Garcia looked over at Marlene. “I don’t know what was in the newspapers, but I’ve talked to a few people on the street who wouldn’t shit me. They said there was blood everywhere. But Felix doesn’t get any on him?”
Marlene frowned. “I haven’t seen the crime scene photographs, but maybe he washed up or changed clothes.”
“Talk to Felix sometime and then you tell me if you think he’s so cool that after he cuts this woman up and did whatever else they say he did, he washes the blood off himself and his clothes,” Garcia said. “Maybe he stopped at a Laundromat and then went to the Y to take a shower.”
“Maybe,” Marlene said with a laugh. “But it’s just the sort of thing we’ll have to look into should the prosecution try to make that claim.”
Garcia grinned. “This means you’ll take the case.”
Marlene smiled back. “I can’t represent him on the Manhattan beef, but I have someone good in mind, a real sharp lawyer, Alea Watkins. But let me look into this and the Bronx case some more and see what I can come up with.”
Suddenly Amelia sobbed and reached over to grab Marlene’s hands. “Felix is a good boy,” she said. “Gracias, he is all I have to bring me joy.”
Marlene squeezed the other woman’s hands and smiled. “We mothers have to stick together. I’ll do the best I can.”
13
Butch Karp was waiting for Marlene in the living room of the loft when she got home that night. “So how’s Alejandro?” he asked, patting the couch in an invitation to join him.
“He’s fine,” she said, sitting down and curling up against him. “It’s his friend he’s worried about. I met with him and Amelia Acevedo, the mother of one Felix Acevedo, who is currently under indictment for murder with the New York DAO and may be facing similar charges in the Bronx.”
Karp felt his wife hesitate. There hadn’t been much time to tell him about the telephone call from Garcia that had precipitated the meeting. He furrowed his brow when she asked him why he hadn’t spoken about the Yancy-Jenkins case to her before the indictment and he replied, “Well, I have to admit, I didn’t know about it. Not that I hear about every indictment or that every felony-even murder-is brought before the bureau chiefs meeting on Monday morning for vetting. But still…” His voice trailed off.
“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.”