Entombed

16

"Early to bed, early to rise. I didn't think you'd beat me in this morning," Mike said. "Hope you bought breakfast. I'm dead broke and starving."

I pointed at the bag on Laura's desk. "The two bagels are yours. What's with you and the money lately? I'm happy to float you a loan."

"Long story. I'll tell you next week. And I'd love to borrow a couple of hundred to get through till payday, if it's not a problem. I know my Jeopardy! tab is sky-high."

"Take whatever you need from my wallet," I said, turning my attention back to the computer screen. I had come in at seven-thirty to try to find the old case records of Emily Upshaw's drug arrest in the office archives. It was nine by the time Mike arrived.

"Any luck?"

"I don't think the system goes back far enough. Besides that, if it was her first arrest, it was most likely ACD'd." With an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal, Emily's first brush with the law would have been put over for a six-month probationary period. If she had not been rearrested, the charges against her would automatically have been dismissed.

Mike walked behind my chair and picked up the phone. "Who's this? Yo, Ralph. That Upshaw woman who was autopsied yesterday, would you check if they did a fingerprint card? Yeah, I'll hold."

It was standard practice for the medical examiner to take prints of the deceased. In many cases there was an issue of identification, and in others they could be helpful in resolving criminal investigations.

"Excellent. Want to rush those down to Police Plaza? Send them to Ident, will you, please?" Mike said, hanging up the receiver. "Chances are whatever sleazeball lawyer stood up on her case never went the extra yard to have the prints expunged."

"So this will give us the name of the arresting officer."

"And maybe the guy she was hanging out with, if he was a codefendant in the case."

I swiveled back to my desktop. "Let's break down what we need to do. Is Scotty going to get property and tax records for the building on Third Street, so we can check the list of names of people who lived there twenty to thirty years ago?"

"I figured we'd ask him when he comes in-"

"You two talkin' about me?"

"Speak of the devil," Mike said, getting up to shake hands with Detective Scotty Taren. A thirty-year veteran of the job, he was a heavyset man, about Mike's height, with silver hair and a nose that looked like it had been flattened by one too many fists.

"That's what you'll be calling me, all right. I've gone over to the dark side," he said, not moving from the doorframe of my office.

"Good timing." I stood up and extended my hand to Taren, trying to pass him Dr. Ichiko's subpoena to appear before the grand jury, which I had just finished typing. "C'mon, I've got coffee and your favorite croissant. Take your coat off and let's sort out where we're going."

"No can do, Alex." Taren held up his fingers, crossed in the sign that wards off vampires and evil spirits. "I've been ordered not to take direction from you. I will grab the coffee, though. I'm freezing my ass off."

"What are you talking about?"

"The wicked prick of the east-your pal McKinney. Called me at home last night about the bones-in-the-basement case when he saw Dr. Ichiko on the late news. Had the same idea you did about hitting him with a subpoena. Lit into me when I told him you were running with it."

"Yeah? Well, that's exactly what I'm doing. Would you take this-?"

"He's pulling rank, Alex. Says he's deputy chief of the division and he hasn't yet assigned anyone to the case. I'm to scoop Ichiko up and bring him directly to McKinney. And your pet cop here, Mr. Chapman-well, it wouldn't be polite for me to tell you what I was told to do with him."

I picked up the phone to leave a message demanding to meet with Battaglia. Mike saw me put my finger on the button that hot-lined me directly to his assistant. He pushed my hand away and took the receiver from me, replacing it in the cradle.

"Pick your battles, Coop. I realize this gets your goat, but you're jumping to all kinds of conclusions about that skeleton before you even know who she is or what happened to her. McKinney wants to throw this whackjob doctor into the grand jury, let him. We got business to do. Scotty won't hold back on us."

"Just keep feeding me, Alex. I'll tell you whatever you want to know."

"Property records?"

"I started on it yesterday. We should have something by later in the week. We're getting calls from missing persons units all over the country. Once we send dental information, we should be able to eliminate some of those."

"Coop thinks your old case is connected to Sunday's homicide on the Upper East Side. You got time to sit down with me later on?" Mike asked.

"Sounds like a long shot, but I'll beep you when I get back here with Ichiko. Let me not be late for Mr. McKinney. I've never known him to be in before ten-thirty, but he promised a special arrival time just for me." Scotty Taren saluted me with his right hand as he turned back into the hallway.

"What's your day like?" Mike asked.

"Without Dr. Ichiko? I'm putting Annika Jelt, the Swedish girl, into the jury this afternoon, and helping one of the kids with a difficult witness this morning."

"Then I'll ski on down to headquarters and try to find Emily Upshaw's old paperwork. Check with you later."

Stewart Webster was a young prosecutor who had only been in the unit for five months. He was being supervised by one of my favorite colleagues, Ryan Blackmer, but the week before they had met a brick wall in the form of an uncooperative eighteen-year-old witness. I had asked them to have her in my office at ten.

Ryan got there first to tell me the facts. "You've got to have the last word about this because it's going to get press if it goes forward."

"Why?"

"Yolanda-that's the witness-she says he raped her on a moving subway train, just as it pulled into Times Square."

The location was a sure way to grab a headline, making every straphanger in town fear for her safety.

"But you think otherwise?"

"BFL."

Our informal unit code name for a big fat liar. "You couldn't break her?"

"Her older sister kept interrupting the questioning. Thought we were being too tough on her. I tried to keep her out of the room but she kept bursting back in."

"You figure any motive to lie?" There always was one in a false report, and discerning what it was could usually break the story.

"It might be she got caught by a transit cop. Somebody got off the train and reported some kind of sexual encounter near the rear of the car. When the cop approached, Yolanda stuck her head up and cried rape."

"Was he going to lock them up for public lewdness?"

"He tells me he never got that far-she started wailing first," said Ryan. "And then there's the fact that the sister came home from work early-around midnight-and Yolanda still wasn't in the house like she was supposed to be."

"What kind of job does the sister have?"

"Exotic dancer. The Pink Pussycat Lounge on Varick Street. That's how she supports her college education."

"Exotic? That's a lot classier than what I'd call it."

Webster knocked on the door. I waved him in and he stepped aside to introduce me to Yolanda and her sister, Wanda.

"Why don't you sit right here, Yolanda? And Wanda, I'm going to ask you to wait in the conference room until I'm ready for you."

"How long's this gonna be? I got school this afternoon," Wanda said.

"The more candid Yolanda is with us, the faster this will go." Wanda seemed to be pouring out of a costume from a late-night dance performance, and I couldn't begin to guess in what kind of class she was enrolled.

Wanda tilted her baby sister's chin up so their eyes met. "You tell the lady the troof now. Don't be wasting anybody's time when I got things to do."

The young high school dropout claimed that she met Laquon at six o'clock in the evening the previous Wednesday in front of a Starbucks on Broadway.

"What did you and Laquon talk about?"

"Nothin'."

"Well, how did it begin? What's the very first thing he said?"

"You know, like, he just approached me and told me he thought I was cute, and like that."

"What were you doing when he came up to you, Yolanda?"

"Nothin'."

"It was about ten degrees outside, and dark, at six o'clock last Wednesday. Why were you just standing there on the street?"

"I don't remember." Yolanda was looking at her inch-long fingernails, picking at the glitter that coated each of them in a different color.

"I'd like you to look at me when you answer me, okay? We're talking about things that happened less than a week ago," I said firmly. "I expect that you can remember them, so give it a try."

She glanced up at me and went back to rearranging the pattern on her nails. "I think I was waiting for my boyfriend to get off his shift."

"Does he work at Starbucks?"

"Yeah. He do."

"What time did he finish work?"

"I don't 'xactly know. It was supposed to be six, but when he didn't be out by a quarter after, I couldn't wait no more."

"Why was that?"

"Because of Laquon. He wanted to take me to a movie."

"How long had you two been talking before you agreed to go to the movies with Laquon?"

"'Bout ten minutes. Till I knew him good." Yolanda was scratching at the surface of her nails, sweeping the glitter that fell in her lap onto my carpet.

"What movie did you go to?"

"I don't remember."

"Where was the theater?"

"Near where we was. Broadway and Lincoln Center."

"What was the movie about?"

"Some kind of Jackie Chan action thing."

"Well, Yolanda, if you testify in court, you're going to have to tell the jury every detail about what happened from the time Laquon first started talking to you. They're not going to be too happy with 'I don't know' or 'I don't remember.' Juries and judges don't send guys to jail when you can't tell them everything that went on."

She flicked her nail at me, in disgust, and neon green glitter wafted all over my desk. "It's not my fault I fell asleep in the movie."

"That's not what Laquon says." If she could bullshit me, I could certainly bluff her, too. "He told the cop there was a different reason you two weren't watching the movie."

"Yeah, well, why you be all believin' him? What'd he say?"

"What would you guess he said?"

Yolanda started chewing on a nail. "I don't know."

"Do me a favor and sit on your hands. Stop playing with your polish and sit on your hands while we talk." I waited while she tucked her pitted nails under her substantial thighs. "What if I tell you the manager of the theater told the cops exactly the same thing Laquon said?"

She cocked an eye and stared at me. "He be lying, too." She turned to look over her shoulder.

"Don't worry. The door's closed. Your sister can't hear us. So they're both lying when they say you and Laquon were making out in the theater-that you were kissing each other and-?"

"I didn't like him like that."

"Well, how did you like him?"

"Just like a friend. An old friend."

"What time did the movie end?"

"I don't know."

"Where did you go when the movie ended?"

"I don't remember."

"Did you have anything to eat or to drink?"

"Not that I remember."

Ryan and Stewart exchanged glances. "I'm telling you, Alex. She's got total amnesia. She doesn't remember anything else until she was on the subway train," Ryan said to me. "We got three hours totally unaccounted for."

"How did Laquon explain it to the cops?"

"That after the movies, he bought a bottle of wine for eight bucks. It was too cold to hang out on the street, and neither one of them had enough money for a hotel, so they rode around on the subway, drinking and making love-well, having sex-until they got stopped."

Yolanda seemed entirely disinterested in Ryan's facts, as reported by the police officer. It was as though she had no role in Laquon's arrest and incarceration for a violent felony charge.

"Where were you going when you got on the train?" I asked.

"Home. I was cold and tired. I told him I wanted to go home."

I looked at the complaint report. "But you live uptown, Yolanda. Why were you on the downtown train?"

She looked up at the ceiling. "I'm the victim here. I don't have to be answering all these questions."

"Actually, Yolanda, you do have to answer these questions. So why don't you tell us when and how you got on the train?"

"We got on right before this happened. Laquon made me get on the subway."

"What did he do to 'make' you?"

"You know, like he dragged me by the arm and pulled me down the steps."

"Onto the platform? Wasn't anybody else there?"

"I didn't see nobody. And when the train came along, he just pulled me inside and told me to shut up." She was swinging her legs back and forth now, staring at a photograph on the wall over my computer.

"And that's when the attack happened, between Lincoln Center and Times Square, just minutes before the officer got on the train?"

"Yeah, that's it."

"Where's your pocketbook, Yolanda?"

She held up a small bag that was on a long strap, looped around her neck and across her chest.

"Why don't you open that up and empty it out on my desk?"

"Huh?"

I stood up and reached for the bag as she lifted it off.

"Do I have to do this?"

"Yes, I've asked you to empty your purse."

"First could I go to the bathroom for a minute?"

"Not until we're done."

She looked to Ryan and Stewart for help, but got none. Reluctantly, she dumped the contents of the small bag onto the desk.

I picked up the three joints that were on top and held them out in my palm.

"Damn," Yolanda said. "I bet Laquon put those there. They not mines. I swear I didn't know they was there."

"Was Laquon smoking that night?"

"Must have been. I-I-uh, I don't do no dope."

"And the box cutter?" I asked, holding up a slim metal case and pressing the release that popped out a short, lethal blade.

"I got that for protection."

"You have it with you last Wednesday?"

"Yeah, but I didn't have no time to use it. I was so scared I forget I had it."

I spread out the small scraps of paper that were wadded together. "What are these?"

"Friends. Names and numbers of my friends."

I unfolded each one and read the names of more than a dozen men. "You got any girl friends, Yolanda, or just guys? You mind if we call some of these guys and ask how you met them?"

She was getting truculent now, defiantly picking glitter off her nails and flicking it on the floor. "Do what you want. I didn't want to be here anyway."

"What time was it when you started liking Laquon better? Was it after the movie?"

"I told him," Yolanda said, pointing to Ryan, "that I never be liking him. I was afraid of him the whole time after the movie."

"So when did you stop to write down his beeper number?" I asked. "When did you draw those little hearts all around it?"

She reached over and tried to grab the paper from my hand. "That's a different Laquon. That have nothing to do with my rape."

"Ryan, why don't you ask Wanda to come on back in here?"

"You can't be telling her any of this. This is all privacy between me and the judge."

"First I'm going to see whether you told your sister the same things you're telling me. Then," I said, reaching for her Metro-Card, which was mixed in with the assorted papers, "I'm going to give this card to the police, and they're going to check a couple of things for me."

"It's mines. I bought it last month. It ain't stolen."

"Even better, Yolanda. Because the police can tell me exactly what time you used it on Wednesday to get into the subway. What time and where."

"They can't do that," she said, getting angrier and more defiant.

"It's all computerized. I'll know exactly how long you were on the train. And we'll also be able to find out how many people were on whichever platform you were on when you say Laquon dragged you."

"Why does that matter?" Her head snapped around when she heard Ryan reenter the room with her sister.

"Because if you don't tell the judge the truth, you're going to be arrested."

Yolanda was crying now, clearly more afraid of her sister than of me. "But I told all of you I don't remember what happened."

"And I'm telling you that I don't believe that. If you weren't drunk or you weren't high or you weren't hit over the head with a baseball bat, you're the only one of us who knows exactly what happened last Wednesday."

I started to tell Wanda some of the inconsistencies between the story her sister had originally told the police and what she was saying today. I handed her the piece of paper with Laquon's name and beeper number on it, ringed with the hearts that Yolanda had drawn.

Wanda pinched the girl on the shoulder. "Why you be actin' all 'I don't remember this' and 'I don't remember that'? Why you be telling me you don't like this boy but you writin' down all his information? Girl, you ain't half as stupid as you pretendin' to be."

"I'll tell you what, Yolanda. The two of you can go down to Ryan's office and wait while he sends this MetroCard over to the transit office to be decoded and gets the information about your subway ride last week. I'm going to hang on to your weapon," I said, holding up the box cutter, "and we'll just toss your marijuana."

Wanda smacked her sister on the back of her head. "What you doing with-"

"Don't hit her again. Don't ever let me hear you laid a hand on her," I said. "And, Yolanda, if you decide there's anything about your story you want to change before you meet the judge, you tell Ryan as soon as you get down to his office."

"If I do, do I have to come back and see you again?" she asked, clearly anxious to avoid that possibility.

"Not if the information Ryan gets from the Transit Authority helps jog your memory."

"You mean, if I tell him everything I can just go home?"

"If it's the truth, yes."

Yolanda followed Wanda out the door before I could pick up the file and return it to Stewart. "I didn't know you could get all that information from MetroCards."

"That's what you're here to learn," Ryan said, winking at me. "Laquon and Yolanda-can't you just feel the love, Alex? I never saw you do the pocketbook trick before."

"Teenage girls carry half their lives in those things. The older women get, the more you can find in the handbag. Pills, condoms, diaries, weapons, love letters. I've broken more cases with a peek in the purse than everything I learned in law school. I'd guess that little Yolanda's probably half a hooker already."

"That's what Laquon claims."

"Well, if the subway records are more consistent with his story and you can't break her, bring her back up and we'll beep a few of her conquests. See what they can tell us about her."

Each MetroCard is encoded with a unique ten-digit serial number, which generates a fare-card history report with every use. It would tell me the time Yolanda went through the turnstile in one-tenth-of-an-hour intervals, what train station or bus she used, and even what her remaining balance was. I wouldn't have to be the sole judge of her credibility-the transit records would prove she had lied.

I walked Ryan and Stewart to the door and picked up my messages from Laura. "These are the only calls?"

"And you just missed an update from Mike. Scotty Taren's still waiting it out on Sixth Avenue. But they think Dr. Ichiko pulled a fast one, to avoid the police and save his best stuff for his television debut. He didn't show up for work today."