Killer Heat (7 page)

“Handcuffs, then, okay? Is that what you want? Yes, she brought
handcuffs with her sometimes. But I swear we never used them. She
took them out of her bag occasionally to show them to me, but that
wasn't my thing. God knows what else she carried around with
her.”

He was distraught now, his head nestled back down onto his
chest.

“Anything else?”

“No. Nothing at all.”

“Was there anything you would characterize as violent that
occurred between you and Amber?”

“Absolutely not. I'm not like that, Ms. Cooper.”

I was trying to get a clue as to what Herb Ackerman really was like.

“You understand that we're going to have to get a sample of your
saliva, for DNA,” I said, in case any other evidence developed.
“The detectives will do that later today.”

“I'm not a common criminal, young lady. I won't be treated like
one.”

Many of my witnesses started with that attitude. The idea of
Mike Chapman venturing into the Tribune building with a
Q-tip to take a buccal swab from Ackerman made me think we'd find a
more cooperative way to get it done.

“Did you speak with Amber again after she left your office?”

“You heard me, didn't you? I didn't hurt that young woman. I had
nothing to do with her death. And no, I never heard from her
again.”

“Did you try to reach her? Did you leave any messages for
her?”

He tilted his head, ready to test me again. “I don't
remember.”

“I haven't listened to her answering machine or her cell yet,” I
said, happy to be bluffing him. “Perhaps I can refresh your
recollection after I do.”

“Maybe so.”

“Other than your office and your home, did you ever go anywhere
with Amber? Did you ever take her anywhere else, like out to
dinner?”

Ackerman shook his head. “She was a nice girl, Ms. Cooper. But
our relationship only had one purpose.”

“How much did you pay Ms. Bristol?”

Another deep breath. “Two hundred fifty dollars, in cash. That
bought me an hour of her time. And I must tell you something else
that you haven't asked.”

“Yes?”

“You'll see, if your detectives do their homework, that I wrote
about that place where Amber's body was found in an article that
was published this winter. In my column,” he said.

“Trib-ulations” was Ackerman's sounding board, a weekly opinion
piece that let him take on issues of local or national
importance.

“The Battery Maritime Building?”

“Precisely.”

“You've been to the terminal recently? I thought it's abandoned
and-”

“Ferry service to Brooklyn stopped in 1938, as you probably
know. But the army used the slip for years when they owned
Governors Island. I've been writing, advocating about converting
the empty space for other uses.”

Mike would be as interested in the military history of Amber's
death chamber as in Ackerman's familiarity with it.

“Is that something you and she ever talked about?”

He puffed himself up now, unable to resist the opportunity to
gloat. “She made it a point to read everything I wrote. Quite a
bright girl. I don't remember discussing that column in particular,
but Amber would have been certain to see it.”

“You were smart to call the district attorney, Mr. Ackerman.
This way, I can arrange for you to meet with Detective Chapman, and
we won't have to come looking for you at an inconvenient time.”

“There'll be no calls to the office, then?” he asked as I stood
up. “No leaks to the media?”

“Mr. Battaglia controls that pretty well,” I said, knowing that
my boss played the press like a Stradivarius.

“When Amber left you that evening, what time was it?”

“A little after midnight,” Ackerman said. “She arrived at eleven
o'clock, I'm quite certain of that.”

“There'll be a record of when she signed out.”

“Probably so.”

“And you, did you leave with her?”

“Oh, no. No, no, no. I see where you're going with that, Ms.
Cooper. No, no. Even if I walked her out to get a cab, which I may
have done. I sometimes did that, as a gentleman would. But I'm sure
I went back to my office to lock up.”

“Did Amber tell you where she was going?” I asked, my hand on
the doorknob as I tried to escort Herb Ackerman from the room.

"She was meeting someone for a drink. She was mad at her
boyfriend, I know that. I think she was planning to meet someone at
another bar. Maybe she was trying to make the man jealous. Amber
knew just what buttons to push.

Today we're going to travel back in time," I told the
jurors.

Sixteen people in the box, twelve regular jurors and four
alternates. There were an even number of men and women, a racially
diverse mix of New Yorkers, but only four of the group had been
born at the time Kerry Hastings was raped.

There were few spectators in the room. The trial of an aspiring
rap star who had shot up a Midtown nightclub when the manager tried
to throw him out had drawn reporters to the courthouse across the
street.

That was good news for Hastings, who had no interest in
reliving her assault so publicly. But I couldn't ignore the
presence of a young man who glared at me from the front-row bench.
I recognized him from yesterday's pack of Latin Princes. He had
passed through the hallway metal detector, which gave me some level
of comfort, but I knew he wasn't there to root for my case

“The events that the witnesses will describe to you took place
in the early morning hours of July 10, 1973. You will meet Kerry
Hastings,” I said, outlining some of her background in my opening
statement for the people who would soon hear her story, “who was
twenty-two years old on the night that Floyd Warren changed the
course of her young life”

“Let me give you some context of the times during which these
crimes occurred. The president of the United States was Richard
Nixon,” I began. I had tested the almanac listings of that year on
my summer intern, a college student. She didn't seem to know who
Spiro Agnew was, so I left out the fact of his resignation and the
subsequent Saturday Night Massacre. The ceasefire ending the
involvement of American ground troops in Vietnam didn't register
very well either, in light of more recent military engagements"

“A first-class stamp cost eight cents, Elvis-Elvis Presley, not
Costello-was a sellout nearby at the Nassau Coliseum, and The
Godfather won the Oscar for the year's best movie,” I said,
making eye contact with the several jurors who had listed film as
among their favorite hobbies in the voir dire questions.

And I nodded at number six, the bus driver who spent most of his
afternoons at an Off-Track Betting parlor in his neighborhood, when
I told them that Secretariat had captured the Triple Crown, the
last time that feat had been accomplished in horse racing.

I told them what the prosecution case would prove, in colder,
more clinical terms than the excruciating details they would hear
from the mouth of Kerry Hastings. I read to them the charges-rape
and sodomy, burglary and robbery-in the indictment returned by a
grand jury, what used to be called a “blue-ribbon panel” of
carefully selected citizens during the thirty-year reign of
District Attorney Frank Hogan

“We will prove these charges by the testimony of witnesses who
will tell you what they experienced through each of their five
senses: what they saw, heard, felt, tasted, and smelled on that
unbearable morning-and in the days and years that followed”

“You will hear from police officers, a doctor, and forensic
biologists. You will see crime scene photographs and physical
evidence that you can examine yourselves-things that will take you
back to the tiny room in which these life-threatening acts
occurred.” I was standing in front of the jury box as I turned to
the defendant and his counsel. I started to walk toward Gene
Grassley, knowing that the sixteen triers of fact would follow my
movement, would look at Floyd Warren when I pointed at him and
accused him of the crimes

“You will hear from police officers-now retired-who responded
to the 911 call made by a neighbor when Kerry Hastings's muffled
screams pierced the warm night air. They will both tell you how
they chased this defendant from the front door of Ms. Hastings's
building, as he crossed the street and vaulted a chain-link fence,
trying to escape them but getting caught less than a city block
away. He had six dollars in his pants pocket, and there was a
serrated steak knife that he had discarded on the ground in the
course of his flight.”

I watched as the jurors looked at Warren. He was dressed in a
denim shirt, with an orange macramé kufi cap. He met their
stares head-on, shaking his head from side to side. He no longer
looked able to scale a seven-foot schoolyard fence

“And while Kerry Hastings's case grew cold, while justice
stalled, science kept moving forward with a revolutionary
technology called DNA.” I gave the jurors the bare bones of the
people's case. I wanted to pique their interest, engage them on the
victim's behalf, and impress upon them the facts we would
present

“And I will stand before you at the end of this case, when I
have proven Floyd Warren's guilt beyond any doubt, and ask
you to convict him of each of these crimes with which he is
charged.”

As I took my place at counsel table, I noticed that two more of
the Latin Princes had entered the room. There were no words
emblazoned on their chests today, just the image of a dagger, half
covered in blood, on the black background of the T-shirts. A court
officer stood behind my chair, facing them.

I tried to concentrate on Grassley's opening.

His remarks were short and he spoke in generalities, urging
each of the jurors to keep an open mind. He knew that my evidence
was overwhelming, and he was up against the dazzling science of
genetic fingerprinting

You may call your first witness, Ms. Cooper."

“The people call Kerry Hastings, Your Honor.”

One of the court officers went to the side door that led to the
witness waiting room. When he came back in, every head but mine
turned to Hastings, to inspect her, as she walked into the well of
the courtroom, approached the stand, and was sworn in.

I rose to bring my notes to the lectern. I could see now that
there were eight gang members in the room, along with a handful of
my colleagues. It worried me that the group would try to stage any
kind of outburst while Kerry Hastings was testifying.

For almost fifteen minutes, I took her through the basic
information of her background-her education, her training, her
impressive résumé of publications and academic awards.
Her poise and dignity belied the anger that she had described to
me, the anger she had carried internally for three decades. This
jury was meeting a mature adult, robbed of a life she had planned
for herself when her youthful dreams were shattered by Floyd
Warren's brutality.

I had her describe how she went to sleep the night she was
raped and what had awakened her.

“I heard a noise on the fire escape. My bed was right next to
the window, and because it was such a warm night, I had left it
open.”

As she answered my questions, the young man in the front row
began to cough.

“What kind of noise was it?” I asked her.

“It sounded like something rattling against the metal grating.
That's when I opened my eyes.”

“And what did you see?”

“I saw light-like flames-just outside my window. I sat up in bed
because I was afraid that something was on fire.”

“What happened next?”

“There was a man sitting on the window sill. He already had one
leg in my room. The flames came from a cigarette lighter that he
was using to see his way in the dark.”

“What did-?”

“He dropped the lighter and grabbed my hair with his left hand.
He pulled me toward him and held the point of a knife against my
neck. 'Don't scream,' is what he said to me. 'Don't make me use
this.' ”

Kerry Hastings was almost mechanical in her recitation of the
story. She was determined, this time, that she wouldn't give Floyd
Warren the satisfaction of seeing her cry. I needed to slow her
down and make her wait for me to finish my questions.

Several of the young gang members appeared to be having coughing
fits.

“Were you able to see the face of the man who held the knife to
your neck?”

The judge banged his gavel three times. Hastings jumped,
surprised by the pounding noise directly behind her head.

“Let's have some order here.”

“I saw him for less than a minute. He put-”

“Hold on, Ms. Hastings, will you?” Judge Lamont said. “I can't
hear your answers.”

Floyd Warren was smirking, pleased to see that the witness was
rattled by the disruptive spectators.

Louie Larsen approached the kid in the first row and exchanged
whispered remarks. Then Larsen walked to the bench and said
something to Lamont.

“Carry on, Ms. Cooper.”

“Had you ever seen the intruder, the man who came through your
window, before?”

“No. I didn't know him.”

“Let's go back, Ms. Cooper. I didn't get what she said about
seeing the man.”

Hastings turned toward the judge. “I only saw him for a few
seconds. He put a pillow over my face before he turned me on my
stomach. He didn't want me to see him.”

“Wait for Ms. Cooper's questions, please.”

So much for my smooth direct. Kerry Hastings's calm was
dissolving rapidly.

The lead Latin Prince had another coughing spell, doubling over
and clapping his chest.

Alton Lamont stood up and pointed at the door with his gavel.
“Take it out of here, young man. Captain Larsen, let's clear the
courtroom.”

One of the officers directed the jurors to rise and file through
the door behind the witness stand. Several of them stooped to pick
up bags and backpacks, fixated on the confrontation between the
judge and the Latino loudmouth.

“It's a public trial, Your Honor. I know my rights.”

Another officer took his place beside Kerry Hastings, who looked
shell-shocked by all the activity going on around her.

Larsen had the leader by the arm and was trying to drag him out
of the room. Half the jury members were still watching, still
listening, even as they were being herded along.

“Ms. Cooper's trying to railroad another brother, Judge. She's a
liar! Liar!”

The other gang members were on their feet, pushing one another
to get to the door ahead of Larsen and his charge.

“Arrest him, Captain. He's over the line. Arrest him.” Lamont
banged his gavel again.

“Arrest my ass, Judge. She's a liar!”

One of the others slammed the door open and the rest followed
into the hallway. The heavy wooden panels swung back and forth
several times, echoing with the sound of the eight-foot-tall metal
detector as it crashed to the floor, flipped over by the fleeing
Latin Princes.

Kerry Hastings looked at me, blinking back tears. I had promised
her the trial would be easy. I assured her nothing would traumatize
her like the first time. Today I'd been wrong.