I could see Kerry under the awning of her hotel when my taxi pulled up at nine fifteen, and I slid across behind the driver's seat to let her in
Good morning. I guess I don't have to ask about your weekend. The newspapers and television are full of it. I don't know how you do it, Alex. Doesn't it ever get to you, all this violence and pain? "Sure it does. But it's an awfully good feeling to be able to try to do something about it, try to put people's lives back together. Were you able to relax at all? "It's beginning to sink in now. I'm starting to feel like there is life after Floyd Warren-that we've turned the tables on him at last."
I shifted in my seat and stared out the window as the driver went back to the FDR Drive for the ride downtown. Kerry Hastings wasn't a vindictive woman, but I didn't think she'd like the idea that Mercer was about to propose.
"Do I need to tell you what I'm going to say to Judge Lamont?"
"Only if you want to," I said. Impact statements were a relatively new phenomenon, a result of the advocacy movement of the 1980s, which expanded the rights of crime victims. I didn't have to try to articulate what effect Kerry's night of terror had had on the rest of her life-she would address Lamont directly, expressing her own thoughts and emotions.
"I wrote it out. I'm sort of worried about breaking down."
I smiled at her. "This part is so much easier. You'll do fine."
She handed me a copy of the words she intended to say and I skimmed it as we cruised down the highway. "I ceased to be human during the rape," she wrote, after detailing the facts. The thoughts she had during the occurrence of the crime were things she was never allowed to speak at either trial. "I became prey to Floyd Warren, who attacked me like a rabid beast."
"Too strong?"
The cab veered from side to side as a livery driver cut into our lane. "Take it easy," I said to the driver. "We're not in a hurry, okay?"
"Is it too much?"
"It's great. If I'd been half as descriptive to the jury, the verdict would be overturned on appeal. People who don't understand these crimes need to hear this."
The driver made the turn off the highway under the Brooklyn Bridge and began to wind through the streets of Chinatown that would bring him behind the courthouse, around to the DA's office at One Hogan Place.
We came to a full stop at the intersection of Baxter Street and Hogan. I waved at a couple of colleagues crossing in front of us. One of them spotted me through the open window and gave me a thumbs-up, shouting out, "Nice win on that Warren case."
The block was unusually short and narrow for the city. The avenues on either end of it were restricted to one-way traffic, but the only two doors on Hogan Place were the entrances to our office-the south end of the vast criminal courthouse that fronted on Centre Street-and the rear door of our satellite building across the way.
The driver stopped the cab as I directed, and I leaned forward to hand him the fare. Kerry unbuckled her seat belt and started to get out.
She had one foot on the pavement and the other still in the cab when we were rear-ended with enormous force. The taxi lurched forward and my head slammed against the partition. Kerry screamed as she fell out onto the ground and was dragged along for almost fifteen feet, hanging on to the door, as the driver's foot hit the gas instead of the brake.
THIRTY-FOUR
Cops came running from every direction, in uniform and plainclothes, throwing cardboard coffee cups and brown paper bags filled with doughnuts and bagels to the sidewalk as they dashed to Kerry Hastings's side. On any given day, hundreds of officers were scheduled to appear in the DA's office-to testify in old cases, to participate in trial prep of new matters, to transport prisoners or bring them to be arraigned, and to kibbitz with courthouse friends.
The cabdriver, sobbing, had stepped out and raised his hands over his head. He was mumbling some kind of prayer in an unintelligible dialect
It's fine," I told him. "It's just an accident. I unbuckled my belt and got out on my side to check on Kerry, who'd been surrounded by detectives, two of whom were squatting, reassuring her and checking her vital signs. Before I could get around the tail of the cab, I realized that several cops had set out to chase after the occupants of the car that had smashed into us.
Their guns were drawn and they were yelling at two young men and one woman to stop. On the asphalt park behind the office, scores of Asian children in a summer school gym class scattered as the cops ran among them and dashed between their kickballs.
I got to my knees beside Kerry. The men who were comforting her recognized me and moved back
I'll be fine," she said, closing her eyes as she winced in pain. "I've been through worse."
"We got a bus on the way, Miss Cooper," one of the men said to me. "I just called for an ambulance."
There was blood all over Kerry's arm, and a large stain growing on the fringes of her pants leg, which had ripped apart from her thigh down to her ankle. She tried to put her scraped hands down on the ground to boost herself up.
"Don't try to move, miss. Something may be broken."
She looked up at the cop. "I think it's just a lot of cuts and bruises. I didn't let go of the door because I was afraid I'd wind up under the wheels."
"I'll wait with her," I said. "Would you go into the lobby and tell the security officer to call my secretary? Ask her to send Mercer Wallace down here, please."
A crowd had gathered along the length of the block-prosecutors, defense attorneys, civilian witnesses, support staff. I could see that the front end of the old green Plymouth that had hit us was completely crumpled, and beyond the car, I could hear the commotion of all the onlookers watching the chase.
I felt a strong hand on my shoulder, and then a familiar voice spoke to me. "I never thought I'd be offering myself as a witness for the prosecution, Alex. The kid that hit you must have been going forty miles an hour. How's your head?"
Justin Feldman was one of the best lawyers in New York. We had crossed swords occasionally, but most of his work was in the federal courthouse one block away, with corporate clients who relied on his great expertise in securities litigation.
"I'm fine, Justin. Lucky I was belted in. That car came out of nowhere."
"Actually, it didn't," he said, pointing to the empty parking space at the corner of the street, where our cabbie had made the turn into the block. "I was on my way down Baxter Street, coming from federal court. Those kids picked a pretty dumb place to pull a stunt like this, but your cab passed by, made a full stop right in front of them-it would have been hard to miss you-when the driver floored it and crashed right into you. It sounded like sirens were close by. Within seconds, an ambulance pulled in the wrong way, stopping nose to nose against the cab.
The attendants jogged over to Kerry's side as I stood up and we all moved back so they could make an initial determination about her condition.
Mercer came through the revolving door of the building and greeted Justin and me. "What's happening?"
"An accident. They're checking Kerry out now."
"She's being generous," Justin said, as Mercer got close to the EMTs so that Kerry could see he was there. She smiled when he caught her eye.
A cheer went up from the crowd. The five or six cops who had taken off after the occupants of the car were coming back in our direction. Two of them had someone by the arm. I could see only the dark hair-heads bowed-of the male and female who were being pulled along by the officers.
The courthouse crowd, including defendants on their way to calendar dates and hearings, was boisterous, and a handful of uniformed court officers were trying to clear a path for the cops.