yet, that DNA made this case stronger than an eyewitness identification.
Warren stared his victim down and shook his head from side to side.
I finished my direct with questions about the medical examination she underwent that night and the clothing her assailant had worn.
'That's his,' she said, when I handed her the long-sleeved yellow shirt with large white polka dots. 'I could see the pattern in the dark. I watched his hand, even when I was face down on the bed, because I kept trying to see what he was doing with the knife.'
'Did the defendant take anything from you?' I asked.
'Yes, Ms. Cooper. He stole six dollars-all single bills-that were in a handbag on the chair next to my door.' Kerry Hastings looked back at the jurors. 'And he stole my life.'
'I have no further questions, Your Honor.'
'Mr. Grassley, are you ready to proceed?'
'Yes, sir.'
Grassley had been watching the jury's reaction, trying to gauge whether the old-fashioned attack on this victim's character would work. He was clever enough to realize that it probably would not. Instead, he opted for the classic post-rape shield law defense-that Kerry Hastings had indeed been subjected to a devastating experience but that Floyd Warren had been railroaded by the prosecution-an argument made even easier by Ernesto Abreu's well-timed courtroom explosion.
The cross-examination of Kerry Hastings, the experience that had crippled her so completely at the first trial, lasted only twelve minutes this time. No one was more surprised than she when Judge Lamont told her she could step down from the stand.
The afternoon moved just as quickly. We were barely into the evidence before Rosemarie Quiggley, a forensic biologist from the medical examiner's office, testified about her analysis of the stain found on Hastings's underpants. Although she, too, had not even been born when the rape occurred, Quiggley described the robust nature of seminal KILLER HEAT 69 fluid-its ability to be a viable test source after three decades in the back of a file cabinet-and the DNA profile it yielded.
'Did you also examine the swab taken from the mouth of Floyd Warren after his arrest by Detective Mercer Wallace?'
'Yes, I did.'
'And were you able to compare those two samples?'
'Yes. I compared the two DNA profiles and determined that they were a perfect match at fourteen of the loci studied.'
'Would you please tell the jury how many people in the world,' I said, 'exactly how many people on this planet, would have a profile identical to this one?'
'Ms. Cooper, if you looked at the DNA of a trillion-with a 't'- that is,
The day ended at five forty-five with Mercer's testimony about the arrest of the defendant.
When Mercer and I got back to my office, there was a note taped to my door from Laura Wilkie. She assured me that Kerry Hastings had been driven to her hotel by two detectives from the District Attorney's Office Squad and that Mercer should call her there.
He picked up my phone to dial just as Mike Chapman entered the room.
'Heard you had a good day in court, if you don't count the shoutouts.' Mike was wearing a navy blue windbreaker, with the crisp white logo of the NYPD on his chest, and jeans with a freshly pressed crease down the front.
'Even better for Kerry. I think she's really relieved.'
'You got your summation ready for tomorrow?' He knew my habits. I'd been taught by the great litigators who broke me in to craft my closing arguments before the trial began. It always gave tighter structure to the presentation of the case.
'Would you like a sneak preview, Mr. Chapman? I could use some practice on a thoroughly skeptical citizen of the state.'
'No, thanks. Floyd Warren's dead meat, unless you blow it for us.'
'You taking Mercer for a drink? That's a very dressed-down look for you, Detective.'
'It's my body-in-a-swamp best, Coop.'
I lowered my summation folder and looked at Mike. 'What body? What do you mean swamp?'
'This time it's Elise Huff.'
Mercer hung up the receiver. 'Where?'
'An anonymous call came into 911 an hour ago. Some old guy found her body in a desolate corner of Brooklyn, off the Belt Parkway, wrapped in a blanket and dumped in a muddy stretch of reeds and weeds.'
I closed my eyes.
'It won't be yours, Coop. But if you want to see the scene so you can report back to Battaglia, you'd better come along with me now.
The Brooklyn DA is holding a press conference at nine tonight. This one's on his turf.
ELEVEN
A phalanx of police cars was parked along a dead-end street not far from the Belt Parkway. Huge spotlights rigged atop Emergency Service vehicles brightened the area as the late-summer twilight descended on the city. Cordoned off beyond the last patrol cars were the vans of camera crews from local news channels.
I couldn't see the water of Jamaica Bay, but I could smell the salty sea that was only hundreds of feet away, where the marshy stretch of land bordered on an inlet.
Mike led Mercer and me onto the path that had been trampled in the tall grasses by the first-response teams that had recovered the body. Crime scene tape was wrapped around the lone telephone pole on the side of the road and draped loosely over the bushes. We followed its yellow plastic trail
What brings you to the sticks, Chapman? A pudgy red-faced man, not quite as tall as Mercer's six foot six, waddled toward us. It was hard to walk in the muck without lifting one's feet above it with each step, and his extra weight made his movements even harder
Somebody has to make sure you get it right this time. Dickie Draper, this is Alex Cooper. I think you know Mercer.'
'Pleased to meet you,' he said, removing a small aerosol can from his pants pocket and spritzing it around his head. 'You could survive a gunshot wound to the head out here and these frigging mosquitoes would still kill you with West Nile.'
'The Huff girl, that's how she died? A gunshot wound?'
'Nah. I'm just saying, you don't have this kind of real estate in Manhattan. You need safari gear to survive out here.'
Draper lifted his feet, one at a time, and made an about-face. 'Where's the girl?' Mike called after him.
'At the morgue,' he said with a wave of the hand. 'Had to get her out of here before the press ghouls overran us.'
Rising above the brown tips of the reeds, off in the distance, I could see rows of uniformed cops. There were dozens of them, walking in two lines perpendicular to each other, arm's length apart, flashlights in hand. They formed grids, combing the wild landscape for clues, in this unpopulated area east of the parkway and west of Kennedy Airport. 'You want to tell us about it?' Mike said.
Dickie Draper looked like he had twenty years of experience or more under his imitation alligator belt. 'You got a need to know, or you just slumming?'
'Paul Battaglia assigned the investigation to me when Elise went missing. I've interviewed some of her friends, which may be helpful to your guys. And I'd also like to be able to give my boss a report tonight.
