VC01 - Privileged Lives

by Edward Stewart

  A cool breeze of perfumed air conditioning fanned her face.

  The young druggist behind the counter looked at her wheelchair with frank curiosity. “Help you?” he offered.

  Babe took the bottle from her purse. “I phoned the manufacturer,” she said. “They told me they sold this lot number to you.”

  The smile on the druggist’s face dimmed. His hair was richly dark and clipped almost in a crew cut. His face betrayed a residual sprinkling of teenage acne. His eyes met Babe’s for just a second longer than necessary. “It’s possible,” he said.

  “Is there some way you can check?”

  A frown slipped across his face. “I can see if it’s in the computer,” he said doubtfully.

  “I’d be grateful,” Babe smiled.

  He went behind a glass partition and two minutes later he came back holding what looked like a three-inch cash register printout. “We filled this prescription almost six years ago.”

  Babe’s heart gave a skip behind her ribs. “Could you tell me who you filled it for?”

  32

  “YOUR HONOR, THIS IS a wholly improper arrest,” Ted Morgenstern’s voice boomed into the half-empty courtroom. Cords stood out at the base of his extraordinarily wrinkled neck. “Lieutenant Cardozo interrogated Mr. Loring without counsel and without advising him of his Miranda rights.”

  Watching Morgenstern, Cardozo felt a sort of weary, sick recognition: not only of the face that was never without a tan, the hawk eyes, the thin nose and lips, the gray-fuzzed shaven head crossed with wrinkles and scars, but of the delivery, the cranked-up outrage, the whole farce of legal nit-picking that masqueraded as a struggle against injustice.

  Lucinda MacGill, tall, showing a mouthful of fine white teeth, moved with a tennis pro’s grace toward the bench. Her hair bounced lightly. “Your Honor, Lieutenant Cardozo wasn’t obliged to read Mr. Loring his rights until arresting him.”

  “From the moment Lieutenant Cardozo waved a warrant in my client’s face, Mr. Loring was effectively under arrest!” Morgenstern made a heroic gesture that threw open the jacket of his tux, revealing mother-of-pearl shirt studs and a blue silk cummerbund. It was unlikely dress for court, but Counselor Morgenstern obviously had no time to rush home and change before tonight’s dinner-and-dancing date.

  Behind Judge Joseph Martinez’s eyes was a sudden flare-up of interest. He lifted his chin and cocked his head slightly to one side, arching his graying moustache. “At what time did Lieutenant Cardozo wave an arrest warrant in Mr. Loring’s face?”

  Cardozo rose from the front row of pale varnished benches. “Shortly after ten this morning Claude Loring was shown a warrant issued by Judge Levin.”

  Judge Martinez’s eyes were cold and assessing. “When did you read him his rights?”

  “After talking with him and determining there was cause for arrest.”

  “What time, Lieutenant?”

  “Around noon.”

  “By which time,” Ted Morgenstern broke in, “Mr. Loring was suffering acute methaqualone poisoning.”

  Lucinda MacGill stood there, tall, light-haired, alert and sharp. “The police did not drug Mr. Loring. He went to the men’s room and drugged himself.”

  “One thing at a time, Counselor. Did Lieutenant Cardozo interrogate Claude Loring for two hours without reading him his Miranda or allowing him counsel?”

  “Five hours, Your Honor,” Ted Morgenstern interrupted. “I didn’t see my client until three o’clock this afternoon at Saint Clare’s Hospital.”

  Cardozo’s eyes connected with Morgenstern’s and hate flashed between them. The emotion was more than personal: it was a natural instinct, an antipathy between alien species.

  They both knew the city: who the players were, how things got done, what worked. The difference between them was that they played on different teams for different rewards. Morgenstern had the notoriety, the plugs in gossip columns, the town house in the East Sixties, the dukes and duchesses to dinner, the limo. Cardozo had the citation for bravery, the forty-seven thousand salary, the walkup apartment, Mrs. Epstein going dutch with him on lamb chops, the Honda Civic.

  “For three hours no one could see Mr. Loring because he was unconscious,” Lucinda MacGill said. “That was Mr. Loring’s choice.”

  The judge’s head had tipped back, his mouth slightly open. “It’s the police’s duty to safeguard any person in their custody. In this duty, as in his Miranda obligations, Lieutenant Cardozo conspicuously failed.”

  Without a beat of hesitation Ted Morgenstern stepped forward. “Your Honor, I request that this charge be dismissed.”

  “Murder one? Dream on, Counselor.”

  “In that case I request reasonable bail for Claude Loring.”

  Lucinda MacGill stepped toward the bench. “The people oppose bail for Claude Loring. He’s a sociopath, impulsive and unreliable. To free him before trial could put innocent citizens at risk and it could result in his absconding.”

  “Your Honor, it could be a year or more before this case comes to trial. Are the police asking a South African-style preventive detention?”

  “Your Honor, I resent the attempt to turn this arrest into an act of political repression. Mr. Loring is accused of a serious and brutal charge, the taking of an innocent human life.”

  “Genug, young lady.” Judge Martinez waved an impatient hand. “Let’s weigh risks. There’s the risk society faces if Mr. Loring is free on bail. As he has no previous record, that risk is minimal. Then there’s the risk Mr. Loring faces if he remains in police custody. So long as we have right-thinking gay-bashing hombres like Lieutenant Cardozo on our force, that risk is considerable. Bail of one hundred thousand dollars is granted.”

  Outside the courtroom, Cardozo’s white-knuckled fist came up and slammed into the wall.

  He stood there a moment, hardly breathing, hardly moving. The light slanting down from the fluorescent strip in the ceiling flickered.

  A chip of plaster flaked down.

  He punched the wall again.

  Cardozo was reading the five on Midge Bailey, a new homicide.

  No sign of forced entry, of struggle or violence. Nothing missing from the apartment. Eighty-seven dollars and a VISA card and a MasterCard in her purse.

  The woman next door had been almost apologetic for having called the police. The dog was howling. The door was open.

  Cardozo studied the crime scene photos of the fifty-five-year-old housewife. He had spent his career digging around in the mud of low tide, but when he saw a human being worked over the way someone had gone over Mrs. Bailey, he realized he knew nothing whatsoever about the things that crawled on the ocean floor.

  The phone gave two sharp clangs. He reached over, dragging it closer by the cord, lifting the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Lieutenant Cardozo?” A woman. Cultivated voice.

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Babe Devens.”

  Cardozo settled himself back in his chair. “Well, hello.”

  “Am I calling at a bad time?”

  “You’re calling at an excellent time. What’s the trouble?”

  “If you have time, I’d like to talk to you.”

  “I have time,” he said. “Talk.”

  “Could we meet?”

  “Mrs. Devens, what are you doing in half an hour?” He knew a restaurant on Sixty-seventh Street: bad food, watered booze, good privacy. “There’s a place near here called Danny’s.”

  Cardozo walked up Lexington toward Danny’s Bar and Grill, not thinking about Midge Bailey, not minding the mugginess, not minding the red light that stopped him on Sixty-sixth, enjoying the sunshine and the skimpy, bright clothes on the women.

  Danny’s was almost deserted this time of the day, and Cardozo was aware of a tight expectancy in his chest as he pushed through the door into the air-conditioned dimness.

  The late afternoon light made the restaurant a mysterious dark blue pool. A few early drinkers had taken up places at the b
ar, huddled in their separate solitudes. A jukebox was crooning softly.

  When his tired eyes adjusted he could see down the rows of deserted tables. There was sunlight in the window and it outlined Babe Devens sitting at a far table.

  She saw him, and a nervously ingratiating smile flashed across her face.

  “Good to see you up and around,” Cardozo said.

  “I’m around.” She tapped her armrest. She was sitting in a wheelchair. “Not quite up yet.”

  “That’ll come in no time.” He pulled out a chair and sat down facing her. “You’re looking terrific.”

  “Thanks. I have a feeling if I can stay far away from hospitals, I might learn how to live again.”

  The owner, a burly Irishman with enormous sideburns, came over to take their orders.

  “What are you having?” she asked Cardozo.

  “A draft Michelob.”

  She said she’d have the same. He hadn’t figured her for the draft beer type, but when Danny brought the drafts he liked the way she drank hers and seemed to enjoy the taste.

  “What’s the trouble?” he asked.

  “It’s not exactly a police matter. It’s just that you helped me, and I wanted to thank you in person, and …” She pushed her glass around on the table. “I’ve been trying to see the records of Scottie’s second trial. They’re sealed.”

  Cardozo frowned.

  “It isn’t usual, is it, to seal court records?”

  “Not unless you’re a Kennedy and you accidentally drowned a campaign worker who absolutely was not your mistress and the judge is a friend of the family.”

  “Scottie doesn’t have that kind of clout.”

  How pretty she is, Cardozo thought, the soft blond hair slanting across her forehead and the large inquiring eyes fixing him with their cool wondering stare, and the bright mouth, silent and expectant now.

  “Your daughter was a minor at the time,” he said. “The judge might have been protecting her from publicity.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. She was a minor during the first trial, and those records aren’t sealed.”

  That stopped Cardozo for a moment. He tried to match the precociously sexy model in the Babethings ads, the teasing face, the seminude glossy body peeling out of the hip-hugging jeans, with his notion of childhood. Cordelia couldn’t have been older than fourteen when those ads began. “There could have been new evidence introduced in the second trial—testimony that gave evidence of another crime, or prejudiced a case already in the courts, or libeled somebody. Hard to say. Judges have pretty broad leeway. They don’t often seal records, but when they do they’re not called to account for their decision.”

  “Is there any way I could get to those records?”

  “You could sue. You could petition the court.”

  Frustration showed in her face. “Lieutenant Cardozo—”

  “I wish you’d call me Vince.”

  “If you call me Babe.”

  “Okay, Babe.”

  “Vince—”

  That first names broke the odd little pocket of tension that had built up. She smiled, and he had a sense she would be a very easy person to be with.

  “You testified at the first trial,” she said. “Did you testify at the second?”

  “The honor of my presence was not requested at the second. By then the fix was in.”

  “The verdict was rigged?”

  “What verdict? The state bought the plea bargain.”

  “How was that arranged?”

  “Your husband’s attorney made the D.A. an offer and the D.A. accepted. In my opinion the state had the evidence to lock your husband up and in the second trial they threw it away.”

  She was looking at him. Her eyes were not saying anything. He could sense that inside this lovely quiet woman there was a huge amount of determination.

  “At the first trial Cordelia was the only eyewitness against Scottie,” she said. “He was convicted on her testimony. But at the second trial that conviction was reversed. And Cordelia’s testimony is sealed. Why? What did she say?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?”

  “She doesn’t remember.”

  “Doesn’t remember or doesn’t want to?”

  “A little of both, I think. It was too painful for her.”

  Cardozo nodded. “I can see that. A lot of people abandoned your little girl. By the way, who took care of her?”

  “My parents raised her. But legally she was the ward of a family friend—Billi von Kleist.”

  Cardozo’s eyebrows went up. “Why did she have a guardian?”

  “Scottie and I were almost killed in a car crash—our fault, we were driving drunk. Billi was a good friend, and we thought in case anything ever really happened to us, there should be someone to look after Cordelia. Billi adored her, and she adored him, and so I appointed Billi. I never thought it would actually come to pass. But then I went into coma, and Scottie was charged, so Billi became Cordelia’s legal guardian.”

  “But Von Kleist let your parents take care of her?”

  “He’s not a family man. All he really wanted to be was a friend to her. The sort my parents could never be.”

  “You don’t think too highly of your parents.”

  “I think they’re confused people. They mix up the nineteenth century with the twentieth. I think they put Cordelia up to testifying against Scottie. They’ve always disliked him. I think Cordelia lied in the first trial and told the truth in the second.”

  “What truth?”

  “I think she cleared Scottie.”

  Cardozo shook his head. “No way.”

  “Scottie was framed,” Babe said.

  “You really want to believe that.”

  “It’s not just because I want to believe it.” She opened her purse and placed a small blue bottle on the table. “Somebody put this in a box beside my bed after the first trial. Insulin. A friend of mine by the name of Dina Alstetter found it. She mentioned it in a magazine article. The article was quoted in a book that smeared Scottie. The author of that book is a man named Gordon Dobbs.”

  “Gordon Dobbs,” Cardozo said thoughtfully. He turned the bottle in his hand, studying the faded label and the still-legible lot number. “Well well.”

  “He told me my parents paid him to write the book.”

  “Not surprising. They were out to get Devens. They paid a retired police detective too.” Cardozo kept turning the bottle, studying it. “Where did you get this insulin?”

  “My mother let Dina keep it and Dina gave it to me.”

  “Peculiar,” Cardozo said. “Why didn’t your mother give it to the police?”

  “I don’t think this bottle existed when the police were investigating. I think this bottle came later—when Scottie appealed.”

  Cardozo studied the lot number on the label and then he held the bottle upside down, testing the seal.

  “The manufacturer gave me the name of the pharmacy that bought it,” Babe said. “The pharmacist won’t say who he sold it to. He says records are confidential.”

  “Pharmacy records aren’t confidential,” Cardozo said. “Not from the police.”

  “If someone did plant this bottle—”

  “All it would prove is that someone planted this bottle after you went into coma.”

  “But doesn’t it prove he’s innocent? If Scottie were guilty, why would anyone have to plant proof?”

  “There could be reasons. It’d be a sure way to create doubt about his guilt.”

  She shook her head. “There’s no doubt about that. I had lunch with Scottie. I asked outright if he’d tried to kill me. He said he had.”

  “So he finally got honest. I guess that settles it.”

  “Not the way you think. I was married to Scott Devens for five years. I know when he’s telling the truth and I know when he’s lying. When he said he’d tried to kill me, I saw something in his eyes, I saw it written on his face. Maybe that sounds strange to you, but I’m an
artist. I have a trained eye, I see things that most people miss.”

  “What was this something you saw in Scott Devens’s face that the rest of us missed?”

  “I saw a Scottie I’d never seen before—a man who can’t stand up for anything—not for his own feelings or convictions and worst of all not even for himself or for the truth. He doesn’t respect himself anymore. He’s sold out. He’s not the Scottie I married.”

  “So he’s lying?”

  She nodded.

  “Isn’t that a very peculiar lie to tell?”

  “He knows how to make me hate him.”

  “And do you? Hate him?”

  “I hate him for thinking so little of me he could imagine I’d believe him. And I hate him for thinking so little of himself that he’d allow his good name to be taken from him.”

  “Why would he do it?”

  “I guess he’s always wanted an easy, glamorous life. Now he has one. Maybe he was paid.”

  “Who paid him?”

  “I don’t know. Who profits besides Scottie if Scottie lies? The only person I can think of is the person who—” Her words broke off.

  “The person who tried to kill you?”

  She sighed. “Do you think I’m crazy?”

  “I think you have some interesting ideas.” Cardozo held the clear colorless liquid in the bottle up to the light. “What did you say the name of that pharmacy was?”

  “You sold this,” Cardozo said. “Who bought it?” The druggist took the insulin bottle. His frowning eyes traveled from the label to Cardozo’s shield. He went wordlessly behind a glass wall and Cardozo watched him push buttons on a desktop computer.

  A machine made muffled tap-dancing noises. The druggist returned and, still saying nothing, handed Cardozo a three-inch printout. Cardozo’s eyes skimmed the dot-matrix letters that spelled Provence Pharmacy and the lot number of the insulin, followed by the name of the prescribing doctor and the prescription number.

  The name Faith S. Banks leapt off the paper, jabbing him between the eyes like a fork prong.

  He stood frozen, recognizing that something was very much off. His mind backed up six and a half years. Banks had been Babe Vanderwalk’s maid. Her evidence had been central to the case against Scottie Devens. She’d found the brown bag in Devens’s closet and given it to the Vanderwalks’ private investigator. It had held the syringe, insulin, and liquid Valium.