Making The Case
Tenth Floor
One Hogan Place
Tuesday 19th September 2006
"What the hell are you doing?" Jack McCoy snapped.
Regan Markham, deeply absorbed in forensic reports and witness statements, was startled enough to drop the folder she was holding. Papers cascaded over her lap and to the floor.
"Shit," she said, scrabbling to catch them. McCoy made no move to help her, and when Regan looked up at him from where she knelt on the floor with her hands full of papers she quailed at the look on his face.
"I asked what you're doing here, Ms Markham."
"The Walker case," she blurted.
"I ask you to get together with the detectives and you think that means 'help yourself to a new office while you're at it'?" McCoy looked like he wanted to kill her. Regan knew from experience what that look was like, and McCoy had it.
" Colleen Petraky," Regan said. "She said – " The words died on her lips.
"I see," McCoy said. He took a step back, looked away. "She should know better. This desk isn't available."
"I'll move." Regan said. She dumped her papers back on the desk and frantically started putting them in order. "One of the conference rooms. Give me a minute, I'll be gone – " The papers escaped from her grasp again and she dived after them.
"Here." McCoy crouched down and picked up a crime scene photo. He glanced at it for maybe a second too long, then flipped it face down and held it out to her.
"Thanks," Regan said, taking it as a peace offering. Only in the criminal justice system can pictures of murdered women be considered peace offerings.
"What do you have on the case?"
"I think we're solid to indict Nettle for the Fraud." Regan corralled the last of the papers and put them on the desk. McCoy stood up when she did and leaned against the doorframe. "On the break-in and the murder, not so much. His prints were in the right places in Walker's apartment – desk, bookshelves, computer. The other prints all belong to people who could maybe explain their presence."
"What do you mean?"
" Walker wrote a story on racism in the police force about six weeks ago. One of the orphan prints belongs to a black cop in Narcotics. Prints from a cop who responded to the break-in. FBI turned up a match on one of the other sets, a government employee who was printed when he worked in DOD. Again, a link to Walker's research."
"That goes for Nettle, too." McCoy pointed out.
"Nettle wasn't a source. He was a target."
"It's not enough. Any other prints?"
"Prints from a colleague, Luke Conroy. Sorry, former colleague. He got laid off in a restructure. These are weird, though. One under the toilet seat, and a bunch inside the beside table drawer. I guess it's been a while since he's been there and the rest got cleaned away. I don't get these left-hand prints inside the drawer, though."
"What do you mean?"
"The drawers were on the left hand side of the bed. The prints are a bunch of smudgy left-handed prints on the far right of the drawer, little finger on the left." Regan gestured to her desk drawers. "Say these are the bedside table. I'm standing by the bed like so – in order to get my prints where Conroy's were found I have to turn this way, reach over that way, stretch – ouch." She rubbed her back. "It's bizarre."
Jack McCoy was smiling, and she realised he was laughing at her.
"What? What's funny?"
He came into the office. "The desk drawers are the beside table? So where I'm standing is the bed?"
"Okay," Regan said.
McCoy reached out to the drawer from the middle of the 'bed'. He could just reach the drawer handle but couldn't get enough purchase to open it more than an inch. Then he took hold of the drawer by the front of it, thumb on the outside, four fingers inside near the far right side, and pulled it the rest of the way open.
"I don't think Luke Conroy was in that apartment as a colleague," McCoy said, straightening up. "And I think we can guess where Jennifer Walker kept her condoms."
"None recorded as found in the drawer," Regan said, looking for the relevant report.
"Maybe she ran out."
"Maybe." Regan scanned the report. "That's odd. No birth control of any kind in the bedroom or the bathroom."
"Maybe she ran out, Regan, it happens." McCoy said.
"Autopsy says never pregnant." Regan said. "No indication she couldn't get that way."
"So?"
"So healthy young sexually active women don't successfully avoid pregnancy by being happy-go-lucky with birth control," Regan said.
"And what does that tell you?" McCoy asked.
"Nothing. Just – " The phone on her desk rang. "'Scuse me. Hello, Regan Markham? Yes. Where? Are you sure? Yes, hang on, he's here." She put her hand over the mouthpiece. "Detective Green. He and Briscoe just followed Nettle to a Port Authority locker full of papers. He saw enough over Nettle's shoulder to recognise a city council account docket and something in Jennifer Walker's handwriting."
McCoy held out his hand for the phone. "Detective Green. A warrant is on its way to you. Pick up those papers – and then pick up Councillor Nettle." He reached past Regan to hang up the phone. "Better get moving, Ms Markham. Keep me posted."
"Yes, s – yes, Mr McCoy," Regan said, reaching for a pen.