Marty had told me to keep my lips tightly zipped but, instead, my jaw hung open in surprise. For a start, I wasn’t Mr Murphy, I was Mr Hinkley. And surely one ‘took the Fifth’ only in court, not in a police interview. If I knew that, then my Harvard-trained attorney undoubtedly should have known it as well.
I wanted to say something — to complain that my lawyer was an idiot — but he had also said to trust him, he knew what he was doing.
I closed my mouth again and kept it that way.
The detective, meanwhile, wore a semi-satisfied expression as if he felt he was getting somewhere.
‘Why did you kill Federal Special Agent Stephanie Dean?’
‘My client exercises his right under the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution not to answer that question on the grounds he might incriminate himself.’ Marty said it again without any trace of emotion in his voice.
And so the interview progressed.
Question from the detective, same answer from Marty.
Neither of them seemed to tire of the game as question after question was answered in identical fashion. I remained seated throughout on Marty’s right, stock-still and stony-faced, while all the time squirming inside at the guilty picture the answers were painting in everyone’s mind, mine included.
Finally, after about two hours, the detective stood up and went outside with the prosecutor.
‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’ I said to Marty.
He didn’t answer. He just put a finger to his lips, pointed at the mirror to my right and raised his eyebrows.
Yes. Stupid of me. I understood, all right.
One-way glass and, no doubt, a microphone picking up everything we said.
We sat in silence for a good ten minutes, until the prosecutor returned.
‘Patrick Sean Murphy,’ he said formally, ‘I am indicting you for the first-degree murders of Diego Manuel Ríos and Stephanie Mary Dean and for the malicious wounding of Robert Earl Wade.’
He went on to outline the date and time of the alleged crimes, and then he read me some further rights, but I wasn’t really listening.
First-degree murder.
There had to be some mistake.
35
It wasn’t Diego who made the trip to Rikers Island in chains.
It was me, as Patrick Sean Murphy.
I spent a second night in custody, this time in what was appropriately named the ‘County Lockup’, a metal cage made of inch-thick steel bars solidly embedded into the concrete floor and the ceiling.
I had complained to Marty Mandalay, my so-called lawyer, that, in my opinion, his bizarre replies to the detective’s questions had done nothing but make it more likely I would be indicted for first-degree murder.
‘I thought lawyers were meant to help their clients,’ I’d said to him sarcastically.
‘Trust me,’ he had replied. And then he’d winked at me, leaving me totally confused. I now wondered if, far from trying to get me released, he had actually been doing his best to get me charged.
The time seemed to drag on for ever, not helped again by having the bright overhead light blazing away all night. There was an electric fan situated behind a grille in one corner of the cage but either it didn’t work or the staff refused to turn it on when I asked them to.
Probably the latter.
I was not the flavour of the month with the lockup staff. ‘Cop killer,’ I heard one of them say to a colleague, so I would clearly receive no acts of kindness from this lot.
When I’d first arrived from the police station, I had been issued with a faded orange boiler suit with ‘County Lockup’ stencilled on the back in large black letters. Then I had been made to strip naked in the centre of a room full of correctional staff, before being thoroughly examined by them to ensure that I had no drugs, mobile telephones or other contraband hidden in any of my bodily orifices.
If the process had been designed to totally humiliate the prisoner, then it had succeeded admirably.
How could this be happening to me? I kept asking myself. I had done nothing wrong. Yet everyone else seemed to think I had, apparently including Tony Andretti. Perhaps I should have used my one permitted telephone call to ring Paul Maldini in London rather than Tony. But the Nassau County cops probably wouldn’t have let me make an international call anyway.
Was Paul Maldini even aware, I wondered, that one of his senior integrity officers was currently locked up in a New York jail? Somehow I doubted it.
At around nine in the morning I was told I would be going to an arraignment hearing at the county courthouse.
I had to stand with my hands behind my back through a gap in the cage door while manacles were applied to my wrists. Then leg irons were placed around each ankle with only a short length of chain between them so I had to hobble.
‘Is this all really necessary?’ I asked the uniformed officer as he none-too-gently locked everything in place.
‘You’re a Category A prisoner,’ he answered, whatever that meant.
I suddenly realised that he was more frightened of me than I was of him. I jangled the manacles and made him jump backwards in alarm. It was a minor victory in an otherwise dire situation.
I was loaded into a prison van for the short journey from the lockup to the courthouse and then escorted by two burly correctional staff to a holding cell in the basement. Here, after about an hour, Marty Mandalay came to see me.
‘Just answer yes to your name when asked,’ he said.
‘Which name?’ I asked. ‘Patrick Murphy or Jeff Hinkley?’
‘Patrick Murphy,’ he said.
‘But…’
‘No buts. Do as I ask and you’ll be out by tonight. Or maybe tomorrow night.’
‘Tonight,’ I said firmly. ‘I can’t stand another night of this.’
‘I’ll try,’ he said, but I could tell he wasn’t very optimistic. ‘The judge will ask if you want to plead. Say nothing. I will do the talking.’
‘How about bail?’ I asked.
‘You won’t get it,’ Marty said. ‘Killing a federal law-enforcement officer is a capital offence. Add to that you’re a foreigner, so there’s absolutely no chance of bail and I won’t even ask for it. It will prevent the judge having to deny. Better not to have asked than have it denied.’
I had to trust his judgement. What else could I do?
An arraignment hearing was similar to an appearance at a magistrates’ court in England. It was the start of the legal process.
The accused was presented before a judge to confirm his or her name and address, and also to ensure that the charges, or indictments, were understood.
‘Are you Patrick Sean Murphy, residing on the backside at Belmont Park racetrack?’ asked the judge.
‘Yes,’ I replied.
I wondered if that constituted perjury.
He then read out the indictments: two counts of murder in the first degree with premeditation and malice aforethought, plus one count of malicious wounding. It didn’t sound at all good.
‘Do you understand the indictments?’ the judge asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ I replied.
‘Do you wish to enter a plea?’
Marty Mandalay stood up next to me.
‘Not at this time, Your Honour.’
The judge paused for a moment, looking at Marty, as if he was waiting for him to apply for a bail hearing.
He didn’t.
‘Remanded to New York City Correctional Department. Next appearance two weeks from today. Take him away.’ The judge banged his gavel to indicate that proceedings were at an end.
The whole hearing had taken less than five minutes but it hadn’t passed unnoticed by the media, who were squeezed tightly into the courtroom press area. It seemed that I was quite a celebrity.