Page 48 of The Writer
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Excerpt from The Taking of Maggie Marshall by Denise Morrow
THE EVIDENCE LOCKUP for the NYPD’s Twentieth Precinct is located in the basement of 120 West Eighty-Second Street. It’s accessible by a single elevator and emergency stairs. It’s a quiet dungeon in the bowels of the castle. As a civilian, I normally wouldn’t be permitted to visit the place, and I’m not going to lie to you—I had to grease a few palms to get down there. Considering the part police corruption played in Maggie’s story, I suppose it was wrong of me to capitalize on it. But this wasn’t a “When in Rome” scenario. I didn’t take it lightly. I had to get down there if I wanted to learn the truth, and sometimes the commission of a minor infraction is necessary for the greater good.
The evidence cage is manned by a single officer. He or she is stationed behind a cinder-block wall next to a wire-mesh window with a pass-through. The space can be entered only via a magnetically sealed steel door that wouldn’t look out of place in a nuclear bunker. The evidence locker screams secure —until you get a little closer. I didn’t see a single camera inside or out (and yes, I did get inside). You would think that when an officer needs to see evidence, the person in the cage would retrieve it and maybe bring it to a secure space where the officer could view it under the constant watch of a camera. At least, that’s how I would set things up. Nobody asked me, though, and whoever was asked came up with a process more appropriate for managing toys at a day care than handling life-changing evidence at a police facility. This is how it works:
A police officer who wishes to review evidence is given a clipboard on which to provide the case number, his or her badge number, his or her signature, and the date. The attending officer locates the box housing the evidence in the inventory database and enters that information on the clipboard next to the requesting officer’s information; the location is usually something like box 16, shelf 2, row 4. But rather than that officer fetching the box, the requesting officer is granted access to the room and permitted to locate and review the box on his or her own. With zero supervision. On any given day, a dozen officers may visit that room. Once they sign that clipboard and enter the “secure” space, there is no way to know what they actually do.
Declan Shaw’s signature and badge number appeared on a clipboard sixteen times from the date Lucero was arrested through the conclusion of his trial. The box (number 6 with that case number) containing Maggie Marshall’s backpack sits two shelves down from the box containing the books found in Lucero’s apartment (number 2 with the same case number). An object could be moved from one to the other in seconds and nobody would be the wiser. Declan Shaw could have done that, but he didn’t. The book appears in photographs of Lucero’s apartment. That means it was retrieved from the box and brought to Lucero’s place before the CSU techs arrived to document the scene.
Here’s where things become problematic.
There’s no record of Declan Shaw visiting the evidence lockup during that time frame. There is one signature during that window, and that signature belongs to Declan Shaw’s supervisor, Lieutenant Marcus Daniels. Lieutenant Daniels was questioned by IAU but quickly dismissed—the signature in the log did not match his actual signature. It was a clear forgery. The officer on duty the day of this particular visit made a sworn statement to IAU (of which I have a copy) stating he had no recollection of the lieutenant coming to the evidence lockup (something that he did only rarely), but he did recall seeing Detective Shaw. When pressed on how he could be sure, he said Shaw’s shirt was torn and when he asked him what happened, Shaw said he’d ripped it chasing a suspect across rooftops.
The only known rooftop chase involving Detective Declan Shaw was the apprehension of Ruben Lucero. That would mean he retrieved the book at some point between Lucero’s arrest and when Lucero was brought to the precinct for questioning. Ruben Lucero’s arm was broken during that arrest. He was transported to Memorial for treatment and brought to the precinct three hours later. This window offers Declan Shaw ample time, and there is no record of his whereabouts during that period.
Can I prove he took a side trip to evidence before admitting CSU into Lucero’s apartment for processing?
No.
No more than IAU can.
Does that mean it didn’t happen?