Cover-up (9 page)

“Exactly.”

“No way. Every asshole who hates women loves the B-word, right? All this means is that some jerk saw you on TV and decided to harass you. The same thing happened to a woman I work with in the D.A.’s office. She was doing a high-profile case and her picture was in the paper. She started getting obscene phone calls. One of the cops she worked with paid the guy a visit and it stopped.”

“That’s what I thought, too. I just wanted a second opinion,” Melanie said.

“You may have a Web stalker, but I don’t think he’s the Butcher.”

“Too bad, huh? It would make solving the case a lot easier.”

As Janice laughed, Melanie’s telephone started ringing.

“We got the 911 caller,” Dan said when Melanie picked up. She heard static, and a loud siren in the background that was shrieking simultaneously outside her office window.

“You sound close,” she said.

“We’re right in front of your building. Julian’s getting the guy out of the car now, and we’re gonna bring him up the secure elevator. You want us to meet you in your office?”

“Why are you bringing him in the secure elevator? Did you arrest him?” she asked.

“The guy’s got two nasty-ass scratches on his cheek. You remember the victim had skin under her nails? This could be the Butcher, and he wants to talk.”

“I’ve got a war room,” she said, pulling out the key Bernadette had given her and checking the tag. “Six-fourteen-B. Meet me there in five minutes.”

12

M
elanie and Janice sat at the conference table,
which was oversize for the cramped space. The boxes from Target News had been delivered and were piled on the floor, competing for space with leftover detritus from somebody else’s trial. Charts and blowups leaned precariously against the walls and piles of proposed jury instructions were everywhere. But as the door handle turned, Melanie was glad she’d thought to meet this prisoner on neutral ground instead of in her office, where she kept pictures of Maya and other personal possessions. She’d sat across the table from killers before, but this felt different. The gruesome nature of the crime. The man following her on the subway. The disturbing e-mail. This case was starting to make her nervous.

The door opened and Dan and Julian walked in, the handcuffed suspect between them. Melanie saw his face and drew a sharp breath. Two angry scratches slashed across his right cheek, undoubtedly the work of human fingernails. Was this man the Central Park Butcher?

Dan removed a handcuff key from the front pocket of his khaki pants. They were the same pants he’d worn to his birthday dinner last night. It felt like light-years ago.

“Turn around, Dave,” Dan said. He had an easy way with prisoners—authoritative, firm, but humane.

“Looks like you get the comfy chair, my friend,” Julian said, his gold teeth flashing as he pulled out an old vinyl-and-metal swivel chair that was the only one in the room with arms. The man sat down and Dan handcuffed his right hand to the chair’s arm. Dan and Julian both shook hands with Janice, whom they hadn’t met before, and took seats on either side of their prisoner.

“Has he been Mirandized?” Melanie asked.

“He said he’d waive his rights, but I’m out of forms for him to sign,” Dan replied, holding up his hands.

Melanie went over to the computer terminal that sat on a small side table and printed out a Miranda rights form, which she handed to the prisoner.

“I’m Melanie Vargas from the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” she said, taking a seat across from him, “and this is Janice Marsh from the D.A.’s office. We’re investigating the murder of Suzanne Shepard. What is your name, sir?”

“David M. Harris, Esquire,” he said in an educated voice. His unruffled gaze told her nothing. It certainly didn’t prove he was innocent. The biggest psychos were capable of taking their own crimes, and law enforcement’s interest in them, in stride without breaking a sweat.

“You’re a lawyer?” she asked.

“Yes, an associate with the firm of Feinerman, Seidel, Brinkley and Tate.”

“I know the Feinerman firm.”

“Of course you do. We’re the biggest in the city, and the most prestigious,” he added with a curt nod.

“You’re an associate?”

“Yes, up for partner in fourteen months, so getting arrested right now is not convenient for me. Can we clear up this mistake, please, and get on with the day?”

“Getting murdered last night was not convenient for Suzanne Shepard, either,” Melanie retorted. “So I’m sure you understand we need to take our time and get the facts straight. You’ll have to bear with us. Please read the form I’ve placed before you, initial each paragraph separately, and sign at the bottom. Let me know if you have any questions.”

“No questions. I’m quite familiar with
Miranda v. Arizona,
” he replied coldly. He scanned the page and signed off. Dan took the form, witnessed Harris’s signature, and handed it across the table to Melanie.

“Just to fill the two a’ youse in,” Dan said, nodding at Melanie and Janice as he pulled a spiral notebook from his back pocket and consulted it, “Mr. Harris is the gentleman who phoned 911 from the park last night and reported he’d witnessed a woman stabbed in the Ramble. He subsequently fled the scene despite being told by the dispatcher that a blue-and-white was en route. When we interviewed him this morning at his place of business, he initially denied being the individual who placed the call. Subsequent to that we played the tape, and asked him if we needed to play it for his boss to get a positive voice ID. He stated negative and admitted he’d made the call. We asked him where he got the scratches on his cheeks. He stated—” Dan paused to flip the page—“he stated that he received them while playing with his two-year-old son last night. We said those didn’t look like two-year old-size scratches to us, and requested his home telephone number for verification. One Robin S. Harris answered and identified herself as the subject’s wife. Mrs. Harris stated that subject did not return home last night at all because he was, quote, ‘pulling an all-nighter on a big case’ end quote. Subject has since refused to explain truthfully where he got the scratches, or where he went after the park, but he states he is willing to submit to a DNA test to verify he’s not the Butcher.” Dan folded up his notebook and put it back in his pocket.

“Ms. Vargas, if I may?” Harris asked.

“Please.”

He tried to lean forward conspiratorially, but the handcuffs brought him up short. “Are these shackles really necessary?” he asked, a frown of annoyance flitting across his forehead.

“Those aren’t shackles. Shackles are when we put leg irons on and chain them to your handcuffs.”
Go ahead, make my day,
her tone said.

But Harris wasn’t fazed. “Look, I could have kept my mouth shut and asked for a lawyer. I didn’t do that, so show a little courtesy in return. I want to give the DNA sample right away. You’ll see that I’m innocent, and then I can get back to the office before I’m missed.”

“I can’t just test you in five minutes and find out whether you’re the killer,” Melanie said. “The DNA testing process can take days. In the meantime, we need to figure out what to do with you. Do I file obstruction-of-justice charges? Do you go to jail?”

“Ob-obstruction charges? Why the hell would you do that if I’m being cooperative?” Harris demanded, his voice shaking. He licked his lips nervously. Obstruction charges could lead not only to possible jail time, but to disbarment. That prospect seemed to disturb him more than anything else she’d said so far.

“Agreeing to submit to the DNA test alone is not sufficient cooperation. We need details about what happened last night.”

“You actually think I killed some woman in the park last night? That’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard. Why on earth would I do that?”

“You tell us, Mr. Harris. Did you have a grudge against Suzanne Shepard? Did she do a story on you? Was she your lover?” Melanie asked.

“I’ve never met the woman in my life! I never even watched her brainless show. I certainly didn’t
kill
her.”

“Then we need another explanation for your actions last night. Why were you at the scene of the crime? Why were you in the park at
all on a rainy night? How did you get those scratches on your cheek? Why did you hang up when the 911 dispatcher asked for your name? Why did you run away before the cops arrived? And why did you lie to the agents about placing the call after they tracked you down? If you don’t explain yourself, I’m afraid the obvious conclusion is that you did those things because you killed Suzanne Shepard.”

Harris’s face turned red, and he started breathing faster. “I can’t believe this. You’re serious.”

“Of course we are. Your conduct has given us reason to be.”

“I assure you, there is an innocent explanation,” he said.

“Okay, fine, I’m listening,” Melanie said.

“But I need to know. Are you going to tell my wife?” Harris asked in a voice incongruously small for his powerful frame.

“Tell her why you were in the park?”

“Yes.”

“I won’t tell her directly. I have no reason to. But neither can I promise to keep your statement confidential. It might get disclosed in court.”

“Oh God….” Harris hung his head, screwing his eyes shut and kneading them with the heels of his hands. He almost looked like he was going to cry.

“Hey, Dave, man, let me tell you something,” Dan said. “The alternative is getting charged with murder. Then you’ll have to tell anyway to get yourself out of jail, and a helluva lot more people are gonna hear about it than just Robin. The whole city’s paying attention to this Butcher case. So pull yourself together and give us an answer, or things’ll just get worse.”

“Okay,” Harris said, opening his eyes. “Give me a minute.” He took several deep breaths.

“Why were you in the Ramble last night, Mr. Harris?” Melanie repeated.

Harris looked directly at Melanie, avoiding eye contact with Dan
and Julian. “I’m not gay. I’ve just been under a lot of stress lately. This was the first time I ever went there.”

He was probably lying, but it didn’t really matter for their purposes.

“Your sex life is none of our business,” Melanie said, switching to a friendlier tone. “We need to rule you out as a suspect in this murder. If you had some other credible reason for being at the scene of the crime, that’s a help.”

“I was looking…looking for…I was looking for companionship, okay? I approached this guy, and he tried to rob me. We were in the middle of negotiating, you know, how much I would pay him, and he jumped me. I lift a lot. I mean, I work out, and I used to be in the military in Israel. I’m in shape. I fought him off, but in the process, he scratched my face. That’s how I got these. Swear to God.”

“What happened after you fought with him?” Melanie asked.

“I sat on the bench for a little while trying to pull myself together. My face was bleeding, and I had no idea how I’d explain the scratches to my wife. Once I collected myself, I got up and headed east, toward the exit from the Ramble. And that’s when I saw it.”

“It?”

“
Him.
I saw him before I saw her. He was standing facing me, and he had, like, this harness on his head with what looked like binoculars attached to it. I’ll tell you, that freaked me out. Stopped me right in my tracks.”

“Night-vision goggles,” Dan said.

Melanie felt the same sick chill she had when she heard about the surgical gloves. Those were the tools of a killer who was practiced in his ways, a killer who could strike again at any moment, and someone she’d damn well better get off the street.

“Is that what they were? I knew they were something fucked up.” Harris looked sick to his stomach.

“Could it have been the same guy you’d fought with?” Melanie asked.

“No, definitely not. The man I’d fought with was much smaller, and he’d run off in the opposite direction.”

“Describe this second man,” Melanie ordered.

“Tallish. Six feet, maybe.”

“Build?”

“Big. Heavyset.”

“White, black, Hispanic?” she asked.

“White,
I think
. But it was dark, and he was wearing something with a hood. Some kind of sweatshirt.”

Hooded sweatshirt?
The guy on the subway had been wearing a hooded sweatshirt, and come to think of it, the height and build sounded similar, too. Could it be the same person? But no, she was getting paranoid. That guy hadn’t even been following her.

Melanie realized she’d tuned out for a minute and that everyone was waiting for her to speak. “What happened next?” she asked.

“I saw a woman kneeling in front of him. She was down on the ground, and her back was toward me. She managed to get partway up on her feet, but I could tell she was struggling. Then I saw him striking at her with something. She started to scream, but I could tell there was something over her mouth because the sound was weird. Oh God, it was…the sound. It was different than anything else I’ve ever heard. It was so…horrible. She was shrieking but it wasn’t really getting through. It was like this rasping, choking kind of sound. Somehow, that’s what made me realize he had a knife. I couldn’t see it. But from the noise she was making, I knew he was stabbing her.”

They were all silent for a moment, absorbing the horror of the scene.

“Then what happened?” Melanie asked.

“The woman tried to crawl away. He kept stabbing her. Then he
kicked her a bunch of times really hard. After that, I didn’t see her move again.”

“Then what?”

“He dragged her a ways and pushed her off this little cliff. Over the edge, like, to where the ground was lower.”

“Into the ravine.”

“Right. Then he went down after her, and I ran like hell until I got to the park exit. I called the cops, as you know, then I went back to my office and slept there. I did my civic duty and reported this terrible thing to 911. The reason I didn’t stay and wait for the police to arrive was, well, I didn’t want anyone to know I’d been cruising. You can understand that, right?”