Falsely Accused (29 page)

The reporter's face twisted into a disbelieving grimace. “Marlene, that makes no sense at all. If Selig is actually being fired to help cover up a crime, then either the Mayor or the D.A. could be the source of the cover-up. Or both of them together.”

“It's not the Mayor,” said Marlene, sounding more confident than she now felt.

“Why not? I can think of a lot of things that the Mayor might like to cover up. A fifty-four-year-old confirmed bachelor? Maybe Vice caught him in an alleyway with an underage leatherboy. No, you're just fixated on Bloom, you and Butch, because he tried to fuck you. This is the last act of this vendetta that those two have been running for the last—what is it now?—eight or so years.”

“Bullshit, Stupe! The Mayor's guy said he barely knew who Selig was until Bloom began needling about how he had to be canned.”

“The Mayor's guy? Oh,
there's
an unimpeachable source! So, meanwhile, tell me what Bloom's supposed to be covering up that's important enough for him to help a bad cop shitcan a pair of custody murders!”

“We don't know yet,” said Marlene weakly.

“You don't know yet,” the reporter mocked. “But you don't mind asking me to sit on my story indefinitely until something turns up.”

“You wouldn't have a damn story,” snapped Marlene, “if I hadn't got those pictures, and if Butch hadn't got Murray to look at them.”

“Yes, but what have you done for me lately? Sorry, Marlene, but for the next three to six weeks I'm going to be huddled in my room like the Phantom of the Opera with nothing to do but work the phone and pound keys, and this just became my only priority. I mean, I don't expect to be dating much until they fix
this
”—here she indicated her damaged face— “speaking of which, somebody's going to pay for
this
big-time, not so much because of me personally, but because—and I know you think I'm totally cynical and don't believe in anything, but I do and this is it—because you're not supposed to beat up on the press, at least not with your fists, not in this country anyway, and I say this as someone who's spent most of her adult life in countries where it's practically the national sport. And so, while I feel bad about Selig and Butch and anybody else who might get singed in the back blast …” She left the sentence hanging.

Marlene said, “All right, let me appeal to your journalistic instincts, since you've all of a sudden turned into Ida Tarbell, girl muckraker: grant me it'd be a better story if it was complete, if we knew who had set up the firing, and what the cops had on him to make him do it.”

Stupenagel paused for barely a second. “Granted. And… ?”

“I'll find out for you,” said Marlene. “I'll find out and wrap the whole package up for you like a fish, and you can relax and get better.”

“Your concern is touching,” said Stupenagel. “How long do you think this miracle will take?”

Marlene pulled a figure out of the air. “Five, six weeks.”

“Mmm, would that be just enough to get a judgment in re: Selig?”

“I have no idea,” said Marlene stiffly.

“I bet.” Stupenagel took up her drink again and sipped it until the straw sucked dry. “I don't know, Marlene, it's an interesting offer, but …”

“You haven't heard the downside,” said Marlene. “You don't have the photographs, and all you have to indicate that the jail deaths weren't suicides is my word about what Selig said. Shaft me on this, and not only will you not get the autopsy shots, but I'll deny this conversation ever took place, nobody will admit anything about any murders, and when I do figure it all out, I will deliver the
whole
story, with evidence, to whomever I figure will piss you off the most. Jimmy Dalton, for example.”

Jimmy Dalton was a police reporter for the
Post
and a male chauvinist of citywide reputation. Stupenagel slammed her drink down on the bedside table, making the ice in it rattle like maracas. She glared at Marlene for what seemed like a long time, and then abruptly burst into laughter. “Goddamn, Champ—playing hardball with your old buddy! Jimmy Dalton, my ass! Okay, deal. Go get 'em! Don't get killed, though.”

“I have a gun.”

“No kidding? Can I see it.”

“Oh, shit, Stupenagel! You're worse than my daughter.”

From the hospital Marlene journeyed downtown by cab to the courthouse on Centre Street. She passed through the guarded entranceway to the part of the building that housed the D.A.'s office, using for the purpose an expired pass from the days when she'd had a right to be there. There was a search point in the main entrance for regular people, and she did not want to have to explain her pistol. Once in the courthouse, she filed some protective orders for clients, attended a hearing for a man who had violated one, and generally behaved like a lawyer for the rest of the morning. When the courthouse emptied out for lunch, she bought yogurt and coffee at the ground-floor snack bar, returned to the D.A.'s offices, and took the elevator to the sixth floor, where she entered a cubicle and made herself at home.

She was on the phone when the office's official occupant, Raymond Guma, walked in, sucking on a toothpick. Guma was a short, tubby man in his late forties, with an amusingly ugly monkey face and a mop of thinning black curls. He frowned when he saw Marlene sitting in his chair, speaking over his phone.

“Hey, didn't we finally get rid of you?”

Marlene continued with her phone conversation, but reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a long white box: a fifth of Teacher's scotch. She placed it on the desk and gave Guma her brightest insincere smile.

Guma seated himself in a visitor's chair and ostentatiously twiddled his thumbs while humming loudly without tune. Marlene finished her conversation quickly.

“Anybody I know?” asked Guma, indicating the phone.

“Could be. A gentleman who won't take no for an answer. I was arguing the prudence of doing so.”

“Or you'll get your goon to dance on his face? I been hearing stuff about you, Champ. You keep it up with the heavy shit, you gonna give the Italians a bad name.”

“Sorry you don't approve, Raymond.”

“You know me, a woman's place is in the home.” He removed his toothpick, examined it, and flicked it into a large brown glass ashtray in which two White Owl butts already nestled. “How's Butch, by the way? I hear he's making out like a bandit.”

“We're doing okay. Look, Goom, I need a favor…”

Guma tapped the white package. “Ah, see, here I was thinking, you're sorry for all the mean things you said to me, you decided to retire from being a witch, come by with a little present for an old pal…”

Guma's tone was sarcastic, but Marlene sensed a genuine sadness underneath it, the sadness of someone who had worked in an office for a long time—it was nearly twenty years for Ray Guma—and had worked with a group of people, had shared struggles with them, triumph and defeat, and had seen them pass on, with many a promise to keep in touch, which promises had trickled out into a few uneasy evenings after work. In fact, neither she nor Karp had much in common with Guma outside the work of the D.A. Guma, divorced, estranged from his kids, was into after-hours clubs and cocktail waitresses. Impulsively, Marlene got up from behind the desk and planted wet kiss on Guma's mouth.

“Hey, Goom, you know we love you. Butch has been real busy, but as soon as we get a break, you'll come over, you'll eat, you'll drink some wine. I'll make pasta fagiol'.”

Guma's face broke into a smile, and he made a friendly grab at her ass. She allowed the familiarity. Guma was harmless.

“This must be some favor. Who do I have to whack out?”

She sat on the edge of the desk and said, “It's nothing, really. I just need you to call Fred Spicer and find out whether the D.A. squad is running an investigation on the medical examiner.”

“That's it? Whyn't you ask him yourself?”

Marlene laughed. “Because Fred wouldn't tell me there was a fire if the building was burning down. You know Fred.”

“Yeah, I do. Okay, I'll make the call.” He rose and picked up his phone, then hesitated. “Just a second— how come you want to know?”

“It's a long story, Goom.”

He replaced the phone and sat down again. “That's okay. I got time.” He grinned, showing crooked, gap-spaced teeth.

Marlene sighed and spun out the tale, omitting any reference to Ariadne Stupenagel, which was something like painting the Last Supper without Jesus, but necessary, since some years back Ms. Stupenagel had taken up Ray Guma during a period when he had information about a story she was writing and, after it was published, had dropped him on his head. Thus, in this version it was Marlene, working for Karp, who had discovered the phony suicides, and she made it sound as if the sole point of the inquiry was helping Butch with the Selig case.

When she was finished, Guma asked, “You really think some cop at the Two-Five killed a couple of beaner cabbies?”

“Hey, how should I know, Goom? I'm out of the business. My only concern right now is seeing if someone is trying to pin fucked-up autopsies on Murray Selig.”

Guma gave her a hooded look and dialed his phone. Spicer, the longtime chief of the D.A. squad, was in, and Guma spent the obligatory time talking Knicks and Rangers, after which he put the question. Marlene was able to follow the answer via Guma's end of the conversation. When he hung up, she said, “No investigation?”

“None that Fred knows about. Of course, it might be somebody else doing the investigating.”

“No, Guma, the people at the morgue told her—I mean, told me—that the guy said he was from the D.A. Besides, who else could it be?”

“Well, if a cop's involved, it could be I.A.D.”

She shook her head. “No, Devlin at I.A.D. swears they got nothing going on. And plus, they bought the suicide story, so why would they be poking around to see if it was legit?”

“I don't know, kid. The snakes are a devious bunch. I tell you who you could talk to, though— Johnny Seaver.”

“Seaver? That name rings a bell. A cop, right?”

“Yeah. He's on the D.A. squad.”

“He is? I don't remember him at all.”

“He came on after your time,” Guma explained, “earlier this year, maybe April, May.”

“And why is he important?”

“Well, for one thing, he transferred in from the Two-Five, so if anything is going on funny up there, he might have a clue. Another thing, he made detective second real early for no reason anybody could see. That means he's either got a rabbi way up at the tip of Police Plaza—”

“Or he's a snake?” Marlene was confused. She knew that the NYPD recruited cadets right out of the academy to work in its Internal Affairs Division, policing the police, and that these men tended to be promoted early to make up for the hardships of spying on brother officers, but she couldn't understand why the bosses would waste a snake in the small D.A. unit charged with investigating public corruption and doing humble chores for the A.D.A.'s.

“Not exactly,” said Guma. “He could be a snake on ice. He got blown in some cop sting, and they wanted him parked out of the way until they figured out what to do with him. Why I say that is that Fred told me he just showed with a name-requested letter from Bloom, which means it came from pretty high up in the cops: superchief or above.”

Marlene glanced at her watch. If she didn't leave right now, she was going to be late picking up Lucy. She gathered her bag. “Okay, I'll give him a ring,” she said, and then leaned over and patted Guma on the cheek. “
Paisan,
thanks a million for this. I'll call you, okay?”

“Yeah, whenever. By the way, you ever see that friend of yours, you know, Queen Kong?”

“Ariadne? Yeah, from time to time.”

“Yeah, well, next time you see her, tell her
fuck you
from me.”

At the school Marlene extracted Lucy from a knot of Asian girls, refused Lucy's whispered request to show them the gun, and walked to the car. She noticed Miranda Lanin playing with another group in the schoolyard and then spotted her mother coming down the street. Marlene waved and smiled, to which Carrie returned a stiff nod of recognition and walked on by. She had not seen Carrie Lanin since her tormentor had been convicted, and clearly the woman was not interested in renewing their relationship.

“Are you still friends with Miranda?” Marlene asked her daughter as they entered the yellow VW.

“She's too babyish,” Lucy pronounced dismissively. “I have another tooth loose.”

“We'll alert the tooth fairy. So, who do you hang with now? Janice Chen?”

“Sometimes. But my special best friend is Isabella. Are we going there now?”

“Yeah, I thought we'd drop by,” said Marlene. She started the car and pulled carefully around the waiting schoolbuses. “Isn't Isabella a little old for you, dear? She's—what?—fifteen?”

“She's fourteen. Her birthday's in January.”

“Really? She told you this?” Nod. “What else did she tell you about herself?”

“Um, stuff. Could we have a birthday party for her? When she gets fifteen, you're supposed to have a big party,” she said.

“Well, we'll see, but honey, you know Isabella— well, if she's talking to you, then you're the only one she talks to. Besides her brother, Hector. We don't know where she comes from or who her parents are or what happened to her, so if you know any of that stuff, it's really important for you to tell me.”

“She got raped,” said Lucy.

Marlene gasped and stared at her seven-year-old child.

“Urn, dear, what do you know about rape?”

“Everything,” said Lucy blithely. “I read it in a little book in the shelter. It had pictures. It's when bad men hurt ladies with their penis.”