Falsely Accused

by Robert Tanenbaum

  “Uh-huh, they got lucky,” said Karp. “And by the time you got back, the M.E.’s office had declared them genuine suicides, and we know you hate to second-guess your people. But, even with photographs, just now, you spotted this … discrepancy. If a full-scale investigation had taken place about these deaths, and you reviewed this material, you definitely would have spotted it, right?”

  “Of course. Why, what are you driving at?”

  “How about your successor, Dr. Kloss?” asked Karp, ignoring the question. “Would he have spotted the phony hangings? From photos?”

  “What? How should I know what he would or …”

  “Come on, Murray! Would he have?”

  Selig huffed a great breath and threw up his hands. “Honestly? The guy’s a hick county pathologist, he doesn’t have serious experience with the variety of situations that I’ve had. Besides which, between us, the guy’s a patzer. So, no, he probably wouldn’t have. And the point of all this is… ?”

  “The point of all this, Murray,” Karp said with a wolfish smile, “is that he wouldn’t and you did, and somebody knew you would, that you would have made it a point to do a jailhouse suicide autopsy, and that’s why you got canned.”

  Selig’s face paled and he opened his mouth to speak, but nothing emerged. He made a helpless gesture with his hands and shook his head.

  “Yeah, I know,” said Karp. “It’s hard to believe that we’re looking at a cover-up of a police murder. Murders. But it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “You’re implying,” Selig said in a strained voice, “that Bloom was … involved in this?”

  Karp nodded. “Right. For some reason he couldn’t afford a finding of foul play in these cases, which he knew was a possibility as long as there was an independent M.E. on the job—you, in fact.” Karp sighed and rubbed his face.

  “Meanwhile,” he continued, “now that we know this, we’re in potentially deep trouble with respect to your civil case. I don’t know exactly what violation we’ve all just committed here, examining illegally obtained forensic records, but until we have the whole story, this session is going to have to be kept dark. I just spent a whole afternoon convincing a jury that Murray Selig follows procedure to the letter, and now I’ve conspired with you to make an end run around strict legality.”

  Selig frowned. “Then why—?”

  “Obviously because I made the call that finding out about the genesis of this … plot was more important than keeping pure on minor procedure. That’ll turn out to have been the right call once we get the whole thing pieced together. Then Bloom will have a lot bigger worry than winning a civil case. We can make up a plausible fairy tale for the judge about how you came to cast your eye over these pictures, but your sin will seem so tiny compared to Bloom’s that it won’t matter.”

  “The whole thing,” said Marlene, quoting him. “You mean, why he’d cover up for a bad cop?”

  “Exactly. He’s certainly not doing it out of misguided loyalty. These cops must have something big on him, something worse than accessory after the fact to murder.”

  “I can’t believe this,” said Selig, stricken. “The D.A.? Look, surely there’s somebody we can go to who could deal with this officially?”

  “Like who?” Karp challenged. “I can just see it. The discredited medical examiner, fighting for his job, concocts a smear against his accuser with no evidence other than his own opinion that some illegally obtained photographs point to murder rather than suicide, an opinion his own staff rejected. Gorgeous! No, Doc, we’re going to have to get a lot deeper into this and find the reason Bloom did something this dumb. And until we find out for sure what it is, none of this”—he picked up the autopsy photographs and dropped them on the table—“ever happened.”

  “So, what did you find out? Did you get the records?” Stupenagel was sitting up in bed, sipping through a straw from a large pink plastic pitcher that Columbia-Presby Hospital had filled with ice water, and Marlene Ciampi, her visitor, had filled with a quart of daiquiri mix and a half pint of Bacardi. Stupenagel was a good deal perkier than she had been the week before. Much of the bandaging had been removed, revealing a face colored like a relief map of Nepal, with many amusing mauves and ochres, joined as by railroads with lines of black stitchery.

  Marlene hesitated before answering. Her friend observed it. They had cut down her meds enough to restore the old gimlet eye. “What’s the matter? Did you get it or not?”

  “Yeah, well, I did, Stupe, but there’s a situation here.”

  “What kind of situation? Were they phony suicides or not?”

  “Yeah, they were, apparently, but I can’t really talk about it. It involves one of Butch’s cases.”

  Stupenagel put down her drink and fixed Marlene with her ghastly raccoon eyes. “Excuse me, there must be something wrong with my hearing. Did you just say that you’re intending to cover up a couple of murders so that hubby can win a case?”

  “Oh, for chrissake, Stupe, don’t be dumb!”

  “Okay, I’ll be smart. Let’s see how much brain damage I’ve suffered. A case, she says. What case could that be? Well, old Butch is suing the City because they fired what’s-his-face, the medical examiner—no, don’t tell me … Martin? no, Murray … Selig! So, we have a medical examiner and phonied autopsies. Let’s say, Marlene gets these records from … somewhere—an old friend of hers, or Selig’s maybe—and Marlene gets Selig to look at them, tell her what he thinks. But no, why should Selig do something faintly crooked just to help Marlene, who’s just doing a favor for a poor, decrepit friend? And besides, hubby would never allow it, the last thing he wants is his client doing something naughty, and so …” She paused for effect. “That must mean that the murders of these kids have a connection with the case, that helps make the case that Selig was framed. Oooh, I’m getting goose bumps. This is even a better story than I thought. So what’s the connection? The M.E. gets fired because … because somebody is afraid that an independent medical examiner will spill the beans on the gypsy cab murders, and they want a malleable schmuck in there. So who’s the somebody? Two candidates: the Mayor and the D.A. How am I doing? Getting warm?”

  “No comment,” said Marlene stiffly. Then, in a feeble attempt to change the subject, she asked brightly, “So, when’re you getting out of here?”

  “Marlene, don’t be a jerk.”

  “I bet you’ll want to take a nice vacation back home in Ohio,” Marlene continued. “Say, a couple of months, spend the holidays with the folks, get some skiing in …”

  “In Ohio? What is this message I’m receiving here, Champ? You don’t want me to write this story? Mayor or D.A. covers for killer cops?”

  “Not ‘don’t write it,’ but wait. The story isn’t complete, and if it leaks halfway it’s going to warn the bad guys, one, and two, not that you would care, but it’ll screw up Butch’s case, fuck a really decent guy, and put a big crimp in our extravagant income. Butch is hanging out on this case—his boss didn’t want him to take it in the first place—”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s tight with the Mayor. It was embarrassing to have one of his people sue the City and His Honor personally.”

  “So the Mayor is running this cover-up?”

  “No, Bloom,” said Marlene quickly.

  Stupenagel raised an eyebrow, a disturbing sight with her face in the condition it was in. “Why Bloom?”

  “Because,” Marlene began, and then stopped when she realized that it had never occurred to either her or Karp that it was anyone other than Bloom. “Because, ah, the Mayor has no real contact with the M.E.’s office. The D.A.’s office is involved with it every day.”

  The reporter’s face twisted into a disbelieving grimace. “Marlene, that makes no sense at all. If Selig is actually being fired to help cover up a crime, then either the Mayor or the D.A. could be the source of the cover-up. Or both of them together.”

  “It’s not the Mayor,” said Marlene, soundin
g more confident than she now felt.

  “Why not? I can think of a lot of things that the Mayor might like to cover up. A fifty-four-year-old confirmed bachelor? Maybe Vice caught him in an alleyway with an underage leatherboy. No, you’re just fixated on Bloom, you and Butch, because he tried to fuck you. This is the last act of this vendetta that those two have been running for the last—what is it now?—eight or so years.”

  “Bullshit, Stupe! The Mayor’s guy said he barely knew who Selig was until Bloom began needling about how he had to be canned.”

  “The Mayor’s guy? Oh, there’s an unimpeachable source! So, meanwhile, tell me what Bloom’s supposed to be covering up that’s important enough for him to help a bad cop shitcan a pair of custody murders!”

  “We don’t know yet,” said Marlene weakly.

  “You don’t know yet,” the reporter mocked. “But you don’t mind asking me to sit on my story indefinitely until something turns up.”

  “You wouldn’t have a damn story,” snapped Marlene, “if I hadn’t got those pictures, and if Butch hadn’t got Murray to look at them.”

  “Yes, but what have you done for me lately? Sorry, Marlene, but for the next three to six weeks I’m going to be huddled in my room like the Phantom of the Opera with nothing to do but work the phone and pound keys, and this just became my only priority. I mean, I don’t expect to be dating much until they fix this”—here she indicated her damaged face— “speaking of which, somebody’s going to pay for this big-time, not so much because of me personally, but because—and I know you think I’m totally cynical and don’t believe in anything, but I do and this is it—because you’re not supposed to beat up on the press, at least not with your fists, not in this country anyway, and I say this as someone who’s spent most of her adult life in countries where it’s practically the national sport. And so, while I feel bad about Selig and Butch and anybody else who might get singed in the back blast …” She left the sentence hanging.

  Marlene said, “All right, let me appeal to your journalistic instincts, since you’ve all of a sudden turned into Ida Tarbell, girl muckraker: grant me it’d be a better story if it was complete, if we knew who had set up the firing, and what the cops had on him to make him do it.”

  Stupenagel paused for barely a second. “Granted. And… ?”

  “I’ll find out for you,” said Marlene. “I’ll find out and wrap the whole package up for you like a fish, and you can relax and get better.”

  “Your concern is touching,” said Stupenagel. “How long do you think this miracle will take?”

  Marlene pulled a figure out of the air. “Five, six weeks.”

  “Mmm, would that be just enough to get a judgment in re: Selig?”

  “I have no idea,” said Marlene stiffly.

  “I bet.” Stupenagel took up her drink again and sipped it until the straw sucked dry. “I don’t know, Marlene, it’s an interesting offer, but …”

  “You haven’t heard the downside,” said Marlene. “You don’t have the photographs, and all you have to indicate that the jail deaths weren’t suicides is my word about what Selig said. Shaft me on this, and not only will you not get the autopsy shots, but I’ll deny this conversation ever took place, nobody will admit anything about any murders, and when I do figure it all out, I will deliver the whole story, with evidence, to whomever I figure will piss you off the most. Jimmy Dalton, for example.”

  Jimmy Dalton was a police reporter for the Post and a male chauvinist of citywide reputation. Stupenagel slammed her drink down on the bedside table, making the ice in it rattle like maracas. She glared at Marlene for what seemed like a long time, and then abruptly burst into laughter. “Goddamn, Champ—playing hardball with your old buddy! Jimmy Dalton, my ass! Okay, deal. Go get ’em! Don’t get killed, though.”

  “I have a gun.”

  “No kidding? Can I see it.”

  “Oh, shit, Stupenagel! You’re worse than my daughter.”

  From the hospital Marlene journeyed downtown by cab to the courthouse on Centre Street. She passed through the guarded entranceway to the part of the building that housed the D.A.’s office, using for the purpose an expired pass from the days when she’d had a right to be there. There was a search point in the main entrance for regular people, and she did not want to have to explain her pistol. Once in the courthouse, she filed some protective orders for clients, attended a hearing for a man who had violated one, and generally behaved like a lawyer for the rest of the morning. When the courthouse emptied out for lunch, she bought yogurt and coffee at the ground-floor snack bar, returned to the D.A.’s offices, and took the elevator to the sixth floor, where she entered a cubicle and made herself at home.

  She was on the phone when the office’s official occupant, Raymond Guma, walked in, sucking on a toothpick. Guma was a short, tubby man in his late forties, with an amusingly ugly monkey face and a mop of thinning black curls. He frowned when he saw Marlene sitting in his chair, speaking over his phone.

  “Hey, didn’t we finally get rid of you?”

  Marlene continued with her phone conversation, but reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a long white box: a fifth of Teacher’s scotch. She placed it on the desk and gave Guma her brightest insincere smile.

  Guma seated himself in a visitor’s chair and ostentatiously twiddled his thumbs while humming loudly without tune. Marlene finished her conversation quickly.

  “Anybody I know?” asked Guma, indicating the phone.

  “Could be. A gentleman who won’t take no for an answer. I was arguing the prudence of doing so.”

  “Or you’ll get your goon to dance on his face? I been hearing stuff about you, Champ. You keep it up with the heavy shit, you gonna give the Italians a bad name.”

  “Sorry you don’t approve, Raymond.”

  “You know me, a woman’s place is in the home.” He removed his toothpick, examined it, and flicked it into a large brown glass ashtray in which two White Owl butts already nestled. “How’s Butch, by the way? I hear he’s making out like a bandit.”

  “We’re doing okay. Look, Goom, I need a favor…”

  Guma tapped the white package. “Ah, see, here I was thinking, you’re sorry for all the mean things you said to me, you decided to retire from being a witch, come by with a little present for an old pal…”

  Guma’s tone was sarcastic, but Marlene sensed a genuine sadness underneath it, the sadness of someone who had worked in an office for a long time—it was nearly twenty years for Ray Guma—and had worked with a group of people, had shared struggles with them, triumph and defeat, and had seen them pass on, with many a promise to keep in touch, which promises had trickled out into a few uneasy evenings after work. In fact, neither she nor Karp had much in common with Guma outside the work of the D.A. Guma, divorced, estranged from his kids, was into after-hours clubs and cocktail waitresses. Impulsively, Marlene got up from behind the desk and planted wet kiss on Guma’s mouth.

  “Hey, Goom, you know we love you. Butch has been real busy, but as soon as we get a break, you’ll come over, you’ll eat, you’ll drink some wine. I’ll make pasta fagiol’.”

  Guma’s face broke into a smile, and he made a friendly grab at her ass. She allowed the familiarity. Guma was harmless.

  “This must be some favor. Who do I have to whack out?”

  She sat on the edge of the desk and said, “It’s nothing, really. I just need you to call Fred Spicer and find out whether the D.A. squad is running an investigation on the medical examiner.”

  “That’s it? Whyn’t you ask him yourself?”

  Marlene laughed. “Because Fred wouldn’t tell me there was a fire if the building was burning down. You know Fred.”

  “Yeah, I do. Okay, I’ll make the call.” He rose and picked up his phone, then hesitated. “Just a second— how come you want to know?”

  “It’s a long story, Goom.”

  He replaced the phone and sat down again. “That’s okay. I got time.” He gri
nned, showing crooked, gap-spaced teeth.

  Marlene sighed and spun out the tale, omitting any reference to Ariadne Stupenagel, which was something like painting the Last Supper without Jesus, but necessary, since some years back Ms. Stupenagel had taken up Ray Guma during a period when he had information about a story she was writing and, after it was published, had dropped him on his head. Thus, in this version it was Marlene, working for Karp, who had discovered the phony suicides, and she made it sound as if the sole point of the inquiry was helping Butch with the Selig case.

  When she was finished, Guma asked, “You really think some cop at the Two-Five killed a couple of beaner cabbies?”

  “Hey, how should I know, Goom? I’m out of the business. My only concern right now is seeing if someone is trying to pin fucked-up autopsies on Murray Selig.”

  Guma gave her a hooded look and dialed his phone. Spicer, the longtime chief of the D.A. squad, was in, and Guma spent the obligatory time talking Knicks and Rangers, after which he put the question. Marlene was able to follow the answer via Guma’s end of the conversation. When he hung up, she said, “No investigation?”

  “None that Fred knows about. Of course, it might be somebody else doing the investigating.”

  “No, Guma, the people at the morgue told her—I mean, told me—that the guy said he was from the D.A. Besides, who else could it be?”

  “Well, if a cop’s involved, it could be I.A.D.”

  She shook her head. “No, Devlin at I.A.D. swears they got nothing going on. And plus, they bought the suicide story, so why would they be poking around to see if it was legit?”

  “I don’t know, kid. The snakes are a devious bunch. I tell you who you could talk to, though— Johnny Seaver.”

  “Seaver? That name rings a bell. A cop, right?”

  “Yeah. He’s on the D.A. squad.”

  “He is? I don’t remember him at all.”