The Plea, page 26
part #2 of Eddie Flynn Series
I ignored the looks I got from the guard on the right and turned my attention back to the receptionist.
“Hi. I’m here with Special Agent William Kennedy of the FBI. We need to take a look at the crime scene.”
“It’s very late for an inspection. We have instructions from the police not to let anyone near that floor. Do you have ID and a warrant, Agent Kennedy?” said the receptionist.
Before he could answer I stepped in. I didn’t want to give the game away that we weren’t actually on the same side as the police department.
“We didn’t believe that we needed a warrant, ma’am. The apartment is still a crime scene.”
She considered this for all of a second and then slowly shook her head. A Hispanic guy in a gray suit and shirt the same color of light blue as the security guards came out of the elevator and went behind the reception desk. He got the update from the receptionist.
“Could we see some identification, gentlemen?” said the guy in the suit.
Kennedy flashed his ID, and I put my hands in my pockets.
“I’m Alex Medrano. I’m head of security here,” said the man as he read Kennedy’s badge and ID.
“Are you Mr. Child’s lawyer?” he asked.
Something about the way he asked that question led me to think that if I lied to him, he’d read it in a heartbeat.
“I represent Mr. Child,” I said.
“I’ll take you gentlemen up myself. Mr. Child is very well regarded here. Anything we can do to help, you just ask.”
The wall of muscle and aftershave parted, and Kennedy and I followed Medrano to the elevators. From a key chain on his waist, he selected a polished piece of plastic and waved it over the eye reader on the control panel. Suddenly the controls lit up and Medrano was able to summon the elevator. The doors opened, and we stepped into the lemon-scented elevator car. Mirrors on each wall, tiled floor, polished oak on the ceiling. Again, Medrano swiped the fob at a laser reader and was then able to select a floor.
“If you have your own fob, does that allow you onto any floor?” I said.
“Sure does. We’ve got a good community here. We like to encourage a neighborly attitude, so there are meetings on various floors, social groups, and of course, the gym is on the thirty-fifth floor, the spa just above that, and the wine cellar is in the basement.”
The elevator played the same symphony that had been playing in the lobby, and I guessed it was piped all over the building.
We arrived at David’s floor with a pleasant chime, and I checked out the security camera, hidden in the top, northeast corner of the elevator.
The doors opened.
The music continued.
We found ourselves in a rectangular landing a little wider than the elevator bank, maybe fifty feet wide. The door in the northeast corner was Gershbaum’s, a door in the northwest corner led to David’s apartment, and there was a single door to the right of the elevator that no doubt led to the stairs. Beside the front doors to each apartment were an antique table that held handkerchiefs in a silver box, a bowl of fresh fruit, and a bottle of designer hand cream. An umbrella stand held a few umbrellas bearing branded CENTRAL PARK ELEVEN logos, and a beautiful mahogany framed standing mirror sat beside each of the tables. I got the impression that before leaving their floor, the residents relished the opportunity to check their appearance one more time before facing the public.
Medrano headed for the door in the northwest corner, which was covered in blue and white PD crime tape, and again produced his key chain from his pants pocket and a fob.
“This is Mr. Child’s apartment,” he said, as he looked for the correct key in a bunch of fifty or sixty keys. From his jacket pocket, Kennedy produced a handful of latex gloves, handed a pair to me and and a pair to Medrano. Kennedy and Medrano managed to slip their gloves on without a problem. I found it difficult to hold my files and get the damn things on.
Eventually Medrano found the right key, swiped the fob first, then slotted the key into the lock, and opened the door. The apartment was everything I expected from the Manhattan elite. White and beige furniture to match the thick, neutral carpet. It was probably a Dior design; Christine would’ve known right away. The living area was a massive open-plan space with twenty-foot-long couches that snaked along the center of the room. A musty, metallic, slightly foul smell permeated the room. The odor lingered almost as a reminder of the violent death that had occurred within those walls. Even with the wind coursing through the apartment from the broken window, that smell remained. At one end of the living area I saw the beginning of white tiles and I headed in that direction. In the kitchen I saw the scene of the murder. One tile had broken up, and a dark, chocolate-red stain covered the broken fragments as they lay in what was now a small depression in the floor. Impact droplets fanned out from the center of the stain. Blood seemed to linger on certain surfaces—a trace that can never fully be removed.
Roughly seventeen inches from the broken floor tile I clearly saw a stain from a single droplet of blood.
Until the crime scene has been released, no cleaning can be done. The police normally hold a scene for a few days to a few weeks, depending on the progress of their investigation. When the incident happened in the accused’s home, PD will normally hold the crime scene a lot longer so that the accused can’t apply for bail at that address, making bail a lot more difficult as it means the accused not only has to pay a bondsman, but also has to find money to stay somewhere else if family won’t or can’t take them in.
Mostly, this tactic works, and the defendant doesn’t even bother applying for bail.
I knelt down to get a closer look at the small bloodstain. The droplet looked to be around two to three millimeters in diameter, dark and perfectly formed. Far as I could tell, it hadn’t been trodden on, or smeared, or disturbed in any way since that droplet left Clara’s body.
Standing back, I took time to look over the scene, making sure there were no other bloodstains anywhere in the kitchen. There were none. Some six feet ahead of the spot where the body had been found, the wind blew through the panel-sized gap in the glass wall caused by the windowpane shattering from a gunshot. The safety glass had exploded on impact and tiny fragments spread out from the balcony toward where the body had lain. The fragments had stopped before reaching the broken, stained tile. Most of the glass lay on the balcony. I stepped through the gap left by the broken pane and stood on the balcony. I was glad of my overcoat, and I pulled the lapels around me. The downpour had ceased, but the balcony remained slippery from the rain-slicked broken glass. I looked above and below. There was no way anyone could have scaled up to the apartment or dropped to this balcony from above. The balcony overhead was too high, and the brickwork had been smoothed over with plaster. No foot- or handholds anywhere. Below me, the streetlights dotted around Central Park shined dimly through the trees. We were so close I could smell the grass. The two-lane avenue separated this side of the street from the park, and it felt as though I could lean out and touch the leaves of the oak trees sprouting from the park grounds. The balcony overlooked a quiet stretch of lawn just a bit smaller than a Little League field. It was separated from the park pathway by a row of high hedges. An oak tree sat in the right corner. A collection of empty beer cans scattered around the trunk. You pay thirty million for a park view and you get teenagers and drunks.
Kennedy and I took five minutes each to split up and check every room in the apartment for bloodstains. None were found.
From the files I’d brought with me, I removed the ME’s report and flicked through to the drawing of the body. On most ME reports there is a standard, preprinted female form; the ME then adds the location of the bullet wounds and, on the side-profile drawing, inserts the angle of bullet penetration. Aside from the head shots, Clara had been shot twice in the back. The first bullet had lodged in her spine, probably paralyzing her instantly. The second entrance wound was close to the spine, but this bullet had passed through her body and exited through the lower part of the chest wall. An exit wound was marked just to the left side of her chest.
I handed the drawing to Kennedy.
He studied the report again and looked over the scene.
“The angle is a very slight downward trajectory,” he said.
But I wasn’t listening to a word Kennedy had said. Instead I was looking at a framed architectural plan on the kitchen wall. It was drawn in white on a blue background, bore a signature in the bottom left-hand corner, but despite this, it looked familiar. I flicked through the prosecution file until I found the sketch that had been drawn of the crime scene denoting the location of the victim’s body in the apartment.
Medrano was still waiting at the front door. I beckoned him over.
“Is this what I think it is?” I asked.
“Yes, it’s a Claudio. These are in every apartment in the building. The owners were good friends with Claudio, and he designed the refurb in 1981. Residents get a framed print when they take up occupation.”
“No, I’m not interested in the designer. Is this an accurate plan of the apartment?”
“It is. Residents are not permitted to make structural alterations.”
I called Kennedy. He came into the kitchen area and stood beside us; then, realizing how tired he’d become, he reached for a stool and planted himself. It was after two a.m., and he looked completely exhausted.
“Medrano, if I managed to persuade Kennedy to get an agent to come up here in the next few hours with a camera and a bottle of luminol, would you be able to make sure they can get access to this apartment?”
“I’m supposed to finish in an hour. I’m … You know we got strict instructions from NYPD not to let anyone up here, right?”
Kennedy was about to speak. I tugged at his jacket to silence him. I wanted to get Medrano talking.
“I think this might be really useful for my client. You said David had a good reputation in the building?”
“Yeah, you could say that. One of my supervisors, Cory, his six-year-old kid got this rare form of leukemia ’bout a year ago. Insurance wouldn’t cover the treatment. Building management let Cory put up a fund-raising poster in the lobby and a donation box. He needed to raise four hundred grand for treatment. After a week, he’d raised twenty-five grand; people in this building got a lot of money and they’re pretty generous. Anyway, Mr. Child had been away on business for a while. When he got back, he saw the poster. He called building management and met with Cory—asked him how much he needed and what kind of treatment the kid would need. Cory said the treatment could prolong his kid’s life—maybe five years. But that’s all.”
Medrano adjusted his stance, wiped his mouth.
“Well, Mr. Child did a little research on the net, found this expert. Next thing you know, he flew Cory’s whole family to Geneva, paid more than a million dollars for experimental treatment. Six weeks ago Cory’s kid got the all clear.”
Kennedy and I exchanged glances.
“What I’m saying is, will this help him?”
“I think it might,” I said.
“As long as it’s between us,” he said.
I smiled and turned to Kennedy. “Okay, this is what your guy’s looking for. We’ll just take a peek before we leave,” I said, lifting the framed Claudio from the wall.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Our investigation hadn’t yet given me the answers I was looking for, but I was confident that the FBI’s forensic officer would give credence to my theory. Right then that’s all I had, a theory. But it fit.
“You know what to tell Forensics to look for?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m good,” said Kennedy.
“Great. I’ll need another favor.”
“You’re getting pretty loose with the favors,” said Kennedy, but he didn’t take it any further. I knew I was pushing it, but I figured he owed me. The bags under his eyes seemed to have grown larger and darker, but there was an alertness to him. He was beginning to doubt Child’s guilt, and he wanted to see where this led.
“Anyone in NYPD who could do you a solid and not go running to Zader about it?”
“I know a guy, but why NYPD?” he said.
I handed Kennedy a single page from the file.
“I need the tracker report for this vehicle. FBI wouldn’t have access to that system, right?”
“No, we don’t. Come to think of it I don’t know if my guy in NYPD has access to that system. But I can try,” he said.
“It’s important, I’m beginning to piece this together. I’m relying on you. The prelim starts in just over seven hours, and we’ve got one last thing to check.”
“What’s that?”
“Security camera footage of the cops working the crime scene.”
“Let’s go to my office. You can watch it there,” said Medrano.
We exited David’s apartment. Kennedy punched the button to call the elevator and hung back, waiting for Medrano to lock up. I looked at the CCTV camera, just over the bank of elevators, and moved backward a little, stopped.
“What are you doing?” said Kennedy.
“The camera footage I watched shows David hesitate just after he left the apartment for the last time. He was leaving and then he kind of paused around here and turned back toward the door.”
I examined the door but couldn’t see much with Medrano’s bulk blocking my view. Kneeling, I checked the carpet; maybe David dropped something and it rolled underneath the table, but I couldn’t see anything.
“Looking for something?” said Medrano.
“Not really. David stopped and turned around just after he left the apartment. I saw it today when I watched the footage. Thought he might’ve dropped something or … I don’t know.”
“If he dropped something, it’s likely the cleaners picked it up. We can always check the camera,” said Medrano.
“You can’t see it on the footage. David’s blocking the view,” I said, pointing toward the camera.
“Well, we can always look at the other camera,” said Medrano.
“What camera?”
“The hidden camera that covers the stairwell,” said Medrano, pointing to an air vent on the west wall.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
Medrano’s office, in the basement of the building, looked more like a TV studio. He had a bank of fifteen flat-screens on one wall, each showing a different live feed from the building’s security system. Beyond this room was the locker area for the guards, and behind the monitors there were around half a dozen desks, each with a computer and a phone.
“So, when David’s neighbor, Mr. Gershbaum, made the emergency call, that call came through to somebody in this room, is that right?”
“Right,” said Medrano.
“And the security system logs the date and time of the call?”
“Yes, and the security officer deals with the police alert,” said Medrano.
“What do you mean?” said Kennedy.
“When a resident makes an emergency call to us, our system sends a text to 911 telling them we’ve had a call. Unless our operator contacts 911 within five minutes to tell them everything is fine, NYPD send a patrol car to check it out. It’s like a fail-safe. We’ve got around twenty of Manhattan’s super-rich in this building. If a crew tried to rob us, the first thing they’d do is disable the security control room. So if a resident or a member of staff managed to get to an emergency phone, even though we might be incapacitated, somebody from 911 will know there’s an emergency, and if we don’t stand them down, the cops’ll come running.”
“I didn’t know that. All I have is a record of security calling 911 when the body was found. Kennedy, you think you can get me a record of the text?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Can I see the whole feed from the camera that NYPD took their footage from? I want to make sure that it hasn’t been edited,” I said.
Medrano relieved the security guard at the bank of monitors and started calling up the footage from the hard drive. Within moments, the screen directly in front of us went blank, and then an image appeared of the security guards knocking on Gershbaum’s door before letting themselves in.
“Hang on. I’ll rewind,” said Medrano.
“No, it’s fine. Just let it play,” I said.
A guard came out of Child’s apartment and made a call. Nothing happened for a few minutes, so Medrano scrolled through the digital footage until the first pair of cops arrived. Medrano appeared on the screen, and he let the cops into Child’s apartment. He fast-forwarded the footage, and we watched Medrano pacing up and down the hallway at high speed until the detectives arrived, followed by a team of CSIs in white coveralls to work the evidence. I paid attention to each figure as they moved and asked Medrano to slow it down so I could get a good look at all of the officers. There were periods where there was no one on-screen, and Medrano could fast-forward the footage so that a minute of real time played out on the screen in less than three seconds. After twenty minutes or so of Medrano fast-forwarding the footage, I yelled out, “Stop.”
Immediately, Medrano paused the video. I knew then that I had a hand to play in court in the morning.
“What am I looking at?” said Kennedy.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But I’m going to find out. I’ll need to see the footage for the whole day. Can I get a copy of this?”
The head of security rubbed his chin. “I don’t see why not. The cops took the entire day’s footage, too. Oh, did you want a copy of the footage from the vent camera?”
“Let me see it first,” I said.
“How come the cops didn’t take a copy of this footage from the vent cam?” asked Kennedy.
Medrano cleared his throat, looked at this shoes, and then raised his head to address Kennedy.
“Look, there’s a lot of wealthy, famous people who live in this building. We watch everything, and in many ways, we see nothing. Know what I mean? The paparazzi have been trying to buy somebody, anybody, in this building who’ll tip them off when a hooker, a dealer, or another celebrity visits an apartment in this building. We get well paid for our silence and for looking the other way. Up until a year ago there was no camera there. We kind of had an unwritten rule that the stairs were out of bounds for cameras. There was a burglary. We caught the guy and as a compromise we installed hidden cameras on each floor. The cops didn’t ask to see this footage, and we never showed it to them. This is the only camera that covers the door to the stairs. It’s a balancing act. Lot of residents don’t want to live under a security camera, not with their lifestyles. So we have to try to make them feel both secure and anonymous.”
