“I told Mrs. Acevedo that I’d look into what’s going on in the Bronx,” she said now as she burrowed under his protective arm. “And I’m going to see if I can find someone willing to take the New York case pro bono.”
“Really? You think there’s something amiss?”
Marlene raised her eyebrows and he knew his studied nonchalance wasn’t fooling her. She gave him a basic rundown of what she’d heard at the bookstore. “I think you might want to take a look at that confession,” she suggested now. “I’ve got a gut feeling that something’s not right about this.”
“Not every confession is a fraud, Miss Hug-a-Thug Defense Attorney, even if this guy has a history of giving false statements,” Karp said. “However, I’ve already called Pat Davis; had to leave a message, but asked to see him in the morning to brief me and bring the case file.” Pat Davis was the deputy chief of the Homicide Bureau. “Can’t have some fire-breathing defense lawyers and their friends in the press catching me with my pants down.”
“Damn straight… especially if one of the fire breathers is your wife,” Marlene said with a sly smile. “But why Pat Davis, not Tommy Mack?”
“Tommy’s in the middle of a six-week trial,” Karp said of the Homicide Bureau chief. “Meanwhile, Pat’s been handling the bureau administrative duties. And as for getting caught with my pants down, there are exceptions to every rule, and if you play your cards right
…” He winked. “But I believe we were talking about this friend of Alejandro’s. Do you know who you’re going to bring on as his attorney for Yancy-Jenkins?”
Marlene nodded. “I’m hoping to talk Alea Watkins into it. Then your people will at least know they’d better be prepared for a fight.”
“Good choice.” Karp pictured the attractive, middle-aged black attorney known for taking on the tough cases. “Sharp and aggressive. I wonder who we have working the case.”
“I thought Guma was your point man on the Yancy-Jenkins task force,” Marlene said.
“He was,” Karp replied. “Or is. But he’s been on vacation at a health retreat in the Catskills. He’s not due back in the office until Monday, and it’s only Wednesday, so I think I’ll take a look at the case file and ask a few questions of Davis, including why I’m in the dark on this one.”
Karp was still mulling over what Marlene had told him about Felix Acevedo as he walked to work the next morning, following his usual route east on Grand and then south on Centre to the monolithic Criminal Courts Building, which also housed the DAO. He smiled when he saw the owner of the newsstand in front of the building. The little man with the pointed nose and Coke-bottle eyeglasses spotted him at the same time and grinned as he hopped from foot to foot in front of his kiosk.
Dirty Warren was Marlene’s first case in her new role of crusading defense attorney. He’d been framed for the murder of a Westchester County socialite and without Marlene’s help would likely have been convicted-if the conspirators had not first had him murdered in jail to make sure the case was closed. He got his nickname because he had Tourette’s syndrome, which afflicted him with various facial tics and caused him to lace his conversations with frequent and unexpected bits of profanity and odd sounds. But he was a genuinely good man who’d been a font of information about what was going down on the streets.
“Hey, Karp… son of a bitch whoop whoop… got a good one for you,” Dirty Warren said, continuing his little dance, which was one of the manifestations of Tourette’s.
“Take your best shot, and good morning, by the way,” Karp replied as he came up to the newsstand. For years, he and Dirty Warren had played a game of movie trivia. Dirty Warren would ask some obscure question having to do with films, and Karp had to answer. So far the score was a zillion to none in favor of Karp, whose lifelong affection for movies had begun with his visits to the Kingsway Theatre in Brooklyn, where he grew up.
“This one should be easy, right up your… whoop… alley,” Dirty Warren said. “Why would a scout… asshole balls oh boy ohhhh boy… watch the trial of a framed innocent man?”
Karp scratched his head, shuffled his feet, started to speak then stopped, and secretly enjoyed seeing the hope of victory grow in Dirty Warren’s eyes. Then he dashed it. “Are you trying to mock me?” he said. “I thought you were my friend, but you’re killing me here.” He paused as if listening to a voice and said, “Ah, a little bird just gave me the answer.”
The sparkle went out in Dirty Warren’s eyes. Resigned, he said, “Just give me the… whoop whoop… answer, Karp.”
“Well, she’s there to watch her father, Atticus Finch, defend Tom Robinson in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird,” Karp said.
“Damn it, Karp,” Dirty Warren said. “I figured maybe you wouldn’t waste your movie-watching time on something so… fuck me bastard whoop whoop… so work related.”
“Au contraire,” Karp replied. “Some of my favorite films are courtroom thrillers-for instance, Twelve Angry Men. A classic.”
“Well, I told you it would be easy,” Dirty Warren grumbled. He handed Karp a copy of The New York Times, but when his customer tried to pay him, he waved it off. “Your money’s no good here, Butch. Not after… oh boy balls oh boy… what Marlene did for me.”
Karp tried again to hand him the money. “I’m glad she did but that was Marlene, not me.”
“The way I see it… asswipe bitch… you’re a team,” the little man said. “So like I said, you’re wasting your time trying to pay me.”
Karp held up the paper. “Well, then, thanks, Warren.”
“Not a problem. Now, if I could… whoop whoop ohhhh boy… only beat you once, just once, I’d be a happy man.” He scrunched up his eyebrows and squinted his baby blues at Karp through his thick glasses. “But no throwing the game out of pity.”
“I have too much respect for you to do that,” Karp replied with a grin. He turned and left the smiling news vendor hopping from one foot to the other.
In the elevator, Karp glanced at the large bold headline at the top of the Times and sighed. The headline and story the day before had been bad enough.
COLUMBIA U SLASHER ARRESTED
A nineteen-year-old Bronx man confessed Monday to the brutal murder of Olivia Yancy and Beth Jenkins, whose maimed and bloody bodies were discovered last July…
But this morning’s edition made him grimace.
SLASHER CONFESSES, NEW YORK DA INDICTS
He found deputy Homicide Bureau chief Patrick Davis already waiting for him in the reception area of his eighth-floor office. He looked at his watch-seven thirty; their appointment wasn’t for another half hour. But he knew that Davis was ambitious and always trying to impress, hoping for a promotion to the bureau chief’s spot. It was now common knowledge in the office that Homicide Bureau chief Tommy Mack was being offered a judgeship but was undecided.
With respect to Davis, Karp felt that the jury was still out. There was no question that Davis was a top-flight trial lawyer and respected by his peers, including those with the defense bar. But he was thirty-five years old, and the man’s age, or more accurately his lack of administrative experience and mature judgment in a leadership role, was worrisome.
“Good morning, Patrick,” Karp said as his visitor shot up from his chair like a soldier when the commanding officer enters a room. “I hope I didn’t forget what time we were meeting.”
“Not at all,” Davis said. “You just never know what traffic’s going to be like coming through the Lincoln Tunnel, so I got started a little early. And wouldn’t you know, it was smooth sailing… But I can wait if you need to do some other things first.”
“No, let’s get started,” Karp said, and nodded to the door leading to his inner office. At the same moment, the door to the hallway opened and a plump middle-aged woman entered the reception room. She seemed surprised to find them there and eyed the two men suspiciously.
Receptionist Darla Milquetost considered the office to be her domain as much as Karp’s and didn’t like surprise visitors who weren’t on the calendar. “Good morning,” she said, arching her painted-on eyebrows.
“Good morning, Darla,” Karp replied cheerfully. He generally found her territorial imperative amusing. “I’m sure you know Patrick Davis?”
Milquetost gave the young man a tight smile. “Of course, I just didn’t know we’d have the pleasure of his company this morning,” she replied, and headed behind her desk, where she opened a drawer and dropped her
