Tainted Evidence

by Robert Daley

  "I need a shower too," he said, "move over."

  He began to soap her back, and then the rest of her too, in a friendly, familiar but non passionate way. "I have a confession to make to you," he said conversationally. When she looked sharply up at him over her shoulder, he added: "It's not about this. I never dreamed this would happen. I still can't believe it actually did. It's about something else."

  She liked his hands on her.

  "I want to ask a favor of you."

  Her eyes were already closed and she was scarcely listening.

  "It's about Dan Muldoon."

  Again she half turned and looked up at him.

  "They're going to bring Danny up on charges," he said. "I was hoping you could do something for him."

  "Charges?"

  "Bullshit things."

  She was offended at the word--it made her feel common. It seemed to show a lack of respect for her office, for her personally as well. It seemed to proclaim an intimacy which did not exist between them. Yet how much more intimate could they get? These were thoughts that did not make much sense to her. She was confused. She did not really know this man. She should not be standing in a shower with him, he should be calling her Mrs. District Attorney from the witness box, or from the other side of a desk.

  While she tried to puzzle all this out, Barone was describing the department's case against Muldoon. "It's all bullshit," he said. "If you were to go to bat for Danny the department would pull back completely."

  She was annoyed that he would ask such a thing. It was as if on the basis of a few minutes in bed he had asked to borrow money. But at the same time she was inclined to admire his loyalty, his earnest defense of his friend.

  "I can't do that," she said.

  "Why not?"

  "Because I can't."

  "You don't want to."

  "Alright, I don't want to."

  He studied her face long enough to know how serious she was, then grinned at her. "Forget I asked," he said.

  She wished he would get out of the shower now so she could get out herself, and that he would get dressed and leave. Instead he began soaping her body again. He had pulled her to him again, her back to his front, her shoulder blades against his chest. He was soaping her breasts, the insides of her thighs, he was soaping her all over, with the inevitable result. First her eyes closed and then her heart began to thump in her chest, and then she realized she had got all excited again, uselessly so, she supposed, for he could not possibly be, not so soon, and being unable to do anything he would leave her unfulfilled in this new state of tension. His knees were pressing against the backs of her knees, she felt that, and then she felt another pressure, pressing against the cleft of her buttocks.

  "Well, well, well," she said. "What have we here?"

  He half carried her out of the shower. They didn't bother to dry off but began again on the bathmat beside the tub. The mat was none too thick or comfortable, and the water continued to pound down inside the shower curtain beside them.

  "So will you at least think about Danny."

  It felt like he was driving her into the floor. "Shut up," she said.

  They moved back amid the tangled sheets only when she protested that the floor was too hard. In bed he went on pumping away, he was quite remarkable she supposed, even as she began to get sore, until finally she said, "stop, that's enough.”

  She stood up. "It's late, you better go."

  He took it well. "Yes, I don't want to be late for dinner."

  She put a bathrobe on and left the room, having no desire to watch him dress, and afraid he might want to start up again. When he came out he was knotting his tie and he reached to kiss her. She permitted this, why not, it was much less trouble than refusing, and having to explain her newly found reluctance, which she herself didn't understand.

  "I think I'm in love with you."

  "That's nice," she said, meaning the opposite. "Do you always fall in love so easily?"

  "It's not so easy. I've been fighting it for months."

  This declaration produced a kind of elation in Karen, a warm rush of affection for him too, reactions that shocked her. A declaration of love meant, or at least implied, that now he would pursue her, try to make her to love him back. It was impossible. Frightening too. It was simply not possible.

  "You're a remarkable woman."

  "Thank you."

  "Can I come back tomorrow?"

  "No you can't.” She led him to the door where she hesitated a moment before speaking again.

  She stood with an accordion envelope full of papers in her hands: "It's my turn to ask you a favor."

  "I'm crazy about you," he said. "You can ask me anything you like."

  "My driver is waiting down in the street. You've been up here two hours or more. I'd rather he didn't get any ideas.” She thrust the envelope at him. These were documents she had hoped to work on this weekend. She knew she would never get to them now. "Maybe my driver's asleep, but if he sees you come out carrying papers, maybe he'll imagine we were working hard up here."

  Barone smiled. "And so we were."

  This response annoyed her. "Take these papers back to my office and put them on my secretary's desk."

  "That's all?"

  "They have to go back anyway.” They didn't, but what did he know? "Someone's coming by to get them later.” Also a lie, but it was the best she could think of. It was all she could think of.

  He said: "It's a pretty easy favor."

  In the doorway she wanted to tell him to please not brag to anyone about what had happened, but could not speak the words such a request required.

  "Danny's in pretty bad shape," he said.

  "I can't help that."

  When she had let him out into the corridor he glanced hurriedly around, saw that it was empty, and took her in his arms and kissed her again. This time she did not respond.

  "Think about Danny."

  After closing the door she sat down in the living room and stared at the walls. Her entire body was sore. Her body revolted her. Her conduct revolted her. She heard herself muttering endearments to this man she hardly knew. She had assumed every obscene pose he requested. She had moaned and groaned and begged. Why? It was not sexual ecstasy, she had had that before and knew very well what it was, but sexual delirium, which she had never had before. What had made her behave that way? Nor did she knew what she felt for this man now. At a certain moment she had wanted to cry out: Oh I love you, I love you. The words wanted to burst out of her of their own accord. She had barely stopped them.

  Thoughts of the trial came back, the absence after three days of any verdict. What could the jurors thinking about, what were they talking about? They must want to get it over with as much as she. What was there to decide? Epps had fired on cops, wounding five. This had never been disputed.

  So why was there still no verdict?

  She went into the bedroom to strip the sheets and on the bedside table saw the half opened condom. She stared at it a moment, before bending to tug off the sheets. She stuffed them into a pillowcase, threw the bundle on the floor of the closet, and remade the bed, and when she had finished the condom was still there beside the lamp. Perhaps she should pin it to her chest like a soldier's medal. Or they could have a ceremony in which Barone could do it. Memento from combat. Distinguished service cross. Bravery in the face of the enemy. To her it seemed a memento not so much of shame as of what lawyers called irreversible error. Sex: the world's greatest narcotic. Better than alcohol, better than drugs, because it absorbed one's total concentration, and for a while at least made everything else unimportant. It could take you up high, though at times like this it could drop you even father. She touched the condom with one finger. He could have infected her with some disease, even AIDS. Unlikely. And at this moment she certainly felt healthy enough. Or suppose she was pregnant. Unlikely also, it was the second day after her period. She wasn't going to think such thoughts. She turned them off. She had enough to th
ink about. She picked up the half torn package, carried it by one corner into the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet.

  She wanted to go home but her arms and shoulders ached, her crotch, and probably there were bruises on her body that she would not be able to explain. Her face felt raw too. So she could not go home. In addition she could not have faced Hank. She had never understood adultery before, hardly believing it to be the crime the law pretended, that people pretended. Gave lip service to, anyway. She saw the gravity of it now. It was not the acts one performed with another, but the degree of intimacy one permitted another, the turning of one's total being toward another, so that for a time the old marriage ceased to exist, as hers did not exist at this moment. The old marriage would have to be remade later, if possible. It could be remade if one party never found out, and the other could succeed at pretense. It would take time, and there would be a strangeness that the betrayed party would certainly feel. And the result would be a different marriage from what it had been.

  At supper time she called home. Hank answered. Even speaking to him across a telephone line was hard, and the conversation was brief enough. She spoke to each of her children, trying to be interested in what they told her, trying to be cheerful.

  "When are you coming home, Mom?"

  "Soon."

  That was Jackie. But Hillary asked the same. "When are you coming home, Mom?"

  She had never imagined she would be gone this long. "Soon. The jury can't stay out much longer."

  She ached to hold them in her arms, as if this might make her feel more like a mother again, if not a wife. Instead, after a few minutes conversation, she hung up the phone.

  She prepared supper for herself, but ate very little. At nine o'clock her office called: the jury had retired for the night.

  "All right," she said, "dismiss my driver.” She might have gone downstairs and dismissed him herself but chose not to. In a sense she was hiding from him too. Let the office do it by radio. "Tell him to be back at nine AM tomorrow."

  She went to bed, but got little sleep.

  The next morning, Sunday, she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror and saw, or thought she saw, dark circles under her eyes. She got dressed and went downstairs and her car was there. She leaned in the window. "I'm going to church."

  "Get in," said Detective McGillis. "I'll drive you."

  Karen had no desire to get out of a limousine in front of the church. She said: "It's two blocks away. If anything comes over, come in and get me.” Nothing would come over this early. The jury was in a hotel and had first to be driven back to the courthouse. They would be brought coffee, and only then begin to deliberate. Obviously they were still far from a verdict. If they had been at all close they would have come to it last night, and announced it so they could go home.

  People had congregated outside the church. They were filing inside. She was immediately recognized. People nudged each other. She heard the whispers, sensed the stares. She went in, sidled into a pew, knelt down and tried to pray, or perhaps only communicate with herself. The new her. It seemed to her that she now existed on a different level from yesterday. If she was capable of yesterday with Barone, what else was she capable of? She felt she had committed a great evil. If betrayal of a loved one, and of a duty, was not evil, what was? She felt severely shaken, and prayers would not come. As a girl she had been devout. She had loved the white dresses and veils, the clasped hands, the sound the organ made. Nowadays, apart from midnight mass at Christmas, which she liked, and high mass at Easter which she also liked, she did not go to church very often, and did not insist her children go. In a world where countries continued to blow each other up every year, in a city where Harlem teenagers machine gunned each other to death every day, the church seemed increasingly irrelevant. To a mother trying to raise her children, a celibate clergy had nothing to say.

  Nonetheless, she was hoping for a message of some kind, she supposed, but people stared at her throughout the mass and the meaning of the prayers continued to elude her.

  "Lord I am not worthy," the priest intoned, and the congregation, Karen among them, responded: "Lord I am not worthy."

  The mass ended and she walked back to the apartment and began to wait.

  Noon came. Nothing. Two PM.

  She phoned her office seeking news, any news, even rumors. To her surprise she got Coombs.

  "What are you doing there?"

  "Biting my fingernails, what else?"

  "Go home. Go to a ball game. Watch television. Don't hang around there."

  "I couldn't help it. I had to come in, find out if anyone knew anything."

  "All right," said Karen. "What's the latest rumor from outside the jury room."

  "They've asked to see the guns again. And the documents."

  "The guns? What for?"

  "Who knows?"

  Another hour passed. She turned on the television. The Yankees were playing somewhere. It was cold, wherever it was, and the wind was blowing. She watched a few innings, then turned it off again. Hank was taking his team to a swim meet in Albany today. He was lucky, he was a man with something to occupy his time.

  She had postponed thinking about Barone. He would come here again tonight, she was certain of it. This thought became more and more insistent. She got more and more tense. Because she had told him not to come he would not call first. He would simply come to the door. The bell would ring and she would open it and it would be him. He would reach for her, probably imagining he could tear her clothes off and she would love it. If she knew him at all that's the way he would think.

  Her reaction would be--what?

  She had no intention of repeating yesterday. It would be better if she were not here at all. She could go down to her car, go for a drive. She could go out to the movies. The trouble was she did not know what time he would come, and in fact was surprised he had waited this long. How much longer would he wait, make her wait? If she went out, he could be waiting when she came back. She would have to come back sometime. By going out she would have accomplished nothing.

  She was not afraid of him. She was not going to run away. She would face him when he came. She would invite him in and tell him firmly that yesterday was a mistake, that she would not see him again, please go home.

  Would he accept that?

  He was not a violent man. Of that she was sure. He was really rather gentle. He was really rather sweet.

  When it was dinner time she found she could not eat.

  Her office called. The jury had retired for the night.

  She was as certain as before that Barone would come, and that when he did she would send him away. The only question was when would he come. She wondered what was keeping him. She took a shower, bathing herself carefully, and afterwards put on a satin dressing gown her children had given her on her last birthday. She liked the way it molded her body. She liked the way it felt on her bare skin. She saw no reason why it should give Barone ideas. She could tell him no just as successfully this way as fully dressed, and then, as soon as he had gone, go to bed and to sleep. She began pacing up and down. What was keeping him?

  The doorbell rang. She went to it. Her heart was pounding. It seemed to be pounding not only in her chest but in her ears, her arms, behind her eyes. She opened the door.

  "Hi there," he said, "can I come in?"

  Chapter 22

  Assistant DA Dick Shroeder spoke: "The deceased was an 83 year old woman who was known to keep large sums of money in her apartment. She was found stabbed and slashed. Yeah, I went up there. It was pretty bad."

  This was the weekly meeting of the chief homicide prosecutors. A dozen young assistants sat around the conference table. This group was no longer Karen's business except in the broad sense, Tananbaum was in charge now, but she was there, a legal pad in front of her, because the alternative was to sit alone in her own office worrying about a jury that was still nowhere near a verdict apparently, worrying even more than that about herself and the act
s--she thought of them today as crimes--of which she had proven to be capable.

  "The crime took place where?" she said.

  "The East Side," answered Schroeder.

  Karen was surprised. "Not Harlem?"

  "No, no. Rich man's country,"

  For such a vicious crime, this was rare.

  Karen wore a freshly pressed green suit over a white blouse that she had ironed carefully this morning, and more makeup than was for her normal, her face carefully made up to conceal what she considered to be the ravages of last night.

  "Continue," Karen said.

  "The two defendants, a man and a woman, are both white, both addicts," Schroeder said. "The man, known as the Slasher, has a record of prior arrests and convictions that runs to five pages."

  To sit at the head of the table which, over her protests, was where the others had made her sit, had raised Karen's spirits somewhat. That all of them continued to defer to her made her feel better. Hundreds of people worked for her. She was district attorney of New York County.

  The meeting had been going an hour. Although the crimes described had been heinous one after the other, there had been many laughs, but no one was laughing now.

  "Needing money for drugs," Schroeder said, "the Slasher and his girlfriend worked out a plan. The girl, a friend of the old lady's granddaughter, would go up to the apartment, knock and go in. Before the door closed, the Slasher would run in with his knife, threaten the old lady and rob her. That way the old lady would not know they were together. But what actually happens is a little different. The girl does enter the apartment, calling out: Nanny, I've come to visit you. But the Slasher walks in with her."

  "They didn't keep to the plan," murmured Karen. No matter what one's mood or physical well being, the business of the office went on.

  "This is my brother, says the girl. Well, it was the best she could think of on short notice. The so-called brother then grabs the old woman from behind, tries to smother her, then knifes her.” Schroeder looks up from his notes. "He also broke her jaw and her shoulder."