The files were criminal complaints brought against police officers and members of the clergy. They had been originally sent to Kane's law firm by the city attorney, aka Corporation Counsel, to review and make recommendations on how to make them go away. In most instances, Kane had recommended that the cases be settled (earning large sums of money for Kane). Then, if it suited his purpose, Kane would also recommend against prosecution for the accused. It was something he could use to manipulate the accused as well as the city, the NYPD, and the archdiocese.
Since the "No Prosecution" files had been given to Newbury's Gang, as his cadre of assistant district attorneys and investigators were called, dozens of cases had been reopened and the accused indicted, as should have happened the first time around. Dozens more indictments were expected.
In the course of the investigation, Newbury had learned that Kane had spread the wealth to a few other large law firms. "Whether it was because they were part of what was going on, or he simply couldn't keep up, we don't know yet," Newbury said. However, he'd just learned that his family's firm, run by his uncle, Dean Newbury, had been assigned to a number of cases in which white police officers had been accused of racially motivated crimes in their precincts.
"All the cases were settled and no charges were brought against the accused officers," he said. "However, so far there doesn't seem to have been any irregularities, though some warrant further investigation. Maybe Kane kept the worst offenders for himself-to use as leverage-and shuffled the rest to other firms so as not to raise hackles. Be that as it may, I've assigned one of the other assistant district attorneys, Galen Benson, to handle the investigation of my uncle's involvement. But if you'd like me to step down and move to another bureau, I'll understand."
"Why would I want to do that?" Karp asked, though he knew why Newbury had made the offer.
Vinson Talcott Newbury came from Old New York Money. His family could trace its roots back to the Mayflower on his mother's side and the middle 1700s on his father's. (Though we seem to know little enough about the paternal DNA before that, he'd once told Karp with a laugh. I suspect they were black sheep, and it's been kept in the closet.) Whatever their beginnings, the Newbury side had established themselves as one of the premier white-shoe law firms in Manhattan; their clients included some of the wealthiest, most powerful men and corporations in the country. And V.T. had dutifully followed the predestined course set for him from boarding school to Yale and then Harvard Law. However, he'd then caused something of a minor scandal after law school by going to work for the New York DAO. Years later, they were still looking down their noses because instead of accepting a lucrative position in the family firm, he'd stuck with the blue-collar work of prosecuting Manhattan's criminals.
Extraordinarily handsome with long, blond hair combed back from an increasingly sharp widow's peak, but only about five foot seven, he could also be somewhat sardonic. But Karp knew him as a loyal friend, a man of honor, and one of the best white-collar crimes prosecutors in the country.
Still, heritage meant something and Newbury was the "death before dishonor" type, which is why he'd made the offer to step down as the bureau chief. "Well, there's the potential for the press to see it as a conflict of interest," he replied to Karp's question. "Don't want to start off your new term with a messy scandal, you know."
Karp had brushed it off. "I don't run my office according to what the press may think. I have no doubt that if something comes up with your uncle that you need to bring to my attention, you'll do so," he said. "But to tell you the truth, it is my opinion that you could be trusted to prosecute yourself if you deserved it."
Newbury cleared his throat and seemed to be having trouble speaking, which made Karp smile. He knew that such shows of faith were the sort of thing his friend treasured most. A true throw-back to a better time, he thought.
"Thanks, Butch," Newbury said at last. "And I'll keep you apprised. Oh, and by the way, that very same uncle called this morning. He wants me to drop by and meet some of his cronies. I'm sure it's the annual push to get me to join the family practice. Only it's a little more pushy this time since Dad died. I think Uncle Dean is feeling the years and there's no other heir to the family throne. The old man's laying it on thick, all sorts of hogwash about meeting people who could do me 'a lot of good' in the future, whatever that means."
"Take him up on it," Karp chided. "Lot of money in private practice."
Newbury laughed. "No thanks," he said. "I want to be able to sleep at nights after work. I'm not saying he or the firm are scoundrels or crooks. God knows my dad was a good and decent attorney who did plenty of pro bono work. But when your bread is buttered by wealthy, powerful men who think of themselves as being above the law, or at least the IRS, well, the world can be full of compromises. And I'm not the compromising sort."
Karp knew that Newbury wasn't the compromising sort and hadn't wasted any more time worrying about his friend's uncle. His more immediate concern was Lucy's sudden reappearance in New York in the company of S. P. Jaxon. He'd liked and trusted the agent since their rookie years with the DAO. But Jaxon worked in a world filled with terrorists and death, and his daughter had already experienced more of both than any twenty-one-year-old should have had to.
When she arrived at the loft late that afternoon, Lucy had told her parents that she was just in town for a couple of days to help Jaxon with a "translation issue." While she was usually willing to discuss her life in great detail, she'd been taciturn about the exact nature of this problem. However, she had dropped one bomb and that was that Jaxon was no longer working for the FBI. He'd apparently gone over to what the now former agent used to call "the dark side" of private industry.
"Why didn't he tell me?" Karp asked Marlene later as he helped prepare dinner by chopping onions and peppers.
"Maybe because he knew how you'd react," she replied, forming another pillow-shaped gnocchi, a type of pasta made from potato. "You lifer public servants have a way of sneering at those of us former public servants who get tired of bureaucracy and grub for money in the public sector. But I suspect it has more to do with the fact that you're both busy, especially him."
Marlene took a sip of a Piccini Chianti, which she claimed she'd opened early to use as a base for the sausage and peppers, as well as the marinara sauce. "You've been out of the office-or at least you better be or I'll wring your neck and then Murrow's. And Jaxon has apparently been tracking Lucy down in New Mexico and God knows what else. The fact that he's doing something for himself and his family doesn't make him a bad guy."
Karp sighed. Marlene ought to know. She'd been one of the founders of a private security consulting firm for VIPs. It had made her a lot of money, but it had also pulled her into a violent world. All of which got more violent when she turned her day job into volunteer night work, protecting battered women from the men who loved to hit them.
"Still, a call would have been polite," Karp harrumphed. "Especially as he's now flying my daughter about in black jets doing mysterious 'translations' for some private security firm. I don't like this at all."
Lucy had retired to her bedroom, where she was moping about, unable to reach her boyfriend, Ned. When Karp went back to give her a little fatherly advice about dealing with men by "giving them some space," he'd come under attack for allowing strange men to sleep in her room and leave their suitcases "where I'm tripping all over them." She'd then burst into tears.
Retreating in confusion, Karp had asked his wife what was the matter with his daughter. Lucy normally wasn't the sort to cry over some boy.
"You wouldn't understand," Marlene replied, giving him the "men are such morons when it comes to women" look before heading off to console her daughter.
Marlene had returned to the kitchen after placing the suitcases in the twins' bedroom; she announced they would be "camping" on the floor that night. After they arrived and heard about the new arrangement, O'Toole and Meyers had again volunteered to find a hotel, but she insisted th
at "unless you're allergic to pubescent boys and the smell of dirty socks stuffed under beds," they should spend the night in the boys' room.
"It's only a few days until Thanksgiving," she said. "You'd probably have a hard time finding anything decent, if you can find anything at all, at least without paying next month's salary."
"I don't have a salary next month," O'Toole pointed out.
"All the more reason to stay with us," Marlene replied, pouring two more glasses of Chianti and insisting that the men have a seat while she finished up preparations for dinner.
Two hours later, the adults pushed back from the table with satisfied groans coupled with compliments to the chef and praise for the second bottle of Chianti. The boys and Lucy had been more than happy to eat in their rooms "so that the adults could talk," but the conversation had mostly avoided O'Toole's legal issues until-after helping Marlene with the dishes-the men retired to the living room.
Karp, who'd brought out a legal notepad, quickly got to the point. "So, tell me about the hearing."
As he had the night before, O'Toole deferred to Meyers, who began by shaking his head and saying, "It was a procedural nightmare, a modern-day Star Chamber. Even the room was set up to intimidate anybody with the temerity to challenge the high and mighty American Collegiate Athletic Association: Big, empty white walls with no art, not even a sports poster, and blindingly bright fluorescent lights."
"Bring on the rubber hoses, eh?" Karp said.
"Exactly," Meyers replied. "We were told to sit on one side of a table long enough to seat twenty per side, and even then they kept us waiting fifteen minutes before anyone else appeared."
When they did arrive, the seven members of the hearing panel, their attorney, investigator, and the university's representatives-Huttington and Barnhill-all sat on the opposite side. "I was thinking, 'Now I know how a dying rabbit feels when the vultures start gathering,'" O'Toole said. "I would swear that even their chairs were taller so that they were looking down on me."
The panel was headed by a retired federal judge, George Figa. "He had a reputation in Boise for being strict but fair," Meyers noted. "So I felt pretty good about that, at least until later."
"I recognized one guy, too," O'Toole interjected. "You might remember him, Butch, J. C. Anderson. He was the head football coach at one of the Big Twelve universities for decades…retired, I think, in the eighties. He's got to be a hundred years old."
"I do remember Anderson," Karp said. "The man won two national titles, and God knows how many bowl games. But tell you what I remember most was hearing him give a talk once at a camp when I was still a high school basketball player. It was this great, impassioned speech telling us to remember that the real goal of participating in sports wasn't winning, or self-promotion, but the lessons it taught us for later in life about playing fair, following the rules, and sacrificing personal glory for the betterment of what he called 'the team we call our community.' I remember him saying, 'Do that and you're a champion in anybody's book and will go far long after you hang up the cleats.' I never forgot that speech."
"Well, he must have," Meyers said. "Because any hope we had for due process went out the window about as soon as the hearing began."
They'd known the basis of the ACAA case going in because Meyers had been sent the association's investigative file, which contained the complaint, the "evidence, such as it was," and copies of the witness deposition transcripts. "Though as you'll hear in a moment, those were somewhat less than complete," Meyers noted.
The ACAA had been represented by attorney Steve Zusskin. "What's he like?" Karp asked.
"Tall, distinguished-looking," Meyers replied, "wavy, silver hair with deep-set, dark eyes, great voice, almost sounds like he's singing when he talks. Apparently, he used to be a senior partner with a big firm in Boston before deciding to resettle in Idaho. He's about as good as it gets in our neck of the woods. Have to admit, I was a little intimidated."
The hearing began with Zusskin reviewing the accusations brought by Rufus Porter and the contents of the ACAA file by questioning his investigator, James Larkin, a former college football player.
"I nearly lost it and started laughing the first time Larkin started to talk," Meyers said. "The guy's probably six foot four and three hundred pounds, though a lot of it looked like blubber, but he has a voice like a twelve-year-old girl. It was really incongruous to listen to him talk in this high, shrill tone about how under his 'tough' questioning, he got Rufus Porter to 'confess' that he'd taken underage recruits to a party where he knew alcohol would be provided. But, of course, Porter claimed that he only did it at Mikey's suggestion and poor little Rufus felt, and here I'm quoting, 'that his place on the team depended on his doing what the coach asked.' Larkin also said that according to Porter, Mikey even gave him credit for alcohol from the baseball department's petty-cash fund."
The questioning was a real "dog and pony show," according to Meyers, "with Zusskin leading Larkin like a trainer with a St. Bernard at the Westminster Dog Show. For instance, Zusskin asked if women were paid to strip at the party and have sexual relations with the two recruits. Of course, Larkin agreed, and at his master's coaxing added that according to Porter, Mikey paid for it with his university credit card."
"Did they happen to bring up the rape charges brought against Rufus?" Marlene asked.
Meyers rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah. Zusskin made a big show of rustling through his papers and then asked Larkin if during the course of his investigation, he'd turned up allegations of Porter committing sexual assault at the party. Larkin said oh yes, it was that allegation that caused the removal of Porter from the basketball team so he gave it extra special attention. However, as he told the panel, the allegation turned out to be false."
"False!" Marlene sputtered. "The charges were dropped because the evidence in the case mysteriously disappeared and the victim for some reason left town in the middle of the night. I'd hardly call that false even if the charges had to be dropped."
Meyers nodded. "I essentially said the same thing…or started to when Judge Figa brought the gavel down and told me I'd get to speak later but I was to refrain from making any more statements while Zusskin and Larkin were trotting around the ring… Well, he didn't put it exactly like that, but you get my drift."
"What did you say to that?" Karp asked.
"Oh, just, 'Fine, your honor, I'll wait for my chance to cross-examine the witness.'"
Karp chuckled. "Bet that went over well."
"Yeah, like a match in a fireworks factory," Meyers said with a grin. "I got an angry glare from the judge, and some nervous glances from the rest of the panel and Huttington. Barnhill was shooting daggers with his eyes, but Zusskin just smiled and went on with the show."
Following Zusskin's lead, Larkin told the panel that he'd interviewed the two recruits in question. "Then he handed out a nine-page transcript."
"Nine pages?" Karp said, furrowing his brow. "Obviously, men of few words. Or are you indicating that this was a somewhat truncated version of a transcript?" The smell of rat from the night before had returned even stronger.
"Yeah," Meyers replied, "for what was supposedly a couple of hours' worth of interviews. But when I complained that the transcript was incomplete, Zusskin said that for the purposes of the hearing, it wasn't necessary to present the entire transcript-only those statements made by the recruits that had bearing on whether Mikey knew about the party and paid for booze and strippers. Oh, and whether he asked the recruits not to cooperate with the ACAA investigation and to lie if questioned. I, of course, asked for the entire transcript and a copy of the tape recording of the interviews. But Figa gaveled me again and told me that the hearing would go forward according to the rules and regulations of the ACAA."
When he finished with the transcript, Zusskin wrapped up his presentation by submitting for the panel's examination his "hard evidence," a telephone record showing that a call had been placed from O'Toole's office to the Pink Pussycat Esc
ort Service on the evening in question and a receipt for five hundred dollars paid to the escort service using O'Toole's university credit card.
"Then the judge asked if there was anything Mikey wanted to say in his defense," Meyers explained.
"Wait until you hear Richie's reply," O'Toole interjected. "He was awesome."
"Not really," Meyers replied. "To be honest, I felt a little over-matched. I'd never dealt with anything like this and had no idea what our rights were."
"Come on, it was a great speech about my right to confront the witnesses against me," O'Toole insisted. "He stood up and said, 'Before this goes any further, I'd like the panel to produce the witnesses so that I can cross-examine them. We'd also like to call our own witnesses and present evidence.' But the judge interrupted and, like he was talking to a naughty schoolkid, said, 'Mr. Meyers, this is a private organization with its own rules for conducting hearings.' Only Richie didn't back down and shot back, 'But how can you reach an honest and independent conclusion if you're the ones who brought the charges?' I don't think the judge was used to being challenged. His face got all red and he told Richie that the ACAA would conduct its hearings according to its rules and that if I wanted to make a statement I should do so before he adjourned so that the panel could deliberate."
"Well, my arguments didn't do you much good," Meyers pointed out, blushing slightly from the praise. "But yeah, Figa as much as said the Constitution be damned. So Mikey got up, told the truth about what happened, and sat down. Anybody with a brain would have seen that he was being honest, but I could tell just looking at the panel that it didn't matter, they'd already made up their minds."
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