Justice Denied (18 page)

“What's wrong?”

“You were on the news.”

“What? Oh, yeah, the West Village thing. That made you cry? My performance?”

“No, dummy, the vic. Susan Weiner.”

Karp now recalled where he had heard the name. “Oh, shit, the woman from the day-care!” He went over and hugged her. “I'm sorry, babe—but at least we got the guy.”

Marlene leaned against him and sighed deeply. “Yeah, I'm sure that'll make her family feel better. Her husband can sleep with a copy of the indictment.”

She shook herself and wiped some sweat from her face. “I didn't mean that. Sure, it's great you caught the guy. I don't know why it's affecting me like this. I wasn't particularly close to the woman. It's just that her life … she seemed so on top of it all, like the grime didn't stick to her. You know how everybody in the City seems sour and cynical and paranoid? She had a shine on her that made you think, yeah, she's making it, she's happy, with a job and a kid and a nice place to live, and she doesn't look like a survivor of the Long March. So it's, hey, she can do it, maybe I can do it too. Now she's a piece of meat on a slab.”

“Speaking of meat, what's for dinner?”

She pushed him away and slapped at him with her towel. “Oooh, how could you say that? I can't believe you said that.”

“What? What?” sputtered Karp, taking a step back. “Hey, what do you want? I'm sorry your friend got killed, but—”

“She wasn't my friend.”

“Okay, I'm sorry your acquaintance got killed. What should I do, go into mourning eleven hundred times a year? Beat my breast? I'd be paralyzed in a week if I did that, and so would you. People get killed and sometimes, not very often, they're people like us. The only thing we can do is find the bastard who did it and make sure he won't do it again. Does this make a difference? No, there's ten more where he came from. Are things getting better? No, every year they get a little worse. It's useless and stupid, but we keep doing it because that's what we do. We're pros.”

“What's your point, Spinoza?” snapped Marlene.

“I don't have a point,” Karp admitted. “I just hate it when you get like this. You get pissed off about how shitty everything is, and you bring it home and take it out on me.”

“Who else is there? But yes, you're right! I was wrong. I wavered for an instant from the absolute control you have every right to expect.” She slapped her own cheek, twice. “There! I needed that. Now I can make your dinner in an orderly manner—”

“Come on, Marlene,” he sighed, “don't do a number—”

“—while you provide your daughter with forty-six minutes of fatherly attention as per contract.” She stomped away in a stiff robot-like walk. Clattering of pots. Karp picked up the baby, who needed changing, badly. A perfect day.

They ate dinner in an atmosphere of chill correctness. They were just clearing the dishes away, and Karp was struggling to think of some magic language that would get them out of marriage hell, when the phone rang.

He picked it up. A woman's voice: “What're you going to do to him?” She sounded drunk or drugged.

“I'm sorry, who is this, please?” said Karp.

“I killed her. I killed her. I let him out, the fucking nigger scumbag bastard fuckhead. I let him out and he killed her …”

The woman's voice dissolved into sobbing. Then there was a loud crash over the line as if the phone had been tossed against something solid, followed by a hollow cacophany of wailings and things being smashed, picked up by the unattended receiver. Karp hung up.

“Who was that?” Marlene asked, seeing the odd expression on her husband's face.

“I don't know. I think it was about the Weiner case. A woman, claims she had something to do with letting Russell loose.”

Marlene went white and sat down on a kitchen stool. “Oh, shit, it must be her sister. The parole officer I told you about—the one I had lunch with when I met Susan. Russell must be one of her parolees. In fact, Christ, I think it was the guy she was talking about when we had lunch—the prize pupil. He had a weird first name, didn't he? Foley? Mosie?”

“Hosie Russell.”

“Yeah, Hosie. Oh, God, what a nightmare! The poor woman!”

Karp embraced his wife and didn't say a word, and this time she clung to him fiercely.

“Who is this guy Kerbussyan?” asked Roland Hrcany, “and why did Karp go to see him this morning?”

Barney Wayne and Joe Frangi did not know, nor did they particularly care, after a long day. The Ersoy murder was a clearance as far as they were concerned. They had the guy. Hrcany's thing with Karp was his own business, and while they were willing to go some extra for Roland, seeing as how he was an okay guy, they had other stuff on their plate. Wayne pointedly looked at his watch. Frangi got out of his chair and looked out the window of Roland's office at the gathering dusk.

“Why don't you ask Karp?” Frangi replied.

Roland said, “I did ask him. I just this minute got off the phone with him.” Roland could not keep a satisfied grin off his face as he said this. He had, of course, learned of Karp's morning expedition indirectly from his driver, a detective, via the Centre Street police grapevine, into which he was well plugged. That he had thereafter felt free to call his nominal boss at home after hours to pump him for information had given him considerable pleasure.

Roland continued, “That's why I want him checked out. According to Karp, he's some kind of Armenian political. He claims that Tomasian had the guns because he was a gun runner.”

“You believe that shit?” snapped Frangi.

“It doesn't matter what I believe. It's a plausible story for a jury. We need to find out if it's true, and also whether Kerbussyan's ever been mixed up in any funny business. Speaking of which, Karp thinks that Kerbussyan knows something about the victim's little treasure chest.”

“For instance … ?” asked Wayne.

“Karp doesn't know. But we should check it out. Why don't you guys go up to Riverdale and find out what you can about this guy?”

Unenthusiastic grunts of assent issued from the two detectives.

“The other thing,” continued Roland, unfazed, “what's the latest on the girlfriend?”

Frangi brought out his notebook. “On that, we got a woman answering her description getting off a plane at San Francisco and renting a Hertz car on a credit card made out to Gabrielle Avanian. We got credit card charges in San Luis Obispo, stores and a motel, the following day. Then we got charges in Disneyland, Huntington Beach, Monterey, and San Francisco. Looks like she's on a vacation.”

Wayne said, “I don't know. Disneyland: she could be targeting Mickey.”

“Yeah, or a terrorist assault on the Turkish taffy stand,” said Frangi. “I think we should all go out there, Roland. We might save countless lives.”

“Very funny. Okay, we assume the girl is either too incredibly cool or else not involved. Also, assuming she reads the papers, she doesn't seem in any hurry to get back and spring her sweetie, which could mean the alibi is a piece of shit. In any case, will you do me one favor? Let's pick her up when she gets back. Just to dot the
I
's.”

Frangi made a notation in his pad. “Dot the
I
's. Pick up girlfriend. It'll be soon. MasterCard says she's running close to her credit limit.”

The next day Karp went for his arthroscopy in Dr. Hudson's office. His knee was shot full of dope, but he could still feel the conducted vibration of the instruments rattling up his skeleton, informing him that someone was working inside his living flesh. He sweated bullets.

After the procedure, Dr. Hudson was characteristically blunt: massive destruction of cartilage, bone abrasion, chronic inflammation of the bursa. The whole thing would have to be replaced, and soon. Karp told Hudson to set up the operation.

In a somber mood Karp was driven to his next appointment, which was with Milton Freeland at the Legal Aid Society offices on Leonard Street. The offices were suitably shabby, to go with the clientele, but Karp observed that Freeland had replaced Dora, Tom Pagano's old secretary, with a shiny new model. Karp was ushered into the presence. It was wearing a yellow tie and yellow suspenders and a good false smile. Karp sat in an uncomfortable wooden visitors' chair without being asked.

“We have a problem, Milton,” he said without preamble.

“Oh? What problem is that? Butch.”

“Well, specifically, that stunt you pulled the other day on Tony Harris in the Devers homicide, but—”

“It's not my fault if your people don't know the law,” Freeland interrupted.

“But,” Karp continued, “but, I just wanted to get together with you at the beginning so as to make sure that the good working relationship that my office had with Tom's office continues.”

“And what was that, pray tell?” Freeland was smirking. He could tell Karp was embarrassed and was enjoying it.

“A certain respect. A certain understanding of the position of the formal adversary. We don't break our word. We don't pull funny stuff in court. I don't railroad people or accept phonied evidence. You don't yell racism and police brutality when none exists—”

Freeland laughed out loud, unpleasantly. “Oh, be serious. The next thing you're going to tell me is that all the people you bring to trial really did it.”

“No. But I'd say if I bring them,
I
believe they did it.”

“What about Morales?” Freeland sneered. “Do you believe in that piece of shit case?”

Karp's stomach lurched and he suppressed a sigh. “Between us? No, and I didn't mean to imply we didn't ever screw up. But there's a good example. If Tom were still here, when he saw
Morales
he would've called me up and chewed my ass for a while and we would've worked it out some way.”

“What way?”

Karp stared hard at the smug little face and looked for something that he was more and more sure was not there. “Are you asking hypothetically,” he inquired calmly, “or are you interested in working something out?”

Freeland seemed to consider this for a while, leaning back in his swivel chair, with his feet on the desk, staring at the corner of the ceiling, tapping with a pencil.

At last he faced Karp and said, “Actually, no. I'm not interested in working something out. We intend to fry your Mr. Bergman's shorts publically, in open court, and do the same in every case in which an innocent defendant is framed. Especially homicide. And especially when your cops have picked some poor black or Hispanic at random. And from what I can see, in even the short time I've been here, there are plenty. And this West Village murder—the body wasn't even cold, before they dragged some pathetic piss bum out of a cellar and pinned it on him. It sucks, Karp! And it's not going to go on. I don't care what cozy little deal you had with my esteemed predecessor.”

“Good speech, Milton,” said Karp, “but allow me to point out one difference between
Morales
and the Weiner killing. In all probability Morales didn't do it. Russell definitely did it. That strikes me as significant.”

“Oh, please! It's another FAN job. A white woman gets stabbed and it's grab the first available nigger.”

“Well, since we're on the subject already, I presume that you won't be pleading guilty to the top count in Russell.”

“The plea is not guilty.”

Karp rose slowly to his feet and looked down at Freeland as at something adhering to his shoe. He said, “In that case, Counselor, I'll see you in court.”

He started to leave, but Freeland said quickly, “Wait a minute! You mean
you're
trying Russell?” There was something flickering across his pale face: anticipation, excitement? Karp couldn't be sure. He said, “Yes, the luck of the draw. Why?”

“Nothing. It's a bullshit case. You're gonna get creamed. Well. Maybe I really will see you in court.”

Karp walked across the small office, but paused at the door. “Tell me,” he said, “I'm curious. This is about winning to you, isn't it? I mean, that's basically all it is to you, a game to win?”

Freeland snorted. “You mean it's not to you? What the hell are we doing here, then?” He gestured at his dingy office. “Making lots of dough?”

Karp ignored this. “You didn't play any ball in school, did you?” he asked mildly. “I mean letter ball. Varsity.”

“No. Why?” Freeland seemed genuinely puzzled at the question.

“Just curious,” said Karp, and left.

He went back to his office, spent the rest of the morning on routine paperwork, and was about to break for lunch when he got a call from the Tombs. It was Tony Chelham, the captain of the day shift. Karp listened to what the man had to say with growing disbelief.

“Hold on a minute, Tony, Russell wants what?”

“He wants his blue shirt. We had him signing for his stuff, you know? And he says, ‘Where's my blue shirt? I ain't signing without my blue shirt.'”

“Holy shit! Um, did he want the knife he killed her with too?”

A booming laugh. “No, but I thought it could be something, the shirt. He said the cops had it down by the Six. So I called.”

“You did great, Tony. Okay, here's what I want you to do. Get with Charlie Cimella at the Six. Have him bring the shirt. Get Russell in a cell by himself. Show him the shirt and say, ‘Is this the blue shirt you asked for, Russell?' Let him handle it, sniff it, whatever. If he says, yeah, it's mine, just say something like, okay, but we have to hold it for a while—you'll get it back, we'll put a note saying that in the effects bag. Then leave. Don't say anything else at all, no questions, nothing. Make sure Charlie understands that too. Then both of you get over here and we'll make out a statement.”

“Okay, check. I'll get right on it.”