Robert Tanenbaum - Falsely Accused

“I’ve got to call Uncle Harry, Luce. You stay in the car and watch Sweety. And don’t leave it for any reason, understand?”

“Did that lady get found?”

“I don’t know, baby, I sure hope so.” Marlene double-parked and ran into a cigar store to make her call. It was inevitable that sooner or later one of Marlene’s clients would be attacked by a gentleman acquaintance. She knew that, but it did not diminish her wrath or her pain. The previous evening the actress Karen Wohl had left her East Fifty-second Street apartment, telling her roommate that she was going to meet some people at a restaurant. Her doorman got her a cab, and that was the last time anyone had seen her. There was an all-city search in progress, for the woman and for her admirer, Hubert Waley, whom Marlene had instantly fingered for the cops.

“They found her,” said Harry. His tone made her belly lurch.

“How bad?”

“Bad. He wrapped her and dumped her by the river in East Harlem. He’s in custody at the Two-Five.”

“I’ll go,” she said. Tears were flowing down her cheeks and she made no effort to hold them back.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah, my client, my fuck-up-I need to be there.”

“It happens, Marlene,” said Bello.

Marlene said an abrupt good-bye and hung up the phone. She did not wish for comfort.

“Where are we going, Mommy?” asked Lucy when the yellow car was speeding up the East River Drive and it was therefore clear that they were neither going shopping nor returning home. Marlene snapped a glance at her daughter. The child’s eyes were shaded under a grubby tan Stetson that she had taken over and which she was wearing with the only skirt she would willingly put on for school, a white leatherette garment with a fringe. A pink western shirt with pearl buttons and the flower-embroidered shawl she had borrowed from Isabella completed the bizarre outfit.

“I have to go by the police station.”

“That lady got killed, right?”

“Right.”

“Are you going to look at her dead body?”

“No. But they caught the man who killed her, they think, and they want me to look at him and say if it’s the right man.”

“Then they have to kill him too, right?”

Marlene sighed and wiped her eyes with a tissue. “No, honey, it’s too late for that. They’ll just put him in jail for his whole life. Maybe.”

There were several TV vans and a crowd of reporters on the street outside the Two-Five. Marlene parked in one of the spaces reserved for unmarked cop cars and placed on the dashboard an “NYPD Official Business” sign that Harry had saved from his former life. Holding Lucy tightly by the hand, she pushed through the crowd, identified herself to the uniforms at the door, and entered the building.

In the lobby, an officer with sergeant’s stripes on his arms and a rack of decorations over his breast pocket approached her and asked politely if he could help. Marlene introduced herself and said, “I’m here on the Wohl murder. They want me to ID the suspect as the man who’s been stalking the victim.”

“Okay, that’s Detective Mancuso, the second floor. Just go up …” He stopped, aware that the woman was staring at him strangely. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Ah, no,” said Marlene. “I just noticed your name tag. You’re Joseph Clancy, aren’t you?”

“Guilty,” said Clancy, smiling. He looked down at Lucy, who was staring at him wide-eyed, and wiggled his fingers. He said, “Hiya, cutie! That’s a neat outfit. You gonna be a cowgirl?”

“A cowgirl detective,” offered Lucy. “My mommy is a detective too.”

Clancy looked back at Marlene, wrinkling his brow. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“Not really. But you know a friend of mine, Ariadne Stupenagel. The reporter? You’ve been a subject of conversation at our house.” Marlene thought Clancy was less than pleased to hear this.

“Oh, yeah. I heard she got hurt. How’s she doing?”

“Much better. She’s writing away.”

“Anything ever come of that story she was doing?”

On impulse, and in service of some more pot stirring, Marlene replied, “God, yes! She thinks it’s going to be the biggest exposé since Knapp.”

But Clancy responded to this information with a noncommittal nod and a grave look. The massive Knapp Commission study of corruption in the early seventies was a familiar and painful memory to the cops. He turned his attention back to Lucy. “Hey, cowgirl-how about you and me go for some ice cream while your mom does her business?”

“Oh, that’s very kind of you,” said Marlene, “but …”

“No, really, it’s no trouble,” said Clancy, offering his hand to Lucy, who grasped it. “I got four of my own, and it might take some time to organize the lineup for this scumb-this suspect.”

Marlene went upstairs and met Detective Mancuso, a quiet, burly man who reminded her a little of Harry Bello. He was brushing plaster dust off his desk. He grinned sheepishly and raised his eyes. Marlene followed the gaze and saw that the ceiling was falling down in chunks.

“The place is collapsing,” said Mancuso. “It’s worse by the cells and the interrogation rooms. It’s the beams-dry rot.”

Marlene was not interested in ceilings. She asked, “How did he do it?”

“A cab. He got himself hired by a cab company and cruised back and forth with his top light off until he saw her waiting.”

“He confess yet?”

“Nah. He loved her and he would never hurt her.”

Marlene hung around for three quarters of an hour, observing the detective work of the Two-Five. She looked for Jackson, but saw no one who answered the description given by Ariadne. She did see one person she recognized-the crime reporter Jimmy Dalton, a squat, bald man who gestured broadly with a dead cigar while he talked to one of the detectives. Dalton looked up, saw Marlene, clearly recognized her, and then pretended he hadn’t, which was odd.

She was wondering what to make of this when Mancuso came by and said that the lineup was ready. Marlene had no trouble picking the unremarkable little toad, Hubert Waley, out of the group.

When she went by Clancy’s desk to collect her daughter, she found Lucy sitting on the sergeant’s desk with a cop hat on in place of her Stetson, sucking on a lolly, her face liberally smeared with the remains of an Eskimo Pie.

“You’ve ruined her appetite for the next month,” said Marlene.

“I fingerprinted, Mommy,” said Lucy, holding up a smeary official print sheet.

“Not for the last time, the way you’re going,” said Marlene sourly. Turning to Clancy, she was about to offer conventional thanks, but, somewhat to her own surprise, she found herself lowering her voice and saying, “Look, Sergeant, I may be out of line here, but we need to talk.”

“About what?” said Clancy, frowning.

“You know about what. John Seaver. Paul Jackson. The D.A. covering for them. They looked at the autopsies again. The dead cabbies were murdered, right here, on your watch. The shit is about to hit the fan on this whole thing, and my friend Stupe says you’re a nice guy, and while I know about the famous blue wall, this might be a good time to get yourself some cover on the side, just between you and me.”

Clancy’s face was stiff. Marlene indicated with a movement of her head the large framed picture of a blond woman and four children on Clancy’s desk. “You need to think about them, Sergeant, not a pair of bent cops.”

An odd look came over Clancy’s face, one Marlene could not readily interpret. Resignation? Relief? In any case, he said, “Not here.” He scribbled something on a piece of paper and slipped it to her low. She looked at it: an address in Woodhaven, in Queens.