Close Case (16 page)

The officer had been smart, asking the little girl to describe exactly what she had seen inside her room. She said the magic words: Beattie had slid her unlocked window open, cupped his hands over the ledge, and reached his head through to look down into her bed. That slight entry past the threshold of the house was enough to arrest for criminal trespass.

When the officer searched Beattie, he found condoms in his front coat pocket. On a hunch, I pulled up Beattie’s prior rape case on the computer. Sure enough, he had been convicted based on DNA evidence. This time, he was better prepared. Criminal trespass plus the intent to commit a crime inside equals burglary. I also noticed that the address Beattie gave was different from the address filed for his sex offender registration. I added a charge for failing to update his registration.

Surprising a guy like Beattie with two felony charges for poking his head inside a window was my idea of good old-fashioned fun. I handed the file to Alice and headed down to the presiding judge’s courtroom.

Thirty short minutes later, I chose to climb the five flights of stairs back to my office—anything to delay having to call Mike Calabrese. The presiding judge, Seymour Gables, had told me in the bluntest terms what he thought of my office’s decision to oppose the defense’s request for Mike’s file.

“It’s inexcusable and unethical. You have charged a man with aggravated murder, based almost entirely upon the defendant’s own statements, given to a single detective. Ms. Lopez would be committing malpractice if she didn’t have some curiosity about the detective himself. The least you can do is get out of the way and let her do her job.” Worse, Gables was sending us out for a hearing on Lisa’s motion to suppress as soon as he could find an available judge.

More bad news awaited me at MCU. “The boss called,” Alice informed me. “He wants to see you.”

“Russ is back?”

“No, the Big Boss. Duncan.”

Duncan’s not exactly the kind of boss who calls just to say hello. I decided to take my lumps from Mike first.

I held the phone three inches from my ear while he vented. Surely I had not argued stridently enough. Surely Lisa Lopez should be disbarred. Surely Judge Gables had his liberal head stuck up his wrinkled eighty-year-old ass.

I made the mistake of trying to calm him. “It just means Lisa gets to see the file, Mike. It’s still up in the air whether she gets to use any of it at trial.”

“Don’t act like I’m the one who’s not getting it. I don’t care whether it comes into trial or not. I’ve got no interest in becoming the defense bar’s whipping boy.” My other line was ringing, but I wasn’t about to interrupt as Mike’s pace and volume continued to pick up. “Once word gets out that this bitch has my file, every other defense lawyer in every other case will be questioning me about it. The first time it works, word will hit the street. Every dirtbag I come in contact with will run to IA.”

Then he found his own way of ending the call. “Jesus Christ. No wonder Chuck walked out on you.” I heard a final clatter in my ear as he slammed his phone down.

“Sam,” I heard, as I sat staring at my handset. I turned to find Alice Gerstein in my open door. “That was Duncan’s secretary. He’s expecting you—now.”

Duncan’s office is two stories down from mine, just past the main entrance on the sixth floor. His secretary, Donna, stands guard outside like a watchdog, but she waved me in. The one upside to being summoned by Duncan is his office. In contrast to my metal desk and corkboard hutch, Duncan’s fancy furniture is dark cherry and forest-green leather. No aged whiskey on the desktop, but it would fit right in.

As did Duncan. I knew for a fact he was close to sixty, but he looked as age-ambiguous as always with his full head of white hair, unnaturally even teeth, and ever reliable perma-tan. He glanced up from a letter he was reading and immediately brought out his politician’s smile.

“There she is,” he said, although no one else was in the room to hear the third person reference. “Have a seat. Can I get anything for you? Donna, did you offer Samantha some coffee?”

“I’m fine, thank you.” I gave a little wave to Donna at her desk outside his office, then settled at the edge of Duncan’s leather sofa.

“How’s everything been up at MCU lately?”

“Just great,” I said. “Well, ever since that little episode where I almost kicked the bucket, it’s been great.”

He laughed a little too hard. In an office that worked strictly through the chain of command, I hadn’t spoken directly to Duncan since he called me six months ago to apologize for not treating the situation more seriously when I initially informed him that one of his buds had tried to kill me—literally. Now he was all hugs and kisses, and I was seriously wondering what the hell was up.

“I hear you’re doing a bang-up job. Russ always has good things to say about you, and the judges can’t speak highly enough about your trial skills.”

“Well, that’s nice to hear,” I said, not knowing how else to respond. Unsolicited positive reinforcement could only mean one thing: Duncan was about to screw me over.

He must have known I was suspicious, because he tried to lighten the mood. “You must be happy up there, because I can’t remember the last time I had someone in here complaining about you.”

He was alluding to the isolated run-ins I have had with the occasional defense attorney. And supervisor. And judge. And maybe a police officer or two. I had managed to avoid triggering any tantrums up the ladder for the last few months. “That’s me,” I said, smiling uncomfortably. “Little Miss Congeniality.”

He laughed again. “How’s the Crenshaw case going? Have you set a meeting with the death penalty committee?”

Duncan usually calls a gathering of the most senior deputies before making a final decision in capital cases. “Not yet, but I spoke with Percy’s parents this morning. They’re against it. Religious reasons, I think.”

“All right. Honestly, I don’t see the need for a meeting on this one. We’ll go for the life sentence, unless there’s some background I don’t know about.”

I told him about the visit from Annie, the rape crisis counselor. “Obviously the victim knows who he is, so I suspect she’s an ex-girlfriend, or perhaps just a date.”

“No conviction?” he asked.

“No. I don’t even know who the victim is, but the counselor said she didn’t want to prosecute.”

“Then we can’t use it. Plus there’s some drugs involved, right?” I reminded him that the defendants said they were both under the influence of methamphetamine. “That stuff’s worse than crack. Yeah, no death penalty on this one.”

“I’ll tell the parents.”

“Very good. Now, the reason I asked you down here: I got a call today from Russ,” he said, “and it’s going to require some reshuffling of responsibilities in MCU.”

Here it comes, I thought. Someone’s pulling rank, and I’m getting the boot back to DVD. Or maybe this was about the rumor that the supervisor at intake was retiring. Dear God, no, anything but misdemeanor intake.

“I need you to take over the Delores Tompkins shooting. Russ can’t do it.”

He paused to read my reaction, but I didn’t have one. Not yet. First, I had to process the fact that I wasn’t being transferred. When I got to the part about inheriting Russ’s big case, I was initially excited. Big cases are challenging. Big cases are fun. Big cases meant I was finally getting some recognition around here.

But then I immediately pictured the backlash from the guys in MCT, one of whom lived with me. What had my father said? Sometimes cops are their own kind of animal. And, like it or not, I was in love with one of those animals, and we were having a hard enough time bridging the gap without me going after one of his own.

I knew better than to ask directly why Russ couldn’t keep the case. That kind of talk was seen as work avoidance around here. “Duncan, I’m honored you’d pick me for that case, I really am. But I’ve also got the Percy Crenshaw case, and Russ thought it was better to have separate lawyers on the two.”

“Separating the cases was my call,” he said, “but that was before we had an arrest on Crenshaw and before we decided to go ahead with the indictment against Hamilton.”

He could tell from the blank expression on my face that I hadn’t gotten any better at foreseeing the political issues the way he could. “We’re giving the black community what they want on Hamilton, and we arrested two white guys on Crenshaw. We don’t need to worry about crossing swords anymore. In fact,” he added with a smile, “as hard as this may be to believe, it seems you’ve actually got some fans out there.”

“Am I missing something?” I asked.

“Selma Gooding. She called Donna a couple of hours ago, singing your praises. Apparently you helped her out this morning, but she also went on and on about how wonderful you were when you covered Frist’s meeting yesterday on Hamilton. According to her, all those people who’ve been a pain in Russ’s ass for the last two weeks think you’re the best thing since sliced bread. Is that about right, Donna?” he hollered toward the doorway.

“More like walking on water, but, yeah, you got it,” Donna yelled back.

“Anyway, Donna passed her words on to me, and, given that you were Russ’s choice too, it seemed like synchronicity.”

I was flattered to know that Selma and her friends approved of me, but I still wasn’t sure I wanted the case. “You don’t have any concerns about me working on an officer shooting? You know, given my—personal situation?” I knew full well that Duncan had no doubts about the nature of my relationship with Detective Chuck Forbes.

“Have you and your friend had Hamilton over for any barbecues I need to know about?”

“No, sir. They don’t actually know each other.”

“Then I don’t see the problem,” he said with confidence. “You assured me long ago that you didn’t let your personal life get in the way of work. Are you telling me you can’t stand up to your boyfriend?” He smiled broadly. Apparently,
he
was the one he now found amusing.

“Just making sure it was OK by you,” I said, realizing there was no acceptable way to turn the case down.

“Well, then,” he concluded, “you have inherited the first officer shooting indictment this county has seen since I became DA. Don’t mess it up.”

He still wore the smile, but I couldn’t tell if he was kidding. “I’ll do my best, sir—not to mess up, I mean.”

“I know what you meant, Kincaid. Relax. Now Russ tells me he could be out for six weeks, but give him a call at home for a briefing.”

I finally connected the reassignment to Russ’s sick day. “Six weeks? I talked to him yesterday, and it sounded like it was probably just the flu.”

“I don’t know,” Duncan said, shaking his head. “I’ve learned the hard way: If one of my people utters the phrase
disability leave,
I question no further. Something about Lyme disease. He’ll probably tell you more than you want to know when you call him.”

Alice Gerstein handed me an oversized envelope when I got back to MCU. “This just came for you. Something from Internal Affairs? Also, Detective Walker called. He wants you to call him ASAP on the Crenshaw case. He sounded very excited.”

I cheated and called the MCT line instead of Jack’s cell. Maybe Chuck would pick up, and I’d have an excuse to gauge his mood.

“Walker.”

“Hey, Jack. It’s Samantha.”

“Good timing. I just got a call from the crime lab, and things are looking even better than I thought. Back up to the beginning, though: I got a call this morning from the evidence room at East Precinct. Seems some bar owner out in Lents found us a baseball bat in his Dumpster this morning.”

“You’re kidding. Where in Lents?”

“Hold your horses, I’m getting there. So the bar owner finds a bat in the Dumpster in the alley behind his bar. Apparently, the freaking guy dives it periodically for some recycling thing he does—”

“I thought you were getting there.”

“Hey, I spent fifteen minutes listening to this guy preach about recycling. I even looked at his mounted and framed copy of an article the paper ran about him a few weeks ago. I’m surprised you don’t appreciate it more, being a bus-riding tree hugger yourself.”

“Getting there?”

“Yeah. So anyway he finds the bat and fishes it out to give to Goodwill. Then he sees there’s blood on it.” I held my breath, waiting for the rest. “So he stashes it in a plastic bag and takes it in to East Precinct, thinking the police might be interested. The cop tossing it into the property room does some thinking of his own and calls Johnson about it. Why? Because the bar’s on One-hundred-second and Foster.”

“Isn’t that—”

“Yep,” he said, anticipating my question. “Six short blocks from Trevor Hanks’s house.”

“The Red Rabbit, or something like that?”

“The Red Raccoon. You got some hangouts I don’t know about, Kincaid?”

“No. I just remember driving past it when we were transporting Hanks. I noticed the name.”

“Well, that’s the place.”

“And you said the crime lab just called?”

“Right-ee-o. The blood on the bat’s definitely Percy’s.”

“Anything from the defendants?”

“Nope, only one blood type. And no fingerprints except the bar owner’s. But he did find some trace evidence in the blood: two hairs that could be Percy’s, four fibers that look like the carpet in his condo, presumably from Percy, and—here’s the best part—three fibers that match the carpet in the Jeep.”

“Hanks’s father’s Jeep?”

“Yeah. I believe Fredericks said it was like a two-hundred-yard drive straight down the fairway.”

“Except for him that’s more like a good five-iron shot, but I get the drift.”

Even if nothing else panned out, I was ecstatic. We had a murder weapon. We had the vic’s blood. We had fibers from the suspect’s car in the blood. And we had a bar owner who digs through garbage just blocks away from one of the defendants. We had, in short, corroboration for Todd Corbett’s confession, if I could just get the confession in.

On that note, I opened the envelope freshly delivered from Internal Affairs and flipped through Mike Calabrese’s file. Mike’s estimate on the number of complaints had been close: twelve since he arrived from NYPD seven years ago. None of them had gone beyond the initial phase of the investigation. From a cursory review of the complaints and the police reports documenting the incidents, IA had been convinced the allegations lacked merit. I thought of the many complaints filed against me by disgruntled defendants. The bar had dismissed every one, without even requiring me to respond. Lisa’s request for the file had been a tempest in a teapot.