Capture (Butch Karp Thrillers) (16 page)

Ned looked deep in her eyes and then nodded.
“I get her in my sights again, and she’s history.”

Lucy leaned up and kissed him again, only this time more softly.
“Good. Now here’s your ride. Hurry back or I might have to start hanging out at the Sagebrush Inn lookin’ for another cowpoke to give me a poke.”

“Yeah? And I hear some of the gals in the Caribbean are mighty friendly, too.”

“Ned Blanchett! Don’t you dare,”
Lucy warned, pushing him toward the car.
“I’ll know if you do—women always know—and I’ll make a steer out of you.”

“Wouldn’t that be like cutting off your nose to spite your face? Except it won’t be my nose that gets cut, or your face that is spited. But you just keep them knickers up where they belong, and I’ll be home ’afore you know it.”

“I’ll try.”
Lucy laughed. “Adios, mi amor. Vaya con Dios.”

“Y tú,” he answered, and was gone.

In the foyer, Lucy watched the monitor until a yellow cab pulled over to the curb across the street. Waving one last time in case her parents were watching, she walked out the door.

As she stepped down to the sidewalk, Lucy realized with a start that someone was standing off to the side just out of the illumination of the streetlight. She hadn’t seen anyone else on the monitor and tensed, only to relax when she recognized her visitor—a middle-aged woman dressed in a nun’s habit from the fifteenth century.

“St. Teresa! I’ve been wondering where you’ve been,” Lucy said, reverting to archaic Spanish. “I thought maybe I was just in danger too much of the time for you to keep up.”

“I’ve been with you the whole time,” the apparition replied.
“You’ve just been too preoccupied to notice. But you’re in grave danger now, my child.”

Lucy nodded. Now that she wasn’t with her parents, she could admit it to herself. “I know, and I’m afraid.”

“You could turn from this path,” St. Teresa replied. “Let someone else bear this cross.”

“No,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “There’s too much of that going on in the world already.”

“Then go with God, child. I’ll be with you when you need me most.”

“Y tú,” Lucy replied, and started to walk over to the cab, but it suddenly pulled away from the curb and disappeared around the corner on Grand Avenue. She jumped at the sound of a voice behind her.

“Ah, the lovely Lucy Karp,” a man said. “The very epitome of ‘Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue.’”

Lucy laughed as she turned, recognizing the voice and the tall figure who owned it. “What now, Professor Treacher? Citing Emerson instead of the Bible?” She walked toward the street preacher who stood just outside the darker shadows of the alley.

“Ralph and I go back a long ways,” Treacher said with a bow. “But, of course, the Bible has its own verses on beauty. ‘Oh my beloved, you are as beautiful as the lovely town of Tirzah, yes as beautiful as Jerusalem!’”

“Hmmmm…Tirzah, eh?” Lucy replied. “I think I like Ralph Waldo’s verse better. Oh, and by the way, friend, that’s from Song of Solomon, chapter 6:4.”

“Very good,” Treacher replied.

Lucy looked Treacher over with surprise. “That’s a nice-looking parka you have on tonight,” she said. “Is it new?”

“Days old,” Treacher said proudly. “Warm as bread fresh from the oven.”

“And new boots?”

“Not more than a few miles on them,” Treacher agreed.

“Well, you seem to be doing well these days.”

The old man looked troubled for a moment, then replied, “Why, yes. Seems a rich uncle died and left me a bit of an inheritance.”

“I see,” Lucy said. “But why are you standing out here at night? It’s freezing. If this ‘inheritance’ isn’t quite enough, why don’t you let me give you some money for a room tonight? I hear it’s going to get bitter cold.”

Treacher’s ragged face softened and his eyes clouded over for a moment. Then he shook his head. “I’m afraid that tonight will be more bitter than most,” he said softly. “I’m sorry, Lucy.”

“Sorry?” Lucy’s puzzled look turned to one of alarm when she noticed the dark sedan sitting in the alley behind Treacher. The doors of the car opened, though the lights inside stayed off.

“How could you?” she yelled, and turned to run, but the old man was ready. He reached out with a Taser stun gun, which he touched to the back of her neck. There was a momentary flash of blue, a slight buzzing, a muffled cry, and then she slumped into his waiting arms.

The other men stepped forward and quickly relieved Treacher of his unconscious victim. “We’ll take her from here.”

“She’s not to be harmed,” Treacher warned.

The leader of the men laughed. “What do you care, Judas? You have your thirty pieces of silver…or at least as much as you’re going to get until, Allah willing, you complete your task.”

“I care because Grale won’t want his little prize damaged,” Treacher growled, “or you may get your pal back in little quivering pieces.”

The man spat on the ground. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Our instructions are to deliver her safe and unharmed. After that…it is not my responsibility what happens to the American whore.”

“You’ve been warned,” Treacher said. “Now let’s talk about something important…my money.”

“M
R.
K
ARP, IN THE MATTER OF
T
HE
P
EOPLE VERSUS
F. L
LOYD
Maplethorpe
, what are your wishes?”

Judge Michael Rosenmayer peered over at the prosecution table, where Karp and Kenny Katz sat quietly locked in an animated conversation. Lean and handsome, Rosenmayer had a physical appearance that matched his tough, no-nonsense reputation after nearly twenty-five years on the bench for the Supreme Court of New York—which is the trial court, unlike in most states, where the Supreme Court is the highest appellate venue.

Karp stood and, with a final glance toward Katz, said, “The People wish to go forward as scheduled.”

Rosenmayer looked surprised. He was used to lawyers asking for delays on just about any pretext; rarely did they voluntarily forgo extra time,
especially
when they had a valid excuse. “Are you sure? Your office just lost the lead prosecutor in this case to an untimely death, and I am prepared to grant you additional time. And by the way, my sincere condolences; Mr. Reed was a fine lawyer who appeared before this court numerous times, and from everything else I’ve observed and heard about him, he was a good man, too. It’s such a tragedy, and all I can add is that none of us know what demons another man may be dealing with.”

“No we don’t, Your Honor,” Karp replied. “And I appreciate your offer and especially your kind words regarding Stewart Reed. He was, indeed, a good man and a skilled, conscientious public servant who will be sorely missed. However, the People are ready to proceed.”

The judge’s kind words about Reed had caught Karp emotionally unprepared and he’d choked up at the end as he recalled the last time he saw Stewbie Reed. Detective Murphy had taken him to the Waverly Place apartment building, where he climbed out of the car into the glare of red and blue flashing lights of a police cruiser, an unmarked detective’s sedan, and an NYFD ambulance. Several camera flashes went off as he stepped to the curb; either someone had alerted the press, or a couple of locals were hoping to make a buck selling tragedy to the press.

Chief of the DAO detective squad Clay Fulton was standing at the front door and let him into the building and then led the way up three flights of stairs to Reed’s apartment. The big former college middle linebacker stepped aside when they entered the apartment, and that’s when Karp saw Reed. He was hanging by the neck from an overhead pipe above the hardwood floor of his apartment living room, his eyes protruding and his face blue.

Karp noted that Reed had decided to die in the same manner he lived, impeccably dressed—from his Brooks Brothers shirt, silk tie, and tailored suit to his Allen-Edmonds dress shoes.
“My God, I can’t believe this. Has anybody notified his family?”
he’d asked, his voice catching as he looked up into Stewbie’s lifeless eyes.
“I think his mother lived in Queens.”

“Maspeth…it’s where he grew up,”
Fulton said.
“I sent a detective to her house to take her to the medical examiner’s so she can identify the body. Someone from Victim’s Assistance will meet them there and stay with her.”

“Thanks, Clay,”
Karp said as he tore his gaze from the dead man and looked around the apartment, a one-bedroom with a small living room and smaller kitchen. It was all tastefully decorated and immaculately kept, the hardwood floors perfectly polished to a golden sheen. He turned back to Fulton.
“Clay, I’d like you to handle this.”

The detective frowned as he gave Karp a questioning look.
“You know something I don’t?”

Karp had hesitated, but then shook his head.
“No. At least nothing I can put a finger on. It’s probably just the shock; I never saw this coming. But we owe it to Stewbie to be thorough.”

Fulton had been thorough and nothing had turned up amiss. But the image of Reed hanging from the pipe had continued to haunt Karp. Not so much the proximity of death—he’d certainly seen enough of that in his career—or even that this was the death of a friend and colleague. As he’d explained to Marlene, it was more like one of those what’s-wrong-with-this-picture puzzles. Something was out of place, but even though he’d gone over it a hundred times in his mind, he couldn’t say what it was. “The People are ready to proceed.”

“Very well, Mr. Karp,” Judge Rosenmayer said, and turned to the defense table, where Maplethorpe, dressed in a bright blue silk suit with oversize white-rimmed glasses, sat with his team of attorneys. “Mr. Leonard, do you have any problem with proceeding as scheduled?”

“Why, no, Your Honor,” Guy Leonard replied in his booming baritone as he rose from his seat. He was one of the most famous defense attorneys in the country—just as tall as Karp, but leaner and tanned, as though he actually worked on the cattle ranch he owned near Bozeman, Montana. He favored Stetson hats to wear over his long gray shoulder-length hair, and cowboy boots, which, according to one fawning article in the
New York Times
at the beginning of the first Maplethorpe trial, set him back two thousand dollars a pair. He completed the image by wearing doeskin leather coats with fringes on the arms and turquoise-studded bolo ties. “I must confess that I expected my esteemed adversaries to request a continuance; however, I agree that it is time to put this matter to rest once and for all. The horror of how this beautiful young woman chose to end her life has been devastating for my client, who only wishes to move on from this tragedy for all parties and restore his good name.”

Rosenmayer nodded and appeared ready to ignore the speech
and move on, but Leonard held up a hand. “I do have one request, and that is if we’re to continue with this circus, who will be representing the District Attorney’s Office? Will it be the young man attending to Mr. Karp today? I’m assuming he’s capable of taking on a case of this importance.”

Karp heard sniggers from the spectator section at the personal jab at Kenny Katz and glanced over at the defense table in time to see Maplethorpe cover a smile with his hand. The producer then half turned to look back at the adoring retinue that sat in the pews behind him.

Aware of the heat rising in his face, Karp smiled and kept his voice in check as he replied. “Mr. Katz, as well as every assistant district attorney in my office, is quite capable of handling this case, which by the way is no more or less important than any other case in which an innocent person is heinously murdered.”

As he spoke, Karp looked again at Maplethorpe and was gratified to see him blush crimson at the suggestion that his was a run-of-the-mill trial, no more important than that of a common killer. “However, I will be representing the People with my esteemed associate Mr. Kenny Katz as cocounsel.”

Raising his eyebrows in surprise, Leonard snorted theatrically and shook his head as he drummed his fingers on the defense table.

“Do you have an issue with that, Mr. Leonard?” Rosenmayer asked.

Leonard tilted his head and smiled as though he’d just been told an ironic joke. He gripped the lapels of his doeskin coat, rocked back on his heels, and chuckled. “No, no, Your Honor,” he replied. “If my
esteemed
colleague, the
elected
district attorney, wants to turn this travesty into more of a media circus than it has already been, I suppose it’s his right. But might I inquire as to what prompted this spectacular entry?”

Karp kept his eyes on the judge as he responded. “If there’s been a ‘media circus’ surrounding this trial, counsel need only look in the mirror to see who has repeatedly disregarded Your Honor’s prohibition regarding talking to the media about this case.”

Leonard held his hands apart as if he had nothing to hide. “I do
not seek out the press,” he said in a wounded tone. “If anything, I have from time to time responded to questions that are put to me that unanswered would further sully my client’s good name. The longer these lies linger in the public’s mind, the greater the chance that they will poison the jury pool. Indeed, I believe that there have already been grave injustices along such lines. And what are the good citizens of New York to think when their
elected
district attorney takes it upon himself to prosecute a respected,
law-abiding
, until proven otherwise, member of the community.”

“Not that it’s any of Mr. Leonard’s business,” Karp retorted, “but the fact of the matter is that before the death of Mr. Reed, I undertook an extensive review of the case files and court transcripts from the first trial. I am the attorney in my office who is the most familiar with the facts, and my schedule at this time also allows me to undertake the case.”

Leonard was about to respond, but this time it was the judge who held up his hand. “Save it, Mr. Leonard,” he said, “I wouldn’t want you to wear out that marvelous voice before the new jury gets to hear it. Now, is there any other official business that doesn’t require an overabundance of rhetoric?”

“As a matter of fact,” Leonard said, “I would like to know if the district attorney will be calling any additional expert witnesses who did not testify during the first trial? If so, we have not received any notification so that we might review their bona fides.”

As though watching a slow, rather boring tennis match, the judge turned his head to look over at Karp, who responded, “We have no plans to call any additional witnesses. If we feel the need later, we will be sure to let counsel know in a timely manner.”

Without waiting for Leonard to speak, Rosenmayer banged his gavel on the dais. “Very well,” he said. “Jury selection begins in two weeks, which I will point out is the week before the Thanksgiving holiday week, when I plan for us to take Thursday and Friday off. If necessary, we will begin again the following Monday. Understood? Then court is adjourned in the matter of
The People versus F. Lloyd Maplethorpe
…. Oh, and once again, I ask that both sides, and their associates, refrain from making remarks to the press. I don’t
care if they insinuate that your client is the Antichrist, am I clear, Mr. Leonard?”

Leonard looked surprised by the question. “Why, of course, Your Honor. I shall endeavor to remain at arm’s length from those—to paraphrase Spiro Agnew—nattering nabobs of negativism,” he replied, turning his head so that only the spectator section could see him wink.

“Make sure you do, Mr. Leonard, or suffer the consequences,” Rosenmayer said with a glower so stern that Leonard’s smile dropped from his lips like a stone.

“Yes, Your Honor.”