Robert Tanenbaum - Falsely Accused

Lucy had to be dragged away from the shelter, with many a promise that she could visit Isabella and Hector again very soon. Marlene reflected as they walked to the car how remarkable it was for a seven-year-old to have formed so close and so dominant a relationship with two much older children. It was as if Lucy knew instinctively that both of them were not what they physically appeared to be, that Isabella was deep in some traumatic regression, and that Hector had been severed from his childhood by overwhelming events. In treating them as she would her contemporaries, she was apparently giving them just what they required.

Back at the loft, they found Karp sprawled amid strewn newspaper, watching a football game on television. He was wearing a black sweatshirt with the arms torn off and ragged chinos; moreover, he was unshaven and was actually drinking a beer, probably his third or fourth for the calendar year. It was a rare thuggish look, and Marlene found it erotic. She came over to the sofa and gave him a friendly nuzzle.

“I was getting worried,” he said.

“Well, we’re safe,” said Marlene. “Your family has survived another day on the killing streets.”

“A long church? Lots of sins to confess?”

Lucy came dashing over, after dutifully hanging her church-going camel hair on its special peg, and jumped on her father’s lap.

“We went to the shelter,” she cried, “and I played with Isabella and Hector. They’re my new best friends and they’re really old too and they have a playhouse and we had lunch, and you know what?”

“What?”

“Ladies could stay there when bad men want to hurt them, and we could stay there too!”

Karp glanced meaningfully at his wife. To his daughter he said, “What if bad men want to tickle them?” and suited action to word, until she shrieked, after which they had some boxing practice until Marlene ordered an instant change out of good clothes.

“What was that about?” Karp asked after Lucy had run off to her room.

“Oh, just curiosity. I stopped off at the East Village Women’s Shelter and met Mattie Duran. She runs quite an operation, actually. I think we can work with them: referrals, temporary shelter for our clients, like that. And there’s stuff I can do for them too.”

“Like?”

“Oh, summonses, tracking down deadbeats,” offered Marlene casually. Mattie Duran had suggested a set of other activities, under the general heading of “taking the bastards out,” but Marlene did not care to broach these with her husband just now. If ever.

Nor did Karp seem eager to pry. “You had a load of calls,” he said.

“On Sunday?”

“Vigilantes never have a day off,” he replied and went back to watching the game.

Marlene changed into comfortable clothes and went into her office. The machine tape had a dozen or so blank messages, probably from women who had called and been directed by the outgoing message tape to her new answering service. The others were from Ariadne Stupenagel (six) and from Harry Bello (one).

She called Harry first.

“Where were you?” he asked without preamble when she identified herself.

“In church, Harry. It’s Sunday.”

Grunt. “We got court tomorrow on Pruitt. I’ll pick you up.”

“I have it down, Harry. By the way, I made an interesting contact today.” She gave him a summary of her visit to the women’s shelter, and of the cases Mattie Duran wanted her to work.

“This is what? Like the Pruitt and the other guy?”

“Only if necessary. We’ll try reasoning with them, explain the situation. Make sure they understand that we’re watching, that if they violate an order or try a break-in or an assault, they’re looking at consequences. One or two, Mattie thinks they’re beyond that already, in which case-”

A pause on the line. “You need a gun.”

Marlene laughed. “Oh, yeah, that and a divorce. You’re the gunslinger, Harry.”

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” said Harry, and hung up.

Ariadne was at home and clearly waiting for a call. She picked up on the first ring.

“Where have you been?” Stupenagel demanded.

“I’ve been having my nipples gilded.”

“On Sunday?”

“What can I do for you, Stupe?”

“I need a favor. Do you know anybody, like a friend, in the medical examiner’s office?”

“Yeah, I know some people. Why?”

“Because this thing with the Latinos who died in jail is heating up. Paul Jackson and another cop are definitely shaking down gypsy cabbies, and they’re not gentle about it either.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I gypsy-cabbed in drag a couple of nights and I got shaken down and slapped around.”

“Jesus, Stupe!”

“Then I hung around the Two-Five and ID’d Jackson. He’s hard to miss-the guy’s a moose. The funny thing is, I had a feeling I’d seen him someplace before, but I can’t recall where.”

“Didn’t Roland take you around to the Two-Five?”

“Yeah, it must have been then, but there was something else about it too. I’ll think of it. Anyway, I went to see Tommy Devlin at Internal Affairs, and he sort of hems and haws and says he can’t do anything directly because the shakedowns are part of a separate investigation, being run out of the D.A.’s squad. That’s possible, isn’t it?”

“Sure. The D.A. squad does a lot of official corruption stuff, but that’s usually politicians and bureaucrats. It gets dicey when it’s just cops, like God forbid anybody should suggest that the P.D. isn’t competent to police itself.”

“Yeah, that’s what he said. The hack bureau’s involved and the licensing division and the medical examiner.”

“The M.E. too? How?”

“Well, they suspect somebody covered up on the autopsies. The boys didn’t really hang themselves, maybe somebody helped them out. But I can’t get a hold of the reports, because they’ve been impounded pending investigation. So I thought-”

“Stupe, forget it! I’m not going to be party to screwing up an investigation.”

“Just ask, Marlene, for chrissake! You can do that, can’t you? Somebody must know if something fishy went down.”

There was an unfamiliar strain audible in Stupenagel’s voice, one at odds with the cool and wheedling tone she used when she wanted to extract information. Marlene asked, “Is there something wrong, Stupe? Are you in trouble?”

A nervous laugh, and, lightly, “Me? Oh, no more than usual.” Marlene waited. “Well, actually, yes,” said the reporter. “I think somebody’s following me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Hell, girl, I’ve been followed by experts. There’s two kinds of following: when they want you to know, so you’ll get scared off doing whatever it is they don’t want you to do, and two, when they don’t want you to know so they can see where you go and who you talk to. This is the first kind. I’ve seen the same dark Plymouth Fury in my rearview or outside my place about ten times in the past couple, three days.”

“So complain, Stupe! This isn’t some police state hellhole. You want me to help you file a harassment complaint, I’ll be happy to do that for you.”

“Yeah, well, you’re probably right. Maybe I still have Guatemala on my mind. I mean, what’re they going to do, shoot me?”

Karp stared at the interview sheet and tried to decide whether Jerome E. Delaney, 66, of East 34th Street in Manhattan, a retired highway engineer, would or would not be constitutionally disposed to find for the plaintiff. He glanced up from the sheet at the man himself and, smiling pleasantly, inquired of him whether he had ever been a party to a lawsuit. He had not. The answer, like the man, was neutral; that is, flames did not issue from Delaney’s nostrils when he said it, implying that mere fate, and not an inveterate hatred of lawsuits and those who brought them, had so deprived him. Karp said thank you and made a note. Delaney would do. Karp seated himself and watched his rival, corporation counsel Josh Gottkind, rise for his crack at the venireman.