Entombed by Linda Fairstein Page A

you slip the
first two by us?" the Post veteran, Mickey Diamond, called out.
    Here it was, only the
last week in January, and three serial rapists had each claimed a
corner of the island to terrorize.
    "The first is in
Chinatown, Mickey. Three cases involving abductions of women who are
here illegally. Their status has not in any way affected our
investigation of the cases, but it has made some of the victims'
families reluctant to report details to us, and we're happy for any
information the public has to offer." The subliminal message was that
the rest of us weren't in danger from a criminal targeting poor
immigrant women, who were unlikely to seek police assistance because of
their immigration status.
    "Pattern number two is
in Washington Heights," the commissioner continued. "Five cases,
starting at the end of last year. These have all occurred at known drug
locations."
    "Junkies?" Mickey
interrupted again. "Junkies and hookers?"
    "The victims have
alternative lifestyles, Mickey. So far, they've been very cooperative.
We have a couple of suspects and are making great progress on the
investigation."
    No wonder there had
not been a press conference to announce patterns one and two, which my
unit had been working on with the crew at SVS, around the clock and on
all cylinders. Those cases weren't seen as impacting the lives of most
Manhattan residents. Location, location, location, as they say in real
estate. The Upper East Side made for different concerns and flashier
headlines.
    The commissioner tried
to pick up his narrative about the new case. "On January twenty-sixth,
at 0300 hours, a twenty-two-year-old female was attacked as she entered
a brownstone at Three Thirty-seven East Sixty-sixth Street, between
Second and First Avenues."
    He described the
physical assault in graphic detail. The stabbing would raise more alarm
and attract more attention than a sex crime. Often, when people heard
the word "rape," they foolishly assumed something had occurred as much
because of the woman's behavior as the man's. Rape remained the only
crime that too many people considered "victim precipitated," and scores
of listeners would thereby distance themselves from their potential
vulnerability by assuming it was an act that couldn't happen to people
like them.
    Now the commissioner
gave the press hounds the news hook they were waiting for. "You may
recall that several years back, the department declared a pattern of
cases, also in the Nineteenth Precinct, that remained unsolved when the
perpetrator seemed to have vanished four years ago. You gentlemen and
ladies dubbed him the Silk Stocking Rapist, which is far too elegant a
name for the vile things he does."
    The gallery came
alive. "Same guy?" one reporter called out.
    "The ME's office has
confirmed through serological testing that-"
    "I thought this week's
case wasn't a rape. How'd you get DNA?" another said.
    "We're not going to
tell you what physical evidence we do have, but a match to genetic
material from the crime scene has been declared by the lab, so that we
have confirmed our belief that the cases are related. We have
reassembled a task force and we'll give you the details of that," the
commissioner said, stepping back so the chief of detectives could
describe the operation he had hurriedly put in place.
    "Last time around, how
many cases were there?" a young kid on the City Hall beat asked.
    "Five completed rapes,
four other attempts," the chief answered.
    I thought of another
eight crimes that rested in my case folder, which had not been
connected by forensics but which had the same nuances of language and
order of sexual acts the rapist performed to make me certain it was the
work of the same man. The mayor had ordered the PC not to heighten the
public's fear by including those other cases.
    "This new attack,
what'd the girl look like?"
    A question like that
could only have come out of the mouth of Mickey Diamond. In no other
kind of case would a news reporter ask for a