Cover-up

by Michele Martinez

  “I’ll stay here so Mr. Harris doesn’t get any smart ideas,” Julian said.

  Leaving the door ajar on the off chance Harris did decide to make a move, Melanie, Dan, and Janice stepped outside to confer.

  “Can we get the DNA sample taken today?” Melanie asked Dan in a low tone.

  “The technicians are on beeper. I’ll page them and try to get somebody in here. If I can, it’s just a swab from his cheek. Only takes a minute. I can’t make any promises whether a tech is available, though.”

  “How long for results once the sample is taken?”

  “Normally, it’s weeks, but in a case like this, put a rush on it, we’ll have an answer in a day or two, assuming there’s nothing else big going on that I don’t know about.”

  “Do you believe his story?” she asked.

  Janice shook her head. “Too much of a coincidence if you ask me, him being at the scene of the crime and getting his face scratched. I think he’s lying.”

  “Dan?” Melanie asked.

  “Guys like that are why everybody hates lawyers,” Dan said. “I can barely stand the sight of his smug face, but gut reaction, he’s telling the truth. Think about how scared he sounded on the 911 tape. He would’ve had to be one damn good actor to fake that. I think he was out cruising guys and that’s why he ran. The scratches bother me, but it’s plausible they came from a robbery attempt. Pross gets the jump on the john. Happens all the time in the Ramble. I buy it.”

  “You’re the deciding vote,” Janice said, looking at Melanie.

  “Obviously, we get the DNA sample done right away,” Melanie said. “That’s a no-brainer. The real question is what to do with Harris while we’re waiting for the results.”

  Melanie paused, thinking. Arresting Harris on obstruction-of-justice charges might destroy his legal career, and in a different case, she would have cut the guy some slack. But this was a murder case, a particularly brutal and ugly one. What happened if she let Harris walk and it turned out she’d been wrong?

  “Just because we don’t know of any motive doesn’t mean Harris isn’t the killer,” she continued. “We haven’t investigated him yet. He has scratches on his face, and he’s the right height and build to be able to inflict the type of damage that our victim suffered. Adding those factors up, I think I have to put him in.”

  “Lock him up?” Dan asked.

  “If I can convince a judge to do it. I can’t risk letting a killer out on the street.”

  13

  It was late Thursday afternoon and the arraignment court was buzzing with DEA and Secret Service agents and deputy U.S. marshals, all shepherding prisoners from the day’s buy-bust and postal-theft and credit card fraud arrests. The judge was on a break and the bench was empty, but the spectator seats were jammed with Nigerians and Pakistanis and Colombians and people from every corner of the globe who’d come to sign a bond for a cousin or blow a kiss to a lover as he was led away in chains. Melanie slipped into an empty seat at the government’s table and nodded to a crew of fresh-faced junior prosecutors from General Crimes who were waiting to handle the minor arraignments. Immediately, somebody tapped her on the shoulder.

  “You have the complaint in the Harris case? He just retained me. Bob Adelman.”

  “Let’s talk outside,” Melanie said, pushing back her chair.

  As they hurried up the aisle together, Melanie had her first small inkling of doubt. Bob Adelman was one of the most successful criminal defense lawyers in New York, and for a reason. He was the real deal. He didn’t wear fancy suits or hire publicists like some of the hotshot types. He was just talented. Short and stocky, in his early sixties, with a hound-dog face, Adelman exuded reasonableness. His obviously guilty clients stepped up and took their pleas with minimal fuss. His clients who went to trial did so because the evidence was weak, and they usually walked. Judges loved him, and when prosecutors discovered he was assigned to a case, they often just gave up and followed his lead.

  Outside the courtroom, Melanie handed Adelman a copy of the charges, which he quickly scanned.

  “You’re jumping the gun by filing charges on my guy,” Adelman said. “He’s a husband and father. Stan Feinerman, the richest lawyer in New York, thinks highly of him and wants to make him a partner. He witnessed the Central Park Butcher murder and he was initially uncooperative. So what? Ten minutes with me, he’ll be in your office singing like a little girl. Give me a chance, and I’ll bring him around, promise.”

  “That’s not the issue, Bob. He talked, eventually. I’m just not sure I believed him.”

  Adelman was whippet quick. “Are you saying you suspect him of involvement in the homicide?” he asked.

  “I can’t rule it out,” Melanie said.

  “Based on what evidence?”

  “I can’t discuss that right now.”

  “Fair enough, but what good does an obstruction charge do you? Boutros is on duty, and she’s a stickler. If he was Charles Manson, she wouldn’t remand him on charges this thin. Not in a million years.”

  “I have to try.”

  “If you really think he’s the Butcher, charge him with the homicide. Then you can argue that he’s a danger to the community. You’d have a much better chance of keeping him in.”

  Melanie was silent.

  “You don’t have the goods, do you?” Adelman said with a knowing smile.

  A prosecutor who looked barely old enough to shave poked his head out the courtroom door. “You’re Melanie, right?” he asked. “The judge is on the bench. They just called your case.”

  “Boutros is gonna love this one.” Adelman winked at Melanie and turned on his heel, leaving her to follow him into court like a lamb to the slaughter.

  David Harris stood before the bench, with two deputy U.S. marshals guarding him. Bob Adelman shook Harris’s hand warmly as he whispered instructions, draping his arm around his client’s shoulder to show the world what a decent guy David Harris was.

  “Defendant waives reading of the complaint?” Judge Boutros snapped, cutting off Adelman’s display. Boutros was known as the Iron Lady, both for the color of her hair and her no-nonsense ways. Not a second was wasted in her courtroom. Prosecutors actually competed to clock the fastest Boutros arraignment. The current record was a minute twelve, and the judge looked like she was itching to break it this afternoon.

  “We do,” Bob Adelman said.

  “Agreement as to bail?”

  “Before we get to bail, Judge, an application?” Adelman began, and Melanie’s palms started to sweat. This guy was an expert at the old adage that the best defense is a good offense, and he was clearly up to something.

  With any other lawyer, Judge Boutros would have rolled her eyes, but with Adelman she looked curious. “I’ll hear you,” she said.

  “The defense moves to dismiss the complaint on the grounds of bad faith. Let me tell you what’s really happening here, Judge. The government is investigating a brutal homicide that took place in Central Park last night. The case has attracted a lot of press attention, and the government’s under pressure to make an arrest. Any arrest. My client witnessed the homicide and reported it to the police like a good citizen. Miss Vargas has somehow bootstrapped this into his being the Central Park Butcher, but she doesn’t have a shred of proof to back it up. If the government wants to charge murder here, we say bring it on, and we’ll beat it fair and square. Instead, they’re trying to ruin the reputation of an upstanding citizen with a bogus obstruction charge. This is an outrageous misuse of the criminal justice system, and we ask that the complaint be dismissed with prejudice and Miss Vargas be reprimanded.”

  “Judge, there’s no basis whatso—”

  “Quiet, Miss Vargas. I’ll hear you when I’m ready.”

  The judge picked up a piece of paper from her desk and scanned it. Melanie stood there stunned, her chest heaving with fury, her cheeks burning. She’d never had her integrity questioned in open court before.

  “I see from the Pre
trial Services report that the defendant is an attorney?” Judge Boutros said, looking over the paper at Bob Adelman.

  Adelman’s eyes were wide and doleful. “Yes, Judge. This obstruction charge could end his career.”

  “Mr. Adelman, if the allegations in the complaint are true, then his career deserves to end. Obstruction by members of the bar is doubly despicable in my view. But I admit I’m curious about what you hope to gain, Miss Vargas. You can’t expect me to remand him on these charges?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. The government seeks remand,” Melanie said.

  “On what possible basis? He’s a citizen, correct?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Judge Boutros slapped the page with her free hand. “How is this man a flight risk? He’s gainfully employed to the tune of nearly two hundred and fifty thousand a year, and owns an apartment on West Seventy-sixth Street where he lives with his wife and three children. He was born and raised in Manhattan and has no known ties outside the United States. Please, don’t insult my intelligence.”

  Melanie forced herself to stand up straight, meet the judge’s eyes, and speak in a firm voice. She’d take her humiliation like a soldier.

  “I’m arguing that he’s a danger to the community, Judge, not a flight risk,” Melanie said. She felt every eye in the courtroom boring into her back.

  “Then you’d better call a witness and make a record about his involvement with the murder, because I don’t find one single fact in the complaint that backs you up,” Judge Boutros said.

  Melanie hesitated. She had no witnesses prepared. She hadn’t imagined she’d need any.

  “I’m not doing your dirty work for you, Miss Vargas,” Judge Boutros said. “Call a witness and make your case, or you risk a finding of bad faith.”

  If this judge demanded a dog-and-pony show, Melanie had no choice but to deliver. She looked around the courtroom. Dan and Julian had transported Harris to court and now sat on a back bench, waiting to see whether he’d make bail.

  “The government calls Special Agent Daniel K. O’Reilly of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  Dan rose and headed down the aisle. As Melanie marched over to the podium facing the witness stand, her legs were shaky. Never mind David Harris; Melanie’s career was going down the toilet, in a crowded courtroom no less. Judge Boutros’s scowl grew deeper every minute, and Bob Adelman sat at counsel table with a yellow legal pad, ready to tear apart everything she said.

  Judge Boutros swore Dan in and turned to Melanie. “Proceed, Miss Vargas.”

  Melanie cleared her throat and looked down at her legal pad, but of course there was nothing written on it.

  “State your full name and spell it for the court reporter,” she said, her mind a complete blank. Think of something, goddammit.

  “Daniel Kevin O’Reilly,” Dan replied, and spelled it.

  At the sound of his voice, Melanie looked up. Their eyes met across the courtroom. His were blue, the blue of clear skies, of the ocean on a calm day. They seemed to say that she was up to the job.

  “How are you employed?” she asked, her voice firm and clear.

  “As a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  “Where were you at approximately eleven P.M. last night?”

  “In Central Park, in the area known as the Ramble.”

  “Why were you there?”

  “I was paged to report to the scene of a homicide.”

  “Who was the victim of this homicide?”

  “One Suzanne Shepard. A TV news reporter.”

  “As part of your duties at the crime scene, did you view the victim’s body?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Melanie knew she needed to tread carefully here or her whole investigation would be laid bare in open court. She didn’t plan on giving Bob Adelman free discovery before he was entitled to it, no way, not after he’d ambushed her like that.

  She caught Dan’s eyes meaningfully. “Agent, I’d like to focus your attention on one particular element of the crime scene, without going into anything else. Can you please describe the state of the victim’s fingernails?”

  “The fingernails had material under them that appeared to be human skin.”

  “Did you observe this yourself?”

  “No, not personally. This was relayed to me by the head crime-scene detective. By the time I got to the scene, the material had been collected.”

  “Collected in what manner?”

  “By the, uh, the crime-scene detectives taking scrapings.”

  “What was the purpose of taking the scrapings?”

  “For later DNA comparison if a suspect was arrested for the murder.”

  “Why would the police make such a comparison?”

  “Could you—I don’t understand the question,” he said.

  “I’ll rephrase it. Whose skin did the crime-scene detectives believe was under the victim’s fingernails?”

  Adelman stood up. “Objection. Seeks an answer not within the witness’s direct knowledge.”

  Good, Melanie thought. If he’s starting to object, he must be worried.

  “Hearsay is admissible in a bail hearing,” Judge Boutros said. “Agent O’Reilly, did the crime-scene detectives tell you whose skin they thought was under the victim’s fingernails?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Overruled. You may answer,” the judge said.

  “The idea was, the victim fought back,” Dan said. “She scratched her attacker. So it would’ve been the killer’s skin.”

  “That was last night?” Melanie asked.

  “Correct.”

  “If Suzanne Shepard’s killer was arrested today, how would you expect him to look?”

  “Objection, calls for speculation,” Bob Adelman said.

  “Overruled. This is plain common sense,” Judge Boutros said. She was gazing steadily at David Harris’s face, and Melanie’s hopes surged. The clear, shiny ointment on Harris’s right cheek did nothing to conceal the two angry scratches.

  “I would expect his face to be scratched up,” Dan replied.

  “Directing your attention to earlier today, did you place an individual under arrest for the murder of Suzanne Shepard?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who was that?”

  “One David M. Harris.”

  “Is he present in the courtroom?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Please identify him and describe him for the record.”

  Dan pointed. “That’s him, seated to the left of Mr. Adelman at the defense table, wearing a gray suit, with light brown hair.”

  “Please describe for the record the condition of Mr. Harris’s face.”

  “He’s got two fresh scratches on his right cheek. Nasty-looking ones.”

  “Can you describe the facts that led you to arrest Mr. Harris?”

  “He had called 911 last night to report the murder, claiming to be an eyewitness. He fled the scene before the police arrived—”

  “Wait a minute,” Judge Boutros interjected. “If he’s the killer, why would he call the police?”

  “Mr. Harris called the police, then fled, ma’am,” Dan replied. “The killer left the body in a public place anyways, so we figured he wanted her discovered. Sometimes it’s about the publicity.”

  The Judge nodded. “Proceed.”

  “We then tracked Mr. Harris down through his cell-phone records,” Dan continued. “When we found him, he denied placing the call, which we knew wasn’t true because it’s his cell phone and his voice. We asked him where he got the scratches on his face and he lied about that, too.”

  “What did he say?” Melanie asked.

  “That he got ’em from his kid, but his wife said he never came home last night.”

  “Did he later give a second explanation for the scratches?”

  “Yes. When we said we didn’t buy the story about his kid, he stated that somebody tried to rob him in the Park and he sustained the s
cratches fighting this individual off.”

  “Did you ask Mr. Harris to provide a DNA sample?”

  “Yes, and he agreed. We should have the results in twenty-four to forty-eight hours. If they come back positive, obviously, we’ll charge him with the murder instead of just the obstruction of justice.”

  “No further questions,” Melanie said.

  She picked up her legal pad and headed back to the government’s table. The baby prosecutors were looking at her with admiration. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that the courthouse grapevine had gone into overdrive, and the courtroom was packed. A possible arrest in the Central Park Butcher case was big news. Bernadette had shown up at some point, and beside her sat the deputy chief of the Criminal Division. In the rows behind them were several reporters whom Melanie recognized from the press conference this morning.

  Bob Adelman rose. “Cross, Judge?”

  Looking at the clock, Judge Boutros waved her hand irritably. “Sit down, Mr. Adelman. I’m prepared to rule.”

  “Judge—”

  “I’ve heard enough. The motion to dismiss the complaint on grounds of bad faith is denied. The government had a legitimate public safety concern here—”

  “Judge, my client has a good explanation for the scratches—”

  “Did you hear me, Mr. Adelman? No cross necessary. As much as I see where the government’s coming from, I can’t order remand on the facts before me. I’m ready to set bail.”

  Melanie got to her feet. “Your Honor—”

  “For forty-eight hours you can put a tail on him, Miss Vargas. I’m not locking him up on a measly obstruction charge.”

  “What about electronic monitoring, Judge?” Melanie tried.

  “That only makes sense if I order home confinement or severely restrict his movements. I’m not doing that on these facts. Live with it and sit down.”

  The rest of the hearing passed in a flash, with David Harris agreeing to post the title to his apartment as security for his bail. Afterward, as Melanie headed up the aisle, Bob Adelman caught her by the arm.