Robert Tanenbaum - Falsely Accused

The core of the story was, of course, the reconsideration of the autopsy evidence; Murray Selig was identified by a ‘reliable source close to the plaintiff’ as the pathologist who had discovered foul play. (There was a brief review of the Selig civil case in a sidebar.) The article was enriched by the tale of the kickbacks from the cabbies, Seaver and Jackson being named, together with the other corruptions they had battened on. Stupenagel had made much of her personal adventures in disguise as a gypsy and of being roughed up personally by the late Jackson. Other “sources” were quoted suggesting very strongly that the two rogue cops were being protected for some reason by the D.A. himself. The D.A. himself had refused comment. The Police Department was quoted as saying that the investigation of the deaths and of the extortion racket would be reopened.

If Karp was less than pleased by the story, Judge Craig was furious. He called both counsel into his chambers before court opened that morning.

“This farrago, Mr. Karp, this mess of charges, did you have anything to do with planting them in the mind of this reporter?” asked Craig, tapping the unfolded copy of the Times on his desk with a clawed digit.

“No, sir,” said Karp honestly. “The reporter is a friend of my wife’s, who’s a private detective who’s been helping us with our case. We had Ms. Stupenagel’s assurance that this story would not be published until after the trial, or until we had the full story of why District Attorney Bloom was so anxious that my client be dismissed. I’m very distressed to see it out prematurely.”

“And do you now have what you call the full story?”

“Substantively, yes, sir. I believe I do.”

“And would you care to vouchsafe it to the court?”

Karp glanced over at Josh Gottkind, expecting some sort of objection, or even a motion for a mistrial, but Gottkind’s face was as bland as Buddha’s. Karp felt a wash of relief. Phil DeLino had done his work. The Mayor was pulling away from Bloom, as from a fouled anchor. Karp said, “Obviously, we would expect this material to form the basis of a formal criminal investigation, but in broad terms this is what we know.”

He told the story into a stony silence. When he was done, all Craig said was, “Do you intend to bring any of this material forth in my courtroom?”

“No, sir,” answered Karp. “We’ve rested our case. We think it’s sufficient.”

“Mr. Gottkind? You have a comment?” asked Craig.

“Yes, Judge. We would ask that the jury be instructed to ignore the press allegations as they bear on the dismissal.”

“Thank you,” said the judge. “If that’s all, let us repair to the courtroom and finish this wretched thing.”

It took Karp twenty minutes to demolish Dr. England with the transcripts Marlene had brought back from upstate. Karp had England read Selig’s statements verbatim, by which it was clear to all that Selig had not flippantly derided the large doses of amphetamine dispensed by Dr. Bailey, but had positively denied that he had any clinical expertise at all as to what constituted a normal dose, and mentioned, merely as an aside, that he had occasionally taken 15 mg. orally as a med student.

That concluded the case for the defense. After a brief recess, Karp rose and began his summation, which took almost four hours to deliver; the transcript ran to 256 double-spaced pages. He read over each charge in the original language of the memos, and then construed the stigma on Dr. Selig’s professional abilities that the reader was supposed to gather from that language. Reminding the jury of the charges was essential, because the stigma arising from the charges was the basis of the claim for damages. Then he demolished each charge, summoning up the testimony he had elicited and adding choice phrases from the transcripts. He omitted any mention of the growing scandal in the Twenty-fifth Precinct, or the possibility of a connection between the firing and someone wanting to cover up two murders in custody, but the networks and the papers were full of the story; the stink of it hung in the courtroom, too heavy by far for Judge Craig’s admonitions to disperse it. Closing, Karp asked for reinstatement, back pay, and damages totaling two million dollars if Selig were reinstated, and up to thirty million, depending on what lesser jobs, if any, Selig was able to get.

Gottkind asked for an adjournment so that his own summation would not be interrupted, which request Craig granted. It would take the morning and part of the afternoon of the next day, after which Karp would have a chance to rebut. That meant that Craig would charge the jury on Wednesday, which meant that the trial would probably conclude this week. Karp looked up from his note taking and regarded his client. Murray was pale, drawn, diminished, and Karp sincerely hoped that the money would make up for this, to some degree. A wretched thing, indeed.

“Stupe, goddammit, how could you!” yelled Marlene over the phone as soon as she knew who was on the line.

“Sorry, kid-like the Mob says, it’s nothing personal. No way I was going to be scooped on this one, not taking the kind of lumps I took. As soon as I knew Dalton was nosing around the Two-Five-”

“You’re still a total shit.”

“Thank you. How’s the trial going?”

“Fine, despite your best efforts,” Marlene snarled. “They’re doing summations. Butch expects a verdict Thursday or Friday.”

“Oh, so they didn’t throw it out because of my story, huh? What a bunch of fraidy-cats you all turned out to be!”

“It was only because we found out what was really going on. The Mayor wants to get the thing behind him as soon as possible, and cut any connection he has with Bloom.”

“Oh, so it was Bloom!” exclaimed Stupenagel. “What was he doing? It couldn’t have been something to do with that Guatemalan kid who got killed? By the way, what happened down there in Chester? What was it like killing Jackson?”

“Actually, Stupe, I was just about to call Jimmy Dalton and give him the whole story,” replied Marlene with the nastiest tone she could manage, and hung up.

The phone rang again immediately. Marlene let it ring ten times before she picked up.

“You weren’t serious about calling Jimmy, were you?” asked the reporter.

“I don’t know, Stupe. As long as we’re being bitches, why don’t you give me a good reason why I shouldn’t?”

Marlene was only playing with the reporter, so it was with considerable surprise that she heard Stupenagel say, “I know where Corazon Machado is.”

“How? How do you even know her name?”

“You forget my contacts in the Guat community, dearie. As soon as your girl’s surnames were on the wire, I started pumping. It was hard, because the Machados all really are witnesses to the San Francisco Nenton massacre. But I convinced the community to help because it’s obvious they need protection.”

“So where is she?”

“In Miami. At the Krome Avenue Detention Center, en route for Guatemala and certain death. I’m flying down there tomorrow to talk to her. The story I get is that someone ratted her out to la migra. Any idea who that could be?”

“Bloom, obviously. He called in some favors and got her processed on a fast track. Quasi-legally, of course, but who gives a shit about another greaser shipped off? Look, Stupe, I got to get off and call Butch. He might be able to do something.”

“Wait a minute! You were going to tell me-” Marlene hung up and redialed the federal courthouse.

In the break after Karp finished his summation, a clerk handed him a sheaf of phone messages. Most of these were from the press, which he tore up and trashed. One was from Marlene, marked urgent. One was from Bloom.