Robert Tanenbaum - Justice Denied

“Approach the bench, Your Honor?” said Karp.

Martino beckoned them forward.

“Your Honor, this witness is the dead woman’s sister. It strikes me as … obscene, to trot her in here as a character witness for the defendant.”

“She’s an expert, not a character witness,” Freeland retorted, “and her relation to the deceased has no legal bearing on her suitability as a witness.”

Martino looked at the two counsel bleakly. He had seen it all, and it hadn’t improved his view of human nature or the imperfections of the law. “I’ll allow the witness.”

Karp protested, “As an expert only?”

“Yes, as to her expertise.” To the court officer: “Swear her in.”

The Sister was no longer in black. She wore a blue linen suit over a white blouse with a complicated scarf at the neck. She was heavily made up, and her hair had been recently done over with reddish highlights. She looked like a waxwork in the bureaucrats’ hall of fame.

Freeland took her through her professional qualifications and her relationship with the defendant. Then they began on what a swell guy Hosie Russell was. Freeland read copiously from the parole officer’s notes Stone had written, how Hosie was the victim of society and his own weaknesses, how he had tried so hard and, more to the point, how she believed that he was basically nonviolent, a disorganized, dissociated alcoholic, a sneak thief, not an armed robber. Stone confirmed her agreement with these opinions, her voice a low monotone.

Karp waited for the payoff, and he was not disappointed.

“Ms. Stone,” Freeland asked smoothly, “have you or a member of your family ever been a victim of a violent crime?”

“Yes, my sister is the victim in this case.”

“Objection!” cried Karp. “Irrelevant to the expert testimony.”

“Sustained. The jury will disregard.”

The damage, of course, was done. If Karp now tore Ms. Stone apart on the stand, tore apart the victim’s sister, the jury would never forgive him. They would walk Jack the Ripper.

Freeland said, “No further questions.”

Karp stood and said, “No questions, Your Honor.”

Martino said, “Members of the jury, that completes the testimony in this case. All that remains are the summations by the respective counsel, after which the court will charge. Have a pleasant evening and do not discuss the case among yourselves.”

The courtroom emptied. Karp gathered his papers.

“Need a hand?” It was Marlene.

“A leg, you mean.”

“How’d it go?”

“Were you here?”

“No, I just came in. What happened?”

“Oh, nothing, just fucking Freeland called Geri Stone.”

“As a defense witness?”

“Yep. As the parole officer, to the effect that Hosie was God’s gift to New York. And she did it. She sat up there and mouthed that crap about the guy who knifed her sister. I can’t understand it. I mean, I could understand Freeland doing it-it’s brilliant in a filthy way. Getting the vic’s sister to stand up for the mutt charged, and of course he slipped it in that she was the sister. But I can’t see why she would agree to it.”

“Oh, I can,” said Marlene. “I mean, what else does she have anymore? She loved her sister and, God help us all, she loved her work. She thought she was doing good. She got Russell out on the street and he did her sister, what’s she going to do-admit she made a mistake, that her whole approach to life is fucked? That this mutt she made a pet of and patronized and manipulated was really manipulating her? No way.”

Karp sighed. “You think so? Maybe. It’s hard to believe, though. I mean, we’re not that crazy-about all this, I mean.” He gestured wildly at the courtroom, taking in the legal profession and the law’s grim majesty.

“Speak for yourself, dear,” said Marlene unhelpfully.

This is getting boring,” said Roland, sitting down at the long table in Karp’s office. The same gang sat around the periphery, called together after the day’s work by Karp in response to what Marlene had told him after court.

“We’ll try to make it interesting for you, Roland,” said Karp. “We’ve had a break in the case. Marlene?”

Marlene said, “Yeah, well, what happened is that Aziz Nassif tried to move some funny coins to Sokoloff. We just arrested him. Harry here has just completed a warranted search of his restaurant and apartment-”

“A warrant?” Roland interrupted. His voice rose. “A warrant for the Ersoy killing?”

“No, of course, not, Roland,” answered Marlene sweetly. “We would never do anything like that. How would it look if we went after a warrant for a crime in which we already had an indicted suspect? The defense would eat you up. No, the warrant was for the fraud. But, of course, objects in plain view associated with any other crimes are subject to warrantless seizure-”

“I know the doctrine, Marlene,” said Roland sourly. “What’d he find?”

“Harry?” said Marlene.

Harry Bello reached into his cheap vinyl briefcase and pulled out several clear plastic evidence bags. “One, a ski mask. Matches the description given by the witnesses at the scene. Two, blue parka with red stripes, the same. Three, box of nine-mm Parabellum pistol ammo, half empty. A clip from a nine-mm pistol, empty. Ballistics says it’s from a Kirrikale, a copy of a German gun made in Turkey.”

“Not the gun itself?” asked Roland.

“No gun,” said Bello, and continued with his inventory: “Four, a rental agreement from a National car rental in Maspeth for a ’78 Ford Fairlane two-door, blue. The make and model identified at the scene. Rented March 12, returned March 13, the day of the murder, two hours later than the hit. Fifth and last, a card showing rental rates from a mini-storage locker at Boulevard Storage, also in Maspeth. I called them. They have a hundred-square-footer rented to Ahmet Djelal. That’s it.”

Everyone looked at Roland, who sat, working his jaw, saying nothing, as the seconds passed heavily by. Finally he observed, “You don’t have much. No gun. The mask and parka don’t mean a lot. Same with the car. And I thought Nassif had an alibi.”

“Yeah, from the workers in his restaurant, who’re scared shitless of him,” said Bello. “They won’t hold up once we start pushing, start yanking their phony green cards around.”

Some more silence. Everybody there knew that Roland’s case against Tomasian was not that much more impressive than the case against Nassif. At last Karp spoke up. “Guma, what’s the story on the tap?”

“The deal is still set for Thursday, day after tomorrow,” Guma replied. “Aside from that, nothing new.”

“Why don’t we give them something new? Goom, do you think you could arrange to have Joey Castles learn that we picked up Nassif for fraud? If it comes through in the phone tap, then at least we’ll know that we’re talking about the same Turks.”

“I think I could arrange it,” said Guma.

“Do that. The next thing to do is to talk to Nassif. We’ve got him next door. V.T.? And …” Karp paused and looked at Roland. It was the critical moment, akin to the first time you sit down in a divorce lawyer’s office with your erstwhile sweetie. Roland had every right to interrogate Nassif. It was his case, and he was arguably the best interrogator in the office. The question was, would he?

The expressions raced across Roland’s face, and Karp thought he could read them like stock quotes on a tape. If he didn’t go after Nassif, Karp would do it himself, and then, if it turned out that the Turks really had done it, Roland would look like a complete asshole. Whereas if Roland got a confession out of the Turk, he’d still be the man on a hot case, the TV lights would still shine on him. Of course, the Turk could be a dud too, but then he still had Tomasian.