Chapter 10
“Do
yourself a favor,” Briscoe advised, roughly pushing down on Fisher’s shoulder
and forcing him into a chair. “Sit down and shut up!”
He glared
down at the man, prepared for an argument. Fisher stared at him sullenly but
offered none, so he followed Green out of the interrogation room, banging the
door closed behind them.
“I could
hear this guy all the way down to my office,” Van Buren informed them. “What
gives?”
“Aww,
he’s just a little cranky,” Briscoe offered. “He doesn’t like the way we treat
our guests.”
“He tried
to run when he saw us. We had to get a little physical with him,” Green
explained.
Van Buren
looked at him doubtfully. “A little physical?”
“Nothing
serious,” he assured her. “Just a few scuff marks. Is the P.D. on the way?”
She
nodded. “I called Legal Aid as soon as I heard from you. Brenda Radcliffe
caught the case and I filled her in on the details. She was waiting for a
client who was about to be arraigned, but she should be here soon.”
“Good.
Fisher says he won’t say a word until he gets with a lawyer.”
“For
someone not saying a word, he sure is loud,” Van Buren commented.
“Yeah,
and for a guy who doesn’t have any idea what we’re talking about, he sure
lawyered up fast,” Green added.
“Did I
miss something here?” she asked. “When you left this morning, all you had was a
video tape showing that Fisher was in the coffee shop at the same time an
e-mail was sent from there to the victim, and a four year old arrest record
with no details. How did you get a warrant to search his place with nothing
more than that?”
“Does it
matter?” Briscoe shrugged. “Serena presented what we had and a judge signed off
on it. We’re covered.”
Van Buren
studied him for a moment, immediately suspicious at his vague explanation. But
upon spotting Southerlyn headed their way, she decided to save her questions
for later. “Let’s hope you’re right. What did the search turn up?”
“Two
things,” Briscoe replied. “A computer that we’re hoping will have evidence
linking him to the girl, and an opened bottle of orange-flavored milk from his
refrigerator. The expiration date stamped on it was for a couple of days after
the murder. Corinna’s little brother said she took a bottle of the same kind of
milk along with her on the night she was killed. We’ve already sent it over to
the lab. If it comes back with her prints or DNA on it, we’ll have everything
we need to put this s.o.b. down.”
As
Southerlyn entered the observation room, Van Buren advised, “Stay on top of it.
Keep bugging the lab until you have an answer. Now that we finally have him,
let’s make it stick. I don’t want to leave him any breathing room.”
When the
detectives had left to comply, Van Buren joined Southerlyn at the one-way
window. As they stood watching Fisher wander aimlessly around the small room
beyond, Van Buren remarked, “I’m surprised you were able to convince a judge to
let us search Fisher’s place with so little evidence against him. The fact that
he was in the coffee shop at the same time one of the e-mails was sent to the
victim wasn’t much to hang a warrant on.”
“That
added to Fisher’s previous arrest was enough probable cause for Judge
Livingston.”
“
“It wasn’t
really luck,” Southerlyn explained. “Lennie asked if I would approach him. He
said
Van Buren
nodded knowingly. “Now it all makes sense.”
“What
makes sense?”
“It’s
nothing. Just something Briscoe said.” Indicating Fisher, she mused,
“Good-looking guy like that – he could probably have his pick of women. Hard to
believe he’s responsible for the brutal rape and murder of a young girl.”
“True.
But there’s something about his eyes…” Southerlyn shuddered visibly. “He gives
me the creeps.”
Van Buren
turned to give her a smile. “Well, now, there’s a legal opinion for you.”
***“Jack?” Southerlyn queried into the phone.
“Serena,
where are you? You told me you’d be here over an hour ago so we could go over
“I’m
still at the 27th.”
He let
out an exaggerated sigh. “Surely you aren’t still waiting for the P.D. to show
up.”
“No, but
we have run into some problems.”
McCoy sat
back in his chair, stretching some of his tension away. “What kind of
problems?”
“Along
with Fisher’s claim of police brutality, his lawyer is challenging the validity
of the warrant and wants to prevent us from examining a computer seized in the
search until she can take it to a judge. She also wants her client released due
to insufficient evidence. Ed and Lennie are adamant that they have the right
man and feel sure that if we release him, he’ll disappear in the time it will
take them to link him more solidly to the murder. They want to hold him on
resisting arrest, if nothing else, but his lawyer is putting up quite a fight.
I tend to agree that the evidence is light against Fisher but I can’t ignore
the detectives’ position. It’s a tough call.”
“In other
words, you don’t want to be the one to cut him loose with two irate police
detectives breathing down your neck, and you’re hoping I’ll bail you out,” he
suggested.
He could
hear Southerlyn smile into the phone. “Something like that. Briscoe nearly bit
my head off when I only suggested that the case against Fisher could be
stronger. If I tell them it was your decision, he can take his frustrations out
on you.”
He sat
forward in his chair. “Sit tight. I’ll be there in few minutes. I didn’t really
want to spend the evening reviewing testimony, anyway.”
***When McCoy entered the squad room of the 27th
precinct, Southerlyn and both detectives were waiting. They took turns filling
him in on the details of the case as he sat on the edge of a desk, listening intently.
Addressing Southerlyn, he noted, “So when you approached Judge
Livingston, you had the video tape showing that Fisher was in the coffee shop
at the time the e-mail was sent and his previous arrest record to work with?”
“Yes,”
she answered. “He seemed to think that was enough probable cause.”
“And
you’re waiting for lab results on the milk you found in his apartment?” he
asked the detectives.
“That’s
right,” Green replied. “We want to try to get him to talk before the results
come through. Even though his lawyer’s there, if we can convince him that the
report is going to nail his ass, maybe he’ll be willing to fess up and make a
deal. Our experts are going to start tearing his computer apart as soon as we
give them the thumbs up. We hope to find something on it, too, maybe an e-mail
to the victim or something else that will tie him to her.”
“What
happened at the apartment while you were waiting for the warrant?”
Green
glanced sideways at Briscoe and answered, “We didn’t want to take a chance on
Fisher destroying evidence, so after we caught up with him we told him we were
there to secure the premises until the warrant arrived and that he couldn’t go
into his apartment. He insisted we couldn’t keep him out and tried to push past
us. We ended up scuffling a bit and arrested him for interfering with official
police business. Things got kind of heated and he resisted, so he spent some
time handcuffed to a radiator while we waited for the warrant.”
“Fisher’s
blown the whole thing completely out of proportion,” Briscoe contended. “He’s
claiming police brutality. If it’d been police brutality, believe me, he’d be
in a hospital right now. Not only is the guy a psycho pervert, he’s also an
obnoxious jerk.”
McCoy
smiled at Briscoe’s enthusiastic tirade. “Well why don’t we go see what the
obnoxious jerk has to say about the milk?” He stood up and added, “But I have
to warn you, Judge Livingston is known for handing out warrants, some would
say, indiscriminately. The evidence you used to get it is not overly
convincing. It might not stand up on appeal. If his lawyer pushes the issue and
if you can’t get anything out of Fisher, we’ll probably have no choice but to
cut him loose for the time being. A resisting arrest charge isn’t going to keep
him with us.”
“Come on,
Jack…” Briscoe started to protest.
He held
up his hand, cutting him off. “I’m just trying to prepare you. You’ve been
through this before. It may be out of our hands.”
As they started
toward the interrogation room, Green motioned to Van Buren, who left her office
to join them.
“Counselor,” she nodded to McCoy. “I just got off the phone with the
borough chief – again. A middle class white girl ends up in the
“One
minute alone with him and I’ll make it stick,” Briscoe muttered. “I’ll stick my
fist up his nose.”
Van Buren
gave him a disapproving look as she rapped on the door of the interrogation
room, then pushed it open and led the way inside.
“Counselor, we have a few things to clear up,” she stated, addressing
the woman sitting beside Fisher.
McCoy
followed behind as everyone else filed in. But once the others had dispersed
around the small room, he stopped in his tracks. After Southerlyn’s initial
phone call to him regarding the case, it had been his understanding that a
public defender with whom he had worked on previous occasions was representing
Fisher. But instead of finding Brenda Radcliffe, he found someone even more
familiar to him.
At the
surprised look on his face, Morgan smiled very slightly. “Ah, reinforcements.”
As he slowly continued to the table and sat down, she said, “Mr. McCoy, I hope
you’ve explained to the detectives here that the law says they need actual
evidence of a crime before they can enter and search a person’s home.”
“We had
all the evidence we needed,” Briscoe asserted. “Your client got to the coffee
shop a half hour before the e-mail was sent from there to the victim and left
forty-five minutes after. Add that to his fondness for little girls, like the
one he kidnapped in
“My
client was one of several people in the coffee shop at the time the e-mail was
sent and there is absolutely no evidence suggesting that he and Josh Lewis are
one and the same person. As for the charges in
“Hey, all
we have to go on is what our search for previous arrests turns up,” Briscoe
responded. “We have to assume that the information we receive is correct. The
printout we received said only that he had been arrested for kidnapping a
fourteen year old and that’s the information we proceeded on. It isn’t our
fault if the records weren’t updated.”
“It’s
your duty to make sure of your facts before you proceed on them. A phone call
the
“Considering the fact that there was a killer of young girls roaming the
streets, stalking his next victim, we didn’t have the time to verify
information that’s supposed to be automatically updated on a regular basis
anyway, Counselor. And those aren’t the only facts we proceeded on. His
neighbor told us your client was unusually chummy with her little girls,
bringing them candy nearly every day. In the short time we had him under
surveillance, he approached yet another young girl. Face it – he has a thing
for little girls,” Briscoe declared, glaring at Fisher, who sat calmly leaning
back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest.
“And you
came to this conclusion, why? Because he spoke with someone at the library?
Because he showed a little kindness to a neighbor who happens to be a single
mother? Since when are those things crimes?”
“There’s
also the matter of a bottle of orange-flavored milk that we found in his
refrigerator,” Green indicated. Looking at Fisher, he added, “The victim had
the same kind of drink with her on the night she was killed. We don’t think
that’s a coincidence.”
Leaning
forward, Morgan noted, “Setting aside the fact that the search is going to be
thrown out, you can’t pin a murder on him because he drinks the same kind of
milk that the victim did.”
Green
ignored her as he locked eyes with Fisher. His tone became almost gentle,
subtlety persuasive. “It’s at the lab as we speak, Eric. If there’s even a
partial fingerprint that matches Corinna’s, or the tiniest bit of her DNA on
the bottle, you’ll be facing murder one. You read the papers. You know the
kinds of sentences being handed down for crimes of this nature. Juries are
weighing the cost of incarcerating someone for life against an injection that
costs pocket change. You know which option they’re going to choose, especially
considering how young your victim was. If you talk to us now, tell us how it
went down, it doesn’t have to end like that for you.”
“Do you
have the report from the lab?” Morgan queried.
Shrugging, Green answered, “Not yet, but…”
“Well,
when you get that back, we’ll talk – if
it has the victim’s prints on it and if
it doesn’t get tossed along with the search warrant. Until then, don’t try to
coerce my client into making a rash statement by holding it over his head,” she
advised.
Briscoe
addressed her irately, “If this is all one big mistake, then clear it up for
us, Counselor. Your client wasn’t home on the night of the murder. His neighbor
checked when her baby got sick. Let him tell us where he was.”
Morgan
shook her head. “He doesn’t have to account for his whereabouts. You have
absolutely no evidence to prove he had anything to do with the crime you’re
investigating. And his neighbor could’ve simply gotten the nights mixed up.”
“We
checked with the hospital where she took her little boy. She didn’t get the
nights mixed up,” Briscoe insisted. Addressing Fisher, he declared, “It’s a
chance to clear yourself. All you have to do is tell us where you were between
four and five a.m. Tuesday morning when Corinna Braden was killed.”
As Morgan
opened her mouth to reply, Fisher sat straight up in his chair. Noting the
sudden movement beside her, she turned to look at him questioningly. Fisher
leaned toward her and whispered something into her ear. After contemplating a
few seconds, she nodded.
“My
client would like to answer that question.”
Fisher
looked from Briscoe to Green, an expression of open honesty on his boyish face.
“I worked the early shift that week. On Tuesday morning, I punched in at
exactly
“A
floating vendor?” Briscoe smirked. “Can’t you come up with a better story than
that?”
“It’s the
truth!” Fisher insisted a little too forcefully.
Morgan
took hold of his upper arm and pulled him back slightly, effectively silencing
him. “My client has supplied you with an alibi. Before you charge him with a
crime, you have an obligation to make every effort to locate this woman and
investigate his claim.” Turning to McCoy, she continued, “Since the warrant was
obtained with faulty information and will inevitably be thrown out, the report
on the milk is moot and nothing in the computer can be used, either. As soon as
we leave here I’m going to file for a temporary injunction to prevent the lab
from touching it until a judge can make it official. For the time being,
considering the problems with the warrant and your lack of evidence, I assume
you’re going to tell your detectives to let my client go home.”
McCoy sat
without answering for a moment, studying Morgan intently. What had begun as
surprise had steadily grown into seething anger. A hundred questions ran
through his mind, but most had little to do with the facts of the case.
“Whether or not the search is declared invalid
will be up to a judge,” he finally responded with deliberate calm. “Your client
was arrested. Those charges will need to be addressed before he can be
released.”
Morgan
regarded him carefully, as if she had heard something odd in his tone. “The
charges are ridiculous. Interfering in official police business? Resisting
arrest when he became upset at not being allowed into his own home? Not only
did the detectives provoke the situation but they lied by telling him he
couldn’t enter until after the warrant had been executed. They had no reason to
believe a warrant could even be obtained with the trumped up evidence that was
presented to a judge, and they didn’t receive the call telling them it had been
approved until after my client was in their custody. Until they knew for a fact
that the warrant was on its way, he was free to do as he wished. ”
With a
non-committal shrug McCoy argued, “The police are allowed to do what they deem
necessary to prevent a suspect from destroying evidence while waiting for a
warrant to arrive. And I disagree that they shouldn’t have expected they would
be successful in obtaining one. As far as I can see they were well within their
rights. If you want to dispute it, you can bring that point up before a judge,
as well. Until then, we’re going to hold on to your client.”
“You
can’t be serious!” Morgan exclaimed disbelievingly.
Without
answering, he stood up and gave the detectives a slight nod before walking from
the room, followed first by Southerlyn, then Van Buren.
Briscoe
grabbed Fisher by the arm gleefully. “Come on, Eric. Allow me to show you
around your little four-by-ten home away from home. Hope you aren’t
claustrophobic.”
While the
detectives led her client from the interrogation room, Morgan set to work
gathering paperwork. Her frustration was evident as she stuffed it back into
her briefcase, then headed to the opposite door that led into the observation
area.
When she
stepped through, McCoy was waiting, alone. He reached behind her to pull the
door closed and stood looking down at her, his dark eyes boring into hers.
“What the
hell are you doing with this case?” he demanded.
Morgan’s
eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”
“You told
me you would have to believe in the client before you would take on another
criminal case. How can that possibly apply to Eric Fisher?”
Seemingly
taken aback by his indignation, she sounded almost apologetic as she responded,
“This isn’t a case I would’ve chosen for myself, but due to circumstances
beyond my control, I had no choice but to accept it. Eric Fisher deserves
representation just like anyone else.” Then, crossing her arms, her tone switched to one of defensiveness. “And since when do I need your approval before deciding
whether or not I will represent a particular client?”
“He
killed a girl who was little more than a child!” McCoy reminded her loudly.
“How can you possibly defend him?”
“Not only
is the evidence against him laughable, but your cops really screwed up with the
warrant. There’s no way you can make the case against him.”
“Whether
or not the cops screwed up has absolutely no bearing on Fisher’s guilt. Even if
the search is thrown out and every bit of evidence is excluded, the fact
remains that he raped and killed a fifteen year old girl!”
“Because
YOU say so?” Morgan asked, equally irritated.
“I’ve sat
in enough rooms with enough defendants like your client to know when someone is
lying through their teeth.”
“Then
what are we all doing here, Jack? Let’s save the taxpayers their hard-earned
money and do away with this expensive, time-consuming justice system. We’ll
just parade all suspects in front of you so you can use your psychic abilities
to tell us which are guilty and which are innocent,” she suggested sarcastically.
“I don’t
need to be a psychic to know that your client is guilty. All I need to do is
consider the evidence.”
“The
evidence that my client committed this crime is nonexistent. You’re wasting
time going after an innocent man when you should be encouraging the cops to
look for the real killer. What you have is not going to hold up. If you insist
on pursuing it, this is a case you can’t help but lose,” Morgan maintained
resolutely.
McCoy
took a step closer, so that he was only inches from her. Looking down into her
eyes, he said accusingly, “This is a case you shouldn’t even be trying to win.”
Then, stepping around her, he stalked from the room.
Morgan
stood looking after him for a few moments in surprise. Then, huffing out a
breath, she shook her head in bewilderment.
***Having closed the office door, Van Buren sat
down behind her desk, her mood rapidly deteriorating. Briscoe’s conduct on the
case, along with his subsequent evasive attitude, had given her a whopper of a
headache and she was feeling more than a little testy. “Given that you’ve
talked your client out of pressing charges, I didn’t think there was anything
to discuss.”
“I didn’t
talk him out of it because I don’t believe him,” Morgan assured her. “Except in
extreme cases, I routinely try to discourage any client from filing police
brutality charges against an arresting officer. It’s been my experience that
unless there are witnesses or incontrovertible proof, a victim almost always
loses such a claim and ends up hurting his or her own credibility in the
process. But even though Mr. Fisher isn’t filing a claim at this time, I can’t
guarantee he won’t once the other charges against him have been disposed of. I
also think you should be aware of what went on with your officers.”
“I’m listening,” Van Buren said as she leaned
back in her chair, her expression conveying that the attentiveness would be
temporary.
“Mr.
Fisher says that Detective Briscoe provoked the confrontation, first by lying
to him about not being allowed into his apartment, and then by practically
begging him to protest. He also said the detective purposely started the
scuffle that led to his arrest.”
“And
we’re supposed to just take his word for it?”
“He has
bruises and scrapes consistent with his story.”
“He has
bruises and scrapes consistent with resisting arrest. He wouldn’t be the first
person to falsely claim that an officer had used excessive force.”
“And it
wouldn’t be the first time that an officer got a little over-zealous in carrying
out his duties.”
“So it
comes down to who is more credible. I’ll take the word of an experienced police
detective over a man who has just been picked up on suspicion of murder any
day.” Van Buren leaned forward on her desk, her usually patient tone dissolving
into one of annoyance. “What is it that you want me to do here?”
Morgan
stood up and started for the door. “Look, I thought I was doing you a favor by
letting you know what had happened so that you could deal with the situation
privately. I know Briscoe is a good cop. I think he simply made a mistake in
this case. But the next attorney who comes through here with a client making
the same claim may not be so willing to let it slide. He or she might even jump
at the chance to file a suit and let the courts handle it.”
As Morgan
opened the door, Van Buren offered a little more compliantly, “I’ll look into
it, Counselor.”
“Thank
you,” Morgan nodded before stepping out of the office and closing the door
behind her.
Van Buren
sat for a moment, trying to massage some of the tightness from her neck. She
opened the top drawer of her desk and rummaged around until she found a bottle
of pain reliever. While popping a couple of the tablets into her mouth, she
spotted Briscoe and Green returning from taking Fisher to central booking.
Standing
up, she opened her office door. “Detectives, I need to have a word with you.”
When they
had entered her office and sat down, she closed the door and returned to her
chair. Folding her hands in front of her, she asked in a deceptively patient
voice, “Did it ever occur to either of you to check out Fisher’s prior arrest
with the authorities in
“I called
them, I just didn’t get all the details on why the case was dropped,” Briscoe
admitted.
“So without
knowing that important bit of information, you still presented the arrest as
evidence to a judge?” She looked from one to the other questioningly. When both
men remained silent, she spread her hands and asked in exasperation, “What
could the two of you possibly have been thinking?”
Briscoe
answered matter-of-factly, “We were thinking about getting a murderer off the
streets. We supplied the A.D.A. with evidence from a reliable source to get
that warrant. If she or the judge wanted to look behind the curtain, they were
welcome to do so.”
Van
Buren’s dark eyes flashed as she said angrily, “Don’t play word games with me,
Lennie. Fisher’s previous arrest was a nonstarter and you should’ve known that
because you should've checked. I
don’t appreciate hearing information from a defense attorney during an
interrogation that my detectives should’ve filled me in on long before. How
could you have been so sloppy?”
“Guess we
just got in a hurry,” Briscoe shrugged. “We’ll try to be more careful in the
future.”
Unaffected by his nominal attempt at contriteness, she continued, “I’m
not even going to discuss the discrepancy between the time you arrested Fisher
and when you knew the warrant was on the way, but I would like to know which of
you had the bright idea to insist that Serena approach Judge Livingston for the
warrant.”
“That
would be me,” Briscoe responded, briefly waving his hand.
“He
signed off on warrants for two of our cases recently,” Green explained, giving
his partner a warning look. “We were hoping that he would recognize our names
and cut us some slack.”
“I see.
So you’re telling me that it didn’t have anything to do with your lack of
evidence and the fact that Judge Livingston is known far and wide as one of the
most lenient judges on the bench when it comes to handing out warrants?”
“Look,
Lieu, sometimes we cut a few corners and play the system. You can’t tell me you
didn’t do the same when you were in Special Narcotics. But we did it for the
right reasons,” Green maintained.
“You know
that requesting a specific judge, especially one known for his leniency,
compromises the search. If Fisher’s lawyer gets wind of this, added to the time
discrepancy in the warrant being issued, and makes a case against you, not only
will the warrant be tossed but the two of you will be up on charges of
misconduct.”
“What she
doesn’t know won’t hurt us,” Briscoe noted lightly. “I won’t tell if you
don’t.”
Van Buren
glared at him, his casual attitude adding considerably to her anger. “Whether
Fisher’s lawyer finds out or not is beside the point. What you did was wrong.”
She shook her head. “I told you this case had picked up a lot of interest from
the brass. Of all the cases to screw up, this was not the one.”
Briscoe’s
casualness turned to sudden intensity. “You didn’t see him with the girl at the
library, Lieutenant. He was playing her, just like he’s done before. She
could’ve been next – I saw it in his eyes. He’s a predator and it was up to us
to stop him, any way we could. We couldn’t take a chance on him finding out
that we were on to him. If he had gotten into his apartment after he spotted
us, I guarantee he would’ve dumped everything and we would’ve been left high
and dry.”
“If the
search gets tossed, we’re going to be high and dry anyway,” she insisted.
“We’ll lose the evidence we already have and what we might have gotten from his
computer. Thanks to the Cracker Jack police work the two of you did, it
wouldn’t surprise me if Fisher was back on the street before breakfast
tomorrow.”
Neither
of the detectives made an effort to argue. Van Buren glared at the two of them
for another minute to be sure she had made her point, then announced,
“Detective Green, I need to have a word with you, alone.”
Briscoe
glanced at him and got up to head for the door.
Once it
was closed behind him, Van Buren continued, “I need to know what went on with
Lennie and Fisher at the apartment.”
Shifting
uncomfortably in his chair, Green shrugged. “It was like we said before. Fisher
insisted on going into his apartment and we kept him out. There was a scuffle,
we arrested him, he resisted. That’s all.”
“Fisher’s
lawyer came to see me. Her client is claiming that Lennie provoked the
situation. Is there any truth to that?”
He shook
his head. “Lennie didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. Fisher got irate and
abusive as soon as we confronted him. He was very determined to get into his
place. My guess is we’re going to find something on his computer that will nail
him, or he knows we’re going to be able to prove that the milk belonged to the
victim.”
Van Buren
studied him carefully. “You didn’t really answer my question. Did Lennie help
the situation along or not?”
Green
took a moment before replying, “You know how fast these things happen. In my opinion,
Fisher doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Lennie didn’t do anything wrong.”
“So you
don’t think he pushed this just a little too hard and took some risks he
wouldn’t normally have taken? Because I get the feeling something else is going
on with him. Provoking or roughing up a suspect is more of a complaint I’d
expect to hear about you, not him.”
Ignoring
the inference, he insisted, “Lennie and I both did what we had to in order to
get a killer off the streets. I thought that was what everybody was pushing
for.”
After
contemplating another minute, she nodded. “Fine. You’re dismissed.”
***Briscoe shuffled some papers on his desk and
tried to appear unconcerned, even as he stole furtive glances toward Van
Buren’s office. He was no rookie – he had been down the same road before and
knew exactly why his superior had asked his partner to remain. He could only
imagine what Green was telling her. In the few minutes it took for the two of
them to finish their conversation, he worked himself into a state, convincing
himself that his partner had sold him out.
When
Green emerged and sat down at his desk, he immediately took notice of Briscoe’s
silent glare. He was all too familiar with his partner’s propensity for jumping
to conclusions whenever there was a question about his conduct, and he knew how
touchy Briscoe had been during the case. He could accept those facts. But he
found it difficult to accept what he perceived as a lack of trust on his
partner’s account, especially considering the position Briscoe had put him in.
As he
prepared to write up his report on Fisher’s arrest, he tried to ignore the
dagger looks Briscoe was shooting his way. He had no desire for an all-out
confrontation. But after several minutes of tension-filled silence, he allowed
it to get the best of him.
“Something you want to say, Partner?” he asked, trying hard to keep his
tone neutral.
“Not a
thing, Partner,” Briscoe shot back,
emphasizing the last word sarcastically.
Green
leaned forward on his desk. “If you have something on your mind, spit it out.”
Briscoe’s
eyes narrowed. “What’s there to say? I’m sure you only did what you felt you
had to.”
Shaking
his head, Green said in a lowered voice, “I’m not the enemy here. I didn’t
approach Lieu. She called me out. And just so you know, I stood up for you and
told her the arrest was kosher. But we both know what went down. You let this
case get to you. You were looking for a fight and it didn’t take much to coax
Fisher into one.”
“We’ve
already had this conversation,” Briscoe reminded him angrily. “I didn’t allow
anything to get to me. Fisher had everything he got coming to him.”
“I don’t
disagree with you. I just don’t like the way you went about it. I also don’t
like being included in your deception. You knew exactly why Fisher was cut
loose on the kidnapping charge. Lying to Fisher and his attorney about that
knowledge is one thing. But lying to the Lieutenant and an A.D.A., who in turn
told the same thing to a judge, is another,” he argued in a hushed tone.
“I did
what I did to get Fisher behind bars and keep him there,” Briscoe snapped. “And
I’d do the same thing again if I had to.”
“I want
to see Fisher pay for what he did as much as you do. But because we rushed it,
we might lose him. We should’ve waited with the warrant until we had more on
him. What good is it to lock him up if we’re going to have to let him go on a
technicality? I don’t want to give him the opportunity to do to another girl
what he did to Corinna Braden.”
Briscoe
regarded him for a moment with considerably less suspicion. “We’re not going to
lose him. McCoy wouldn’t have given his blessing on us holding Fisher if he
didn’t think he could make it work. All we have to do is keep our story
straight.”
Green
leaned back in his chair and let out a weary sigh. “The point is we shouldn’t
have to have a ‘story’, Lennie. That’s not the way you and I do business.”
With a
shrug, Briscoe maintained, “Desperate times call for desperate measures. I’ll
do whatever it takes to keep Fisher locked up, or better yet, strapped down and
shot up. He deserves everything we can give him.”
***Southerlyn’s strides were hindered slightly by
her straight skirt as she walked quickly through the station house, trying to
keep up with McCoy. With the exception of, “Let’s go,” he hadn’t said a word to
her since he had exited the observation room after speaking with Morgan. His
anger was obvious but she was unsure of what had caused it.
As they
exited the building, she asked, “Do you want a ride back to the office? I have
my car.”
Without
actually answering, McCoy turned and began walking beside her. Since he didn’t
know where she had parked, he was forced to adopt her more conservative pace,
much to Southerlyn’s relief.
They had
walked half a block before she decided to risk conversation. “You know, right
before we entered the interrogation room, you as much as told Lennie that we
couldn’t hold Fisher on the resisting arrest charge. What changed your mind?”
Keeping
his eyes focused straight ahead, he answered, “Fisher did. I wasn’t about to
give him the opportunity to kill again. If he wasn’t in jail right now, he’d be
at the bus station buying a one-way ticket out of town.”
Giving
him a surprised look, she asked, “How do you know he’s guilty? There’s no hard evidence
against him and he did offer an alibi.”
“I saw it
in his eyes.”
“Fisher
doesn’t exactly inspire my confidence, either,” she admitted. “But how can you
be sure he’s guilty with so few facts to go on?”
McCoy
reined in the fresh wave of anger that he felt, recalling all too vividly the
similar questioning from Morgan. He knew Southerlyn’s reasons for asking were
totally different, though, so he took a deep breath and calmly explained,
“After you’ve done this for a while, there are some common characteristics
you’ll notice about suspects who are being interrogated. Even though they may
be experienced liars, there are tell-tale signs when they’re trying to hide
something, especially something as big as murder. In Fisher’s case, you could
see the fear in his eyes.”
“This
isn’t exactly my first case, Jack. And Fisher had just been arrested by two
police detectives who accused him of attacking and killing a young girl. Anyone
would be fearful in that situation.”
McCoy shook
his head. “It wasn’t the fear of someone innocent mistakenly accused of a
crime. It was the fear of someone whose secret was about to be exposed.”
“And you
saw all of that in his eyes?” she asked skeptically.
“Like I
said, after you’ve been doing this for a while, you notice things. It’s just
like playing poker – everyone has a tell.”
She
walked quietly beside him for a moment, considering what he had said. After
several minutes, she asked, “Do you really think we can make the case against
him?”
He came
to a stop beside her car and faced her. “Unless we want to give him a shot at a
repeat performance, I think we sure as hell better do our best.”