Nothing to Report (47 page)

Frankie directed the parents to wait in the narrow hallway with the othe
r
three officers while he went in to speak to the orderly on duty. When he found him, Frankie explained that he was going to bring in the parents of th
e
baby brought in earlier for identification purposes. He requested that the orderly have the body prepared so the process could be completed a
s
quickly as possible.

Preparation of a corpse, especially one as small as the one in question, was neither a big deal nor an entailed process. It simply
meant pulling open the drawer of the refrigerated vault where the body was being kept, removing the corpse from its black body bag, and placing a plain sheet ove
r
it.

Frankie wanted to preven
t
the parents from observing the drawer being opened. It was heart wrenching enough to view the remains held within, but to see your loved one being sli
d
out of a cold drawer was just too much sometimes. He simply wanted t
o
spare them any additional pain and agony.

The orderly prepared the baby in Frankie’s presence and nodded signifying it was okay to allow the parents to enter. Frankie went back out into the hallway and rejoined the parents as well as his fellow officers. He gestured the parents over to a bench, then sat down next to them and quietly explained in detail what wa
s
to follow.

“Mr. And Mrs. Jenkins, both of you will walk inside with me, unless yo
u
decide now that just one of you will do this,” he began as tactfully as possible.

“Thank you, officer, but we’ve decided to do it together,” the father responded quietly as he held his wife’s hand.

“Okay. You will follow me into the anteroom. When we get inside, you will be required to sign into a log book, which will indicat
e
the time of your visit and the person who is being viewed. Just sign you
r
names and I’ll take care of the rest,” Frankie explained. He wanted them in and out as quickly as possible and was trying to spare them the administrative paperwork that would gobble up time.

“After you sign your names, the orderly will escort us into the viewin
g
area. This is simply a small room at the rear of the office. There is no heat in there and certain areas of the room are refrigerated, so don’t be disturbed by the cold,” Frankie reassured. The other officers weren’t surprised when he avoided telling them that the only parts of the room that were refrigerated were the drawers where the cadavers were kept.

“When we get into the viewing area, I want both of you to stand on my right side. The orderly will look at me and wait until I nod.
I
will only do this when I see you nod to me telling me that you ar
e
ready, okay?
”


“We understand,” said the father.

“When I nod back to the orderly, he will pull back the sheet and expose the baby from the shoulder area up.”

Frankie knew there had been blunt trauma to the chest and that
Hartmill’s knuckles had been imprinted there. He wanted to spare the parents this additional heartache.

“I want you to look at the child’s face. If you identify it as yours, please nod t
o
me. The orderly will then pull the sheet back up.”

Frankie’s voice was quiet and his eyes filled with empathy as his gaze moved from the young father to the mother. When they stated that they were ready, although the steps to the process seemed simple and easy to follow, Frankie suspected it woul
d
not go as smoothly as he had described. The parents would very likely stare and want to hold their baby one last time, but he had no doubt that if he allowed that t
o
happen, their pain would be infinitely worse.

Frankie stood up gave them a nod. They followed him into the anteroom, where Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins signed into the log book. With this done and arms around each other for support, the young couple walked together into the back room.

The floor here was made out of stained concrete and was just as cold as Frankie had described. Numerous attempts at washing it ha
d
failed to remove some of the old blood stains which were deeply imbedde
d
into it, and the room smelled strongly of antiseptic, making it impersonal and totally unfriendly.

Frankie walked over to where the orderly had prepared the baby for viewing then motioned to both parents to stand to his right. He had done this many times before but it never got any easier.

There were certain experiences in life which you could never prepare for or ge
t
accustomed to. Death was the night visitor. It was the topic we wanted to avoid at any cost, coming and going in an instant. It was bearable as long it didn’t come for us.

For cops everywhere, death was as much a part of the job as life and birth. For as many DOAs that Frankie had handled and for as many deat
h
notifications he’d had to deliver, there were the lives saved by good
,
swift police action to think of. And, of course, there were the babies.

He was par
t
of a scene that was the saddest and most tragic event any parent coul
d
face, but he had also brought life into the world. Any cop who had don
e
time in a residential precinct long enough and been in the righ
t
place at the right time has had the wonderful and glorious opportunity t
o
attend a birth delivery. The four cops present this day with the sad, nervous couple were no exception.

While the orderly kept his eyes focused on the cop standing before him, Frankie looked intently at the parents. He quietly mouthed the words, “are you ready,” and they both nodded. Frankie then gave the signal to the orderly, who gently pulled the sheet back exposing the infant’s head and shoulder area.

The baby’s eyes were closed and its face was ashen white but not blue. Although he had been dirty when he was brought into the hospital earlier that morning, the nurses in the emergency room had cleaned him up before tagging him for the morgue. The infant looked like a porcelain doll.

Mrs. Jenkins cried out first, and her heartrending screams coul
d
be heard two flights up.

“Oh, my baby! My baby! They’ve killed my baby!” she screamed as her body became wracked with anguished, heart wrenching sobs. Mr. Jenkins placed his arm around his wife in a vain attempt to consol
e
her, but he, too, was now crying loudly.

Frankie nodded at the orderly, who quickly pulled the sheet back up over the infant, then quietly led the distraught parents back into the anteroom. For several minutes he had them sit ther
e
rather than go out into the hallway.

Frank, Willie and I had been waiting in the hallway, but when we heard the lamenting, we also entered the anteroom. Frankie called m
e
over to the side and asked me to call the 120
th
squad to inform Detectiv
e
Rizzo that the parents had made a positive identification on the baby.

As their first onslaught of tears abated a little, the parents becam
e
filled with questions.

“Who could have done this?
”
cried Mr. Jenkins.

“Did he suffer?
”
sobbed the mother.

How, why, when? So many questions and so few answers. Frankie did no
t
want to lay a guilt trip on the parents but he remembered they had tol
d
him that they had been up most of the night painting their apartment. When Mr. Jenkins had led the officers into his kitchen, they had walked pas
t
the baby’s nursery. Frankie had noticed that the window in the baby’s room was up a little bit, probably to get the paint smell out of the apartment. It was obvious to Frankie that Hartmillhad seen the light o
n
in the apartment as well as the windows open. When the Jenkins’ turned off the light and went to bed, Hartmillhad likely climbed in through that window, probabl
y
in an attempt to burglarize them. For some reason, he had take
n
the baby. Only Hartmill knew why. Perhaps the baby had started to cry and, in an attempt to silence him, he punched the infant and mortally wounded it.

Why he had taken the child with him at all was the question of the ages. Frankie had heard of weir
d
actions by burglars defecating on people’s floors and in their beds, but the act of taking a baby which was probably dead already was tantamount to takin
g
a trophy at a turkey shoot. It was sick and depraved.

Frankie acknowledged their questions as he began speaking to the parents.

“Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins, we speculate that the person who took your child is, in fact, someone we have in custody. This person was apprehended wit
h
your child in his possession.”

“You mean you caught someone who had our baby with him?
”
askedth
e
father incredulously.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Was he alive when you found him?
”
asked the mother as she clenched a Kleenex tightly in her hand.

The officers all realized that the mother and father were only trying to retrace their child’s last moments of life on earth, which was a normal action for them to be undertaking. Before the grievin
g
process could begin they would have to vent anger and answer as many of the unanswered questions as possible.

“We now believe that the person who took your baby probably saw your light on and made a decision to burglarize your home. There could have been no way for him to know you had a baby in there until he had entered the room,” said Frankie.

“Once he was inside, he likely saw your son. At that point, only God knows wha
t
possessed him to take the baby and harm it,” added Willie.

“It’s our thoughts and feelings that death came swiftly for your child,” I said.

Both parents were now sobbing softly.

“Whenever you are ready, we will drive you back to your apartment,” said Frankie.

I pulled him to the side and told him that Detective Rizzo wanted to sit down with the anguished couple to explain to them what would b
e
happening next and where they would have to go for the upcoming pre
-
arraignment. Frankie nodded, and after a moment, Frank, Frankie, Willie and I, as well as the parents, made our way out of th
e
anteroom and into the hallway, retracing our steps back through th
e
kitchen and out onto the delivery loading dock. Before we knew it, we were back at th
e
RMP, which was still hidden out of view between two ambulances.

Franki
e
notified the radio dispatcher that the civilians were entering the ca
r
and requested a time check from Central. With that done, he then headed out to the Parkhil
l
Avenue complex.

“My son was so beautiful. He had such deep blue eyes. I had so many plans for him,” Mrs. Jenkins said quietly in the back seat as she broke down in loud gasps again. As she cried, all her husband could do was hold her and try to console her.

Frankie made the turn onto ParkhillAvenue from Osgood Avenue. As soon as he had negotiated the turn, he could see that news media vans ha
d
converged in front of the Jenkins’ apartment building. He also saw the detective’s blue, unmarked car parked roughly 200 feet in front of th
e
blood-sucking media.

He pulled the RMP right in back of Rizzo’s car. The mother and father got out but Frankie waited until Frank and I als
o
arrived on the scene.

“Frank, we’re going to go up with the family. John, stay here and keep
a
watch on our vehicles,” Frankie directed.

I acknowledged him as the rest of my team began to escort the Jenkins couple to the fron
t
entrance. As they got closer to Detective Rizzo’s car, the other officers realized that Hartmill was inside the back of the squad car. Thankfully, neither the parents nor the media saw him there.

Rizzo approache
d
me and asked if I would guard Hartmill. I agreed but requested that the prisoner be rear cuffed and placed in my car. Rizzo cuffed him and placed him in the front seat with me.