a good snitch who’s working with us. We know who we’re looking for, just haven’t been able to find him yet.”
Great restraint, Mikey. He had resisted the temptation to tell Lunetta that he had christened that victim “Venus.” A onearmed Italian woman in a cement overcoat didn’t lend herself to any appellation except Venus de Milo.
The aide whispered to Lunetta again. “We had Bronx South here on Wednesday of last week. They’ve got a rape pattern as well in a couple of the housing projects. You might check over there to see if there are any similarities.”
Chapman looked less than interested. The likelihood that the well-groomed, silk-clad woman he had dubbed Gert had anything to do with ghetto dwellings in a run-down neighborhood that wasn’t his official territory didn’t engage him very seriously.
Lunetta listed off a punch list of places to go and things to do that would have been elementary for a rookie homicide detective. Mike listened patiently and assured the chief that as soon as they figured out who the deceased was, he’d be off and running. “I assume we’ll know who she is by the end of the day.”
“That’s great, Chapman. Then I’ll expect an arrest within the week. Maybe next time you’ll do a better job keeping the shutterbugs away from the scene you’re working. No reason for a case like this to be front-page news, except for the photo opportunity you gave them. Now it’ll take a couple of days to make these headlines go away.”
Lunetta finished snapping at Chapman, looked around the room, and announced to the bosses, “I think you gentlemen realize how much the commissioner hates it when this kind of thing happens. Tourists aren’t scared away by drug dealers killing each other off on their own turf or gang members shooting other gang members to death. But if this woman turns out to be an innocent victim of violence, I don’t think I have to tell you what it means to the city. Last night, at a fundraiser, the mayor was just telling his supporters that murders in New York had dropped to their lowest numbers in more than a quarter of a century-when he got word of this mess.” Lunetta scanned the brass arrayed in front of him. “That’s the point of all these exercises-in case it’s slipped your minds. Letting everyone know how safe this city has become. Our homicide rate hasn’t been this good since nineteen sixty-one.”
Chapman made sure he muttered into the microphone as he picked up his notes and pocketed them. “I hate to burst Hizzoner’s bubble, but I gotta tell you his numbers are small comfort to the broad who’s laid out in a refrigerator up at the morgue, waiting for her last physical.”
Mike spent most of the short walk over to my office, three blocks north of One Police Plaza, trying to worm his way back into my good graces. I was used to being the butt of Chapman’s humor and had long ago stopped letting it get to me. It was not even ten thirty and I was already more bothered by the oppressive heat that had blanketed the ugly stretch of asphalt that ran in front of the city and state buildings along Centre Street.
“Aren’t you going to be late for court?” he asked me as we rounded the corner and I stopped at the cart to buy us each another round of coffee. Mike called up to the vendor to throw in a cruller for him, too. “Couldn’t eat a thing last night. Kept looking into that hole in the back of Gert’s head every time I closed my eyes.”
“No court on Friday. The defendant’s a Muslim. Today’s his holy day,” I answered, hanging my identification tag on a chain around my neck as we approached the entrance to the District Attorney’s Office.
“Reggie Bramwell’s a Muslim? I collared him on a gun case five years ago, and he was a full-press Baptist then. I’m sure of it.”
“Jailhouse conversion, Mike,” I said, pushing through the revolving doors and holding the security gate open for one of my colleagues who was on her way out of the building, headed toward the other courthouse, pushing a shopping cart loaded with evidence. “A week ago Thursday, in fact. Must have been a deeply religious experience. Someone at Rikers Island convinced him of the joys of the three-day workweek. The judge uses Wednesday as a calendar day, and the prisoner-Reggie Bramwell, now also known to the court as Reggie X-gets to worship on Friday. Just prolongs my agony for a few days. In fact, I think he’s just doing this because he knows I wanted some vacation time this month-and if he can’t go to the beach, why should I?”
We waited for one of the three elevators to return to the lobby floor, while a small commotion started behind us. “Alex, tell this jerk who I am, will you please?” a familiar voice called out.
My colleague Pat McKinney was standing in front of the security counter dressed in his running clothes, which were drenched with sweat, arguing with the officer on duty. Pat’s already reddened complexion was deepening and appeared to spreading to the tips of his ears and down his neck.
“I’m telling you I left my I.D. on top of that pad next to the telephone before I went out at nine thirty. Now, if somebody moved it or walked off with it, that’s
The cop, obviously a summer replacement who was stuck with this security detail, didn’t recognize the deputy chief of the Trial Division. Most of us who jogged from time to time during our lunch hours had taken to leaving our photo identification tags at the entrance desk and picking them up on our way back in. The officers from the Fifth Precinct who regularly worked the desk knew most of us by sight and held the tags in a pile on the corner of the counter, behind the bank of telephones. I had no time for running these days, because of my hearings, and no inclination either, because of the intense heat. McKinney, who liked to take his daily jog earlier than the lunch hour break during the hot summer months, was probably more aggravated by the fact that this police officer didn’t recognize him than that the officer had misplaced his only means of official access to the building.
I held the bucking elevator door open with my left arm and started to explain to the officer that I would vouch for McKinney, despite the fact that he hated my guts.
Chapman nudged me out of the way by bumping his hip up against mine and clamping his hand on the button that said
“That’ll do wonders to break the ice between me and my supervisor, don’t you think?” I asked as I pressed the button for the eighth floor and replaced my sunglasses in their case.
“What’s the difference? McKinney hasn’t had a decent word to say about you in the entire time you’ve been here. Screw him. Who’s going to miss him for the next half hour, his girlfriend?”
“What girlfriend? You mean Ellen? She just works for him, she’s not his girlfriend.”
We got off the elevator and headed for my office.
“Don’t tell me you’re as gullible as his wife, Coop. All that platonic crap? ‘Beep me, darling, I’m working on a gun bust tonight with the cops. Field assignment. Midnight grand jury.’ You know anybody else in the Trial Division who gets the kind of close supervision Ellen does? One on one, behind closed doors? Trust me. Next time he gives you any trouble, I’ll run interference for you.”
My secretary, Laura, had a smile on her face by the time we came into view, no doubt hearing Mike’s voice as we made our way down the hall together. He broke into his best Smokey Robinson imitation as she began to go through the morning’s messages with me. She sailed through the first six, all of which could be returned later, accompanied by Mike’s humming and finger snapping. When he broke out his modified lyrics-“And in case you go to court, then a lawyer is the one you want to see… but in case you want love, Laura… call on me”-I gave up the battle and went in to my desk to see what else awaited me.
I opened the desk drawer and took three extra-strength Tylenols. The fatigue of the trial schedule on top of my usual duties supervising the Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit had been wearing me down. Sarah Brenner, my close friend and second in command, had been ordered by her obstetrician to stay at home, since she was already three days overdue with her second child. I had all weekend to complete the legal memorandum the judge in the Reggie X case expected from me on Monday, so I decided to focus first on the queries from the other lawyers in the unit.
“Who sounded more critical?” I called out to Laura.
“If I were you, I’d get Patti down here first. Want me to call her?”
“Yeah. Then back her up with Ryan, please.”
Mike took off his navy blazer and hung it on the back of one of the chairs before picking up the pile of morning
