I told him about Christine. He flinched.

  “I heard the task force is on their way to the Lightner Building now. The team is gonna clear out the associates and arrest Sinton and the firm’s security personnel. She’ll be okay. I’ll get Ferrar and Weinstein to make sure she’s looked after,” he said.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

  “Your Honor, we seem to have a little difficulty in locating our next witness, Mr. Woodrow,” said Zader. “His evidence was in relation to the automobile accident and spotting the murder weapon in the defendant’s vehicle. We can’t proceed with that evidence, but we do have the officer who found the weapon in the car and made the arrest. The people call Patrolman Philip Jones.”

  A uniformed cop came forward, well built, early forties, dark hair, the shadow of a beard on his cheeks even though he’d evidently shaved that morning.

  “Officer, I understand you’ve recently left the force?” said Zader.

  “Not quite. The day I arrested the defendant was supposed to be my last day as a police officer, but since this case has become so important, I’ve agreed to stay on for another month, to assist with this prosecution.”

  Zader thanked him for his dedication, then ripped through the preliminary questions: time on the job, experience, attending at the scene of the accident. Fast questions followed by fast answers; Zader couldn’t wait to get to the meat.

  “Officer, at the scene of the car accident, what did you see when you were standing at the passenger door of the defendant’s vehicle?”

  “A handgun, just sitting there in the footwell.”

  “Are you sure it was a gun?”

  “I could see it clearly. I opened the door, removed the weapon, then questioned the suspect. He said he didn’t own a gun and had never seen this gun before.”

  “Thank you, Officer. Please remain in the witness stand. Mr. Flynn might have a question or two. Although I can’t imagine what they might be,” said Zader.

  “Are you sure this is going to work?” said David.

  “I’ve got to try,” I told him, patting his shoulder as I stood. He was getting better at handling physical contact—it might well have been the case that he needed it now more than he’d ever realized.

  “Officer, you got to the scene of the accident very quickly indeed. How did you accomplish this?” I asked.

  “It wasn’t all that fast. I got the call from dispatch and I was maybe two blocks from there, so I took the call.”

  “And where were you when you received the call?”

  He took a breath before he answered, shook his head a little.

  “I’m not exactly sure. I was in that area.”

  “You said you were around two blocks from the scene of the accident. You must have some idea?”

  “I think I was in or around Sixty-third Street.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m sure,” he said.

  I handed the witness the dispatch record, which Kennedy had gotten for me. I gave a copy to the judge and one to Zader.

  “You got any more rabbits in that hat?” said Zader.

  “Just a few,” I said.

  “This is the transcript from dispatch for the night of the murder. Mr. Woodrow, the pickup driver who collided with the defendant’s car, gives his location at the intersection of Sixty-sixth Street and Central Park West. Can you read out your response to the dispatcher?”

  He cleared his throat, and confidently, even nonchalantly, read, “‘Show Twenty Charlie handling. I’m on Sixty-fourth coming onto Central Park West.’ I’m in the Twentieth Precinct and I’m car Charlie. That’s my call sign. See, I was right. I remembered. I was on Sixty-third,” he said with a smile.

  “So, you were on Sixty-third when the call came in. I take it you were on patrol at that time?”

  “Correct. I was mobile.”

  The judge shook his head. I needed to spell it out for him.

  “When you say you were mobile, that means prior to receiving the call, you were driving around the area on patrol, correct?”

  A slight hesitation from Jones before he said, “Correct. I’d been patrolling since that afternoon.”

  “And after you picked up the call, you went immediately to the accident scene?” I asked.

  “Yes. When I reached the bottom of Sixty-fourth I made a left onto Central Park West, and the accident was two blocks ahead.”

  Nodding, Judge Rollins looked over his notes. So far Officer Jones had been completely straightforward.

  “Officer, you were the single patrolman in Twenty Charlie that day?”

  “Yes, I’ve got a lot of years under my belt. I’m not a sergeant, but I’ve got enough time on the job that I get to go out on my own.”

  “How many times have you failed the sergeant’s exam?”

  “Relevance?” said Zader.

  “A little latitude, Your Honor,” I said.

  “I’ll allow it,” said Rollins.

  Jones coughed. “Eight times.”

  “I understand you’ve got a new position; you’re leaving the force?”

  “That’s correct. I’ll be working for a private security contractor in Iraq. Security detail. It’s a little more dangerous than Manhattan, but the pay is triple my salary as a cop.”

  “Very nice. When did you get this new position?”

  “I got confirmation a few months ago.”

  “And how much was your signing bonus?”

  “Do I have to answer that?”

  “This is my last question on this topic, Your Honor.”

  A nod from Judge Rollins and Jones shook his head. He steepled his fingers, pressing them together hard, whitening the tips.

  “Two hundred thousand dollars,” said Jones.

  I didn’t react. But I watched Judge Rollins blow out his cheeks.

  “You’d never met the defendant before that day?”

  “No. I’d heard of him, obviously, but no, I’d never met him.”

  “So you don’t hold any grudges against him?”

  “No. I’m a law-enforcement officer. We don’t hold grudges. And like I said, I’d never met him.”

  “And you have no reason to lie about any of this, do you?”

  “No reason at all,” he said, shaking his head, pursing his lips.

  “It’s not like you’re looking for promotion. You’re moving into a much better paid job, isn’t that right?”

  “Right,” he said, folding his legs.

  “So why are you lying?”

  Judge Rollins’s head snapped to me, then back to the witness.

  “I’m not lying about anything, Counselor.”

  I picked up the last of the documents that Kennedy had procured and handed copies to the judge and Zader, then gave a copy to Officer Jones. He took it reluctantly, then scanned it and hung his head.

  “Officer, this is a record of GPS locations for your vehicle on the night of the murder. All NYPD vehicles are fitted with a tracker, correct?”

  “Yes, we have a tracker, but…”

  “This is the NYPD record of your vehicle’s movements for that evening. Please take a moment to look over it and tell me when the tracker reports your location as Sixty-fourth Street.”

  He didn’t read the report. He shook his head and just looked at the page. He already knew. Zader and Rollins scanned quickly, looking for the relevant entry.

  “Perhaps I can assist you, Officer. The report confirms that your vehicle never entered Sixty-fourth Street that day.”

  “Maybe the satellite was out,” said Jones.

  “No, it wasn’t. Working backward, the record shows your vehicle stopping at Sixty-sixth and Central Park West for twenty-three minutes, while you dealt with the accident, found the gun, and arrested Mr. Child. Before that the record shows your vehicle having traveled to the accident scene north via Central Park West. You actually passed the intersection for Sixty-fourth Street on your way to the accident.”

  Nodding, but not answering, Jones looked around for help. None was offered.

  “So your testimony just now, that you made a left at the bottom of Sixty-fourth onto Central Park West, that was a lie?”

  “No. It was an honest mistake.”

  “Before you drove to the accident scene, the record shows your vehicle parked outside Central Park Eleven for thirty-three minutes. You lied to the dispatcher?”

  “So I made a mistake. I…”

  “You’ve got a lot of time under your belt as an officer. You said so yourself. Are you telling this court you don’t know the difference between Central Park West and Sixty-fourth Street?”

  “No. I just made a mistake,” he said.

  “A mistake, not a lie?”

  “No, I made a mistake.”

  “So it’s just a coincidence that at the precise time that Clara Reece was murdered you were parked across the street from her building?”

  “Yes.”

  “And it’s just another coincidence that you picked up the dispatch call for the accident that resulted in the defendant’s arrest with the murder weapon?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were in court this morning when Officer Noble gave his evidence?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “You heard his testimony that he found dirt or soil in the magazine from the murder weapon when he ejected the clip.”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “And you heard him testify that it’s possible that the killer deliberately fired into the window of Mr. Child’s apartment, maybe to alert the neighbor, Mr. Gershbaum?”

  “I heard that.”

  “There may have been another reason for the window to have broken. Mr. Child’s apartment is on the twenty-fifth floor of that building. At that height, it wouldn’t take a strong man to throw the murder weapon across the street and into Central Park, would it?”

  Silence. The witness didn’t move, not even an attempt to answer the question. His stare moved past me. From the front door of David’s building, a fifth grader could pitch a ball into the park. From the balcony of David’s apartment on the twenty-fifth floor, you could damn near spit into the park.

  “Your vehicle was sitting beside the park for a long time. You were waiting in the park, opposite the building, watching the defendant’s balcony. That’s a pretty secluded area of the park. You’re behind hedges. This was very carefully planned, and you knew, to the minute, when the gun would be thrown into the park from the balcony. You waited until you saw the weapon being thrown from the apartment, retrieved it from the grass, wiped off the dirt, then stashed it in your coat…”

  “This is bull—”

  “Watch your tongue in this courtroom,” said Judge Rollins, staring at Jones. I thought I saw a trickle of light in Rollins, the spark of something in his eyes—the beginning of doubt. I had to make it flourish.

  “When you got to your car, you removed your backup piece from your ankle holster, locked it in the glove compartment, and put the murder weapon into your ankle holster, correct?”

  “This is … lies.”

  “Officer, you searched the defendant, his bag, and his entire vehicle, isn’t that right?”

  “That’s accurate. I did.”

  “And you did not find any gloves?”

  “I did not find gloves.”

  “And despite not having gloves, or the means to properly clean the murder weapon, the defendant’s fingerprints were not found on that gun?”

  “I don’t believe they were.”

  “The only fingerprints on that gun were yours, Officer Jones?”

  “I should’ve worn gloves when I picked up the gun.”

  “You mean when you picked it up out of the dirt in Central Park?”

  A moment’s hesitation before he said, “No.”

  “You didn’t manage to clean all of the dirt from the weapon, did you? I suppose you didn’t have much time. No one on the street would see a gun passing overhead, but you had to be quick to pick it up from the lawn.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Mr. Woodrow is not here to testify as to what he saw. There’s just you. And when you bent down to look into the passenger footwell of David’s car, you retrieved the murder weapon from your ankle holster and held it in the air for the traffic camera?”

  “No way.”

  “There’s only a couple of blocks between Sixty-fourth Street and Central Park Eleven. You never expected the dispatcher to notice it, and no one had any reason to doubt your location, or so you thought. You lied about your location because you didn’t want to be connected to the murder scene, so no one would piece it together. Right?”

  “So I lied to the dispatcher about where I was. I was taking a break. I had nothing to do with that gun until I took it out of your client’s car. I’m telling the truth.”

  “So you just lied under oath a moment ago, perjuring yourself. But now you’re telling the truth, is that it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you’re an honest liar?”

  Standing now, he pointed at me and bellowed, “You’re full of shit.”

  The judge didn’t admonish, him—he’d heard enough.

  “Just one last question,” I said. “Is two hundred grand the going rate for planting a gun?”

  Jones wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He wanted to say more, much more. He was all riled up, but he seemed to be trying to put the brakes on, to stop himself from doing any more damage. All eyes were upon him. He leaned back in his chair, looked at the judge, and said, “I refuse to answer on the grounds that I may incriminate myself.”

  I sat down. Without looking at Jones, Zader pointed toward the door. He wanted Jones out of there, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at him.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

  2 hours until the shot

  “Eddie, I think the judge is starting to think about this case,” said David.

  “Thinking about it isn’t enough. He has to believe it.”

  “The people call Detective Andy Morgan.”

  A blond cop, in a washed-out brown suit, spat his chewing gum into his hand, hung up his cell phone, and put the gum and the phone in the same pocket. Whatever was going on in that phone call caused him some concern. From his flushed aspect, I guessed he was worried about what I was going to ask him. He’d watched two cops get nailed, and now he was next. He took the oath, ran his fingers through his hair, which I noticed had faded to white in a patch at the front, almost as much as his suit had paled. I felt the vibration from my cell, checked the messages; one new message from the Lizard.

  Feds just showed up. You want me to make a play?

  Under the table, I tapped out a reply.

  No. They’re gonna take Christine out of there. Watch. Tell me when she’s clear.

  The DA took Morgan through the story of his involvement: the relay from dispatch that had confirmed that uniformed patrol identified the body in David’s apartment as a probable homicide, his arrival at the building and search of Child’s apartment, opening the homicide log at the scene, taking notes of the fatal injuries, calling CSI, everything up until the search for evidence from the security camera footage.

  “I then visited the building’s security office and spoke to Mr. Medrano, their chief of security. He was able to locate the relevant CCTV footage, and I obtained a copy.”

  “Is this the disk you’re referring to? Exhibit TM-Two?” said Zader.

  “Correct,” said Morgan.

  “If it pleases the court, now would be an appropriate time to view the footage.”

  “Very well,” said Rollins.

  Zader gave the disk to Morgan, who got up and inserted it into the DVD player that sat below a seventy-inch TV screen to the left of the judge.

  Morgan handed the remote control to the DA and resumed his seat.

  Start and stop with the footage, while Zader asked Morgan to identify David and Clara from the footage. We played through to them entering the room together, then, some seventeen minutes later, David leaving on his own. Four minutes later the security team, led by Forest, is at Gershbaum’s door.

  “What conclusions can be drawn from this footage?” said Zader.

  “There appears to be incontrovertible evidence that the defendant and the deceased entered the apartment together. Only one of them leaves alive. When the apartment is searched, no one else is present. Those are the facts. The defendant is the only person who could’ve shot and killed the victim.”

  “Thank you,” said Zader.

  I saw from the digital indicator that popped up on the bottom of the screen that the footage on this DVD, from the hallway camera outside David’s apartment, ran on for another eight hours. Medrano probably just copied the entire twenty-four-hour feed onto a disk. I could use Zader’s own exhibit against him.

  “Any cross-examination?” said Judge Rollins.

  I stood and began a series of banal questions, designed to get Morgan talking, to open him up and ease him in. In preliminary hearings, cops are used to being cross-examined at length without it really going anywhere. Just a fishing exercise.

  I threw out my line.

  “Detective, what time did you get the call from dispatch about a possible homicide at Central Park Eleven?”

  He referred to his notes, with permission, before answering. “I noted twenty twenty-seven.”

  “And what time did you arrive at the crime scene?”

  “Twenty thirty-eight,” he said with a sigh, wondering how long he’d be in the chair, answering inane questions.

  “When you arrived at the scene, what was your first action?”

  “I secured the scene. Made sure all personnel had vacated the apartment and opened the homicide log.”

  “The what?” asked the judge.

  “The log, Your Honor. We log personnel in and out of the scene, significant developments, schedule interviews, record decision making. It’s the backbone of our homicide procedure; it’s the bible that records our investigation, and it’s the starting point for the evidence chain.”

  Rollins made a note.

  I took the TV remote from Zader, forwarded the footage to Morgan’s arrival.

  “So at twenty fifty-one, going by the time on the security camera, you and your partner, Detective Algin, were the only personnel in the apartment?”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37