The Kills

by Fairstein, Linda

  “Judge, I think she’s-”

  “Don’t tell me what you think, Ms. Cooper. I’m trying to move this along.”

  The juror looked at me, obviously hoping I would intervene again so that she could regain control of her emotions.

  “Let me get you a cup of water,” I said, stepping back to counsel table.

  “I’m afraid I’m the wrong person for this kind of trial, sir. You may not think it’s rational, but I can’t sit here and listen to another woman describe a forcible assault. It’s-it’s still too raw for me. I’m sorry, I’m just not able to do it.”

  The judge had heard enough. “Report back to the central jury room tomorrow morning. Tell ‘em to mark your ticket for civil court next time.”

  In all, seven women approached the bench to talk about their personal experiences. Four asked to be excused, and three felt they could not honestly know how they would react to sitting through the emotionally charged testimony of another survivor.

  “Nobody says she’s a victim yet,” the judge growled at the last one on line. “That’s what the jury’s got to decide.”

  I checked my watch. Moffett would keep us till seven or eight in the evening to complete our selection. Nothing would move him from his schedule.

  When he finished the general questioning, he passed the long green seating chart over to me so I could continue on with the more personal inquiries. I placed it on the small podium in front of the box and took a few seconds to match the jurors’ faces to the names and addresses on the small printed summons representing each person before me.

  By five-fifteen we had agreed on eleven jurors. I had bounced the butcher whose two teenaged sons had been arrested for a variety of crimes they didn’t commit, the department store customer-complaint representative who thought it was impossible for women to be raped by men they knew and dated, and the acting student who thought O. J. Simpson was misunderstood by the media.

  Peter Robelon made the classic mistake that defense attorneys often did while handling their first rape cases. He struggled for ways to get rid of all the women on the jury, figuring that men would place themselves in Andrew Tripping’s shoes, find them too close a fit, and walk him out the courtroom door.

  Little did he know the sad lesson I had learned over the years, that women were far more likely to criticize the conduct of others of their sex and blame them for their own victimization. I used to knock myself out trying to stack the box with a dozen intelligent women, until a small delegation of men told me, after a trial, that the ladies had been far too judgmental about the victim’s conduct.

  I watched my adversary knock off the avowed feminist with three unmarried sons in college and graduate school-not likely to vote with me when it came time to reach a verdict-and get rid of five or six young women whom he didn’t happen to notice were making eye contact across the room with Andrew Tripping or Robelon himself, almost flirtatiously.

  I didn’t see my paralegal, Maxine, enter and walk up to the clerk’s desk on the front side of the room opposite the jury box. She was distracting Moffett, and he called her on it. “You got something you need to disturb us for, missy?”

  “She’s got to talk to Ms. Cooper, pronto, Judge,” the clerk said.

  He stood behind his chair and waved me in Maxine’s direction. I was no happier than Moffett and my expression must have showed that.

  “Sorry, Alex. Mercer told me to get to you immediately. He wants to know if you can ask the judge to revoke the defendant’s bail and remand him overnight.”

  “What possible reason would I have to do that?” I asked.

  “A woman called your office a little while ago, looking for you. She claims to be the foster mother of Dulles Tripping. She says the principal sent the boy home with a note this afternoon, telling her that there was a man hanging out in front of the school yard at seven-thirty this morning, asking other kids if they knew where Dulles was.”

  “Did the woman leave her name and number? Did the teacher describe the guy?”

  I was snapping at Maxine for answers that I knew I should not expect her to have.

  “From what she said to me, it sounds kind of like the defendant,” Maxine said.

  “If it happened first thing this morning, why did the principal wait so long to tell her?”

  I was trying to recall what time Tripping had gotten to the courthouse.

  “He didn’t wait. The woman had some medical appointments in the morning, after she dropped Dulles off at school. They’d been looking for her all day but she never went back to the house until after she picked up the boy.”

  I was over a barrel again. I couldn’t make a bail application alleging that the defendant might have violated the order of protection without at least a firsthand ability to assess the foster mother’s credibility. One more player I hadn’t yet met. I needed to get the details from the principal. If the request for remand backfired, I would have aggravated the judge unnecessarily. If I erred on the side of caution, I might be giving Tripping one more opportunity to intercept-or even to harm-his young son.

  “I’ll ask for ten minutes so I can call her. Give me the woman’s number,” I said to Maxine.

  “That’s just it. She was spooked. Said you didn’t know her name and she wasn’t about to leave it with Mercer or anyone else who could track her down. She just wanted you to know that she was taking Dulles and leaving town with him. She’ll be in touch.”

  7

  We finished picking our jury shortly after seven.

  “Ten o’clock sharp, ladies and gentlemen,” Moffett said, dismissing the twelve we had selected, along with two alternates.

  “Tell you what I’m gonna do with regard to the boy,” he announced to Robelon and me after the courtroom was cleared of the group. “I’ll tell Ms. Taggart to have Dulles produced in my chambers after school tomorrow. Miss Cooper can try to talk to him and that other lawyer, what’s his name?”

  “Hoyt. Graham Hoyt.”

  “Yeah. He can sit in on it, too, on the boy’s behalf. I’ll hang around to iron out any problems that come up. How’s that sound?”

  I couldn’t concentrate on the conversation. My mind was spinning, wondering whether the child was in any actual danger, where the foster mother might have taken him, how Nancy Taggart would respond when I told her about the call from the school, and why everyone in this case-except the victim-seemed to have his or her own agenda.

  Robelon spewed out some form of objection and tried to make up for lack of case law to support his position by the sheer volume of his rhetoric.

  “Alexandra,” Moffett said, “I’m talking to you. We’ll stop with your witness at five o’clock tomorrow and then I’ll give you a chance to see if the kid’ll cooperate.”

  “Fine, Your Honor.” I had a better chance of winning the lottery than sitting in a room with Dulles Tripping by the end of the next day.

  “Anything else?” he asked, unhooking the clasp of his robe and handing it to the court officer to hang until the morning.

  “Judge, I’d just ask you to remind the defendant, now that proceedings have started, that the order of protection is in full force. He is not to attempt or have any contact with his son, whether in this courthouse, at his school, or-”

  “That’s really unnecessary, Alex,” Robelon objected. “We don’t even know what school the kid goes to or where he’s living.”

  “I have no idea what you or your client know at this point. I’m in the rather unorthodox position of not having access to my own witnesses. It’s quite clear that the family court, by allowing telephone calls and several meetings between Mr. Tripping and his son, undercut the order of one of the criminal court judges-”

  I knew how to get under Moffett’s collar. “Which she had no business doing. Alex is right about that. Be a good boy, Mr. Tripping, understood?”

  “Yes, sir.” The defendant seemed to be smirking at me as he answered Moffett.

  The elevators stopped on the seventh f
loor and I ran my security badge through the scanner, walked down the quiet corridor and up to my eighth-floor office.

  Ryan Blackmer, one of my favorite young lawyers, was keeping Mercer company in my office when I dragged in. “You need me?” I asked.

  “Just a heads-up. Mind if I work on an investigation at Bayview?”

  The prison facility on Manhattan’s West Side was the only place in the county where female inmates were housed. “Be my guest. What is it?”

  “Prisoner claims one of the guards-he’s a captain, actually-has been having sex with her.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time. But those can be awfully hard to prove.”

  “She’s doing seven years on a robbery with physical injury. Her lawyer claims she hasn’t had a single visitor since Christmas, when her husband left her for her younger sister. Now she’s four months pregnant. Might be as easy as a fetal DNA test.”

  “Go for it,” I said as the phone rang.

  Mercer answered it. “I don’t think she’s in the mood,” he said, holding out the receiver to me.

  “Chapman?”

  “I’m running out of steam, Coop. Never shut my eyes for a minute last night and I’m just about to go lights-out.”

  “I’m too busy to tuck you in.”

  “I need a favor.”

  It was hard to refuse Mike. He had saved my neck on more occasions than I could count. “Shoot.”

  He laughed. “But first, what do you give for ‘Famous Funerals’?” I glanced down at my watch. The “Final Jeopardy” question.

  “Nothing. The subject’s too close to home at the moment.”

  “Laid to rest in London’s Highgate, his orator described him as the ‘best hated and most calumniated man of his times.’”

  From the days when I was immersed in my major in English literature, I knew that one of my favorite authors was interred there. “George Eliot’s buried in Highgate. But she doesn’t fit. And Bram Stoker’s notorious vampire, Miss Lucy. Otherwise, not a clue. Skip the education and tell me what the favor is.”

  “That was Engels describing his buddy Karl Marx to the eight mourners who gathered at the graveside. Only eight. Imagine that. So can you stop at the morgue on the way home?”

  “Sure. I didn’t want to eat any dinner or polish up my opening statement.”

  “I know your style. You had your opening in the can a month ago. You’ve already written the summation.”

  Mike was right. I had learned from the old school, the guys who had mastered the art of criminal trial work under great prosecutors. Start your preparation with the closing argument. That way you could make a coherent presentation from the outset, building your case with a sound structure and layering in any new information that you gathered during the testimony of the witnesses. I had outlined those arguments weeks ago.

  “What do you need?”

  “You told me you were going to assign last night’s homicide to someone.”

  “I forgot about it completely.” I had promised Mike that I would tell Sarah Brenner, my deputy, to make one of the unit assistants available on the murder of the elderly woman.

  “I know. I just tried to reach Sarah so I wouldn’t bother you. She didn’t know what I was talking about. I could hear her kids in the background-”

  “She’s got her hands full at this hour.”

  “I think I can make it easy for you. Just a quick detour. Dr. Kirschner thinks I’m wrong about the rape. Autopsy shows no sign of sexual assault.”

  “Nothing?” I asked.

  “Not a single thing with a foreign profile. No semen, no loose pubic hair-”

  “Bruising?” I would expect, in a woman as old as Mike’s victim, that the vaginal vault would exhibit lacerations and swelling, because of the atrophy that accompanied the lack of sexual activity.

  “Not internal. Not even on her thighs.”

  “Sounds like a blessing to me if she wasn’t subjected to rape as a final indignity.”

  “Kirschner thinks the scene was staged to look like a sexual assault. He just finished up and if you can get there within the hour, he’d go over the results with you and show you the crime scene photos. Brainstorm and see what you think. That way I can get started in a new direction when I go in tomorrow morning.”

  “Okay.”

  “And Coop? Say good night to Queenie for me?”

  “Is that her name?”

  “McQueen Ransome. Known to her neighbors as Queenie. Lived in that same little apartment for the last fifty years. Never hurt a fly.”

  “Family? Next of kin?”

  “Not a soul. Had one son who died before he got to high school. No sign that she was ever married, but there are pictures of the boy on the wall in the living room.”

  “Sounds like a stupid question to ask about an eighty-two-year-old lady, but did she have any enemies?”

  “Not that I heard about today. Kids were hanging out all over the stoop. They loved her. Did all the errands for her in exchange for candy, and some entertainment.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’d sing and dance for the kids, that’s what they say. Put on her old vinyl records and cut a rug. I got a whole children’s crusade working on the case with me. Told ‘em all they could be my deputies if they catch the killer. Anyway, leave a message on my cell and I’ll speak to you at the end of the day tomorrow.”

  “Last thing, Mike. You make any progress on Tiffany Gatts?”

  “She won’t be arraigned before morning. There was a labor demonstration over in the garment district, and the backup cause of all the extra arrests for dis con is cramming the system. Have Mercer walk you to your car. Mama Gatts’ll be looking for blood.”

  “Thanks for the reminder.”

  “We may have a lead on the mink. Found an open squeal in the Seventeenth Precinct. UN delegate from France named du Rosier. Reported a theft six months back. He and his wife thought it was an inside job. His chauffeur had access to the apartment, even when the couple was back in Europe. A bunch of jewelry, two furs, and some pricey antique silver service.”

  “Any description?”

  “The du Rosiers are traveling at the moment. I’ll try and get something more detailed from their insurance company tomorrow. Speak to you then.”

  Mercer waited while I closed up and we headed out the door together. My car was parked near the intersection of Centre Street and Hogan Place, at the corner of the courthouse. The laminated NYPD plate displayed in the windshield was one of the privileges of rank in the office, and I was pleased that no one had double-parked me in place, as often happened when cops delivered prisoners to the courthouse.

  The dump sticker from the town of Chilmark, where my home on Martha’s Vineyard was located, and the Squibnocket beach pass on the rear window, were the only things that personalized my winter-green SUV. It was even more heartwarming to see that the Vineyard stickers had not seemed to draw the attention or wrath of Etta Gatts, who might have noticed the Vineyard posters in my office. The windows were intact.

  I stepped off the curb at the rear of the car, keys in hand. Mercer went around in front to open the door for me.

  “Looks like I’m your transportation for the evening,” he said, taking the keys out of my hand. “Your car’s in dry dock, Alex. Someone slashed your two front tires.”

  8

  There is a cruel invasion of privacy that attends a death by violence.

  Mercer and I sat in a small cubicle adjacent to the autopsy theater in the office of the chief medical examiner, Chet Kirschner. The brilliant pathologist had finished his work for the day, and was taking us through the Queenie Ransome homicide findings.

  The strong odor of formalin was exaggerated by the closeness of the room. I coughed to clear my dry throat, listening to Kirschner’s voice, which was so oddly comforting in these starkly clinical circumstances.

  I stared at close-ups of the nude corpse, taken in her home by a Crime Scene Unit detective, shuffling them
around on the table in front of me.

  “There are two different scenarios you want to think about here,” he told us, after describing what McQueen Ransome’s body had revealed to him. “You remember the old Park Plaza cases?”

  Both Mercer and I recognized the name. The building had been a flophouse on the West Side of Manhattan, a dilapidated single-room-occupancy hotel that was home to dozens of senior citizens living on welfare. Throughout a two-year period, several of the octogenarians had died without any suspicion of foul play.

  “The first five women had no relatives in the city to raise any concerns, no property of any value, and histories of illness that allowed their physicians to certify their deaths as occurring from natural causes.”

  “They weren’t even autopsied?” I asked.

  Kirschner shook his head. “The sixth one was slightly different. Mildred Vargas. She owned a television set, and it was missing from her room when her body was found. We did a postmortem, even though there were no signs of a struggle, and we wound up with unexpected evidence that there had been a sexual assault.”

  “What killed her?” Mercer wanted to know.

  “She was suffocated. Smothered with a pillow.”

  Exactly what Mike said had happened to Queenie.

  “I got an order to exhume the other bodies and autopsy them,” Kirschner said.

  Mercer remembered the outcome. “All five had been raped.”

  “And smothered. No external signs of injury. Just the internal bruising, and the minute petechial hemorrhages in their eyes that the physicians missed in each case.”

  Hallmarks of an asphyxial death, the tiny red pinpoint markers were quiet indicators of strangulation and suffocation, blood vessels bursting in eyes as they were deprived of oxygen.

  Kirschner straightened his lean body and rested an elbow atop a file cabinet. “That killer made a specialty of getting in and out of apartments with no visible signs of forced entry. He even took the time to re-dress three of his victims, so the sexual assault was not the least bit obvious. Chapman’s looking to link McQueen Ransome’s death to those cases.”