Free Likely to Die by Linda Fairstein Page B

interviewed?”
     McGraw snapped at me as he picked up a telephone to dial out, almost inhaling his cigarette butt in his haste to open his mouth and respond. “They’re ourguests, Miss Cooper. Understand that? I’ve extended the hospitality of the precinct to them—for tonight and for as long as they want it. So before you write me up and snitch on me to your boss, take a good look around out there.”
     Peterson shrugged his shoulders as McGraw dropped the receiver and motioned for me to follow him to the archway that led into the main squad room. His booming voice continued to ring out. “The door to the pen is wide open. See it? These gentlemen are free to sleep on the bench or the floor. We’ve been feeding them better than they’ve eaten in years. Haven’t we, Scrubs?”
     A grizzled old man with no hair and dried scabs all over his forearms looked up at McGraw from his perch on the edge of a detective’s desk.
     “That one’s called Scrubs. Says he can’t remember his real name. Had nowhere to go when he was discharged from Stuyvesant Psych four and a half years ago, so he just made the hospital his home. His shopping cart is down by the precinct garage, full of green uniforms and God knows what else. He steals—make that ‘borrows’—surgical scrubs from the linen supply closets and sells them to other homeless guys without clothes.
     “You hungry, Scrubs?”
     “No, sir.”
     “Any of my boys feed you today?”
     “Yessir, Mr. Chief. Had me two sweet rolls and a pastrami sandwich. And five Coca-Colas.”
     “Tell the lady what else you did today.”
     “Watched television. Right in that room where you is. Saw cartoons, saw wrestling, saw a picture of the lady doctor what got killed over at my place.”
     “You know her?”
     “Never seen her ‘cept on television.”
     “Where do you want to go tonight, Scrubs?”
     I had the distinct feeling the poor old guy had been asked this question earlier in the day, before he was made to perform for me.
     “Happy to stay right here with you, long as you’ll keep me.”
     McGraw turned to eyeball me. “Tellthat to Paul Battaglia, will ya? I don’t want anybody thinking I’m rough riding over these nutjobs. I’m taking very good care of them until I know what we got here. Those are my orders.”
     I figured I’d better save the $64,000 question for Peterson. As McGraw stormed away from me, I looked over at the lieutenant and quietly asked, “What if any of them told you he wanted to walk out of here tonight. Are they free to leave?”
     Chapman brushed past me as one of the men handling the phones yelled out his name. “Let her take a couple of them back to her place for the night, Loo. She’s got a real soft spot for the old guys, don’t you, Coop? She won’t cook for them, but I guarantee they’ll be back here tomorrow with fine-looking new threads on, every one of them.”
     “You know I can’t let any of ‘em walk out the door, Alex. They obviously don’t like to stay in shelters, and none has a single family contact to give us. We’ll never see them again. We printed each guy—”
     “Youwhat? ”
     “Alex, they consented to it.”
     “This kind of ‘consent’ won’t hold up for ten seconds when we get to court. You know better than that. Heaven forbid any one of these men has anything to do with Dogen’s murder, we’ll lose all the evidence you get out of this.”
     “Actually, on a couple of the name checks we ran in the computer there are outstanding warrants for at least three of them. Minor stuff—jumping the turnstile, petit larceny, criminal trespass. Nothing to suggest violence but just enough to let us keep them in our care until we take them down to the courthouse to arraign them on the charges.”
     More complications. “So do you know if they’ve got lawyers on the pending cases?”
     “Easy, Alex. We didn’t run the name checks ‘til after we asked all the questions. I know you