Prologue - Lucidity

THE FIRST CALL CAME IN AT 6:08 AM.

“Send an ambulance to Central Park West and 75th,” a male caller said in an eerily measured voice, as if arranging a ride to the airport. “Someone just got hit by a car. There’s a body in the middle of the street. I can see it from my window.”

“OK, sir,” the 911 dispatcher responded. “Let me make sure I heard you correctly. You said someone was hit by a car?”

“Yes.”

“How long ago did this happen?”

“Like fifteen seconds ago.”

“Did you see it happen?”

“No, I heard it. Get some paramedics here quick.”

The line went silent.

“An ambulance and the police are on the way,” the dispatcher said after a moment. “Can you tell me what you heard, sir?”

“I heard a screech of tires and a kind of thud. Now this woman is standing outside her car screaming. It’s a BMW 3-series.”

“You hear screaming now?”

“The woman who hit the person is screaming. I can see the whole thing. I’m on the third floor. Hold on, I’m going to take some pictures.”

Another short silence.

“Sir, are you still there?”

“Yeah. She’s totally freaking out. You’ve gotta have more calls coming in.”

They did. Another dispatcher was speaking to a woman who lived on the eighth floor of the same apartment building. And a third caller, who identified himself as a doorman, sounded distressed.

“It looks bad, man,” he said. “Tell them to hurry.”

The first calls came mostly from the north tower of the fabled San Remo, a hulking twin-steepled architectural gem that dominated the western skyline over Central Park. The San Remo was one among many grand pre-war co-ops along Central Park West, the West Side’s so-called “gold coast.” But it was also grander than most. It even had its own Wikipedia page that included a list of celebrities—past and present—that owned apartments there.

The only eyewitness to the accident, a runner on her way into the park, reached a 911 operator a full five minutes after the first caller. A little breathlessly she explained that she’d just seen a woman get pushed in front of a car.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner but I didn’t have my phone with me. I had to borrow someone’s.”

“That’s OK,” the dispatcher said. “Have you spoken to any police officers yet?”

“No, they’re trying to keep everyone away from her. The ambulance just got here. The paramedics are working on her. There’s a lot of blood. My God, I hope she isn’t dead.”

“OK, I need you to stay there and give a statement to a police officer. They need to know what you saw. But I also want you to tell me what you saw and I’ll make sure they get it.”

The NYPD had a smattering of high-resolution cameras in and around Central Park, but none near the intersections of 74th or 75th and Central Park West; the closest was a block south at 73rd. The San Remo, however, had its own security cameras and one of them did record the accident. The grainy video would support what the jogger told the dispatcher:

“This guy, he looked like a homeless guy, came up to her while she was in the crosswalk,” she said. “She was walking her dog. He was slightly behind her to her right. She looked over at him. I don’t know if she said anything or not. But suddenly he lunged forward and pushed her into the street just as a car was coming.”

The vehicle’s front bumper struck the woman just below the knees, taking her legs out from under her. She rolled up onto the hood, ricocheted off the edge of the windshield and corkscrewed gymnastically in the air. Her right hand hit the pavement, followed by her hip and torso, and then her head, face-first. One of her shoes came off and her cell phone skittered across the street, all the way to the other side, where it was found resting next to the back tire of a parked car, the screen cracked but otherwise operational.

“I went over to help,” the jogger said, her voice wavering. “I didn’t know what to do. I’d never seen anything like that. There was so much blood. It was coming out of her ears.”