Tainted Evidence

by Robert Daley

  These transmissions went into every radio car in the Sixth Division--Harlem. The sirens came on at once, the flashing lights. But no one knew where to go, and these cars too began transmitting, overlapping each other's voices.

  "Location. Location."

  "Christ, where are you?"

  Finally one of the wounded cops managed to gasp out the address and be understood.

  All sector cars from the Three-Two were already at the scene, though they should not have been. Two detective cars were there as well. The Three-Two was not being patrolled at all, meaning no further help could come from that direction, only from the two other Harlem precincts. The Two-Five had five cars on patrol at this hour, the Two-Eight seven. All twelve cars responded. They responded instantly, sirens blasting, tires screeching. They converged from all directions at great speed, and also at great risk to themselves and to every other car or pedestrian abroad at that hour.

  Epps on the sidewalk did not know which way to run. He stood amid el stanchions. He stood amid police cars, all double parked, all empty. For the moment there were no cops, no pursuit. But he could hear the sirens coming, the tires--they were close. Ramming his guns into his belt, he glanced this way, then that, prepared to run in any direction, but which one? The light he stood in was bizarre: streetlights that cast strange shadows, reflections off windshields. He knew he hadn't shot everybody. He heard the noise of the cops he had so far evaded. They were running, shouting, pouring out onto the sidewalk. He had no time left. He must run, run.

  Suddenly a taxi came out of a side street. Its overhead light was lit, which meant it was empty. If it was or wasn't did not matter to Epps, who believed he was saved. Not that he could expect it to stop. This was Harlem, the middle of the night. Cabs didn't stop in Harlem at night for young Blacks. Most cabbies wouldn't go into Harlem at all for any one, some of them even by day, and few cabbies would pick up fares like Epps at any time anywhere in the city.

  The cab approached Epps, coming fast. He was in the street waving his arms. The driver saw him. It made him come even faster. He swerved, had no intention of stopping, but Epps leaped out in front of him waving his arms. The headlights were on him. He didn't dodge for safety.

  The driver had no choice, he must stop or kill another human being. Habit prevailed. Brakes screeched. The cab slithered, stopped. Instantly the driver had it moving forward again. As Epps came alongside, the cab was already moving, spurting ahead. Whatever was happening, the driver wanted no part of it.

  He was fast, but Epps was younger, faster. He wrenched the door open, though it almost took his hand off, and tumbled inside. "Drive, man," he screamed. He had his guns out again, one of them pushed into the nape of the cabbie's neck.

  The cab, which was pointed toward the parked police cars, couldn't turn around. There were too many stanchions, too many cars. It could move in one direction only.

  Cops had come out of the building, out of the alley. They were jumping off fire escapes. They were down on one knee firing at the cab. Epps was hanging out the window, his guns spitting. He was pulling triggers as fast as he could. Eight or ten cops were firing at the taxi which rammed a stanchion and stopped. The crash sent Epps head first into the door jamb.

  Lights flashing, sirens wailing, the support cars came speeding up from both directions, and they sandwiched the cab. Doors flew open. Cops jumped to the street with guns drawn. Other cops out of the building ran up, and the cab's doors were torn open. They dragged the dazed and unresisting Epps out into the night, threw him over the front fender, whacked him in the head a few times with gun butts, twisted his arms back and slapped handcuffs on him.

  A moment later Muldoon reached the cab. He was breathing hard and blood was leaking down his face as he grabbed Epps by the hair. He yanked the head back as if to break the neck, and this was enough to throw light onto Epps' features.

  "It's him," said Muldoon, and he hurled the handcuffed youth back onto the cab, which Epps struck with the side of his face.

  More police cars were pulling up all the time. Some had come all the way from the south Bronx. Strange cops ran forward with guns drawn. The sidewalks began to fill up with spectators, though where they might have come from at this hour in this burnt out area was a mystery. Ambulances arrived, all howling.

  The excitement was nearly over. Guns had gone back into holsters. About thirty cops were standing around. Although the sirens suddenly went silent, the scene remained illuminated by dozens of flashing roof lights. The colors, thought Barone, were hallucinatory, impressionistic, phantasmagoric.

  He had made his way down from the roof, and now pushed through the crowd of cops.

  "You okay?" he asked his partner.

  "Yeah," said Muldoon, but when he touched himself at the hairline, he felt a lump which he squeezed, and a piece of buckshot popped out from under his scalp. The pellet lay in his hand and he scrutinized it.

  "Read him his rights," said Barone.

  Again Epps' head was yanked back by the hair. "You have a right to remain silent, fuckface," said Muldoon. "You understand that, mutt? You have a right--"

  Barone watched. There was a half smile on his face though what it might have signified even he didn't know. He was unhurt, virtually unmussed. He wore a dark grey pinstripe suit that was still buttoned neatly over the bullet-proof vest, plus the usual thin Italian shoes. His black hair was still combed straight back.

  Muldoon too was wearing a vest. It looked somewhat shredded, Barone saw, but it had saved him. He never wore one normally even though regulations required them for all cops at all times. Tonight he had put one on at the last minute to please Barone, who had insisted on it.

  "How's the cab driver?" Muldoon asked.

  Aware that no sound or movement emanated from within the cab, Barone had bent to peer inside.

  "He doesn't look too good, as a matter of fact.”

  Muldoon too peered inside the cab, after which the two men eyed each other briefly.

  "I foresee a few problems down the road," said Barone.

  "Problems?"

  Barone nodded. "Problems."

  "Fuck it," said Muldoon.

  Paramedics, having thrown open their ambulances, were unloading stretchers, oxygen tanks and other gear, were hurrying across the sidewalk into the building. They knew nothing yet about any cab driver, and in any case, cops came first.

  A uniformed sergeant from the Two-Five pushed through the crowd of cops. "Who's in command here?"

  "I guess you are, Sarge," said Barone.

  The sergeant's jaw came out. "So what the fuck happened?”

  "Good question."

  "Come on, come on."

  Barone said: "I think a crime scene needs to be established here, Sarge, don't you?”

  The explosion of violence had lasted a few seconds only. It was now over, and in a short time would be difficult even to reconstruct.

  But the night's work had just begun. There were notifications to be made, statements to be taken, a prisoner to be processed. In a few minutes a lieutenant arrived, superseding the sergeant, and a few minutes after that a captain drove up who superseded both.

  The captain asked for a report. "Christ, what a balls-up," the lieutenant began.

  Within an hour the captain too had been superseded. The street now swarmed with brass, all of them unhappy. An inspector from division was there, and the borough commander who was an assistant chief, two stars; and the chief of patrol, who wore three. The brass had been routed out of beds in distant suburbs. They were as grimfaced about being awakened as about the mess they were now forced to confront.

  An assistant district attorney arrived from downtown in the back of a police car. It was Doug Van Horn who worked for Karen Henning. He had been on duty, a job that fell to him about one night a month. He had been half asleep in his chair, half watching the small television set on his desk. Now he moved through the street taking down names, listening to explanations. According to the rules of the DA's offi
ce, whoever caught a case got to take it all the way to trial, and he was pleased. With so many cops shot this was a big case but it should be easy to win. It could make his career.

  He was the only one in the street who was pleased. It was past two A.M. before the Chief of Detectives, who lived forty miles out on Long Island, was driven up, followed by the deputy commissioner for public information who was coming from northern Westchester County, and who huddled immediately with his duty sergeant, for the sergeant, already on the scene, presumably knew something. Both men, as they conferred, anxiously eyed the small group of reporters and TV crewmen who also had gathered here in the middle of the night and who had been waiting with increasing impatience for a police spokesman to give them some kind of official report.

  The police commissioner, likewise routed from his bed, had responded not to the scene but directly to Harlem Hospital, as had the mayor, and they sat side by side in a hallway for the rest of the night, waiting to see if the various cops on the tables upstairs would live or die. This was tradition. It was considered a political necessity. Meanwhile, the cops' wives and children had been picked up at home by patrol cops in radio cars and chauffeured to the hospital. One by one they trickled in, and to each one the PC and mayor murmured consoling platitudes, while trying to look solemn and concerned.

  But most of the wives were stony faced, as if blaming the two officials for the night's events that had so altered their lives.

  About three A.M., having spent more than two hours answering the increasingly irate questions of superior officers, Muldoon appeared in the emergency room to have his scalp stitched up. His detective's shield was still pinned to the lapel of his bloody sports coat.

  The PC spied him leaving the emergency room, and hurried across.

  Muldoon was not a man to be intimidated by headquarters brass, any brass, including police commissioners, neither this one nor any other, especially not now. The role of headquarters, as he saw it, was to screw cops for the sake of political expediency, and he foresaw getting screwed over what had happened tonight.

  "You're shot, man," said the PC, who had never seen Muldoon before and had no idea what his part in the shootout had been.

  Muldoon eyed him. "I hit my head on a door.”

  "Well," said the PC, momentarily at a loss, "in that case, well, er, keep up the good work."

  Muldoon gave him a curt nod, and went out.

  Barone was waiting outside in the car. Barone had been answering questions for hours also. Together they drove downtown and found a bar that was still open, where Muldoon stared into his beer alternately muttering and cursing.

  "They're going to fuck us," he said repeatedly. "Bartender," he called, "gimme another one of these."

  Altogether he drank five beers. Barone nursed one scotch and soda. After a time Barone stood up.

  "Tomorrow's going to be worse," he advised. "Better go home and get some sleep. I'll drive you back to your car."

  Muldoon's car was across the street from the stationhouse. Barone watched him carefully as he got into it. "You sure you're all right to drive?"

  For an answer, Muldoon let out the clutch with a jerk. The tires squealed, and he took off across 135th Street in the direction of the Harlem River bridges.

  His two room apartment was in the Fordham section of the Bronx. He let himself in, went straight to the refrigerator and pulled out a six-pack, then switched on the television and found himself a place on the sofa opposite. That is, he brushed old newspapers and other trash off onto the floor, and sat down. The apartment had not been cleaned or even dusted in some weeks. He began working his way through the six-pack. About dawn he fell into a stupor that was akin to sleep.

  By then Lionel Epps had been arraigned and held without bail, and a number of investigations had been ordered and were underway. What crimes had been committed, if any? Which regulations had been broken, if any? Who was responsible and also who could it be pinned on?--not the same question by any means. How had such a fiasco happened? Which procedures should be changed so that nothing like this could happen again? What was the city at large to be told?

  The precinct commander was investigating, for he believed his job was on the line. The chief of detectives had men investigating, and he had already sacked the lieutenant who commanded the Three-Two detective squad. Phoned him up, woke him up, and when he had reached the scene told him to report to headquarters for reassignment. The borough commander was investigating also, as was the police commissioner himself. The PC had found a pay phone in the hospital corridor from which he dialed his chief of internal affairs. He woke him up and ordered him to get on it at once, to do it personally, to tell nobody, and to report to him only.

  "Do you suspect corruption, Commissioner?"

  "If there are any surprises behind this thing," the PC said in a level voice, "I want to know about them before anyone else does. Is that clear?"

  And of course the normal pre-trial investigation had been started by the district attorney's office.

  Assistant DA Van Horn had returned to his office with a notebook full of names of witnesses. Some he had already spoken to, some he had not got to yet. He waited to brief Karen Henning. As soon as she came to work he sat down in her office, they both sipped coffee, and he told her. Van Horn had a way with lurid cases and long before his description was over he had Karen shaking her head in disbelief.

  "Can I ask you a question, Karen?" Van Horn said then. "Is this my case, or what?"

  There was a pause. Karen knew very well what he was asking. It was a juicy case, would go all the way to trial, would get a lot of ink and looked easy to win. It was every prosecutor's dream of a case. In a year or two Van Horn would finish his commitment to the DA's office and go looking for a job in the private sector that paid real money. He wanted a case like this on his resume.

  Although she herself had no plans for leaving the DA's office, Karen wouldn't have minded such a case on her own resume.

  But fair was fair. "We have rules around here," she told Van Horn. "Whoever catches a case gets to try it."

  "Thank you," said Doug Van Horn.

  They looked at each other. It was understood that in the months to come he would brief her from time to time if she asked to be briefed. He might come to her if he encountered a problem of some kind. Otherwise she would not hear about the case again until it was ready for trial.

  "Who do you want to assist you?" asked Karen. Van Horn was a skilled trial lawyer and she rather liked him as well.

  "I don't know. I'll get somebody."

  "Get whoever you want."

  "I really appreciate this, Karen," said Van Horn, and he went home to bed.

  About a week passed before Karen was called into the office of Chief Assistant DA Norman Harbison, the man to whom she reported. It was Harbison, second only to the DA himself, who made most of the decisions as to how the office was staffed and run. He hired and fired, assigned people to bureaus, and sometimes overrode the decisions of the bureau chiefs and division heads. He made no attempt to be popular. He was a tall stoop shouldered individual about fifty years old. Karen thought of him as a male version of a dried up old schoolmarm.

  "I'm taking over the Lionel Epps case," Harbison said.

  No preliminaries. No: hello there, Karen. No: good morning, Karen. Just: bang: I'm taking over someone else's case.

  She had never liked Harbison, it seemed obvious that he did not like her either, but he was her superior and she had to be careful how she appeared to him, how she addressed him.

  "You shouldn't do that," Karen said.

  "I've done it."

  "It's Van Horn's case."

  "Was. It's my case now. Please call him in and inform him of my decision."

  "We have rules in this office," said Karen carefully."

  "I made the rules, I can change them."

  "Changing them is bad for morale.” Her voice was rising and she warned herself to control it.

  "People here do wha
t I tell them, or they leave."

  Karen, though she stood her ground, was silent. She wondered what was Harbison's purpose. He rarely tried cases himself. Was he thinking about his own resume? Was he planning to leave for the private sector? Perhaps he wanted a big case to run on in the next election. Perhaps he imagined he could run against the old man who was his boss and hers as well. This seemed inconceivable on the face of it, but perhaps wasn't.

  She could ask him none of these questions.

  "Van Horn's counting on it."

  "Please inform him that he's off the case."

  "I promised him the case."

  "Right, so it's up to you to tell him he's off it."

  "He'll quit."

  Harbison behind his desk was toying with a pencil. "So he quits. He'd quit in a year or two anyway."

  "We can't afford to lose him."

  Harbison shrugged. "These hot young lawyers. They don't stay. We can never keep them very long.”

  "He's the best trial attorney I have."

  "I dare say I'm a better one."

  "Are you?" said Karen.

  "Your job is not to question my decisions. Your job is to do as I what I tell you to do."

  "You want me to do your dirty work for you.”

  "He works for you. I'm ordering you to tell him he's off the case."

  "Screw you, tell him yourself," raged Karen, and she turned and left the office.

  The result was that Van Horn resigned on the spot, as did the man assisting him. Harbison as he took over could not get any of the trial attorneys to agree to assist him on the case. They all made excuses. He was having to run the office by day and work on the case at night. This gave Karen a certain smug satisfaction. She was sorry to lose Van Horn and she missed him, but as the days passed and dozens of new crimes were committed and came across her desk she put the Lionel Epps case out of her mind. She paid no attention to it in any way, it had nothing to do with her.

  Chapter 6

  Police Headquarters at 1 Police Plaza is a heavy brick cube. It is fourteen stories high, thick-walled, squat. Its windows are like gun embrasures, and it is without decoration or adornment of any kind.