Entombed

13

"I'm telling you this murder and the skeleton behind the brick wall are connected," I said, after Teddy Kroon left the station house. "A skeleton is found in the house where Poe once lived. Buried alive, in all probability. You blab it to the press and it winds up in the headlines on a slow news day. Twenty-four hours later, Emily's dead. And her scene is manipulated to look like the elusive Silk Stocking Rapist just escalated out of control. Emily Upshaw's death has nothing to do with our East Side serial rapist."

"What's the link, Coop?" Mike's feet were on the lieutenant's desk and I was slumped back in a chair opposite him when Mercer returned to the room. It was after 6A.M. "She liked Poe? There's not a literate adult in America who grew up without reading him."

"An obsession with premature burial? C'mon," I said.

"You weren't creeped out the first time you read that story? It's impossible to forget those images. The lever in the family vault that throws the iron portals back, the padded coffin with a lid and springs, the rope attached to the big bell, fastened to the hands of the corpse. Living inhumation, isn't that what he called it? Nothing so agonizing on earth. I must have been twelve or thirteen but I didn't sleep for weeks."

"Mike, we're talking about an intelligent adult. Not likely she was spooked for the rest of her life by a short story she read in grade school. Something happened to her, you heard what Teddy said. It's related to some bad experience with a guy she met in rehab who was a madman. About twenty years ago. It's only a madman who would have entombed a young woman alive, too. Straight out of Poe, in the basement of the very house he lived in."

"You're going 'woo-woo' on us, Coop."

"The guy reads in the newspaper that we found the skeleton. The same day's paper has the story of the return of the Silk Stocking Rapist. Emily was some kind of danger to him," I said, my mind racing to think of reasons why, "so he killed her. I think it makes sense."

"So, now what do you want us to do? I know, let's dig up every building foundation in New York City. You think we got buried bones all over town? Or this lunatic only comes out of the blue once every quarter of a century to murder somebody? A bit unusual for a serial killer, isn't it?"

"Find that guy, you solve both cases."

"This bagel is hard as a rock. That's the best you could do for me?" Mike asked, slathering the remaining half with cream cheese.

"I'm with Alex on this one," Mercer said.

"What a stretch. You think DCPI is gonna go with that kind of long shot? Don't ever tell them it's a brainstorm from the mind of Alexandra Cooper," Mike said. "They're likely to flop you back to street patrol in Harlem for taking your cues from blondie."

The NYPD's deputy commissioner of public information would have to advise his boss on this decision. News of a murder on the Upper East Side was a story with legs. Give out an essential clue that might only be known to the killer-the use of actual silk stockings instead of cheap panty hose-and it might blow the chance to score solid points when it came time to interrogate suspects. But if Mike was right and the original serial rapist had escalated to murder, not warning people about this more frenzied attack could prove to be a fatal error.

"The commish is screwed either way. Letting everyone think this new kill is part of the task force operation gives us more wiggle room to work the case quietly," Mercer said. "The murderer will think he's got us duped."

"Mind if I finish this?" Mike asked, reaching over and taking the food Teddy Kroon had left behind. Murder rarely affected Mike's desire for something to chew on. "You know I hate it when Mercer sides with you. But this time, just on some nitwit literary hunch? It almost takes my appetite away."

"It's not her hunch."

"What then?" We both looked at Mercer. His chair was tipped back against the wall, but his long legs were planted firmly on the floor.

"The teeth. It's the skeleton's teeth," he said.

"How so?"

"Well, Andy Dorfman gives us an age on those bones that wouldn't be so different from Emily Upshaw's age today-forty-three years old-if the other woman had lived. And her teeth suggest that in the last few years of her life she spun out of control-like a drug addict or alcoholic who didn't get any medical or dental attention."

"You two are beginning to scare me," Mike said.

Mercer ignored him. "The skeleton lady and Emily Upshaw- we know she sucked the bottle a bit too much way back then- might have moved in the same small world."

"Yeah, well, that's like telling me it's a quarter of the population of this or any other big city. Dope, alcohol, people who are scared of the dentist's drill. Both of you are leaping to conclusions that seem pretty absurd."

I looked at my watch and yawned. "What do you say we carry this discussion forward on Monday, when you get an autopsy report on Emily? Mercer and I have to finish up in the grand jury and file our John Doe indictment on the rapist. And Mike, can I ask a special favor? No leaks this time."

"Nevermore, blondie. Nevermore."

The Nineteenth Precinct was only a few blocks from my apartment. Daylight was just beginning to break on this next-to-last morning of January as I walked home at about 7A.M. Sanitation trucks blocked the cross streets as they loaded huge piles of green plastic trash bags into their bellies, gypsy cabdrivers honked to get my attention as I jaywalked across Third Avenue, and what was left of the snow and ice that skirted my path was now coated in soot. The doormen were huddled in their long uniform coats, with hats and gloves, grudgingly opening the door to let me in. I picked up the Sunday paper from the mat in my hallway, went inside to undress and climb into bed.

I slept until noon. After I had called Battaglia to alert him about the murder of Emily Upshaw and the question about whether it was part of the recurring rapist's pattern, the rest of the day was a lazy mix of reading the Times, catching up with friends and family by e-mail and phone, and rearranging my closets. There were empty spaces and shelves where Jake had kept clothes and toiletries and books, and I tried to fill the gaps-constant reminders of the breakup-with things of my own that I had moved back then to make room for him.

On Monday morning, a light dusting of snow fell as I hailed a cab to go down to the office. I spent the first hour drafting the indictment of the Silk Stocking Rapist for Laura to type, so that it could be signed by the foreman of the afternoon grand jury and filed with the court. Brenda Whitney, in charge of media relations, came in to discuss all the relevant facts so that she could prepare a statement for Battaglia to release to the press. Since there was not yet an arrest, I needed an unsealing order to make the news public. Completing the essential paperwork was as time-consuming as prepping the case.

"Got time for a headache?" Alan Vandomir asked as he knocked on my open door shortly after ten.

"Another one?"

"A little lighter than what you were dealing with all weekend." Vandomir was one of the best detectives in Manhattan's Special Victims Squad and I liked working with him. "I want you to hear this story-we'll make it as quick as we can."

"Bring it on."

He walked to the waiting area across the hall and returned with a teenaged girl dressed in a lavender velour warm-up suit and chewing on some sticks of red licorice. Vandomir motioned her to one of the chairs in front of my desk and sat next to her while he introduced us and got her to start talking.

Seventeen-year-old Darcy Hallin told me she was a high school student on Staten Island and had been dating a classmate for the first half of senior year. She was tall and big-breasted, with frizzy blonde hair. She went into the details of their sexual relationship, which included the assurance that they had protected sex. Most of the time.

"Last month I missed my period, and then I started getting sick and stuff, so when I told my boyfriend about it he said he had an uncle who could solve the problem."

"How?"

"That he was a doctor. That he would-you know-take care of things for me. So Friday I went to his office."

"Where?" I asked, to make sure that whatever event brought her to me was something over which I had jurisdiction. "In Manhattan?"

"Yeah. But I don't know the street. Somewhere in midtown," she said, smiling at Vandomir and waiting for him to agree with her. "Right?"

"What happened at his office?"

"First thing he did was make me undress."

"Was there a nurse in the room, or any kind of assistant?"

"Just Dr. Foster and me."

"Did he give you a gown to put on?"

"No. He told me to take all my clothes off and put them on a chair."

"Have you ever had a gynecological exam before?"

"Nope."

"Did the doctor know that?"

"Uh-huh. He asked me who did the last one and I told him I never had one."

The fact that it was the first time the girl was going through the procedure made it impossible for her to know what the standard practice should be in such exams. It was the perfect moment for someone to take advantage of her.

"What did Dr. Foster do next?"

"First he told me he had to do a breast exam."

"How did he do that?"

"Like he was feeling up on me, is what I thought."

"Can you tell us exactly how and where he touched you?"

First Darcy told us how the doctor rubbed his hands around her chest, then she demonstrated on herself. The long caresses and manipulation of the girl's ample breasts bore no resemblance to the steps physicians took in legitimate examinations. Neither did his repeated questioning, asking her whether it felt good while he touched her.

"What was next?"

"He made me lie down on the table and put his fingers inside me. He was touching me funny and poking me inside with some kind of instrument that I couldn't see, and that's when the man knocked on the door."

"What man? Touching you how? Slow down, Darcy."

"Somebody just banged and Dr. Foster, he like got real nervous. He told me to get up and get dressed, and he started to hide all his medical tools back in his bag."

"Did the other man come into the room?"

"Nope. He kept calling the name Pierre-telling him to open up. But he didn't. Not then. Not till he threatened me."

"What did he say?"

"'If you tell anybody about this, I'll get you. I know how to find you and I'll make sure you never talk again.' Then he took me by the arm and made me walk through the waiting area, out the back door to the alleyway. He tossed his case with all the stuff in it into the Dumpster, which I thought was really weird."

"How did you get away from him?"

"He made me walk to the subway station and he waited until I got on the downtown train to go home. Said if I told anyone about this except my boyfriend I'd never see my mother again."

"I'm glad you decided to tell someone, Darcy."

"I didn't have a choice, really. I was bleeding so badly that night that I had to get my mother to take me to the hospital." She smiled at Alan Vandomir. "They're the ones who called the police."

"So you paid a visit to Dr. Foster?" I asked Vandomir.

"By way of the back door on Saturday morning. That's where we found all the equipment inside the Dumpster. And Lucky Pierre was right at his desk."

"What kind of medicine is he licensed to practice?"

"None, actually. That's why we're here."

I looked at the vulnerable teen and wondered what would have happened to her had there not been such an opportune knock on the door. "Don't tell me he's a gardener or a hairdresser?"

"Nah. He's a phlebotomist. All he's trained to do is to draw blood for lab tests. Doesn't know the first thing about gynecology or anything else medical. And you're certainly not going to like where he works, Alex."

"I'm afraid to ask."

"Try the court system. He's employed by the Midtown Community Court. His assignment is to draw blood from hookers to test for sexually transmitted diseases."

"Public service is a wonderful thing, isn't it? Now I'll have the chief administrative judge on my back for embarrassing him with this arrest."

The MCC had been a controversial innovation from the outset, almost a decade ago. The mayor and the judicial head of the criminal court system had been allies in moving some misdemeanor cases out of the Centre Street courthouse and handling them in the neighborhood in which they'd occurred. It hardly made a difference to any of us in the DA's office to have the cases-mostly prostitution and low-level drug dealing-out from under our feet. But Battaglia had been hell-bent on maintaining jurisdiction over every offense, no matter how petty, and he would revel in this bit of mismanagement by his adversaries.

"I'll have it written up as sexual abuse and throw in an unauthorized medical practice. We can have Darcy sign the affidavit and send her on her way, for today."

By two o'clock, I had finished charging Vandomir's case and when Mercer arrived, I had the John Doe serial rapist indictment signed and filed. By the time I made the rounds from my eighth-floor office to the ninth-floor grand jury rooms to the tenth-floor Supreme Court clerk's office and then up to fifteen so the judge overseeing grand jury matters could unseal the indictment, it was after three and Mike Chapman was sitting at my desk.

"The plot thickens, Coop."

"Were you there for the autopsy this morning?"

"Yeah. Tell your pal Mr. Kroon you kept your promise. If Emily Upshaw wasn't already dead before she met Dr. Kirschner today, it's a sure thing now."

"Was it as obvious as what it looked like?"

"Five stab wounds to the back with a carving knife. Got the heart, one lung, the kidney, and anything else that matters."

"Was she-?"

"Sexually assaulted? The jury's out on that one. No semen in the vaginal vault, but don't gloat about it yet. There's some bruising on her inner thighs, like it was an attempt. Your perp had attempts that weren't consummated, didn't he?"

Mercer and I looked at each other and nodded our heads.

"Plus Crime Scene found something unusual in the bathroom."

"What?"

Mike took a Polaroid photo out of his pocket and showed it to us. "See the sink counter on the right? There's a plastic bottle of bleach on top."

"Okay, so?"

"Emily wasn't exactly a meticulous housekeeper. Look at the dingy towels and the ring in the bathtub."

The photo made it obvious that the only clean surfaces in the room were the toilet seat and bowl.

"Hal thinks the killer finished in the bathroom what he started in the bedroom. Masturbated here and then wiped the toilet bowl to clean off anything that would leave a trace of DNA. Ever seen that before?"

"No."

"Well, Hal has. There was a case in Queens last October. Perp had only been out of jail a week, paroled on an old sex offense. Did a push-in burglary in Astoria and when he couldn't get it up to complete the rape, he went into the bathroom and played with himself."

"And the Mr. Clean routine?"

"Just before his release from prison he'd been swabbed, by law, to put his profile in the convicted offender data bank. He knew that was a surefire way to identify him in the new venture, so he scoured away the DNA."

"All that tells me is that Emily's killer was smart enough to eliminate any traces of himself. It doesn't help to figure out whether or not he's our East Side rapist."

"Damn, you're stubborn. Mr. Silk Stockings didn't complete the assault on Annika Jelt, did he? I'm sure he wasn't even aware you'd be able to connect the cigarette outside on the stoop to that crime. Maybe Emily's killer is keen to the fact that if you don't match him to the old cases, you can't identify him or even link the two series. Maybe this is a leopard who actually has changed his spots."

"No other DNA in Emily's apartment?" Mercer asked.

"Oh, did I neglect to mention that? Coop's pal, Teddy Kroon. His prints are-"

"That's the first thing he told us last night," I said. "Of course they're everywhere. He found the body of his best friend and tried to see if there was anything he could do to save her."

"You know how you hate to be interrupted? Same goes for me. The prints don't surprise me too much-that's exactly what I was going to say. And neither does his DNA on a wineglass. Maybe it's a little tacky that he sat there swilling her lukewarm Chianti while he waited for the men in blue, but it's not a crime. On the other hand, it makes me wonder whether he was in the apartment earlier than he admitted to us-maybe even drinking there while he waited for Emily to come home."

"But the messages he left on the answering machine, from the bar they were supposed to meet in?"

"It's the oddest thing, Coop. Somebody erased them. I didn't want to say it in front of Teddy, but there were no recordings on it by the time I responded the other morning. And Teddy's got one more thing to explain."

"What's that?" Mercer asked.

"Why his DNA was all over the computer mouse on Emily's desk."