Robert Tanenbaum: Falsely Accused

Karp had cut his crisp brown hair shorter since D.C., and Selig noted with rue that it did not seem to be climbing back along his forehead with the velocity to be expected in a man past thirty-five. Underneath the forehead was a nose that had started out as something of a beak, but Selig’s practiced eye estimated that it had been broken at least twice. It now resembled several small potatoes in a sock. The face had in general an odd, nearly oriental cast-high cheekbones and eyes set aslant in their deep sockets. The skin was rough and yellowish. If Karp had been dead on a slab, Selig might almost have called him a central Asian.

Selig began now to recite the reason for his visit. Karp’s eyes fixed on him as he spoke, which the doctor found unsettling. Officially hazel, Karp’s eyes had yellow flecks in them that seemed to glitter, like those of a feral animal. Selig thought that it would not be much fun trying to slip a lie past those eyes.

Selig came to the crux of his story, the two letters of complaint on which his dismissal had been based, and Karp stopped him.

“You have copies of those letters, Murray?” Selig did and handed them across the desk. Karp read through them quickly. “Any of this crap true?” he asked. “For example, did you actually say that this purported rape victim might have inserted snails in her vagina?”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, of course I didn’t say that,” Selig cried. “The thing happened in People v. Lotz. That was when you were in D.C. Lotz was a junkie burglar who broke into an apartment in Peter Cooper. He thought it was empty, but the tenant was at home. A woman named May Ettering. Lotz panicked and strangled her. They caught him about ten hours later buying stuff on her credit cards. Not exactly a rocket scientist, Lotz. So they had a good circumstantial case, but this kid D.A., Warneke, wanted to make it even better by making it out that Lotz was a rapist besides being a strangler and a burglar.”

“Was he?”

“I didn’t think so. The serology from the vaginal sample of the victim contained acid phosphatase, and since semen contains acid phosphatase, Warneke wanted me to say that evidence of sexual intercourse was present. But I pointed out to him that there are any number of food substances that contain it. Broccoli and cabbage, for example.”

“And snails.”

“And snails. I also pointed out to Warneke that Ettering had an intact hymen. She was a virgin. That usually rules out rape. Bloom claims in his letter that Warneke told him I had flippantly remarked in a conference about the case that the victim might have put snails up her vagina and that this could account for the phosphatase. Which is complete horse manure.”

Karp made a note. “There were other people at this meeting?”

“At least half a dozen.”

“Good. What about this one on our late vice-president? Did you really stand up in front of grand rounds at Metropolitan Hospital and tell the folks that the great man had expired porking someone?”

“Oh, God, no! I just did my usual dog and pony about the evolution of the M.E.’s office, and at the part where I say that one of the problems of the job is doing autopsies of notable people, I may have mentioned him. He’d died a couple of days before the presentation.”

“But no death in the saddle?”

“Of course not!”

“Wise. I expect we can corral enough distinguished physicians who were at the meeting to confirm it. In fact, when shown false, the charge is so infamous that it’ll help with damages.”

Selig suddenly realized the import of this remark. “You’re taking the case?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Karp. “You’ll make an appointment, and we’ll go over this stuff line by line.”

Karp shifted his swivel chair so that it faced the window and fell silent. He seemed deep in thought. After a minute or so, Selig cleared his throat and asked, “So-you think we have a good case?”

“Oh, no question. I’m a little rusty on employment law, but I’m certain that a public official can’t be fired for cause without some sort of hearing.”

“The Mayor claims I’m-I was -a political appointee serving at his pleasure.”

Karp shook his head dismissively. “That’s something we’ll duke out. Even if they could fire you, I’m almost sure they can’t fire you for cause without giving you a hearing. It’s not a Roth case. God, I can’t believe I remembered that!”

“Who’s Roth?”

“Teacher at Wisconsin, early seventies. Untenured. The school didn’t renew his contract, and he sued. He claimed that they didn’t renew because he’d pissed off the university authorities by criticizing the administration. Defendants came back with the argument that they didn’t have to give any reason at all for not renewing, and the Supreme Court agreed.”

“This is good for us?”

“Yeah. The Supremes decided he didn’t have what they call a property interest in his job, because they didn’t fire him, they just declined to rehire him. You did have such an interest. Also, and probably more significantly for our purposes, when they declined to rehire Roth, they made no statement that would impugn his good name and prevent him from getting a job elsewhere. And from what you tell me, the press conference and all, that’s very far from your case. They canned you for cause, and went public that they thought you were a bum. They can’t do that, not without giving you the right of rebuttal. We can work a little deprivation of liberty action in here too.”

To Selig’s questioning look Karp added, “Liberty. Under Fourteenth Amendment case law, liberty includes the right to seek your customary employment. By maligning you without due process, they’ve limited your liberty in that way.” Karp stared out the window again.

“What are you thinking?” asked Selig when the waiting became too much for him.

Karp spun his chair slowly around until he faced Selig. “What I’m thinking is, why? Bloom doesn’t like to make waves. He made plenty over you. And he must have used some pretty big chips with the Mayor to get you out of the C.M.E.’s slot.”

“Naomi said it’s because he’s a controlling asshole.”

“That’s true enough, but …”-Karp flipped the copies of the complaint letters on his desk-“this crap, this snails nonsense, isn’t enough to warrant the hatchet job Bloom did on you.”

“The reason’s important?”

“Oh, yeah. I think in a way it’s the key to the case. Not the case we’ll argue in court, necessarily.”

Karp fell again into a silent study, and Selig, starting to become irritated with what seemed to him vagueness, changed the subject.

“So. What do you think this is going to cost me?”

Karp regarded him blankly. “Hmm? I don’t know, Murray. Don’t worry about it. We’ll win, you’ll make money.”

“But if we don’t win,” Selig persisted.

Something hard congealed in Karp’s yellowish gaze. “Murray, I said, don’t worry about it. I’m taking the case.”

“But …”

“Murray,” said Karp with finality. “I’ll pay you. ”

Two women, one very tall, one of ordinary size, both dressed in silk kimonos, sat talking and drinking champagne on a bed in a loft on Crosby Street in lower Manhattan. They were wearing the gowns because they had been caught unprepared in a summer downpour and were being languorous before getting dressed again in dry clothes. The tall one was the freelance journalist whose peculiar name Naomi Selig had tried vainly to recall the previous evening, Ariadne Stupenagel. She was, to look at, quite as odd as her name. Over six feet tall and leggy, with broad mannish shoulders and wide womanly hips, Stupenagel had facial features in proportion. Her mouth was wide and lippy, her jaw strong, her nose generous. Her eyes, dark, knowing, heavily mascaraed and shadowed green-blue, looked as large as a pony’s. She wore her dust blond hair piled up on top of her head in the manner of Toulouse-Lautrec’s barmaids, which added another several inches to her height. If not beautiful in the conventional sense, she was hard to miss and memorable.