that certain corpses swung infinitely more weight than others. The crucial factors were race and real estate. A rich white woman murdered in a Fifth Avenue store automatically got more attention from police and media than twenty poor black women murdered in grocery stores in Harlem.
“Okay, who do you want?”
“Siegel and I caught the case. We’ll stay on it. And I want Monteleone, Richards, and Malloy.”
Reilly lifted a pen and made a notation. “You got them.”
Cardozo sat drinking a cup of coffee that had turned cold, hoping the caffeine would persuade him he was able to think. Stripes of fluorescence slanted down from the desk lamp. Light caught his fingers as they tapped a bolero on the yellowed documents of the Nita Kohler-James Delancey file.
Among the press clippings he found an interview with Delancey’s lawyers. They claimed that Nita Kohler was famed among her fast-living, rich young crowd for her promiscuity, her drug-taking, her irrational violence, her addiction to kinky sex. For months she had pursued Delancey, begging him to engage with her in sodomy and intercourse. Finally, with cocaine, she had bought him.
This was not her first brush with disaster. She courted thrills. She courted death.
The file was long closed, ancient history, but still there was a movement in Cardozo’s heart, a strangulation that he felt each time he ran up against one of these victim-is-guilty defenses. He knew the alibis. Society’s fault. Parents’ fault. The drug culture’s fault. Above all, the girl’s fault.
Cardozo began reading the transcript of Delancey’s first interrogation. After six pages he felt his lips pull together into a thin, frustrated line. He leaned forward in his swivel chair and stared at the two arraignment photos of James Delancey the Third.
He finally chose the full-face shot with its narrow nose and full-lipped scowl and bright points of light in the eyes. The face was smooth and soft, almost without real contours, and it hadn’t changed in four years.
A moment later Cardozo crossed the squad room and stepped into the little room where an Albanian stand-up comic was telling dialect jokes on the TV screen. Detective Goldberg was sitting in a chair with a coffee cup, not watching.
“Do you mind?” Cardozo slid a cassette into the VCR.
Goldberg shrugged a burly shoulder.
Cardozo started the tape. Someone had played it and not rewound it all the way, so the picture came up in the middle of Detective Carl Malloy reading the suspect his rights.
“You’re entitled to a lawyer,” Malloy was saying. “You have the right to remain silent.”
Christ, Malloy had lost hair and put on weight since this was taken. Malloy looked young in this tape.
“Anything you say can and will be used against you. Do you wish to have a lawyer?”
The camera caught what the transcript hadn’t, that instant where James Delancey’s last remnant of bravado wordlessly slipped away. He shook his head.
It occurred to Cardozo that Delancey must have been working out with weights in prison—he was almost slim in this picture.
“Jim Delancey indicates no,” Malloy said.
There was the sound of a door closing, and Ellie Siegel came onto the screen.
Ellie should give Malloy tips on not aging, Cardozo thought.
She came toward the table with a cup of coffee. Her expression was agreeable. She put the coffee down in front of the suspect. “Do you want to make a statement?” she asked gently. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Jim Delancey lowered his head and raised his eyes under his thick dark hair to look up apologetically, like a child. He brought himself up nervously erect in the metal chair. “It wasn’t my fault. She attacked me.”
Siegel’s eyes and lips collaborated in a pleasantly skeptical half smile. “That hundred-and-two-pound girl attacked a hunk like you?”
What balls, Cardozo thought—she was flirting with the punk, and what’s more, he was going for it. For ten seconds
“Okay, who do you want?”
“Siegel and I caught the case. We’ll stay on it. And I want Monteleone, Richards, and Malloy.”
Reilly lifted a pen and made a notation. “You got them.”
Cardozo sat drinking a cup of coffee that had turned cold, hoping the caffeine would persuade him he was able to think. Stripes of fluorescence slanted down from the desk lamp. Light caught his fingers as they tapped a bolero on the yellowed documents of the Nita Kohler-James Delancey file.
Among the press clippings he found an interview with Delancey’s lawyers. They claimed that Nita Kohler was famed among her fast-living, rich young crowd for her promiscuity, her drug-taking, her irrational violence, her addiction to kinky sex. For months she had pursued Delancey, begging him to engage with her in sodomy and intercourse. Finally, with cocaine, she had bought him.
This was not her first brush with disaster. She courted thrills. She courted death.
The file was long closed, ancient history, but still there was a movement in Cardozo’s heart, a strangulation that he felt each time he ran up against one of these victim-is-guilty defenses. He knew the alibis. Society’s fault. Parents’ fault. The drug culture’s fault. Above all, the girl’s fault.
Cardozo began reading the transcript of Delancey’s first interrogation. After six pages he felt his lips pull together into a thin, frustrated line. He leaned forward in his swivel chair and stared at the two arraignment photos of James Delancey the Third.
He finally chose the full-face shot with its narrow nose and full-lipped scowl and bright points of light in the eyes. The face was smooth and soft, almost without real contours, and it hadn’t changed in four years.
A moment later Cardozo crossed the squad room and stepped into the little room where an Albanian stand-up comic was telling dialect jokes on the TV screen. Detective Goldberg was sitting in a chair with a coffee cup, not watching.
“Do you mind?” Cardozo slid a cassette into the VCR.
Goldberg shrugged a burly shoulder.
Cardozo started the tape. Someone had played it and not rewound it all the way, so the picture came up in the middle of Detective Carl Malloy reading the suspect his rights.
“You’re entitled to a lawyer,” Malloy was saying. “You have the right to remain silent.”
Christ, Malloy had lost hair and put on weight since this was taken. Malloy looked young in this tape.
“Anything you say can and will be used against you. Do you wish to have a lawyer?”
The camera caught what the transcript hadn’t, that instant where James Delancey’s last remnant of bravado wordlessly slipped away. He shook his head.
It occurred to Cardozo that Delancey must have been working out with weights in prison—he was almost slim in this picture.
“Jim Delancey indicates no,” Malloy said.
There was the sound of a door closing, and Ellie Siegel came onto the screen.
Ellie should give Malloy tips on not aging, Cardozo thought.
She came toward the table with a cup of coffee. Her expression was agreeable. She put the coffee down in front of the suspect. “Do you want to make a statement?” she asked gently. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Jim Delancey lowered his head and raised his eyes under his thick dark hair to look up apologetically, like a child. He brought himself up nervously erect in the metal chair. “It wasn’t my fault. She attacked me.”
Siegel’s eyes and lips collaborated in a pleasantly skeptical half smile. “That hundred-and-two-pound girl attacked a hunk like you?”
What balls, Cardozo thought—she was flirting with the punk, and what’s more, he was going for it. For ten seconds
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