“Yes, ma’am.”
“All right, then,” she said. “Let’s do the bookkeep-ing.”
Southerlyn crossed her arms and stared angrily at the desktop as the verdict on each count was read.
McCoy ticked off the results on a yellow legal pad.
The pattern became clear very soon.
Regarding the victim Colonel Mark Aalborg: Defendant Avery McDonald, no decision.
Defendant Monica McDonald, no decision.
Defendant Robert Rosserman, not guilty.
Regarding the victim Julianna Meyer-Steers: Defendant Avery McDonald, no decision.
Defendant Monica McDonald, no decision.
Defendant Robert Rosserman, not guilty.
Regarding the victim Anthony Michaels: Defendant Avery McDonald, no decision.
Defendant Monica McDonald, no decision.
Defendant Robert Rosserman, not guilty.
And so on through the remaining two victims, William Schurman and Charlayne Wysocki.
McCoy’s stomach had grown gradually more sour as the reading went on. Southerlyn continued to stare 270
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at the tabletop, dropping her head as the conspiracy charges were listed.
The jury had hung on Avery and Monica McDonald. They had acquitted Robert Rosserman.
It was a disaster.
“Very well, then,” said the judge without looking up from her notepad. “You were at it for a week, so the court owes you its gratitude. The jury is dismissed.”
She looked at the defense table. “Mr. Rosserman, because you have been declared not guilty on all counts, you are dismissed.” Rosserman blinked, as if afraid he’d wake up. Joel Wise was showing off his big white dentures and pumping Rosserman’s hand.
“Thank you, Your Honor,” said Wise.
“In the cases against Avery McDonald and Monica McDonald,” continued Samuels, “I am declaring a mistrial. You’ll be notified if the state wishes to pursue the issue. Court is adjourned,” she said, rapping her gavel.
Monica let out a whoop and flung herself on her husband. They spun in a tight circle, bumping against one of the chairs.
Herlihy drifted toward McCoy, offering his hand.
“Congratulations,” said McCoy.
“I assume that’s the end of it.”
Southerlyn broke out of her numbness with a shudder that was noticeable enough to make McCoy turn. But she did not speak.
“We’ll let you know,” he said, still looking at Southerlyn.
“You’ll be wasting the taxpayers’ money,” said Herlihy.
“Now don’t throw down the gauntlet,” said McCoy.
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“No challenge,” said Herlihy. “Just a suggestion.”
Southerlyn looked past him at the McDonalds.
Monica had grabbed Avery’s head in her hands. She kissed him sloppily.
“Tell your clients their celebration may be prema-ture,” Southerlyn said, snatching up her briefcase and marching for the back of the courtroom.
“We’ll let you know,” said McCoy to Herlihy.
272
JACK MCCOY’S OFFICE
ONE HOGAN PLACE
MONDAY, DECEMBER 2, 10:20 A.M.
“Jack,” said Southerlyn, “they’re probably buying ads in writers’ magazines to troll for more victims this very moment.”
McCoy’s feet were up on his desk, He brushed lint off his thigh. “I’m trying to be realistic, Serena. The jury was hung.”
“But they were in our favor. Ten to two to convict Avery McDonald. Nine to three to convict Monica.”
“It only takes one to hang a jury.”
“So let the McDonalds go on victimizing people?”
“That isn’t what I’m saying, Serena. If we don’t come up with a good argument, Arthur will shut it down for sure.”
“Sure,” she said, “only take on the easy ones.”
“That isn’t what we do here, Serena, and you know it. Nobody gains if we can’t convict them. They go on doing what they’re doing. We look like jackasses.”
She opened her notepad. “The two stubborn ones were Mrs. Femina and Irving Banks.”
“The old woman and the shoe salesman? Well so much for reading faces,” said McCoy. “She looked at me like she wanted to give me cookies and milk.”
“According to the foreman, they insisted that the 273
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victims shouldn’t have signed the contract if they didn’t understand it. Banks kept saying ‘A contract is a contract or there’s no law at all.’ Mrs. Femina said writers were nutcases, that fools and their money were soon parted.”
“It sounds like she would have been a loose cannon in any case. And the rest of them?”
“There’s some trouble there, too, Jack. I talked to three of them other than the foreman. They weren’t at all confident they could tell the difference between good editing and bad editing. One said he’d read so many bad books, he wasn’t sure the publishers knew.
They didn’t see anything wrong with self-publishing, either, or print on demand.”
“So why did they vote to convict?”
“One said he thought Avery looked cheesy.”
“Well, yeah, but other than that?”
“Mostly they bought our argument that the McDonalds were setting out to fleece customers.”
“And they didn’t believe Rosserman was? Do you know why the third juror voted to acquit Monica McDonald?”
“It was a woman. She thought women usually commit crimes because they were coerced by their men. So much for liberation.”
“Hell, Serena, it’s true often enough.”
“But they all voted to acquit Rosserman on the three monkeys argument.”
McCoy shook his head. “Rosserman knew what the deal was.”
“Sure he did, and they really thought so, too, but they didn’t think we proved it. Most of them thought he knew what he was doing, but wanted something specific.”
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“Well, if he’d bragged about it to someone…But he didn’t. I think the real issue is exactly what I suspected: the crime doesn’t seem important. I mean, here we are trying to convince the D.A. it’s important.
Why would a jury get incensed?”
“We have to make them understand next time.”
“I don’t think there will be a next time.” He saw her expression. “It’s triage, Serena. There are a lot of serious crimes out there. Violent ones. Murder. Rape.
Battery.”
“They’re not just taking money, they’re spitting on peoples’ dreams,” said Southerlyn.
“But they’re not killing them.”
“They killed Barbara Chesko.”
“She had to cooperate in that,” said McCoy. “The world is not a fragrant place. What can we do?”
“We go to another jury.”
“Arthur won’t go for that,” said McCoy. “No matter what jury we get, the case will look like a contract dispute rather than a criminal case. I’m not the enemy, Serena!”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It infuriates me.”
“I saw McDonald ogling you. I understand. But being a creep isn’t quite a crime.”
She had lowered her head, but suddenly pointed at him. He was startled by the excitement in her eyes.
“So we give up a criminal approach. Let’s go after them in a civil action.”
“Civil?”
“Why not? The district attorney’s office can sue.
We’ll file based on the fact that they preyed on the unsophisticated. We won’t have to meet the burden of reasonable doubt and we can take back the money they’ve stolen, along with punitive damages. We’ll 275
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be doing good by the people not just of New York, but elsewhere.”
“I thought you said they were criminals,” said McCoy.
“They are,” she said, “but
so was O.J. Simpson, right? They could get off the hook again, and then where would we be?”
“We can’t recover people’s dreams.”
“But we can certainly hurt the people who stomped on them.”
McCoy thought for a moment. “It sounds good to me,” he said. “Cheesiness will carry a lot more weight in a civil trial. I’ll pitch it to Arthur and we’ll see if he swings.”
“We can make it work,” she said.
“No, I suspect you’ll have to make it work,” said McCoy, “and if Arthur allows it to go ahead, he may want it on the back burner. They’re slow to get on the docket.”
“Just keep it on the agenda,” she said.
276
27TH PRECINCT
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 6:43 P.M.
It had already been dark for an hour, and Detective Lennie Briscoe had spent most of the afternoon doing paperwork on the shooting of a janitor who called himself Julio Manzanna. There was no record to prove that a real Julio Manzanna had ever existed except for his paycheck and phony Social Security card. The shooter, an elderly man, who had wandered away from his family in Battery Park, had gotten the gun from God knows where and seemed to imagine that Julio was David Berkowitz. This was sure to turn out as a novelty story in the papers, especially when they found out that the gun had been stolen from a security guard on Long Island a year before.
But it would die down. Julio Manzanna was probably an illegal, and without a weeping family to photograph, he would drop off the news radar as quickly as he dropped to the sidewalk.
Green had gone home early with the flu, and Briscoe was fretting he might catch it, as well. He was thinking about buying a gyro on the way home, when his desk phone rang.
“Lennie,” said the sergeant, “a woman wants to see you.”
“Tell her the check’s in the mail, Gil.”
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“Really?”
“No, Gil,” he said patiently. “I’ll be right down. I was leaving anyway.”
When he reached the area where visitors were screened, Gil pointed to a middle-aged woman in a plastic raincoat. She jumped to her feet as she saw him. Her jaw was set. She looked like she was getting ready to slug him.
“Detective Briscoe,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, ma’am. Do I know you?”
“You don’t remember me?” She held up his card.
“You said to call you if I thought of anything.”
He was still drawing a blank on her. He knew he hadn’t talked to her today. Yesterday?
“You came to my apartment to ask about Barbara Chesko.”
“Barbar—Oh, yeah, sure. The woman who killed herself. You were in the writers’ group? That was what, six months ago?”
“More like eight months.”
“And you’re…?”
“Glenda Atterby. I must speak to you in private.”
“I was just on my way out, Mrs. Atterby.”
“If I wait,” she said, “I may not have the nerve. I swore not to say anything.” She bit her lip, glanced around her, and swallowed hard. Her hand was shaking as she brought a tissue to her nose.
“It’s okay,” said Briscoe, taking her by the arm and leading her into a corridor.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Do you need to sit down?”
“No. I have to do it, detective,” she said. “She swore me to secrecy, but…”
“Take it easy,” said Briscoe.
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“I was reading the papers and I saw that the charges against Avery McDonald were dismissed.”
“He was the book guy, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“I think there was a mistrial,” said Briscoe. “They can try him again if they like.”
“Will they?”
“The D.A.s do their best. It’s just the way it is.”
“But he killed Barbara! I know you can’t prove he pushed her, but he cheated her and broke her heart.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Atterby. It’s been out of my hands for quite a while. If you have something new, I can give you the number—”
“I want to report a rape,” she said, cutting him off.
“You were raped?”
“Not me,” she said. “But it could have been.”
So much for the gyro, he thought. So much for the early night.
279
INTERROGATION ROOM
ONE HOGAN PLACE
THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 10:20 A.M.
McCoy tried to make himself inconspicuous in the corner, so that Melva Patterson would be more comfortable while Southerlyn questioned her from across the table. Patterson was slender in her torso, but her hips showed her age. “I’ll kill Glenda for this,”
she said.
“Mrs. Patterson,” said Southerlyn, “she told the detective because she is concerned about you. Rape is a serious crime.”
“Well, it was the pills and the wine or I wouldn’t have told her. Yes, I told her that, but it’s really nothing for the police. You’re not going to get me to press charges.”
“Pills and wine?”
“I’d had a root canal that afternoon, but I went to the meeting anyway. The pain started up and I took a couple of Glenda’s pills. I had to stay over. I talked too much.”
“She said that Avery McDonald raped you. That’s why we asked you to come in.”
Patterson flipped her hand as if she were brushing off a fly. “I know, I know. It’s your job and all that, but there’s rape and then there’s rape, you know.”
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“No, I don’t know,” said Southerlyn. “Maybe you’d better explain it.”
“It isn’t like he put a knife to my throat.”
“All right,” said Southerlyn, “explain it to me and we can all go home.”
“I don’t have to,” said Patterson.
“I think you want to.”
“It’s just embarrassing, that’s all. What’s that old expression, getting hoisted on your petard. That’s what happened. He provided the petard.”
Southerlyn waited.
“You’re a lawyer. You’re young. You’re gorgeous.
You still…” She glanced at McCoy. “You still have the boobs God gave you. I married the wrong guy to get out of Pittsburgh and then I tried again and married okay. He wasn’t the greatest man, but he left behind good money.” She shrugged wearily. “The only thing I can claim for myself is that I won an essay contest in high school and then when Richmond, my husband, died, there didn’t seem much point in cooking and cleaning just for me, so I remembered that essay and how the principal gave me the little trophy and said I’d write a great book someday.”
Patterson snorted quietly, like someone who’s just been told a weak joke. She shook her head and continued. “You can’t believe how much I cry when I read the right kind of book. Maybe you can’t understand how much I’d like to be able to do that.” She waved the thought off. “Anyway, so I saw a notice in the paper about writing classes at the Learning Annex and I met Glenda there and I ended up going to the meetings on a regular basis.”
“And this was when Barbara Chesko was a member?”
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“She joined a little later. She was…I don’t know.”
Southerlyn waited.
“She was all wrapped up in the thing. She was always putting on airs and talking about her inspiration and all of that. I didn’t like her writing at all. It wasn’t any good to me, but Glenda, she’s got a heart of gold and she’s got her workshop rules. All the criticism is to focus on the writing and to be nonjudgmental about the person. All remarks should be constructive remarks. All this is a good thing. Who can fault it?
Writing is lonely. Support is important.”
McCoy raised an eyebrow and Southerlyn took the hint. “So it was through Barbara Chesko that you met Avery McDonald?”
“
Not directly.”
“How then?”
“She held the workshop in her apartment in the Village one week and let it drop that she had a publisher who was interested in her novel. She wouldn’t say who it was, but a month or so later, I had my sister’s car while she was in Barbados and I offered to drop Barbara off. We stopped in a Barnes and Noble and I found out that the editor who was interested in her novel worked at Kirstner and Strawn. She didn’t tell me his name, but she mentioned that he edited Suzanne Lewiston’s latest. I called up and found out it was Robert Rosserman.”
“You did a little detective work.”
Patterson looked at Southerlyn as if she were a child. “My book was three quarters finished. If Barbara could sell hers to this man…”
“And then?”
“And then she told us that her editor had recommended her to an editing firm. We all thought this meant 282
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her deal was in the works, but almost a year passed and each time we asked she said that they were still working on it and she’d have a contract soon. She was down some times and up others. One afternoon I met her for coffee and she told me the editor had finished her manuscript. She was in a hurry to meet him at the Waterloo.”
“Did she say why?”
“I thought it meant he was married, you know, and I teased her about being wicked. She smirked and said she was much more wicked than I knew, but for the first time she was free, free like women weren’t supposed to be free.”
“What did she mean by that?”
“I thought she meant she was having sex with a married man. Later from the way she said some things, I just thought it meant some kind of sex, maybe kinky, maybe she was dominant or acting out like a hooker. All she said was the Waterloo was convenient, that he didn’t like to go all the way to the Village.”
“How romantic,” said Southerlyn.
“This was Robert Rosserman?” interrupted McCoy.
“That’s what I thought. She was always coy about him. She liked to call him her editor.”
“And do you know how many times she met him at the Waterloo?”
“No. But I had the impression it was more than once. And then the last time…”
“Go on,” said Southerlyn.
“Barbara was late to the meeting, but Glenda told us that she might have stopped off to get champagne.
She was supposed to have big news for us. We gave her a while and then Glenda told me to go ahead with 283
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