The corridor iron rattled at ten-forty. It was not the slow, indifferent footstep of the basement guard pushing a lunch cart, but the sharp double-strike of hard heels echoing off the painted brick. Two uniformed bailiffs stopped outside cell four, their key rings jangling in the narrow run. Behind them stood Detective Lieutenant Frank Ross from the internal review bureau, his civilian trench coat unbuttoned, a thick manila intake folder pinned beneath his elbow.
"David Ward," Ross said, his voice clipped and flat, devoid of the theatrical hostility Cole had carried. "On your feet. Step to the bars."
The lock slid back with a heavy, lubricated clink. They did not put the cuffs back on my wrists, but Ross kept his hand resting casually near his waistline as he motioned me out onto the catwalk. My left eye was crusted half-shut from the continuous weeping of the scalded flesh; when the cold air of the lower hallway hit the raw cheek, a fresh throb pulsed straight back through my jawbone. I held my chin up, keeping my canvas jacket closed over my transit shirt so the drying coffee stains remained visible against the collar.
"Where are we going?" I asked, my voice scraping against the salt in my throat.
"Room 302," Ross replied, walking half a pace behind my right shoulder to keep my blind side covered. "The precinct supervisor review. Officer Cole's union representative requested an immediate physical certification before the eleven o'clock electronic sync pushes the felony docket to county central. You have ten minutes to state your official response on the record, or the city magistrate signs the holding transfer."
We took the central service elevator instead of the back stairs, ascending past the ground-level processing pen to the third-floor administrative wing. Here, the floor was clean gray terrazzo rather than cracked linoleum, and the windows along the northern corridor looked out across Eighth Avenue. Through the double-paned thermal glass, I could see the damp blacktop below, the yellow taxicabs idling at the light, and directly across the asphalt, the dark green iron shaft of Pole 14 rising thirty feet above the curb, its square optical housing angled down like a watchful eye toward the precinct doors.
Room 302 was an oblong conference space smelling of floor wax and stale toner. A long laminate table occupied the center, flanked by six rolling armchairs. Dennis Cole sat near the window, his posture loose and sprawling. He had changed out of his stained duty jacket into a crisp, short-sleeved patrol uniform, his gold municipal longevity pins gleaming on his left collar. Beside him sat Tim Kowalski, a stocky man with thinning hair and a heavy silver signet ring who served as the precinct's fraternal representative. Sergeant Miller stood back against the metal filing cabinets near the door, his hands clasped low over his belt, looking down at the carpet as if trying to memorize its weave.
At the head of the table sat Assistant City Attorney Diane Morris.
CHAPTER 4: The Badge On The Table
Diane Morris did not look up from her legal pad when the heavy fire door clicked shut behind us. She had four separate folders laid out in front of her, their cardstock tabs labeled in neat black ink, and a silver thermal mug sitting on a cork coaster near her left elbow. The air in Room 302 was colder than the hallway, chilled by a wall unit that hummed with a low, irregular rattle against the window frame.
"Sit," Morris said. She pointed a ballpoint pen toward the two vacant armchairs opposite Dennis Cole.
I sat down. My lawyer, Arthur Sterling, remained standing for two seconds, his leather briefcase resting flat against his shin, before he pulled out the chair beside me and placed the case on the laminate table. The plastic feet of his chair scraped sharply against the terrazzo floor. Dennis Cole watched us with the dead, flat boredom of a man who had sat through a hundred routine settlement conferences and knew the city’s risk-management fund would pick up whatever bill arrived at the end of the fiscal quarter.
"We have seven minutes before the eleven o'clock electronic sync pushes the felony docket across the bridge to central intake," Morris said, glancing at a digital clock mounted above the whiteboard. "Officer Cole has submitted a sworn statement alleging aggressive physical contact, intentional obstruction of a municipal entryway, and assault on a uniformed officer resulting from an unprovoked lunge on the exterior sidewalk at seven-forty-two this morning. Sergeant Miller signed off as the reviewing supervisor at eight-fifteen."