Robert Tanenbaum - Counterplay

“We’ll let you know.” Karp smiled. “Until then, nothing has changed.”

Anderson and Coletta stood to leave. “Uh, sorry, just one more question,” Karp said. “I’m trying to picture how this happened. You say Kaplan grabbed the gun from Mrs. Stavros and she turned to go call the cops…”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Coletta said.

“Would you mind, using Mr. Anderson there as a stand-in for Mrs. Stavros, showing me about how far away, Kaplan was standing…how he pointed the gun…you know, sort of act it out-”

“I’m not sure I approve of this-” Anderson started to say, but Coletta turned him around.

“Come on, Bryce, this will be fun,” Coletta said. “He was about this far away.” Coletta raised his arm and pointed it at the back of Anderson’s head from a distance of a couple of feet. “Then boom! And she went down like a sack of rice.”

“Boom? One shot?” Karp said.

“Yeah, boom, just once was all it took,” Coletta said. “Ain’t that what the newspaper story said a little while back?”

Karp grimaced. Somebody in the ME’s office had leaked some of Dr. Gates’s findings to the press. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what it said.”

After the attorney and chauffeur left, Karp turned to Guma, who was leaning back in his chair again with his eyes closed. “Guess I don’t need to ask what you think.”

“He’s totally full of it,” Guma said. “I haven’t met a single other person who says that Teresa Stavros was anything but a kind, loving woman and that her husband was a dirtbag with money problems. No mention of Kaplan and Teresa having an affair, which just doesn’t fit anyway.”

“There’s also Detective Bassaline’s comment that Kaplan told him that the rosebushes had been disturbed in the backyard. Why would Kaplan say something like that if he didn’t want to get caught?”

“And let’s not forget this whole thing with Teresa supposedly skipping the country and living the high life somewhere else was a pretty sophisticated operation. But Bassaline said Kaplan was no rocket scientist, took too many left hooks to the head.”

Karp agreed with the assessment. “Yeah, I guess it’s a good thing Fairbrother’s report is still on my desk, waiting to be sent to the defense.” But, he cautioned Guma, the defense had just drawn a pretty tough hand to beat. “Our star witness was five years old and says he remembers his mother and father fighting, a couple of pops that may or may not have been gunshots, and the sound of someone digging. They have an adult, granted one with a sheet, who says he saw the whole thing. Nice that the statute of limitations for conspiracy to obstruct and accessory after the fact is up. But he did get the caliber of the gun, which wasn’t mentioned in the newspapers, right.”

“Don’t tell me you buy this crap?” Guma said. “Isn’t it just a little too convenient that this guy is popping up now?”

Karp nodded. “Ray, I think this guy’s totally full of it, too, but we’re going to have to counter him. We can’t just ask the jury to believe our version based on our mutual good looks.”

Guma laughed. “Maybe you can’t, but I’ve won plenty of cases on that very notion.”

The burly guard at the gate leading up to Vladimir Karchovski’s house gave Marlene a suspicious look but let her in. He was the same gorilla who’d been there when she and Butch visited and his disposition wasn’t much better that afternoon. Then again, the Karchovskis don’t pay him the big bucks to be nice, she thought. She glanced quickly over her shoulder and saw that he was still watching her.

“Don’t let Boris put you off,” a male voice said as the door to the house opened. “He’s a dangerous man when necessary, but shy as a lamb around women. Not that he doesn’t appreciate the sight of a beautiful woman such as yourself.”

Marlene smiled as she looked up at Yvgeny Karchovski. Butch with an accent, she sighed inwardly, but not the integrity, nor could anyone ever understand me the way Butch does. Karp had been wonderful after she got back from Jojola’s memorial service-strong and supportive when she wanted to cry on his chest, fun and engaging when she needed a night out to get her mind off of her friend’s death and the threats against her family, as well as her vow to someday, somehow seek and exact her vengeance against Andrew Kane.

It had been some time since she’d seen the Karchovskis. Yvgeny, she understood, had been traveling-she figured in Russia, although his father, Vladimir, had waved his hand vaguely and said it was “to see old friends.” So that remained a mystery as did how Yvgeny, who was in the United States illegally, traveled so freely.

The old man had also been quiet for several weeks, since before Jojola’s death until that morning when he called on her cell phone. If you have a few moments, he’d said, I have some information that, perhaps, you can make sure gets in the hands of the proper authorities. The call had reminded her of the dream she’d had while at the pueblo in which Vladimir had tried to hand her a note, but the woman in black had snatched it.

Yvgeny asked her to come in. “Vladimir is out for his walk,” he said. “But he should return in a half hour or so.”

“Let’s go catch up to him,” Marlene suggested. “I could use the fresh air.”

“As you wish,” Yvgeny said, and they stepped back out of the house and walked down to the gate.

“You leaving?” the guard asked.

“ Da, Boris,” Yvgeny said. “Open the gate.”

“You are not waiting for Mr. Karchovski to return?” Boris asked.

“No, we are going to meet him,” Yvgeny said. “Now if you don’t mind, we’d like to leave.”

“Yeah, sure,” Boris responded and opened the gate. “Um, Mr. Vladimir Karchovski has to me give orders, ‘Watch out for Yvgeny.’ So I must go with you.”

Yvgeny shook his head. “That’s all right, Boris, stay here,” he said. “I’ll be okay.”

“But Mr. Vladimir Karchovski, he give me this order-” The man looked like he might weep.

“Okay, Boris, okay,” Yvgeny said, rolling his eyes at Marlene to whom he muttered under his breath, “Doesn’t say three words in a week, but now he’s my shadow.”

With Boris lumbering along twenty feet behind and talking on his cell phone, Yvgeny and Marlene headed for the Brighton Beach boardwalk where Vladimir took his walks. Along the way, Yvgeny told her he’d been “snooping around” in Moscow and Chechnya to see if any of his associates with the black market had heard anything about what Samira Azzam was doing in the United States linking up with Andrew Kane.

“There’s nothing much more than rumor,” Yvgeny said. “However, one of those rumors is that an agent with the FSB-which used to be KGB-a woman named Nadya Malovo, is also rumored to be in this country. I actually met her once, many years ago after Afghanistan; she was with senior agents questioning officers about defections and anti-Soviet sentiments in the army. I thought she was a-how do you say-a cold one then, but I hear she may be much worse than that. Some claim she was with Azzam at the Nord-Ost theater and later Beslan. That is not for sure and even if she was, there could be a legitimate reason if, say, for instance, she is trying to work her way close to the Islamic extremist hierarchy.” Yvgeny hestitated a moment as if working things out in his head.

“But?” Marlene asked.

“Excuse me?” Yvgeny said.

“You didn’t say it, but there was a ‘but’ on the end of your last sentence,” she said. “You’re not sure you buy that theory.”

Yvgeny shook his head. “I am not sure. However, if the theory that I was talking to you and Butch about the night you were over for dinner-that the Russian government, or at least some rogue element in the government, and the Islamic hard-liners are working together for the moment to discredit the Chechen nationalists-”