"Hey, Butch, good to see you," Torrisi said, walking over to shake hands.
Karp stood, wincing when a shot of electricity went through his bum knee, and gladly took the hand. He noticed that the once coal-black and wavy hair was now mostly silver, but the brown eyes were just as sharp above the Roman nose. He pointed to Harry, who had also stood. "Dick, I don't know if you've met my appeals division head, Harry Kipman."
Torrisi held out his hand. "Only by reputation."
Karp, noticing that Harry actually blushed at the compliment, filed it away to tease him about later. He knew his colleague was supremely confident in his abilities, but he had always preferred to work in the background, pitting his mind and knowledge of the law against another like-minded attorney out of the public eye.
Denton cleared his throat and the other three men turned toward him, then took their seats. "Sorry about the secrecy, Butch-part of it's that I'm still not here in an official capacity, but there's more to it than that as you'll see in a few minutes." He paused but as there was no reaction, he went on. "I asked Mr. Torrisi to meet us here because of my concerns about how the so-called Coney Island Four case is being handled. Have you been following it in the press?"
Karp looked at Harry, who'd resumed studying his hangnail, then back at Denton and shrugged. "Somewhat, I suppose, like any other citizen who gets the newspaper and has a television."
"And your impression?" Denton asked.
Karp noticed that the mayor-elect and Torrisi seemed to move forward in their seats waiting for his answer. "Well, if I were to believe everything I read or hear-and I do not-it would appear that the NYPD and the Brooklyn DA fucked up, which means that the city is in trouble with this lawsuit."
Denton pursed his lips, then nodded. "Glad to hear you don't believe everything you read. In fact, whether it's the newspaper or television, neither you nor anyone else in this city is getting the truth, which is why I've asked Mr. Torrisi-"
"Dick is good enough, your honor," Torrisi interjected.
"Dick it is, and it's Michael to you, so quit with the 'your honor' shit." Denton continued, "Which is why I've asked Dick to give it to you straight this morning."
As Denton spoke, Torrisi rose and walked over to the window as if he were preparing his speech. He looked out for a moment, then turned to face the other men. "I'll try to keep this fairly short though I feel I pretty much have to lay it all out chronologically so there are no misunderstandings. So I'm sorry if any of this is redundant. On the night of May 19, 1992, five young black men from Bedford-Stuyvesant-Jayshon Sykes, Desmond Davis, Packer Wilson, Kwasama Jones, and Kevin Little-took the bus from their neighborhood to Coney Island, where they consumed a large amount of beer and smoked marijuana to psych themselves up for a night of what they called 'wilding.'
"Over the next few hours, they harassed and assaulted a half-dozen people who had done nothing more than be in the right place at the wrong time, including an elderly Korean immigrant, Mr. Lee Kim, who was robbed and then beaten so badly his skull was fractured. We know all this because the so-called Coney Island Five-which became Four when Kevin Little was later shot and killed-admitted to these crimes at the time and haven't tried to recant. Plus, Mr. Kim lived and was able to identify the suspects from live lineups, especially Jayshon Sykes, who he said was the man who hit him with a piece of steel bar. When the crowds finally went home, the suspects decided to wait for the dawn beneath the pier, where they continued to drink and get high.
"On the morning of May 20, a twenty-eight-year-old Brooklyn housewife and mother named Liz Tyler got out of bed, kissed her still-sleeping husband and her child, and went for her daily jog along the boardwalk and beach at Coney Island. It was a beautiful morning, unseasonably warm…low tide and a red sky in the east where the sun was just coming up. Her path took her to the pier, which she intended to pass beneath."
As Torrisi spoke, Karp could picture the scene. He could almost hear the sound of seagulls and the whispering rush of small waves over the sand. But his pleasant childhood memories were soon shattered by Torrisi's account of the attack on Liz Tyler.
"We don't know…because she doesn't remember…but Liz may have ignored, or didn't see, the danger when she approached the pier where these poor, innocent young men we've been watching on television were lurking."
Torrisi paused and seemed to find it difficult to go on. Man, he's tied up in this one, Karp thought, but before he could give it more reflection, Torrisi started talking again.
"We don't really know all of what happened next or in what sequence. As you may have read, this time accurately, Liz Tyler suffered head injuries during the attack and can't remember anything about it. However, several witnesses heard a woman screaming and men shouting from the direction of the pier about that time of the morning.
"These folks were mostly other joggers and a few beachcombers, but they weren't about to inquire, not even after they saw five young black men-and one nonblack we were never able to identify-running away from the pier. I suppose we're lucky that one witness finally did call the cops, but by the time they arrived, a bloody, badly injured Liz Tyler was standing in waist-deep water trying to wash herself. That she was able to stand at all and simply hadn't fallen over and drowned was something of a miracle. Her skull had been fractured by a blow from a blunt object, another blow had crushed the orbital bone around one eye, permanently blinding her on the left side, her nose was broken, and several of her teeth had been knocked out. She'd been bitten, stomped, and raped both vaginally and anally."
"This blunt object happen to be a piece of steel bar?" Karp asked, his jaw starting to ache from setting it so hard as his anger simmered.
Torrisi held up a hand. "If I may, let me get to that in a moment. Sorry if this is going on too long, but I still feel it's necessary. Liz Tyler was taken to the hospital for a standard rape examination and to be treated for her injuries. The doctor who examined her reported that she exhibited the signs-the tearing and bruising-of forced sexual intercourse. Unfortunately, she'd done too good a job of washing herself with seawater, and DNA samples from her body weren't available. However, one sample-a mixture of semen, blood, and fecal material-was recovered from her sweatshirt, where apparently one of her attackers wiped himself afterward."
"The sixth man…Villa-something," Karp said.
Torrisi nodded. "Enrique Villalobos. But again, I'll get to him in order. If you've been reading the newspaper accounts and watching television, you've undoubtedly heard that brutish cops coerced and intimidated these Boy Scouts into confessing to the rape and attempted murder of Liz Tyler. Never mind that these same paragons of virtue also confessed to the assaults of the half-dozen others-of course, they've already served the sentences for those crimes."
Torrisi stuck his hands in his pants and rocked back on his heels. "I'm going to cut the story a little short now and leave it for Mayor Denton-Mike-to explain why I asked for his help and why he asked you here. But I want to finish by assuring you that the officers and detectives in this case followed procedure and kept to both the spirit and letter of the law."
Torrisi looked down at his feet for a moment before looking up. "I know that to be a fact because I was one of the detectives. And I know I did everything I could to make sure I didn't foul up this case by giving these guys some way out on a technicality or because I abused someone's rights. You would have been just as careful if you'd seen her like I did a couple days after the attack-her head swollen up like a basketball, her face all yellow and purple… The docs were great; they fixed her up pretty good and the swelling went down, but doctors can't fix everything.