‘‘You gotta hang out till the detectives get here,’’ Mirabel says. She has her notepad out.
‘‘Yeah.’’ Simone leans against the bus and gives Mirabel her name, serial number, time of arrival, time of pronouncement of death, then motions for Ryan to do the same. Boy, she’d like a cigarette, except she’s trying to quit. Pack she carries in her pocket is burning a hole in her Windbreaker.
‘‘What’s the word?’’ Tony says. He’s unrolling the yellow crime scene tape around the staircase area.
‘‘Not a pretty sight.’’
Fire Marshal Richard Fergussen comes clanking down the stairs. He ducks under the tape. He’s done. He hates this kind of call, dead girl, beaten to hell and back. Nothing he can do for her. Makes him worry about his Anna Marie, who’s going off to Boston College in August. Wouldn’t listen about Fordham and living at home. At least he could protect her from some of the bad stuff out there. She’s such a sweet, trusting kid. The ulcer starts grinding his gut. He’s got his bottle of Maalox in the car. He can’t hold back the shudder, can’t shake the image of that poor girl up there, something he can’t do a goddam thing about. His job is saving lives. Now it’s up to the NYPD.
An unmarked screeches to a stop next to the FDNY bus. A radio car follows.
Fire Marshal Fergussen joins the patrol officers.
‘‘Homicide?’’ Officer Castro asks.
‘‘Possible,’’ Fire Marshal Fergussen replies.
‘‘What do we have?’’ Detective First Grade Molly Rosen, wearing a white shirt, black linen pants, climbs out of the passenger side of the unmarked, while her partner, Greg Noriega, pops the trunk and collects camera and booties. She’s sweating right through the shirt she paid too much for at Banana Republic, even though it was on sale.
‘‘First Officer?’’ she says.
‘‘Foot Patrol Officer Anthony Warbren.’’
Rosen tilts her Mets cap upward. She takes in the scene. The EMTs, the fire marshal, the staircase to the High Line, the loosened padlock. The sun like a fucking ball of fire overhead. The parking lot with scattered vehicles. ‘‘Okay,’’ she says. ‘‘Let’s have it.’’
Tony Warbren reads from his notepad. ‘‘Call came in at nine twenty. Chopper 6 reported what looked like a body on the High Line, around 19th Street. Castro and I were three blocks away and arrived on the scene at nine forty-two. Two FDNY EMTs, Norwood and Moore, running up the stairs.’’ He nods to Norwood and Moore, who lean against the bus. ‘‘Fire Marshal-’’
‘‘Richard Fergussen,’’ the fire marshal says. ‘‘Got here first. Dead woman. Face down. Didn’t touch anything except her wrist for a pulse. EMTs turned her on her back.’’ He blinks as Noriega begins taking photos.
‘‘I want the scene extended,’’ Molly Rosen tells the two uniforms from the radio car. She points. ‘‘There. There. There.’’ Barriers are set up and the taped area is widened. ‘‘The plates on every car. Get me a printout.’’
‘‘The padlock was hanging loose,’’ Warbren continues.
‘‘Like it was when I got here,’’ Fire Marshal Fergussen says.
‘‘In order to preserve the integrity, Castro and I didn’t climb the stairs or enter the crime scene,’’ says Warbren.
‘‘Good. Warbren, you stay here. Castro, canvass these buildings.’’ She nods at the commercial buildings and a tenement across 10th, facing the High Line. ‘‘See if you can round up a few witnesses.’’ She eyes the gathering group of the curious held back by the wooden horses and yellow tape strung around by the patrol officers. ‘‘Let’s get some additional personnel here to make nice with the crowd and maybe come up with something valuable.’’
Molly Rosen slides the latex gloves on heat-swollen hands and ties the booties over the black pumps, which have begun to pinch. She opens the gate and climbs the rattling stairs. She’s sweating buckets. Doesn’t like that she has to stop at the top to catch her breath, for chrissakes, and to quiet her stomach. Her mouth tastes like raw fish. She is forty-one, a fifteen-year veteran NYPD, gold shield eight years. Anyone would tell you, she’s tough, knows her stuff. Worked her way up butting heads with the good old boys in the department. Has great kids-Josie three, Del Jr. five, and Mary eight. Great kids thanks to Del, who quit his teaching job to be a stay-at-home dad. It was a case of who wanted what more.
Noriega’s flash goes off. Rosen wobbles. ‘‘You okay?’’ he says. Rosen doesn’t look okay. She’s got this pasty look on her face. She’s tough as nails with this rep of chewing up rookie homicide detectives and spitting them back to narcotics, and he for sure doesn’t want to go back there.
‘‘Yeah, why wouldn’t I be okay?’’ She wipes the oily sweat off her face with a tissue. Okay if being fucking pregnant again is okay.
‘‘Looks like all that’s missing are the cows,’’ Noriega says. He snaps what may or may not be the path to the vic made by the perp and/or the fire marshal and the EMTs.
Dr. Larry Vander Roon from the ME’s office appears on the stairs. He’s overweight and only months from retirement, but everyone else is busy. He could do without this, but they can’t do without him. They don’t have enough on staff. Cutbacks all the time, now they’re talking about his retirement as attrition. If it was up to him, he wouldn’t retire. It’s Joanne who wants it. She’s got her eye on a condo in Fort Myers. What the hell would he do there, sit by a pool and listen to the jabber? Not him.
When he gets to the top of the stairs, the sun bakes right down on him. It’s an oven up here. The body is going to stink something awful, the corruption difficult. Give him a winter body anytime.
The meadow is green, almost lush in the late morning heat. The sun is high and there are no clouds to offset the glare. A faint breeze barely moves the blades of tall grass and the wildflowers. The footfalls of the fire marshal and the two EMTs are unmistakable, marking a passage of approximately twenty feet from the top of the stairs to the body. It is understood that this may have obscured the path left by the killer, should this prove to be a homicide.
Because of this probability, the body has been left uncovered.
Scattered along the way from the top of the stairs to the body are various articles of clothing. A black T-shirt lying on a clump of daisy-like wildflowers, black pants and a stained white blazer closer to the body. A lacy black bra and black bikini panties, tossed to the right and to the left. Noriega marks each spot.
The vic is female, late twenties, early thirties, slim, long blond hair. Her eyes half-open slits, one side of her face obscured by dried brown blood, purple bruising. She is naked, brutally beaten. Rigor has set in.
Noriega snaps dozens of pictures of the vic from all angles, then circles around taking care where he steps, taking more photos of the area. He narrowly misses tripping over an empty wine bottle. ‘‘Wine bottle. Empty.’’
‘‘Mark it.’’
He drops a marker, slings his camera over his shoulder, and sketches out the scene in his notepad. The air reeks with decomposing body smells.
Molly Rosen steps aside so Larry Vander Roon can get to the body. She calls down to the patrol officers. ‘‘I want the body isolated and this whole area of the High Line around the body, a block both ways, uptown and downtown, cordoned off.’’
‘‘She was spotted by Chopper 6 at nine twenty this morning,’’ Rosen says. ‘‘The fire marshal got here first, then the EMTs, who pronounced her. They flipped her over on her back.’’