“Does she have a name?” I asked.
“Blanca. Blanca Robles,” Mercer said.
It was illegal in New York for law enforcement personnel to release identifying information about a rape victim to the public. The American media wouldn’t tag her by name. It was the first time I’d heard her name, and I rolled it off my tongue. Within hours, the European press would print it, and if they could come up with a photograph of Blanca, they would use that as well.
“Who interviewed her today?” I wanted to hear Ryan’s name. I wanted to know it had been anything except a group session.
McKinney barged right in. “Ellen and I talked with her. Ryan sat in. One of the paras took notes. And Mercer, of course. I didn’t get the idea to bring June in on this till just a couple of hours ago.”
“Five on one? Not the way we usually make our witnesses comfortable.”
“You know how it is on these major cases, Alex. Nothing goes according to plan. I needed to explain the process to her and tell her what we expect of her this week. The tabloids are hounding her like crazy. They’ve already found out where she lives. The Witness Aid Unit is working with Safe Horizon to relocate her.” McKinney was talking as though he did this kind of victim advocacy all the time, rather than his administrative duties.
“The interview. Pedigree and case facts. Ryan did that, right?” Rape cases were like no other kind of crime. You were asking a woman to reveal facts about the most intimate kind of trauma forced on her, when often she had never spoken of such acts to anyone outside her personal relationships. There was an art to doing this work well, and while we hand-selected and trained our unit assistants, not all prosecutors had the manner to bond patiently-yet firmly-with rape victims and get the full story of what occurred.
One side of Ryan’s lip pulled back. He wanted to answer me but didn’t dare with McKinney driving the discussion. “I let Ellen do it, actually,” Pat said. “Woman-to-woman kind of thing.”
“Ellen? Really?” I looked across the table at McKinney’s lover. “I didn’t think you’d ever spoken with a rape victim before.”
“She’s done some of the most difficult work in this office, Alex. She’s-”
“It’s not the same thing, Pat.” The gender of the cop or prosecutor didn’t matter a fraction as much as his or her sensitivity to the specific issues, an ability to connect to the victim and earn her trust in eliciting nuanced details. “Did you use our screening sheet to get the background and pedigree?”
“I didn’t know there were screening sheets until Ryan gave me one. But I’d already started my questioning, so it was too late,” Ellen said.
The screening tool had been developed when the unit was founded by my predecessor, and it had been fine-tuned over the last two decades. It provided a pretty thorough means of getting information from a witness, including prior arrests, psychiatric history, drug use, any other history of sexual assault-which sometimes colored the way a victim responded to the incident at hand-and a detailed primer that resulted in giving the assistant DA an arsenal of facts before the case debriefing even began.
“We can get whatever information you want tomorrow if you think it’s so important, Alex. Blanca’s a damn impressive witness, I can tell you that,” Pat said. “No question about what happened in that hotel room. Are you skeptical already?”
“Of the accuser?” I asked. “Not at all. I’ve just come from a part of the world which views these crimes and our system very differently. The French are up in arms about the arrest.”
“What else do you need to know?” Ellen asked. “I mean, she’s obviously a very religious person. She’s widowed, with a teenage daughter. Soft-spoken and demure. Wait till you hear the story of what happened to her in Guatemala during the civil war there. It’ll break your heart.”
“Do you know whether she’s ever been the victim of a crime before?”
“Tomorrow, Alex,” McKinney said before Ellen could answer.
“What do you have on her medical history?” I asked, seeing a reference to a special housing situation in the police reports.
“Mañana. Get it? Everyone on this team has been working like a dog, so don’t come in here punching holes in the air like you could have done it better.”
“Good job, then, to all of you. That’s what I should have said first.” A half-assed job was more likely the reality, if I knew Ellen Gunsher’s work, but Blanca Robles had certainly convinced everyone who met her after the assault that it had occurred. Now we needed to get her in to the grand jury and through the gauntlet that had been stirred up by the frenzied media. “I look forward to meeting her.”
“Thanks, Alex,” Mercer said. “We all know what it’s like when a case breaks and you’re a million miles away and all you want to do is come back and work it from the inside with your buddies. I’m glad you’re here.”
June Simpson came back into the room. “Mr. Battaglia needs fifteen minutes.”
“Let’s take a break,” McKinney said. “Back at the table at seven-thirty, all your answers at the ready for the Boss.”
Paul Battaglia wouldn’t micromanage cases in his office-not even the big ones-but he was ruthless about the need to know any bit of intelligence that might connect to something he could use to manipulate a political situation. Ready with answers was exactly what everyone in the room needed to be.
My office was on the same corridor as the conference room. I nodded to Ryan, and he and Mercer ambled out to follow me there.
I went to my desk and sat down. I had missed only two business days, and my secretary had stacked the messages from Friday-a quiet day while I was in flight-along with the enormous pile from today, mostly related to the MGD case.
“I hated to break up your vacation, Alex,” Mercer said.
“Don’t even think about that. You know I’d go crazy over there second-guessing everyone anyway,” I said, smiling up at him, “except you and Ryan. Blanca’s good?”
“Real good. She had the docs in tears yesterday afternoon, telling them her life story.”
“Did you get everything you need from her?”
“We didn’t press too hard on Sunday. Her coworkers believed her, and they’ve known her for three years. Steady employment record. It wasn’t like some woman walking in off the street with no one to vouch for her. The medical team and advocates all thought she presented well.”
“I mean Ellen’s workup today.”
Ryan Blackmer had a great sense of humor. “May I be heard, Your Honor?”
“Sure.”
“It was the most pathetic interview I’ve seen in my six years here. Gunsher has no ear for fine-tuning, doesn’t understand that in a rape case it’s all in the details.”
“Did she let you get into it?”
“I’ve pranked her too many times. She iced me out.”
“Well, that changes in the morning,” I said. “You’re with me.”
“Awesome.”
“Did Gil-Darsin say anything at all?”
“Mike took him off the plane. He was sitting in the first seat on the aisle. Looked up when Mike showed the attendant his shield, sort of grimaced, and went along without a scene when asked to step off. Gracious, pleasant, not a word.”
“Miranda?”
“They read him his rights in the Air France boarding area. Drove him back to the city. Mike tried to schmooze him along the way but got nothing. When they reached the SVU offices and advised him he could make a call, he woke up his lawyer.”
“He already had a lawyer?”
“The suit who handles all his business matters. White-collar crime type, not street stuff. Good mouthpiece. I think his name’s Krovatin.”
“Gerry Krovatin? He’s first-rate. I’ve never gone up against him before. It’ll be a real challenge.”
“No, no, Coop. He’s conflicted out. Runs all the WEB matters internationally, so he can’t rep Baby Mo on this caper.”