gay black woman, I’m your gal.”
“Great. Welcome aboard.” He stuck out his hand and they shook. The skin of her hand was silky, her handshake was anything but.
“You draw the line, we’ll listen. Phil was our first ADA, you’ll be the second. Thing about Phyllis? She set her own rules. Very demanding on the crew but not intransigent. And I will tell you, we can be contentious as hell at times.”
“I’m a trial lawyer, remember? Contentious is my middle name.”
“Here’s the deal. There’s only two things you can’t do. Because you’re the ADA, that means you can’t actively work a case. Might be considered conflict of interest. But you can be an observer so you’ll do everything everybody else does. You’ll watch how we make entries, how we sweep a crime scene, how Wolf works the scene, even occasionally sit in on an autopsy. You’ll monitor the case as we work it and the crew will consider you one of us. And you will be except you will tell us what we can and can’t do and when a case is ready.”
“You said there are two things I can’t do.”
“You can’t carry a detective’s badge. Also a conflict of interest. It always pissed Phil off, the thing about the badge. When she left I gave her one as a going away present.”
“I know. It’s pinned in her wallet. Works like a charm for speeding and parking tickets.”
“But you do get this,” Cody said and put a small baby blue Tiffany box in front of her. She took the box and shook it like a kid on Christmas morning. Then she opened it slowly and unfolded the tissue paper. It was a sterling silver whistle with “KW” engraved on it.
“Just like the cops used to carry in the old days,” she said without looking at him. She caressed it as if it were a diamond ring.
“Wear it all the time. We all have one. You ever get in trouble blow the tweeter out of it.”
“Thank you,” she said, stroking it with a finger. She was in, part of the gang. For her money, a dream job. The hint of a tear crept into the corner of one eye.
“And don’t get weepy on me,” Cody said. “It’s like baseball, there’s no crying in copville.”
The phone rang, ending the interview.
10
“Yeah?” Cody said.
It was Hue. “Sorry to bother you, Cap, but we got a hit.”
“Where?”
“On Handley. Both ends. The limo driver.”
“Very good.”
“Also Wolf is finished at the scene and on his way back with Handley. And get this: They threw a blanket over Handley and carried him and the chair out. He said not to worry, he’ll give the chair back.”
Cody chuckled. “I won’t even try to guess what that’s all about. You ready?”
“Ready to rock. Look at the big board.”
Small red stars were blinking on the huge Manhattan map at all three addresses. He moved his glance to the running clock on top of the board. It told him they were two hours and ten minutes into the show.
“Showtime in five.”
“Gotcha.”
He hung up the phone and snapped his fingers, looking at Kate.
“I’ll run the cast by you real fast, we’ll worry about introductions after the briefing.
He pointed to the staff as he named them:
“Lt. Frank Rizzo ex-homicide. An old timer, first cop I asked to join the squad. A book guy, as good as they come. A widower.
“I’m sure you know Max Wolfsheim. He’s next door, got his own lab. He’s doing his magic with his current assistant, Annie Rothschild. Annie’s got a Ph. D. in chemistry, speaks Russian. How she ended up here is a book in itself.”
“Calvin Bergman. Newest member of the squad, active liaison with the rest of NYPD. Rich kid who quit med school and joined the force. His family disowned him. Next to Hue, the highest IQ on the team and loves RR. Also speaks French and Swedish. He made the catch this morning and I made the entry with him.
“Vinnie Hue you know, but there’s a lot you don’t know.
“The black guy with the dreadlocks is Sgt. Jonee Ansa. Ex-vice, homicide, bunko. Name it, he’s done it. He knows this town better than anyone on the crew but Larry Simon.
“Wow DeMarco is Hispanic and an ex-Crip. That was a long time ago. I don’t know where he picked up the nickname Wow. He’s never said. I think his first name is Horatio but he’s never mentioned that either.
“Butch Ryan is a one-time Westie. Brother’s a NY Fireman, straightened him out. Been a cop for twenty years. Incidentally Butch is his given name. I think his mother had the hots for Paul Newman. He’s also deaf in one ear.”
She looked stunned. “How does he pass the physical?”
Cody grinned. “We have a compassionate doctor,” he said and went on. “And finally there’s Larry Simon. A very special little man. I’ll tell you more about him later.
“And there’s you,” she said.
“Yup. Your desk is right there.”
He pointed to the empty desk closest to his office. There was a headset and a cell phone on it and a briefcase sitting beside it.
“Bring your own lamp and chair. Phil took hers with her. The briefcase has all your goodies in it. The. 38 is registered to you but I hope you never have to take it out. The headset is on intercom so you just press the button when you have a question or something to say.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “you all know Kate Winters. She was crazy enough to accept our invitation to become the new ADA. Get sociable later. Hue, it’s yours.”
Winters was immediately entranced by the briefing itself and a format that was as swift and detailed as Cody’s introduction to the TAZ.
Hue started by zooming into the brownstone scene pointing out that there was a ten-foot alley between it and the apartment west of it. A narrow fire escape led from the kitchen door of Handley’s apartment to the ground with a short landing at the back door of the vacant apartment.
The big screen dissolved to a couple of shots of the labeled footprints on the carpeting, and Cody’s analysis that someone else had entered the apartment between the time Wilma had straightened it up in the afternoon and Handley’s entrance later that night. He held up the baggie containing the mask.
“This was also in his briefcase,” Cody said, “We’ll get to it later.” He nodded to Hue.
Finally: The shot of Handley’s naked corpse, handcuffed to the chair, his mouth agape with the handball stuffed in it, eyes half-opened and terrified, the deadly gash in his throat. No blood.
Somebody in the room muttered, “Holy Christ!” Otherwise there was no response.
Cody paused at that point leaving the photo on the board. “I’m sure Wolf will have an interesting explanation of that enigma,” he said.
Then he promptly did a flashback: a shot copied from a photograph of Handley in the bedroom showing a handsome man in suit and tie smiling into the camera.
“This is our victim in better days,” he said. “You will each get a copy of the shot in your package.”
Bergman followed with background on Handley: thirty-five years old, parents both deceased; father killed in a skiing accident when Handley was a tike; raised with his sister as a ward of the State; scored a full scholarship to Princeton where he was a whiz kid; a Phi Beta Kappa hired the day he graduated by Marx, Stembler and Trexler; his steady rise to vice president of the brokerage firm and his pending marriage to Victor Stembler’s daughter, Linda.
Bergman held up the black book, which he pointed out, was a literal biography of the dead man.
“So much for the skin and bones,” Cody said. “Now let’s get to the heart of the matter.”
