No Lesser Plea (32 page)

Today Karp was giving what he had billed as his looney lecture. He told them about the legal doctrine of insanity, the M’Naughton and Durham rules, and the little kicker in the New York State criminal code that allowed a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity if a defendant “as a result of mental disease or defect lacks substantial capacity to know or appreciate the nature and quality of his act, or that it was wrong.”

“Now,” Karp continued, “this is going to shock you, but there are people out there who commit crimes and who don’t have a mental disease or defect and who still put in an NGI plea. Our job is to prove to the jury that they’re not crazy. The defense brings in their shrink, we bring in our shrink. The jury is confused at all times, which works in favor of the defense, you understand. We have a social horror of convicting somebody on a capital offense if he really thought he was cutting up a pumpernickel, but it was really the neighbor. However, ninety-nine percent of the NGI pleas you will see are not like that. They’re mutts trying to rip off the system. Yeah, Phil?”

Phil Dellia, an intense and studious kid just out of Fordham Law, had raised his hand. “But what about bizarre, motiveless crimes? Somebody likes to cut up redheads, or bald guys with cigars. What do you do?”

“Good question. The answer is, bizarre is not crazy, motiveless is not crazy. The issue you
have
to focus the jury on is, did he know he was killing a human being? Did he know that killing was wrong? I’ll demonstrate. Let’s say I don’t like Mister Krier here. He’s a pain in the ass, I want to get rid of him.”

Here Richie Krier, the class clown, turned in his seat to face the group, smiled, and waved. Krier wanted lawyering to be like lawyering in the movies, because what he really wanted to be was an actor. He had the wit and the physical equipment—tall, dark, and handsome—and was disappointed that what he did in real life was so different from what he had been led to expect. He didn’t begrudge the waste of three years in law school—it had kept him out of the draft—but he had seen the light and was now attending acting classes in the evenings, doing as little work as possible for the DA’s office, and doing that sloppily.

“OK, let’s say I go to say, Kaplan here, and give him five hundred dollars to shoot Krier.”

Mike Kaplan, a former engineer and the best of Karp’s recruits, grinned behind his wire-rimmed glasses and said, “Two hundred and fifty dollars.”

Laughter. “OK, two hundred and fifty dollars. You do the job, you cut off Krier’s head to show me that you earned the money. The cops follow a trail of blood to my office and we’re arrested. What’s the charge?”

“Murder One,” said Kaplan.

“Because?”

“It was done with intent to cause death of deceased and did cause death.”

“Right, and the contract nature of the killing makes it highly unlikely that an NGI would be offered. Now, in contrast, let’s say you’re at home, you’re hungry. You feel like a salami sandwich. You cut a piece of salami and sit down to eat. OK, a visitor comes in and finds Krier’s headless body on the kitchen floor. He finds you happily eating Krier’s head between two slices of seedless rye. He says, ‘What’s that corpse?’ You say, ‘What corpse? That’s salami.’ ”

“Butch, is this necessary?” Krier wailed. “I’m getting sick.”

“Yes, it is. Although the flaw in the case is that a reasonable and prudent man might conclude that your head was in fact made of salami. OK. Kaplan’s lawyer, let’s say, offers an NGI plea. What do you do? Franklin.”

Jerry Franklin, a squat wrestler from Brooklyn, who’d done well at Vermont and had spent two years prosecuting in an upstate county, chewed his lip for a moment. Then he said, “Assuming no substantive motive, right? What I’d check out first is, was there any prior history of delusion. Did he mistake people for food before? It’s compelling that he didn’t run or try to hide the act, and that the delusion persists. Of course, you’d have to see the whole pattern, but on the facts you gave, I would probably not waste time with a trial. Let the funny farm have him.”

“Fine, that’s a thoughtful answer, Jerry. You notice what he said about pattern. That’s the key. I’ll share a secret with you. Nobody knows what crazy is. You, and only you, are the judge of whether a defendant fits the definition of insanity in the law, the only judge of whether the state is going to try to exact punishment for a responsible act. Look for the pattern.

“All right, here’s the hard part. Killer Kaplan decides to whack out Krier because he hates guys whose names end in r, whatever. He cuts off Krier’s head, mutilates the body, writes weird cult signs all over the room in blood. Then he changes his clothes, burns the bloody clothes, and slips out the back. The cops catch him and he says the R people are trying to poison his air, so he has to kill them. Mike, how would you handle that?”

“That’s tough. He, or I, hid my tracks, showing that I knew it was wrong to kill. I was afraid of capture, which suggests rational thought. On the other hand, I have this delusion …”

“Uh-uh,” Karp interrupted. “Remember what I said to Phil. Wacky motives do not make insane crimes. No matter how much you hate your cousin Al, you can’t make a career out of killing people who look like him. That’s the most confusing thing to juries about insanity pleas and the defense will cover you with bullshit on it.

“OK, let’s talk about competency for a minute. This is a different thing entirely.”

Karp then sketched out the background of the Marchione case, and laid out what he thought Mandeville Louis was doing and how he intended to stop him from getting away with it.

“This is a classic case of gaming the system. The mutt can’t go for an NGI. It was an obvious killing for profit, with an elaborate getaway plan. He figures to lay low in a mental hospital until we forget about the case. But are we going to forget about the case?”

A chorus of no’s came from the group. Karp grinned and said, “That’s it. Any questions?”

Krier said, “What about this party Bloom is having. Do we have to go?”

Karp was embarrassed. Handing on bullshit from the top was what he hated most about being in the chain of command.

“Yeah, I guess it’s a command performance.”

Krier held up a memo. “It says we have to pay seven dollars to come to a party at his ‘ancestral home.’ If he’s so ancestral, why doesn’t he shell out?”

Karp said, “Richie, I’m here to answer your legal questions. If you have moral qualms, see your goddamn clergyman, hey? I intend to go, pay my fucking seven bucks like a trooper, and smile a lot. And, what the hell, it could turn out to be a blast.”

Chapter 16

T
he ancestral home of Sanford Bloom was a fussy Gothic pile of red sandstone in Fishkill, New York. It had been built by Bloom’s great-grandfather, who had inherited a substantial fortune made by selling beef and leather to the Union during the Civil War. The Blooms decided it was time to leave the slaughterhouse district of Manhattan and live among the patroons upstate. Fortunately, they held onto the stockyards, abattoirs, and surrounding property, which turned, with the fickleness of fashion, into Sutton Place, and made the Blooms truly wealthy.

Karp rode up to Fishkill with V.T., Marlene, and Guma in Guma’s junker. When they got there, a uniformed guard waved them to a parking space with a little red flag. The day was overcast, still, and sultry even in the country.

“Hey, look who’s there!” exclaimed Guma. “It’s Konstantelos.”

“Who’s he?” asked Marlene, sliding out of the backseat, and adjusting her skimpy shorts. “Guma, why don’t you have A/C in your car. My thighs are sticking together.”

“The rent-a-cop,” said Guma, “it’s Marty Konstantelos from the old four-seven precinct. He retired with a three-quarter a couple of years ago, caught his hand in a trunk or some shit. What a character! They called him Fartin’ Martin. He used to crack up the squad room during roll calls. The shift would chip in and get him a quart of chow mein or chili and then he’d stand there and let rip. Christ, could he cut the cheese! He could, like, do words or tunes—I swear to God, it was amazing.”

“Mad Dog, how come only you know people like this?” asked V.T. with something like admiration. “Does he do concerts?”

Guma laughed. “I don’t know. Maybe we can arrange something. Hey, I’m going to bullshit with him, I’ll catch you guys later.” Guma picked up a huge straw beach bag and waddled off. He was wearing an orange Kiss Me I’m Italian T-shirt, black Bermudas, black dress socks, and vinyl sandals.

V.T. gazed musingly after him. He himself was wearing a white Tom Wolfe suit, a yellow silk shirt and a plum-colored Paisley ascot. V.T. was one of the forty-three men in the civilized world who could wear an ascot without looking like a jerk.

“This is uncanny,” he said. “We arrive at this Disneyland castle and the first person to appear is somebody out of a dirty limerick, the man from Sparta, who was such an incredible farter, on the strength of one bean, he’d do God Save the Queen, and Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Do you suppose the man from St. Clair is the butler and the Old Lady from Wheeling is the cook?”

“I want to see the man from Kent,” said Marlene as the three of them set out on the graveled path to the house.

V.T. giggled. “Whose cock was so long that it bent? Stick around. My, this place is unbelievable. Bad taste married infinite riches and lived happily ever after.”

They were passing through some unkempt ornamental plantings. Some of the rose bushes had died and a bank of hydrangeas had succumbed to an invasion of wild grape. Weeds encroached vigorously on the gravel path and pushed up the flagstones of the garden walkways.

“Hey, V.T.,” said Karp, “you’re the
maven.
How come this place looks so crummy. Is Bloom strapped?”

“No, far from it,” answered Newbury. “But they don’t live here and neither Bloom nor his wife have any real feeling for the old pile. They’ve got their place in town, of course, and a big spread in the Hamptons, where they entertain. This joint is for ceremonial occasions only, or for people who can’t be trusted with the good furniture.”

“Tacky,” said Marlene. “Mom always told us to give the guests the best stuff.”

“Ahh, but we’re not guests, we’re the help. Also, rich people are apt to be stingy, which is how they stay rich. Present company excepted, of course.”

As they approached the house they heard the hum of conversation and the unmistakable sounds of a tennis match in progress. The path opened on a broad flagstoned terrace below the house, on which several long tables covered with checkered cloths had been set. On the near side of the terrace a short walk led to two clay tennis courts. These, at least, were in prime condition. On the far side, the terrace dropped off to a large, murky, ornamental fish pond. There were about a dozen DA staffers milling around, looking ill at ease. Black servants in white jackets were serving drinks and tending hamburgers, and hot dogs were cooking on a huge fieldstone grill.

“Fun is at its maddest, all right,” said Marlene. “Let’s scoff up seven dollars worth of drinks and hot dogs and split.”

“I can’t do that,” replied Karp. “I muscled all my guys to come here and I’m obligated to stay to the bitter end.”

“Besides, it’s bad manners, dear,” said V.T. “We have to greet our hosts, tell them how delightful it all is, get drunk, puke in the bushes, and
then
split. Haven’t you ever been to a fancy garden party? And speaking of our hosts …”

Bloom, in tennis whites, his face flushed, was coming down the walk from the tennis courts accompanied by a woman and two other men, one of whom was Conrad Wharton.

“Aha, Newbury, Karp, glad you could come. Denise and I just slaughtered Chip and Rich here in doubles, straight sets. Got to work on that serve, Chip.”

Wharton was also in whites. His normally pink face was bright red and his lank blond locks were plastered to his forehead. He smiled sheepishly and said, “Well, yeah, I’ve got a long way to go before I can take you, Sandy.”

Bloom gave a high-pitched laugh. “You know it! OK, just make yourselves at home, kids. Plenty of drinks and food—swim if you want to, play a few sets. I’m going to change.”

“I better change, too,” said Wharton.

Bloom strode off to the house, with Wharton waddling after him. Ignoring Marlene, Mrs. Bloom immediately linked her arms through V.T.’s and Karp’s. She was a wiry, heavily tanned woman of about forty, with large teeth, a truncated nose, and frosted dark hair. She was in a white tennis outfit with little red pom-poms sticking up over her Nikes.

“Oh, you must be V.T. Newbury and Butch Karp. Sandy’s told me so much about you both. Oh, V.T., you know I think we have some friends in common. The Worthingtons have the place just down the road you know, and they keep their boat in the Hamptons all summer. Isn’t that a coincidence.”

V.T. allowed that the world was a remarkable place. Thus encouraged, Mrs. Bloom said, “Now, I know I can get you two handsome young men to find me a drinkie. To the bar, and don’t spare the horses!” She laughed gaily and moved off with irresistible force. Karp shrugged at Marlene and let himself be dragged along.

Marlene was left alone on the path with the other tennis player. He was a tall, gangling man in his twenties, with longish razor-cut hair tied back in a red-white-and-blue terry headband, a straight pointy nose and close-set dark eyes. After a moment he stuck out his hand.

“Rich Wool,” he said.

“Beg pardon?”

“I’m Richard Wool. I head up the data development team in the office. Under Chip, of course. And you are?”

Marlene took the hand gingerly. “Jane Eyre.”

“Well, Jane, and what brings you here? Are you a spouse or one of the paralegals?”

“Actually, I’m with the custodial staff. I work directly for Mister Karp.”

“Really? I didn’t know Karp had any custodial responsibilities. What precisely do you do?”

“Oh this and that. Keep his tubes blown out, and all. Look, Rich, I’d love to stop and chat, but you’ve got to mingle and I need to go back to the car and shoot some smack, so …”

She turned and started off. “What? What did you say?” he called to her back. But by then she had already turned onto one of the many side paths that led off the gravel drive. She wasn’t hungry and she certainly didn’t feel like getting drunk with Denise and Sandy. She figured to screw around for an hour in the woods, sack out or indulge her secret taste for Regency romances, one of which she had stashed in her handbag.