Malice

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  Lucy understood. Kivas were pits dug into the earth, some of them quite large, and had been used for thousands of years. The Anasazi, a Navajo word meaning “the ancient ones,” who had once lived in the American Southwest, had built kivas in their cliff dwellings before they’d abandoned their homes.

  Anthropologists believed that the Anasazi were the ancestors of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, and Lucy figured that they must have shared a similar belief that kivas represented the hole from which they’d emerged to inhabit the earth in their creation mythology. The tribes clung tenaciously to that belief, which made them truly Native Americans, despite the efforts of scientists who contended that they were the descendants of people who had crossed into North America from Asia.

  A few minutes later, Lucy and Jojola were sitting in the sweat lodge as he poured water on the rocks he’d been heating in the fire outside. There was an immediate rush of steam filling the lodge.

  Lucy giggled at the thought that she was sitting naked next to a fifty-five-year-old man, a fact that would have thrown her conservative cowboy boyfriend, Ned, into a jealous pique, though he, too, adored Jojola. She’d felt a moment’s embarrassment when she first stripped down outside the wickiup. But Jojola had kept his back turned until they were inside and then he busied himself with the preparations of bringing in superheated rocks from the fire and pouring water over them slowly. Soon, her body was drenched with sweat and she could almost feel the toxins from the peyote leaving through her pores.

  “If you like, I can tell you a story about the owl,” Jojola said. “It is from my cousins in the Zuni tribe. It is a sad story in the end. But it is also a love story and shows that the owl is a compassionate totem.”

  “Yes, I’d like to hear it,” Lucy replied.

  “Okay, then, once upon a time,” Jojola said with a smile, “there was a young warrior whose beautiful and much-loved wife died. He was so devastated that he decided to follow her into the land of the dead and find a way to return her to the world of the living. The spirit of the young woman helped her husband by placing a red feather in her hair…”

  Lucy’s eyes flew open at the memory of St. Teresa with the feather in her hair. But Jojola continued with his story and in the comforting rumble of his voice, her eyes closed again.

  “Spirits gradually grow invisible as they approach the land of the dead,” Jojola continued. “So the feather was to help him keep track of her.”

  The spirit of the young woman and her faithful husband eventually came to a dark lake. She plunged in, but he could not follow. “As he sat in despair on the shore of the lake,” Jojola said, “Owl Man saw how much he loved his wife and took pity on him. So Owl Man brought him to a cave in the mountains where his people lived and gave him a sleeping potion. ‘When you awake, you will be with your wife. Take her back to your village, but do not touch her until you reach the village,’ the Owl Man warned. As promised, when the young warrior woke up, his wife was there, waiting for him to guide her back to their village and the land of the living.”

  They almost made it, Jojola said, but as they drew close to the village, the warrior’s wife grew tired and lay down. Soon she was fast asleep. As she rested, the warrior could not resist touching her. “Whereupon she woke, but instead of continuing on, she had to go back to the land of the dead, leaving her husband to grieve all the more.”

  “That’s so sad,” Lucy said. “If he’d just waited a little longer, they could have been together. What’s it supposed to mean?”

  Jojola shrugged his shoulders. “Different things to different people. Some might say it is a parable that love cannot exist without the physical side. Or maybe it is simply a reminder never to take those we love for granted because when they are gone, they are gone forever and no amount of wishing to touch them can bring them back.”

  Outside of the wickiup, an owl hooted. “See,” Jojola said solemnly. “Your totem agrees with me.”

  6

  BUTCH KARP STOPPED PACING LONG ENOUGH TO GLANCE OUT of the big picture window of the loft at the apartment across Crosby Street. A strikingly attractive dark-haired woman painted at an easel, stopping every so often to look southwest as dusk settled over Lower Manhattan. Dabbing at the canvas with her brush, she tilted her head in an odd way that indicated that she saw better from one eye than the other.

  The painter, his wife, Marlene, finished a long stroke and then turned in his direction. Seeing him, she smiled and gave a little wave before returning to her project. He responded by raising his hand, and with a sigh turned back to his own work, which was laid out on the kitchen table across the room. He walked over and picked up a yellow legal-sized notepad on which he’d written a series of names formed into columns.

  Some of the names had been crossed out; others had lines connecting them to names in other columns; a few names were in multiple columns. He’d been trying to connect the dots and was frustrated by the feeling that the forest was in front of him, but he couldn’t see it for the trees. What he could see were the faces of the six children murdered during Andrew Kane’s escape as they had appeared in their school photographs. He’d arranged them on the table in two rows, like jurors in the jury box waiting for him to deliver his closing argument.

  He wasn’t sure why he’d asked Gilbert Murrow to bring the photographs from his office. If he did that with every murder victim he’d ever been connected to, he and Marlene would have had to add another room to the loft. Trying to explain it to her, he’d theorized that these victims were different because they’d been killed as a result of a decision for which he felt in some way responsible. It would have been different if their deaths had been committed within the jurisdiction of the New York DAO, and his office was simply pursuing murder charges. But these children had died because they’d been sacrificial pawns for Kane and security for the motorcade had been at least in part arranged through his office.

  Maybe we should have fought harder to keep him at the Tombs and forced his psychiatrists to examine him there, Karp had said to Marlene, referring to the New York City jail.

  But it was the FBI and U.S. Marshal’s Office that had primary responsibility for transporting Kane, she pointed out. And it was the FBI’s guy, Michael Grover, who turned out to be a traitor…. You know, you’re starting to sound like Clay Fulton, who was only riding shotgun because you asked him to and didn’t even have his own guys. But I’m telling you, just like I told Clay, there was nothing that could have been done that would have made a difference. The judge was going to let them take Kane to his psychiatrists, and Kane had a guy on the inside who no one could have guessed at.

  I know you’re right, Karp replied. And it’s not just the kids. They’re the faces I can put on something deeper than an FBI agent who sold their lives for money. Grover already paid for his crime when Kane killed him. And Kane and the terrorists are all dead, too. But those photographs won’t let me forget that Kane could not have pulled this off alone—not even with the help of Grover and his terrorist pals. Someone else, someone with a hell of a lot of pull and resources, did this and they’re still out there.

  Are you talking about Grale’s warning in the hospital? Marlene asked. Look, I appreciate what he’s done for this family, and for New York. But you do realize that he’s at least half insane. He sees a conspiracy of evil behind every crime when sometimes it’s just a bad guy doing a bad thing.

  Yeah, I know, Karp replied. Still, I can’t discount that most of his information has been right on the money; in fact, I’ve wondered how someone who spends his life underground fighting “demons” has such solid connections. I just hope that when we catch whoever it is pulling the strings in this puppet show, there’ll be evidence that this conspiracy to commit murder was hatched in the County of New York so that I can have a shot at them in court.

  Aren’t you taking this a little personally? Marlene cautioned.

  Karp knew that her point was valid. His mentor, Francis Garrahy, had always warned about the pitfall
of getting emotionally involved in cases, especially homicides.

  Our job is a search for truth, not retribution, the old man would lecture. We are not advocates for the victims. Our responsibility is to objectively weigh the evidence. Was the crime committed in our jurisdiction? Do we have legally admissible evidence that is likely to lead a jury to a verdict of guilty?

  Passion was okay, he’d say, if it was a passion for doing the job right. Emotion was human nature, and even a valuable asset in the theater of the courtroom during an opening statement or closing argument. To care is human and juries like that. But not if it distracts from the central truth of the case.

  Garrahy’s voice echoed down the long hall of time, and Karp knew that the old DA and Marlene were right, but still…I’m just trying to connect the dots, Marlene, he’d told her. I know the answer is right in front of me, I just have to keep looking until I can see it.

  Marlene had stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. I know, babe, she whispered. You’re still recuperating, and I was just trying to mother-hen you a little.

  Alone in the loft, his wife across the street, painting, his twin boys at the movies, and Lucy in New Mexico, Karp glanced back at the legal pad. Each column of names had a heading. Under “Kane’s Escape”—meaning those people who knew the route of the motorcade—the list started with himself, then Clay Fulton, V. T. Newbury, who had been investigating Kane’s tentacles into the NYPD and the Catholic Archdiocese of New York, his appeals chief, Harry Kipman, who was also one of Karp’s most trusted lieutenants, and Gilbert Murrow, who as Karp’s aide had acted as the liaison between the feds and Fulton. After that, there were the possibilities outside his office: the traitor Michael Grover, followed by FBI agent S. P. Jaxon, who’d been Grover’s boss, and a list of four names from the U.S. Justice Department to whom Jaxon and Grover reported. That was it.

  Another column was headed “Archbishop Fey,” a reference to the former archbishop of the New York archdiocese, Timothy Fey, who had looked the other way while his attorney, Kane, used the church to further his criminal empire. Fey had been awaiting the call to testify on a prison farm in California where he was living under a witness protection program alias. Yet, Kane had discovered Fey’s whereabouts and sent an assassin, who strangled the old man in the barn.

  Only a few people had known where Fey was incarcerated. That list included the same people from the DAO and most of the same federal names, except for Grover, who’d been killed after Kane’s escape and had never been apprised of Fey’s location. Unless Jaxon told him, Karp thought. Nah, there was no reason to tell him, and Espey knows how to keep a secret.

  A third column was simply titled “Aspen.” Acting on a tip, federal agents had surrounded the house of a Saudi Arabian prince in Aspen, Colorado, under the belief that Kane was hiding there, guarded by Islamic terrorists. However, it was a trap and an enormous bomb had exploded, leveling the mansion and killing the hostages, the terrorists, and a half dozen federal agents.

  Again, those in the know were the inner circle from the DAO, as well as Jaxon and his superiors in the FBI and Justice Department. New to the mix was Jon Ellis, the assistant director of special operations for the Department of Homeland Security, who’d stepped in after Kane’s escape.

  Some of the names on the pad Karp had crossed off, especially those who fell under only one heading, such as the prison farm administrator. He also would have crossed Ellis off, but he had not and wasn’t sure why.

  Personally, Karp didn’t like the man. He thought the agent acted superior and condescending. Then there was the little matter after Kane escaped yet again, this time from St. Patrick’s Cathedral. When Jaxon and Ellis, who had been outside directing the federal response to the hostage crisis, learned that Kane was gone, leaving the terrorists to blow the place up, Ellis had disappeared. He’d later explained that he’d run to a different communications truck to issue a BOLO, Be On the Lookout, to his agency for Agent Vic Hodges, aka Kane, at the airports, train stations, and bus terminals.

  Still, Karp had asked Newbury, who had connections at the State Department and the Justice Department, to check Ellis out. The report had come back spotless, if anyone in the intelligence world could be considered clean. Ellis was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, from which he’d gone into the Navy’s elite SEALs commando force and served with distinction, earning a Silver Star and Purple Heart. However, that was followed by a period of time for which Newbury’s sources could not account for Ellis.

  My guess is he went from military hero to spook—NSA or CIA, maybe something even further off the map, Newbury said. My sources indicated that Ellis was involved in some very nasty “wet work” in trouble spots around the world that resulted in the early demise of some noted terrorists. He reemerged after 9/11 in his current role with Homeland Security and, again according to my source, has been effective at countering terrorist plans the likes of which would terrify this country’s citizens if they knew about them.

  You’re convinced he’s a good guy? Karp asked.

  Newbury hesitated. I’ve only met him a couple of times and I also find him a hard guy to like, he said. Then again, he’s in a business where maybe being likable is not an asset. I would say that his resumé suggests that he wouldn’t be likely to consort with enemies of the United States. If anything, he’s what you might call a “super patriot.”

  I don’t know if I trust that sort either, Karp growled. They all seem to know what’s best for the rest of us, Constitution be damned.

  With his pen hovering above Ellis’s name on the legal pad, Karp recalled the conversation with Newbury and wondered how his friend was doing. A longtime colleague, V.T. was obviously under a lot of strain after the unexpected death of his father from a heart attack two weeks earlier. Beneath his sometimes rigid blue-blooded exterior, Vinson Talcott Newbury was a gentle soul who’d loved his dad and grieved even as he went about his duties at the DAO. Karp had told him to take as much time as he needed; however, except for a day or two on either side of the funeral and memorial services, he’d preferred to work.

  If anything, he’s what you might call a “super patriot.” Karp’s pen moved to scratch out Ellis. The agent wasn’t involved in the motorcade and wasn’t privy to Fey’s whereabouts. His explanation about running to a communication truck to issue a BOLO had checked out; a Homeland Security helicopter had been on the scene when Kane dove into the Harlem River and drowned. Karp lifted the pen and left his name on the list.

  Glancing farther down the page, his eyes rested on one final name. Jamys Kellagh. Grale thought Kellagh was the man pulling Kane’s strings. But extensive checks by Murrow and Newbury had not been able to turn up anyone with that name who could even remotely be tied to Kane or terrorists. He drew a circle around the name, but there was no sense drawing any lines connecting it to any other name or heading.

  Frustrated, Karp rapped his knuckles on the legal pad. But at least he would have another four years in office to figure out who was responsible. Election night had come and gone, and he’d been elected district attorney in a landslide.

  Of course, some of that had to do with the fact that he was unopposed, an empty victory that had sent Gilbert Murrow into a strange melancholy. Even the attempt on his life, and subsequent death of an apparently prolific burglar with a long criminal jacket that included sexual assault, had not thrown Murrow in as much of a funk. When asked about it, he’d explained that it was because his magnificent plans for brilliant last-minute campaigning had become moot, the battle won without firing a shot. They’d watched the returns with a few close friends in the Karp-Ciampi loft, then everybody had gone home early.

  Karp’s concentration was interrupted when the lights went on in the apartment across the way. He’d leased the space and had it finished for Marlene’s art studio and given it to her as a present. She seemed to find real peace there, though he had yet to see one of her paintings.

  Marlene walked back to the easel and picked up the paint
brush again. She looks…I don’t know…content, he thought. It had certainly been a long road home. The funny tilt of her head was because she’d lost an eye opening a letter bomb intended for him nearly twenty-five years earlier. The explosion that cost her her eye had also taken a finger, but most significantly it had been the beginning of her loss of faith in the justice system’s ability to deal with violent criminals. The ensuing years had seen her drawn into a world of violence as a sort of avenging angel for those unable to protect themselves, but also at odds with her Catholic upbringing in Queens and with her justice-by-the-book husband.

  Watching her paint, he found it hard to believe that someone so beautiful and such a loving mother and wife was so capable of meting out deadly force. But during the past year, with the spiritual guidance of John Jojola, and her art, she at last seemed to be making peace with the past. She was still capable of swift violence, as she’d proved at St. Patrick’s, but at least that had been in reaction to a situation she’d been thrust into and had saved many innocent lives. Not to mention the Pope, he thought.

  Karp paced back into the living room, his hands behind his back, and then back to the kitchen sink to get a glass of water. Only there he was distracted again, this time by a blue note attached by a magnet to the refrigerator. It read: “Mikey O’Toole, Nov. 19.”

  Good, he thought, something to take my mind off Kane. He flashed back to the telephone call from Mikey. Well, I’m in a little trouble out here in Idaho, and I was hoping I might ask you for a little bit of advice.

  Mikey’s brother, Fred, had been one of Karp’s best friends from his college days at Berkeley. They’d met shortly after they arrived on campus as highly recruited freshmen for the basketball team in the mid-1960s. In stature, they were bookends—both about six foot five and a rail-thin 190 pounds—and both loved basketball. But that’s where the similarities ended.