PATSY by Kenneth L. Ehrenthal (fantasy novels to read .txt) 📕

and leave a note with Margie.  I'll oversee and coordinate.  I'll want Heidi to look through our notes and make suggestions.  Are there any questions?  We'll meet together at 4 pm every Friday or immediately if we get a breakthrough.

Mary White had been doing defense, as she called it, for years.  She had read through the material that Sid had gotten from the Public Defenders office.  It seemed pretty straight forward, for a limited resource agency. They relied on the police reports and what ever limited information that Mohammed presented.  They had interviewed the dispatcher at the cab company.   We were able to talk to the couple that Mohammed had taken to LaGuardia after dropping off Margaret.  They thought that they had a solid alibi case so they didn't go further.  Further was what Mary wanted to do.  There was nothing in the records about Margaret Alpert.  The police had their "patsy", had the DNA, cased closed.   Mary's team was all female, young Margaret Winthrop, Denise Williams the legal assistant, and the young secretary Ann Lawrence.  Mary thought, that's just like men, working with the scientific leaving the people things to women, or am being too sensitive?  She divided the responsibilities of her team.  First, she would gather all the information from the Newspapers and any little material in the records about Margaret.  Denise and Ann were to work on the financial aspects and she wanted Margaret Winthrop to interview any friends and associates that the others find.
 
By the end of the first week, they were able to report to the group, the following information.  Margaret Alpert was 26 years old.  She had been in New York for five years.  She was born in Akron Ohio and graduated from Kent State.  After graduating she obtained a job in the travel industry, since it conformed to her major hospitality management.  After working in Cleveland, the company asked her to move to New York.  Her pay at the time of her move was $36,000 which rose to $45,000 at the time of her murder.  She lived in a three bedroom apartment with two other women living off 56th Street and 2nd Avenue.  Two years before her death she moved to a three room apartment on 5th Avenue and 91st Street.  We were able to find one of her former room mates.  She asked us not to use her name.  She lived with Margaret and another girl for the two years, when they all decided to separate.  She couldn't tell us too much about Margaret's social life.  She seemed very popular being on the phone with, mostly men a lot.  But she never, as far as she could recall either mention a name or brought a man home.  The other girl, she believed moved out to California to, she believed, get married.  She did give us her name.  But, we think the most interesting fact we got from this room mate was that the girls split $1500 a month rent, which included utilities.  That's $500 each.  On a salary of approximately $40,000, that makes sense.  But, after leaving the move to Fifth Avenue, the rent there was $2,500 per month.  That's $30,000 a year.  And for a girl was making $45,000 a year top.  Someone was obviously subsidizing her.  It could, of course, have been her parents, and we have to follow up on that.  We also now have to go into her financial information, and how the rent was paid, etc.  Those are our next jobs.   

George gave his troops their marching orders.  He like being able to push around these over educated snobby lawyers.  Learn all you can about DNA and then we'll meet.  I'm going to the Medical Examiners and nose around.  Someone from there, I can feel it in my bones, made that call, and I'm going to find him.  According, the guy who started us on this thing, said it was a male voice.  The three men decided that all the information they could get was on the internet, so they began to down load all the new stuff they found on "Goggle".  That was the easy part they found. 
 
George entered the Examiner's offices.  He knew the cute secretary with the freckles who greeted him from behind the desk.  She told him that it had been a long time since she'd seen him.  George went through the two additional operations he'd had on his leg, to allow him to, as he said it, get around.  Oh poor George", she said.  "How can I help you?  George had decided that being direct, at this time, might not be the best approach.  He made up a story about a doctor telling him about a new research project to make bones grow from DNA.  He wanted to try it but he didn't know about DNA.  The one place, in his experience, was the Medical Examiners where they're working on DNA all the time.  Fiona, the secretary said she would introduce him to a really nice young tech there that might be able to help him because all she knew about DNA was how to spell it.  
 
After a short phone call a young man can through a door marked staff only.  He walked over to Fiona and gave her a peck on her cheek.  "Now sweetie where is this man you want me to talk to.  She pointed to George.  After mutual introductions George invited Harold out to a nearby place for some coffee.  Harold checked his watch and told George to wait at the coffee lace and he meet him there in about fifteen minutes, since he was just finishing up a test and he was due a break.  Harold walked in saw George and sat down opposite.   Fiona tells me some doctor told you that DNA can grow bones.  Boy someone told you a real tall tale, DNA growing bones or anything is pure bullshit.  OK said George, what does DNA do?  The way we use it here is to compare different DNA’s.  Everyone's DNA is different.  If we find, for example DNA from a suspect in a crime, we take his DNA and if we find DNA on, or in the victim, we can tie the two together.  That's about it.
 
Let me get this straight, said George, you need DNA from two sources for a match.  Yep.  Suppose you have a victim.  She's pregnant, so you have two sources, the mom and the kid.  Yes says Harold, but I don't think the kid, fetus to be exact killed the mom. Someone else's DNA will show up, you know mom and dad.  What if you get no other persons DNA?  Well then we can't make a match, we won't know the Dad.   Wow, says George, does that happen a lot?  More than we like to admit.  There is a national DNA bank, but it's still relatively small compared to the 6 billion people on earth, or even the 7 or 8 million New Yorkers.  So you are telling me that DNA will not help this damn leg.  Sorry George!  By the way, this DNA
stuff must be pretty sensitive?  It sure is.  But we don't do the actual testing here.  We send it out to a lab in Long Island City.  They do the actual testing.  I meant the paper work.  Are you sure about that too?  Who can get in?  You have to get special permission.  The best way, I guess is the DA's office.  Those guys are here all the time.  Hey, nice talking with you George, I've got to run.
 
 
 
Chapter 19
 
 
When the group met again on Friday, George listened to the 'White" groups report.  His report was short and sweet.  The Medical Examiners office does the paper work and gathering of the DNA samples.  The actual testing is done off premises at a lab.  So I think that we have to see the paper work.  Some place between the Medical Examiners Office and the lab, some one slipped in a DNA sample.  They labeled it with Mohammed's name and the report came back with a match.  Someone, probably the actual killer was able to get into the paper trail.  We have to find out, first how many original samples were sent and how many came back.  Second, if three were sent out, who had access to the Examiners Office or if two went out, who got the other sample to the lab?  My contact at the ME's told me that representatives from the DA's office are to quote him, here all the time.  We have to find a way to get the logs for the period after the murder to the time of the trial. 
Heidi commented.  We could subpoena the logs.  Although they might balk since the case is closed.  

 
 
 
 
                                               
                                           
                                                        Chapter 20


It had been two month since Heidi moved in.  The place had begun to take on a slightly feminine look.  She had put up new curtains on the windows; a new rug on the floor.  In the bedroom area she added several more famine colors. She also added a few more pot and pans on the counters.  Things like that.  Oh! And once in a while Sid discovered a bra hanging from the shower curtain bar.  To Sid, from a purely mercenary way, Heidi insisted that she pay half the mortgage payment, as rent.  Sid didn't want to argue and put the money in an escrow account in her name.  He decided not to tell her that.  It was not that Heidi couldn't afford it.  The apartment on the West Side was a condominium and Heidi had sold it, with most of the furniture for $750,000.  She smilingly told Sid she made a clear $250,000 on the deal.  She was also lucky to find a parking garage for the Beemer nearby relatively.  An older couple owned a brownstone with a garage.  They had no car and made a deal with Heidi that she would do their legal estate work for the rent.  There were several other advantages having Heidi there.  Sid no longer existed on take-out.  They are in most nights and when they did go out to eat, they could afford the best.  But of course the best advantage of all was Heidi herself.  She was a beautiful, sensuous, selfless, lover.  In July they spent a week on Martha Vineyard in a small rented cottage on the beach.  Sid had never been so happy.  The only real fly in the ointment was the CASE.

They were lounging on the sandy beach, it was Wednesday.  The place and the weather they both agreed made this time and place a paradise.  Heidi looked at Sid who, it looked like, was apparently just about to doze off.   "Sid, it was an inside job."  "What?" he said.  "Someone, either in the ME's office or the DA's office killed her."  'It has to be" I’ve been running that idea around in my mind for weeks," said Sid.  "But why do you think that".  "Just because that's the only scenario that I think makes sense."  "Someone who had access to the DNA process, and either an employee of the ME's or a DA staffer had access."  "OK" said Sid, "that narrows it down to about fifty people in the MA's office and about 500 people who work at the DA’s."  Well, at least we've eliminated about 7 and a half million other New Yorkers."  "That's one way to look at it."  "But it does Sid."  Look if we get the names of all those people and cross check it with people who knew Alpert we could narrow our search."  "Good point."  "We should be able get some of that information when White gets back from her trips.
 
Now let's