Next to Ellie in the first row of observer seats behind Max, Rogan was shaking his head in disagreement. Ellie leaned forward and whispered to Max. “Take out Donna. If she’s the one who’s different, the pattern’s more consistent.”
But Ellie wasn’t the only one vying for Max’s attention. “And what do you have to say, Mr. Donovan, about the similarity among all of these confessions supposedly obtained by Detective Majors?” the judge asked. “‘You got it right’ and ‘That’s how it happened’ and ‘I didn’t mean to do it.’ Those three identical phrases appear in two-thirds of the confessions that Ms. Moreland has been able to compile. How does the state explain that?”
Max was on his feet now. “Again, Your Honor, this is the first we’ve heard from Ms. Moreland about any pattern to confessions obtained by the investigating detective. I know, however, that Detective Majors was a highly respected investigator, so much so that the department routinely asked him to give training to his peers regarding interrogations.”
“Well, that’s comforting,” Moreland quipped.
Max ignored the dig. “What triggered this expedited hearing was the finding of new DNA evidence on Donna Blank—a woman killed in Utica—which has nothing to do with the fact that Mr. Amaro pled guilty to the murder of Deborah Garner. There are no facts in evidence to suggest that the Utica killings played a material role in Amaro’s own admissions of guilt.”
“Oh, come on now.” Judge Johnsen was peering over her glasses at Max. “I happen to remember this case. It may not be in the formal record, but anyone who was paying attention knows that Amaro was one of the first death penalty targets in large part because he was believed to be responsible for other killings in Utica, including Donna Blank’s. How am I supposed to ignore the fact that DNA evidence now suggests another culpable party in her death?”
Ellie was frantically scribbling as Max responded to the judge’s question.
“All the victims were prostitutes. They all would have had frequent encounters with multiple men. It’s not surprising that one of them would have trace evidence from another man on her person.” Ellie looked at Carrie Blank, sitting quietly next to Linda Moreland. This was Donna’s sister—or half sister. How did it feel to have her discussed so impersonally? “We are doing what is right,” Max continued. “Obviously, we asked for retesting of the physical evidence. We have two highly regarded detectives acting as a fresh-look team, detectives who had nothing to do with the original investigation.”
Linda Moreland scoffed. “I wasn’t going to bring this up, Judge, but, yes, they are oh so very neutral. Detective Hatcher lives with ADA Donovan.”
Ellie was holding her notepad across the wood railing that separated her from Max.
Donna Blank—only one with non-matching DNA. No proven prostitution ties. Only wrists were broken. She’s the outlier. Deborah Garner part of consistent pattern.
But Max was too busy trying to hold up his part of an argument he was suddenly losing. “Your Honor, I am also part of the fresh-look team. I was barely out of high school when Mr. Amaro was convicted. The fact that defense counsel would even raise my relationship with Detective Hatcher shows that she is seeking to obfuscate—”
Judge Johnsen held up a palm. “Enough. If nothing else, the use of the word obfuscate shows that I’ve heard enough.”
Ellie wrote yet another note and tried again to get Max’s attention.
Have witness from Utica. Says Donna Blank wasn’t a working girl.
The squeak of a door interrupted Judge Johnsen’s comments, and Ellie turned to see the district attorney, Martin Overton, entering. Well over six feet tall, he had the good looks of a television anchor, with a strong chin and full head of dark-blond hair starting to grey at the temples.
“I’m sorry I’m late, Judge Johnsen. I want to make clear—both to you and to the community—that I am personally committed to seeing that my office does everything and anything to be thorough and transparent in every investigation. As I’ve always said, ‘Better that six guilty men go free than one innocent man be imprisoned.’”
Ellie was pretty sure that the quote was either from William Blackstone or Benjamin Franklin and involved some other mathematical ratio. Regardless of the specifics, she was quite certain someone else had made the point long before Martin Overton had run for New York County District Attorney. He’d squeaked by in a contested race after the retirement of the longest-serving DA in the county’s history.
Ellie tried one more time, this time speaking aloud to get Max’s attention. “We have a witness. A former working girl in Utica. She says Donna isn’t like the others.”
She felt Rogan pulling her shoulder from behind. She turned, and he dragged a finger across his throat, signaling for her to knock it off. “Shh. Moreland is making us those cops.”
Then Ellie saw the problem. Any facts offered for the first time this morning would only serve to fuel Linda Moreland’s narrative about self-serving cops who fabricated evidence whenever convenient. And she could tell from Judge Johnsen’s demeanor that she might be ready to rule.
“Look, what I keep coming back to is that District Attorney Overton wouldn’t have ordered the testing of the physical evidence unless he thought it was important.” No!, Ellie wanted to scream, Overton only ordered the testing because he was terrified of a primary challenge two years from now from a candidate on his left. “Quite frankly, I’d like to praise Mr. Overton for his clear commitment to neutrality and transparency.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Overton said. “And I know that ADA Donovan shares that commitment.” Overton placed an approving hand on Max’s shoulder. Ellie noticed Rogan look away.
“So here’s what I’m going to do,” Judge Johnsen announced. “Your fresh-look team has until Friday.” Ellie could see that the judge was looking to Overton for an objection. Nothing. She continued her ruling. “Find something that changes the evidentiary picture and we’ll talk. But otherwise—if you don’t come up with more—I’m going to release Mr. Amaro, and prosecutors in Utica can decide whether to indict him for the killings he was never charged with. I’d say that eighteen years in prison with the questionable evidence you have is quite enough.”
Ellie watched as Carrie Blank and the bow-tied male trailed behind Linda Moreland, who actually shook Martin Overton’s hand as they departed the courtroom together. Ellie, Rogan, and Max followed in silence.
Three days. That’s all they had.
CHAPTER
TWENTY
Rogan was the first to break the silence. “What the hell just happened in there? It’s like your boss was doing Moreland’s job for her.”
Max leaned his head back against his office chair and pressed his eyes closed. “I get it, Rogan. You’re pissed. And you think I dragged you two into this for the wrong reasons. But Overton’s trying to do the right thing. There’s more than three hundred exoneration cases across the country now, and single-witness IDs are a major contributor.”
“There’s a damn confession, Donovan.”
“You heard those excerpts in court; you’re not troubled by the similarities in all of Buck Majors’ confessions? The new DNA’s not our only problem. I’m seeing red flags everywhere.”
“Whose side are you on, man?”
Ellie had seen Rogan unleash on prosecutors before, but never Max.
“There are no sides, Rogan. Maybe you’re the one who’s got blinders on here. Ellie told me you’ve got a personal beef with Linda Moreland.”
Rogan flashed a sharp look in her direction, but then returned his attention to Max. “This isn’t about personal beefs. Amaro murdered six people. For us, Donovan, our work is about those dead women, not climbing one more rung on the DA ladder.”
“Whoa, whoa.” She formed a capital T with her hands. “We’re wasting time we don’t have. You’re both right. If Amaro’s guilty, he needs to stay inside . . . forever. And if he’s not, we need to fix it. We have until the end of the week to get answers. We nee
d a plan. And whether we like it or not, Rogan, technically we’re working for Max right now.”
Rogan wasn’t pacified, but at least he had stopped yelling.
Max shook his head. “There’s too much we don’t know. Who killed Helen Brunswick? Who mailed that letter? Whose DNA is under Donna Blank’s fingernails? Whether she’s part of the pattern or not. Whether Brunswick knew any of the victims. There is no way to tackle all of that in three days.”
“You’re right. But figuring out all of those things is our long-term goal. All we need to do in the short term is preserve the status quo. We want to keep Amaro inside for now. Make sure no one releases him until we’re sure he’s innocent, right?”
Max took in a deep breath. “Yeah, okay. Let’s focus on that and see what we can do. Keeping Amaro in means addressing Judge Johnsen’s concerns about the quality of the evidence. We should set aside all the mess about Helen Brunswick and the Utica victims, and narrow in on the Deborah Garner case.”
“Amaro’s confession being number one,” Rogan said.
Max nodded. “So find a way to cut to the chase with Majors. We need to know if he cut corners. And then we also have the eyewitness. If we can shore up the confession and the ID, we might just be okay. Then we find a way to peel away Donna Blank, like Ellie suggested. You said you had a witness?”
She told him about Mona’s assertion that Donna, unlike the other victims, would not have gotten into a car with a john.
“That’s thin. Too thin.”
“I know. But Donna Blank’s the only victim where we found new DNA evidence. Based on the skin beneath her nails, she seems to have fought back, and the others didn’t. And her postmortem injuries weren’t as severe. Only her wrists were broken.”
“Maybe a copycat killed Blank,” Rogan said. “That leaves Amaro on the hook for the others.”
“And the copycat could also be the one who killed Helen Brunswick.” She and Rogan were falling back into their normal groove. “Maybe he knew her back in Utica. Maybe all these years later, he feels some affinity toward Amaro and sends the anonymous letter to try to get him released.”
“That’s a lot of maybes,” Max said. “Let’s stick with the short-term focus and shore up the evidence against Amaro on the Garner case. Start with the confession, like Rogan said. Any luck getting hold of Buck Majors?”
“Maybe,” Rogan said. “I’ve been playing phone tag with him. He left a message during the hearing. Let me see what’s up.”
He made the call while they listened. He said a few yeah’s and uh-huh’s, then said they could be there in about an hour.
Three days.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
According to the barebones employment files maintained by the city of New York, Buchanan Franklin Majors had served twenty-five years with the New York Police Department, first as an officer, then detective, then briefly as a sergeant detective before his retirement a decade ago. Rogan and Ellie had asked around for the more complete version. The man was a good investigator. Thorough. Patient. A pro in the interrogation room. He had a way of making suspects trust him. Of making them believe that he was their ally. That everything would get better as long as they told good old Buck the truth about what happened.
Ellie shifted her weight in the passenger seat. “How much farther?”
Rogan didn’t take his eyes from the road. “You’re like my five-year-old niece: Are we there yet? How many more minutes?”
“Your niece sounds like a genius to me. Seriously, where the hellfuck are we? We’re two New York City detectives meeting a retired New York City detective. Last time I checked, New York City wasn’t so . . . manicured.” They passed a masonic lodge with a mobile sign announcing a pig roast in someone’s honor. Next door, a swarm of teenagers dressed in grass skirts and bikini tops were waving drivers down for a car wash in the parking lot of a Friendly’s. Nope, not N.Y.C.
“Key word being retired, Hatcher. Think about it: twenty-five years from now, do you want some newbie detective hauling your ass into a precinct to roll out your old war stories? No, you and Max will be enjoying your regular bingo nights, or whatever, in Long Island.”
“Wash your mouth out.”
“My point is, once you retire, you’ve earned the right to be let alone. The least we can do is meet the man on his own turf.”
“So how many more minutes, Uncle J. J.?”
They passed a monument that read “Town of Orangetown,” which struck her as redundant, and Rogan hit the turn signal. “We’re there.”
There turned out to be a parking lot for a golf course.
“I’ll take Long Island bingo night,” Ellie said as she got out of the car.
“You’re missing out, Hatcher.” Rogan paused and held a finger to his lips as they passed a golfer about to tee off. Rogan let out a whistle as the ball sailed down the fairway. “Dude crushed it.”
“You told me we were meeting Buck Majors at his work.”
“And that’s what we’re doing.” He opened the door marked Pro Shop. Ellie felt like every person inside was inspecting them. She wanted to believe it was because they weren’t dressed for golf, but suspected that her gender and Rogan’s skin color might be part of it. Rogan made his way to the check-in counter and said they were here to meet with Buck Majors. As the clerk pulled out a walkie-talkie, Rogan explained: some cops took second careers as security guards or private investigators; Buck Majors now spent his days as a golf ranger.
“I don’t understand those two words together. Lone Ranger. Army Ranger. Ford Ranger. Park Ranger. Got it, but no golf ranger.”
“They keep up the pace of play.”
“Still, no comprendo.”
“So the course doesn’t get all backed up. If some knuckleheads are taking too many mulligans—do-overs—or searching through the woods for a lost ball, the ranger comes by and tells them to hurry along.”
“Now, that actually sounds fun.”
“You make me sad sometimes, Hatcher.”
Buck Majors came across like a happy-go-lucky golfer, not a cop. As they entered the clubhouse, she noticed that his eyes didn’t dart around to measure up the other customers. He took the first seat at the table in the clubhouse, and didn’t seem to mind having his back to the crowded restaurant. The man didn’t even walk like most cops, back straight with shoulders squared. If not for the embroidered NYPD insignia on his collared golf shirt, she never would have known he’d ever been on the job.
A young waitress in a Georgetown tank top appeared immediately. “A Stella,” Majors said. “For these guys, too. Just kidding. I remember the days before I could drink at work. You want a soda, maybe some ice tea? They do real brewed here, not that fake stuff.”
Two teas and a Stella it was.
“Funny thing: there was a time when my whole life was NYPD. You guys are young enough, that’s probably where you’re still at. But to me? Now? It all feels like someone else’s memories. Lost two different wives to the job, then a year after retiring, I meet a nice lady up here while shopping for books at the Barnes & Noble—you know, trying to keep myself busy? Just had our ninth anniversary and we’re still going strong. Days, I spend here at the course. I don’t have to pay greens fees, plus I get some extra dough to cover beers and burgers. Made some good friends among the regulars. Every Wednesday night we go to the restaurant down the street for trivia night with two other couples.” He looked at his half-drained bottle of beer. “Pretty hard to beat that, wouldn’t you say?”
“You had me at free golf,” Rogan said.
“You said you need info on Anthony Amaro?”
“We’ve got a fresh body with the same MO, and now he’s challenging his conviction. Linda Moreland’s helping him.”
“Had I known that, I would have come down to the city myself. Amaro was a true sadist. Cruel. Unrepentant. Sociopathic. And, ultimately, a coward.”
“How so?” Ellie asked.
“Why break arms and legs? To
inflict pain. To watch human suffering. But Amaro does it after shooting the women point-blank. Why would that be? I figure two possible explanations. Either he was too afraid of allowing a live woman a chance to fight back, so he killed them first, when they were caught off guard. Or he was too afraid of his own instincts and desires to permit another person to see them. Either way, he’s a coward.”
“We read all the reports,” Rogan said. “You initially homed in on Amaro from E-Z Pass records?”
E-Z Pass was the system for collecting road tolls electronically throughout the Northeast.
“We were one of the very first investigations to use it to track a driver’s movement. Deborah Garner was dumped at Fort Washington Park, just at the foot of the George Washington Bridge. We talked to her friends. She’d been working with another girl at the Alexander Hamilton rest stop in Secaucus. Mostly tricks right out of the parking lot, but they’d roll with the john if he insisted. Deborah got in a car and never came back. We were driving to the rest stop to take a look when one of the E-Z Pass readers at the turnpike toll plaza caught my eye. At the time, we still weren’t sure what the system did, but I figured it was worth a shot. Based on the broken bones, we already thought we had a possible connection between Garner and the girls killed in Utica. We looked for cars that passed through that toll plaza that were registered to the Utica area. Turned out, one of the registered owners—Amaro—had a previous stop on his record for suspicion of loitering to pick up a hooker in Utica. We showed pictures of all the drivers to Garner’s rest-stop partner and bingo, she goes right to Amaro. We had him.”
“What do you remember about the confession?” Rogan asked.
“You said you read the reports.” Majors held up a finger toward the waitress, and another beer appeared.
“We did,” Rogan said. “But the district attorney wants us to make sure all the i’s are dotted and the t’s crossed.”
All Day and a Night: A Novel of Suspense (Ellie Hatcher) Page 12