Four Walls

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  Except today, anyhow.

  As she passed by the display cases, she wondered how the cannoli were. Once morning rush hour passed, this place probably got a lot of people in for pastries and more leisurely cups of coffee than that afforded by the morning dash to work. The place even looked like a cafй in Rome, the way all the places in Little Italy downtown did, and Stella wondered if that was on purpose.

  To find out, though, she'd need to talk to Belluso, and she had no great desire to do that just at the moment. If nothing else, it would've spoiled her exit line.

  Besides, Angell's departmental sedan was pulling up, which meant she was done with her notification of Maria Campagna's parents.

  O'Malley and Wayne were both downstairs as well. "The ME wagon'll be here soon for the body," Stella said. "Even after that, though, we'll have to keep this place sealed up."

  Wayne winced. "Sal'll have a conniption fit."

  "Sal will have to get over it. It's still a crime scene, and we may need to come back here, depending on what we get from the lab."

  Chuckling, O'Malley said, "Joe will be thrilled."

  Stella frowned. "Who's Joe?"

  "Guy who owns that bagel place." O'Malley pointed at the bagel shop on the corner. "Bagels're great, but their coffee sucks. But any port in a storm, y'know?"

  Angell had gotten out of her car. Stella smiled at the two uniforms and said, "Let us know if anything happens."

  "Sure thing, Detective," Wayne said.

  "Oh," Stella added with the sweetest smile she could manage, "and O'Malley? You call the detective 'angel face' again, and I'll find out about it. And I've got excellent range scores."

  With that, Stella departed, pleased with being two-for-two on exit lines this morning. When you waded in dead bodies for a living, you took your victories where you could get them. Besides, Angell was good police, and Stella knew as well as anyone how hard it was for a woman to survive in the NYPD, a degree of difficulty that rose exponentially the higher up the ranks you got. That she was very good at her job helped her cause, but mostly in terms of giving guys like O'Malley less ammunition. If Stella could do her bit to alleviate the razzing Angell got, she'd do it.

  Jerking a thumb across the street at 236th, Angell said, "Morgenstern's one block up and around the corner. We can hoof it."

  Feeling the morning sun's heat seeping into her skin, Stella asked, "Can't we take your nice air-conditioned car?"

  "I haven't been running the AC," she said. "Uses up gas too fast. I got reamed on my gas mileage."

  Stella shook her head. "I love bureaucracy. We got similarly reamed on our E-Z Pass usage."

  They crossed Riverdale Avenue and started walking up the steep hill of 236th, passing a crafts store, a fish store-which was quite pungent in this heat-a real estate office, and another hardware place before the block gave way entirely to apartment buildings.

  "How was Maria's family?"

  Angell shuddered. "When I started, Benton said that the worst part of the job was notifying families. Everything else-wading hip-deep in people's blood, talking to scumbags who commit murder for the stupidest reason, dealing with idiot lawyers and hidebound judges, too much OT, not enough OT money, no personal life-all that you can deal with, eventually. But nothing is worse than telling someone that their little girl won't ever come home again."

  Stella found she could say nothing in response to that.

  They walked the rest of the way to Morgenstern's house in companionable silence. And it was a house, not an apartment building. They turned onto Cambridge Avenue to find several small homes with postage-stamp yards in front. One of them apparently belonged to Jack Morgenstern.

  As they were about to ring the doorbell, Angell finally broke the silence. "I got the mother-the father died last year. She was apparently worried sick when Maria didn't come home last night, but she didn't report it because Maria'd been out all night a few times before with her boyfriend without calling, so she figured it was that. The mother broke down and cried for fifteen minutes. She said she moved to Riverdale because it was supposed to be a safer neighborhood. Then she threw me out and told me to stop wasting time talking to her and to go and capture her daughter's killer."

  "Three stages of grief in one shot," Stella said wryly.

  "Yeah." Angell rang the doorbell.

  The house had a white screen door in front of a white wood door. In front of them was a doormat with the words WELCOME BACK MY FRIENDS TO THE SHOW THAT NEVER ENDS stenciled on it. Gold metal numerals providing the house number were nailed to the inner door. That door swung open to reveal a white male in this thirties with long brown hair-which was somewhat unkempt-and a beard. He was wearing a silk bathrobe and looked bleary-eyed. Stella suspected they'd woken him up.

  Stella held up her badge; Angell did likewise. "NYPD, Mr. Morgenstern. I'm Detective Angell, this is Detective Bonasera. We have a few-"

  "Just a sec." He closed the door.

  Exchanging a glance with Angell, Stella said, "O-o-o-okay."

  The door reopened, and Morgenstern then opened the screen as well. He was holding out two business cards. Stella noticed that he was walking a bit stiffly, like he had bruised or even broken ribs. "That's the name and number of my lawyer, Courtney Bracey. You want to talk to me, set it up with her."

  Stella stared down at the cards. If he was lawyering up already…

  "Mr. Morgenstern," Angell said, "we just have a few questions about-"

  "I don't care. I have the right to legal counsel, and I'm damn well exercising that right. Now please, take the cards, go back to your little precinct house, and make an appointment. We're done here."

  "Look, Mr. Morgenstern," Stella said, trying to sound reasonable, "we just want to know-"

  "Save it, Detective," Morgenstern snapped. "The last time a couple of detectives showed up at my doorstep saying they just had a few questions, I was arrested for rape."

  Involuntarily, Stella tensed at the word rape. It had been over a year, but the memory of being attacked by her psychotic ex-boyfriend Frankie Mala was still so easily triggered. He hadn't actually raped her, though she had felt violated when she discovered that he'd put a recording of their lovemaking on the Internet. She'd broken up with him after that, and then he broke into her apartment, attacked her, tied her up, cut her, and threatened to do worse.

  Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, she still saw him leaping over the partition as she grabbed her Glock out of her handbag, knocking her to the floor.

  In only a second, she got over it. She was on the job, not in the office of the department shrink Mac all but twisted her arm into seeing. It had been more than a year ago. She was over it.

  She was.

  Morgenstern was still talking, his voice rising with each sentence, and she forced herself to focus on his words. "Mind you, I didn't rape anybody. But you people put out a description of a white male in his thirties with long brown hair and a beard. I was in jail for two days before the real guy raped somebody else. This time, they caught the right guy, sprung me without even an apology, not even when the DNA test proved it wasn't me." He gave a bitter-looking half smile. "I suppose I should be grateful-the lawsuit that I won paid for this house." The smile fell, and now he looked furious. "But if you think for one second that I have any interest in saying anything to a police officer without my lawyer present, then you're out of your mind. I've been a victim of the NYPD's gestapo tactics once; it's not happening again! Good-bye!"

  With that, he dropped the two business cards on the doormat and slammed the door shut.

  "Looks like he gets the best exit line of all," Stella muttered.

  Angell was crouched down, picking up the business cards. "What was that?"

  "Nothing." Stella sighed. She took one of the cards from Angell, and they started walking back down Cambridge.

  "What do you think?" Angell asked.

  "He's the last one seen with the victim. He was a rape suspect. He has a temper. He was obviously
in a fight recently. He was wearing a shirt that's the same color as the fiber found on the body. I'd say we just talked to prime suspect number one."

  7

  FOR A LONG TIME, Dr. Sheldon Hawkes never thought much about prison. He'd been a respected surgeon for a few years before one lost patient too many drove him to the medical examiner's office. He couldn't stand to bear even the slightest responsibility for a human being's death, so he put his medical skills to use in trying to catch those who did.

  Intellectually, he knew that those who murdered the bodies he examined as an ME-and later, after he moved from the morgue to fieldwork, those responsible for the crime scenes he examined-usually went to prison. But still, that didn't have much meaning for Hawkes.

  Then he was arrested, accused of murder, put in handcuffs, and taken to Rikers Island, and prison took on a whole new meaning.

  He'd worked in law enforcement for years, but until that day, Sheldon Hawkes had never understood just how humiliating it was to be restrained by handcuffs, how helpless you felt with your wrists pulled behind your back, the metal biting into your flesh.

  As a black man, Hawkes knew he had to live with the constant suspicion. The little old white ladies who would walk across the street to avoid him, simply because of the color of his skin. The state troopers who pulled him over, ignoring the white drivers who were going much faster down the highway. It didn't matter that he had a medical degree or that he had a badge of his own.

  But even so, he'd never quite understood what it was like to be considered the scum of the earth until he was placed in pretrial detention at Rikers. He stopped being a person the moment those cuffs went on.

  Hawkes couldn't call it the worst feeling he'd ever had in his life, as that spot was reserved for the way he felt the last time he'd lost a patient on his operating table. But it was pretty damn close.

  He had been framed, of course. Shane Casey was a whack-job with a mad-on for the crime lab. Casey's brother had also been accused of murder, but he killed himself in prison. Casey was sure his brother was framed, and so he turned around and framed Hawkes, who had still been an ME at the time of Casey's brother's trial. Hawkes's testimony was part of what led to the guilty verdict.

  Regardless of the circumstances, Hawkes never wanted to set foot in a prison again.

  So when Deputy Inspector Stanton Gerrard had come by the crime lab that morning, a pit opened in Hawkes's stomach.

  Gerrard had been the one leading the charge when Hawkes was arrested. Shortly after that, he was promoted to deputy inspector and placed in charge of the crime lab, just in time to lead a witch hunt against Mac for his role in Clay Dobson's death.

  Nobody was ever happy to see Gerrard in the lab, and the feeling was mutual. Mac had dug up some dirt on Gerrard in order to get him to back off on the Dobson thing, but while that had helped Mac in the short term, it also put the CSIs even deeper in the inspector's doghouse.

  "Detective Taylor," Gerrard had said, a grimace under his gray beard. "I just got a call from the DOC. We've got two suspicious deaths at the Richmond Hill Correctional Facility. Albany's requested a detective and a crime scene detail." He gave a half smile. "I'd say send your best people, but since you don't have any, I'll settle for whichever one of your screwups is hanging around."

  Somehow, Mac had managed not to make a disparaging comment. Instead, he had just told Hawkes and Danny Messer to suit up and join him.

  "Oh, and Detective?" Gerrard had added. "They've ID'd the bodies. One is a scumbag named Vance Barker. The other one's Malik Washburne."

  That had brought Mac up short. "Is that who I think it is?"

  Gerrard nodded. "The former Officer Gregory Washburne."

  "What was he doing in RHCF?"

  "Ten years for vehicular homicide. Don't screw this one up, Taylor." With that, Gerrard had left.

  "Who's this Washburne guy?" Danny had asked. "Was he dirty?"

  "Washburne wasn't a bad cop," Mac had replied. "In fact, he was one of the best. He quit for personal reasons and converted to Islam. That's why he changed his name. I had no idea he'd been arrested."

  They'd met up with Flack at the NYPD helipad. Midday traffic would be murder (no pun intended), and it had already been a couple of hours since the crime took place. By the time the Department of Corrections bureaucracy worked its way from Staten Island to Albany and back down to Gerrard's office, the scene had probably already turned into a mess. Speed was of the essence, and they couldn't afford to sit in traffic on two different bridges, nor was Mac sanguine about taking their lab equipment onto the Staten Island Ferry.

  But Gerrard had surprised everyone by authorizing the chopper ride. Dressed in his dark blue jacket with the letters CSI:NY in white on the back, and carrying his metal case, Hawkes had joined Flack, Danny, and Mac in the helicopter.

  The pilot had taken a route that took them over the Hudson River immediately, hugging the New Jersey coast southward, going over the Goethals Bridge, which linked Staten Island to New Jersey, before coming down in the parking lot outside RHCF.

  The prison was in the middle of nowhere on the west coast of Staten Island. As he stepped down from the helicopter, head lowered for safety, Hawkes saw a lot of fences topped with spools of razor wire. At the far end of the parking lot was the prison entrance.

  Flack gingerly exited from the helicopter. Hawkes offered him a hand down, which he refused to take. "Flack, they prescribe Percocet for a reason," he said.

  "What, you're my mother, now?"

  "No, but I am a doctor, and my medical advice to you is to take the painkillers."

  "As I recall," Flack said with a smirk as they walked toward the entrance, "your medical advice was for me to stay off my feet for another month. I'm fine."

  Hawkes considered pressing the point, then decided it was a waste of time. He'd known Don Flack long enough to be quite familiar with his ability to be as stubborn as a jackass, with a personality to match if you pushed it.

  They walked across the parking lot to the entrance, where a man with thinning white hair and a thick white mustache greeted them. He was dressed in a white shirt with a badge, which indicated a higher rank in the prison. With him were two COs wearing blue shirts; one had lieutenant's bars on his collar, and the other had three chevrons, indicating a sergeant.

  "Gentlemen, my name is Captain Richard Russell. I'm the superintendent of security." The man in white offered his hand.

  "I'm Detective Taylor from the crime lab," Mac said, taking the handshake. "This is Detective Flack, Detective Messer, and Dr. Hawkes."

  "Pleased to meet you all. This is Lieutenant Ursitti and Sergeant Jackson. I'm going to have to ask you to leave your cell phones and weapons at the arsenal." Russell pointed at a sign, which read ALL ARMAMENTS MUST BE LEFT AT THE ARSENAL. Under those words was an arrow that pointed away from the front entrance to an alcove at the end of the building.

  As Russell led them to the alcove, he continued: "You'll also each have a CO assigned to you while you're in my facility."

  Danny leaned to Hawkes and muttered, "What, they think we're gonna steal the silver?"

  The alcove had a window, a CO sitting behind it. A metal tray similar to those used at bank drive-throughs was under the window, and it slid out as they approached.

  "If you place your weapons and phones there, Officer Simone will place them in lockers, and you'll keep the keys."

  Hawkes reached into his holster and took out his nine millimeter. Mac did likewise. After a second, shaking his head, so did Danny. They also handed over their Treos. They each placed them in the tray as it slid out, then it slid back in. Moments later, the tray slid out again bearing three keys. Hawkes felt a little better about the whole thing once he realized he got to hold the key to the locker that held his weapon. He hated carrying the damn thing-it contravened the Hippocratic oath, to his mind-and he couldn't shoot it worth a damn, anyhow, but he was still responsible for it.

  Flack asked, "What happened, exactly?"


  Before Ursitti could respond, Russell said, "Detective, you have to hand over your weapon and phone as well. No exceptions."

  "Fine." Flack's tone indicated the opposite, but he placed his weapon, his backup weapon, and his flip-top phone in the tray. His key came out a moment later.

  Ursitti, meanwhile, said, "Both bodies are in the weight yard. It's a fenced-off part of the yard. There were forty-five Muslims in there, and one of the skinheads stabbed one of the Muslims through the chain-link."

  "That's Vance Barker?" Flack asked.

  Ursitti nodded. "Yeah. He's in on a drug charge, same as most of these guys. One of those organizational soldier types that'd rather do time than flip on their buddies."

  "Looks like he took one for the team once too often," Mac said.

  They walked inside. Hawkes felt the blessed cool of air-conditioning as they stepped through the double doors to the entryway.

  Mac asked, "How do you know there were exactly forty-five in the yard?"

  "That's the yard's max capacity. We had to keep two guys out 'cause they hit the limit."

  Another CO sat behind a long desk inside. In front of the desk, in the center of the narrow entryway, was a metal detector. The CO pulled out a battered notebook and flipped white pages until he reached a blank one. "Sign in."

  "You've gotta be kidding me," Danny said.

  "Procedure," the CO said with a shrug.

  "We have to keep track of everyone who comes in and out of here, Detective Messer," Russell said primly. "I would think you of all people would appreciate that."

  "We do," Mac said quickly before Danny could respond. He grabbed the pen and signed his name, as well as the time and the purpose of his visit (he wrote NYPD INVESTIGATION in neat block letters; Hawkes intended to do likewise).

  Ursitti continued: "Other body's Malik Washburne. Nobody saw what happened to him, but we figure somebody took him out while everyone was watching Barker bleed out."