Falsely Accused

by Robert Tanenbaum

  “You never wanted to be a detective yourself?”

  Clancy rolled his eyes. “Get real! I like regular hours. I have a life. You got any idea what the divorce rate is in plainclothes? Besides, the promotion’s faster in uniform, and there’s more slots open for you at the top. I’d like to be chief of patrol.”

  He said this calmly and without arrogance. And why not? thought Marlene. A hero, a good Irish family man; it was entirely possible, provided he had an effective rabbi up at Police Plaza. Somehow, Marlene figured Clancy had taken care of that too.

  She said, “Okay, Jackson was rough. Was he always bent?”

  “Yeah, Paulie took. Not like guys in narco, not big-time, but he took. The problem with Paulie, though, is in the brain department. He’s not too swift there, you know?”

  “So Seaver came up with the plan, you think?”

  “No question. Paulie just liked to pound meat, but Seaver needed money bad.” Marlene looked a question and he added, “He likes sports action. Compulsive. The guy bets on soccer games, for cryin’ out loud! His wife ditched him, so he’s got child support to pay. By the way, this is all hearsay. Neither of them exactly unburdened themselves. But it’s known around the house. I even heard they got themselves a string of girls on the stroll over by ’Tenth, near the park.”

  “Okay, they were bent,” said Marlene. “They shook down gypsy cabbies and some of the poor bastards started to make waves. So they yanked some of these guys off the street to put a little fear into them, and ended up killing Ortiz and Valenzuela. So, the question is, how did they get the D.A. to cover them? What did they have on the D.A.?”

  Clancy made a helpless gesture. “Hey, I’m not in on the whole story, Marlene. This I don’t know, but you got to figure, everybody needs money, right?”

  “Oh, come on Joe! Sanford Bloom rolling over for a couple of hundred a week? The total of what they ripped off in a year wouldn’t pay the maintenance fees on his duplex. No, they caught him doing something real bad. In the spring of last year, around April, May. Anything ring a bell?”

  Clancy shook his head. “Not a blessed thing, Marlene.”

  “What about Stupenagel getting beat up?”

  “The same—not a whisper. Of course, the kind of job I have, I wouldn’t hear much from the detectives. As far as seeing something? You got to understand, a patrol sergeant’s practically a railroad train. It’s a clockwork job—roll call, paperwork, make your beat tour, coffee from the same joint every night. It’s not hard to keep something from a patrol sergeant. In fact, you could say it’s a well-developed art.” He paused, smiling slightly at his joke. Then he said, “I wouldn’t put it past Jackson, though. Seaver, I don’t see him involved, in that or in any murders.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the guy had a name as a candy ass. A bleeding heart. I mean, he might let Paulie do whatever, but he wouldn’t touch any rough stuff himself.”

  Marlene nodded. This only confirmed her impression of John Seaver as a man without the cold-bloodedness necessary for violence. Ariadne’s story of Jackson shaking her down also supported that view; Jackson had used his hands, Seaver had stood by.

  “So you think Jackson hanged those two kids by himself?”

  “If they got hanged, Jackson could have done it. The guy’s strong as an ox. He could have cuffed the kids flat on the ground and then tied a shirt or a sheet around their necks and stood on a table or something, and then just hauled up. Was that how it was done?”

  “Something like that.” Marlene felt no need to tell Clancy about the ankle abrasions Selig had found on both victims.

  “What do you think will happen now?” asked Clancy, worry in his voice.

  “What I guess is that once I.A.D. gets another look at those two autopsy reports and puts it together with the other information—and that story about the D.A. squad running a big investigation won’t hold up—then they’ll move to suspend Seaver and Jackson. Seaver will crack. He almost cracked with me, and I’m nobody. The state A.G. will suspend Bloom, or maybe he’ll be forced to resign, and then the merry show will begin.”

  “You went to I.A.D. with this?” asked Clancy, his face growing tight.

  “No, of course not,” said Marlene, growing somewhat stingy with the truth. “My sole concern is with Dr. Selig’s civil case. But clearly the cover-up led to the firing that’s the basis of the case. Once that comes into the open, the defendant’s case collapses totally.”

  “And Selig wins big bucks.” Clancy uttered a rueful snort. “This is all about money, isn’t it? Just money.”

  “Of course,” said Marlene, as innocently as she could contrive.

  Jack Keegan looked smaller up on the stand than Karp remembered him being in his office. He still had the blocky, Irish good looks, the iron jaw, the big nose, and the bright silver wavy hair. Maybe everyone looked smaller on the stand. Or maybe it was what Keegan was doing up there that shrank him, at least in the eyes of his one-time disciple.

  It was now what Karp estimated to be the last week of the trial. Spring had returned, signaled in the windowless courtroom by the flowering of light print dresses on the three female jurors and on the spectators, and by the absence of that close odor, compiled of steam heat and disinfectant, that permeates New York’s public buildings in the winter, and also by a certain quickening in the pace of the trial. After Selig’s long agony on the stand, in which, as Karp had predicted, the defense had asked him to account for every penny he had earned since his dismissal, to the end of demonstrating that being fired was the best thing that ever happened to the Selig bank account, the others called by the defense had been quickies: the crock doctor and a set of anti-character witnesses, of whom Jack Keegan was the best and last.

  Gottkind put him through his paces through the late morning hours. Yes, Dr. Selig had been abrupt; he had been arrogant; he had often not returned phone calls. Your witness.

  Karp rose. “Your Honor, it is five past twelve. I wonder if it would be convenient to break for lunch at this time, so as not to interrupt my cross-examination of this witness?”

  It was fine with Craig. The defense did not object. The judge gaveled the adjournment and turned to converse with a clerk. The jury filed out and the courtroom filled with the familiar rattle of chatter. Karp walked over to Keegan, who stuck out his hand. Karp took it and looked into the older man’s eyes. They were almost of a height, Keegan somewhat shorter but bulkier, a football rather than a basketball guard.

  “Come and talk to me for a minute, Jack,” said Karp.

  Keegan nodded gravely and started to follow Karp out of the courtroom.

  “Your Honor!” Gottkind was dancing in front of the presidium and waving his hand, like a third-grader asking leave to go pee. “Your Honor, I must protest. Plaintiff’s counsel is interfering with my witness.”

  Craig looked up from his conversation, annoyance on his face. He focused his heron’s stare at Karp. “Mr. Karp?”

  “Judge, Mr. Keegan is an old friend and colleague. I only wanted to have a few words with him, of a personal nature.”

  “It’s irregular, Your Honor, and I will register a protest on the record.”

  “That is your right, Mr. Gottkind,” said the judge dismissively. Amusement crept into the sharp blue eyes. “Mr. Karp, may we trust you not to suborn, bribe, or intimidate the witness during this colloquy?”

  “I will not, Your Honor.”

  The judge nodded and went back to his conversation. Karp led Keegan to a quiet corner. They traded compliments on how well each other looked, and chatted briefly about old friends. Keegan asked about Marlene, Karp asked about Mary Keegan. A nervous silence; then Karp said, “Damn it, Jack, what the hell are you doing up there?”

  “They asked me,” said Keegan lightly. “Would I say that Murray Selig is an arrogant son of a bitch? Yeah, he is an arrogant son of a bitch.”

  “So am I, Jack. So are you. So was Phil Garrahy, for that matter. It’s a character flaw of p
eople who know what the hell they’re doing. But Selig wasn’t canned for being arrogant. He was canned because he ran afoul of one of Sandy Bloom’s dirty little schemes. And you’re up there giving credence to it. Why?”

  Keegan’s face started to flush dangerously. “You said it right, Butch. You are an arrogant son of a bitch, and self-righteous with it. Sometimes you need to go along to get along—you still haven’t learned that, son. You’re growing a little long in the tooth to be an enfant terrible.”

  “It’s the judgeship, isn’t it?”

  There was a long stare after this. Keegan dropped his eyes first and assumed an amused look. He held out his hand. “Good to see you again, Butch,” he said. Butch shook the proffered hand, convinced he had seen for an instant a flash of shame in Keegan’s eyes.

  After the lunch break, Keegan took the stand.

  “Mr. Keegan,” Karp began, “when you served as head of the Homicide Bureau, I was one of your assistant district attorneys, was I not?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you had the responsibility of training me to prosecute homicides—I was your student, in a sense, and you were my teacher, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.” He paused, smiled. “You were my best student.”

  “Thank you.” Karp turned slightly so that his remarkable peripheral vision could take in the jury. They were lapping it up. “And part of that training was in how to work well with the medical examiner’s office, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “And as part of our work we had much to do with Dr. Selig when he was a senior assistant medical examiner there? Hundreds of cases?”

  “Yes, certainly.”

  “Now, as part of your teaching, did you ever warn me that Dr. Selig was hard to work with, incompetent, and lacking in any respect whatsoever?”

  A longer pause. Keegan seemed to square his shoulders. He answered, “No, never.”

  “And was there ever, to your knowledge, a homicide case involving Dr. Selig in which he did not carry out his duties with the very highest professional standards?”

  “No, none.”

  “And did any of the problems you adverted to this morning in your testimony, the missed phone calls, the so-called ‘arrogance,’ ever, to your knowledge, hinder in the slightest degree the successful prosecution of a single homicide case?”

  “No. None that I can recall.”

  Karp waited three beats and said, “Mr. Keegan, would it surprise you to learn that many of the young lawyers who sat at your feet during those years, being trained to be the best homicide prosecutors in the world, may have considered you yourself somewhat abrupt and arrogant?”

  Keegan smiled broadly. “No, it would not surprise me in the least.”

  Karp grinned back. “Thank you. No further questions.”

  Keegan left the stand. Karp didn’t know whether the expression on Conrad Wharton’s face was worth a judgeship, but it was one of life’s sweet moments nonetheless.

  “The defense calls Dr. James T. England,” said Gottkind.

  Karp felt a sinking sensation. He grabbed his tattered yellow note sheets, looked in vain, tossed them aside, shuffled up the list of defense witnesses he had been supplied. No England. He stood. “Your Honor, this witness is not on the witness list, nor on the list of deponents.”

  Craig beckoned him forward with a thin finger. He advanced, followed by Josh Gottkind. At the bench Gottkind said, “Your Honor, Dr. England came forward voluntarily. He called me yesterday and said he had important evidence relevant to the plaintiff’s character.”

  “This is outrageous, Your Honor,” said Karp hotly. “Are defendants to be permitted to drag smearing witnesses out at the very last moments of the trial?”

  “They did not ‘drag,’ Mr. Karp, nor pursue, it seems, if what Mr. Gottkind says is true. Is it true, Mr. Gottkind? This is a spontaneous appearance by a concerned citizen?”

  “Yes, Judge,” Gottkind answered quickly. “He’s been following the case in the papers. He felt obliged to come forward.”

  “I take exception, Your Honor,” said Karp formally.

  “Exception noted,” said Craig. “Bring on your witness.”

  “Who the fuck is this guy, Murray?” asked Karp in a whisper between clenched teeth as the witness took the stand.

  “He’s a big shot on the state medical board,” Selig whispered back.

  “What did you do wrong that he knows about?”

  “Nothing! No, really, Butch, I got no idea why the guy is up there.”

  They soon found out. Dr. England was a man in his late sixties, dressed in an old-fashioned and unseasonable brown three-piece suit and extremely shiny brown wing tips. His face was white and long, the thin silver hair combed tightly over the skull. With his wire-rimmed glasses he looked just like the antique doctor in the ads drug companies ran in glossy medical journals, the one sitting at the child’s bedside.

  Dr. England testified that he had chaired the Committee on Professional Conduct of the State Board of Medicine in the revocation hearing of a Dr. Stephen Bailey. Bailey was one of the many Dr. Feelgoods who had sprung up in the seventies, dispensing various reality-altering pharmaceuticals essentially on demand to a well-heeled clientele. It was alleged that Bailey had taken to attending house parties in upstate Sullivan County bearing little bags of such meds, distributing them freely to all who asked. Dr. Selig had been called before the board as an expert on toxicology; the board had to determine whether some of the doses of diet pills and such that Bailey had administered were, in fact, dangerous.

  “And did Dr. Selig think that Dr. Bailey had prescribed dangerous doses?” Gottkind asked.

  “He did not,” said England with a tone and a look that showed what he thought of the opinion. “Dr. Bailey retained his license, largely as a result of Dr. Selig’s testimony.”

  “And during that testimony, what, if anything, did he say regarding dosage of the drug amphetamine?”

  “He said that he did not know what all the fuss was about, because he had taken massive doses of amphetamine in medical school to help with studying and it hadn’t harmed him any.” Murmurs spread briefly through the court.

  “What did you think of that?”

  “I thought it was gratuitous, frivolous, and unprofessional,” said England, his face glowing with righteous satisfaction.

  Karp whispered to Selig, “Did you say that?”

  “Oh, God, of course I didn’t say that.”

  “What did you say, then?”

  “Hell, Butch, how can I remember my exact words? It was nearly five years ago.”

  England’s testimony ground to a halt. The defense rested. Karp checked the wall clock. He rose. “Your Honor, I have no questions at this time, but I would like to call Dr. England back first thing on Monday when court reconvenes.”

  The judge’s eyes flicked at the clock too. He knew the pickle Karp was in. He also knew that it was a gorgeous spring day and that if he left now he could roll up a mess of paperwork and get in a full set of tennis before dark. And it was Friday. And the jury could use a little break; he had driven the case hard for eight weeks.

  “Well, I don’t see why we can’t break now, as Mr. Karp suggests. You can do your cross Monday, Mr. Karp, and then we can begin summations. I trust that neither of you will be so long-winded as to make me regret this indulgence.” The court tittered politely. The gavel fell.

  “How bad is this, Butch?” asked Selig nervously.

  “How bad? It’s a disaster, Murray. It’s the end of the trial and I got no way to impeach the fucker, because the transcripts of license revocation hearings are sealed, and there’s no time to get an order to unseal them, and it’s the weekend anyway, and what’s in their minds now is you’re a junkie who let a dope pusher keep his license.”

  EIGHTEEN

  “Cheer up, Butch, it can’t be that bad,” said Marlene soothingly. He was acting like a baby, and it was starting to get on her nerves. They were in the
ir living room, waiting while a casserole warmed.

  He groaned and began to tell her again how bad it was, but she interrupted him. “Look! Stop kvetching already! The main thing is, is Murray telling the truth?”

  “Oh, crap, Marlene, how do I know? He says he didn’t say that flip stuff about speed, but you know Murray. He likes to shake up the civilians from time to time with tales from the crypt. It’s something he could have said. But that doesn’t matter. We need the transcript of that hearing to impeach England, and we don’t have it.”

  Marlene thought for a minute or so. “You say the transcripts are in Monticello, in the county courthouse?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “It’s only about three hours away. I could run up and get them.”

  “No, Marlene,” Karp explained, “you’re not listening. They’re sealed records. It would take a court order to unseal them. It’s the weekend. I already called the courthouse; the guy there told me Monday’s the earliest they could start to look for them, and Monday’s too late.”

  “Would Craig write you an order?”

  “I guess so, but what good would it do? The place is closed.”

  “Closed places can be opened,” said Marlene archly.

  He looked at her, at the all-too-familiar expression on her face, and then slowly raised his hands to cover his ears. “I don’t want to hear this, Marlene.”

  “No, you don’t, but you want the transcripts by Monday, and this is the only way to get them. Get the order to cover your ass with the judge and … I don’t know, I feel the need for some country air. Maybe I’ll take a drive upstate this weekend with Harry.”

  “La-la-la-la-la-dum-di-dum,” sang Karp. He kept his hands over his ears, his body hunched as if to avoid blows, as he walked sideways out of the room.

  He passed Lucy on the way out and got a startled look.

  “Why is Daddy acting goony, Mommy?”

  “Because he’s a goon. Come here, I want to talk to you.” Lucy sat by her side on the sofa.