“Gone wrong,” said Karp at last, almost to himself.
“Yeah,” said Selig. “And now that you’ve dragged me up here to show me this stuff and bullied me into speculation, would you mind telling me what this is all about?”
“One more question, Murray,” said Karp. “You didn’t do these autopsies yourself. Why not? A prisoner death? Two prisoner deaths?”
“When did they occur?”
Marlene told him the dates.
Selig wrinkled his brow. “Oh, right. It’s because in late April and early May I was laid up. I threw my back out playing tennis. I played two sets with no problems and then I reached down to pick up some balls and that was it. For about a month I couldn’t take standing up to do an autopsy.”
“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-”