Entombed (7 page)

Mercer was behind the
commissioner's shoulder as he announced that the Manhattan Special
Victims Squad had identified a sexual assault pattern within the
confines of the Nineteenth Precinct on the Upper East Side. Reporters
at the foot of the podium furiously scribbled details of the cases,
holding Xeroxed copies of the sketch that was posted on an easel next
to Mercer.

"This is Manhattan SVS
pattern number three of the new year," he said.

"How'd you slip the
first two by us?" the
Post
veteran, Mickey Diamond, called out.

Here it was, only the
last week in January, and three serial rapists had each claimed a
corner of the island to terrorize.

"The first is in
Chinatown, Mickey. Three cases involving abductions of women who are
here illegally. Their status has not in any way affected our
investigation of the cases, but it has made some of the victims'
families reluctant to report details to us, and we're happy for any
information the public has to offer." The subliminal message was that
the rest of us weren't in danger from a criminal targeting poor
immigrant women, who were unlikely to seek police assistance because of
their immigration status.

"Pattern number two is
in Washington Heights," the commissioner continued. "Five cases,
starting at the end of last year. These have all occurred at known drug
locations."

"Junkies?" Mickey
interrupted again. "Junkies and hookers?"

"The victims have
alternative lifestyles, Mickey. So far, they've been very cooperative.
We have a couple of suspects and are making great progress on the
investigation."

No wonder there had
not been a press conference to announce patterns one and two, which my
unit had been working on with the crew at SVS, around the clock and on
all cylinders. Those cases weren't seen as impacting the lives of most
Manhattan residents. Location, location, location, as they say in real
estate. The Upper East Side made for different concerns and flashier
headlines.

The commissioner tried
to pick up his narrative about the new case. "On January twenty-sixth,
at 0300 hours, a twenty-two-year-old female was attacked as she entered
a brownstone at Three Thirty-seven East Sixty-sixth Street, between
Second and First Avenues."

He described the
physical assault in graphic detail. The stabbing would raise more alarm
and attract more attention than a sex crime. Often, when people heard
the word "rape," they foolishly assumed something had occurred as much
because of the woman's behavior as the man's. Rape remained the only
crime that too many people considered "victim precipitated," and scores
of listeners would thereby distance themselves from their potential
vulnerability by assuming it was an act that couldn't happen to people
like them.

Now the commissioner
gave the press hounds the news hook they were waiting for. "You may
recall that several years back, the department declared a pattern of
cases, also in the Nineteenth Precinct, that remained unsolved when the
perpetrator seemed to have vanished four years ago. You gentlemen and
ladies dubbed him the Silk Stocking Rapist, which is far too elegant a
name for the vile things he does."

The gallery came
alive. "Same guy?" one reporter called out.

"The ME's office has
confirmed through serological testing that-"

"I thought this week's
case wasn't a rape. How'd you get DNA?" another said.

"We're not going to
tell you what physical evidence we do have, but a match to genetic
material from the crime scene has been declared by the lab, so that we
have confirmed our belief that the cases are related. We have
reassembled a task force and we'll give you the details of that," the
commissioner said, stepping back so the chief of detectives could
describe the operation he had hurriedly put in place.

"Last time around, how
many cases were there?" a young kid on the City Hall beat asked.

"Five completed rapes,
four other attempts," the chief answered.

I thought of another
eight crimes that rested in my case folder, which had not been
connected by forensics but which had the same nuances of language and
order of sexual acts the rapist performed to make me certain it was the
work of the same man. The mayor had ordered the PC not to heighten the
public's fear by including those other cases.

"This new attack,
what'd the girl look like?"

A question like that
could only have come out of the mouth of Mickey Diamond. In no other
kind of case would a news reporter ask for a description of the woman.
But the tabloid's titillating version of sexual assault stories
required the flaxen-haired filly or the buxom blue-eyed beauty to fill
in the blanks occasioned by the media rule of not naming rape victims
in their stories.

"Still using silk
stockings, or has he aged into support hose since the last time we saw
him?" Diamond asked, to amuse the reporters around him.

I clicked off as they
were appealing for the public's help and offering reward money for tips
leading to the arrest of the attacker.

When I opened my door
at seven the next morning, the rapist's face stared up at me from the
front page of both tabloids, and above the fold on the Metro section of
the
Times.
I showered and
dressed for work, and drove downtown in my SUV to grab a parking space
as close to my building as possible, sparing myself a cold, slippery
walk.

I spent the morning
reviewing notes of phone messages that my secretary, Laura Wilkie, had
downloaded from the unit's hotline. For a bit of reward money, people
were willing to turn in ex-husbands, unfaithful lovers, and
ne'er-do-well nephews. All the leads would be turned over to Special
Victims for follow-up calls.

Then I studied the
file of Darra Goldswit's case, readying a checklist of questions for
her grand jury presentation.

I heard Chapman's
voice outside my office, in Laura's cubicle, just after 11
A.M.
"Morning,
Moneypenny. Give us a kiss,
will you?"

I knew she'd be in a
good mood for the rest of the week. Laura was a perfect foil for Mike's
flirtatious humor.

He ambled through the
door, ran his fingers through the thick slice of black hair that rested
on his forehead. "Carmine Cappozelli, purveyor of the purest and most
potent rat poison this side of the Mississippi, sends his warmest
personal regards. Told me he manufactured his first batch of rodent
botulism in 1978."

"We knew that from the
label you read."

"Yeah, but none of it
was shipped until 1979. So that's the revised earliest date our
skeleton went into the closet. That's why you need a good detective,
instead of going on the stupid assumptions you lawyers make. Saves you
a year of unnecessary digging."

"What other useful
calls have you made?"

"Cold Case Squad.
Scotty Taren caught the squeal. He's meeting me here later so we can
run up to the morgue. See how far Dorfman gets today."

"Where does he even
start on something like this that happened a quarter of a century ago?"

"My old man was
walking a beat back then. Wouldn't it be a kick to think it was a case
he could have solved? You just got to put yourself there in that time
and place, think of the world the victim was living in."

"Easy to say."

"Think culture, Coop.
Kramer vs. Kramer
won the Oscar, Mother
Teresa got the Nobel Peace Prize, Margaret Thatcher became prime
minister of England, the Shah was booted out of Iran,
Sophie's Choice
was the bestselling
book in America,
Saturday Night Fever
was the album of the year,
Pittsburgh
won the World Series, Martina beat Chrissie at Wimbledon, Spectacular
Bid won the Kentucky Derby, and both John Wayne and Nelson Rockefeller
died-but only one of them went in the saddle and it wasn't the guy who
was supposed to. Are you there yet?"

"Close."

"There were eight
hundred fifty-four homicides in the city, and two hundred sixty-three
missing persons. Our babe fits somewhere in the middle of those
numbers. I'm handing this to Scotty on a silver platter. I expect an ID
by Monday. Where's Mercer?"

"He'll be here at one."

"I've got trial prep
on a shooting from last summer with your psycho-colleague, Pedro de
Jesus. If we start now, he may get himself up to speed by the spring
thaw. I'll swing by later on."

He turned and bumped
into Mickey Diamond, who was on the prowl to see what I knew about the
rape pattern.

"I owe you a few
rounds, Chapman. Lunch on me at Forlini's?"

"Not today, buddy,"
Mike said, trying to brush past the reporter.

"Did Chapman tell you
he bet me fifty large that you'd be playing solitaire on Valentine's
Day? I was dumb enough to think this was the real deal for you and
Jake-"

No wonder Mike was
trying to make a quick exit. "Wagering on my love life? Counting the
days until Jake threw me back in the water? The sign of a true friend,
Detective Chapman. Old maid, solitaire… nice to know you feel my pain."

I cracked open the
window behind me and reached for a handful of snow off the top of the
air-conditioning unit while Mike tried to apologize to me and shut
Diamond up at the same time.

"Can you give me any
scoops on the East Side case, Alex? Something I can quote to keep it on
the front page tomorrow?"

"Nada. Scram, will
you? I'll have news for you at the beginning of the week. Get lost.
Follow Chapman and steer clear of me, okay?"

I finished rounding
the icy slush into a ball and lobbed it at the back of Mike's head.
"Don't write me off yet for Valentine's Day, sucker. The
Post
can always run
another personal ad for me."

"Can't do worse than
the first one," Mike said, wiping off the snow.

Several years back, on
a very slow news day after I had taken over the unit, Diamond had
written a piece that he titled "Legal Miss Who Misses Kisses." His
theory was that I was crazy to take this job because no man in his
right mind would want to date a woman who might confuse the first pass
with an inappropriate touch-a criminal one.

"Harpo Marx, is he
still alive? He's mute, right? Perfect for you. I'll see if I can find
a number for him, blondie. Let me tell you what we ran into last
night," Mike said, sauntering out of the office with Diamond at his
side.

"Mike!" I tried to
stop him but he didn't turn back. I didn't want him to leak word of the
skeleton before I had a chance to tell the district attorney about it.
It might come to nothing, but Battaglia would have my head if I made
the wrong call on a story like that.

8

"Raise your right
hand, place your left hand on the Bible, please. Do you solemnly swear
to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"

Darra Goldswit
answered me. "I do."

I was standing at the
back of the room, behind the two tiers of seats in which twenty of the
twenty-three grand jurors were arrayed in amphitheatrical fashion,
facing the witness. To my left sat the foreman and his assistant, along
with the secretary. The stenographer was seated beside the young woman
to record every word spoken.

I had tried to calm
Darra by assuring her there would be no surprises at this proceeding.
The defendant had no right to be present. There was no defense attorney
to cross-examine her. The questions I had reviewed with her would
likely be the only ones she had to answer, unless I left out something
relevant that a juror caught at the end of my presentation. I had done
this enough times to be confident that would not happen.

Two of the young
lawyers from the unit had asked to sit in as observers, and the warden
leaned against the door, interested in the charges that I had submitted
on the slip of paper I had filed with him earlier in the day.

"Would you tell the
jurors, please, what your name is and where you live?"

"Darra Goldswit. I
live in New Jersey now. I moved there from Manhattan."

"I'm going to direct
your attention to March eighth," I said, giving her the date of her
attack, emphasizing that it had occurred almost five years ago. There
was audible murmuring among the jurors now, as they did exactly what I
had reminded them was improper just moments ago. They nodded and winked
at each other, puffing up with pride as the one grand jury among six
that was getting to decide the front-page news.

"How old are you now?"

"Twenty-seven. I
turned twenty-seven earlier this month."

"Are you employed?"

"Yes. I'm the
assistant to the manager of public relations at Madison Square Garden.
I've worked in that office since I graduated from college six years
ago." Smart, stable, responsible- qualities all summarized in a job
description and title. A trial jury would get more detail, but in these
bare bones presentations, this would do the trick.

"Can you tell us what
you did on the evening of March eighth?"

"Certainly." I could
see that her hands were trembling slightly as she kept them clasped on
the table in front of her. "I was at the Garden that evening. There was
a special event, a basketball game with professional athletes who were
raising money for charity. I had to stay at my office until the event
ended, shortly after midnight."

"Did you leave the
Garden alone?"

"No, no, I didn't. My
boss had a car service waiting to take him home. It picked us up on
Thirty-fourth Street and Eighth Avenue." She pressed her fingers
tightly together. "He was tired and wanted to get home to his apartment
on Park Avenue, so he asked me if it was okay to drop me at the corner
of Park and Seventy-sixth Street. It was about one
A.M."

I could have started
my questions at the front door of her building, but wanted this jury to
hear that this victim, unlike several of the others targeted by the
rapist, had not been walking from a neighborhood bar or coming from a
party.