleagues and I had challenged him on any number of occasions, but I knew that if I tried it today, it would seal my fate in the argument I was about to make. His arrogant grin confirmed that he knew he had me.

  “I have the papers you submitted in support of your Molineux application, Ms. Cooper. Do you have anything to add this morning?” It was clear that he was hoping I did not.

  “I do, Your Honor.” I rose to my feet, but before I started to lay out the law that supported my position, Marklis went on.

  “You know, evidence of a defendant’s prior crime can’t be admitted at a trial for the sole purpose of showing that he has the propensity to commit the crimes he’s now charged with.”

  “I do know that, Judge Marklis.” He’d obviously done the minimum amount of homework necessary to get through this process. “But Molineux makes it quite clear that it’s admissible when it’s probative of his motive, his intent, and a common scheme or plan.

  “In the instant case, Bramwell’s prior threats and assaults on Ms. Catano are ‘inextricably interwoven,’ using the language in the Vails opinion, and-”

  “You got that cite, Counselor?” Marklis swung his chair around and pointed at Wistenson.

  “It’s in Ms. Cooper’s brief, but I’d like to be heard on this, Your Honor.”

  “I’m not finished, Judge.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve got about all I need on this point, dear.”

  I turned away from the bench, steaming at Marklis’s laziness and choice of appellation. At some point during the argument, Chapman had slipped into the courtroom and joined Mercer in the front row on the far side of the rail. I read his lips as he mouthed to me, “I love it when you’re angry.”

  As I walked toward the detectives, I asked over my shoulder, “Judge, may I have a few minutes?” and kept moving without waiting for a response.

  “When you put your hands on your hips, blondie, it’s a dead giveaway. Temper, temper.”

  The diminutive judge stepped down from his seat and walked over to whisper to Ms. Konigsberg. Chapman couldn’t resist another crack, looking at the huddle of two small figures, like conspiring Munchkins. “What’s going on, Coop? Looks like a wrap party for The Wizard of Oz. ”

  “Don’t get me in any more trouble with Marklis. How come you’re down here so early?”

  “Caxton played cute with the memorial service. Ten o’clock this morning. Invitation only-just a handful of friends, and Daughtry wasn’t among them. My guy inside says the husband wants to wait until the fall, when everyone is back from summer vacation, before he holds a real memorial. Wouldn’t want to slight all the artists and clients who couldn’t get here on short notice. But you better cut this exercise in futility short, ’cause we need some help.”

  “With what?”

  “Looks like we found the car Deni’s body was transported in. Need you to do a warrant.”

  “Great. How’d you get it?”

  “Uniform cop in the Bronx noticed an abandoned station wagon this morning. Not far from the water. K- 9 Unit took a dog up there a little while ago and got a positive hit. Looks like there’s blood on a canvas tarp in the back, too.”

  “Any plates? Whose is it?”

  “Stripped clean. VIN number’s been scratched out a bit, but the computer still came up with a list of possibilities.”

  “And?”

  “One of them comes back to an employee who works in Deni’s Chelsea gallery. Bingo.”

  I stepped back and smiled at the judge. “That’s it, Your Honor. No further argument. We’ll rest on our papers.” I grabbed my files off the table and followed Mercer and Mike out of the courtroom.

  9

  Laura tried to pass the telephone to me as I swept through her alcove. “It’s Rose. She just wants to warn you that Battaglia said he’d like an update on the Caxton investigation.”

  “Tell her that he’ll have it by the end of the day.”

  Mike was at my desk, using the private line. “It’s a girl!” This time I grabbed the receiver out of his hand. Sarah’s baby had been born during the night, and she was calling to tell us about it, urging us to come visit Janine as soon as possible.

  “You okay?”

  “Much easier this time. When are you coming up to the hospital? I’ll only be here until Wednesday.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll come see her tonight or tomorrow. Give her a kiss and tell her we’ll all be up the first break we get.” I placed the phone back in its cradle.

  “See, Alex, that’s what you should be doing with your life instead of chasing around after scumbags like we do all day.”

  “You’re beginning to sound like my grandmother.” I turned to Mike as I sat down at my desk. “Have you ever done one of these before? I mean, a search warrant based on a dog as the informant?”

  “No, but I got the officer right outside who knows how.” He walked to the door of my office and signaled to a plainclothes cop who was reading the Daily News on a chair in the hallway. “This is Detective Loquesto,” he said, introducing me to a sandy-haired man with a crooked smile that seemed to align with his long, hooked nose. “Armando, meet Alex Cooper.”

  “Good to meet you. Thanks for the break.”

  “Don’t thank me,” he said. “Tego did it. Latin word for ‘I protect.’ I’m just the handler; the dog does the heavy lifting.”

  “Can you walk me through the affidavit?”

  “No problem-do it all the time.”

  I pulled up my standard search warrant application form on the computer, quickly punching in the information Chapman fed me about the target automobile, a ’ 91 light blue Chevy wagon, partial vehicle identification number 6683493, registered to Omar Sheffield.

  “How’d you connect Sheffield to one of the Caxton galleries?” I asked.

  Mercer spoke up. “Caxton’s aide, Maurizio, faxed me a list of all the employees. It was on my desk when I walked in today. Also had the names of some of Denise’s clients-said we’d have to get the rest of them from Daughtry.”

  I fleshed out the paragraph delineating that there is reasonable cause to believe that we might find blood, hair, fibers, fingerprints, and other evidence of the presence of the body of Denise Caxton. Then I added in the “moreover” clause, asking the judge to believe that this property was used to commit or conceal the commission of a crime.

  It was essential to explain to the court how, when, and where the body of the deceased had been found, and that her death was the result of a homicide. When I finished that paragraph, I looked up at Armando for help. “Now what?”

  “You gotta throw in some background about me and Tego.”

  I typed in his name and shield. “Your command?”

  “NYPD Emergency Services, K- 9 Unit.” He told me
how many years he’d been on the force and what his training had been to qualify him for this special duty. “Tego’s got four years on the job-specializing in cadaver duty.”

  “What?” I knew German shepherds were used to great advantage in police work, trained to identify the scents of bomb materials and controlled substances. This one was new to me.

  “True. He’s like Chapman-death is his specialty. Sniffs it out and loves it.”

  “How do you train them for that?”

  “There are a couple of chemicals that simulate cadaver odors-”

  “Yeah, Coop, and Chanel doesn’t make ’em,” Mike cut in. “So don’t try and seduce me by dousing yourself in ’em.”

  Armando continued. “They’re called Cadaverine and Pseudocorpse-both are artificial commercial scents. The dogs practice by smelling body parts, corpses, crime scene areas. Then we sprinkle some of the fake stuff on items like you’d find at a scene and let them go to work.”

  “Tell her what you give them when they come up with a body.”

  “Three treats and a rawhide pull toy, just like if he’d brought home your missing slipper.”

  I improvised a few paragraphs about Tego’s training and the fact that he had completed more than sixty tests in the company of Detective Loquesto.

  “What else do I need?”

  “You gotta say what the dog did when he got to the target. The Chevy was parked in a row of nine cars. In training we call it a ‘marked reaction,’ which-”

  “What’d he do, exactly?”

  Chapman was impatient and anxious for me to complete the warrant. “He went ape, like you do when you see Alex Trebek. Drooling, panting-”

  “Pretty close,” Loquesto said. “He sniffed next to the right rear passenger door, then ran around to the back of the wagon. He jumped up against it and began pawing at it, whining and scratching like it’d get him inside. I looked in- window was slightly tinted-and there’s a dark stain on a canvas-colored matting. Then I pulled Tego away and took him one at a time to the doors of each other car. No reaction at all.”

  I finished the application with the routine language, respectfully asking the court for a warrant and order of seizure. “As soon as the lunch break is over, we’ll go down and get the judge who’s sitting in the arraignment part to sign it, okay? Anybody want me to call in something to eat?”

  “Nah, we’ll grab a bite on our way to the Bronx.”

  “Okay. I’ll open a grand jury investigation this afternoon so I can start some phone company subpoenas for muds and luds on the Caxton telephones-home and galleries.” Contrary to what most people thought, prosecutors have no power to subpoena people or evidence to their offices. It was only the authority of the grand jury in New York, not the district attorneys, that enabled the request for a witness to produce documentary evidence. “Who’s looking for Omar?”

  “ My job,” Mercer said. “Since the gallery’s closed today, there’s no activity at all. The address on the Motor Vehicles Bureau records-for Omar’s residence-is in Brooklyn.”

  “Before I came up to the courtroom,” Mike went on, “I called the boss at the Eighty-fourth Precinct and asked them to do a drive-by of that address. Desk sergeant beeped me back and said it’s a burned-out building. Mercer’ll be working on it this afternoon.”

  My paralegal, Maxine, came into the room and greeted the trio of cops. “This looks like the wrong time to ask, but what do I do with a walk-in who just arrived now for her ten-thirty appointment?”

  “Who is she?” I looked at my watch, noting that the woman was more than three hours late.

  “Her name’s Unique Matthews. Says she’s here to see Janice-O’Riley, but Janice has to do a preliminary hearing all afternoon.”

  “This one’s the prostitute who was raped at gunpoint by the trucker on Houston Street, right?”

  “Yep.” Maxine smiled and motioned discreetly with her thumb for me to look out the doorway to Laura’s desk. A young woman was towering over my secretary, balancing on four-inch platform sandals with straps that wrapped up to her knees. The cheeks of her buttocks were hanging well below the bottom of her shorts, and her cleavage strained against the skimpy cut of her fuchsia cotton tank T-shirt, exposing a tattoo of Mickey Mouse on her inner left breast, outlined against her dark skin. Unique was chewing a wad of gum and sipping from a large bottle of Yoo-Hoo.

  I called out to the witness, knowing that there would be no particularly good reason for her tardiness. “Unique, how come you’re so late today? You were supposed to testify this morning.”

  She took the straw out of her mouth and sneered at me, certain that I could not understand how hard it had been to rouse herself for something as relatively unimportant as her court appearance. “I overslept.”

  “Why don’t you take her across the street to Catherine’s office?” I said to Max. This was going to take more experience and a firmer hand than Janice had with these cases. “Let her work with Unique for a couple of hours.”

  Chapman patted Max on the back. “Remind O’Riley of Cooper’s basic commands. Never make a morning appointment for a hooker. Like vampires, they don’t thrive in daylight. C’mon, blondie. Let Mercer get on his way. Me and Armando’ll come down to court with you to get the warrant signed.”

  “Armando and I.”

  “What else do you do in your spare time besides give grammar lessons? Wellesley meets the NYPD. Now that’s an exercise in futility.”

  I stopped at Laura’s desk and asked her to check the docket assignment sheet. “Who’s sitting in arraignments this week?”

  “You’ve got Roger Hayes in AR 1 and John Reick in AR 2.”

  Mercer chided me. “Judge shopping, Alex? My money’s on AR 1. I’ll check in with both of you as soon as I get back from Brooklyn.”

  Mike, Armando, and I took the circuitous route to the first-floor arraignment parts, down the interior stairway one flight and over to the elevator bank that serviced the courtrooms and stopped on only a single floor of the District Attorney’s Office, as a security measure. As usual the wait for a functioning elevator going in the right direction seemed interminable. And walking the hallways with Chapman was more of a social occasion than a business trip. He had worked with and partied with every senior assistant in the office at one time or another. He was a legendary storyteller, a great foil for people’s jokes, and the best investigator that most of us would ever encounter in the NYPD.

  The double swinging doors of AR 1 pushed open as I entered behind Mike. Families and friends of prisoners arrested within the last twenty-four hours and awaiting their first appearances before the judge filled rows of benches on both sides of the room. Some mothers looked tearful and anxious, waiting for word from the Legal Aid attorneys that their sons would be coming home today, while other relatives slept soundly despite the noise and activity, clearly accustomed to the routine of this process.

  We made our way down to the front row, saved for attorneys and police officers, and I scooted into the only available seat, between two uniformed cops who were dozing until their cases were called. Mike and Armando sat behind me, scrunched between an elderly Hasidic Jew dressed in his traditional black overcoat and an obese Latina woman who was whining some kind of prayer over and over again under her breath.

  The air-conditioning wasn’t working and the windows were so tall in the two-story room that there was no way for the crew to open them for fresh air. Everyone in the well of the courtroom-lawyers, stenographer, officers, and clerks-was fanning with different files or sheaves of papers. The stench was unbearable.

  As soon as Judge Hayes made eye contact with me, he waved me up to the bench. As I rose, Chapman grabbed my shoulder. “I’m coming with you. This place smells like a broad I used to date.”

  “May we approach, Your Honor?” I asked as I closed the swinging gate that separated the benches from the counsel tables.

  “Absolutely, Ms. Cooper. We’ll take a ten-minute recess, folks,” Hayes announced, eliciti
ng groans from almost everyone in the gallery. “Why don’t we all go into the robing room? Will we need a reporter?”

  “Yes sir.”

  Hayes had been one of my first supervisors in the District Attorney’s Office when I started there, more than ten years ago. I respected his judgment and valued his guidance and friendship enormously.

  Mike, Armando, and I followed Hayes out of the courtroom and into the small chambers behind it that served the arraignment part. He normally sat as a trial jurist in Supreme Court but was serving a week’s rotation in this duty since so many of the judges took vacation time during July and August. Hayes greeted Mike and me warmly, and we introduced him to Armando.

  “I’d tell you to make yourselves comfortable, but that’s obviously not possible.”

  The small room was bare except for an old wooden desk, three chairs, and a black rotary telephone that hung on the wall. It was painted the institutional green that must have been bought in vatloads by the city of New York fifty years ago and was now chipped and peeling from every corner and molding. Next to the phone, written on the wall in ink, were the numbers of most of the delis and pizza joints within a mile’s radius, jotted there by lazy court officers who called out for deliveries during the meal break of night court.

  I explained our visit to the judge, and we went on the record with the stenographer so that he could make the appropriate inquiries before signing the warrant.

  “Everything seems to be in order, Alex.” He initialed the papers and chatted with Mike while I went back to the clerk to have the official seal put on the documents. As the court officer gaveled the crowd back into order and Hayes resumed his position on the bench, we left the courtroom with exactly what we needed to move the investigation forward.

  The rear entrance of the immense Criminal Courts Building was adjacent to AR 1. Mike took his copy of the paperwork from me, and he and Armando headed for the door while I started to retrace my steps back up to my office.