Robert Tanenbaum - Counterplay

“Why wasn’t this stuff about the gardener in the file?” Fairbrother asked.

Bassaline’s thick brows knitted. “Whaddya mean it’s not in there? It’s all there, including the affidavit I filled out for the search warrant.”

Fairbrother shook his head. “Nothing about a gardener named Jeff Kaplan, no affidavit either.”

Bassaline was quiet for a moment, then nodded. “Well, guess that makes sense considering who they turned the case over to-”

“Who was that?” Fairbrother asked.

“Guy’s been in the news quite a bit lately,” Bassaline answered. “First, last fall when he went down for whackin’ that rap singer and them hookers, which is why I figured he got his comeuppance in prison. Still, got the story taped to my refrigerator.”

“You telling me that the detective who took over this case was Michael-”

“Flanagan,” Bassaline finished the sentence. “Yeah, little holier-than-thou prick, at least that’s how he tried to come off-though there were a lot of rumors floating around the precinct that he was handing out his own brand of justice, him and some other little hyper, self-righteous, religious pricks. Didn’t surprise me at all that he was workin’ for that a-hole Andrew Kane.”

Fairbrother’s mind was racing and suddenly clear of the effects of the alcohol. “You know where I can find Kaplan?” he asked.

Bassaline laughed but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Yeah, he’s easy to find, but it won’t do you any good. He’s buried in Acacia Cemetery over in Queens.”

“What happened to him?”

“You tell me,” Bassaline said. “Guess Jeff liked to fish for stripers almost as much as he liked his roses. About nine years ago, they found his boat out in the Long Island Sound. His body washed up a few days later. He had a nasty knock on his head, but the ME said he drowned. They ruled it accidental.”

“My ass,” Fairbrother said.

“Got that straight,” Bassaline replied and chugged the remainder of his drink.

Fairbrother stood up and shook Bassaline’s hand. “We may want you to testify about the gardener.”

“Figured as much,” Bassaline said. “Tell you the truth, that one’s weighed on me for a while. I should have gone over my chief’s head, but I didn’t know Flanagan was dumptrucking the case or even that he was dirty…not until that stuff with Kane went down.”

Karp was polishing off a hot dog from the stand in front of the Criminal Courts building when the newspaper vendor with the coke-bottle eyeglasses and a nose like Pinocchio began cussing at him from his stand next door.

“Okay, asswipe Jesus,” the man with a sly smile said. “I got one for you.”

Karp rolled his eyes. Ever since he’d known “Dirty Warren,” they’d played a game of movie trivia with Warren asking the questions and Karp answering them. So far, the score was: Warren zero and Karp about four thousand and three…not that he was counting.

“Don’t you get tired of losing?” Karp asked, which elicited a stream of profanity and epithet-laced challenges that had little to do with Warren’s affliction with Tourette syndrome, a short circuit in his brain that was manifested by profanity-laced speech, and everything to do with his irascible and competitive nature. But Karp just laughed, which irritated Warren all the more.

There were precious few things that Karp felt he knew with any degree of certainty. More often than not, Karp felt that his expertise was limited to where to find the best pastrami sandwich and hot dog in New York-Second Avenue Deli and Nathan’s at Coney Island. But to Warren, there were two things at which Karp had no equal: his knowledge of movie trivia and anything and everything to do with the Yankees.

Karp got the first trait from his mother, who had loved movies and theater and often took him to both. As a boy growing up in Brooklyn, he looked forward to each weekend to the Saturday matinees down at the Avalon and Kingsway theaters, where for twenty-five cents he could catch double features. He preferred Westerns, but he saw them all, and gleaned, filed, and stored anything he could get from magazines, newspapers, and word-of-mouth rumor about the stars and making of the movies, including the unusual and the little known. It was a hobby he’d carried over into his adult life-probably more as something he could, in a way, still share with his mother. With his mother, Saturdays also meant the Broadway theaters; it had long been their goal to see all of the best shows listed in the New York Times theater guide.

Karp’s forte was older movies, and the unwritten rule was that Warren was supposed to draw his questions from at least a couple decades back. But Karp had kept up with the latest stuff, too, because every once in a while, Warren would cheat and try to rattle him with something newer.

Today, Warren was playing fair, and even gave him a true or false question, though he tacked on a second part.

“When they made The Godfather, shit, there were ‘post notes’ all over the sets, including in Robert Duval’s mouth because Marlon Brando couldn’t remember his lines, true or false, scumbag bitch,” Warren said. “And why?”

“Why what?” Karp asked as he turned to look at a crowd of reporters gathering near the top of the stairs of the building.

“Damn penis, why is it true, or why is it false?” Warren replied, peering around Karp’s shoulder to see what was going on.

Karp turned as the crowd of reporters shouted a question to someone coming out of the building who he couldn’t see yet. As long as it wasn’t somebody from his office, he didn’t really care; he didn’t like his ADAs to grandstand in front of the press or leak tidbits in dark, smoky bars. He believed in trying cases in courtrooms, not the court of public opinion. He left that to the defense lawyers.

“I stumped you, didn’t, fuck me, I, turd?” Warren said with a smug look on his face. He gazed around hoping that there would be a crowd to witness his moment of glory and was disappointed to see that everyone’s attention was turned to the gaggle of press.

Karp moved to the side and closer until he could see that the reason for the media frenzy was the sudden appearance of Bryce Anderson, Rachel Rachman, and a tall, middle-aged body-builder type he quickly recognized as Dante Coletta, the Stavros chauffeur. He noticed Murrow standing off to the side; his aide saw him and hurried down the steps.

“What’s up, Gilbert?” Karp asked.

“It seems that the defense has produced a ‘witness’ who claims to have seen who killed Teresa Stavros,” Murrow said. “They filed an amended motion to dismiss the indictment.”

“And I suppose Rachman’s presence is a coincidence,” Karp said.

“As is the sudden appearance of the media, despite the gag order following the last blood frenzy,” said a voice coming from behind.

Karp glanced over his shoulder. “Hello, Ray. Yeah, I need that like I need a new hole in the head.”

Funny how the press worked. The terrorist attack on his daughter and the death of John Jojola had made the front page of the Times for a day and then subsequent stories faded toward the inside pages until they’d disappeared. After all, anything west of the Hudson grew less important the farther one got from Manhattan. But the discovery of Teresa Stavros’s skeleton in the backyard of the family brown-stone had been on the front page for a week following the court hearing.

The press had gone to town, digging up the old stories from when Teresa first disappeared and the subsequent story about well-known missing persons. They’d talked to the neighbors, past and present; attempted to talk to Dante Coletta, who’d said what appeared in the papers as [expletive] off and die. Enterprising reporters had even gone to Denver and Albuquerque to speak with members of 221B Baker Street only to be referred to the court hearing transcripts.