False Witness

by Uhnak, Dorothy

  “Have you briefed Jim Barrow, Lynne? Are you keeping him up to date on all this?”

  “I was intending to; meaning, of course, no, I haven’t been right upfront with Jim. But I called him for a meeting just before you asked me to come up here. Want to sit in on it? I was going to Jim’s office, but if you’d rather, I’m sure he’ll come over here.”

  “No, I think not at this point. I do think that search warrants are in order: Dr. Cohen’s residence; his place out in the Hamptons; his office at Columbia Presbyterian; his office at New York Hospital.”

  “In the works. I figured I’d ask Chief Barrow to assign people for the searches. Just so he won’t feel too left out. With my people on the scene, of course.”

  “Well, you have a busy schedule and I don’t want to keep you, Lynne. Just be sure you keep me updated.” The District Attorney stood and seemed about to escort me from his office, but his hesitation was totally expected. I just wondered when he would slip it in.

  “Lynne, about this television documentary thing. With Glori Nichols. I think I should tell you something.”

  “Oh, please, Mr. Hale. Not an intimate confidence.”

  Ordinarily, I wouldn’t get away with a crack like that. My heart felt like lead. Jameson Whitney Hale smiled and waved away my suggestion as foolish rather than showing an angry reaction to a presumptuous remark.

  “Lynne, when, and if—but probably when is the operative word—I announce for the Senate, Glori ... Ms. Nichols will be my public relations director. She is good at what she does; she is a strong professional. And we have also discussed your future position.”

  “Really? How interesting.”

  The District Attorney switched to careful New Englandese, which is sharp, clipped, precise and demanding. “What is it with you, Lynne? Do you have something personal against Glori? Since I will be working rather closely with her in the future and since I will be backing you when I make my public declaration and since there must be a certain cohesiveness among the people I am associated with, I think we should clear things up. What’s it all about?”

  I shrugged.

  Suddenly, he sounded fatherly. Amused and fatherly. He almost put an arm around me: good old Dad.

  “Lynne, is it just one of those ‘woman-things’?”

  Oh shit. How the hell do you answer a question like that: one of those woman-things. Visions of long intimate conversations between ethereal creatures, drifting along early morning beaches in the clean fresh air, discussing such woman-things as feminine hygiene, flashed through my brain.

  “There seems to be a rather complex if unstated incompatibility of personalities, Mr. Hale. I’m not at all sure what Ms. Nichols has in mind. But I couldn’t possibly allow her to intrude with a camera crew on any of the workings of my office. That would be ludicrous to say the least. And foolish and possibly dangerous professionally. I hardly imagine you’d sanction an ‘open-office’ policy.”

  “What she has in mind,” he explained to me, “isn’t an intrusion on any of the confidential spheres of your job, Lynne. She described it to me as a sort of cinéma-vérité with accent on the overall scope of your job. You’d be seen in conference with your staff and visiting the scene of a crime, talking to witnesses. No actual sound, of course. Possibly checking with your people in the field, that sort of thing. What she wants to show is a woman in charge of men in a traditionally male-dominated occupation. I should think, given your background, you’d be delighted to cooperate. It would be a marvelous opportunity to show you as a very accomplished, experienced, professional prosecutor. She’d bring in your background in the narrative. Voice-over, I think she called it.”

  Oh, Whitney Hale, you are learning all about television. How wonderful.

  “And she’d be showing that you are totally qualified and capable of assuming the demands of the office of District Attorney. You could not possibly buy that kind of publicity, Lynne.”

  Just what I needed: Glori Nichols’ stamp of approval. What I had worked for for fourteen years.

  “But she won’t give me any kind of editorial assurance, Mr. Hale. What if things don’t turn out the way you’re describing? What if something backfires and she’s got it on film or tape or whatever? What if it would make a better story for her if I were to screw up on something? Rather than to succeed. Have you considered that possibility, sir? Her goal is a story.”

  The District Attorney sighed and shook his head and showed his sadness and disappointment.

  “Oh Lynne, Lynne. I think sometimes that we—all of us—are so constantly exposed to the suspicious, the double-talk, the devious, that we look for the devils behind every spoken word and in every suggestion offered.”

  “Which, I believe, is the natural function of a prosecutor.”

  “Lynne, her purpose in this film is not to ‘do you in’ somehow, but to praise you, to show you as one of three women of great strength and achievement and ability and determination. Women who have held their own during the years when they—you—were substantially alone, without the backing of a women’s movement. Real heroines: those of you who had the fortitude and determination to act on your own. Will you meet with her and discuss this?”

  Real heroines. Now I was a heroine from yesteryear. Terrific.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  Jameson Whitney Hale did not answer. He just kept staring at me. His look suggested disappointment but at the same time confidence. Lynne would come through somehow; she always had; she always would.

  “All right, as soon as I have a free moment. But I’m going to be very tied up for a while on the Dawson case.”

  “Lynne. The Dawson case.” He came and stood beside me, his hand on my shoulder, gently pushing me to the door. “This could be a tremendously important case for you. In the public eye: a total media event. It could be the very thing that would put you over.”

  Now, that was not my Jameson Whitney Hale speaking. It was her Jameson Whitney Hale. Definitely, this man was smitten.

  “Find a moment within the next day or two,” he advised me with a smile. A cold, positive, assured smile.

  “Yes, sir. I will do just that.”

  Like hell I would.

  CHAPTER 28

  IT HAD BEEN A long and unpleasant and exhausting session with Chief of Detectives Jim Barrow and several of his top people. I went alone and sat feeling physically and emotionally small, surrounded by his staff of six-foot detectives with wounded faces. It wasn’t that I had been withholding anything from Barrow; it was just that I hadn’t been sharing fully. I was alone in a room filled with offended giants of delicate sensibility.

  It took an hour to update them and during all that time, I did most of the talking and Jim and his henchmen stared and glanced at each other at statements they apparently considered significant.

  Finally, I confronted one of his top investigators, a huge red-headed, green-eyed movie-extra type who had been listening intently and I hoped evaluating professionally.

  “Well, Detective Kasinski, what do you think?”

  “About what?” he asked. True detective style: answer a question with a question.

  “About everything you’ve heard in this room tonight. Tell me candidly, without looking at your boss, Chief Barrow, or your partner over there. C’mon, eyes on me. You’ve focused on me for one solid hour: now talk. I’m soliciting opinions. Give me yours. Quick. Top-of-your-head!”

  Detective Kasinski fish-eyed me: large bright glazed green eyes unblinking and steady.

  “The consensus is, Chief Jacobi,” Jim Barrow said in what sounded to my tired head like a semi-whine, “that this has not been exactly a wide-open, totally cooperative investigation. And the general feeling is that we might have avoided certain things and accomplished other things had we been let in on ‘your’ investigation earlier.”

  I was going to ask Barrow: How did you do that? How did you arrive at a consensus right before my very eyes? But I was too tired for games. I was remembering
my boss, newly smitten and involving me in his games with his television lady. I was remembering the expression on Mr. Wise’s face when he kept repeating over and over to us, about his son-in-law, David Cohen: get-him; get-him; get-him.

  I leaned back in the uncomfortable chair that had been provided for me, stretched my legs out without finding any place to rest them; sat slumped and drained and looked across Jim Barrow’s desk and said quietly, directly to him, excluding the members of his staff who were placed strategically about the office, “Stop fucking with me, Jim. I’m too tired even to be kissed.”

  It embarrassed him, as I had intended. I knew my Jim Barrow: his foul and energetically creative mouth was closed in the presence of a woman. He glanced around at his men and somehow, wordlessly, transmitted a signal and they filed out quietly, politely. Coffee appeared in a short time: hot, fresh from the bakery around the corner and served with paper trays of warm Danish pastry.

  “You do look tired, Lynnie. Look,” Jim back-pedaled a little; all his points had been scored; now we were to be pals again. “Look, Lynne, we’ve been doing all the background stuff and you’ve been right front and center with the main characters. My guys are a little edgy. This is a big headline case; updated on TV every night; rerun during Sanderalee’s time slot.”

  “And my pretty little face has been seen and not handsome Mr. Kasinski’s or Kelly or whatsisname, the handsome football-player type who works with Moscowitz? C’mon, Jim.” I pulled myself up straight and took a good bite of Danish. Some kind of little nuts; a tiny piece of sharp shell cut directly into my gums. I fingered it out and examined it. “Thank you very much. Any more shells or hidden tortures?”

  Jim relented a little; good-pal Jim approach. “You know how these younger guys are, Lynne. They watch all the damn silly cop shows and even though they know life isn’t like that, I guess they all fantasize a little. Case ending with closeup on handsome young cop who modestly shrugs it all off: all in a day’s work and what’s the boss got lined up next, for Pete’s sake?”

  His men had all been assigned and had all been working hard at their assignments, to do background investigations and to interrogate all the various names who were connected in any way to Sanderalee Dawson. They had compiled a thick, fairly neat volume of interviews and comments and statistics and data. Might come in handy someday if Sanderalee ever wanted to write a book called People Who Knew Me.

  They were feeling a little left out. My people were visible and easily spotted at the heart of the case. My people were assigned close contact with the victim and daily contact with those people immediately involved with her. Jim’s prima donnas had been toiling in the unglamorous places.

  “Okay, your people do the search of Dr. Cohen’s apartment, office at Columbia, office at New York Hospital.”

  “What about his cottage out at East Hampton?”

  I stared blankly and Jim Barrow winked at me. “Gotcha. Don’t look upset, Lynne, you’ve had a lot on your mind. Okay, any hints, clues, suggestions, instructions as to what my gentlemen will be looking for?” He grinned and gestured toward the door. “You want to brief the troops or will you defer to the old soldier here?”

  “How’s about you and me go out to the cottage at East Hampton, Jim, just you and me together and ... search around a little, huh? Hey, Jim. I’m tired. Very tired. Give me one of your silent but non-hostile types to drive me home, okay? I’ve had a lousy day; I anticipate a sleepless night and a rotten tomorrow.”

  “Sounds like a buildup to a television commercial: take one search warrant and a half, and feel better in the morning. So, Lynne, what do you think? The doctor a nut? He do all this?”

  It was a genuine question: we never exchanged “Oh-my-God, could this possibly be?” Both Barrow and I knew anything could possibly be.

  I shrugged. “Listen to my tapes; study my notes. Could I have your whatsisname—Henry? Hendrison—sit in tomorrow when Dr. Cohen and company come to my office?”

  “Hendrikson, Sam. You got him. Lynne, did he do this? This David Cohen of the international reputation?”

  “Ask Sanderalee Dawson, pal, don’t ask me. I wasn’t there.”

  Bobby Jones didn’t answer his phone so I went next door to accept Jhavi’s invitation to share their newest bootleg movie. My cat was already at their apartment; he preferred Harley’s cooking to mine. I relaxed and scrunched down into the depths of their marvelous sofa. Jake Jacobi came and cuddled on top of me: he was so damn heavy I could hardly breathe, but I guess I could breathe enough because I fell asleep and when I opened my eyes, I was covered with a cashmere blanket. The background sounds from the movie on the huge Advent had been turned down very low.

  Jhavi’s fingertips tickled my forehead and he held out the telephone and he whispered quietly, directly into the phone. “Shall I tell him to just blast off, my darling, or do you want to speak to the voice of the Midwest?”

  We had brought my phone into their apartment on the extra-long extension cord. I didn’t snap instantly, adrenally awake as I did when set off by a loud ring. I stretched and yawned and reached for Bobby Jones.

  “Lynne, listen. I might be on to something important. What time tomorrow are we seeing the doctor and his lawyer?”

  “The doctor? And his lawyer? And his Indian chief?”

  “Lynne? Are you awake or what?” Bobby Jones was certainly awake and ... what? annoyed with me? about what?

  “What time is it, Bobby? What are we talking about? I called you when I got home from Barrow’s office. Talk about your offended stars. My God, Bobby, it seems we have been stomping all over Jim Barrow’s best fellers. Hey, where were you? Out on the town?”

  He was all-businesslike is how he was anyway, wherever he had been.

  “Lynne, I have—I will have a freeze-frame from the news conference held the day of the attack. At a news-briefing session after the team of surgeons rejoined Sanderalee’s hand: David Cohen had a small, round Band-Aid patch on his left cheek, Lynne. I’m having the picture blown up and I’ll bring it in in the morning. Lynne, are you following me?”

  “To the ends of the earth. Where are you now?”

  “I’m at home and I just got here and I’ve been out trying to get the information we needed. I think I’ve got it.”

  He sounded: how? Remote? Distracted? Annoyed? Excited? Impersonal? What? What?

  “Bobby? Everything okay? You sound ... kind of ... funny?”

  Silence; not more than a split second. A professional judgment: this man has something to hide. A personal judgment: whatever it is, I don’t want to know. I said goodbye.

  What gives? I wondered. A warning? From Bobby? Suddenly I felt very cold.

  CHAPTER 29

  SOME INVESTIGATIONS HAVE A life of their own: an almost biological rhythm or tempo. They are slow-paced and steady and are accomplished through meticulous researching and digging and sorting and sifting and evaluation of facts to prove or disprove the theory with which we begin. These are the somewhat leisurely, somewhat boring and arduous but somehow reassuring cases that are self-contained within the agency assigned. There is no outside monitoring or speculation or accusation or implication. Time is not particularly a factor. Accuracy and the ability to present a tight and binding case against the accused are all-important. We have the luxury of moving in one direction, compiling data, examining it and striking it all if necessary and starting again from another premise entirely.

  That is the ideal type of investigation: unpublicized until such time as, equipped with substantial evidence, we bring the culprit into court. To the public, it seems that, as if by magic, we have uncovered dark foul deeds of criminal activity. Our false starts and wrong assumptions are unknown and unavailable for public discussion. If we have in fact done our job properly, there is a strong possibility that the accused, in the light of the evidence and upon sensible advice from counsel, will cop a plea: make a deal: bargain with us. Then, we can get on with the business of our office at a minimum cost to the tax
payers.

  And then there is another type of investigation that gets away from you almost immediately by the very nature of the people involved. If we had any doubts at all as to the pressures to be applied in the Sanderalee Dawson investigation, reality came upon us in full force in the form of what is known as a “blind item” on Page Six of the New York Post. This is the page set aside for all kinds of interesting, unsubstantiated and titillating bits of gossip and innuendo.

  What’s the story on the internationally renowned Israeli doctor who has been barred from Sanderalee Dawson’s hospital room? Have they previously met under very different circumstances? Is the truth more horrible than we can imagine? If so, who’s sitting on it and why?????

  Every second, third and fourth phone call into my Bureau was an inquiry based on the Page Six item.

  Chief Jim Barrow called: he was upset because as his men arrived with search warrants in hand at Dr. David Cohen’s apartment, at his office at Columbia Presbyterian and at his office at New York Hospital, there were mobs of newspeople, equipped with questions, cameras, microphones.

  “Even, for God’s sake, out at East Hampton, Lynne. My guys called me to tell me that reporters from the little rinky-dinky local newspapers had been tipped. What’s the story on all this crap?”

  “What’s the story, Chief Barrow? Okay: here’s the story. You’ve been complaining that your men were left out of everything, so I called the tip in to Page Six. Then I disguised my voice as a member of the lunatic fringe and spent all morning calling the news media. I’ve been telling everyone that Jim Barrow’s guys are on the job. That this is the opportunity they’ve all been waiting for: these are really handsome guys, very photogenic. Jim, what the hell do you want from me?”

  By the time Dr. David Cohen and his attorney, Jerry Ashkenazi, arrived for our 2:00 P.M. appointment, things had gotten hectic indeed.

  Dr. Cohen’s attorney looked very agitated. He was a heavyset man of about forty with a thick dark brown toupee that was set slightly at an angle veering toward his left eyebrow. He had pudgy, thick hands, which he used to grasp his client’s wrist in what I guess he considered a reassuring gesture. However, the impression I got was that he was hanging on to David Cohen for dear life.