Robert Tanenbaum - Enemy within

"Will it take long?" asked Collins innocently. "I have a dentist's appointment."

Vasquez said, "That was incredibly inspiring, Butch. I want to say that I'm behind you all the way, or until it becomes personally inconvenient."

"Gosh, you guys!" said Karp. "I'm deeply touched. Let me pause and wipe away the tears." He clapped his hands smartly. "All right! We have two cases, both politically hot. Whichever way they go, they are each going to piss off an important constituency that the DA needs to get elected. The DA told me to fix them, and I intend to fix them. I have a suspicion that what the DA means by fix, whether or not he knows it himself, has to do with figuring out what the maximum political advantage is and then crafting our cases to make that happen. But this is not what I intend to do." He paused to let that sink in.

"My own feeling," he resumed, "is that the DA is mistaken, and that skewing cases in this way is a disastrous strategy because the office of DA is different from a general political office. The mayor and the governor have to balance competing goods, and if the goods they support have more beneficiaries than the goods they don't support, then they stay elected, and if not, not. But that's their job, that's what they're for. But we don't have competing goods, or anyway we shouldn't. We have the law; we have procedure; we have skill and judgment. We know what a good case looks like. And so I propose that the best politics is to just go by what's carved in stone on the outside of the building: 'Every place is safe to him who lives in justice-be just and fear not.'"

They stared at him. After a short pause, Collins asked, "Are you serious?"

"Damn right I am."

Vasquez said, "Um, Butch, that's very idealistic, but…"

"No! It's not idealistic. In this case, it's pragmatic as hell. Look, Vasquez, as soon as we start thinking directly about political consequences, we get lost in a tangle we can't get out of, which is not the case in plain-vanilla politics. The side that loses the election might feel sorry for itself, it might have to pay more taxes or get less services, but it doesn't feel betrayed. If the losers were actually right about policy, sooner or later things will get worse and they'll win the next time out. Rah-rah, democracy in action. But here, if we screw around with a prosecution, it is a betrayal, and people will see that, and they won't forgive Jack Keegan for it, and all the political influence in the world won't save him. I'm not sure he realizes that, but I do, and that's how we're going to proceed in both these matters."

"Shit, man," said Collins, "we have to be honest now?"

"I'm game," said Vasquez. "It'll be a refreshing change. What do you want us to do?"

Karp could see that she wasn't letting herself believe him, but at least she was peeping over the wall of cynicism all these young attorneys erected after a few months on the job. He smiled encouragingly. "Good. You have Marshak. Raney's the cop on it, a very bright guy, inclined to be helpful. Go see him, get involved. I know they don't like us hanging close to them, and usually we don't have the time, but we're going to free you both up of everything else you have for the duration of these two cases. Push him to find the other guy, if any. Check out the vic. Talk to the people he hung with. We want to try to reconstruct his last day. Most important, did he pack a knife, did anyone ever see him with a knife? And the watch. Where did it come from, where did a homeless guy get a highend Rolex watch? There's a story there; find out what it was. On the Marshak end, what was she doing in that garage? You need to talk to my wife on that. And my daughter."

"What?"

"Yeah, the accused was a client, or almost a client, of my wife's. She thought she was being stalked. In any case, it happens that Marlene was at the vicinity of the crime at or near the time of. She saw Marshak make her getaway. Also, people who knew her in the weeks before it went down, what was her general behavior, her morale? Most important-did she know the victim, any connection whatsoever? Raney will help you out."

"You said your daughter?"

"Oh, yeah. Lucy helps run a soup kitchen down in Chelsea. Ramsey was one of the regulars. She can give you background on him and his homies. Along with that, see his family, get a sense of what the guy was like. Details, Vasquez, it's all details. Bring 'em in, the more the better." She nodded, scribbled on a yellow pad. He pointed a big finger at her. "Every day on this, okay?"

"Got it." She seemed a little brighter now, energized. "I have an appearance in ten minutes."

"Okay, go. See Tony about getting out from under everything else. See you tomorrow."

Karp turned to Collins. "You-you have a much harder problem because you have a case that's supposedly made already. Basically, I want you to remake it."

"Remake it," said Collins neutrally.

"Yeah. Let's face it, Jack is going to ask for death on this one, absent any serious flaw in the case. Everybody is out for this kid's blood. The crime is tailor-made to appeal to everyone's New York violence fantasies. Black criminal kills respectable white family man in the subway for money. We are bound and determined to kill the guy who did it."

"It's the law."

Karp nodded impatiently. "Yeah, I know it's the law. And I know we can probably convict him. That's not the point. Unlike the chief justice of the Supreme Court, I happen to still believe that actual innocence is an exculpatory fact. I need you to convince me that Jorell Benson stabbed Moishe Fagelman to death on the M line, me, not a bunch of retirees and high school graduates who want to get home to their families."

"I don't get it. What is it about the case that you find unconvincing?"

"A bunch of stuff. Benson was a strong-arm mugger, a chain snatcher, a knock-down-women-and-take-their-bags artist. Why did he decide to go with a knife? And, by the way, where's the knife? Two, it's a big jump from petty mugging to hitting a diamond merchant. He had to know the guy was carrying diamonds, and what he was carrying them in. It was, you'll recall, a little leather pouch. The perp took only that. Benson is a sixth-grade dropout with a seventy-two IQ. Is it credible that he could put a hit like that together and then not know that every diamond merchant in the city would be looking for just those stones, and then come waltzing into some booth in the diamond district and try to sell them? Three, our eyewitness, Walter Deng, ID's Benson from inside his token booth as the man who supposedly ran by on his way out. I'll stick you in a token booth, and I'll run by, and I guarantee you won't be able to tell me from Joe Pesci."

"Deng picked him out of a lineup."

"Right, which means he picked one out of six. Sorry, but I don't feel comfortable killing Mr. Benson for rolling snake eyes. Finally"-Karp took a deep breath-"finally, Terrell, the guy has an alibi. He was home with his mother, his sister, and her two kids when the crime went down. They were watching a basketball game."

Collins shrugged. "Relatives lie to protect their families."

"Uh-huh, but did these? Let me ask you a question? You have any brothers or sisters?"

"One of each. Why?"

"I have two brothers. If one of them was accused of committing a violent murder for gain, and he came to me and said, 'Tell a lie, give me an alibi,' I wouldn't. Would you?"

Collins thought for a moment. "Maybe I would."

"Oh, bullshit! Perjure yourself, put everything you've worked for at risk? Because your brother wanted a little extra cash and killed someone to get it? Come on!"

"Okay, I take your point. I'll go over the case. But the cops… Jesus, they're going to hate me for this."

This was Roland's influence, thought Karp, his one great flaw as a prosecutor, his desire to stay palsy with the cops. "Fuck 'em, then," Karp snarled. "They're supposed to hate you. You want cops to love you, join the Police Athletic League."