Falsely Accused bkamc-8

by Robert Tanenbaum

  “It’s not that simple, Murray,” said Karp, a hint of irritation in his voice. “You’re under oath, and they’ll be scrutinizing every word you say for fishhooks to hang favorable precedents on. I know we’ve been through this a little before, but let me lay out the legal situation as it affects what you’re supposed to say.”

  Selig looked at his watch. “Will this take a long time?” The doctor, having placed his affairs in Karp’s hands, had shown little interest in the nuts-and-bolts aspects of the case.

  “No, Murray, about as long as an autopsy,” said Karp. “Okay. You know we’re suing under the Fourteenth Amendment because we hold that you’ve been deprived of liberty and property without due process. The property part is your interest in your job; you can’t be deprived of it without a formal hearing beforehand, which you did not get. The liberty interest involves the stigma created by the charges made against you, which has deprived you of your ability to pursue your normal occupation. The classic case is Bishop v. Wood: a cop got fired for insubordination and ruining morale. Plaintiff argued that accusing him of that behavior in public constituted a badge of infamy,’ such that he could never again pursue his usual occupation as a cop, hence deprivation of liberty without due process. Same with you. Liberty to pursue your normal occupation, a chief medical examiner of a major city, was taken from you without due process of law. What we’ll be asking the court for is, on the property side, reinstatement and back pay, and on the liberty side, damages, to recompense you for that damaging loss of reputation. Stigma plus, as we call it.” “That’s what pays you, the damages.” “Right, Murray, that’s what pays me. Now, the defendants are going to try to demonstrate two things. The first is that you did not have a property interest in your job. The Supreme Court gives a lot of leeway to states for determining if an employee actually has such an interest. They don’t want a situation where every town clerk who gets canned thinks he has a federal case. The idea is that coincident with your taking a public job, you admit to understanding that there are legitimate causes for dismissal, as established under statute. It’s called the ‘bitter with the sweet’ doctrine. There are two ways the City can do this. One, they can show that you were still on probation and hadn’t yet acquired any job rights. They say it’s a year, we say it’s six months. I think we can roll them on this. It falls on employer to inform employee of any probationary period, and they told you it was six months when they hired you, and that should be it. The more serious problem is whether you in fact had a rational expectation of a right to a job that couldn’t be taken away without a hearing. That is, we have to point to actual rules that say whether the C.M.E. position requires a formal hearing before dismissal.”

  “Of course it requires one,” said Selig vehemently. “It says so in the position description in the City Green Book.”

  “So it does,” Karp agreed, “and we have general support for right to hearing before dismissal in several sections of the state Civil Service Law. But section 557 (a) of the Administrative Code says the Mayor can boot you out just by telling you why. Which, of course, he did.”

  A puzzled frown appeared on Selig’s face. “But that doesn’t make any sense. How can the law say two different things?”

  Karp laughed briefly. “How indeed? Now you know why lawyers make the big bucks. Look, Murray: doctors wear white coats because they have to make sure there’s no dirt on them. Judges wear black robes so the dirt don’t show. The job here is to devise some way of saying that although there appears to be conflict, precedent tells the judge to resolve it in our favor.” Karp studied his yellow crib sheet and made a note on its margins. Then he handed his client a document of some twenty or so closely typed sheets. “This is how I think the questioning is going to go. What I mean is, those are the questions I’d ask you if I was on the other side. Let’s go through them one by one, because I want to hear your answers.”

  “Don’t I swear to tell the whole truth?” asked Selig lightly.

  “Only if they ask for it, Murray,” said Karp. “And if I let you.”

  Before her visit to Marlene’s loft, Stupenagel had no thought of doing anything dramatic with her evening. She had planned to return to her West End Avenue sublet to work on her story over a bag of take-out Chinese. Marlene’s tale, however, and the evidence of her damaged face, had gotten under her skin. Although she was genuinely fond of Marlene, she was most fond of her when Marlene kept to her place, which in Stupenagel’s mind was Mom, Wifey, and at the most, Legal Drudge. It was entirely unacceptable for Marlene to have the sort of adventure she had just experienced, except, of course, by accident. That Marlene had planned to risk her neck in this way vexed the reporter no end, because if Marlene could have her luxurious and now trendy loft, and a baby, and a husband whom she did not despise, then she simply couldn’t be allowed to embark on that kind of adventure, the kind that Stupenagel herself routinely arranged to have. That was the deal that Stupenagel had made with life, and it did not bear thinking that it might not be universally valid.

  To her credit, she did not have for Marlene any ill will because of this; nor did she plan to discommode her in any way, beyond the sort of nastiness native to the profession of journalism. But she did enjoy twitting Marlene for being a hausfrau, and planned to continue to do so, and this was only feasible if she continued to outclass Marlene in the adventure business.

  These thoughts occupied her as she strolled aimlessly up Grand Street and across Mulberry, past the shuttered groceries and import shops, and the storefront social clubs around which clustered groups of flashy young men, leaning on their double-parked cars. There was trouble, she thought, but not precisely the right kind. She received a good deal of commentary as she walked past these knots of wise guys. One of the men, short, hairy, and drunk, stood grinning in her path, demanding an obscene favor and handling his genitals, while his pals urged him on. Stupenagel had in her bag, beside camera and notebook, a short, razor-sharp, bone-handled Arab dagger she’d picked up during her first visit to Syria, and she considered briefly gutting this man with it and then escaping from the country with the Mafia on her tail, and whether that would make a good story. That such an action would cross her mind at all showed how irritable she had become out of this silly Marlene thing. She straightened herself, gave the man a withering look, and walked around him as if he had been a load of dog poop on the pavement.

  It was at that moment that it popped into her head that she would go undercover as a gypsy cab driver and catch Detective Paul Jackson at whatever it was he was doing.

  EIGHT

  Marlene waited a couple of days, until Karp was more or less over the snit he had got into over the Lanin affair, and they were comfortably settled in the marriage bed, before she sprang it on him. He laughed and said, “Yeah, right!” before it struck him that she was not laughing along.

  “You’re not serious?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m serious. I think it’s a good idea.”

  “It’s the worst idea you ever had, Marlene,” said Karp, “and that’s a tough league.”

  “Why? Why is it such a bad idea?”

  He sighed. “Babe, private investigators are high school graduates. You went to Yale Law. You were on law review. You have a mind. I can’t believe you’re actually thinking of spending your life following sleazes around with a camera.”

  “You’re not listening to me,” said Marlene in a controlled voice. “Listen to what I said. I want to start a service that specializes in helping women who are being harassed, and that’d include legal rep as well as straight P.I. I’m not talking about tort or divorce work.”

  Karp shifted in bed and gave her a searching look.

  “When you say P.I. work, you mean stuff like what gave you that face?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “No? Then what? What are you going to do within a legal framework that the cops can’t do a whole lot better?”

  “The cops do hardly anything, and you know it,” she re
torted. “Enforcing protective orders is down below littering on their priority list. As for what I’m going to do, I’m going to do whatever it takes.”

  “You and Harry Bello are going to do this?”

  “Yeah. He likes the idea. He’s going to hand in his tin this week.”

  “Oh, terrific! Marlene, he’s a psychopath.”

  “He’s not a psychopath! How can you say that? He’s your daughter’s godfather.”

  Karp tried another tack. “And the two of you think you can make a living from this?”

  “What living? Harry’s got his pension, and as far as I know, we certainly don’t have any money problems. Why, is Daddy going to cut me off without a penny if I do this?”

  “Oh, of course not, Marlene,” said Karp, starting to feel trapped. “But … God, with just the pair of you … I mean, it’s going to be an all-hours thing. What about Lucy?”

  “What about her? We seemed to do okay when we were both at the D.A. working crazy hours and she was a lot younger and needed more attention.”

  “And the new baby …?”

  “I’ll deal with that when it happens,” she snapped, and then, in a more even tone, “Look, this isn’t about money or domestic arrangements. If I had a job with a firm or a prosecutor’s office, you’d be buying champagne. So what is it?”

  “Oh, for crying out loud, Marlene, look in the mirror!”

  “What, I got hurt? Jeez, Butch, so I got hurt. I’ve been hurt worse. I thought we had a deal on that.”

  Karp paused before answering, trying for a locution that wouldn’t send this discussion off into a raging fight. Still, he could not keep a trace of bitterness from his voice.

  “What deal was that, Marlene? The one where you get to do all the irresponsible stuff and I get to eat my heart out?”

  Marlene looked at him soberly and nodded, twice. “Yes, I understand that it’s hard for you. But, look, Butch-right after we started going together, I got myself blown up by a bomb. A year later, more or less, I got myself kidnapped and tortured by a gang of satanists. That was before we got married. You must have had a hint, at least, that I wasn’t going to be like your mom.”

  Karp did not respond to this verbally. Instead he riffled the pages of the law book he had been reading when this conversation began, and arranged his face in the mulish, tight-jawed expression that he adopted when Marlene was pressing him to come clean with some negative thought.

  “Well?” she said, after a minute of strained silence. “Is that what it is? The danger business?”

  “No,” Karp admitted. “Not that that doesn’t suck too, but no.”

  “What, then? Christ, Butch, come out with it!”

  It came, in a rush. “All right. What you’re doing, what you’re planning, it’s not just going to be P.I. work. It’s going to be more of the kind of thing you pulled with Pruitt-”

  “Not necess-”

  “Let me finish! When it comes down to a case of letting the law take its course, or making sure that some woman doesn’t get hurt, I know what you’re going to do and so do you. It’s going to involve taking out the male party, Marlene. And some of these guys are persistent. So maybe in the back of your mind, there’s a thought about making it permanent. In some cases. I’d bet my next three paychecks that stuff like that would not faze Harry one little bit. And it’s wrong. Don’t you think I know the law’s fucked up in the domestic area? Jesus, Marlene, I was a homicide prosecutor for twelve years! There are probably five domestic homicides for every crime-connected murder. But if you want to change that, do it right! Run for office, lobby Albany, be a legal counsel at one of those shelters, anything, but don’t do this, what you’re thinking about. Because as sure as my ass is on this mattress, you’re going to get in trouble, not little trouble, but big trouble, disbarment trouble, Class A felony trouble. And the worst thing is, while you’re getting in this trouble, you can’t talk about it with me. We can’t be-I don’t know-together in the way I want us to be, because I can’t know about that kind of shit. You understand what I’m saying? I can’t know about it.”

  “Why? Because you’ll turn me in?” She asked this lightly, not at all liking how this conversation was turning out, but Karp answered with grim seriousness.

  “Yes,” he said, grimly. “In a heartbeat. Christ, Marlene, you know the damn law on conspiracy and accessory to felony. You got away with this goddamn Lanin deal because Harry’s a cop and he covered for you, but if he’s private, he won’t be able to do that.”

  “Butch, this is a ridiculous conversation. You sound like I’m planning to set up Murder Incorporated. It’s a security and investigation service.”

  “Is it?” he asked coldly. “Fine, then. I beg your pardon. Just so you know that there is no way in hell that our child-excuse me, our children-are ever going to end up with both their parents in jail.” Karp let a long breath out through his nostrils and propped his book up on his chest and started to pretend to read it. Marlene stared at him for a while and then plumped her pillows and got out a magazine. For a long time, until they switched off their lights, the only sound was the turning of pages.

  Stupenagel’s article about Marlene’s work on behalf of Carrie Lanin was published two weeks later in the Village Voice. It was a good piece, Marlene thought, almost good enough to make her not hate the reporter for publishing a photograph of what Pruitt had done to her face. Marlene had not been the only interview: Stupe had broadened the article to cover the whole phenomenon of women being stalked in New York, and seemed to have ferreted out anyone in the greater metropolitan area who had ever thought seriously about violence against women resulting from that peculiar obsession.

  Marlene read the article twice, underlining here and there and making marginal notes. Then she called Stupenagel.

  “You total shit,” she said when the reporter picked up the phone.

  “Marlene! You saw the article?”

  “Of course I saw it, you jerk! How could you do that to me? Oh, crap! Why do I even ask?”

  “What’s wrong? I thought you came out of it very well,” said Stupenagel. “They even put a sidebar in there describing your colorful past.”

  “What’s wrong is that I’m going to have to carry this face to my mom’s house on Sunday, and it’s improved enough to give me a shot at passing it off with a white lie about a car wreck, which you have rendered impossible by printing that picture and dwelling on how it happened.”

  “Yeah, but how did you like the piece?” said Ariadne.

  Marlene bit back a ferocious response. There was as much point in getting angry with Ariadne for the wreckage she occasionally left in her wake as it would be to get miffed at a typhoon; the woman was as insensitive as a tropical low.

  “I loved it,” said Marlene. “I’m going to have it bronzed. I was especially fascinated with that NYU woman you dug up-is she legit?”

  “Professor Malkin? Oh, yeah, legit up the wazoo. Did you like the typology? Slobs, sadists, and strangers. I love it!”

  “Yeah, but what I wanted to know was, did she have some way of telling them apart, I mean at the beginning?”

  “Hmmm, interesting question,” said the reporter. “To tell the truth, I didn’t get into it with her that deeply. I went to her because she had the statistics I needed, and I just threw the three-types thing in because I thought it sounded neat. Why are you asking?”

  “Oh, just curiosity,” said Marlene disingenuously. “Do you happen to have the good professor’s number?”

  Clunk of phone and rustle of paper while she fished it out. After Marlene wrote it down she asked, “And what’s with you, Stupe? Anything happening in the great world?”

  “I cut off all my hair,” said Stupenagel, to Marlene’s surprise. She was not surprised that she had done it, just that she thought it worthy of mention.

  “Did you?”

  “Yes. And dyed it black. Very punky.”

  “Getting interested in fashion, are we, in our old age?”
>
  “One must keep up,” said Stupenagel airily. “For some of us, the ability to make tempting popovers does not suffice. Speaking of fashion, though, did you ever get back with Suzy Poole?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And?”

  “Bye, Stupe.”

  Marlene pushed the button down in the middle of Stupenagel’s outraged squawk, and immediately dialed Professor Malkin’s number. She got a secretary and made an appointment for a week hence. Then she dressed carefully, with as much fashion as she could manage, and called a cab.

  The model, Suzy Poole, lived in a high-rise apartment building on Fifth Avenue at Seventy-first Street. The security was about what you would expect in a government installation holding mid-level nuclear secrets. Marlene was examined, checked over the intercom, and elevatored to the fifteenth floor by a manned car, whose operator waited to see her admitted to the Poole apartment.

  Which was largely white and black, with splashes of meaningless abstract color and neon sculptures on plain stands, an obvious package by a decorator at the forward edge of au courant. Poole herself was garbed in black-tights and a sort of loose Chinese jacket in heavy cotton, an outfit that, in combination with her essential physique, made her look like a recent releasee from a Japanese prison camp. Her face, despite the famous razor cheekbones and a nose that appeared to have more than a normal complement of tiny, angled bones, seemed, without the intervening miracle of photography, curiously malformed, like that of an embryo bird.

  Marlene was seated in a complicated chrome and leather sling, offered a drink, stared at with frank horror, and subjected to a long story of persecution. She took notes. The gentleman was named Jonathan Seely. He was an account executive at a big ad agency that had hired Ms. Poole to associate her cheekbones with an upmarket new perfume. A romance had blossomed, then faded, when Ms. Poole had discovered the gentleman was, as she put it, a sadistic son of a bitch. He had hit her. In the face. Now he wouldn’t stop calling. Somehow he was able to obtain her private, private number, however often she changed it. Every time the phone rang she jumped. It was interfering with her work. She was a prisoner in her own home. And so on.