“Moreover,” she said, “there appears to be blood caked in and around the hinge. If Milton wasn’t cleaning chickens, I want to know where that blood came from. And if the lab can match it with Michelle Cassidy’s.
“Goodbye, Johnny ” Kling said.
“Let’s go talk to him,” Carella said.
The Q and A took place in Lieutenant Byrnes’s corner office at eleven twenty-seven that Wednesday morning. Present in addition to the three detectives and Nellie was a female video technician from the D. A.’s Office, and Lieutenant Byrnes himself, who sat in the swivel chair behind his desk trying not to appear too excited about his detectives maybe cracking this celebrity case so soon. He could see naked greed gleaming in Ollie Weeks’s eyes. Ollie had caught the squeal this morning. This was a hot collar, and Ollie wanted it. Byrnes was ready to defend it to his death.
Milton had been read his rights the moment they found the knife and slipped the cuffs on him. The video technician turned on the camera, and Nellie read Miranda yet another time, advising Milton again that he was entitled to a lawyer if he wished one. Milton said, again, that he’d done nothing, had committed no crime, had nothing to hide, and therefore was in no need of legal representation. Every other person in the room figured these were famous last words.
“Do you recognize this?” Nellie asked, firing from the hip and aiming straight between the eyes, even though the weapon she held in her hand was a knife in a clear plastic bag. No knife, no case, she was thinking. Get to it. Nail him fast.
“I recognize it, yes,” Milton said.
“Is this the knife Detectives Carella and Kling found in your office at 1507 Stemmler Avenue?”
“It appears to be that knife, yes,” Milton said.
“Well, is it or isn’t it?” Nellie said.
“I believe it is.,
“Yes or no?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Does this knife belong to you, sir?”
“No, it does not,” Milton said.
“This knife…”
“Is not mine, that’s correct.”
“This knife the detectives found in your office…”
“Is not mine. I never saw that knife before the detectives found it. ”
“Came as a surprise to you, did it?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Detectives pulling books from your bookcase…”
“Um-huh.”
“… and they spot a switchblade knife you never saw before, huh?”
“Never.”
“You know, do you not, that from the moment the detectives removed several books from the shelf and spotted the knife…”
“I don’t know how it got there. Someone must have put it there.”
“Well, who if not you?” Nellie said. “You realize, don’t you, that from the moment the knife was discovered, no one has touched it with a naked hand? Not the arresting detectives, not me, not anyone in the police department or connected with the District Attorney’s Office. The detectives were wearing white cotton gloves when they conducted their search…”
“Yes, I saw that.”
“And when they found the knife, they dropped it into a plastic evidence bag, and that’s where it’s been since. No one has touched this knife with a naked hand. Except the person who hid it behind those books.”
“I don’t know how it got there.”
“But you do know, do you not, that what appears to be blood is caked in and around the hinge of that knife?”
“No, I didn’t know that until just this minute.”
“You know, do you not, that this knife will be sent to the police laboratory where it will be determined whether or not the suspect substance is, in fact, blood?”
“I would assume so. But it’s not my knife. I don’t care where you send it.”
“Mr. Milton, do you know that we can take your fingerprints whenever we want to?”
Milton looked surprised.
“Is that something else you didn’t know until just this minute?” Nellie asked.
“You don’t have the right to take my fingerprints. I didn’t commit any crime.”
“Yes, we do have the right, believe me, Mr. Milton.”
“I would have to ask a lawyer if you have that right.”
“Would you like to call your lawyer now?”
“I only have an entertainment lawyer.”
“Would you like to call a criminal lawyer?”
“I’m not a criminal. And I don’t know any criminal lawyers.”
“If you like, I can give you the names of ten high fliers who’ll come up here in a minute.”
“Anyway, why would I need a criminal lawyer? I didn’t commit any crime.”
“Be that as it may, you’ve been arrested for a crime, and any lawyer will tell you that we can take your fingerprints without permission. Under the Miranda ruling, fingerprinting you without permission would not be taking incriminating testi…”
“I won’t give you my permission.”
“We don’t need your permission. We can fingerprint or photograph you without permission, Mr. Milton, that is the long and short of it. The same way we can ask you to submit to a blood test or a Breathalyzer test…”
“No, you can’t.”
“Yes, we can. These are all non-testimonial responses and are permitted under the ruling.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means we’re going to take your prints and compare them with whatever’s on that knife. And it means we’re going to compare the blood on that knife with Michelle Cassidy’s blood, and if the fingerprints match and the blood matches, then we’ve got you stabbing her and killing her, Mr. Milton. That’s what it…”
“Killing her? What?”
“Killing her, Mr. Milton.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You want to tell me if this is your knife?”
“I already told you it’s not my knife. And I didn’t…”
“You want us to go through the whole dog and pony act, is that it?”
“I don’t know which dog and pony act you mean.”
“The fingerprinting, the comparison tests…”
“You’re not allowed to fingerprint me.”
“Fine, we’re not allowed to,” Nellie said, exasperated. “So I guess we’ll just have to break the law right this minute by doing what we’re not allowed to do. Fellas, you want to take him out and print him?” she said, turning to where Carella and Kling sat watching and listening.
“I want a lawyer,” Milton said.
“Lieutenant, can you get a lawyer for this man, please?”
“I want my own lawyer.”
“Your entertainment lawyer?”
“Better than some kid fresh out of law school.”
“Fine, get him up here, maybe he’ll entertain us. Meanwhile, we’ll print you. Give us something to discuss when he gets here.”
“You can’t print me before I talk to my lawyer.”
“Print him,” Byrnes said flatly.
Harry O’Brien — no relation to Bob O’Brien, the squad’s own hoodoo cop — came into the squadroom at a little past one that Wednesday afternoon, announced that he’d been contacted by Milton’s personal attorney and then produced a card identifying himself as a partner with the law firm of Hutchins, Baxter, Bailey and O’Brien. He shook hands with Milton and then Nellie, nodded to the assembled cops, and said, “So what is this?”
He was a man in his fifties, Nellie guessed, well-toned and tanned, with gray hair and a neatly trimmed gray mustache, wearing a double-breasted gray nailhead suit with a smart, solid blue silk tie. He half sat on, half leaned against the lieutenant’s desk, his arms folded across his chest, giving an impression of casual ease in a cops-and-robbers environment.