Death Angel

FOURTEEN

“I’m Alexandra Cooper. I work with Mercer,” I said to the woman who was sitting in a small office near the Emergency Room at Mount Sinai Hospital. “I’m with the DA’s Office Special Victims Unit.”

By the time I was off the phone with Mercer, the police car he’d sent to pick me up was in front of my building.

“Look, I just want to go home, okay? I don’t have anything else to say.”

“I know it’s late and I know you’ve been through an ordeal, but I’d appreciate it if you could answer a few more questions for me.”

Flo Lamont was still in a hospital gown, waiting while the advocate who was part of SAVI-the hospital’s Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention program-brought her a clean T-shirt with which to leave the hospital. Her legs were jiggling nervously as she listened to me.

“I want to go over what happened to you one more time, in a little more detail.”

The uniformed cops had gotten all of Flo’s pedigree information. The nineteen-year-old African American woman lived with her mother in Schomburg Plaza, a high-rise complex just across 110th Street from the Park. She worked in the shipping department at Macy’s.

“You’re not gonna find this dude, you know? I don’t see why it matters.”

“Mercer’s really good at what he does,” I said. “He might surprise you.”

Flo looked up at her detective and then looked him over, up and down. “But the guy didn’t do anything to me.”

“That’s not exactly how I’d describe things,” Mercer said, although that’s the way many victims described an uncompleted attempt to commit this brutal crime. “And it’s only because you fought him off that he didn’t finish what he set out to do.”

The 61-the complaint report that the first uniformed responder scratched out-was only two sentences long: “At the T/P/O-time and place of occurrence-an unknown M/B threatened Flo Lamont with a lead pipe and attempted to have intercourse with her. Lamont resisted and attacker fled.”

Those few words were enough to send someone to state prison for fifteen years if he was apprehended. But it was the detail missing from the summary of the elements of the crime that might determine if we would ever connect this assailant to Flo’s case.

The rookies who’d encountered Flo, after a young couple looking for a secluded place to hang out heard her screams, asked her hardly any questions at all. She was sobbing and shaking, so they put her in their patrol car and made the short trip down to Madison Avenue and 100th Street, to the Sinai ER.

Those cops were required to turn the case over to Special Victims detectives, who had the expertise to do more in-depth questioning in a compassionate manner, which is part of what made them qualified for such sensitive work. Although Mercer wasn’t catching new cases because of his assignment to Angel’s homicide, his boss wanted him to go out on this one in case there was any connection between the two.

“You gonna tell my mother about this?” Flo asked, massaging her left shoulder with her right hand.

“You’re nineteen,” Mercer said. “We don’t need to tell your mother anything.”

“Them cops kept asking me why I was in the Park after dark. Like I was doing something wrong.”

“We know you weren’t doing anything wrong,” Mercer said. He pulled up a second chair and sat opposite Flo, so he could talk to her eye-to-eye. “I’m going to ask you why you were in the Park, also. But only because that’s where this crime happened. I have to know why you were there and what you were doing-just like I’d ask if this had happened in a school or in an office building. I’m not accusing you of anything.”

“The Park is like my backyard. I been going in it to play since I was a kid.”

“I grew up in Queens, right near a big park. Not as nice as this one, though nothing is. I spent half my life in that park.”

Flo picked her head up again and looked at Mercer. She was trying to use her street sense to see whether he was someone she could trust or not. I needed him to get her to lose her attitude so I could jump in and retrieve some more facts.

When the cops had asked her what she was doing in the Park at 9:30 at night, Flo’s answer to them had been “Nothing.”

“Most of the time, when I went to the park to do sports,” Mercer said, “it was daytime. When I went there at night, it was usually to meet up with friends. How about you?”

“Sometimes I go there to get away from people. Just like to be by myself.”

“Was tonight one of those nights? You wanted to be alone?”

Flo nodded her head up and down.

“I have plenty of times like that. Who were you getting away from?”

“A guy.”

“Your boyfriend?”

Flo sneered and suppressed a laugh. “Sometimes.”

“You want to tell me his name?”

“No chance. He have nothing to do with this.”

“Fair enough.”

She checked Mercer’s face again to see if he was sincere about that.

“Were you with him before you went into the Park, or were you coming from home?”

“With him. Hanging out on 110th.”

“Till he said something stupid to you, and you got mad and crossed the street.”

Flo tilted her head. “Now, how you know that?”

Mercer smiled at her. “’Cause he’s a guy. That’s what guys do half the time. Hanging out on a beautiful night with a nice girl, and we blow it. Say something, do something stupid. Am I right? Then you headed off to-I don’t know-someplace that’s special to you two. Someplace you go to be together ’cause you knew he’d follow you eventually. Try to make it right.”

Flo stopped bouncing her legs. She was completely fixed on Mercer.

“I don’t know about making it right,” she said, leaning forward to play with Mercer a bit, “but I know he’d want to get him some before he went home for the night.”

“His loss,” Mercer said. “Totally his loss. So where were you headed?”

“You know the waterfall?”

“All three of them.”

“The big one. The one closest to where I came in.”

Among the most beautiful creations in the Park were the three waterfalls in the Ravine, north of 102nd Street. They looked as natural as any country scene or wilderness preserve but were completely man-made. They were so carefully engineered more than 150 years ago that each was designed to be entirely different from the others. The rocks were set at different distances so the sound of the water cascading was unique to each site, depending on the height of the drop and the size of the boulders below.

“I know it. Is that your spot?”

“Yes,” Flo said. “Leastways it was until tonight.”

“You were just going to hang out by the waterfall?”

“There’s actually a little ledge inside it. You know, behind the fall?”

“I didn’t know that. Did you, Alex?”

Mercer would draw me in now, getting ready to turn his witness over to me.

“I had no idea.”

Flo was happy to show off her knowledge. “You just get like a little wet passing in, but then you can sit and look out. Kind of a cool thing. It’s like a little cave, almost.”

“A cave?” My interest was as piqued as Mercer’s. “You can go inside it?”

“Not really. It’s sort of a dug-out space behind the waterfall. I used to hide out there with my friends when we were kids. Me and my boyfriend-like two of us could just fit there for a while. You know, like sitting and talking is all.”

I wondered how many cave-like places there could be in this massive Park, with all the rock outcroppings and formations that had been styled to build up the ground surface.

“Did you tell the cops that you were on your way to the waterfall?”

Flo frowned at me. “They was so not interested in me once I told them I went in there alone. They didn’t need to know nothing else.”

“We want it all,” Mercer said.

There was a knock on the door, and one of the young advocates introduced herself and handed me a clean T-shirt and a pair of hospital pajama bottoms for Flo.

“Why don’t Mercer and I step out so you can get dressed? I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable out of that gown.”

“I want my own shirt. I wanna go home in my own clothes.”

“We need your clothes,” Mercer said, trying to calm the reagitated young woman. “They’re evidence.”

Mercer had showed me the three items he had collected from the RN who’d done the forensic exam. The yellow cotton halter top had been ripped off Flo by its thin strap. Her shorts were torn as well and covered in dirt, just like her underpants.

“It’s after eleven o’clock, Flo. Will your mother be waiting up for you?” Mercer asked.

“No. She don’t wait up.”

“I’ll drive you home. She won’t see you this way.”

“What do my clothes prove?”

“For one thing, the tears in the fabric show the force this man used. And the fact that you were on your back, rolling in the dirt-”

“But you ain’t never gonna find this guy, so what’s the difference what I say?” Flo stood up and started to take off the gown. The cuts and scratches on her back, from where she had rolled on the ground on stones and twigs, were deepening in color. They were more intense than the digital shots that had been taken in the ER, so we would need to get another set, showing the progression of the bruising, within the next twenty-four hours.

I followed Mercer out of the room. Within seconds Flo called out to us that it was okay to come in.

Mercer held the chair out so she would sit down again. “Alex and I have worked these cases together for a very long time. The men who do this? For the most part, Flo, they’re pretty damn stupid. They get away with it once or twice, but not for long.”

“And what really makes them extra stupid,” I said, “is that once they attack one or two women, they get really comfortable doing it the same way. They think that if it worked for them once, it will work that way every time. I know you didn’t tell those two cops much-”

“Why should I? They acted like I was some kind of whore.”

“This will be the last time they do anything like that,” I said. “I promise you.”

“So it’s the detail we want to get from you, Flo,” Mercer said. “Sometimes, just the way a guy does things, the words he uses-we can maybe tie him to another case like yours, one where a girl wasn’t as smart as you were or as brave.”

“Talked crazy is what he did. Grabbed me and threw me down. Total crazy badass guy.”

“Start from where you walked into the Park on the corner of 110 and Fifth,” Mercer said. “Were you alone?”

“I was by myself, if that’s what you mean. But there were lots of people around at nine o’clock, inside the Park and out.”

Flo walked us from the entrance to her route on the pathway that took her halfway around the Harlem Meer, the latter word being Dutch for “lake.” She told us that she hadn’t encountered anyone she knew, and that she wasn’t alone until she turned off the wide walk to head for the Ravine.

“Do you know where Huddlestone Arch is?” Mercer asked.

“Yeah. That’s where this guy was waiting for me, when I came out of Huddlestone.”

“Did you see him up ahead?”

“Nah. It’s like a little tunnel, you know. All dark inside till you come out the other end. I was looking back over my shoulder half the time.”

“For that fool who let you walk away?” Mercer said.

Flo laughed nervously. “Yeah. For him.”

“Did you hear anything?”

“Not at first. I mean, just the sound of the water kind of whooshing through.”

“Then what happened?”

“I heard him before I saw him. I heard him, like he was talking to his dog. Nothing strange about that. He was calling to his dog, like, ‘Here, Buster. Come back to me.’”

Who did I know with a dog named Buster? It sounded familiar to me, which was a minor distraction from Flo’s story.

“Then he was like blocking the end of the tunnel, asking me if I saw his dog.”

“Did you?” I asked. “Did you see the dog?”

Flo looked at me as though I was off base. “Dog? That boy didn’t have no dog.”

Both Mercer and I knew what was coming next.

“But I turned to look behind me and that’s when he grabbed me.”

“Grabbed you how?” I asked.

“Yoked me,” she said, hooking her right arm across her neck. “Yoked me and bent me over backward so my knees gave out and I fell on the ground, all the time him pulling me off the walkway in between the trees.”

“And-?”

“That’s when he started yelling crazy stuff at me. Calling me ‘bitch.’ Telling me I was gonna burn in hell for what I done. Telling me my sister was a devil,” Flo said, shaking her head and rubbing her shoulder.

“Your sister?” Mercer asked.

“I don’t have a sister. That’s what I’m saying ’bout crazy. Then I see his penis.”

“Did he let go of you to unzip his pants?” I said.

“Nope. He never let go of me. His pants was already unzipped. He was hard by the time he threw me down.”

Perhaps he’d been masturbating in the bushes, like he’d done when he approached the Austin sisters.

“What did he do then, Flo?”

“More crazy talking. He was mad at me for fighting him. That’s when he ripped my halter. Tore the thing clear off.”

“What kind of crazy talk?” I asked.

Flo kept stroking her shoulder and upper arm, which clearly bothered her. “All about the devil and stuff. But then he wanted me to say things. But I didn’t want to say ’em. He was all like sitting on top of me, so I couldn’t move, and my back was aching from rolling on all those rocks and branches.”

“Tell us the words, Flo. Tell us, please, what the man wanted you to say.”

“Don’t put this in your report, okay?” She was almost squirming in her chair now.

Mercer coaxed her just to repeat what had happened. We knew it wasn’t her choice of words; it was her assailant’s.

In a voice not much louder than a whisper, Flo said, “‘I’m a ho.’ He wanted to hear that. Two, three times maybe. He wanted me to tell him how big he was and how much I wanted him inside me.”

Tears started to streak down her cheeks as she spoke, and at that moment the whole image began to come together for me.

“He made me use the F-word, saying I needed him to do that to me. But I wasn’t saying it loud enough for him,” Flo went on. Then she paused and looked at Mercer. “It was almost funny, what crossed my mind. I was so scared my boyfriend would be coming along and he’d see me half naked, saying that to another man, and he’d think I’d gone off and done that to spite him.”

The modus operandi that Mercer hoped we might take from Flo’s story was coming together. The faked approach that stopped most walkers in their tracks, helping another park person to find a lost dog; the dog’s name, Buster; and the same man, a rapist, then demanding that his victim call herself a whore and compliment his private parts and prowess-I actually knew that MO.

“You’re almost there,” Mercer said.

“It was ’cause I wouldn’t talk louder and I wouldn’t hold still that he got so mad. Took the piece of pipe out of his back pocket and threatened to bash in my face with it.”

He told his victims he’d make them so ugly no man would ever look at them again, beating them to a pulp with a twelve-inch lead pipe.

“He held it right up to my cheek so I could feel the cold metal, so’s I knew he wasn’t fooling around. That’s when I saw he had some words tattooed on his hand,” Flo said, touching her cheek with her fingertips. “Looked like two separate words, but it was too dark to read what they said.”

“What words did he use when he had the pipe in your face?” I asked.

“He said-he said he’d make me so ugly that no man would ever look at me again.”

“I’m glad you didn’t let him do that, Flo,” Mercer said.

“So then this couple must have come up through the arch. I was thrashing around and screaming again ’cause this maniac was ripping at my shorts, trying to get his business all up in me. And this couple-they was Hispanic, and the guy was really heavyset and tough-looking. I yelled to them for help. That’s when the dude got off me and started running, without even zipping up his pants. The Spanish guy is the one who picked me up and walked me out to the cops. He’s why I didn’t get raped.

“That’s what I know.” Flo exhaled and sat back in her chair. “That’s what happened to me.”

“Thank you for giving us all that detail, Flo,” I said. “I promise you we’re going to find this man. We’re going to get him before he does this to anyone else.”

She trusted Mercer, but she was pretty well convinced that I was just bluffing. She rolled her eyes and looked up at me. “Now, how you gonna do that, Miss District Attorney?”

“Because you just told me who the crazy man is, Flo.”

“No, ma’am,” she said, standing up, “I have no idea who he is. I just want to go home now, if you don’t mind.”

She stepped past me and opened the door to walk out of the room.

I closed it behind her and leaned against it. “There I was, racking my brain to think of all the guys I sent upstate. I never thought of the ones that beat me.”

Mercer smiled. “You’re serious? You know this guy?”

“Crazy-ass dude is right,” I said. “Raymond Tanner. Raped three girls in St. Nicholas Park, looking for his imaginary puppy named Buster.”

“Back when? How’d I miss this?”

Tanner’s MO was as distinctive a signature as his fingerprints.

“While you were hospitalized, Mercer. After the shooting.”

“You tried the case?”

“And lost. Not guilty by reason of insanity. Raymond Tanner should have been behind bars for the rest of his life.”