by Tom Straw
“That blows. You know, I always thought it was kind of unfair how the DA locks you guys out. Not the most level playing field.”
“Don’t need to tell me.”
“Just offering sympathy. Along with my suggestion to, perhaps, lighten up.”
“I’ll think about that,” she said, not thinking about it at all. “Now you.”
“I need to gather a little more information before I can share. I don’t like to come off half-assed. It’s what I hate about journalism, especially new-school. Nobody double sources or fact checks anymore.”
“Are you serious?”
“I take my work very seriously. It’s a mission. We have that much in common. That and tapas möde. By the way, that diacritical mark over the O. Umlaut, was it?”
Macie signaled for the check. While she got out her wallet, she wondered what just happened. How did some guy—some ex-detective—shut her down like that? She was the go-to in the public defender’s office for her ability to handle witness interviews, depositions, cross-examinations, negotiations, name it. Macie put her credit card on the tray and looked back at Cody. What. Just. Happened?
“I don’t want us to part mad like this,” he said. “Not again.”
“That’s fine, don’t worry. It was a chance to thank you for being there last night. And to pretend to get to know each other.”
He laughed. “Look at you, lightening up.” Then he read her frosty response and said, “Let me make it up to you.”
“It’s not necessary. Really.” She signed the bill and put away her card.
“Really-really? Because I was going to get you inside your crime scene.”
Yanked once more in the opposite direction, she tried to gauge his sincerity. “How?”
“How’s the easy part. You did say you cleared your afternoon, right?” He rose from the booth and waited for her. Every bit of experience, instinct, and judgment told her to move on. But intrigue cast its vote.
Wild slid out and stood beside him. “I have some time,” she said.
♢ ♢ ♢
Fewer than twenty minutes later, back at Pinto’s building in Chelsea, Wild followed Cody into the same vestibule where she had been turned away two days before. “You do know the super here is a tyrant. He will call the police. So unless you plan to kick in that door . . .”
“Entirely too much work. Besides, why go all Ronda Rousey when you have one of these?” Cody held up a gleaming key pinched between his thumb and forefinger. Without hesitation, he opened the security door and held it for her. Unsure how he managed this, she hesitated. Then stepped through.
He led, she followed. They climbed the stairwell to the fourth floor. Mindful of the acoustics of the tile hallway, Macie tiptoed. Cody did nothing to conceal his presence, leading with at-home strides, even clearing his throat loudly a few times. He only slowed once, passing an apartment door behind which the TV sound cut off suddenly. He caught her eye and fired a finger pistol at it but kept on, stopping at the next unit, number 412.
The posting warned, “No Entry. NYPD Crime Scene.” The door was also crisscrossed with caution tape. Over six years Wild had seen plenty of these notices; every time they intimidated her. That was the idea. Quite unintimidated, Cody simply ripped down the tape. “Hey,” she whispered.
“Hate that stuff,” he said in full voice. She shot a glance up the corridor in fear someone would hear him. While she was turned away, the lock snapped open. And then he was standing inside, holding the door wide for her. Macie didn’t budge. “Aw, you’re not stopping now, are you?”
In fact, she already had. The thrill of going along on a naughty little adventure got dwarfed by a lifetime of common sense, not to mention adherence to law. Wild stared at the yellow coil of do-not-cross an inch from her toes and said, “I can’t.”
“You want to see your crime scene, don’t you?” She didn’t answer. “Tell you what. How’s this? I broke in, not you. See? I just left a door ajar, and you came by and said, ‘What’s this?’ Then, as a concerned citizen . . .”
“I am an officer of the court.”
“Even better. A sworn upholder of justice who heard a cry for help and came inside to make sure everything was all right.”
“But that’s not what happened.”
Cody signaled a pause with his forefinger, closed the door all but three inches, and moaned a feeble, “Help, help.” He waited, and then stepped out with her again. “Some Samaritan.”
She glanced around him through the foyer to the living room, which seemed dusky, almost lunar. Not two feet across that threshold, it vibed death scene. The funereal atmosphere and utter stillness of the place immediately stripped away any exhilaration of rolling in tandem with Cody and delivered Wild back to sober reality. “I want to know what’s going on here. Starting with that key. I want to know how you got it.”
“Simple enough. It’s a copy of the one I borrowed from the building super this morning. ‘Borrowed’ being a loose term, since he didn’t know I did it. But what Czcibor doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
“Czcibor?”
“Your Polish tyrant. But let’s cut him some slack. I’d have a ’tude myself if I had a nose covered in pubic hair.”
Once more, Cody had knocked her off balance. She wagged her head in disbelief that not only had he stolen the super’s key, but at the liberty he had taken encroaching into her case. As implications swirled in her head, she hit him with the bonus question. “Why are you helping me?”
“Would it be enough to say that I like you and I sympathize with your situation?”
“What do you think?”
“It’s true, you know.” Not seeing the thank-you face he expected, he continued anyway. “The fact is, we’re here, and I figure we have about twenty minutes before someone whistles the game. Do you want to have a panel discussion or search?” Macie stayed put. “OK, well, riddle me this, Macie Wild. Wouldn’t you love to know what the police and the DA know—and are keeping from you?” This guy truly was the devil on her shoulder. He watched Macie agonize for a beat and added something to tip the scales. “Play this right, and you won’t even have to go to trial.”
“Let’s turn on some lights,” she said, then strode by him into the crime scene.
C H A P T E R • 9
* * *
Wild liked to work methodically. She always began a site survey in the living room because it stood as the idealized version of the lives lived in a home. Spending a first-impression moment there offered her an opportunity to get a sense of the victim. A maxim her boss and mentor had drilled into her was, “In the absence of evidence, seek impressions.”
That is why Macie centered herself in the toffee-colored rectangle of hardwood where a rug had once lived. She revolved a slow three-sixty, letting her eye land wherever it was drawn. Her main perception was of clutter. And what else . . . ? Transience. Even allowing for the fact that the Crime Scene Unit had probably carted away some items (as with the rug, the couch cushions were gone), the place felt like a sad void, anything but homey. The glass coffee table, a thrift-store castoff, was a hoard of skin mags and fast-food wrappers. Random popcorn puffs and Froot Loops, adrift under the sofa, had been cocooned by hairy dust bunnies. There was a lone plastic spork and a worn tennis ball under the bookless bookcase. On the wall a very new, quite expensive, big screen had been tagged as NYPD property; no doubt it was stolen. The Dude abided from the room’s only artwork, a Big Lebowski poster, stuck to a wall by four tabs of duct tape. Rúben Pinto’s file said he was thirty-two. He lived like a teenager. Macie’s impression was of rootlessness. No center, no home, no rules.
Cody sidled up and held out a pair of nitrile gloves from his messenger bag. “CSU’s already done their sweep,” he said, “but whatever we gather on our own, we’ll want to avoid contaminating.” He placed a gloved hand on her forearm. “Plus, you won’t leave prints, so when you hop down off that ethical high horse, you can deny you were here.” He started for the r
ear of the apartment, calling back to her, “Let’s get to the main event.”
She caught up, following Cody’s long strides to the bedroom. The door was shut, but unlocked. He entered like the owner, and they stepped into bright sunlight streaming through parted drapes—then stopped. Wild had been in numerous killing cribs before, but this one made her gasp. Congealed blood covered every possible surface—the floors, the walls, windows, even the ceiling—in spatters, drips, sprays, and pools, turning the place into a Jackson Pollack nightmare in 3-D. After a moment of wretched awe, Cody said, “So. This just might be the crime scene.”
He took a knee and pulled a forensic swab kit out of his Timbuk2 and began to collect a floor sample from a reddish-brown stain the shape of a major continent. “A piece of advice? Just in case the detectives haven’t already hit your client’s closet, I’d clear it out in the event he has any inconvenient plasma residue on his clothes.”
Trying to ignore the insinuation, Wild opened her Moleskine and sketched a primitive layout of the crime scene. The room was your basic rectangle with a row of windows comprising one wall, and, to the left, a closet with pocket doors also flocked with blood spray. After marking telltale spatters, Macie paused near the entry door and placed her cheek against the wall to site its contour.
“What ya got?” asked Cody.
“This.” Wild dialed the air above a small crater in the plaster. “A depression and some hair. Looks to me like somebody’s head hit here and slid down.” The light was excellent, thanks to all the sunshine, so she got out her iPhone to snap off some documentaries. Heedful of that bump on the back of Jackson Hall’s skull and the assistant DA’s photo that indicated he had the wound before he got to Rikers, she was hating the implications. Macie also brought out an L-shaped ruler with both metric and inch graduations. She held it against the wall for reference and took another shot.
“Now you’re just showing off,” said Cody.
“Old habit,” she said as she continued to fire off different sizes and angles. “Nothing impresses a jury like a PowerPoint that sends the message that the DA isn’t the only one who knows the crime scene firsthand.”
Cody joined her to DNA-swab that area, and while he sampled, Macie snapped wide views of the room. Then she went in for closer shots of the blood residue, also using her CSU-grade ruler. Opening the closet doors revealed three wrinkled shirts on hangers, moguls of dirty laundry on the floor, and a pair of dumbbells mixed in with a jumble of shoes. She picked up the twenty-five-pound weights one at a time and examined them.
“If you’re looking for a weapon of convenience, I doubt you’ll find it there,” said Cody. “It’s such a no-brainer that CSU would have gone for that too. If any hair, skin, or DNA was on one of those, they’d be sitting in the forensic lab out in Jamaica.”
“I bet it’s unlikely we’ll find the murder weapon here. Either CSU bagged it or it left with our unknown assailant.”
Cody paused. “Sure.” She didn’t like the pause. Or the tone. Not agreeing with the “unknown” part. In one syllable Macie perceived a cop’s career suspicion—or, perhaps, cynicism—about a criminal’s bullshit story. Same as his not-so-subtle advice to check Hall’s wardrobe for blood spatter. Maybe he was right at lunch. Maybe she did have a problem with cops. Or maybe just this one.
All from one syllable.
Damn.
Cody packed the swab containers in the stash pockets of his messenger bag then came out with a GoPro. Bracing his back against the door frame, he recorded a slow, steady-handed pan of the entire room. Macie hurried to get out of his shot. “You may want to do that again with me on the outside.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll just have you sign the standard release form for my VICE doc. Maybe you know a good lawyer who can look it over.” After he recorded his panorama, he said, “Let’s do the bathroom next. Never know what you’ll find in a medicine cabinet or toilet tank.” She let him lead again, and when he reached the doorway Cody stopped short, and she collided into him. “Whoa . . .” was all he said. Or needed to.
When he slid inside, she got a view of more blood. Even more than the bedroom. Here, too, it had splattered prolifically—high and wide. Cody said, “This dude got turned into fajitas before he passed.” Macie flashed back on the gruesome photo array of Pinto that Fontanelli had teased her with. “I’d say somebody could use some anger management.” A joke, but no laugh. Wild knew enough cops to understand gallows humor as a coping mechanism.
The room was too cramped for them both, especially with the commode kicked over. It lay in chunks on the floor next to the medicine cabinet, which had been pried from the wall. So she left it to Cody to collect samples and shoot the digital record while she gave the kitchen a look. Typical of a New York one-bedroom, it was not much bigger than a Gap changing booth. Nothing controversial there. About as tidily kept as the rest of the place. Macie noticed how the residue of fingerprint powder blended with the grime on the cabinet pulls and stove knobs. Wild moved back to the living room to find Gunnar Cody at the tiny desk in one of the corners. “The computer must have been here,” he said, indicating a rectangle on the desktop showing a dust ghost of its footprint. “Safe bet forensics took that too.” He got on both knees in front of the open file drawer. “Join me at the altar of reality.”
When she knelt beside him, Cody gestured to the mess. As with the rest of Rúben’s place, the dorm mentality ruled. No Pendaflexes, just loose papers tossed in there, not unlike the moguls of soiled clothing on the closet floor. Cody began to paw through the mound. Wild rocked back to sit on her heels. “You know there’s kind of a creep factor, prying into private lives like this.”
“There is?” This time she didn’t wonder if he was kidding or not. For once Gunnar Cody could be taken at face value. For a man like him there was no problem, let alone a creep factor.
“Let me ask you a question. Speaking as a veteran detective, why didn’t they take these?”
“You mean CSU? They’re coming back. See the TV property tag?” He started gathering papers out of the drawer.
“What are you doing?”
“A more thorough job than CSU, that’s for sure.”
“We can’t take these.”
“Why not?”
“It’s evidence.”
“Um . . . which is exactly why we should take them.” Cody ignored her and got busy with his cell phone, which was vibrating. He pressed the screen to stop the alarm and rose. “Time to break camp.”
“What’s going on?”
“Czcibor’s on the move. I GPS’d his car. We’re good for about fifteen minutes, but why call it close?”
Floored, astonished—the best she could muster was, “You what . . . ?”
“No biggie. I slapped a transponder under his rear bumper. Want to see?” Cody held out his phone. On the screen map, a small blue dot pulsed on the West Side Highway. “It’s basically the same way you know how close your Uber is.” He picked up the stack of files. “Do me a favor, I saw one of those Urban Luggage grocery bags in the kitchen.”
“Look. Mr. Cody. I can kinda sorta rationalize the unauthorized visit. Removing physical evidence? That is a line I have to draw.”
He saw the resolve in her eyes. “You really are a straight shooter, aren’t you?”
“My executive director once called me the Annie Oakley of moral codes.”
“As a compliment or a dig?” All he got back was her resolute stare. “OK. All right . . .” He chucked the files back in the drawer then closed it with an elegant hand flourish straight from The Price Is Right. “Happy?”
“Ecstatic.”
Out in the hallway, she peeled off her gloves and enjoyed the cool air on her hands. “Shit,” he said. “Left my coat in there. BRB.” He disappeared inside, and, just when he seemed to be gone a tad long, the door opened again and he stepped out with his sport coat hooked on a finger. As Cody locked up, Macie noticed the sudden bulk of his messenger bag as he restuck the crime scen
e tape.
“What did you do?”
He smiled. “Just keeping your aim true, Annie Oakley.” Before she could react, he strode up the corridor with the paper-laden Timbuk2 bouncing off his ass. Wild tried to ignore that fact that it was a very nice ass while she caught up beside him and put her hand on his elbow.
“I want you to put those back.” Before he could respond they heard a floorboard creak. It came from behind the apartment door beside them—the same place the blaring TV got muted on their way in. Cody unslung the messenger bag and handed it to Macie. Its weight jarred her. She held it while he put on his jacket. She was just about to thank him when he turned and knocked on 413. “What are you doing?”
“Feel free to sit this one out.” He gave her a sympathetic face. “Really. I understand.”
Macie was backing away when a woman’s “Who is it?” came from inside.
“Ex-Detective Cody, NYPD.” Wild noted how deftly he swallowed the “ex,” and bet it was from plenty of practice. The former policeman presented himself confidently to the peephole. Two deadbolts later, the door opened.
The aluminum walker emerged, tennis balls first. “Sorry,” said the old woman. “You have to be careful. Especially after the murder.”
“Understood,” said Cody.
“I’m happy to help, but I already told the other detectives everything I know.”
Macie caught the gloat in the slight narrowing of Cody’s eyes. His assumption had paid off. He scored a witness. “Well, you know how it is, check and double-check. That’s how we get the bad guys.”
A bingo wing on the octogenarian’s arm waggled as she beckoned him inside. Worried about loitering in the hallway with a bag full of stolen evidence, Macie followed. When she closed the door, the woman turned to scrutinize her. “You don’t look like a cop. Well, a pretty cop. Like on a TV show. You have very nice teeth.”