Robert Tanenbaum - Justice Denied

Karp laughed. “Needless to say.”

“What do you think?”

“I think we’ll get felony murder. It’s a toss-up if they’ll go for intentional murder on the second count. Man one’s more likely. The poor scumbag probably really didn’t want her dead-he just wanted the purse.”

“Will they be out long?”

Karp considered this. It was an endless topic of debate among lawyers whether a short or a long deliberation had anything to do with the outcome, and on that topic, at least, the jury was still out. He said, “Not an all-nighter. I think five, six hours.” He paused and smiled. “Then I’ll get someone to drive me home. I’ll honk and you can hoist me to heaven like a side of beef.”

“Oh, cripes, that’s right, you’ll be home,” said Marlene.

Karp noticed her expression and gave her a quizzical look. “Where’d you think I’d be? Look, you got plenty of warning. Just enough time to whip off a quick one and kiss him good-bye.”

“Oh, don’t be a jerk,” said Marlene, too quickly. “It’s just … well, I guess I was thinking I should’ve prepared some sort of official homecoming celebration.”

“Just don’t let the winch slip this time,” said Karp, wondering what his wife was up to now.

They came back at 8:50. Karp straightened his tie in the reflection of a bookcase and heaved himself down to Part 52 for the orgasm.

He had judged rightly. The jury found Hosie Russell guilty of felony murder and guilty of manslaughter in the first degree. Martino thanked the jury, set a date for sentencing, and the courtroom cleared.

Karp sat in his chair and watched them take Russell away. Their eyes met for a moment, and Russell seemed about to say something, but the moment passed, and the convict shuffled out between two court officers, head bowed at the traditional angle.

Susan Weiner did not spring miraculously to life after this transaction, and Karp felt the familiar quasi-post-coital letdown.

“Christ, I hope I get dealt a better hand next time.”

Karp looked up. It was Freeland, smiling, extending his hand for a collegial handshake. Karp ignored the hand. He stared silently at the other man until he dropped his hand and shrugged.

Freeland said, “Hey, the schmuck admitted that blue shirt-what could I do?”

“You could have refrained from suborning perjury,” said Karp quietly. “You could have refrained from dragging the sister up there for no goddamn reason.”

“Hey, just a minute there, Karp! Suborning …?”

“Uh-huh. Or the next thing to it. The old fart never saw anything, and you know it. That’s why you didn’t take a statement off him when he waltzed in. You worked him until he gave you a story.”

Freeland smiled coldly. “Believe what you want. I thought it was worth a shot. I mean, the jerk admitted he did it. I wasn’t going to put him on the stand to make me look like shit, so all I had was the other-guy defense.” He looked at his watch. “Well, it’s been a joy, Counselor-”

“Wait a minute!” Karp snapped. “Hosie told you he did it?”

“Sure.” Freeland smiled again, as at a joke. “You’re not going to tell me that only the innocent are entitled to representation?”

“No, I was going to tell you you’re a real scumbag, Freeland. And I’m going to give you a piece of advice. You got two jobs here. One is cutting pleas, cranking the system. The other is keeping the cops and the D.A.’s honest. The way you do that is the way Tom Pagano did it-by being squeaky clean yourself. You want to play cute tricks, go private. Because if I ever catch you again doing something like you did on this one, I’m going to put your cute white ass in jail.”

A brief staring and jaw-clenching contest then ensued, with no clear winner. Freeland turned and stalked away. Karp sighed. A nasty, faintly crooked Legal Aid director was just what he needed. It made a matched set with his nasty, faintly crooked boss, Sanford Bloom.

Karp went back to his office and placed the case file in the glass bookcase and closed the door on People v. Russell. He sat there in the dark for he did not know how long, listening to the distant sounds of late traffic and the hum of the building itself. Centre Street never slept; night court would be going on, and the complaint room, and babies just out of law school would be scurrying through the halls, learning how to cop felonies to misdemeanors with dispatch.

The phone rang. Karp waited for whoever it was to go away. At the eighth ring he picked it up.

“Karp.”

“This Russell. Hosie.”

“Yeah, Hosie, what is it?”

“Trial’s over.”

“I’m aware. What can I do for you?”

“Song like that, trial’s over, all my trials.” There was a pause. Then Russell cleared his throat noisily. “I can talk to you now, can’t I?”

“Yeah, Hosie, talk away. What’s on your mind?”

“They’s a dude here, name of Medford? Talkin’ about gettin’ loose on account of he snitched out this fella supposed to’ve killed some big shot over by the U.N. Said he heard this guy admit it.”

Karp felt a tingling in his belly. “Go on, what about him?”

“It’s bullshit, that’s what about it. Medford in a cell with me, not this other guy ’Arasium, somethin’ like that.”

“Tomasian. Aram Tomasian.”

“Yeah! That’s the dude. Anyway, Medford, he ain’t nowhere near this guy. Guy in some other cell. He tol’ me, like he some sharp motherfucker, this big shot from the D.A. set the whole thing up. He rat on Tomasian, he get to walk. Then they move him out, put him in the right cell, with Tomasian. And he calls the cops. Cops don’t know nothin’ till he tells them. It was all set up before by the D.A.”

“Urn, did Medford give you a name for this big shot?”

“Yeah, he ack like this motherfucker was his own cousin. Name Wharton.”

Karp got the night-duty driver to take him home to Crosby Street. He mounted the absurd contraption and rode upward in the warm, dark shaft. Mercifully the winch did not slip, and he arrived safely in the bosom of his family.

“So, tell me!” said Marlene.

“It went the way I thought.”

“My hero! You don’t seem very hyped by it. When I saw your face, I thought maybe they walked him. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I’m pissed off generally. I got into a stupid cat fight with fucking Freeland after the trial. And Roland came by and told me he didn’t get anything out of Nassif. And I got this thing on my leg. The usual.”

He clumped across the loft and collapsed on the red couch.

“And the whip cream on the charlotte russe was I got a call from my old buddy Hosie Russell. He told me who worked the scam on Tomasian. The jailhouse witness.”

“You made a deal with Russell?”

“No, that’s the weird part. He just called me up after the trial and spat the whole thing out. For free.”

“Why’d he do something like that?”

“I don’t know. I gave him a stupid lecture once about trying to just do something because it was right. I guess it sank in. Miracles happen, or maybe it was just an extra clever scam because I will do something for him after all. I’ll make sure he gets old in some nice medium-security joint. There’s no point in putting him in Attica. He’s not violent unless he’s loaded, and he’s not a runner. I think he likes prison, as a matter of fact.”

“Don’t we all, each in our own way. So who was it?”

“Wharton, who else?” said Karp dully.

“Shit! What’re you going to do?”

He rubbed his face. “I don’t know. But he’s gone-out of the office, that’s for sure. I’ll go to Bloom. He’ll do the right thing once he knows the story. I mean, he likes Conrad, but not nearly as much as he likes himself. It’ll be quiet and quick.”