Bronx Justice

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“Maybe,” Jaywalker agreed. “McCarthy’s out interviewing the victims. We’ll find out soon enough.”

Still, Jaywalker didn’t like the sound of it. And unlike Darren, he wasn’t prepared to assume that a detective would coach a witness on something like this, not with so much at stake. Sure, cops lied. Jaywalker had learned that early in his DEA days. So did detectives, federal agents, state troopers, and just about everyone else who wore a badge and carried a gun. But they lied selectively. They lied about their own conduct, where they’d cut corners to make a collar stick or a search hold up, or where a case came down to a defendant’s word against one of their own. In those instances, an us-against-them mentality immediately kicked in, and truth became an early casualty. But in cases involving civilian complainants, where the role of law enforcement was more peripheral, lying on the part of the police was the exception, not the rule. Besides, Detective Rendell had impressed Jaywalker as being fair. “She IDs him or she doesn’t,” he’d said the morning they were waiting in court for Joanna Kenarden to show up and have a look at Darren. “If he’s not the guy, I don’t want him.”

No, if the victims were saying the rapist had stuttered, Jaywalker was willing to believe them. Which could mean only one thing, he knew.

Again, the pendulum had swung. Jaywalker had done it again. He’d allowed himself to be taken in, to be completely won over by Darren’s I didn’t do it, by his tears and open palms. Would he never learn? Just when he thought himself too hardened and cynical to be conned, along comes this twenty-two-year-old kid who can’t even pass a polygraph, and he turns Jaywalker into the easiest mark in town.

He felt like a total jerk.

John McCarthy called three days later. He’d succeeded in interviewing two of the victims, Eleanor Cerami and Elvira Caldwell. He’d been refused by one, Joanne Kenarden. Tania Maldonado was out of town, but would be back in a day or two. As for the fourteen-year-old, Maria Sanchez, her parents wouldn’t let her talk to anybody.

“Both of these girls, Cerami and Caldwell, identify Darren from the photo I showed them,” said McCarthy. “Although they both say he looks like he’s lost weight since they saw him.”

“Independently?”

“Independently. I interviewed them separately. Of course, I told each of them that the other one had already talked to me. Old police habits die hard, if you know what I mean.”

“What else did they say?” Jaywalker asked.

“Well,” said McCarthy, “the M.O. is identical. He follows them onto an elevator, presses a floor and, on the way up, pulls a knife, takes them off the elevator and up to a landing. There he first makes them blow him, and then he rapes them. He succeeded with Cerami. With Caldwell, there was a noise, and he split.”

“Were there conversations?”

“Yeah, both times. He seems to be quite a talker.”