“What in the hell are you talking about?”
“You’re Frank Bernsen; you shot Kathryn Boole before she could shoot my husband, Butch Karp. You got away with that one, but I really don’t think you want the heat that will come with shooting the wife of the district attorney.”
Bernsen hesitated, then nodded toward a path beyond the parked BMW. “I got friends in high places, we’ll just have to disappear for a bit,” he said. “Now get up and walk.”
The rain was letting up and a full moon was rising in the east when the two prisoners and their captors reached the edge of a steep embankment. Marlene could just make out the dark waters of the Mississippi far below.
“That’s far enough,” Bernsen shouted. “On your knees.”
“No,” Marlene said as Monique fell to her knees and started to sob next to her. She was still feeling woozy from the blow to her head and could feel her blood mixing with the rain running down her face. “If you’re going to shoot me, I’ll be standing up when you do.”
Sarah shook her head. “I’m going back to the car, Frank,” she said. “I don’t have the stomach for this.” She started to turn but stopped when he pointed his gun at her.
“Over with the others,” he said.
Sarah’s eyes widened in fear. “You can’t shoot me, Frank,” she pleaded. “Me and John go way back.”
“Sorry, Sarah,” Bernsen said, though there was nothing apologetic in his voice. “But he told me you had to go, too. You know how he feels about loose ends.”
Sarah tried to run, but Bernsen aimed at the back of her head and pulled the trigger. The gun roared and the woman’s body was flung forward into the mud.
It was all over quickly, but it was enough time for Marlene to pull her gun and squeeze off a shot at Bernsen. The big man grunted in pain and doubled over as the bullet struck his stomach, but as she tried to shoot again, her gun jammed.
With a groan Bernsen straightened up, his face angry and frightened, but when he realized she couldn’t shoot again, he smiled and leveled his gun at Monique. “Nice try, bitch. Tell the devil hello for me, but first you’re going to have to watch your friend die and know that it was your fault.”
Marlene did the only thing she could think of; she turned and dove at Monique Hale. She heard Bernsen’s gun go off and felt the bullet tear into her shoulder, but her momentum carried her and the other woman over the edge of the bluff and down into the swirling waters of the river.
The plunge took her and Monique beneath the surface. With one arm wounded and the opposite hand holding on to the woman, she kicked as hard as she could. It seemed like forever before they broke through the surface, gasping for air.
“I can’t swim!” Monique cried out as she thrashed around and nearly broke Marlene’s grip.
“Kick your legs as hard as you can!” Marlene shouted.
There was the sound of another gunshot and a bullet zipped into the water close to Marlene’s head. She looked up and back at the dark figure of Bernsen, now some twenty-five yards upstream from where they’d been swept away. He was taking aim, but suddenly he whirled in the other direction and pointed his gun. Several flashes of light followed, accompanied by the sound of more shots. Moments later his body tumbled backward over the edge of the embankment and down into the river.
Almost immediately, the dark figures of three more men appeared at the edge of the bluff. “Help!” Marlene screamed as the current dragged her and her struggling witness downstream. One of the men jumped and landed in the water with a splash, but she lost sight of him as her head went under again.
Fighting one more time to the surface, Marlene sucked in air. But she knew she was losing the fight to stay up and growing weaker from the loss of blood while trying to keep her grip on Monique.
I’m going to die, she thought as the waters closed over her head again. She used her last bit of strength to try to lift Monique’s head above the surface. Sorry, Butch. Sorry, kids. I love you all.
As consciousness started to ebb, Marlene felt the burden of Monique’s body being taken from her. At the same time, she felt herself being pulled up toward a soft light. Jesus, she thought, thank you.
“Missus, can you hear me?” a deep, strong voice said to her. “Hold on, now. I got you and your friend. Help is on the way.”
Marlene opened her eyes and found herself looking into the broad worried face of an older black man she didn’t know. Behind him the moon rose above the bluff. There was the sound of someone splashing behind her and her savior looked up. “Glad to see you, mister,” he said. “I got them both by the hand, but I can’t quite get ’em in the boat.”
“Start with this one,” a voice she recognized as Fulton’s said behind her. She felt his strong hands around her waist and with a mighty shove, he launched her upward and, with the other man’s assistance, into the boat. She lay there in the bottom of the wooden rowboat, not quite comprehending what was happening; a moment later, the unconscious body of Monique Hale landed next to her. Then Fulton hauled himself in over the side.
“I’m Detective Clay Fulton,” she heard her friend tell the boat’s owner. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“My pleasure, Mr. Fulton, the name’s Lonnie Lynn,” the man replied. “Lucky I was after some catfish tonight, or these ladies might have been fish food. Mind tellin’ me what all the shootin’ was about?”
“Tell you what,” Fulton replied. “Get me to the nearest telephone, and I’ll fill you in. In the meantime, my friend’s been shot, and I need to apply pressure to the wound.”
“You go right ahead,” Lynn said. “I need to get these oars going or we’ll be in Louisiana before you can shake a stick. We can talk later.”
Fulton’s face swam into Marlene’s vision. “Hang in there, kid,” he said as he pressed down hard on her wound, causing her to cry out in pain. “Jesus, Marlene, don’t you think you’re getting a little old for this?”
Marlene smiled. “I wouldn’t want to miss all the fun,” she croaked, and then lost consciousness.
25
KARP WAITED PATIENTLY AS THE TOUGH-LOOKING POLICE sergeant placed his hand on the Bible and was sworn in as the People’s next witness. They were in the second day of the trial of John LaFontaine, a.k.a. the Reverend C. G. Westlund, in front of New York State Supreme Court judge Henry Gresham Temple III and just getting to the heart of the matter.
Outside, Indian summer had given way to fall, with the deciduous trees in Manhattan putting on a display of color that amazed even longtime locals. However, it reminded Karp that Halloween, and his appearance as the grand marshal of the annual parade in the Village, was only a few days away. He wondered briefly how that night would go, but at the moment his focus had to be on the trial, and more narrowly on his witness Sergeant Trent Sadler: “Did there come a time when one of the men with the defendant attempted to prevent you from doing your duty?”
Karp turned toward the spectator section and smiled slightly at his wife, who was sitting a few rows back behind the prosecution table. When he’d received the call from Fulton that Marlene had been shot and was in the hospital, it was all he could do not to hop on the next plane and fly to Memphis. But she was the one who stopped him.
“I’m okay,” she’d said, taking the phone from the detective. “Katz and I will have matching scars, but I’m more worried that when Westlund, or LaFontaine, doesn’t hear from Bernsen, he’ll skip town. Talk to Fulton and Detective Winkler, but there’s plenty to arrest him on now. You can baby me later.”
Karp had talked to the two detectives and then acted quickly. When two of Fulton’s detectives arrived at the Avenue A loft, LaFontaine was already packing several suitcases, one of which contained more than $200,000 cash. He’d been arrested, however, without incident and taken to the DAO, where Karp had been waiting for him in an interview room.
As expected, the itinerant preacher had refused to give Karp a statement and demanded a lawyer, which had ended their conversation. However,
not before they’d engaged in a little back-and-forth.
“You’ll never make it stick, Karp,” LaFontaine said scathingly.
“You’re going to swing on this one, LaFontaine,” Karp replied evenly. “No plea bargain. No rationalizing. Just the trial, conviction, and prison.” It wasn’t the sort of give-and-take he would normally have engaged in with a defendant, but in this case, he had a reason.
Shortly thereafter, Karp went before a grand jury, which indicted LaFontaine for depraved-indifference murder.
LaFontaine had invoked his right not to talk to Karp. But that didn’t prevent him from issuing statements to the media—mostly through his lawyer and the public relations firm they hired—from his cell in the Tombs. The gloves, as thin as they had been before, were all the way off now. The Jewish district attorney of New York County was anti-God and anti-Christianity, especially fundamentalist Christianity, as represented by the Reverend John LaFontaine and faith healing. And much to his consternation, all Gilbert Murrow could counter with was that the DAO would not try the case in the media but would let the facts speak for themselves at trial.
Unfortunately—Or fortunately, depending on how you see two fewer dirtbags in the world, Karp thought—Frank Bernsen had not survived being shot by Marlene and then Fulton, though the official cause of death was drowning in the Mississippi River. Nor had Sister Sarah, whose full name had been Sarah Westerberg, the owner of a lengthy criminal record that included larceny, criminal impersonation, and prostitution, made it to the hospital alive with a gaping head wound.
Their deaths had benefitted LaFontaine in two ways. They could not roll over on their boss. His defense attorney, J. R. Rottingham, a rotund, bug-eyed, blustering self-anointed sage who fancied himself a constitutional scholar, had been quoted early and often saying that any “alleged” criminal activity would have been conducted by Frank Bernsen and Sarah Westerberg without the knowledge of his client, “who would be shocked if the allegations are true.”
This was a case without a smoking gun, or even a single dramatic witness who could pull it all together from the witness stand, especially as Nonie Ellis was still missing. It was a case that would be built of small pieces, from the ground up.
There had been some discussion in the office, particularly between him and Guma, who was sitting second chair, about whether to dismiss “without prejudice” the indictment against LaFontaine until Ellis could be located; a warrant had been issued for her, but she’d disappeared. But both men had agreed that LaFontaine would run, possibly with the help of the ATF, which had so far refused to cooperate.
So, feeling somewhat like a fighter going for the heavyweight title with a hand tied behind his back, Karp had nevertheless entered the ring. As he’d stated in his opening remarks earlier that week, the People would prove that John LaFontaine, a.k.a. C. G. Westlund, had systematically preyed on the vulnerable families of seriously ill children, including the Ellises. That he’d identified his targets in Memphis with the aid of hospital administrator Dr. Maury Holstein, and that he’d used his position as the families’ spiritual adviser to dissuade them from seeking medical attention for their kids, “knowing full well that these innocent children would die painful, lingering, and preventable deaths while their parents, who had given their trust to this man and feared his condemnation, stood by praying and watching helplessly.”
As he spoke, Karp had walked over to face the defense table, staring implacably down at LaFontaine, whose long hair was swept back behind his ears, and his beard had been neatly trimmed. The false preacher had done his best to smile up at him, though it had come off as strained. “And he did it not out of religious conviction,” Karp said, accusing him to his face, “but for the most venal, despicable motive of all: he did it for money. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we will prove, so that you will have no choice but to find this … this charlatan, this flimflam man … guilty of depraved-indifference murder.”
The defense had countered as expected: that LaFontaine was being persecuted for his religious beliefs, “which are at the very heart and soul of our rights as Americans.” He was only a spiritual adviser to whom frightened families had turned in times of great crisis.
“Did he express to them his own dearly held belief that only God heals, and only God decides who lives and who dies? Of course,” Rottingham said as he stood in front of the jurors and looked from face to face. “But isn’t the expression of one’s religious beliefs one of our most dearly held rights? It didn’t mean he forced anyone to adhere to his beliefs. The only people responsible for not seeking medical attention for Micah Ellis are his parents.”
Knowing that he would have to deal with the insurance policy issue, Rottingham had then blamed it on Frank Bernsen and Sarah Westerberg, though without admitting that there had been any wrongdoing. “And if it is shown—and that, ladies and gentlemen, is a big if—that anyone would profit from the death of Micah Ellis, it was not my client, but two other persons. One of them connected with the ministry, yes, but operating without the Reverend LaFontaine’s knowledge. Two people who unfortunately—or might I suggest conveniently for the persecution, I mean prosecution, of my client—died in Memphis during a shootout with the police, and so they are not with us to answer our questions.”
Following the opening statements, Karp had moved quickly through his witnesses. He called Assistant Medical Examiner Dr. Gail Manning to testify that Micah Ellis had died from general organ failure caused by brain tumors. She said there was evidence of seizures and that the boy was probably blind, unable to control his muscles, “and in extreme pain that was not alleviated by any commonly used painkillers” when he slipped into a coma and died.
Dr. Manning had been followed by the paramedics, Justin Raskov and Donald Bailey, who’d been called to the scene where Micah Ellis lay dying in his parents’ apartment. They relayed how LaFontaine and two of his men had blocked their way into the building.
“That guy there,” Bailey said, pointing at LaFontaine, “stood in front of the door with his men and quoted Scripture, saying that we couldn’t pass and if we tried, he’d come out with a sword against us.”
“Surely you understood that my client was speaking in biblical hyperbole?” Rotterdam asked on cross-examination.
“I took it as a direct threat,” Bailey countered. “It wouldn’t have been the first time some nut with a sword came at me in New York City. It was pretty clear he and his boys weren’t going to let us in, not until the cops showed up, and even then one of them tried to attack the cops.”
“Was the man who tried to attack the police officers named Frank?” Karp then asked on redirect.
“Yes, I believe it was. That guy there,” Bailey said, again pointing at LaFontaine, “called him Brother Frank. The cops hauled his butt off to jail.”
Now, on the second day of the trial, Karp called Sadler to the stand to recount his version of the facts. “Sergeant, explain to the jury the facts and circumstances as you observed them when you arrived at the scene.” he said.
“The defendant and two other men attempted to prevent me and the paramedics from going into the apartment to aid the sick child.”
“And did he refuse to comply with a direct, lawful order from you to move out of the way?”
“He did.”
“At some point, sergeant, one of the men with the defendant attempted to prevent you from doing your duty?”
Sadler looked straight at Karp. “Yes, one, Frank Bernsen, attempted to assault me and my officers. He was subsequently subdued, arrested, and charged with assault on a police officer and attempting to interfere with emergency personnel in the performance of their duties.”
“During this obstruction and assault by Bernsen what, if anything, was the defendant doing?”
“The defendant was in charge and gave Bernsen one of these,” the sergeant said, demonstrating LaFontaine’s gesture.
“Let the record reflect that the witness indicated the defendant used his h
ead in such a manner as to direct Frank Bernsen to physically confront the police sergeant and his men,” Karp said.
A few questions later, after discussing what the sergeant encountered inside the apartment, Karp asked, “What, if anything, occurred as Micah Ellis was being loaded into the ambulance?”
“A large crowd of what I guess you’d call the defendant’s followers had gathered on the sidewalk and were trying to prevent the paramedics from transporting the boy.”
“How was the defendant involved in this?” Karp asked.
“He was egging them on,” the sergeant said. “He invoked some religious injunction and said in substance that we were affronting the will of God. And that’s when some of the crowd began to demand that we stop and moved forward in a confrontational manner.”
“And how did you respond?” Karp asked.
“I called for backup,” Sadler replied. “It was getting pretty dicey but then the kid’s father asked everybody to settle down and that seemed to calm the crowd.”
“I have no further questions, Your Honor,” Karp said, turning toward Judge Temple.
“Your witness, Mr. Rottingham,” the judge, a heavyset, round-faced man known for being a straightforward, matter-of-fact, and short-tempered jurist, said.
“Did the defendant actually say anything to encourage Frank Bernsen to move toward you in a manner you assumed to be an attack?” Rottingham said as he rose from his seat.
“I didn’t assume anything,” Sadler shot back. “If I hadn’t sidestepped him and stuck him with a Taser, he would have been on me.”
“So you say.”
“So I know.”
“But you haven’t answered my question,” Rottingham said. “Did my client say anything to Frank Bernsen to instigate this alleged assault?”
“No. Like I indicated, just the head motion,” Sadler retorted. “But it was clear as day what he wanted.”
“To you maybe.”
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