Immoral Certainty

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  Karp sat down and the judge asked for cross-examination, but Klopper chose this moment to protest once again the admissibility of the evidence in the brown bag. “At this time,” he said, “if the court pleases, since there was no knowledge on my part of the evidence seized in the apartment at 130 Ludlow Street, I therefore ask for a hearing at this time in the absence of the jury for a determination by the court of whether the search and seizure is valid and not a violation of the constitutional rights of the defendant.”

  This was such an obvious lie that Karp was for a moment stunned. Then he got up and pointed out all the places in the official transcript, in the pre-trial records where Klopper had been so informed. Montana, looking disgusted, disposed of the motion and the trial proper resumed with the cross-examination of Balducci.

  Karp looked over at the jury and saw knotted brows. That, and not any real hope of getting the evidence tossed, had been the reason for the motion. Enough objections, however often overruled, might add up to a reasonable doubt in the minds of certain jurors. Sometimes the big lie worked.

  Klopper was good on cross. He flickered from point to point of evidence and testimony, always trying to elicit a weak or indecisive answer. How tall was Mimi Vasquez? Didn’t know. What was in the defendant’s wallet when arrested? Didn’t know. Did you personally identify yourself as a police officer at the time of the arrest? No. Did you question him about the appointment book? No. Did the district attorney question him about it? I don’t recall. Karp could feel the jury thinking, what does this guy know?

  Then Klopper asked, “Who is Mimi Vasquez?”

  Karp objected instantly. He was overruled.

  “Is she involved with the case in any way?” asked Klopper. Balducci looked worried. For God’s sake, don’t start looking shifty on me now, Peter, prayed Karp silently. He rose and said, “I object to the form of the question, Judge.”

  But Montana’s curiosity had been piqued. He asked Balducci, “Who is she?”

  Balducci said, “She’s a female that the defendant said that he was with at the time of the homicide.”

  Two points for the bad guys, thought Karp. There’s the alibi floating now, and from a judge’s question! That could stick.

  So on the redirect, Karp leaped directly into the attack on the phony alibi. Karp established that because Tighe had claimed that on the night of the murder he was at Larry’s Bar with a woman he had met at a bus stop, a woman named Mimi, Balducci had tracked down a woman with that name, using the phone number written on the matchbook stub.

  OK, Klopper, here goes, thought Karp, as he asked, “What, if anything, did she say about visiting Larry’s Bar with the defendant on the night in question?”

  Klopper leaped up. “That’s objected to! Hearsay!”

  Karp shot back, “Counsel brought up this woman in the first place, Your Honor. I think it’s only fair and proper that the detective explain it. The woman is available for counsel to call.”

  “It’s available to him too!” snapped Klopper, the silver mask slipping just a little.

  Karp replied coolly, “Your Honor, counsel knows very well I can’t call her until counsel does.”

  “That’s not so! That’s not so at all!” Klopper’s voice went up, and Montana banged his gavel. “Stop arguing, Mr. Klopper! Objection is sustained.”

  Karp tried a couple more times to get Balducci to convey the burden of what Mimi Vasquez had said, but was blocked by sustained objections. Then he suddenly changed his line:

  “Did you ever determine whether the defendant was in Larry’s that night?”

  “Objection!”

  “Overruled.”

  “Yes, I did,” said Balducci.

  “What was the result of that enquiry?”

  “That the defendant was never in Larry’s on July tenth at the time in question.”

  “No further questions,” said Karp, and took his seat, feeling reasonably satisfied. It was a good strong statement by Balducci. The defense would try to confuse the issue again by suggesting that there were two women and that the cops had found the wrong one, but we had the matchbook and they didn’t have the other woman. The jury would see it for the horseshit it was. Karp was definitely ahead at the half.

  The remainder of the afternoon went as planned. Karp called Dugan, the crime scene technician who had lifted the thumbprint in the hallway outside the murder apartment. Then he called the fingerprint technician, who said that the prints matched Tighe’s, and finally he called Raney, briefly, to establish that Tighe was in fact fingerprinted on the day of the arrest. In the testimony, Karp brought out the fact that the print was shiny and wet at the time it was taken—in other words, fresh, and not to be confused with the others that Felix Tighe might have left around during his visits to the building.

  They broke for the day around four. Judges like to get a jump on the traffic. As Karp stuffed his briefcase, Klopper came over to the prosecution table, with a pleased expression on his face.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said.

  “I’m listening, Mr. Klopper.”

  “Your star witness, Steven Lutz, called me last night. It turns out he doesn’t want to be your witness any more. He wants to testify for the defense.”

  “Oh?” said Karp blandly, “lucky you. Here’s a tip: Try to get him to stop shifting his eyes and licking his lips. He does it even when he’s telling the truth. God knows what he’ll do when he’s lying through his teeth.”

  With that, he nodded politely to Klopper and walked up the aisle, casually, with his face set in a pleasant, neutral mask. He had almost expected this, but it was a blow anyway. Friends of the defendant often rolled when the time came for them to betray their buddies in open court, but Lutz had not seemed to be much in love with Felix Tighe during the one interview Karp had done with him. In fact, he had seemed fairly hostile. Karp wondered briefly what had caused the flip, and then turned his mind to the line of questioning he would use to impeach Lutz’s testimony tomorrow. He was halfway to the subway when he realized that he had not given Marlene Ciampi a single thought for five and a half hours.

  Jim Raney, waiting outside the courtroom, observed Karp’s passing without interest. He was looking for someone else. He buttonholed a court officer. “Hey, Frank,” he said, “that lady walking down there—in the black outfit—you got any idea who she is?”

  The officer nodded and told him. Raney’s mouth opened in amazement. He thanked the court officer, and then leaned against the wall and thought for five minutes, oblivious to the flow of traffic around him. Then he walked out of the courthouse to his car, and headed for the Queensboro Bridge. He would have to check some things, but he now thought he had a good idea who was responsible for the trash-bag murders, and by extension, who had really kidnapped Marlene Ciampi.

  “Your Honor, this concludes the People’s case,” said Karp and sat down. He thought the People had a pretty good shot at Felix Tighe, all things considered. The stipulated testimony from the surviving son had been a good thing to close on. (He sees his mother with her head nearly cut off and brings her a glass of water!) Before that, the medical examiner’s people had testified, for the record, that the stains on Felix’s pants were human blood, that Felix’s knife could have made the wounds on the deceased, and that the wounds caused the death of the deceased.

  Simple stuff, but not much good if the jury thought that the knife and pants they had seen in the courtroom did not belong to the defendant, a thought Mr. Klopper was about to try and insert in their collective mind.

  First, though, a little shimmy. Klopper moved to have the case thrown out for lack of evidence associating the defendant with the crime. Montana denied it promptly. Then Klopper called his first witness, and Steve Lutz, wearing a cheap, but new, blue suit shambled up to the stand.

  Karp rubbed his face and struggled to bring his senses into the required sharp focus. Another night with little sleep, ground glass under the eyelids. Lutz, he thought, did not look much better.
That was interesting: Lutz had the basic rat look at all times, but now he seemed a trapped rat. What was he looking around the courtroom for? Who was he looking for?

  Klopper took Lutz through the basics: who he was, the fact that he was letting Felix Tighe stay in his apartment on Ludlow Street; then he asked him about the day that Balducci and Raney had come to look at Felix’s room.

  “And these officers came to your door?”

  “Yeah, they said could they take a look at Felix’s room.”

  “And you let them in?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did they show you a warrant?”

  “No. But, you know, it was the cops. I didn’t want to get in no trouble.” Karp thought, that’s cute, a little suggestion of forced entry without a warrant. And no grounds for objection.

  “And what happened then?” Klopper continued, and extracted from Lutz the story of how the brown bag and the dark, bloodstained pants had been found.

  “This was the brown bag that was presented in evidence?”

  “Yeah. It was closed and it had some stuff in it, so they said, ‘could we open it?’ And I, like, said, ‘OK.’ So they did. They found some clothes inside. And two knives, one big, one little.”

  “Did they find anything else?”

  “Yeah. A couple of papers, newspapers. A little book, like an appointment book. And then they looked around the room. There was some clothes hanging in the closet. They took those out. There was a white jacket, a sports jacket, a black shirt, and a pair of dark blue pants, on a hanger, in a cleaner’s bag.”

  “Are you sure about the color of those pants?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. Blue.”

  Klopper went over to the table where the trial exhibits were kept and picked up the bowie knife Karp had introduced earlier.

  “Now these knives,” he said, “did you look at the knives the officers found?”

  “Yeah, they showed me the knives three times down at the D.A.’s office …”

  Klopper interrupted, “Excuse me, I show you this knife, marked People’s Exhibit Fourteen. Was this one of the knives the police removed from the brown bag at your apartment that day?”

  Lutz shook his head and hunched forward as if preparing to avoid an invisible blow. “Uh-uh, no. That’s the one they showed me in the D.A.’s office.”

  “But not in the apartment?”

  “No. That was a different knife. It was like, wavy, the blade, like a what-do-you-call-it, a bread knife.”

  “Now when you were in the D.A.’s office, did you tell them that this wasn’t the knife in the bag?”

  “Yeah, I told them it wasn’t. I was down there three times. No, two times in the office, and one time, it was like this, like a trial. But with no judge.”

  “The grand jury?”

  “Yeah, that.”

  Klopper put the knife down on the table and picked up the pair of pants in their clear plastic bag. He said, “Now I show you this pair of black pants. Are these the pants that they took from your apartment in your presence?”

  “No, those weren’t them. Those pants were blue, and real clean. It was on a hanger in a cleaner’s bag.”

  “And at the grand jury, was this the pair of pants that they showed you?”

  “Well, they took some pants out of a bag and said, ‘Is this the pants,’ but it was like a big room and they were far away. I couldn’t tell.”

  “But you said they were?”

  Lutz looked pained. “Yeah, but it was so fast—in, out. Then I started thinking it maybe wasn’t the same pants.”

  “Now, on the two occasions you were at the D.A.’s office, talking to Mr. Kirsch—did you tell him on both occasions that this was not the knife and these were not the pants?”

  “Yeah, I told him and told him—wrong color pants, wrong kind of knife.”

  Klopper put down the pants and picked up the newspaper clippings about the murder that the police had found in the brown bag. He approached Lutz.

  “I show you these newspaper clippings. Do you see your signature on them?”

  “My initials, yeah. They got me to sign at my place.”

  “Yes, and did they have you sign anything else? The knives, or the pants?”

  “No, nothing. I asked them why they was taking the clean clothes, and all, and they said, for the testimony.”

  “And your memory is absolutely clear about this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was not the same knife and it was not the same pair of pants?” Klopper was smiling, his voice unctuous. Lutz had visibly relaxed.

  “No, not the same, right.”

  “And you do have a good memory, correct? You remember, for example, what officer Balducci was wearing when he came to your apartment?”

  Lutz raised his eyes to the ceiling and let his mouth go slack, in a parody of deep thought. “Yeah … he had a blue jacket, gray pants, black shoes. No hat and a red-striped tie. The other guy had a leather jacket on, no tie, but one of them high, turtlenecks, dark blue.”

  “That’s all. Thank you.”

  Karp got up and stood in front of the witness, his expression mild. “Mr. Lutz, you have a good memory, do you not?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “So you remember a conversation you had with an Assistant District Attorney named Frederick Kirsch on July seventeenth of this year?”

  “I dunno, I was down there a couple of times.”

  “This was the day the detectives came to your apartment and found the brown bag. You remember?”

  “Oh, yeah, that time.”

  “Yes, that time. Now do you remember a time when Mr. Kirsch showed you those black bloodstained pants and asked you to identify them as the pants removed from your apartment that very day?”

  “That wasn’t the same pants, I told him.”

  “I see. Now, there was a stenographer present, who took down the conversation between you and Mr. Kirsch. Let me read a portion of this conversation to you and ask you if you remember giving these answers.” Karp swooped over to the prosecution table and grabbed the transcript of the Q and A that Freddie Kirsch had done.

  “Mr. Lutz, it says here on page eight that Mr. Kirsch asked you, ‘Did you observe Detective Balducci remove a white jacket and a pair of black pants from your apartment?’ And you answered, ‘Yes.’ And then you were asked, ‘Did you have any objection to the detective removing this white jacket and black pants?’ And you said ‘No.’ And then Mr. Kirsch showed you these black pants and asked you, ‘Are these the black pants that Detective Balducci removed from your apartment on July seventeenth of this year?’ And you answered, ‘Yeah, that’s them.’ Do you recall making those answers?”

  “I don’t remember,” said Lutz, beginning once again to stare wildly around the courtroom.

  “But you have such a good memory, Mr. Lutz. I show you the page of transcript. Isn’t that your signature on it?”

  Lutz took the transcript gingerly. “Yeah, but I never said it was black pants,” he said lamely.

  “Let’s try again, Mr. Lutz. Starting on page fourteen. Mr. Kirsch asks you, ‘And did you see what, if anything, Detective Balducci removed from the brown bag?’ And you answer, ‘Some papers, newspapers, and a big knife.’”

  “Two knives!” said Lutz. “A bread knife and a little one.”

  Judge Montana broke in, “That’s what you said. It’s written there.”

  “I never saw that knife. It ain’t that knife!”

  “Please continue, Mr. Karp,” said Montana, a crinkle of disgust beginning to show on his neat, brown face.

  Karp nodded to the bench and resumed. “As I was saying, page fourteen. Mr. Kirsch said, I show you this knife. Written on the blade just under the hilt are the word, Vindicator, the letters capital EM, the numbers 2176, and the word, Korea. Do you see that?’ Answer, ‘Yes.’ Question, ‘Were you present today when Detective Balducci removed this knife?’ Your answer, ‘Yeah. It was in Felix’s bag.’ Do you recall giving those
answers to Mr. Kirsch?”

  “Yeah, but we were talking about the other knives. I told you, I never seen that knife.”

  Karp went over to the clerk’s table, picked up the bowie knife, and held it in front of Lutz’s face. Lutz seemed to cower away from it, like a goblin shying from an enchanted sword.

  Karp said, “I ask you to read what is written, engraved, on the blade of that knife.”

  “I never seen that knife,” said Lutz, like a broken record.

  “He didn’t ask you that,” said the judge. “Read what he told you to!”

  “I can’t read,” said Lutz, his voice rising.

  “Did you sign the stenographic transcript of the question and answer session you had with Mr. Kirsch as being true?”

  “Yeah, yeah, but they told me …”

  “And here, on page sixteen, where you are asked, ‘Has everything you have said today been the truth to the best of your knowledge,’ did you answer yes?”

  “Yeah, but … it was different, they pulled a switch.”

  Karp walked to the presidium and handed the knife to the judge.

  “Your Honor, would you please read the inscription?”

  Montana read from the blade the same inscription Karp had just read from the Q and A. Now the disgust was patent on his face.

  Karp returned to the questioning, going through the grand jury minutes and demonstrating that Lutz had on a separate occasion, and under oath, identified the black pants and the knife as being the items removed from his apartment. But it was anti-climax; from the moment the judge read the words written on the knife, Steven Lutz was utterly impeached as a witness. Karp settled back and thought nice thoughts about little Freddie Kirsch and his unexpected gift: a perfect Q & A.

  The remainder of the trial consisted of the defendant’s testimony. This was anticlimax, too, at least to Karp. Had Felix Tighe lived an exemplary life, had he been a pillar of the community, it might have been remotely possible that against the net of circumstantial evidence that tied him to the murders a clever lawyer like Chopper Hank Klopper might have inserted a reasonable doubt wide enough to spread the meshes.