“Sorry? What for?”
Stupenagel bowed her head to hide a smile and let her voice become choked up. “Sorry that I may have put your life in danger. These people we’re watching don’t play nice.”
The Adam’s apple was working double time and the voice quavered, but Jimy managed to reply bravely, “That’s okay. I was an Eagle Scout. I know how to keep a secret. And don’t you worry about me. I’ve been taking tae kwon do with Master Kim Soo. I’ll be a brown belt this summer.”
“I’m so relieved,” Stupenagel said. God, are you milking this one, Ari, but where are you going to find an audience like this guy again. “You looked like someone who could take care of himself. I just…well, never mind.”
Jimy nodded. Some things are understood between a man and a woman. He maintained his silence manfully for the rest of the drive. On the wooded outskirts of Bolton Landing, he slowed the car down.
Looking ahead, Stupenagel saw the headlights of Ewen’s car as it turned and began to wind its way back toward the lake and a huge log house. “Pull over and turn the lights off, I want to make sure we’re not followed,” Stupenagel ordered.
About the same time, her cell phone buzzed its special code for Murrow. “Hi, Honey Buns,” she answered. She looked up and saw a quizzical look on Jimy’s face. “Code name for Agent Murrow,” she whispered.
She covered the telephone and said to Jimy, “Our cover is that we’re a married couple, so a little of the mushy stuff is necessary just in case someone’s listening. If you saw Agent Murrow, you’d understand we’re not exactly a match made in heaven.” Jimy gave a small tilt of his head to indicate he understood and slumped down in his seat to keep watch on the house. She spoke into the telephone again, “That’ll work, Agent Murrow. Here, I’m going to let you talk to Jimy Murphy. He’s my handsome young taxi driver; he’ll give you directions.”
She paused, then spoke again. “Just listen to Jimy for now, Agent Murrow, I’ll explain the scenario when I see you. These lines are not secure. I repeat, these lines are not secure.”
Stupenagel passed her telephone forward. “Would you please tell Agent Murrow how to find us?”
When Jimy finished giving instructions, he handed the telephone back without looking. “What next?”
“I’m going to get out and stand guard until Agent Murrow can back me up,” she said.
“You want me to wait?” Jimy asked. He could tell she liked him, and despite the code names, he doubted two agents who worked together would also be shacking up.
“Only until Agent Murrow arrives, so you can tell him the direction I went,” she said. She saw the disappointed look and knew what it meant. “Please, don’t try to follow me. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you, Jimy. Murrow, well, he’s not much to look at, but he’s a trained assassin.”
Jimy nodded but said nothing. She heard him sniffle and wondered if he was crying.
“There is one last thing you can do for me,” she said. “But I can’t order you to do this, it’s too dangerous….”
“No, please, ask.”
“After I get out, I need you to get somewhere public…like a bar or a restaurant, as far away as you can get, but you have to get there quickly—ten minutes max. And make sure you’re seen by people and that they know the time.”
Jimy looked confused. “Why?”
“Your alibi, silly,” she said, getting out. She leaned in the window and gave Jimy a quick kiss on the cheek. “And thank you…for everything.”
There were definitely tears in his eyes now. “I’ll never forget you,” he croaked. “No matter what happens to me.”
“Au revoir, mon ami,”Stupenagel said, stepping back from the taxi.
“Goo…good-bye. But wait…I don’t even know your name.”
“Lauren,” she said. Sheesh, straight out of Casablanca. “Now wait until Agent Murrow arrives, point him in the right direction, then drive like the wind. But keep your lights off until you’re out of sight of the house.”
Stupenagel ran across the street, hopped the rail fence, and, sticking to the tree line on the outside of the property, made her way to the back of the house. She ran the last few yards from the trees until she was standing in the shadows beneath a back deck that overlooked the lake. Nice pad, she thought, looking out at the dock in the backyard to which a brand-new thirty-five-foot sailboat was tied. Cool million at least. Not bad for a union boss; wonder what the rank and file would think.
The deck lights came on, nearly giving Stupenagel, who thought she’d been discovered, a heart attack. But it was just Ewen, Lindahl, and Carney stepping out for a cigar.
“Sorry to make you fellas light up out here but the little woman insists.”
“I sure wouldn’t want to piss her off on a cold night,” Carney said. “That’s some little doxie you got stashed up here away from the missus.”
“Yeah, she ain’t half bad.” Ewen chuckled. “Met her on a flight to Stockholm. She was a stewardess…wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with my ugly mug until I started flashing hundreds. That’s when there was a definite attitude adjustment and it’s been ‘Harry, hold your horses’ ever since. Dumb as a stick and barely speaks the language but she likes the bump and grind as long as I keep the presents coming. Don’t bother me. I got money, she’s got what I want; it’s a nice arrangement.”
The men puffed on their cigars for a minute, sending a blue cloud into the starry night. Carney again broke the silence. “Nice little fishing lodge.”
“I like it. I hear your place in the Keys ain’t half bad either,” Ewen replied.
The two laughed and turned to Lindahl. “Hey, Sam, what are you doing with your share? Got yourself a little young thing stashed away in a ‘fishing lodge’?”
Lindahl ignored the chuckles. “I don’t like this. I don’t trust those two niggers or that Russian faggot. If somebody saw us all together we’d be dancing pretty damn quick to explain it.”
Ewen rolled his froggy eyes. “Nobody likes working with them three,” he said. “But we’re hundreds of miles away from the city. We needed to sit them down and make sure we’re all on the same page with that fucker in the DA’s office, Newbury, and his little Goody Two-shoe investigators poking their nose in old business where they don’t belong. Then that bitch Marlene Ciampi calls you and that fat fuck Louis and says she’s been ‘retained’ as a private investigator by Repass and Russell and wants to see the files. Couldn’t you have told her ‘thanks, but no thanks’?”
“And what?” Lindahl said. “My clients went to her on their own and now say they want her to help with the case, and I’m supposed to say, ‘No thanks. I have no intention of even looking like I’m trying to protect the city’s interests’? If you think Newbury’s breathing down our necks on some of this ‘old business’ now, just let him get wind of that. At least if she’s working, ostensibly, for me, I’ll know what she knows.”
“If she tells you,” Carney said. “But I’m more worried about what she tells that fuckin’ husband of hers. We don’t want him taking an interest.”
“I’m not worried about him,” Lindahl said. “His jurisdiction begins and ends on the island of Manhattan. This is a Brooklyn case as far as the assistant district attorneys go, and a city matter with the police department. He’s not in the picture.”
Stupenagel couldn’t hear the muffled replies as the men put out their cigars and moved inside. The lights went out but she waited to make sure anyone looking out the window wouldn’t see her. She was ready to go when a large hand came down hard on her shoulder and turned her around. She found herself face-to-face with the big police detective who’d guarded the meeting room at the Sagamore.
“Hey, you’re the bitch from the hotel, what the fuck are you doing here?” he snarled.
Obviously wasn’t at the top of his class at the academy, Stupenagel thought. She smiled sweetly. “I was driving by when my car ran out of gas. I saw the light was on and came to ask for help. But
I can go ask someone else if this is a bad time.” She tried to walk past the cop but he grabbed her by the arm. “Yeah, well I think you need to come in and talk to the boss.”
“Hey, asshole,” said a voice behind him.
The cop whirled and got a face full of pepper spray. “Goddamn mother fucking gaaaaaah,” the man bellowed and began groping inside his coat for his gun.
Stupenagel saw her opportunity and kicked up as hard as she could between his legs. “Oh fuck,” the cop groaned and passed out face-first in the snow.
“Big baby,” Stupenagel said. She looked up and saw her frightened boyfriend still holding the pepper spray. “Hey, you better put that away before you hurt someone, Honey Buns.”
Murrow dropped his arm. “You okay, Sugar Lips?”
“Great, thanks to my hero, Agent Murrow.”
“Please, call me Bond…James Bond.”
The cop groaned and appeared to be coming to. Stupenagel leaned over and took his gun out of his coat. “Come on, Bob, Mrs. Ewen is going to love hearing about this place.”
They ran back along the tree line, where Stupenagel tossed the gun into the woods. Driving back to the hotel as fast as they could, they hurried to their room, packed their bags, and were back in the lobby in ten minutes. “We’re going to check out now,” Stupenagel told the sleepy clerk. “And I’d like to pay with cash. Would you please give me any credit card imprints you have. Sorry, a little paranoid about identity theft.”
“I understand,” the clerk said. “It’s a big problem these days.”
“Oh, and would you be a sweetie and get me the manager’s business card,” Stupenagel said. “I’d like to write and congratulate him on the service.”
When the clerk trotted to the back office to get the card, Stupenagel reached over the desk, flipped to the page in the hotel registry where they’d signed in, and tore the sheet out. The clerk returned but there was no one to give the business card to.
A big sedan came barreling toward them as they crossed the bridge. “Duck,” Murrow said, slapping his deerstalker onto his head. He looked away when the car bearing an angry New York police detective, as well as Ewen and Carney, passed.
“Drive like the wind, baby,” Stupenagel said, sitting back up.
“What was that ‘Mrs. Ewen is going to love this’ comment?” Murrow asked.
“Just something to throw them off our tail, maybe panic them a bit. I want them to think that we’re private investigators working for the real Mrs. Ewen.”
“Wow, nice work,” Murrow said with genuine admiration.
“Experience, lover. I’ve been talking my way in and out of trouble for more years than I care to admit,” she said.
On the way back to Manhattan, they argued about what to do next. Murrow wanted to go to Karp with what they’d seen and heard.
“Not yet, baby, not until I’ve had a chance to get to the bottom of this,” Stupenagel pleaded. “I want to figure out how this all adds up. I mean, what do we really have? A bunch of people who normally wouldn’t be caught within a mile of each other have a secret meeting. Ewen has a house he can’t afford, but I’ll bet you he’s not stupid enough to have it in his name. Not to mention we just committed trespass and then aggravated assault on a New York City police detective.”
Stupenagel leaned over and nibbled on his ear. “Please, baby? Just a few days, then I promise we tell Butch everything.”
“Well, a few days, but that’s it,” Murrow agreed.
“Cross my heart, hope to die. Oh my! Look what I found.”
“Stop it. I’m driving.”
“That’s okay, baby, just don’t take your hands off the wheel or your eyes off the road.”
17
Monday, December 20
KARP WALKED INTO THE MORNING MEETING LIKE A MAN crossing an open meadow during a lightning storm. There was something in the air that made his hair stand on end and his skin crawl waiting for a bolt out of the blue.
The apprehension began at the premeeting conference when he noticed that Murrow seemed more than a little preoccupied. “What’s up, Gilbert?” he’d asked after the others left, and Murrow hesitated at the door as if he intended to say something. But he just mumbled, “Nothing,” and wandered off.
The premonition increased as Karp entered the meeting room. Harry Kipman, who’d begged off the earlier conference, looked up, said, “Good morning,” and went back to reading his book on Ulysses Grant.
At the other end of the table, Rachel Rachman hunched over her files like a junkyard dog guarding its supper and rapidly drummed the fingers of both hands on the table. She was staring at Kipman and it was not a friendly look.
The other bureau chiefs and assistant DAs seemed subdued, as if they were reluctant to be the one to set off the spark. Well, let’s get this over with, he thought as he took his seat, then nodded to Murrow, who mumbled, “Harry, you’re up.”
Kipman closed his book with a definitive snap and opened the file in front of him. “In the case of People v. Salaam and Mohammed, I’m afraid I have to concur with the appellate court that this conviction was wrongfully obtained. We withheld exculpatory evidence that the complainant knew one of the defendants, whom she claimed, both to the investigating officers and, even more damning, under oath on the witness stand, she did not know. In fact, she had sexual relations with this defendant several days prior to the incident from which the charges arose.”
“Nonsense,” Rachman hissed, half rising. “The shield laws were created to protect sexual assault victims from defense attorneys—and I guess some prosecutors—making an issue of their past sexual history when the ONLY issue is one of consent.”
“Rachel, please,” Karp said calmly but firmly. Rachman didn’t look at him and continued to glare at Kipman but she shut up.
“The rape shield laws, which I fully support, were created for cases in which a perpetrator sexually assaults a stranger—say someone abducted off the street—and it’s clear a crime was committed,” Kipman said, his voice level but tight. “In those instances, the past sexual history of the victim is irrelevant. However, at the time of the creation of the shield laws, little attention was being paid to date or acquaintance rape. These are often he said/she said cases—difficult to prosecute, as we all know, in part because there is a legitimate question as to whether a crime was even committed. In these instances, a complainant’s sexual history, especially if it is a history involving the accused, is certainly relevant for both this office to consider when deciding whether to prosecute and the defense to argue before a judge in pretrial motions.”
Kipman stopped and returned Rachman’s stare until she looked down at her clenched fists. “It would have been proper to argue that the complainant’s sexual history was not relevant in this case and to have invoked the shield laws in front of a judge. However, we did not do that, nor did we discuss it in this meeting. We simply took it upon ourselves to hide a police report containing information that we did not like.”
Rachman started to speak but Kipman raised his voice. “And yet that is not the most egregious of our errors. That would be that we knew the complainant was lying on the witness stand, and yet we allowed it—in fact, we encouraged it in our line of questioning—which is a serious breach of the law and accepted attorney conduct. It is therefore my recommendation that we concede error and drop the charges. Let’s face it, we’ll be lucky if we’re not sued, and if the New York Bar Association doesn’t censure the attorney involved.”
Rachman jumped to her feet and shouted, “Since when do we let fear of a lawsuit dictate what crimes we prosecute?”
“You weren’t listening,” Kipman replied. “I am not making my recommendation because I’m worried about being sued. I’m recommending that we concede error because it was just plain wrong to allow a witness to get on the stand and lie. And it was simply dumb not to hand over that material to the defense.”
“You’re the one who’s not listening,” Rachman countered. “All tha
t matters is whether the victim gave her consent to have sex with him that night.”
“That is indeed the pertinent question,” Kipman agreed. “However, as I said, this is a he said/she said case. There are no other witnesses, except the other defendant who claims that the sex was consensual. You might recall that he was prevented from testifying that his codefendant knew the victim and had previously had sex with her. So if there is a question whether a crime was even committed based on anything other than the complainant’s word—which by the way is why it is more appropriate to use complainant rather than victim —is it relevant that she would lie to the police and under oath?
Rachman sneered. “Just like a man. I guess maybe you need to actually try a few thousand of these cases yourself to know when the victim is telling the truth and when she’s not. There are a lot of reasons that a woman wouldn’t want to delve into her sexual history in front of a judge and jury, starting with the fact that if a man has sex with multiple partners over the course of a week, he’s Casanova, but if a woman does, she’s a slut. Who wants to admit that in front of a room full of strangers, especially after going through the most frightening, humiliating, and degrading experience a woman can have?”
“Then you should have turned it over to the defense and argued it in a closed motions hearing,” Kipman retorted. “If the judge had agreed with you that it was not relevant, then the defense attorney would not have been allowed to question the complainant about it on the witness stand and there would have been no reason for her to perjure herself. But to simply try to sweep it under the rug and hope nobody would notice is woefully bad judgment.”
“Are you questioning my competence as a lawyer?” Rachman demanded. “You wouldn’t do this if I was a man.”
“Bullshit!” Kipman shouted back. “This has nothing to do with your gender and you know it. Nor does it reflect on your abilities as a prosecutor. However, it is my opinion that in this particular case, you made a mistake…a bad one.”
Fury (The Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi Series Book 17) Page 30