Tainted Evidence

by Robert Daley

  "I require a week's recess, your honor."

  "A week?" said Judge Birnbaum.

  "Time to outfit him in new clothes. May I ask the court for the money to pay for them?"

  "I don't see where that's the court's responsibility, Mr. McCarthy.”

  "The court remanded him to jail in the first place."

  "I have a suggestion, Judge."

  "Yes, Mrs. Henning?"

  "Let whoever bought him the first six suits pay for them.”

  The judge looked thoughtful.

  "I've already spoken to the press about this," threatened McCarthy. "The press will know what to do."

  "Mrs. Henning?" said Judge Birnbaum.

  Karen had been holding a sheaf of papers; she tossed them into the air in disgust.

  The court reporter, who was transcribing the colloquy on his machine, looked up in surprise.

  McCarthy pointed a finger at him. "Let the record show that Mrs. Henning displays her contempt for these proceedings by throwing her papers in the air.”

  "No," said Karen, "let the record show that Mrs. Henning threw her papers in the air to show her contempt for certain lawyers, who are a disgrace to their profession."

  Leaving McCarthy sputtering, she walked back to her place.

  "Bring in the jury, please," called out Judge Birnbaum

  All waited until the jurors had filed into the box. The judge then addressed them: "Something has come up and I am going to declare a recess until next Monday morning. I will admonish you again. Do not listen to television reports about the case, or read news reports about the case. Do not talk to anyone about it. Do not talk about it even among yourselves."

  The bailiff held open the jurors' door and they filed through it. Muldoon got down out of the witness box, and the entire courtroom slowly emptied out.

  Chapter 14

  Barone was waiting when Karen, accompanied by Coombs, drove out onto Rikers Island the next day. The tide was out and his nostrils sucked in the odor of the mud flats. The entire island smelled like a latrine.

  They followed a corrections department captain into Facility No. l, passing through a number of barred enclosures. Jail doors clanged.

  "It really stinks out here, doesn't it," Karen murmured once. And then, when a jet went over at rooftop level: "Listen to that.”

  They were led along barred corridors to a point where they could look down into what was some sort of common room. There were TV sets high up on the walls, all blaring. Inmates were milling about talking, arguing, shouting. As always inside jails, the noise level was stupendous. Every thirty seconds another jet went by overhead.

  "They don't have much privacy," murmured Karen to Barone.

  "Most of them don't know what privacy is," he said. "They don't miss it."

  Barone already knew the facts of Epps' brawl. He was surprised that Karen had wanted to come out herself, verify it all first hand.

  "Anymore than they miss good food," said Barone. "Most of them think prison swill is terrific."

  If he himself were confined here it wasn't privacy exactly that he would miss, Barone believed, though a person certainly needed a place to go where he could be alone from time to time. He watched Karen, such a good looking woman, as she continued to peer down on all those men. More than the privacy he would miss silence. A person had a right to silence, for noise could drive one mad. At times, Barone reflected, one craved silence as much as one craved solitude, maybe more. But in this steel world there was no silent place to which one could retreat. A world of bars. A man could not pass between them, only sound could. A prison, especially this one so close to the runway, was an ocean of swelling and receding sound.

  If you were in the business of arresting people, these were not thoughts to brood over. Barone was not without sympathy for the prisoners, but he had no illusions either. They were lawbreakers one and all, and most of them were not going to change until too old or sick to commit additional crimes.

  He said, pointing: "See that wrecked phone there?”

  Karen nodded.

  "Epps was on the phone trying to call his lawyer. There was a line of men behind him waiting their turn."

  Karen nodded again. He could see her picture it.

  "McCarthy refused to talk to him."

  "You mean Justin McCarthy wouldn't take the call?" said Karen. She grinned. "Justin McCarthy? The famous civil rights lawyer? It's not possible. I can't believe it of him."

  Barone liked her a good deal at that moment. "So Epps ripped the phone off the wall," he said.

  "Look out," said Karen.

  "The inmates behind him laughed and went back to their cells," joked Barone.

  "A fight started," said the corrections Captain earnestly.

  "Epps was losing it," said Barone, "so he ran down this corridor here into this latrine.” He pointed and led the way.

  "You're sure of all this?" asked Karen, following.

  "Well, I was out here all day yesterday and again this morning. I interviewed the guards, and after them about twenty inmates. You wouldn't believe how nervous everyone was. Yeah, I'm sure.” They had given him a consultation room next to the infirmary to use as an office, and had begun bringing men in. The prisoners, all of them young blacks, were worried about being disciplined. So were the guards. The guards were blacks also, and only a little older. They were undereducated, underpaid, some with prison records themselves, he believed. He had had to joke and cajole--get each man to trust him--before he could get them to talk. It had taken patience and enormous amounts of time, great skill too, he thought, but he did not say so to Karen. He hoped she would realize it without being told.

  "Alright," said Karen, "Epps in the latrine does what?"

  "He rips that sink there off the wall to use as a weapon."

  The sink, broken into two pieces, lay on the floor.

  "He's very strong, isn't he," commented Karen.

  "He just shook it until all the pipes broke," said Barone.

  "Caused an immediate flood," said the corrections captain.

  "To which the guards reacted with their usual poise and tact," joked Barone.

  He had made Karen smile, he was pleased to see.

  "Epps is whaling away," Barone said, "the guards are clubbing people, the water is up over their shoes--what a mess."

  "While this was happening," said the corrections captain, leading them into a cell block, "part of the group ran into his cell, this one here, which was open."

  "And bye-bye the wardrobe," said Barone.

  Karen laughed, and gazed at him. He thought for a moment she might not be entirely immune to his charm after all.

  "If you really want to hurt this guy, what do you do?" Karen murmured.

  "Right," said Barone.

  "I guess he was pretty fond of his new clothes.”

  "He had never had clothes like that in his life."

  At present the cells on the block were open and empty. They all peered into the one that had been inhabited by Lionel Epps: a toilet without a seat, a bunk, a pallet of a mattress. No personal belongings. They had moved him elsewhere, obviously.

  Karen got back to business. "McCarthy says the police assaulted him."

  "That's ridiculous," said Barone, surprised.

  "Normally there are no police officers inside the facility," said the corrections captain.

  "The police were trying to kill him," said Karen.

  "Nobody would believe that," said Barone.

  "No?" said Karen.

  The corrections captain led them into the punishment block. The cells were occupied and the cell doors locked.

  "Move quick," said the captain. "They see you're a woman they're liable to start flashing you."

  A din had already gone up. Men were at the bars trying to peer down the corridor after Karen. They were calling out, banging on the bars.

  The captain led. Karen looked uncomfortable, Barone thought. She looked like a woman who had entered a men's room by mistake. She
was standing in a domain in which she had no business.

  They reached Epps's cell. He was already at the bars, and he stared out principally at Karen. After a moment she nodded at him in recognition. He did not nod back. He wore the prison uniform. There was no shirt and tie, no Brooks Brothers suit, and the horn-rimmed glasses were absent. It's good she sees him like this, Barone thought. Sees him looking like what he is.

  Karen gazed at him, and Epps stared back. His eyes were hard, unyielding. Two people who know each other, Barone reflected. One of them was inside the bars, one outside, and he imagined Karen's head filling up with emotions she could not sort out: something about men who had to be kept in cages. Barone had experienced such emotions more than once. Men who were primitive, feral, dangerous. More dangerous than beasts. But man was designed to be free. A man's imagination needed room to soar. Men did not belong in cages. Yet when they behaved like this man, what else were other men to do with them?

  He saw that it was Karen whose eyes dropped first.

  They left the island in two cars and once across in Queens stopped at a coffee shop on Ditmars Boulevard, taking a booth, the two men on opposite sides of the table sliding across the plastic to the wall, leaving Karen with a choice to make. Sit beside Barone or beside Coombs.

  She seemed to hesitate, then slid in next to Coombs. It was a small thing, not worth thinking about. Nonetheless, Barone was disappointed. What did she think would happen if she sat next to him? That he would press his leg against hers under the table? He wouldn't do a thing like that. She kept her eyes down in the menu.

  The waitress came and stood over them. They ordered coffee and it was served and they drank it.

  She and Coombs reached the office first. Barone came in a few minutes later because he had stopped to buy the afternoon newspaper, which he handed across saying: "Look at this."

  He leaned forward to read it over Karen's shoulder. Her hair smelled nice, her skin too, but he felt uncomfortable being so close, so he moved back, even though Coombs had leaned over her other shoulder and was reading too.

  The front page headline read: ASSAULT ON EPPS IN JAIL. And then in smaller type below--"McCarthy Accuses Police."

  Karen, reading, seemed to get silently furious. When she had finished she got up and walked to the window.

  "So now the jury knows why court recessed yesterday," she said.

  "But they can't possibly know," Barone solemnly intoned, trying to make her lighten up. "The judge ordered them not to read the papers.”

  "There are legal remedies," offered Coombs.

  "Sure," said Karen, who had not cracked a smile. "I can question each juror when court reconvenes."

  "Sneak any peeks into the papers over the weekend?" joked Barone.

  She looked at him, not finding him a bit amusing. He decided to drop the comedy.

  She said: "They either say no and perjure themselves--"

  "Didn't happen to glance at television, did you?" said Coombs, taking up the unappreciated joke.

  "--or yes," continued Karen, "and we have an immediate mistrial. Another month picking a new jury. A second month to get as far into the trial as we've come."

  "It's what McCarthy would do," said Coombs.

  "I'm not McCarthy."

  "No, you're not," said Barone quietly, but she ignored him. There was no reaction of any kind.

  "Stalling is his major tactic," said Coombs. "He stalls until everybody is so sick of the trial they just want it over."

  "Do you realize the cost of this thing already?" said Karen. "A new trial would last all summer."

  "How about till Christmas?" said Coombs.

  Karen smiled and gave a brief laugh. "I can certainly see the humor in all this. We're caught, aren't we? We ignore the whole thing. There's nothing else we can do."

  Just then her phone rang, and she picked it up. As soon as she realized who was calling, and why, her breath seemed to catch. Barone saw this, and wondered what it was. After listening a moment she put her hand over the receiver and looked from him to Coombs.

  "Would you excuse me a moment, please?"

  Barone got up and sauntered out of the office, but Coombs, no doubt supposing that he and Karen had no secrets from each other, stayed.

  Karen was still holding her hand over the receiver. "Larry--" she said to him. Barone saw this from the hall.

  Looking surprised, Coombs too left the office.

  As the two men paced the corridor, they could hear Karen on the phone. She seemed to be trying to keep her answers as brief and cryptic as possible, which was mysterious, to say the least.

  "The trial is in recess until Monday," they heard her say. "I'd rather not take time away from preparation right now, though...Well, under those circumstances."

  After hanging up she came out into the corridor. "I have to go out," she told Coombs. She looked at Barone too, but seemed to be trying to keep her face as expressionless as possible.

  "Something's gone wrong," Barone said.

  "No, no," she said quickly. "It's a personal matter."

  She left them and crossed the hall to the DA's office--Harbison's office. They heard her speak to the secretary.

  "Is Norm free? I need him for just a minute."

  "Gone for the day. He'll be phoning in, though. What shall I tell him?"

  They heard her hesitate. Finally she said: "It's not important."

  She came back into her office for her handbag and coat. Coombs was gone by then, but Barone, who had lingered, followed her in.

  "You're upset," he said. "I wish I could help."

  "I'm not upset.” And she smiled at him to prove she wasn't.

  "Something wrong at home?"

  "No.” Wherever she was going, she had decided to take her briefcase with her, and was stuffing things into it.

  "I have my car," said Barone. "Let me take you wherever you need to go."

  She gave him an abstracted glance. "That won't be necessary," she said, and strode toward the elevator.

  Watching her back, Barone decided she didn't like him very much.

  In the street Karen hailed a taxi and asked to be taken to the Wall Street Heliport.

  The helicopter was already waiting, its rotor idly turning. It had the New York State logo on its side. There were two pilots. One of them came down to help her up into the machine. She shook hands with that one on the tarmac, and with the other one once she was inside the cockpit.

  "I've never ridden in one of these things before," she said nervously as she strapped herself in. That she was under considerable tension had nothing to do with this being her first flight in a helicopter, and everything to do with the interview--and the possibilities--that lay ahead.

  "The flight will take about fifty minutes," the pilot said.

  She hardly heard him. Don't get your hopes up, she warned herself.

  In a moment the helicopter lifted off. In the air it tilted and seemed to skitter along at rooftop height. She was terrifically conscious of its speed. Finally it lifted. It flew up the East River and curled around the tip of Manhattan Island, and below them now was the Hudson, with the suburban towns to either side. Then the towns ended and she looked down on the heavily forested Hudson River valley.

  After a time Albany come into view ahead, and then the state capitol building. A middle sized country town with a huge building in the middle of it. A monument to some politician's grandeur. Not the present governor. Another. She had never seen the capitol building before, but recognized it at once. What else could it be?

  The helicopter set down on the capitol grounds. An official met Karen under the rotor and led her into the building.

  "The governor's waiting for you upstairs."

  She was put in the governor's waiting room, handed some magazines, and her nerves got worse. She wondered if she looked alright, but could not afford to go to the ladies room to see--the governor might come out at any moment. She wondered if she wore the proper clothes. A tweed suit. Brown shoes and h
andbag. If she had known this morning what today would bring she might have dressed differently.

  Waiting, Karen leafed through a magazine and did not see a thing in it. Finally the door opened, but it was not the governor who came out, it was Norm Harbison.

  Harbison did a double take--he was that shocked. "What are you doing here?" he said.

  The secretary's console lit up. "The governor will see you now, Mrs. Henning," she said.

  Karen was as shocked as Harbison. She didn't know what to say, and so said nothing.

  She went past him into the governor's office.

  The governor in shirtsleeves was at his desk, but he got up and came toward her. There were flags behind the desk, and plaques on the walls. Karen was trying to see and remember everything. Or perhaps she was merely bewildered and unable to focus. There were two aides in the room, but seated some distance back, almost in shadow. One had a notebook open on his knee. She was introduced to them; neither said anything at all.

  She was directed to take a chair in front of the desk. This was followed by a silence as if the governor didn't know what to say or do next.

  He then asked if she was comfortable in that chair. She said quite comfortable. He asked if her flight up the Hudson had been comfortable. She said yes, very comfortable. They nodded at each other.

  The governor began to apologize for bringing her up here on such short notice. He said it was incumbent upon him to appoint an interim district attorney as quickly as possible. No matter how she tried to concentrate, Karen was having difficulty tracking him. He said something like that, perhaps not those exact words. He did actually use the word incumbent. He said how important the appointment was that he would have to make. One of the most important of his administration. Haste was important too. He spoke about ships without rudders. He said he didn't mean haste, actually. But the appointment had to be made with all due dispatch. At no time did he say he was considering appointing Karen, and because of this her nervousness left her and she became annoyed at herself. It was precisely because of the haste that she had dared to imagine she was really a candidate. How silly can you get, she thought.

  There was another rather long silence.