Cold Hit by Linda Fairstein Page A

gotta throw in some background about me and Tego.”
    I typed in his name and shield. “Your command?”
    “NYPD Emergency Services, K- 9 Unit.” He told me how many years he’d been on the force and what his training had been to qualify him for this special duty. “Tego’s got four years on the job — specializing in cadaver duty.”
    “What?” I knew German shepherds were used to great advantage in police work, trained to identify the scents of bomb materials and controlled substances. This one was new to me.
    “True. He’s like Chapman — death is his specialty. Sniffs it out and loves it.”
    “How do you train them for that?”
    “There are a couple of chemicals that simulate cadaver odors—”
    “Yeah, Coop, and Chanel doesn’t make ’em,” Mike cut in. “So don’t try and seduce me by dousing yourself in ’em.”
    Armando continued. “They’re called Cadaverine and Pseudocorpse — both are artificial commercial scents. The dogs practice by smelling body parts, corpses, crime scene areas. Then we sprinkle some of the fake stuff on items like you’d find at a scene and let them go to work.”
    “Tell her what you give them when they come up with a body.”
    “Three treats and a rawhide pull toy, just like if he’d brought home your missing slipper.”
    I improvised a few paragraphs about Tego’s training and the fact that he had completed more than sixty tests in the company of Detective Loquesto.
    “What else do I need?”
    “You gotta say what the dog did when he got to the target. The Chevy was parked in a row of nine cars. In training we call it a ‘marked reaction,’ which—”
    “What’d he do, exactly?”
    Chapman was impatient and anxious for me to complete the warrant. “He went ape, like you do when you see Alex Trebek. Drooling, panting—”
    “Pretty close,” Loquesto said. “He sniffed next to the right rear passenger door, then ran around to the back of the wagon. He jumped up against it and began pawing at it, whining and scratching like it’d get him inside. I looked in — window was slightly tinted — and there’s a dark stain on a canvas-colored matting. Then I pulled Tego away and took him one at a time to the doors of each other car. No reaction at all.”
    I finished the application with the routine language, respectfully asking the court for a warrant and order of seizure. “As soon as the lunch break is over, we’ll go down and get the judge who’s sitting in the arraignment part to sign it, okay? Anybody want me to call in something to eat?”
    “Nah, we’ll grab a bite on our way to the Bronx.”
    “Okay. I’ll open a grand jury investigation this afternoon so I can start some phone company subpoenas for muds and luds on the Caxton telephones — home and galleries.” Contrary to what most people thought, prosecutors have no power to subpoena people or evidence to their offices. It was only the authority of the grand jury in New York, not the district attorneys, that enabled the request for a witness to produce documentary evidence. “Who’s looking for Omar?”
    “
My
job,” Mercer said. “Since the gallery’s closed today, there’s no activity at all. The address on the Motor Vehicles Bureau records — for Omar’s residence — is in Brooklyn.”
    “Before I came up to the courtroom,” Mike went on, “I called the boss at the Eighty-fourth Precinct and asked them to do a drive-by of that address. Desk sergeant beeped me back and said it’s a burned-out building. Mercer’ll be working on it this afternoon.”
    My paralegal, Maxine, came into the room and greeted the trio of cops. “This looks like the wrong time to ask, but what do I do with a walk-in who just arrived now for her ten-thirty appointment?”
    “Who is she?” I looked at my watch, noting that the woman was more than three hours late.
    “Her name’s Unique Matthews. Says she’s here to see Janice-O’Riley, but Janice has to do a preliminary hearing all