Fury

2

Saturday, December 11

Roger "butch" Karp looked up sharply from his sunday New York Times when the door to his Crosby Street loft in lower Manhattan flew open. A hooded figure stepped into the room accompanied by a draft of frigid air. He shivered but also felt a familiar warmth when the woman in the doorway stripped off her sweatshirt.

The woman, his wife, Marlene Ciampi, brushed a dusting of snow from her dark curly hair and stomped the moisture off her running shoes. She flung the sweatshirt with its faded Cal Berkeley logo at the coatrack; she missed but left it lying. Turning toward her husband, she blinked the moisture from her one good eye-the other having been lost many years before to a letter bomb. She caught the approving, puppy dog look on her husband's otherwise tough and craggy face and assumed a tough girl from Queens stance.

"Hey, whaddya staring at, ya big palooka," she snarled with just the right amount of sauce. "If you like it so much, why doncha take a picture?"

Karp laughed but kept looking. Twenty-five and some odd years earlier they'd both been neophyte assistant district attorneys for the New York County DA when a drunken roll in the hay after an office party had turned into an enduring love affair. The letter bomb had been intended for him-courtesy of one of the myriad of killers who would cross his path-but Marlene, jealously thinking it might be a note from his ex-wife, had opened it. The invasion of privacy had cost her an eye and a couple of pieces of her fingers, and one side of her face was laced with small white scars.

Karp knew that early on she'd wondered if he'd married her because he felt guilty about the injuries. But when his amorous intentions hadn't waned, and in fact grew more pronounced and eventually resulted in three children-twenty-one-year-old Lucy, who was currently working in New Mexico, and the twelve-year-old twins, Giancarlo and Isaac, she'd accepted that if there was one thing she could count on in her life, beyond being a lightning rod for danger, it was the constancy of his love for her.

There'd been a lot of rough spots along the way, both in their relationship and professionally-including enough run-ins with terrorists, psychopaths, mass murderers, and the usual scum of the earth to make a pretty decent action film. He wasn't quite sure if there was some sort of psychic target attached to his family's back or if it was just bad luck. Part of it was the job, but he knew plenty of prosecutors who'd led much quieter lives.

Marlene had eventually left the DA's office but, except for a brief foray into private practice, he'd remained, and that past summer he had been appointed to fulfill the term of District Attorney Jack X. Keegan, who'd jumped at the chance to become a federal judge. Being the top law enforcement officer for Manhattan could certainly make a guy enemies big and small.

Just that past summer, he'd tangled with one of the wealthiest men in the country, a dilettante, white-shoe lawyer named Andrew Kane, who had appeared to be the runaway favorite to become the next mayor of Manhattan in that fall's election. At least that was the public's perception. However, Kane turned out to be a villain of Machiavellian proportions. He'd done his best to kill Karp and his family, but they'd escaped through a combination of good fortune and equally lethal friends. Karp, aided by a Manhattan grand jury, had charged and indicted Kane with capital murder. But the trial was still some months, perhaps even a year, away, delayed by the usual flurry of pretrial motions from Kane's lawyers.

Yet his job wasn't the only reason for the Karp-Ciampi marital discord that only recently had begun to turn the corner and appear as if the couple might weather the storm that had been tearing them apart. After leaving the DA's office, Marlene had gone through a number of incarnations. She'd created a firm that provided security for high-profile luminaries-such as movie stars, athletes, musicians, and diplomats-and became an instant multimillionaire when the company got bought by a larger firm that then went public with its stock. She currently owned a farm on Long Island that raised and trained Neapolitan mastiffs for security work, including defense and bomb sniffing. One of her newest proteges, a monstrous 150-pounder named Gilgamesh, was at that moment lying under the kitchen table keeping Karp's feet warm.

Outwardly Marlene could be flippant and casual about the violence that found her the way sharks follow blood in the water. However, psychologically she'd been deeply conflicted, a former Catholic school girl who could not totally justify her decision that if the justice system couldn't protect the helpless, then someone else had to-no matter what the personal cost.

Her husband was the opposite. The law, safeguarded by due process, wasn't something to follow when it was convenient. The law was sacrosanct, a thing of beauty precisely because of its rules. Yes, there was latitude within the law that a clever attorney could work with to his advantage-and he'd skirted the line himself on numerous occasions but never stepped over it. He also insisted that the lawyers who worked for him abide by the same standards. "Do it right or we don't deserve to win," he told them. So it had troubled him greatly that his wife skirted the law in a way he would never have allowed one of his employees to do.

Knowing what her actions were doing to him and haunted by her own conscience, Marlene had distanced herself from her family, especially after one of her efforts to exact revenge for the murder of a family in West Virginia that she had befriended had nearly gotten Giancarlo killed. She'd retreated to her dog farm and seemed on a path that would lead only farther and farther from her family in Manhattan.

However, Marlene heard about a program in New Mexico that used art therapy to save women who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorders-most of them the victims of domestic violence, although there were a couple who, like Marlene, had killed. She and Lucy, who herself was only just recovering from extreme sex abuse and torture by a psychopath named Felix Tighe, had left for New Mexico in early summer.

The program seemed to work wonders for Marlene-that and the friendship she'd developed with John Jojola, the chief of police for the Taos Pueblo. A Vietnam combat vet whose native skills at hunting and tracking had been used by the U.S. Army to stalk Vietcong leaders and kill them, Jojola had emerged from years of alcoholism to make peace with his own violent past. He'd recognized a kindred spirit in Marlene and had led her down the path he'd taken out of the darkness.

It was a better fall than it had been a spring. Surgery to remove a shotgun pellet from the blast that had nearly killed and blinded Giancarlo had been a success; he could see again, though there were moments when the disconnect between his eyes and brain acted up. Lucy was living in New Mexico, still working for a Catholic charity at the pueblo, and was apparently in love with some young cowboy she'd met.

Marlene was living at the Crosby Street loft again and seemed more at peace with herself than she had been for years. However, she'd warned Karp that while she felt as if she was making progress, she was not "cured."

"It's not as simple as that. Let's just say I'm in remission," she told him as she lay in his arms one night and he'd remarked on the change. "It's like a cancer. Maybe five, ten years down the road, if there are no more spots on the X-ray, I might be considered a 'survivor.' But like cancer, if it comes back, it could be worse than ever."

Karp was just happy to have her around as a wife, a lover, and the mother whom the twins had missed terribly. Watching her untie her running shoes, he thought she was still the most beautiful woman he knew.

The effects of the bomb had never bothered him. She was still a lovely woman with dark, curly hair framing her face, and he sometimes caught other men appreciating her classic Italian features. Her body had matured from the almost teenage physique she'd kept through three births; she was a little thicker around the middle, no matter how many sit-ups she did and miles she ran, and the once-perky tits no longer pointed up like flowers following the sun. But neither had they wilted, and if she had to work a little harder to keep that fine rear end as round and solid as a pair of bowling balls, he was well aware from her exuberance of the night that she was as passionate a lover as ever.

Karp especially loved to watch the way her hips moved when she walked, and she was walking toward him now with a half-smile on her face. "What's the matter, Karp, cat got your tongue…or maybe you're just too tired from your rather mild exertions last night? How about offering a lady a cup of that coffee and the sports section of the Times?"

Karp tilted his head toward the full pot of coffee. "For that unkind remark, you can help yourself, Ciampi," he pouted. "Mild exertions? I don't remember that there were any complaints last night."

"How could you? You rolled over and went to sleep as soon as you'd had your way with me."

"Lies…spurious innuendo and unsubstantiated rumors," Karp sputtered good-naturedly. The banter had been a part of their sex life from the beginning; neither took it seriously as neither had ever had cause to complain. Still, his "hurt look" had its desired effect, as Marlene circled around behind him, gently kissed him, and began massaging his shoulders, which elicited a deep groan of pleasure.

"Hey, don't just sit there while I do all the work," Marlene demanded, "tell me what's in the paper."

Marlene's command brought Karp back to the moment, and he remembered what he had intended to show her even before her wintry arrival. Usually he picked up the Times outside the justice building at 100 Centre Street at Dirty Warren's newsstand but had given in to the local newspaper boy's relentless campaign to at least have him deliver the Sunday paper.

Karp pointed out the top story of the day, which ran beneath the headline "Judge Backs Plaintiffs in the Coney Island Four Case." The city's last attempt to have the lawsuit dismissed had been denied by U.S. District Court Judge Marci Klinger. The Coney Island Four case would go forward unless the city settled.

Like most of the general public in the five boroughs, Karp had followed the story predominantly through the newspapers and television. There'd been a little of the intraoffice gossip and rumor between the DA offices in Manhattan and Brooklyn that floated around any big case, but he'd pretty much ignored it. He'd been flipping through the channels looking for a basketball game when he stopped to watch the Brooklyn Insider show. But he'd been so repulsed by Natalie Fitz's fawning over Louis and Sykes that he'd soon moved on to ESPN.

However, the newspaper story had sparked memories of the crime when it occurred some twelve years earlier. He recalled the horrific nature of the attack-young woman, set upon by a gang, raped, and nearly beaten to death-and how he'd felt a personal connection just because it had happened beneath the pier at Coney Island. He'd spent countless summer days at that beach, wandering the boardwalk with his buddies, riding the Ferris wheel at the amusement park and, best of all, wolfing down hot dogs at Nathan's Famous on the corner of Surf and Stillwell Avenues. He took it personally that a gang of vicious thugs had sullied the place.

He recalled that the trials had seemed pretty much a slam dunk. The perps had confessed, and they'd been linked to other assaults on the boardwalk that night. He'd given no more thought to it over the years, until the Times broke the story about the inmate who had come forward to confess that he had done the crime by himself. The inmate-Karp glanced at the newspaper for the name, Enrique Villalobos-had apparently "come to Jesus" and wanted to make it right.

When Karp first read about the confession, he'd rolled his eyes. Inmates were constantly finding religion, which they all apparently believed would help them out with the parole board. The fact that Villalobos was serving a true life sentence as a serial rapist/killer didn't change Karp's skepticism. Sometimes inmates confessed to crimes they didn't commit as a favor, or out of fear for another inmate, and thereafter received favored treatment by Corrections.

However, in this case, he'd been willing to concede that perhaps this time an inmate had told the truth when a little later the Times again reported-and the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office concurred-that Villalobos was a match for the DNA evidence found on the victim's clothing. It certainly warranted an investigation.

However, he was surprised when Brooklyn DA Kristine "Just call me Krissy" Breman immediately agreed to a motion filed by Louis to vacate the rape and attempted murder convictions of his clients. Karp figured that some details were being withheld that would explain the rush to the judgment. He was, however, disgusted when Breman appeared on the steps of the courthouse in Brooklyn with Louis and apologized for "this terrible miscarriage of justice."

Then again, the more he thought about it, the less surprised he'd been by her behavior. He'd known Breman almost as long as Marlene. They'd all joined the New York DA's office within a couple of years of each other, but Breman had almost immediately gravitated to management. He thought of her then and now as an empty pantsuit who'd never tried anything more challenging in her life than a misdemeanor Peeping Tom.

However, her family was connected with the Brooklyn DA, who gave her a sweetheart deal to become his spokeswoman and attend all the political functions he had long ago tired of. She'd schmoozed her way up the party food chain until her boss retired, when she'd been a natural with the clubhouse pols to assume the top spot at the DAO.

Karp had to hand it to her in one way; she could sidestep blame better than most matadors avoided a bull. Following Villalobos's confession and press conference, the press, as well as the demagogues and race baiters like Louis, had pilloried the former DA-a decent if burned-out man named Steve Colella-and the NYPD for the "racist railroading" of the poor young men. Breman had quickly gauged the sentiment and joined the chorus. Anxious to distance herself from any association with her predecessor, she had been outspoken regarding "this travesty of justice…which, unfortunately, occurred before my tenure or it would have been stopped in its tracks."

Breman had reminded the press that in her younger years with the New York DA's office she'd prosecuted sexual assault cases-a stretch, as she'd never actually gone to trial in the three months she was with the Sex Crimes Bureau. The "overzealous and callous prosecution" of the Coney Island defendants, she said, had "set back the course of sexual assault prosecutions a hundred years."

Along with the rest of the public, at least judging by the letters to the editor, Karp had assumed that the assistant DAs and cops had botched the case. The DNA evidence was pretty difficult to refute, and he assumed that even Breman would have taken a pretty good look at the case files, as well as questioned witnesses, including Villalobos, under oath before jumping on Louis's bandwagon.

One thing had bothered him, though, about the stories in the press. The two suspended prosecutors-Repass and Russell-were formerly protegees of his wife's when she ran the New York District Attorney's Sex Crimes Bureau. As they were junior assistant DAs, he had known them only in passing, but they had reputations as solid, aggressive litigators who'd modeled themselves after his wife. Only after Marlene left did they agree to cross the river and work for the Brooklyn DA, lured by the opportunity to start their own sex crimes bureau.

After the stories naming them broke, Marlene had refused to believe that they'd messed up. "They're as good, as thorough, and as honest as anyone who has ever come through that office."

But the Brooklyn DA didn't seem to have the same opinion. "Looks like your two ladies are going to take the fall for the Coney Island case," Karp said, and pointed to where the story noted that Breman had placed Repass and Russell on "administrative leave" until an investigation by her office could be completed.

Karp read the next paragraph aloud for Marlene. "'An investigation,' Breman said, 'that will include aggressively pursuing any malfeasance on the part of her office staff or actions by members of the NYPD that resulted in "coerced false confessions" from four innocent young men of color.'"

Marlene stopped rubbing his shoulders and leaned forward to peer down at the newspaper. There was a file photo of her former assistants leaving the courthouse after the convictions ten years earlier. They looked satisfied, but there were no smiles or gloating; they had still followed her admonition, given when they were working for her, to remember Vince Lombardi's quote that he expected his players "to act like you've been there before" when they scored touchdowns.

"They may have made a mistake…it happens," Marlene said of the newspaper allegations. "But Breman seems awfully anxious to just let them swing in the wind."

Karp turned to a column he'd read earlier on the editorial page. "Listen to this: 'It is clear to us that the representatives of our legal system in this case-the prosecutors and the police officers-conspired to deprive these young men of their basic rights to liberty based on the color of their skin. Such indifference to the constitutional guarantee of a fair trial borders on the criminal."

Marlene gave him a sour look. "Since when do you quote editorials in the New York Times? Are we going to start believing the same paper that labeled you KKKarp?"

"I don't," he replied. "That paper lost its credibility a long time ago…after its liberal agenda left the editorial page and started showing up on page one. But a lot of people believe everything they read."

"I remember when the confession story broke last spring, there was a sidebar article about the victim," Marlene said. "Liz Tyler. Apparently, she suffered permanent brain damage that affected her speech, and she also has amnesia-she can't remember a thing about the attack or the assailants. She's like an 'inspirational speaker' that these rape-awareness groups trot out, but really, her life was pretty much ruined. She got divorced after the trial and lost custody of her little girl…something to do with a suicide attempt."

"I thought it was the Coney Island Five, not Four," Karp mused. "And why does the press always have to come up with idiotic names for these things? Like they're sports teams."

"Because it sells newspapers," Marlene replied. "And it was five, but one of them flipped, copped a plea, and testified against his comrades. If I remember correctly, he was later killed in a gang shooting."

"In Brooklyn?" Karp frowned. He couldn't recall the incident.

"No, somewhere in California. The story I read when this other joker confessed said the cops didn't think it had anything to do with this case. Just a drive-by…wrong time, wrong place."

Karp reached up and grabbed his wife's hands that still rested on his shoulders. "Sorry about Robin and Pam," he said. "I know you liked them."

Marlene withdrew her hands from his grip and moved around to sit down, elbows on the table and chin in her hands. She sighed.

Karp realized the conversation had just changed direction; this wasn't about the Coney Island case. "What's up, babe?"

She sighed again. "Nothing really. I just promised Dad that I'd stop by this morning to help a little with Mom, and I'm just not in the mood."

Karp waited to see if she wanted to go on. Marlene came from a close-knit Italian family and as the youngest, it had fallen to her to do most of the looking out for her aging parents. Despite her tough exterior, when it came to her mother and father she was still a little parochial school girl who was unsettled by the thought of her parents getting old. She tried to hide it, but he knew that she was disturbed to distraction by her mother's slow surrender to Alzheimer's and her father's growing inability to cope emotionally with his wife's ailment. Going to visit her parents at their home in Queens-formerly a pleasant experience that she'd welcomed as often as she could get away-was now something she avoided if possible. Only to beat herself up with guilt afterward.

Although he already knew how she'd answer, Karp suggested, "Call and say you can't make it. Find a better day…when you're feeling up to it."

Marlene shook her head. "No. Dad needs to get out of the house for a few hours. And there really aren't any 'better days.' In fact, it seems that she gets a little worse every day, and he gets a little angrier." She wiped at the tears that had formed in her eyes and smiled at him. "The boys still sleeping?"

He nodded. "Ever since the holiday break began, they've been staying up all night and sleeping until noon."

"Do you still have to go in today?"

He nodded again. "Yeah, I have a meeting with the next mayor of our fair city that he wanted at a time when there weren't a lot of eyes around…especially the press."

Marlene looked surprised. "The new mayor of Gotham wants to thank Batman for handing him the election by taking the Joker, Andrew Kane, out of the picture?"

Karp tried out his best comic book superhero voice. "No, ma'am. His honor knows that the Caped Crusader was simply doing what needed to be done in the interest of justice and the American way." It wasn't a very good impression, so he dropped the voice and continued, "It's nothing. He just wants a little quiet time to more than likely run the latest anticrime public relations campaign by me."

"Want me to call for the Batmobile?" she asked.

"No thanks, Cat Woman," he said. "I think I'll fly. I'm not fitting in my bat tights like I used to and can use the exercise."