“And you want to detail her to Homicide for this job so she can sit on them?” Coughlin asked.
“That, too, but what I was thinking was that you could say, ‘Detective Lassiter, who has been detailed to Homicide for this investigation, has spoken to Miss Williamson’s brother and her mother. They have found no fault with police procedures, isn’t that right, Detective?’ ”
“I don’t know,” Coughlin said, doubtfully.
“You have any problems with Northwest detailing Detective Lassiter to Homicide for this job, Captain Quaire?” Lowenstein asked.
“No, sir,” Quaire said.
“Lieutenant Washington?”
“No, sir.”
“You, Lieutenant?”
“No, sir,” the lieutenant from Northwest Detectives said
.
“Okay, done,” Lowenstein said.
He gestured toward the kitchen door.
“You’re on, Commissioner,” he said.
Coughlin exhaled audibly, straightened his shoulders, and marched through it. Captain Frank Hollaran and Detective Lassiter followed him.
“There’s a TV in the living room,” D’Amata said. “There’s a Channel Six Live camera out there.”
D’Amata got it turned on and tuned to Channel Six by the time Coughlin, Hollaran, and Lassiter appeared on the screen as they came out of the walkway between the two buildings.
Coughlin marched to the massed press, with Olivia Lassiter following him. When he stopped, just inside the crime scene tape, she moved to his side.
There were shouted questions from a dozen reporters, to which Coughlin, his arms folded on his stomach, paid no attention whatever. Finally, almost in confusion, the questions died out.
“I’m Deputy Commissioner Coughlin,” he said, finally. “I will take a few questions, one at a time.”
Most of the reporters raised their hands; several shouted questions.
Coughlin pointed at one of the reporters who had raised her hand.
“If you can get these gentlemen to behave, I’ll take your question.”
One of the reporters who had been shouting a question said, disgustedly, “Oh, for Christ’s sake!”
Another voice, female, very clearly answered her colleague with, “Why don’t you shut the fuck up, you asshole? Some of us have deadlines.”
Coughlin pointed to a reporter holding a microphone with a Channel Six Live sign on it.
“I don’t want to tell you your business,” he said, very politely, “but I really hope someone bleeped that question before it got on the air.”
That brought laughter. When it died down, he pointed to the reporter he had selected before.
“Commissioner, what’s happened here?”
“A murder,” Coughlin said, “of a young woman named Cheryl Williamson.”
“Not a rape and murder?”