Cold Hit

got fewer than a hundred samples from convicted rapists and murderers.”

Legislation created genetic data banks in most states across the country during the late nineties, but few of their labs were equipped to process the information collected from inmates and create the pools from which to search for repeat offenders, until quite recently. It would be unlikely to get a hit on this serial rapist, who had been operating on the streets of Manhattan since the days before the law enabled the collection of blood samples from incarcerated prisoners.

Jaffer continued to describe the team’s approach. Last week the department sketch artist, working with several of the victims, had completed a composite that was being distributed to stores and residences throughout the precinct-the “generic male black,” as Mercer liked to describe the suspect. Medium complexion, average height, average build, between twenty-five and thirty-five years old, possible mustache, close-cropped hair, no distinguishing features, scars, or marks. Before too long, every African American adult male who set foot north of Sixtieth Street and south of Eighty-sixth Street, between Central Park West and Riverside Drive, would be stopped and questioned. Neighbors would be turning in their deliverymen or elevator operators, and good citizens would be frisked by anxious and weary cops, each one hoping to get a lucky break and catch the compulsive rapist.

“Stop dancing around, Pridgen. I’m getting to you. What else is your crew doing about this one?”

The sergeant stood to answer. “We’ve got Traffic giving out summonses on the midnight tour, tagging all the unregistered and uninsured plates. Mounted’s working the area on weekends, which is mostly when he hits.”

I could see Lunetta rolling his eyes even as I stared at the rear of his head. Mounted cops riding up and down West End Avenue at midnight on a Saturday. Not the most subtle way to patrol the neighborhood. Even the rapist might catch on and change his movements.

Pridgen continued. “We’ve called in the Profiling Unit at Quantico and-”

Say the magic word and the duck comes down, hitting Lunetta square on the head. “Feds? Feds? Whose stupid idea is that? Aren’t you guys up to handling this one yourself? Answer me, Pridgen. Whose idea was it?”

Lunetta saw Pridgen flash a glance in my direction. “ District attorney calling the shots on this one, Sarge? You just sit back and let them take right over and run the show, huh? Maybe you’re moonlighting on the side, too busy to do major investigations? We got an opening over at the auto pound, looking after towed vehicles, if you think this is too tough for you. What does Cooper use on you guys anyway, a nose ring? Just leads you around on a leash all day? Let me know if you start rolling over on your back or baying at the moon.”

The woman researcher from Justice bit into her lip and looked at me for a reaction. I didn’t know whether I was blushing for Pridgen or for myself. I ripped some paper from my legal pad and dashed off a note to Lunetta, passing it forward, in which I asked his permission to explain where we were going with the investigation. By the time it reached him, was opened and read, he had continued to pepper the sergeant with questions and then kept on going at Pridgen even harder, choosing to ignore my offer. If he had intended to call on me before I asked to speak, I had just sealed my fate by assuring him that I wanted to give him answers to these questions.

“Last week’s attack-was this girl coming from one of those Columbus Avenue bars, too?”

“No sir,” Pridgen answered.

“Where from, then?”

“Actually, her boyfriend drove her home, just before two in the morning. Let her out of the car about half a block from her apartment, up at the corner. She walked to the front of the building alone. The rapist pushed in behind her, after she unlocked the vestibule door.”

“So much for the boyfriend. I guess chivalry’s dead, wouldn’t you say, Sergeant? I want some progress on this one before the next time you come back here. Take your seats. I want the Three-four up now. Let’s hear about last night’s homicide.”

Chairs pushed back and the podium assembly changed over, with Lieutenant Peterson and Chapman accompanying the CO up to the stand.

The general precinct figures were good. Lunetta was pleased that the deputy inspector in charge had taken the story of one of his burglary patterns to a local cable TV program, ?Que Pasa NY?, which resulted in an informant breaking the case. He liked that kind of creative policing, as he would call it. What he never had liked was wisecracking, not even back when he had been Chapman’s boss in the Street Crime Unit, almost a decade earlier.

“Who’s going to bring me up to speed on the new case?”

Peterson pointed at Chapman and stepped aside. Mike rested his notes on the podium and ran his fingers through his thick dark hair. He dug one hand into the pocket of his blazer, then started his description of how he was summoned to the scene. He was thorough, detailed, and professional-the best homicide cop in the business- but I fidgeted and recrossed my legs when he got to the end of the narrative and closed his description with Dr. Fleisher’s directive to load “Gert” into the EMS van.

“ ‘Gert’? I didn’t know she’d been identified.” Lunetta was annoyed. His head whipped from side to side as he checked with each of his aides to see if they had failed to give him the morning update on the city’s most visible crime of the moment. The case was the cover of both daily tabloids, and he should have had the newest information about the unfortunate victim before the public did.

“She hasn’t been identified yet, Chief.”

“Well, is her name Gert, or isn’t it?”

Don’t go there, Chief, I urged quietly from the peanut gallery. All of us who worked with Mike knew that he named his victims in every case. Always did it, and often stuck with his nickname, no matter what the eventual I.D.-his own perverse way of personalizing his cases.

“I call her that, Chief, so she’s not just some number, some cold statistic for the mayor to get off on. I named this one in honor of Gertrude Ederle-three Olympic medals and the English Channel. I figure, given the way somebody tried to send her to sleep with the fishes for keeps, she must have had the soul of a great swimmer to stay afloat.”

There were a few snickers around the room, but most of the group knew it wasn’t the safest direction to follow.

Lunetta wouldn’t bite twice. He moved away to the next questions. “What are you looking at here?”

Chapman went on. “After the autopsy results today, we’ll work on a press release and sketch.”

“Can’t you give the papers a photo from the scene-a closeup? Get an I.D. more quickly?”

“I don’t think the way she looked coming out of the water is the way any of her loved ones would want to see her featured. We’re working with Missing Persons and each of the precincts.”

“You checking every area that borders the creek? May turn out to be a Bronx homicide after all, Chapman. The numbers get tallied in the precinct where the crime occurred, you know.”

“I don’t care where she dove in, Chief. We got her now.”

Fat chance, Lunetta. Count it as an outer-borough murder so we keep the Manhattan numbers down? Nope, I’m with Chapman. She landed here, and no matter where she was killed, that gives us jurisdiction.

“I see from the newspapers that you had Miss Cooper up at the scene last night. You throwing in the towel, too, Detective? Ready to call in the Feds? I can’t help but wonder what it is you need a pet D.A. for at all these crime scenes and station houses. D’you carry her lipstick case for her, or her hairbrush?” The chief smirked at his put-down, jabbing the detective and me in the same thrust.

But trying to embarrass Chapman that way wouldn’t quite work. He’d simply use the opportunity to get more laughs, even if they would be at my expense. “No, no, sir. She never lets me near the makeup. You know me, Chief-I’m strictly a leg man. I’m in charge of her spare panty hose. Each time there’s a run in one of those suckers, I pull out a replacement pair. Best I can do at the moment.”

A couple of my friends around the room raised their eyes cautiously to meet mine, to make sure I was rolling with the flow. Not a problem. Battaglia had trained me well. I could control my short fuse with the knowledge I’d get some shots back at the chief eventually. The district attorney might even take them on my behalf.

Lunetta’s number-two man leaned over and whispered something to him, flipping through the briefing book to an earlier page. He scanned it and looked up. “Is that case of the body that came out of the East River last month related to this one, you think? That’s still open, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but no connection. That one, a homeless man was fishing, hooked up and pulled an arm out of the water. Right out of its socket, actually. Scuba went in and found the rest of the body, weighted down with concrete blocks. She’d been in the water more than half a year. Feet bound, ligature round the neck. That’s a mob case-got