Read Online Likely to Die by Linda Fairstein - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Linda Fairstein
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“Jesus, this place was a felony waiting to happen. It’s amazing this is the first.”
“Not so fast, Chief. Cooper’s got a few surprises for you, just to open the field a little wider. If you don’t thinkI have enough suspects to keep us busy, Nurse Ratchett’ll give you something else to worry about. I think we’ve got our best shot of finding our killer among the walking wounded of the underground, but Alex has a few stories that suggest we keep our options open.”
6
YOU KNOW HOW I HATE TO START OFF BYagreeing with Chapman, but most days it really does look like the inmates are running the asylum,“ I commented as I turned to my padful of case notes, ”and with a good number of problems contributed by some of the staff, too.“
“Chief,” Peterson said by way of explanation to McGraw, who was not used to prosecutors playing a role in a police briefing, “I asked Alex to round up all the sexual assault cases she’s had in any of our hospitals during the last couple of years. My guys wouldn’t know about anything that wasn’t a homicide, so I thought it might be useful ‘cause of the way Dogen got it in this case.”
“Sarah and I pulled everything we could think of, but it’s just a sampling. Any of your loved ones thinking about elective surgery in the near future, try the Animal Medical Center or a visiting nurse service—these big hospitals could kill you. I’ll start close to home.
“Here at Mid-Manhattan we’ve got a few open investigations. The 17th Squad just locked up a janitor who’s only worked in the place for three months. He likes to slip into a white lab coat, look for rooms with women patients who don’t speak English—they don’t seem to question his presence, probably because they can’t. The women assume he’s a doctor, so when he pulls back the covers and starts to do a vaginal exam they submit to it. His name’s Arthur Chelenko—arrested and fired two weeks ago. Only then did Personnel get a record check. He was fired from Bronx Samaritan last year for doing exactly the same thing. Just lied on his résumé—no one checked it out—and he’s back here in business again.”
“In jail?”
“No. He made bail—he’s out pending indictment and trial.”
McCabe, Losenti, and Ramirez—the three detectives who’d get stuck with doing the legwork—were taking down all the information and I passed them copies of Chelenko’s rap sheet, with his address and pedigree information.
“Any history of violence?” Wallace asked.
“Not according to his sheet. But, of course, we’ve got to factor in the grudge motive, or the possibility of a frenzied response if his intention was a sexual assault and Dogen struggled with him.
“Then there’s Roger Mistral. Anesthesiologist. Got a heads-up from the D.A.‘s office in Bergen County, New Jersey, when they heard about the murder on the morning news. They convicted Dr. Mistral of rape last month—found him in an empty operating room having intercourse with a patient he’d resedated with a horse tranquilizer after she came out of surgery for a foot injury.”
“What does that have to do with Mid-Manhattan?”
“Maybe nothing. We’re checking his records, too, though. Would you believe that the state licensing people here in New York, the Office of Professional Discipline, issued a ruling right after the jury verdict that his conviction won’t be final until he’s sentenced in May? Well, they did. So he’s still allowed to be doing per diem work anywhere on this side of the Hudson River for another six weeks.”
McGraw asked if we knew his whereabouts for the past forty-eight hours. “Can he account for his time since Monday night, when Dogen was back in town?”
“Nobody’s talked to him yet,” I ventured in response. “His wife kicked him out after the Jersey trial so we don’t have a current address on him. Rumor has it that he sleeps on an examining table in one of the
“Not so fast, Chief. Cooper’s got a few surprises for you, just to open the field a little wider. If you don’t thinkI have enough suspects to keep us busy, Nurse Ratchett’ll give you something else to worry about. I think we’ve got our best shot of finding our killer among the walking wounded of the underground, but Alex has a few stories that suggest we keep our options open.”
6
YOU KNOW HOW I HATE TO START OFF BYagreeing with Chapman, but most days it really does look like the inmates are running the asylum,“ I commented as I turned to my padful of case notes, ”and with a good number of problems contributed by some of the staff, too.“
“Chief,” Peterson said by way of explanation to McGraw, who was not used to prosecutors playing a role in a police briefing, “I asked Alex to round up all the sexual assault cases she’s had in any of our hospitals during the last couple of years. My guys wouldn’t know about anything that wasn’t a homicide, so I thought it might be useful ‘cause of the way Dogen got it in this case.”
“Sarah and I pulled everything we could think of, but it’s just a sampling. Any of your loved ones thinking about elective surgery in the near future, try the Animal Medical Center or a visiting nurse service—these big hospitals could kill you. I’ll start close to home.
“Here at Mid-Manhattan we’ve got a few open investigations. The 17th Squad just locked up a janitor who’s only worked in the place for three months. He likes to slip into a white lab coat, look for rooms with women patients who don’t speak English—they don’t seem to question his presence, probably because they can’t. The women assume he’s a doctor, so when he pulls back the covers and starts to do a vaginal exam they submit to it. His name’s Arthur Chelenko—arrested and fired two weeks ago. Only then did Personnel get a record check. He was fired from Bronx Samaritan last year for doing exactly the same thing. Just lied on his résumé—no one checked it out—and he’s back here in business again.”
“In jail?”
“No. He made bail—he’s out pending indictment and trial.”
McCabe, Losenti, and Ramirez—the three detectives who’d get stuck with doing the legwork—were taking down all the information and I passed them copies of Chelenko’s rap sheet, with his address and pedigree information.
“Any history of violence?” Wallace asked.
“Not according to his sheet. But, of course, we’ve got to factor in the grudge motive, or the possibility of a frenzied response if his intention was a sexual assault and Dogen struggled with him.
“Then there’s Roger Mistral. Anesthesiologist. Got a heads-up from the D.A.‘s office in Bergen County, New Jersey, when they heard about the murder on the morning news. They convicted Dr. Mistral of rape last month—found him in an empty operating room having intercourse with a patient he’d resedated with a horse tranquilizer after she came out of surgery for a foot injury.”
“What does that have to do with Mid-Manhattan?”
“Maybe nothing. We’re checking his records, too, though. Would you believe that the state licensing people here in New York, the Office of Professional Discipline, issued a ruling right after the jury verdict that his conviction won’t be final until he’s sentenced in May? Well, they did. So he’s still allowed to be doing per diem work anywhere on this side of the Hudson River for another six weeks.”
McGraw asked if we knew his whereabouts for the past forty-eight hours. “Can he account for his time since Monday night, when Dogen was back in town?”
“Nobody’s talked to him yet,” I ventured in response. “His wife kicked him out after the Jersey trial so we don’t have a current address on him. Rumor has it that he sleeps on an examining table in one of the
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