Ed McBain_87th Precinct 47 (15 page)

“What are you saying?”

“Michelle Cassidy.”

“Was
murdered?“

“Twenty-two times over.”

“When?”

“Sometime last night. When she didn’t show for rehearsal this morning, somebody at the theater called nine-one-one, and they
dispatched a car from the Eight-Eight.”

“Michelle
Cassidy?
The actress Kling and Carella … ?”

“Is that who was working it?”

“Yeah,” Meyer said. “In fact, they got a search warrant this morning to …”

“What
search warrant?”

“To toss the agent’s office.”

“What
agent?”

“The one living with her.”

“They shouldn’ta done that,” Ollie said, and scowled darkly. “This is
my
case.”

Ollie was annoyed that they’d gone around him-a—difficult task under any circumstances—-to obtain their warrant while his
people were still conducting a search of the crime scene. Carella explained that when they’d applied for the warrant, they
hadn’t known the apartment on Carter Avenue had
become a
crime scene. They were merely looking for a weapon possibly used in an assault, and they reasoned that Milton wouldn’t have
left that weapon in the apartment he shared with the assault
victim.
It was Carella’s guess that the warrant would have been denied if Michelle Cassidy hadn’t been mentioned in it some half
dozen times; even judges of the superior court watched television and read newspapers.

“Point is … ” Ollie said.

“Point is, we’ve got the knife,” Nellie Brand said.

They had called her in because the court-ordered search of Johnny Milton’s office on Stemmler Avenue had yielded surprisingly
good results. Nellie was an assistant district attorney, dressed for work this morning in a smart suit the color of her sand-colored
hair, a blouse a shade lighter, darker brown panty hose, and brown leather shoes with French heels. Carella liked her style.
She always looked breezy and fresh to him.

“Moreover,” she said, “there appears to be blood caked in and around the hinge. If Milton wasn’t cleaning chickens, I want
to know where that blood came from. And if the lab can match it with Michelle Cassidy’s . .

“Goodbye, Johnnv ” Kling said.

“Let’s go talk to him,” Carella said.

The Q and A took place in Lieutenant Byrnes’s corner office at eleven twenty-seven that Wednesday morning. Present in addition
to the three detectives and Nellie was a female video technician from the D. A.’s Office, and Lieutenant Byrnes himself, who
sat in the swivel chair behind his desk trying not to appear too excited about his detectives maybe cracking this celebrity
case so soon. He could see naked greed gleaming in Ollie Weeks’s eyes. 01lie had caught the squeal this morning. This was
a hot collar, and Ollie wanted it. Byrnes was ready to defend
it
to his death.

Milton had been read his rights the moment they found the knife and slipped the cuffs on him. The video technician turned
on the camera, and Nellie read Miranda yet another time, advising Milton again that he was entitled to a lawyer if he wished
one. Milton said, again, that he’d done nothing, had committed no crime, had nothing to hide, and therefore was in no need
of legal representation. Every other person in the room figured these were famous last words.

“Do you recognize this?” Nellie asked, firing from the hip and aiming straight between the eyes, even though the weapon she
held in her hand was a knife in a clear plastic bag. No knife, no case, she was thinking. Get to it. Nail him fast.

“I recognize
it,
yes,” Milton said.

“Is this the knife Detectives Carella and Kling found in your office at 1507 Stemmler Avenue?”

“It appears to be that knife, yes,” Milton said.

“Well, is it or isn’t it?” Nellie said.

“I believe it is.
^,,

“Yes or no?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Does this knife belong to you, sir?”

“No,
it
does not,” Milton said.

“This knife ...”

“Is not mine, that’s correct.”

“This knife the detectives found in your office …” “Is not mine. I never saw that knife before the detectives found it. ”

“Came as a surprise to you, did it?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Detectives pulling books from your bookcase …”

“Um-huh.”

“… and they spot a switchblade knife you never saw before, huh?”

“Never.”

“You know, do you not, that from the moment the detectives removed several books from the shelf and spotted the knife …”

“I don’t know how it got there. Someone must have put it there.”

“Well,
who
if not you?” Nellie said. “You realize, don’t you, that from the moment the knife was discovered, no one has touched it with
a naked hand? Not the arresting detectives, not me, not anyone in the police department or connected with the District Attorney’s
Office. The detectives were wearing white cotton gloves when they conducted their search …”

“Yes, I saw that.”

“And when they found the knife, they dropped it into a plastic evidence bag, and that’s where it’s been since. No one has
touched this knife with a naked hand. Except the person who hid it behind those books.”

“I don’t know how it got there.”

“But you
do
know, do you not, that what appears to be blood is caked in and around the hinge of that knife?”

“No, I didn’t know that until just this minute.”

“You know, do you not, that this knife will be sent to the police laboratory where it will be determined whether or not the
suspect substance is, in fact, blood?”

“I would assume so. But it’s not my knife. I don’t care where you send it.”

“Mr. Milton, do you know that we can take your fingerprints whenever we want to?”

Milton looked surprised.

“Is that something else you didn’t know until just this minute?” Nellie asked.

“You don’t have the right to take my fingerprints. I didn’t commit any crime.”

“Yes, we do have the right, believe me, Mr. Milton.”

“I would have to ask a lawyer if you have that right.”

“Would you like to call your lawyer now?”

“I only have an entertainment lawyer.”

“Would you like to call
a criminal
lawyer?”

“I’m not a criminal. And I don’t
know
any criminal lawyers.”

“If you like, I can give you the names of ten high fliers who’ll come up here in a minute.”

“Anyway, why would I
need
a criminal lawyer? I didn’t commit any crime.”

“Be that as it may, you’ve been arrested for a crime, and
any
lawyer will tell you that we can take your fingerprints without permission. Under the Miranda ruling, fingerprinting you
without permission would
not
be taking incriminating testi …”

“I won’t
give
you my permission.”

“We don’t
need
your permission. We can fingerprint or photograph you without permission, Mr. Milton, that is the long and short of it. The
same way we can ask you to submit to a blood test or a Breathalyzer test …”

“No, you can’t.”

“Yes, we can. These are all
non
-testimonial responses and are permitted under the ruling.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means we’re going to take your prints and compare them with whatever’s on that knife. And it means we’re going to compare
the blood on that knife with Michelle Cassidy’s blood, and if the fingerprints match and the blood matches, then we’ve got
you stabbing her and killing her, Mr. Milton. That’s what it …”

“
Killing
her? What?”

“Killing her, Mr. Milton.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You want to tell me if this is your knife?”

“I already
told
you it’s not my knife. And I didn’t …”

“You want us to go through the whole dog and pony act, is that it?”

“I don’t know which dog and pony act you mean.”

“The fingerprinting, the comparison tests …”

“You’re not
allowed
to fingerprint me.”

“Fine, we’re not allowed to,” Nellie said, exasperated. “So I guess we’ll just have to break the law right this minute by
doing what we’re not allowed to do. Fellas, you want to take him out and print him?” she said, turning to where Carella and
Kling sat watching and listening.

“I want a lawyer,” Milton said.

“Lieutenant, can you get a lawyer for this man, please?”

“I want my
own
lawyer.”

“Your entertainment lawyer?”

“Better than some kid fresh out of law school.”

“Fine, get him up here, maybe he’ll entertain us. Meanwhile, we’ll print you. Give us something to discuss when he gets here.”

“You can’t print me before I talk to my lawyer.”

“Print him,” Byrnes said flatly.

Harry O’Brien—no relation to Bob O’Brien, the squad’s own hoodoo cop—came into the squadroom at a little past one that Wednesday
afternoon, announced that he’d been contacted by Milton’s personal attorney and then produced a card identifying himself as
a partner with the law firm of Hutchins, Baxter, Bailey and O’Brien. He shook hands with Milton and then Nellie, nodded to
the assembled cops, and said, “So what is this?”

He was a man in his fifties, Nellie guessed, well-toned and tanned, with gray hair and a neatly trimmed gray mustache, wearing
a double-breasted gray nailhead suit with a smart, solid blue silk tie. He half sat on, half leaned against the lieutenant’s
desk, his arms folded across his chest, giving an impression of casual ease in a cops-and-robbers environment.

“This is about Murder Two,” Nellie said.

“Oh?”

Face expressing mild surprise, as if Milton’s
entertainment
lawyer hadn’t already told him this on the phone.

“Who is supposed to have murdered whom, may I ask?”

Faint derisive smile on his face now. His pose, his manner, the smile, even the expensive hand-tailored suit all said Johnny
Milton would be out of here in ten minutes flat. Over my dead body, Nellie thought.

“Mr. Milton is being charged with murder in the second degree,” she said dryly. “Did you want to talk to your client about
it before we proceed further?”

“Thank you, I would appreciate that,” Milton said.

They all left Byrnes’s office. Outside in the squadroom, none of them said very much. The lab had already come back with a
double match on fingerprints and blood. They had Milton cold. Nellie wasn’t even willing to do any deals here. This was Murder
Two, plain and simple, and Milton was looking at twenty-five to life.

Some ten minutes later, O’Brien opened the door to Byrnes’s office, poked his head out into the corridor, smiled under his
gray mustache and said, “Mrs. Brand? Ready when you are.”

They filed back into the lieutenant’s office again.

“Would you like to tell me what you think you have?” O’Brien said.

“Happy to,” Nellie said, and laid it all out for both of them. She told them that Milton’s fingerprints matched the latent
impressions lifted from the knife found in his office, that the residue substance clogged in the hinge of the knife was indeed
blood and that moreover it matched the AB blood group of Michelle Cassidy, who had been stabbed and slashed to death the night
before. She pointed out that Miss Cassidy shared her apartment on Carter Avenue with Mr. Milton and that the investigating
detectives from the Eighty-eighth Squad had found no evidence of forcible entry to the apartment. It was her assumption that
Mr. Milton had his own keys to the apartment. If she was wrong in this assumption, she wished Mr. Milton would correct her
when the questioning was resumed.
If
it was resumed.

“That’s it,” she said.

“My client is willing to admit to the assault on Michelle Cassidy on the night of April sixth,” O’Brien said. “But he had
nothing to do with her murder.”

“No, huh?” Nellie said.

“No,” O’Brien said.

“You’re trying to deal an A-l felony down to a Class D, is that it?” Nellie said, and shook her head in amazement.

“Better than that,” O’Brien said. “I’m looking for Assault Three, a Class A
mis
.”

“Whv should i buy that?”

“Because you’ve got nothing that puts my client in that apartment last night.”

“Where
was
he last night?”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“Does that mean I can question him now?”

“Sure. I’ve only just met the man, but I’m convinced he’s got nothing to hide.”

Nellie nodded. The technician turned on the video camera again. Milton was read his rights again, this time in the presence
of his attorney, and he ascertained that he was willing to answer questions. The dog and pony act began.

“Mr. Milton, did you stab Michelle Cassidy on the night of April sixth at approximately seven
P.M.
?”

“I did.”

Good. That nailed down the assault.

“You previously told Detectives Carella and Kling that you were in a restaurant named O’Leary’s at that time, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So you weren’t quite telling them the truth, is that right?”

“I wasn’t.”

“In fact, you were lying.”

“Yes.”

“You were instead in the alley outside the Susan Granger Theater, stabbing Miss Cassidy.”

“Yes.”

“With this knife?” Nellie asked, and showed him the knife in the plastic evidence bag.

“With that knife, yes.”

“Then, contrary to what you told me earlier, this knife
is
yours.”

“Yes, it’s my knife.”

“And are you the person who hid it behind the books in your office?”

“Yes.”

“So when you said earlier … tell me if I’m quoting you incorrectly … when you said, `I don’t know how it got there. Someone
must have put it there,’ referring to this knife, you were not telling the truth then, either, were you?”

“I was not.”

“You were lying again.”

“I was lying.”