The DeadHouse

10

Planning anything this particular Monday morning was a futile race against time. Every agency and business from which I needed records and information would be shutting down, some for just the period surrounding Christmas, and others for more than a week until after the New Year's holiday. Lab scientists, cops, prosecutors, and witnesses would be taking days off for traditional celebrations and trips to be with family out of town. I took a cab to the office at 7 a.m. and reviewed the file for the short hearing I had to conduct at nine-thirty.

Then I blasted out a list of e-mails on the in-house network. I had to find one of my senior attorneys to handle the new pattern in the Nineteenth Precinct, and to put a rush on the subpoena for the victim's stolen cell phone records. I drafted a list of things for Laura to work on while I was in court, and wrote memos about case developments that she needed to type and get to the district attorney.

We had our own NYPD branch, a squad detail of about fifty officers, based one flight above me, so I called the voice mail of Detective Joe Roman and told him to do a complaint report with the statements Shirley Denzig had made to the Witness Aid workers. I also asked him to run a pistol permit check on Denzig's father, in Maryland, and to determine whether his gun had in fact been stolen.

Laura had just reached her desk at nine, and before she could sit down she was buzzing me on the intercom. "It's Howard Kramer."

"I'll take it. But if Chapman calls, put him right through. I thought he'd be here by now."

I picked up the phone to greet Kramer, a litigator and managing partner at one of the premier law firms in the city, Sullivan and Cromwell. Although I knew Howard through his work, we had become better acquainted after his marriage to Nan Rothschild, the Barnard professor who was also my ballet class companion.

"How've you been?"

"Fine. Everybody's well. I know how busy you are, but I thought you might want to see Nan sometime this week. She's flying in from London this afternoon, on her way back from a conference at Oxford. I read in the Times that you're involved in the Professor Dakota mess. Nan was working with Lola on a project that the college was sponsoring, and she may have some insights for you."

I knew that Rothschild was one of the most prominent urban anthropologists in the country. A professor at Barnard College, she has led and participated in some of the most extraordinary excavations in America, including several in the heart of New York City that had unearthed Colonial burial grounds and artifacts of early settlements.

"I was talking to Nan at class a few weeks ago and she described the dig she was supervising in Central Park. Seneca Village. Is that what Dakota was involved in?" The village was a community of several hundred people who were moved from their mid-Manhattan homes in the 1850s to make way for the creation of the Great Lawn in the park. Nan had captivated me with stories of the most current high-tech means of exploring the city's past.

"I don't think Lola had anything to do with that one. Nan was brought in as a consultant by King's College on something brand-new. The head of their anthropology department, a guy named Winston Shreve, asked her to head up a small project for them. Shreve had this idea to take a significant urban structure with an interesting architectural history, let Nan lead the excavation, and then combine the students' physical dig with courses about the political and cultural history. Lola was one of four teachers heading up the operation. It's attracted a lot of attention in academia- very substantive, but at the same time very lively for the students. You'd be amazed at some of the things they've found." "Where are they working?" "The Octagon Tower. Do you know it?" "Never heard of it."

"You'll have to let Nan take you over to see it-it's quite extraordinary. It was New York's first lunatic asylum. Of course, that's what they called it then, back in the early nineteenth century. It's on Roosevelt Island, the northern end, just south of the lighthouse."

"Not part of that great-looking ruin you see from the Drive?" The one I had pointed out to Chapman on Saturday night.

"No, not the hospital. You can't see the Octagon from this side of the river. Tell you what. Come over to the house for drinks tomorrow night, and Nan will tell you everything she knows about Lola. Then, when you have a chance, I want her to promise she'll take you out to the Octagon so you can watch what's going on." We agreed to meet at seven on Tuesday just as Chapman walked in the door, taped a sprig of green plastic mistletoe on the bookshelf overhanging Laura's chair, and kissed her on the back of the neck. "I'll be bringing a detective with me, if that's okay. See you then."

"Where are we going?" Chapman asked.

"Right now, we're going to Part Seventy-four for my hearing. Can you believe that the dig Lola was working on was an old lunatic asylum? I'm afraid if the two of us make a site visit, they're likely to keep us. My friend's wife is going to tell us what Lola was up to if we stop by their house tomorrow. This hearing will be short. As soon as I'm finished we can scoot out of here, up to the college."

Pat McKinney was standing in the doorway, mug in hand, as I gathered my papers and white legal pad. "Guess I don't need to worry about the direction of your investigation anymore, Alex. They're giving you the big guns to work the case. Detective I've-got-a-ninety-three-percent-clearance-rate-on-my-homicides himself." These two despised each other. McKinney took any shot he could at Mike, and Chapman felt a constant need to cover my back against McKinney's double dealings.

"Don't dally too long, Pat. You'll be missing your Mensa meeting," Mike said just as snidely. Over McKinney's shoulder, we could see Ellen Gunsher and Pedro de Jesus on their way down the hall to his office for their daily ritual of coffee behind closed doors.

"I want to be sure you sit down with us before I head upstate for Christmas, Alex. Pedro has some ideas about the trial you're starting in January. The blood-spatter evidence. I think it would be useful to hear him on it."

"Pedro hasn't tried a case since I was in the academy. He's giving advice to Coop? You two ought to start your own Web site. Www.I-used-to-be-a-contender dot com. Sit in your corner office telling war stories to Little Miss Gun Shy about what it was like in the days when you didn't have to turn over Rosario material, and scientific evidence meant proving someone was blood type A or O.

She probably even buys into your baloney. Thinks you were a trial dog once upon a time. Gunsher wouldn't know the difference between the inside of a courtroom and the Spring Street Bar. "We got work to do, buddy. And you, Ms. Moneypenny," Mike said, winking at Laura, "I expect you to tell me whether you've been good or bad this year. Don't let McKinney under my mistletoe. His breath's funny. See you later."

We brushed past Pat and trotted down the staircase across the seventh-floor corridor to take the elevators up to the sixteenth-floor courtrooms. "How come you were late? I thought you were going to be in my office by eight o'clock."

"Forgot I had to make a stop at the hospital. See a friend."

"Sorry. Who's sick?"

"Nobody you know. Just promised to be there for some blood tests. I'll tell you later."

It was unlike Mike not to respond directly to my questions, so I left it alone for the moment. "Anything more on the student who killed himself?"

"He was one of the kids that the dean had lined up to talk to us this afternoon. So far, that's all I know about him. People are dying to get out of your way, Coop."

Truly, a sobering thought. "The narcotics assistant who has the file wasn't in yet. I left a message for him to call as soon as possible and get a copy of all the police reports over to me." I pushed through the courtroom door and walked forward into the well.

The judge, defense attorney, and court officers were all waiting for me to appear. I apologized for keeping them waiting as Judge Zavin ordered the defendant produced from the pens. Behind each courtroom was a small holding cell to which incarcerated offenders were delivered from the correction department, brought to the building from the nearby Tombs or the longer bus ride from Rikers Island. From her desk in the far corner, the court clerk called the case for the record.

"Calendar number four. People against Harold Suggs. Indictment number 4362 of 1994. Matter is on for a hearing under the Sex Offender Registration Act. Counsel, state your appearances, please."

"For the People, Alexandra Cooper."

"Bobby Abramson for Mr. Suggs."

Since the murder of six-year-old Megan Kanka in a small New Jersey township several years earlier, every state in the country had responded with legislation mandating that convicted sex offenders be required to register their addresses upon release with a local police agency. In New York, before they could be paroled from prison, a hearing had to be held to establish a level of offender responsibility, which would determine how often that individual would have to report for monitoring of his home and work situations. It would also decide whether the public could be informed that Mr. Suggs had moved into the neighborhood.

These Megan's Laws, as they have come to be called, arose from the facts in that little girl's case. Her killer was a convicted child molester who settled in a home across the street from Megan's house, although no one in her family was aware of his background. After luring her into his yard with the promise that he would show her a puppy, the "rehabilitated" parolee molested and murdered the child.

"Ms. Cooper, Mr. Abramson-have you each had an opportunity to examine the recommendations made by the review board?"

"Yes, Your Honor," we answered at the same time.

"Do either of you wish to challenge the findings?"

Again, we each said, "Yes."

Of the three possible ratings, Suggs had been evaluated a 2 by the board. I had done a thorough background workup of him and wanted to argue that he was eligible for the most serious monitoring level, or a 3, while my adversary was fighting to reduce his exposure and take him down to a 1.

"I intend to call witnesses, Judge," Abramson said.

I glanced over to the row of benches behind him and saw a middle-aged woman with a scowl on her face, sitting beside a stack of folders. Just what I needed. An unanticipated witness for the defense to drag out the morning's proceedings.

"I'll hear Ms. Cooper first. Are you personally familiar with this matter?"

"Yes, Your Honor. I tried the case for our office in ninety-four."

"Perhaps you can give me more detail than the court file has." It was always an odd experience to appear before Frances Zavin on a sex crime. She was a very stern jurist, nearing retirement age, who had chosen to decorate her courtroom with two oversize canvases that hung on either side of her raised chair. Both were modern paintings in bold colors, and the one situated above the witness box portrayed a large, mangy dog with an exposed, erect penis. It was our practice to warn rape victims not to look up at it as they took the stand for fear that it would unnerve them, and we often wondered what jurors thought as they listened to graphic testimony and stared at the aroused mutt.

I talked to Zavin, framed as she was by her artwork. "Mr. Suggs was fifty-eight at the time he committed these acts. He is what I would call a classic pedophile, which is the reason-" "Objection, Judge. That's a prejudicial and conclusory-" "Mr. Abramson, hold your objections until Ms. Cooper completes her statement. There's no jury here, so you won't impress me with your interruptions."

"In the instant case, the defendant was convicted of sexually abusing two girls, who were five and six years old at the time.' The court officer standing at my back groaned softly. Score extra points for multiple victims. Score triple miles for children under the age of eleven. "Any force?"

"Absolutely none, Your Honor," Abramson interjected. "There's no allegation of force or the use of any weapons."

Like the five-year-old was willing to be fondled? "Most pedophiles don't use knives and guns, Judge. They don't need to. We never charged him under the forcible compulsion theory. These are statutory cases. Sexual abuse in the first degree, the same level of felony as if he had been armed. These babies were clearly unable to consent, in fact, and under the law."

"Oh, please," Abramson whined. "Babies? Can she call them something else?"

"Surely they are babies, sir. What do you think is more appropriate, 'young women'? Go on, Ms. Cooper."

I laid out the facts of the case, which involved allegations that Suggs, who was living with the mother of the children, regularly carried them into his bed when she left for work three nights a week as a nurse's aide at Metropolitan Hospital.

"Any priors?"

"Actually, yes, Judge. Although no convictions. Mr. Suggs was arrested several times throughout the eighties for similar offenses. None of those charges resulted in indictments. I pulled the papers on the cases, and because of the corroboration requirements still in place for child victims, the prosecution was not able to prove those matters at the time."

"The witness I have here today can speak to the defendant's efforts to control his own impulses." Abramson pointed at the woman seated behind him. "Dr. Hoppins with the MAC treatment program."

I turned to catch Chapman's eye. "Everybody's got a frigging acronym," he mouthed to me. We knew this one well. The Modality Alteration Center on East Ninth Street, right off Lower Broadway, a private clinic with psychologists who specialized in counseling for admitted offenders. Half of our convicted felons went to that office as a condition of their parole, and I had yet to see any of them rehabilitated. The shrinks working there were some of the same geniuses who had declared Megan's killer ready to rejoin society.

"Dr. Hoppins will tell you that Mr. Suggs was already in therapy when he was arrested in ninety-four. He was trying to do something about his problem, without the intervention of the court."

"What Dr. Hoppins, and perhaps counsel himself, may not be aware of-since Mr. Suggs was represented by Legal Aid at that time-is that when the defendant was apprehended for these charges, he had just left Dr. Hoppins's office. Suggs was picked up for public lewdness directly across the street from the clinic, standing against the wire fence. That's the playground at the Grace Church School, where he had exposed himself while watching the kindergarten class playing kickball in the yard. Unfortunately, the center is a magnet for all sorts of sex offenders."

"Judge, my client is sixty-four years old now. He's hardly able, well-hardly likely"

"The crimes Mr. Suggs has been charged with are not assaults that require the use of Viagra for a perpetrator to commit them. We're not claiming that he's completing sexual assaults like rape, which require penetration. No matter how old and how infirm he gets, these are acts he'll still be able to perform. This is a man who should never be allowed in the unsupervised presence of children." I knew the NYPD's monitoring unit had designated Megan-mappers, officers who worked with parole and probation to make sure pedophiles did not move out of jail and into apartments on the same blocks as elementary schools and day-care centers.

"Mr. Suggs has been a model prisoner during the term of his incarceration. No disciplinary infractions, no positive drug testing."

"I spoke with the warden at Fishkill last week, Judge. He told me that when they moved Mr. Suggs down here for this hearing on Wednesday, they conducted a routine search of his cell. There were more than five hundred photographs of naked children under the mattress of his bed.

"And one more thing on that point." Abramson and Sugg^s both glared at me as I spoke. "Mr. Suggs has his own Web site."

Zavin was about to turn against me. "I'm well aware, Ms. Cooper, that no prison in this country allows inmates access to the Internet. Don't undermine your entire case by making claims you can't support."

I slipped a downloaded series of papers from my folder and handed copies to the court officer to deliver to counsel and the judge. "There's a woman in Missouri who operates a third-party Internet service for prisoners. Ten dollars bought Harry Suggs his own biographical sketch, his photo, and the opportunity to have this woman forward to him-by regular U.S. mail-any responses he gets to his inquiries. I'd like to read this into the record:

Hi, I'm Harry. I'm caring, honest, and lonely. I'm sixty-four years old, looking for a home with someone who shares my love for kids and animals. I've got a few grandchildren of my own, and there's room in my heart for you and yours. I've been traveling a lot these last few years, but I'm ready to settle down. Write anytime. Send family photos. I'm a good correspondent.

"I think this goes directly to his behavior while incarcerated." Add ten points, I thought. There aren't many other ways to act out your interest in child abuse from behind bars.

"What I would like to do, Your Honor," I went on, "is to keep this defendant in state prison for another twenty years. Unfortunately, he has served the maximum sentence that the court was able to impose for these crimes, and with his good time factored in, he will be eligible for parole by February tenth. It is imperative, I think, that he be re-rated as a Level Three offender, with all the attendant consequences."

"If you're done, Ms. Cooper, I think I would like to hear from Dr. Hoppins. Would you please call your witness to the stand, sir?"

Suggs was trying to get Abramson's attention. He was angered by my remarks and clearly agitated. Abramson ignored his client.

"I'd like a few minutes to talk with my witness." He turned and walked out of the well, as the judge announced a five-minute break and stepped off the bench to go to her robing room.

I reached for my pad to draw up a list of questions for cross-examination. With a deafening crash, Suggs lifted the massive oak counsel table off the floor in front of him and heaved it on its side. At the same time, he charged across the well and threw himself at me with outstretched arms, screaming my name and spitting as he came flying through the air. Court officers rushed from every direction to grab for a piece of the prisoner and subdue him, while the captain of the team picked me up from the floor, where I had landed when Suggs's body collided with my own.

Chapman vaulted over the railing and helped the guys lead the laughing pedophile back into the holding pens. "You okay? Did he hit you?"

I sat at the table and tried to will myself to stop shaking. "I'm fine. He just bounced himself off me."

"And here I thought you were way too old to be my type, no less his. You're safer in the field with me and my murderers than with these pervs of yours. Let's go, blondie."

Mike picked up my folders and we started out of the courtroom, while Abramson and Hoppins followed us down the aisle. "Hey, Alex. Don't hold that flying tackle against me," Bobby urged. "I'll just adjourn the case till the middle of next month. Have Ryan or Rich stand up on it for you next time. They won't collapse like a house of cards."

"Thanks, Bobby, I'll be sure to do that."

"Ms. Cooper? May I have a word with you?" Hoppins asked.

"Some other time, doc," Mike said as he prodded me toward the door, away from her.

"It has to do with King's College, Detective. You both might want to hear it."