Robert Tanenbaum - Falsely Accused

“Among many other duties, I filed Murray’s suit first thing this morning. The Bloom thing.”

“Bloom? I thought the Mayor and the health department were the defendants.”

“Legally, yes. But Bloom is behind it all. Which I will demonstrate. And find out why. Speaking of which, do you remember Phil DeLino?”

“Vaguely,” said Marlene. “He worked for you when you had Criminal Courts. He didn’t stay long, did he?”

“No, he was one of those guys who zip through to punch their ticket. But a good guy. A great deal maker. Even if he had a losing hand, he’d tough it out with the defendant. And he’d go to trial too; he had the balls for it. I was sorry to lose him. Anyway, he called me late today. He’s a special assistant in the Mayor’s office.”

“Yeah? What did he want?”

“To talk about the suit. Off the record. The Mayor apparently is not pleased. I’m seeing him tomorrow.”

Marlene got up and started clearing dishes. “Speaking of former acquaintances, I spent the morning with Carrie Lanin. Did you ever meet her?”

“She was in that play group, right? Madeleine?”

“Miranda. She was spooked. It seems somebody she went to high school with is stalking her.” She filled Karp in on Lanin’s story while she washed and he dried.

“You think the guy could be dangerous?” asked Karp as he tossed chop bones to Sweety, who crunched them up like Fritos.

“That’s what I’m going to try and find out. I got Harry in on it.”

Karp paused in his wiping as a familiar and unpleasant thought sprang into his consciousness. “Uh, Marlene, this isn’t going to, um, get you into trouble, is it?”

“It’s too early to tell. And what if it is? You know I-” She stopped talking and grimaced as a spasm of nausea passed.

“What’s the matter? Still feeling sick?”

Marlene groaned. “Yes. They call it morning sickness for a good reason. It’s not supposed to last all fucking day.”

“Maybe it’s different when you’re carrying a first-round NBA draft choice in your womb. Extra male hormones…?”

Marlene giggled in spite of herself. “You’re going to be pissed off if it’s a short, neurasthenic poet.”

“That won’t happen if you do your part, Marlene. You have nine months. Think tall, think moves, think hands.”

He dropped the dishcloth and moved around behind her, embracing her from in back. She leaned back against him comfortably and said, “Maybe I should consume old sweat socks and jockstraps too, diced.”

“If you think it will help,” said Karp lovingly into her ear.

Phil DeLino was a big, open-faced man with dark, humorous eyes. He wore a nice gray double-breasted three-piece suit that was working hard to cover the weight he had put on since he played tight end for Fordham. His greeting to Karp in his office was warm and seemed sincere.

The small office in City Hall was suitably elegant. It had a window, the appointments were made of wood or leather, and there was a genuine oil painting of a minor nineteenth-century civic luminary on the wall, looking smug and well grafted. Seated, they passed the time in obligatory catching up and discussing the prospects of the various New York teams.

When this pleasant diversion had gone on for ten minutes or so, there was a pause, and DeLino picked up a blue-bound legal notice from his desk and tapped it a few times. “This thing here, Butch. This is a problem.”

“Yes. You mentioned that the Mayor was not pleased.”

“You could say that. He called Josh Gottkind as soon as he found out, and I think they had to replace the phone wires; they were fried. Our corporation counsel is not in favor this fine day.”

“You mean it took His Honor by surprise? What did he think Selig would do? Say, ‘Gee, thanks for the job, sorry it didn’t work out’? It’s hard to believe Gottkind didn’t discuss the issue with him before he decided to go ahead.”

DeLino paused judiciously and smiled before saying, “I think ‘before’ is the operative word. Those of us who serve His Honor rarely get a chance to advise him before he makes his mind up. Our job, and he’s made the point more than once, is to keep him out of trouble when he does what he’s decided to do anyway.”

And take the crap he hands out when it goes sour, thought Karp. He said, “So he wishes this had never happened?”

“Profoundly. And he intends to be forthcoming and cooperative in every way, so that as little of the poo that’s going to be flying around sticks to him.”

“Dr. Fuerza’s been nominated to carry the can, in other words,” observed Karp. “But there’s going to be a lot to carry. The Mayor will not look great under the best of circumstances.”

DeLino nodded and considered this for a long moment. Then he asked, “I guess there’s no way to solve this little problem in a civilized way?”

“Well, yeah, actually there is. If Dr. Selig could be reinstated, with back pay, and with a public acknowledgment that the accusations about his professional and personal behavior were entirely groundless and the result of misinformation purposely conveyed to the Mayor by the parties that wrote the two memos …”

But DeLino was already smiling and shaking his head. “Yeah, right,” he said, “Gottkind would really go for that; we fire somebody for cause and as soon as we get threatened by a lawsuit, we announce that the cause was trumped-up? The City would look like an asshole.”

“The Mayor would, you mean.”

“Is there a difference? Okay, granted, we may have to go to the mat on this one, but”-he glanced again at the legal form on his desk, and at a sheet of paper that seemed to have notes scribbled on it-“do you really think you have a Fourteenth Amendment liberty claim here?”

“Yeah, we do,” said Karp.

“Really? What the hell’s the theory? It sure as shit isn’t a Bishop case.”

Karp grinned and replied, “You know, I still like the Celtics for the NBA title this year. They picked up Parrish and McHale, and if Bird is hot again …”

DeLino chuckled. “Okay, okay, I wasn’t trying to pump you. This is off the record anyway, just a couple of old jocks talking about sports and the grandeur of the law.”

Karp saw DeLino glance at him expectantly. Karp was familiar with the look of men wanting to pass him information, if he would only ask in the right way. He said, “Off the record, huh? Okay, Phil, off the record, I would like to know why.”

“Why what?”

“Why this happened,” said Karp. “Why the Mayor bought himself a bunch of problems by firing a man well known as one of the best forensic scientists in the country. It doesn’t make sense.”

“It does if you think the C.M.E’s slot is more than forensics. And the Mayor never impugned his forensic skills. He just said Selig was administratively sloppy and had an attitude problem. He was arrogant and-”

“Oh, horseshit, Phil! Arrogant? Well, compared to most of the people working for the Mayor, including Dr. Fuerza, he at least had something to be arrogant about. And since when is administrative competence a qualification for a job in New York?”

DeLino laughed. Karp continued, “No, really! And don’t give me the party line-you know there was political clout behind this, and Fuerza doesn’t have much to speak of, which leaves one person.”

The other man dropped his eyes and pursed his lips and then looked up again and said, “He’s been after the Mayor for months on this. We ran on a strong anti-crime platform, as you know, and this year we’re running on it again. We can’t have anyone big in criminal justice saying the Mayor is soft on crime or not supporting the work of the district attorney. Bloom claimed Selig was impossible to work with. He was inefficient, he lost evidence, his people were screwing up cases. The argument was made that we might get into a situation where a big, high-profile case went down the tubes because of an M.E. problem and that all of this would come out: the Mayor knew about it and didn’t act on time, and now a dread killer is back on the street, and so on, and so on. We were assured that the guy was, I mean-whatever his slice and dice skills in the morgue-he was a bum as a leader, and when the stuff we had on him was presented, he’d just slink away. I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time that a technician got promoted over his head and fucked up. So Fuerza got the job of digging up supporting stuff that’d make him look bad, and wrote his memo, and Bloom wrote his memo, and so here we are.”