“Like—and sorry, Mrs. Acevedo, but I have to be honest with Marlene here—Felix is what you’d call ‘a little slow.’ He was held back a couple of grades and still struggles with things like reading and understanding even when he says he does. He’s not stupid; it just takes him longer to put it together than most people. There’s one thing he’s good at: if he hears something—like which trains to take and what stops to get off, or a rap song—he can spit it back out like he recorded it. But there’s no room for mistakes. If he accidentally got off at the wrong subway stop, he’d be lost until someone else told him what to do. But the cops are saying this is the guy who supposedly slips in and out of buildings murdering women and disappears, until finally they catch him wandering around on the sidewalk on a Sunday morning. You believe that? Hell, the cops said Felix tried to run away and fell over his own feet. That makes sense, anyway, ’cause the guy’s a klutz and blind without his glasses, which they lost, by the way.”
“You say he has a habit of confessing to things he didn’t do?” Marlene asked.
As a former assistant district attorney, she knew that with any major crime there were people who would step forward to confess when they didn’t commit the offense. Sometimes it was for the publicity. Or sometimes they were mentally ill and harboring a guilt complex that made them feel as if they needed to be punished. But those people tended to turn themselves in or made statements to others hoping to be implicated. They didn’t expect to be spotted on a sidewalk by the police and then try to escape.
Occasionally there was another type of false confession made during police interrogations. There wasn’t a lot of rubber-hosing of suspects, no slapping a potential perp beneath a hot, bare lightbulb—defendants were well aware of their civil rights when it came to physical violence. But some police interrogators stopped just short of it—getting up in the face of the suspect, shouting, threatening, cursing, intimidating.
The U.S. Supreme Court had even ruled that the police could lie in order to secure a confession, such as telling a suspect that he’d been identified by a witness when the truth was that he had not. And some interrogators walked a fine line with techniques like sleep deprivation, hunger, and thirst—cases had been lost when defense attorneys successfully argued to a judge that crossing that line had constituted coercion or worse.
Whatever the reason behind a false confession, the police were supposed to keep secret some details about the crime that only the killer would know. It was a sure way to separate fact from fiction.
“Felix will say anything that will take the pressure off,” Garcia replied, and told her about the incident between Maria Elena and her boyfriend at the Hip-Hop Club. He turned to the other woman. “Mrs. Acevedo, maybe you could tell Marlene more about Felix?”
Amelia Acevedo smiled timidly. Marlene observed that before a hard life had prematurely grayed Amelia’s hair and lined her face, she’d been quite pretty. “Yes, ever since he was a young boy, if someone asks him, ‘Did you do this?’ he will say yes,” Amelia replied. “He does not like people to be angry with him. His father is always angry with him. The other night Felix tried to deny that he took his father’s beer, and then when my husband found the beer in the fridge, Felix then told him that he did it, which he did not do. That’s when my husband hit him like this.” She imitated a backhand blow to the right side of Felix’s face.
“Has he been in trouble with the authorities—the police or at school—where he confessed to something he didn’t do?” Marlene asked.
Amelia nodded her head emphatically. “Yes, the other kids at school sometimes do bad things and then blame him. They know he will say he did it. This happened at the school when that boy, I think his name is Raymond, threw a rock at the window of the grocery store. Felix was afraid when the police accused him and so he said he did it. He didn’t want them to be mad at him. But then the police found out he didn’t do these things.”
Marlene thought for a moment before speaking again. “Forgive me, but I want to play devil’s advocate here for a moment. I understand he sometimes confesses to things he didn’t do, but what if he really killed these women? Do you have anything else to suggest that he didn’t do it?”
Garcia shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t think he could do it. The kid is a real sweetheart and just sort of naïve about the world. I mean, he wanted to give the coat-check girl a diamond ring he bought from some guy in a park—probably hot as hell—and he’s too shy to even ask her for a date. But besides just not being the killer type, he’s kind of skinny and not very strong.”
He patted Amelia Acevedo’s hand. “Sorry, Mrs. Acevedo, I like Felix but he can hardly walk without falling. The cops are saying he’s this smooth cat burglar who gets into these apartments in the middle of the day, ties up these women, kills them without alarming the neighbors, then just calmly walks away, catches a bus or a taxi back to the Bronx? And nobody sees him? It just doesn’t make sense.”
Garcia looked at Amelia. “Tell her what you told me about Felix on the day of the murder in the Bronx.”
“I do not remember last July when the two women were killed in Manhattan,” she responded, “but I remember when that Bronx woman, Dolores Atkins, was killed because I saw it on television news before I went to work. My boy came home when I was watching.”
“What was he wearing?”
“The same thing he always wears in the summer—a T-shirt, shorts, and basketball shoes.”
“Did you see any blood on him? On his clothes? His hands?”
Amelia Acevedo shook her head. “No, nothing. And not when I washed his clothes later.”
Garcia looked over at Marlene. “I don’t know what was in the newspapers, but I’ve talked to a few people on the street who wouldn’t shit me. They said there was blood everywhere. But Felix doesn’t get any on him?”
Marlene frowned. “I haven’t seen the crime scene photographs, but maybe he washed up or changed clothes.”
“Talk to Felix sometime and then you tell me if you think he’s so cool that after he cuts this woman up and did whatever else they say he did, he washes the blood off himself and his clothes,” Garcia said. “Maybe he stopped at a Laundromat and then went to the Y to take a shower.”
“Maybe,” Marlene said with a laugh. “But it’s just the sort of thing we’ll have to look into should the prosecution try to make that claim.”
Garcia grinned. “This means you’ll take the case.”
Marlene smiled back. “I can’t represent him on the Manhattan beef, but I have someone good in mind, a real sharp lawyer, Alea Watkins. But let me look into this and the Bronx case some more and see what I can come up with.”
Suddenly Amelia sobbed and reached over to grab Marlene’s hands. “Felix is a good boy,” she said. “Gracias, he is all I have to bring me joy.”
Marlene squeezed the other woman’s hands and smiled. “We mothers have to stick together. I’ll do the best I can.”
13
BUTCH KARP WAS WAITING FOR MARLENE IN THE LIVING room of the loft when she got home that night. “So how’s Alejandro?” he asked, patting the couch in an invitation to join him.
“He’s fine,” she said, sitting down and curling up against him. “It’s his friend he’s worried about. I met with him and Amelia Acevedo, the mother of one Felix Acevedo, who is currently under indictment for murder with the New York DAO and may be facing similar charges in the Bronx.”
Karp felt his wife hesitate. There hadn’t been much time to tell him about the telephone call from Garcia that had precipitated the meeting. He furrowed his brow when she asked him why he hadn’t spoken about the Yancy-Jenkins case to her before the indictment and he replied, “Well, I have to admit, I didn’t know about it. Not that I hear about every indictment or that every felony—even murder—is brought before the bureau chiefs meeting on Monday morning for vetting. But still …” His voice trailed off.
“I told Mrs. Acevedo that I’d look into what’s going on in the B
ronx,” she said now as she burrowed under his protective arm. “And I’m going to see if I can find someone willing to take the New York case pro bono.”
“Really? You think there’s something amiss?”
Marlene raised her eyebrows and he knew his studied nonchalance wasn’t fooling her. She gave him a basic rundown of what she’d heard at the bookstore. “I think you might want to take a look at that confession,” she suggested now. “I’ve got a gut feeling that something’s not right about this.”
“Not every confession is a fraud, Miss Hug-a-Thug Defense Attorney, even if this guy has a history of giving false statements,” Karp said. “However, I’ve already called Pat Davis; had to leave a message, but asked to see him in the morning to brief me and bring the case file.” Pat Davis was the deputy chief of the Homicide Bureau. “Can’t have some fire-breathing defense lawyers and their friends in the press catching me with my pants down.”
“Damn straight … especially if one of the fire breathers is your wife,” Marlene said with a sly smile. “But why Pat Davis, not Tommy Mack?”
“Tommy’s in the middle of a six-week trial,” Karp said of the Homicide Bureau chief. “Meanwhile, Pat’s been handling the bureau administrative duties. And as for getting caught with my pants down, there are exceptions to every rule, and if you play your cards right …” He winked. “But I believe we were talking about this friend of Alejandro’s. Do you know who you’re going to bring on as his attorney for Yancy-Jenkins?”
Marlene nodded. “I’m hoping to talk Alea Watkins into it. Then your people will at least know they’d better be prepared for a fight.”
“Good choice.” Karp pictured the attractive, middle-aged black attorney known for taking on the tough cases. “Sharp and aggressive. I wonder who we have working the case.”
“I thought Guma was your point man on the Yancy-Jenkins task force,” Marlene said.
“He was,” Karp replied. “Or is. But he’s been on vacation at a health retreat in the Catskills. He’s not due back in the office until Monday, and it’s only Wednesday, so I think I’ll take a look at the case file and ask a few questions of Davis, including why I’m in the dark on this one.”
Karp was still mulling over what Marlene had told him about Felix Acevedo as he walked to work the next morning, following his usual route east on Grand and then south on Centre to the monolithic Criminal Courts Building, which also housed the DAO. He smiled when he saw the owner of the newsstand in front of the building. The little man with the pointed nose and Coke-bottle eyeglasses spotted him at the same time and grinned as he hopped from foot to foot in front of his kiosk.
Dirty Warren was Marlene’s first case in her new role of crusading defense attorney. He’d been framed for the murder of a Westchester County socialite and without Marlene’s help would likely have been convicted—if the conspirators had not first had him murdered in jail to make sure the case was closed. He got his nickname because he had Tourette’s syndrome, which afflicted him with various facial tics and caused him to lace his conversations with frequent and unexpected bits of profanity and odd sounds. But he was a genuinely good man who’d been a font of information about what was going down on the streets.
“Hey, Karp … son of a bitch whoop whoop … got a good one for you,” Dirty Warren said, continuing his little dance, which was one of the manifestations of Tourette’s.
“Take your best shot, and good morning, by the way,” Karp replied as he came up to the newsstand. For years, he and Dirty Warren had played a game of movie trivia. Dirty Warren would ask some obscure question having to do with films, and Karp had to answer. So far the score was a zillion to none in favor of Karp, whose lifelong affection for movies had begun with his visits to the Kingsway Theatre in Brooklyn, where he grew up.
“This one should be easy, right up your … whoop … alley,” Dirty Warren said. “Why would a scout … asshole balls oh boy ohhhh boy … watch the trial of a framed innocent man?”
Karp scratched his head, shuffled his feet, started to speak then stopped, and secretly enjoyed seeing the hope of victory grow in Dirty Warren’s eyes. Then he dashed it. “Are you trying to mock me?” he said. “I thought you were my friend, but you’re killing me here.” He paused as if listening to a voice and said, “Ah, a little bird just gave me the answer.”
The sparkle went out in Dirty Warren’s eyes. Resigned, he said, “Just give me the … whoop whoop … answer, Karp.”
“Well, she’s there to watch her father, Atticus Finch, defend Tom Robinson in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird,” Karp said.
“Damn it, Karp,” Dirty Warren said. “I figured maybe you wouldn’t waste your movie-watching time on something so … fuck me bastard whoop whoop … so work related.”
“Au contraire,” Karp replied. “Some of my favorite films are courtroom thrillers—for instance, Twelve Angry Men. A classic.”
“Well, I told you it would be easy,” Dirty Warren grumbled. He handed Karp a copy of The New York Times, but when his customer tried to pay him, he waved it off. “Your money’s no good here, Butch. Not after … oh boy balls oh boy … what Marlene did for me.”
Karp tried again to hand him the money. “I’m glad she did but that was Marlene, not me.”
“The way I see it … asswipe bitch … you’re a team,” the little man said. “So like I said, you’re wasting your time trying to pay me.”
Karp held up the paper. “Well, then, thanks, Warren.”
“Not a problem. Now, if I could … whoop whoop ohhhh boy … only beat you once, just once, I’d be a happy man.” He scrunched up his eyebrows and squinted his baby blues at Karp through his thick glasses. “But no throwing the game out of pity.”
“I have too much respect for you to do that,” Karp replied with a grin. He turned and left the smiling news vendor hopping from one foot to the other.
In the elevator, Karp glanced at the large bold headline at the top of the Times and sighed. The headline and story the day before had been bad enough.
COLUMBIA U SLASHER ARRESTED
A nineteen-year-old Bronx man confessed Monday to the brutal murder of Olivia Yancy and Beth Jenkins, whose maimed and bloody bodies were discovered last July …
But this morning’s edition made him grimace.
SLASHER CONFESSES, NEW YORK DA INDICTS
He found deputy Homicide Bureau chief Patrick Davis already waiting for him in the reception area of his eighth-floor office. He looked at his watch—seven thirty; their appointment wasn’t for another half hour. But he knew that Davis was ambitious and always trying to impress, hoping for a promotion to the bureau chief’s spot. It was now common knowledge in the office that Homicide Bureau chief Tommy Mack was being offered a judgeship but was undecided.
With respect to Davis, Karp felt that the jury was still out. There was no question that Davis was a top-flight trial lawyer and respected by his peers, including those with the defense bar. But he was thirty-five years old, and the man’s age, or more accurately his lack of administrative experience and mature judgment in a leadership role, was worrisome.
“Good morning, Patrick,” Karp said as his visitor shot up from his chair like a soldier when the commanding officer enters a room. “I hope I didn’t forget what time we were meeting.”
“Not at all,” Davis said. “You just never know what traffic’s going to be like coming through the Lincoln Tunnel, so I got started a little early. And wouldn’t you know, it was smooth sailing…. But I can wait if you need to do some other things first.”
“No, let’s get started,” Karp said, and nodded to the door leading to his inner office. At the same moment, the door to the hallway opened and a plump middle-aged woman entered the reception room. She seemed surprised to find them there and eyed the two men suspiciously.
Receptionist Darla Milquetost considered the office to be her domain as much as Karp’s and didn’t like surprise visitors who weren’t on the calendar. “Good morning,” she said, arc
hing her painted-on eyebrows.
“Good morning, Darla,” Karp replied cheerfully. He generally found her territorial imperative amusing. “I’m sure you know Patrick Davis?”
Milquetost gave the young man a tight smile. “Of course, I just didn’t know we’d have the pleasure of his company this morning,” she replied, and headed behind her desk, where she opened a drawer and dropped her purse in before closing it with enough force to rattle the photograph of Karp hanging on the wall.
Karp smiled at the display and turned on his heel to enter his office. “Please hold my calls unless it’s an emergency.”
“Certainly, Mr. Karp,” the receptionist replied. She brightened at the thought of being able to tell anyone who called that her boss was not available. And would you like to schedule a time to call back?
Karp waited for Davis to pass him before closing the door behind them. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said, indicating the chair in front of his desk.
When Karp was seated, Davis handed over a thick file folder. “Here’s the Yancy-Jenkins case file,” he said. “It has everything the task force compiled plus the new stuff: a transcription of the defendant’s confession to the detective in the Bronx—I believe his name is Graziani—as well as his transcribed Q & A statement to our ADA Danielle Cohn.”
“I know Danielle,” Karp said. “Good kid, but didn’t she just get assigned to Homicide? How’d she catch a case like this one?”
“She was working the night chart on Monday when she got the call from Detective Graziani up at the Four-Eight in the Bronx,” Davis said. “She’s young, but she’s very good; top of her class at Brown and Yale Law. Blazed her way through the criminal courts; tried a lot of cases successfully down there. Been with Homicide for six months and done well as second chair on a couple of murder trials and on her own with a reckless manslaughter. Still batting a thousand.”
Davis stopped talking, realizing he was sounding like a used-car salesman. He shrugged. “Of course, I was going to talk to you about her co-counsel. If you think she should second-chair this one, too, that’s fine by me. She’ll understand; she won’t like it, but she’ll understand.”
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