Robert Tanenbaum - Resolved

At 4:30, Karp slid Murrow's memorandum into one of the green accountancy ledgers he used as notebooks, and went into the DA's office. Laura Rachman was there already, today in an insistent violet costume. She was talking animatedly at the DA, who was studying the never-smoked Bering claro he used as a prop. He seemed happy to see Karp, if only to terminate Rachman's spiel.

"I hear you're interfering with the course of justice again," Keegan growled.

Karp sat down and nodded to Rachman. "Just a difference of opinion on People versus Hirsch. I don't think it's ready, Laura does."

"He wants a corroborating witness," said Rachman. "For crying out loud, it's a rape case."

"Actually, I didn't say that. What I said was I wanted something else besides the completely unsupported testimony of a woman against a doctor where we don't have a breath of anything else against him."

"Also untrue," said Rachman. "We have enough other stuff. Jack, this is a critical issue for me, I mean if I don't have your confidence…" She left it hanging.

Keegan said, waving the cigar dismissively, "No, no, come on, Laura, you know that's not the issue. What is the issue, Butch?"

"Well, I always thought that if your whole case depended on uncorroborated testimony from the victim, with no forensics at all, with the victim not reporting until five days later, like we have here, then the quality of the witness was pretty important. So is this the case with Ms. Coleman? You'll judge for yourself. It appears that Ms. Coleman got herself evicted from her apartment late last year, for nonpayment. She eventually came up with the rent and they let her move back in. She subsequently sued her landlord, claiming the stress and whatever of the eviction had caused her severe digestive upset, so severe that she had to quit work. She's suing for two million."

"What relevance does all this have-" began Rachman, but Keegan stopped her with a gesture.

Karp resumed. "A week after she mounted her lawsuit, she became a patient of Dr. Hirsch, who's a specialist in gastroenterology. She complained of severe stomach pains. Hirsch examined her and found no organic cause for her pain, but being a careful man, he arranged for this colonoscopy. Five days after said procedure Ms. Coleman reported the alleged assault to the police. Five days."

"She couldn't find a precinct with an African-American police-woman," said Rachman.

"So she says. Although she doesn't seem to have any trouble finding Albert B. Pearson, her lawyer in the civil suit she's been preparing against Hirsch. A litigious person, Ms. Coleman."

"She has every right to sue," said Rachman. Little spots of color had appeared on her cheeks.

"It's every citizen's right," Karp agreed blandly. "And her case will be a lot better if Hirsch is convicted. Moving on, we have the curious incident of the post-traumatic visit. The colonoscopy occurred on a Monday, the fifth of March. On Wednesday, Ms. Coleman arrived at Dr. Hirsch's office, without an appointment, and insisted on seeing him. He agreed. In the office, Ms. Coleman asked the doctor to be a witness in her lawsuit against the landlord, to testify that her putative intestinal ailments were a direct result of the stress caused by her eviction the previous year. This Dr. Hirsch refused to do. He said he could find nothing organic wrong with her at present, and even if he had made such a finding, since she hadn't been his patient before the eviction happened, there was no way in good conscience that he could testify to any physical debility attendant upon that event. At that, Ms. Coleman became angry and, for the first time, accused him of the assault. He vigorously denied it, and continues to deny it. Two days later, she reported it to the police. Now, none of what I've just said was included in the sex crime bureau's presentation of the case. But it was easy enough to get."

"Yeah, from Hirsch," Rachman said. "Of course, he's going to deny it and tell stories."

"Did you know all this, Laura?" Keegan asked.

"Of course we did. As I said before, it's irrelevant to the crime. The fact is, Ms. Coleman was abused. And we can prove it."

"Can you?" asked Karp. "Really? I mean, you don't think all of this material rises to the level of reasonable doubt? The unlikelihood of the event given the medical situation, the exposed locale, the prior reputation of the accused, the lack of credible supporting witnesses, the failure to report, the return visit, during which no mention was made of the assault until after Hirsch refused to testify, the financial benefit of a conviction to the supposed victim…"

"I told you, it's irrelevant. And we'll make sure none of that is allowed at trial. With a halfway decent judge…"

Karp felt his jaw drop and his belly tighten. "Laura! For God's sake, what the fuck does it matter what you can get suppressed? It's fucking exculpatory evidence."

"Don't yell at me! Don't you dare yell at me!"

"Guys, guys, calm down," said the DA, who despised histrionics in his office that he did not himself initiate. "Maybe we can avoid trial in the first place. What would Hirsch say to a deal? The charge is sexual abuse first- we drop it to third, it's a misdemeanor, he might not even lose his license."

"We tried that," said Rachman, "Terry tried that and Hirsch told us to get lost. He says it never happened."

"Terry?"

"Teresa Palmisano, the ADA, very competent, very thorough."

Karp could not suppress a sniff here, and got a furious glare from Rachman. They were silent for a moment, while the DA cogitated. Karp thought he could almost see the wheels whirring in the man's head. Another racial case, black vic, white defendant, how would it look to the black vote, Rachman with connections to the liberals, to the women, percentage of votes that represented, plus the black, weak there in the first place, Karp a liability because of the racial thing, the doctor ought to deal, he wouldn't so he gets it in the neck, go ahead with the trial, the low-risk solution…

"Well, I'm inclined," said Keegan, "absent any other information, to let the case go forward. Let the jury sort it out. That's what juries are for. And next time, Laura, let's put everything, good and bad, in the pretrial package, so that Butch doesn't have to get bent out of shape off of this kind of crap."

Karp couldn't meet his boss' eye. He nodded his head and made a note in his ledger. A little forced chitchat to show that they were all still good friends, and Karp was out in the corridor with Laura Rachman. She turned to him and said, "No hard feelings, Butch, huh?"

"No, of course not," said Karp stiffly. "It's all part of the day's work. But, I admit it's still a little bit of a shock to see him do it."

"Do what?"

"Pervert the law for political purposes. I don't have a sister, but I guess that if I did, and she turned into a whore and I had to drive past her stroll every day, after a while I'd get used to seeing her in her little hot pants with her tits hanging out. But I bet it'd take a while, and I guess I haven't gotten to that point with Jack Keegan."

Her face wrinkled in distaste. "You know, Karp, you really are an offensive son of a bitch."

"So I've often been told," he said, turning away down the little dogleg corridor that led to his office.

"We're going to win this case," she called after him.

Karp stopped, turned to face her. "Yes, you might. There are enough asshole judges in this building, and one of them might actually allow you to suppress all the material about that woman's history and actions. That's not the point. Winning isn't the fucking point. We're not playing girls' soccer here, Laura. The point is that you know and I know and even Terry what's-her-name probably knows how incredibly, extremely unlikely it is that Hirsch actually stuck his tongue into the alleged victim's shit-smeared vagina in the way the alleged victim described it. The woman is a fraud, and the case is a fraud, and nobody seems to give a shit."