When Laura left I sat down to return calls, and started with the message from Shaniqua Simmons. It was common for domestic abuse victims to cancel appointments after making an initial police report, but it always concerned me in case they had been threatened or revictimized because of the meeting with a prosecutor. Her phone rang twice, then kicked into an answering machine which played a recording. “Hi, this is Shaniqua,” in her sultriest voice. “Me and Nelson can’t come to the phone right now, ’cause we got some makin’ up to do.” The background music, quite appropriately, was written by the immortal Marvin Gaye, advising Shaniqua that this was the time for sex-u-al healing.
I tried to look at the bright side. It did give me an extra hour to get Manzi’s victim an interview without any delay.
There was plenty of work to busy myself with until the Hunter student arrived shortly after eleven o’clock. Laura buzzed me on the intercom: “Beverly Vaughan is here—she’s the witness in Jackie Manzi’s case.”
“Fine. Please start me a screening sheet and I’ll be out to get her in a minute.”
Laura handed me a screening sheet, which was the printed form we used to record all the data about each case interview, including the pedigree information about the victim, which was how I usually began the conversation. I introduced myself to Ms. Vaughan and explained the process we would be going through.
“I’ve got a lot of questions I need to ask you, but before I begin, is there anything you want to ask me?”
“Yes, Ms. Cooper. I want to know why Steven wasn’t arrested last night. The police know exactly who he is—they even talked to him last night. I want to know why he isn’t in jail.”
“As I understand it, Beverly, there are some questions you weren’t able to answer for Detective Manzi, some things you didn’t remember about Saturday evening. You told them you ‘thought’ you had been raped, but you weren’t sure…”
“Well, I don’t exactly remember everything that happened, but I know I was violated.”
“Steven tells a very different story than you do. And before we lock somebody up for first-degree rape you can be damn sure we’re going to explore every detail of the events and try to reconstruct them. If it’s clear he committed a crime, Steven will be arrested and charged.
“The best thing you can do is relax, try and answer all my questions as candidly as possible, and understand that I need to know every bit as much about you as Steven knows—everything that he will tell his lawyer about your encounter on Saturday.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Beverly, that your case is different than a case where a man climbs through a window or stalks a woman from a subway station and attacks someone he’s never seen before. It may be every bit as serious, but it’s different. In those situations, they’re only together for as long as it takes to accomplish the rape—but the attacker doesn’t know anything about his victim, she hasn’t confided in him, she hasn’t trusted him like someone on a date with a friend does. Understand?”
“Sure. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t raped.”
“No. But it means that Steven knows a lot more about you than I know, information he can try to use against you. I can’t just limit my questions to the point in the evening that you went to his room, I’ve got to start with what brought you together in the first place, what you told him about yourself, whether there was any foreplay during the evening, whether there was any conversation about sex. And first of all I need to know why your memory of the events is so unclear—is it because of the trauma, or is it the amount of alcohol?”
“Oh, God. This isn’t going to be easy, is it?”
“No, Beverly, it’s not going to be easy. There’s too much at stake for both you and Steven, and now is the time to get the answers—not six months from now, at a trial. I’ll just begin with the background information I need—try and relax.”
I walked the young woman through the personal material the sheet called for: date of birth, permanent address, roommates, status at school, medical history, means of support. Like most of the witnesses who had preceded her in that seat, this overweight nineteen-year-old was nervous and uncomfortable, barely able to meet my eye when she responded to questions. She was a sophomore at Hunter College this fall and living in an apartment with two other students, the first time she was away from her parents’ home. She explained that she didn’t want them to know what happened because she was sure they would make her move back to Queens or drop out of school. I assured her that our meeting was confidential.
“Why don’t you tell me how and when you first met Steven.”
“Who, me?”
“Yes, Beverly.”
She explained how she saw him at a school mixer a couple of weeks earlier, talking with a guy she knew from her sociology class, and she had gone out drinking with them after the mixer.
“What did you have to drink that first night?”
“Who, me?”
“Yeah.”
Beverly struggled to remember what combination of rum and sodas she had the first time she and Steven sat at a bar for four hours, drinking and talking about their classes, their interests, and their mutual friends. She had called him several times during the last few weeks but he had never returned the messages. He seemed to be interested in one of her roommates, and yes, Beverly admitted that she had a bit of a crush on Steven.
We finally got the events up to last Saturday night, when she ran into Steven at Zoo Bar on the Upper West Side.
“What were you drinking, Beverly?”
“Who, me?”
Three “who, me’s?” were my limit. “We’re sitting in a small room with the door closed. We’re sitting face-to-face with each other, in two armchairs, barely a foot apart. I’m staring directly at you, and there’s nobody else around. Of course I mean you.” I was beginning to lose patience with Beverly, whose resort to “who, me?” was an effort to stall and think of whether or not to give a candid or complete answer to the particular question I was asking.
I got tough with her and she stopped wasting my time. Out poured the rest of the story in a far more direct manner. She told me that Zoo Bar is famous for serving drinks in fishbowls. One fishbowl containing an unidentifiable mixture of alcoholic beverages is served with eight straws, to be shared by a group of drinking friends. Beverly remembered splitting the first one with just her two roommates and ordering a second one, which she consumed most of by herself. She remembered flirting with Steven, while he was unsuccessfully flirting with her roommate. She remembered little else: when she left Zoo Bar, how she traveled to Steven’s apartment, who else was with them, how she wound up in his bed, and how her clothes came to be on the couch in his living room. But she could assure me that she would never have slept with him—if indeed she had slept with him—had she been sober. Somewhere in that story I was supposed to find the crime.
A buzz on the intercom interrupted the meeting. “Sorry to break in, Alex, but Chapman’s on the phone.”
“I’m almost done, Laura. See where he is and tell him I’ll call him right back.”
I had been working with Beverly for more than an hour and she seemed ready for a break. Her mouth was drawn taut with anxiety and her fingers tensely folded and unfolded the edges of the newspaper she had held on her lap since she walked into the room. “This is a good start, Beverly, but it’s only the first step. I’m going to have to interview everyone else who was with you at the bar, anyone who observed what you said and did, when you left, how you left. I’m going to have to talk to your roommates and to Steven’s. I’ll need to speak with the doctor you saw last night. I’m trying to find out why you said you ‘think’ you were raped—after all, if you’re not even sure, I don’t know how we can be.”
“Well, I didn’t plan to report this to the police, Ms. Cooper. I just went to the doctor at Student Health Services to make sure I didn’t have any risk of infections or pregnancy, in case Steven had penetrated me, and she said maybe I had been
raped. She’s the one who called the detectives.”
Maybe? We’re going to start to prosecute people for felonies on the basis of drunken conjecture and the suggestion of roommates and doctors and significant others who weren’t anywhere near the scene of the “crime”? Neither Beverly nor her doctor knew whether or not a sexual act had been consummated.
“One step at a time, Beverly. We’ll look into every aspect of this very carefully. In the meantime, just keep in touch with me and if you have any questions, leave a message with Laura and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.” And I bit down on my lip to stop myself from giving politically incorrect advice about how foolish I thought she was to drink unknown quantities of unidentified substances in uncontrolled situations the way she did. Save that for another visit.
I ushered her out and picked up the slip of paper with Mike’s home number on it.
“Just thought you’d like to know that Wally Flanders called. He’s coming into town tomorrow ’cause he wants our help. Nice enough to admit he has no experience with homicide. He’s got Burrell and Garelli agreeing to fly in here to be interviewed so we can do it together. Only downside is that it keeps the FBI in this, so Luther will be here, too—we’re letting Wally declare it an interstate investigation, so the feds keep a piece of the pie. Anyway, we’ll do the work up at the squad. Also, LAPD got some shrinks’ names from Isabella’s house, so they’re trying to round them up, too. See if any of them look like wackos.”
“Hey, they’re shrinks, aren’t they? Any of them fit our poetic ‘Dr. C.,’ the initial on the manuscript you found?”
“Nah. I asked the same thing. Usual bunch of Schwartzes, Greenbergs, Bernsteins… You know, Cooper, beanies—like you.”
Beanies was Mike’s euphemism for yarmulkes, his slang for Jews. He was trying to get a rise out of me but it wouldn’t work today. “Any chance you can slip me in on any of the interviews?”
“Not a prayer. Battaglia made it clear to the chief, just like he did to you, that you are not to play Dickless Tracy—you are not an investigator on this case, you’re just a witness. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
Rod was waiting at Laura’s desk when I got off the phone. He had waved Pat McKinney ahead to Battaglia’s office, and waited to escort me there on our way to lunch. Good friend that he is, he filled me in on the District Attorney’s latest plan to cut down the prearraignment time of prisoners so that I could perform adequately at the meeting. He explained the setup of the new video systems that had been installed in the precincts so that prosecutors could do the preliminary case interviews with cops by remote, saving the time of the long ride down to the Criminal Courts Building and Central Booking.
The four of us walked out of the office and around the back street to Forlini’s, where we had Battaglia’s regular booth. The place was packed with its usual assortment of assistant D.A.’s, defense attorneys, judges, and neighborhood wise guys. If anyone was stupid enough to come in and hold the place up during any weekday lunch hour, we could organize all the personnel for a trial and jury and have a verdict without any of us leaving the dining room.
We completed our conversation about the video link by the time we had finished our meals, then Battaglia engaged me in some chatter about new cases, just checking to see if my head was on straight. We strolled out after drinking our coffee and Paul made a point of lagging behind to walk with me.
“Glad to see you’re okay, Alex. Is it for real?”
“I think I’m fine, Paul. Isabella’s murder doesn’t seem to involve me at all, the police are in charge—as you know—and I’m back doing what I love to do. Thanks for your help…”
He cut me off—he hated to be brown-nosed and sucked up to—and went on with talk about his plan to create a new welfare fraud unit. We took his private elevator back up to the eighth floor, where Rod, Pat, and I left Battaglia and returned across the corridor to the Trial Division Executive Offices.
There had been six calls while I was out to lunch. Jed rang twice, to confirm arrangements for the evening; two of my colleagues had asked for time to review new cases; Joan Stafford had called to make a dinner date for me to meet her new beau; and Friday’s male caller had tried to get through twice. I should have told Chapman about the caller and about my hang-ups at home when I returned his call. Dammit. Oh well, I can tell him tonight.
Chapter
13
Ellen Goldman presented herself at Laura’s desk at precisely two-fifteen. I stepped out to greet her and we both started the less-than-subtle process of looking each other over to form our first impressions. I would read about hers in a very widely distributed legal journal, so I approached her with caution and some trepidation, knowing that her profile would be based on the interview, some observations in court during the week, and comments from colleagues and adversaries.
She would be hoping for my trust and openness, and perhaps some anecdote or item of personal information to scoop her competition, so I was aware that she would lay on the charm and flattery in our first encounter. I assumed she was salivating to have this chance to talk with me, set up prior to Isabella’s death, in the midst of the turmoil in which I was embroiled.
I guessed that Goldman was roughly my age, perhaps a year or two younger. She was much shorter than I, with dark, curly hair and an athletic build. Her khaki suit was serviceable for a business meeting but completely lacking in style. When she introduced herself there was the vague trace of an accent which I could not place but knew I would learn about in the hours we were to spend together. We shook hands and I brought her into my office, thanking her for the flowers she had left with my doorman the preceding week when I had canceled our first appointment because of the murder.
“Let me start by describing my project, Miss Coop… may I call you Alex?”
“Certainly.”
“Good. Well, I’m Ellen. I’m a freelance writer, doing this piece, as you know, for USA Lawyer’s Digest. I’m very familiar with your work—read all the pieces about you and your unit in the Times and all the women’s magazines. I’ve covered a variety of issues, but I concentrate mostly on law, lawyers, business—that sort of thing. If it would help you to see the kind of stories I’ve done I can bring a few back tomorrow. I’m sure you’ve read some of them without knowing it’s my byline.”
“That’s not necessary. I’m sure I have seen some of them.”
It would have made more sense for me to have learned if she had an ax to grind or a point of view, but it was too late for that now and I supposed that the Public Relations Office had vetted her before granting the interview. I didn’t have time this week to read puff pieces about corporate rainmakers and their golden parachutes or women at midtown law firms making six times my salary but whining about breaking the glass ceiling.
“I won’t waste your time,” she went on. “If the details on your curriculum vitae are accurate and the articles Laura faxed me have correct background, we won’t have to rehash that.”
I smiled in approval. She was obviously a pro, and an intelligent one at that. It was always aggravating to sit for a profile when the questioner spent the first hour asking what schools I had attended, how long I had worked in Battaglia’s office, and whether I liked my job.
“Is it all right with you if we start with some information about the Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit?”
“I’d like that,” I replied.
“Do you mind if I use a tape recorder? It’s so much easier than taking notes.”
“Not at all.” I launched into a narrative about how the unit was set up in the mid-seventies, as our archaic laws—based on medieval English concepts—began to change and modernize. Although I had not even been to law school at the time it was founded, my name was now the one most closely associated with the work because Battaglia had given me the scope and support to undertake aggressive investigations into these previously improvable crimes. A few innovative probes which led to convictions in hi
gh-profile cases, a gradually emerging view in the victim-advocate community that law enforcement response to these issues was improving, and the unit had become the darling of the criminal justice system. We now had more than twenty senior prosecutors handling the bizarre range of matters that came over the transom daily, and Battaglia had even spun off related models to handle the connected specialties of family violence and child abuse.
“It’s not hard to get you talking about this work, is it, Alex? I assume that you’ve stayed in the office because you love what you do, not because you couldn’t get a job in the private sector. I know you’ve had lots of offers.”
“I know that most people think this is a very grim job, Ellen, but it really isn’t. My work is on the side of the angels, if you will, with the good guys. The uniformed cops who respond to 911 calls, the Emergency Room workers—they’re the ones that have a much harder job than we do. They see the victims in much greater distress, even closer to the time of the crime than an assistant district attorney. By the time we’re in the picture, even if it’s the next day, the process of recovering is underway. I spend my days with the victims—I don’t have to deal with the rapists much at all, and that’s the way I like it. The emotional rewards of this work are enormous. Victims still don’t expect it to work for them, and when it does—with more and more frequency—they’re surprised and gratified. It can be very cathartic for them to confront their attackers in a courtroom, and to win. It’s a great part of the recovery process.”
Maybe Goldman was just humoring me—it was too soon to tell—but she seemed genuinely interested in our unit’s work. We had talked about legislative reform and the history of the movement that led to the police and prosecutorial strategies of the seventies. By four-thirty I told her that I needed to stop for the day. I was tired of talking and wanted to see a couple of the lawyers who were on trial to help them prepare for tomorrow.
She turned off her tape machine and we both stood to stretch. “What are you changing into for tonight?” she asked, and I immediately bristled at the crossover of the questioning into my personal life. How did she know I was going out tonight? I must have glared as I turned to look back at her, but Ellen was quick to spot my reaction and put me at ease. “I mean, I see you have a garment bag hanging on your coat rack, so I just figured you were going somewhere festive after work.”
Alex Cooper 01 - Final Jeopardy Page 14