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phone company subpoenas for muds and luds on the Caxton telephones home and
galleries. Contrary to what most people thought, prosecutors have no power to
subpoena people or evidence to their offices. It was only the authority of the
grand jury in New York, not the district attorneys, that enabled the request
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for a witness to produce documentary evidence. Who s looking for Omar?
My job, Mercer said. Since the gallery s closed today, there s no activity
at all. The address on the Motor Vehicles Bureau records for Omar s
residence is in Brooklyn.
Before I came up to the courtroom, Mike went on, I called the boss at the
Eighty-fourth Precinct and asked them to do a drive-by of that address. Desk
sergeant beeped me back and said it s a burned-out building. Mercer ll be
working on it this afternoon.
My paralegal, Maxine, came into the room and greeted the trio of cops. This
looks like the wrong time to ask, but what do I do with a walk-in who just
arrived now for her ten-thirty appointment?
Who is she? I looked at my watch, noting that the woman was more than three
hours late.
Her name s Unique Matthews. Says she s here to see Janice-O Riley, but Janice
has to do a preliminary hearing all afternoon.
This one s the prostitute who was raped at gunpoint by the trucker on Houston
Street, right?
Yep. Maxine smiled and motioned discreetly with her thumb for me to look out
the doorway to Laura s desk. A young woman was towering over my secretary,
balancing on four-inch platform sandals with straps that wrapped up to her
knees. The cheeks of her buttocks were hanging well below the bottom of her
shorts, and her cleavage strained against the skimpy cut of her fuchsia cotton
tank T-shirt, exposing a tattoo of Mickey Mouse on her inner left breast,
outlined against her dark skin. Unique was chewing a wad of gum and sipping
from a large bottle of Yoo-Hoo.
I called out to the witness, knowing that there would be no particularly good
reason for her tardiness. Unique, how come you re so late today? You were
supposed to testify this morning.
She took the straw out of her mouth and sneered at me, certain that I could
not understand how hard it had been to rouse herself for something as
relatively unimportant as her court appearance. I overslept.
Why don t you take her across the street to Catherine s office? I said to
Max. This was going to take more experience and a firmer hand than Janice had
with these cases. Let her work with Unique for a couple of hours.
Chapman patted Max on the back. Remind O Riley of Cooper s basic commands.
Never make a morning appointment for a hooker. Like vampires, they don t
thrive in daylight. C mon, blondie. Let Mercer get on his way. Me and
Armando ll come down to court with you to get the warrant signed.
Armando and I.
What else do you do in your spare time besides give grammar lessons?
Wellesley meets the NYPD. Now that s an exercise in futility.
I stopped at Laura s desk and asked her to check the docket assignment sheet.
Who s sitting in arraignments this week?
You ve got Roger Hayes in AR 1 and John Reick in AR 2.
Mercer chided me. Judge shopping, Alex? My money s on AR 1. I ll check in
with both of you as soon as I get back from Brooklyn.
Mike, Armando, and I took the circuitous route to the first-floor arraignment
parts, down the interior stairway one flight and over to the elevator bank
that serviced the courtrooms and stopped on only a single floor of the
District Attorney s Office, as a security measure. As usual the wait for a
functioning elevator going in the right direction seemed interminable. And
walking the hallways with Chapman was more of a social occasion than a
business trip. He had worked with and partied with every senior assistant in
the office at one time or another. He was a legendary storyteller, a great
foil for people s jokes, and the best investigator that most of us would ever
encounter in the NYPD.
The double swinging doors of AR 1 pushed open as I entered behind Mike.
Families and friends of prisoners arrested within the last twenty-four hours
and awaiting their first appearances before the judge filled rows of benches
on both sides of the room. Some mothers looked tearful and anxious, waiting
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for word from the Legal Aid attorneys that their sons would be coming home
today, while other relatives slept soundly despite the noise and activity,
clearly accustomed to the routine of this process.
We made our way down to the front row, saved for attorneys and police
officers, and I scooted into the only available seat, between two uniformed
cops who were dozing until their cases were called. Mike and Armando sat
behind me, scrunched between an elderly Hasidic Jew dressed in his traditional
black overcoat and an obese Latina woman who was whining some kind of prayer
over and over again under her breath.
The air-conditioning wasn t working and the windows were so tall in the
two-story room that there was no way for the crew to open them for fresh air.
Everyone in the well of the courtroom lawyers, stenographer, officers, and
clerks was fanning with different files or sheaves of papers. The stench was
unbearable.
As soon as Judge Hayes made eye contact with me, he waved me up to the bench.
As I rose, Chapman grabbed my shoulder. I m coming with you. This place
smells like a broad I used to date.
May we approach, Your Honor? I asked as I closed the swinging gate that
separated the benches from the counsel tables.
Absolutely, Ms. Cooper. We ll take a ten-minute recess, folks, Hayes
announced, eliciting groans from almost everyone in the gallery. Why don t we
all go into the robing room? Will we need a reporter?
Yes sir.
Hayes had been one of my first supervisors in the District Attorney s Office
when I started there, more than ten years ago. I respected his judgment and
valued his guidance and friendship enormously.
Mike, Armando, and I followed Hayes out of the courtroom and into the small
chambers behind it that served the arraignment part. He normally sat as a
trial jurist in Supreme Court but was serving a week s rotation in this duty
since so many of the judges took vacation time during July and August. Hayes
greeted Mike and me warmly, and we introduced him to Armando.
I d tell you to make yourselves comfortable, but that s obviously not
possible.
The small room was bare except for an old wooden desk, three chairs, and a
black rotary telephone that hung on the wall. It was painted the institutional
green that must have been bought in vatloads by the city of New York fifty
years ago and was now chipped and peeling from every corner and molding. Next
to the phone, written on the wall in ink, were the numbers of most of the
delis and pizza joints within a mile s radius, jotted there by lazy court
officers who called out for deliveries during the meal break of night court.
I explained our visit to the judge, and we went on the record with the
stenographer so that he could make the appropriate inquiries before signing
the warrant.
Everything seems to be in order, Alex. He initialed the papers and chatted
with Mike while I went back to the clerk to have the official seal put on the
documents. As the court officer gaveled the crowd back into order and Hayes
resumed his position on the bench, we left the courtroom with exactly what we
needed to move the investigation forward.
The rear entrance of the immense Criminal Courts Building was adjacent to AR
1. Mike took his copy of the paperwork from me, and he and Armando headed for
the door while I started to retrace my steps back up to my office.
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