Killer Heat

TEN

No, Judge, I don't want to move for a mistrial. Let's just go forward," I said.

It was an hour later. Lamont had granted a recess while we regrouped. The Latin Prince who'd been arrested, Ernesto Abreu, had been charged with harassment and taken away in handcuffs. The broken metal detector meant that any spectators would be patted down before entering the courtroom, and I knew that Louie Larsen would slow that process sufficiently so that we could carry on without incident or unwelcome visitors.

The jurors were given a curative instruction. They were told to ig nore the outburst that had occurred and not to discuss it among themselves. Most of them were no longer smiling at me as they had during voir dire, some undoubtedly wondering whether what Abreu had shouted was true.

Kerry Hastings had been rattled by the interruption. Despite her resolve, she was more nervous now, and more emotional.

The jury was riveted by her testimony, moved by her valiant effort to get away from her assailant despite his repeated threats to kill her.

"I'm going to ask you to look around the courtroom today and tell us whether you see the man who attacked you in 1973."

Hastings shifted her lean body and looked at Floyd Warren. "I can't tell you that I do. I couldn't identify his face then, and I can't do it now."

Several of the jurors looked at me to see if this was a setback for the prosecution. They didn't understand, yet, that DNA made this case stronger than an eyewitness identification.

Warren stared his victim down and shook his head from side to side.

I finished my direct with questions about the medical examination she underwent that night and the clothing her assailant had worn.

"That's his," she said, when I handed her the long-sleeved yellow shirt with large white polka dots. "I could see the pattern in the dark. I watched his hand, even when I was face down on the bed, because I kept trying to see what he was doing with the knife."

"Did the defendant take anything from you?" I asked.

"Yes, Ms. Cooper. He stole six dollars-all single bills-that were in a handbag on the chair next to my door." Kerry Hastings looked back at the jurors. "And he stole my life."

"I have no further questions, Your Honor."

"Mr. Grassley, are you ready to proceed?"

"Yes, sir."

Grassley had been watching the jury's reaction, trying to gauge whether the old-fashioned attack on this victim's character would work. He was clever enough to realize that it probably would not. Instead, he opted for the classic post-rape shield law defense-that Kerry Hastings had indeed been subjected to a devastating experience but that Floyd Warren had been railroaded by the prosecution-an argument made even easier by Ernesto Abreu's well-timed courtroom explosion.

The cross-examination of Kerry Hastings, the experience that had crippled her so completely at the first trial, lasted only twelve minutes this time. No one was more surprised than she when Judge Lamont told her she could step down from the stand.

The afternoon moved just as quickly. We were barely into the evidence before Rosemarie Quiggley, a forensic biologist from the medical examiner's office, testified about her analysis of the stain found on Hastings's underpants. Although she, too, had not even been born when the rape occurred, Quiggley described the robust nature of seminal KILLER HEAT 69 fluid-its ability to be a viable test source after three decades in the back of a file cabinet-and the DNA profile it yielded.

"Did you also examine the swab taken from the mouth of Floyd Warren after his arrest by Detective Mercer Wallace?"

"Yes, I did."

"And were you able to compare those two samples?"

"Yes. I compared the two DNA profiles and determined that they were a perfect match at fourteen of the loci studied."

"Would you please tell the jury how many people in the world," I said, "exactly how many people on this planet, would have a profile identical to this one?"

"Ms. Cooper, if you looked at the DNA of a trillion-with a 't'- that is, one trillion people, you would never see another that matches Floyd Warren's genetic profile. You'd have to find 166 planets the size of Earth, with billions of people on each, before you'd encounter something like this."

The day ended at five forty-five with Mercer's testimony about the arrest of the defendant.

When Mercer and I got back to my office, there was a note taped to my door from Laura Wilkie. She assured me that Kerry Hastings had been driven to her hotel by two detectives from the District Attorney's Office Squad and that Mercer should call her there.

He picked up my phone to dial just as Mike Chapman entered the room.

"Heard you had a good day in court, if you don't count the shoutouts." Mike was wearing a navy blue windbreaker, with the crisp white logo of the NYPD on his chest, and jeans with a freshly pressed crease down the front.

"Even better for Kerry. I think she's really relieved."

"You got your summation ready for tomorrow?" He knew my habits. I'd been taught by the great litigators who broke me in to craft my closing arguments before the trial began. It always gave tighter structure to the presentation of the case.

"Would you like a sneak preview, Mr. Chapman? I could use some practice on a thoroughly skeptical citizen of the state."

"No, thanks. Floyd Warren's dead meat, unless you blow it for us."

"You taking Mercer for a drink? That's a very dressed-down look for you, Detective."

"It's my body-in-a-swamp best, Coop."

I lowered my summation folder and looked at Mike. "What body? What do you mean swamp?"

"This time it's Elise Huff."

Mercer hung up the receiver. "Where?"

"An anonymous call came into 911 an hour ago. Some old guy found her body in a desolate corner of Brooklyn, off the Belt Parkway, wrapped in a blanket and dumped in a muddy stretch of reeds and weeds."

I closed my eyes.

"It won't be yours, Coop. But if you want to see the scene so you can report back to Battaglia, you'd better come along with me now.

The Brooklyn DA is holding a press conference at nine tonight. This one's on his turf.