Reversible Error

NINE

"So what do you think?" Karp asked. "Do you like the boyfriend?"

Guma wriggled in his chair and chewed thoughtfully on the stump of a dead black cigar. "Not particularly," he said. "The cops, of course, love the boyfriend."

"They always do," Karp agreed. "It's convenient and it's usually right. Why don't you like him?"

"Coupla things. One, the guy calls 911 from the girl's apartment, and when the cops get there, the body's still warm. So either he did it, or whoever really did do it must've practically passed him in the goddamn hallway going out.

"So if there's not another guy, we have to believe that this white-bread insurance exec with no priors and no history of violence shows up for a regular date with his sweetie, rapes her, wraps her up like a mummy, and stabs her thirty-nine times."

"It's happened," Karp observed,

"Everything's happened, Butch. Ponies have come in first at forty to one, but that's not the way you bet. Oh, another thing: the boyfriend, what's-his-name, Allman, he claims that he called the girl before he came over and that a man answered the phone. The man said he was a TV repairman, which Allman thought was strange, because he had just helped the Wagner girl pick out a new RCA last week. The man said Wagner was in the shower, which Allman also thought was weird because he was only fifteen, twenty minutes away, and they had tickets to a show, and if she was just taking a shower, she wouldn't be ready to go. So he hauled ass over there and found her dead."

"Do you believe him?"

"Mmm, I sort of do. There was no sign of forced entry; the girl let the killer in. According to Allman, she occasionally dated other men. He knew about it; didn't like it, but he could handle it, he says. Not a jealous type, he says."

"Any hard evidence?"

"A little, but also strange. They searched the garbage and found a couple of cans on top of the bag. One Diet Pepsi with her prints on it and a can of Bud with no prints at all-wiped clean, as a matter of fact. Tends to confirm the boyfriend, no?"

"Could be," said Karp distantly. Something was tugging at the edge of his mind, but it wasn't a murder case. After a bit, he asked, "So where are we taking this? Since you don't like the boyfriend."

"Look at the patterns, round up the usual weirdos."

"You're thinking weirdo?"

"I'm looking at thirty-nine stab wounds, a rape, and Mr. Neat, Mr. Cool talking on the phone when he's raping the girlfriend. Cleaning up too-a supercareful son-of-a-bitch. We got a sociopath for starters. Maybe he did it before. I wouldn't want to take your money if you're betting he won't do it again. I hope… you know…"

"Yeah, that we can get him before," said Karp. It tugged at his mind again, a similar case, a similar conversation. But there were so many cases and conversations.

The phone rang, and the train of thought was gone. With an apologetic glance at Guma, Karp snatched it up and said, "I'm in a meeting, Connie."

"I know that," said Trask. "But it's a Detective Manning and he says it's urgent."

Karp placed his hand over the mouthpiece. "Goom, was that it? I got to take this call."

Guma stood up. "Yeah, you got the whole story. I'll be in touch, especially if we get another one." JoAnne Caputo had been calling Marlene about once a week to see how things were going. Marlene began to dread the calls. In fact, nothing was going on, and she was going to have to tell Caputo that face-to-face, because the woman had insisted on coming in this afternoon with what she claimed was a new insight into the rape-victim data, and Marlene hadn't the heart to turn her down.

Karp had said he would talk to the cops about her pattern rapist. She didn't know whether he had or not, and was not inclined to nag him about it, because of the business about nepotism, and the silly tantrum she had thrown.

On the other hand, he was supposed to check the severance thing out too. She looked at her watch and saw that she had fifteen minutes before Caputo's appointment. Enough time to see Karp, find out about the bureaucratic bullshit, and maybe put a zinger in about the rape business.

"He's on the phone," Connie Trask called as Marlene breezed by her desk. Marlene ignored the warning, as she usually did, and stuck her head in the door. Her bright smile froze when she saw Karp's face, which was the sort worn when you get the call that your whole family has been wiped out in a head-on. He saw her, and shook his head, and made a little shooing out motion with his hand.

Marlene shooed, and closed the door hard enough to rattle the glass. Everyone in the office, all the secretaries, clerks, and hangers-out, looked up. Marlene felt a flush move over her face. She stomped over to the battered office couch and pretended to read a six-month-old copy of Government Executive.

After five minutes or so, Connie Trask cleared her throat meaningfully and nodded toward the bureau chief's office. Marlene walked with frosty dignity across the office and through the door.

Karp still had that look. Marlene sat down and lit a cigarette. "Who was that, your girlfriend?" she asked nastily. "Is she pregnant?"

Karp rubbed his face. "Marlene, please. I don't need this."

"What, I can't listen to your secret phone calls?"

Karp started to say something, stopped, and merely shook his head.

"It was that cover-up thing?"

Karp nodded.

They were silent for a few moments. In Marlene, feelings of sympathy fought with her suspicions that if she were one of the boys Karp would have confided in her. At last she said, with false brightness, "Well, on a lighter note, what's happening with this nepotism crap? Did you fix it?"

"I did not fix it, Marlene. It can't be fixed. There's a loophole that allows you to extend the time allowed so you can close out current cases-for the good of the office, as they put it. But after that you're out."

"Bloom said that?"

"I didn't go to Bloom, Marlene. I checked the regs and called a guy I know in the AG's office in Albany. No hope."

"With all the stuff you've got on Bloom…?"

"You're not listening, babe. I got stuff on Bloom because he broke the law, and he knows I know it, and if he tries to break the law again, I might use it. But I'm not going blackmail him into breaking the law on my behalf. Or yours."

"No, but you're doing some kind of great coverup for one of your asshole buddies. That's OK!"

Karp's jaw tightened and he leaned toward her across the desk. "You're being a prick, Marlene. Now, cut it the fuck out!"

Marlene shot to her feet. "I'm being a prick? Me?" she shouted, and she was working her mouth around some particularly vicious thing to say when the situation suddenly became too much for her to bear. She fell back into her chair with tears starting. I will not cry, she told herself sternly, and by dint of some strenuous lip-biting and facial contortions she was able to compose herself.

"You're right. I'm sorry," she said flatly. "What about the cops? On the rape thing."

"Yeah, I talked to Dworkin this morning."

"Dworkin? Come on, Butch, Jerry Dworkin? The guy's a broom. He hasn't had an idea since 1953."

Karp sighed. "No, he's not a rocket scientist, but he is the D.A. squad chief and he's the guy I have to work with."

"And what did he say?"

"He said, 'Great, but what am I supposed to do with it?' Or words to that effect. What he meant was, if they catch a guy wrapping panty hose around a rape victim, your stuff helps to make a better case. They could bring the other women in and get an ID on the guy. But until then…"

Marlene stood up again. "Until then he's not going to budge his fat ass."

"Marlene, you're gonna kill me, but the guy's got a point. What do you want the cops to do? Check out every date made in every singles bar in New York? They don't have the troops. Look, Guma was just in here with a Tape-murder. The bastard got away clean as a whistle, and we don't have lead one. A psycho this is, wrapped the girl up and stabbed her thirty-nine times, nice girl, nice building. That's what the cops are going after, not some-"

"What did he wrap her up in?"

"What? I don't know, some sheet or something. Why?"

"Was she slender, dark-haired?"

"Marlene, I don't know. Guma's got the case."

She moved toward the door, excitement starting to flow through her. Karp said, "Hey, are we OK now?"

She flashed him a quick smile. "Yeah, sorry I snapped."

"OK, remember we have a date tonight. My aunt."

She waved in acknowledgment and was gone.

JoAnne Caputo was waiting in her office when she returned. The woman was wearing scruffy jeans and a leather car coat too warm for the weather, as a kind of armor. Her dark hair was dirty and pinned back and she still had smudgy circles under her eyes. She wore no makeup.

"Something going on?" Caputo asked. "You look excited."

"Yeah, something might be," said Marlene. "There's a chance our boy killed somebody with his knife."

"Oh, Christ! Who?"

"I don't know yet. Let me make a phone call."

Marlene dialed Guma's number and was told he was on the phone.

"He's in. Let's go!" said Marlene, and hustled Caputo out.

Guma was out again by the time they got to his office, but they tracked him down in a busy corridor outside a tenth-floor courtroom.

"Goom! We got to talk," said Marlene.

"Hey, sweetie," said Guma with a wide grin. "I'd love to, but I'm in court like five minutes ago. Hey, tell me, what's the difference between a lady lawyer and a pit bull?"

"Lip gloss," said Marlene, rolling her eyes.

"Oh, you heard it already." Guma looked more closely at JoAnne Caputo. "Who's your friend?"

Marlene made the introductions. "Goom, JoAnne's a… witness in a case you just picked up, a rape-murder?"

"Yeah, the Wagner thing. Bad shit. A witness?"

"Not exactly. But we won't know unless we see the case file. Where is it?"

"My girl's got it. Under Wagner, Ellen. Feel free." He looked more closely at Caputo and smiled. "Don't I know you from somewhere?" he asked her.

"For Chrissake, Guma!" cried Marlene.

But Caputo's eyes had gone wide. She cried out and pointed her finger at Guma.

"You! You're the guy from Adam's!" she called in a shrill voice.

People in the hallway stopped and looked. Guma's jaw sagged and his face took on a stricken expression. Oh, no, Marlene thought in a panicked instant, she's cracked up. She's going to start accusing people at random. As gently as she could, she said, "Ah, JoAnne, I really don't think that Guma here could be…"

Caputo shook her head vigorously and said in the same excited tone, "No, he's not the rapist! He was hitting on me the night I met him. At Adam's." The crowd became more interested and there were chuckles from one or two of the regulars.

Guma held up his hand in a protective gesture and backed away. "Uh, ladies," he said, "it's been a pleasure, let's have lunch, but…" He scuttled away and was gone through a courtroom door.

Marlene looked at Caputo in amazement. "Guma was there? He hit on you that night?"

"Yeah, the fucker was all over me. Sorry, I hope he's not a friend of yours."

"As a matter of fact, he is a friend of mine, but he's also a chauvie, horny scuzzball when it comes to women, and he knows I know it. It's OK as long as you regard him as a separate, though exotic species, in a National Geographic kind of way, like a spiny anteater."

Caputo grinned broadly at this, and it struck Marlene that this was the first time she had ever seen the woman smile. It lit her face through the ever-present mask of pain, like a photoflash behind filthy glass.

They went quickly to Guma's secretary, retrieved the Wagner case file, and repaired to Guma's private office to examine it. In a few minutes Marlene let out a sharp yelp of triumph.

"It's him! No forced entry. He left the panty hose wrapped around the victim's head. It's him! We got him!"

"What do you mean, 'we got him'?"

"Oh, shit, JoAnne-it's horrible, but the murder puts your case into a whole new category as far as the cops are concerned. It's a violent murder. It's big-time. Assuming…" She paused speculatively.

"Assuming what?"

"Assuming we can convince them that it's the same guy."

"That's hard?"

Marlene frowned and scratched her head with a pencil. "It could be. Cops don't like advice. They like to figure it out for themselves. They like clues and witnesses and snitches. They might take some convincing that a serial rapist who never stabbed anybody would all of a sudden turn into a crazy slasher. I don't know…"

They were silent for a while. Then Marlene said, "You said you had something to show me. On the data?"

JoAnne nodded and pulled some folded paper out of a large leather bag.

"Yeah. I was thinking about disguises, the ones the guy uses." She spread the papers on Guma's desk. "Look, there are nine pantyhose rapes, but only five descriptions. It makes sense in a way. It's probably a lot of work to get the disguises right. I mean, think what it would take for you to pretend to be five different people. Also the pickups all took place at one of five singles clubs, and the rapes occurred at intervals of three to four days afterward. So I was trying to see if there was some kind of pattern to the disguises and the clubs."

The paper laid out on the desk showed four columns:

Case Club Date Descr.

1 D 12/15 v

2 C 1/03 w

3 A 1/17 x

4 O 2/01 y

5 T 2/15 z

6 C 3/12 x

7 T 4/25 v

8 C 5/24 y

9 A 6/07 z

"What does it mean?" Marlene asked.

"OK, it's in chron order, of course. The second column is the name of the club. D is Dreamland, C is Clancy's, A is Adam's, O is the Omega Club, and T is Tangerines. All big noisy places, dark, and so on. Then the date when they met the guy, and the right column is the code for the disguises." She passed Marlene another piece of paper: V = 5'10/blond short/blue/white jeans windbreaker W = 5'8/dark long/brown/bump nose/casual/avi-glasses X = 6'1/sideburns-red med./brown/sm nose/scar/cowboy Y = 5'10/thin brown/hazel/hornrims/3-piece suit Z = 5'8/blond curls/blue/cleft chin/glasses/finger miss

"Five different guys," said Marlene. "I'm still amazed! What do you think about the finger on Z?"

"In the Z disguise he's missing the pinky on his left hand. Or so it appeared to the victim. He even brought it up, so she'd be sure to notice. Want to bet it's phony?"

"No bet," said Marlene. "So what does it all mean?"

Caputo shook her head glumly. "I don't know yet. But somehow he's got to have a system to keep the disguises straight with the different clubs when he makes his hit. But there's no pattern. He goes Dreamland, Clancy's, Adam's, Omega, Tangerines, then Clancy's, then Tangerines, then Clancy's again, then Adam's."

"Maybe he didn't like the band at Dreamland. Maybe he got spooked at Omega and dropped it. Or maybe there's no pattern. Except that, as I read it, he never repeats a disguise at a particular club."

"Yeah, that's his point, that's what he can't afford to do on nights when he meets his victim. But there's got to be a pattern. This is a pattern guy. I know it's there, if I could only-"

The door opened and Guma walked in. He raised his eyebrows at the sight of the two women. "Well, girls," he said, "what are we doing? Playing the pools?"

"No, we're finding your killer," said Marlene. "Come here and look at this."

Marlene quickly filled Guma in on the theory that the man who killed Ellen Wagner was a serial rapist, based on Marlene's case histories and the computer analysis. When she was done, he wrinkled his face into an expression of doubt and said, "I don't know, Marlene. It's fancy, all right, but what does it get us? You know? I go to the cops with this, they'll laugh in my face. The only real connect you got between all these cases is the panty hose on the head. Interesting, but not conclusive. Disguises? In the movies, maybe. Let me see that sheet again."

Guma studied the columns on Caputo's printout for a moment and then flicked the paper with a finger and shook his head. "I see five guys, five joints, random times. It starts every two weeks, fine, but look at March, here. What, the guy took a vacation? He took his panty hose to San Juan?"

He tossed the paper onto his desk and shrugged. "Don't even think cops, kid. Say we finally get a suspect. Think jury. Think reasonable doubt. Imagine convincing twelve people that nine people who ID five different descriptions were raped by the same guy, and that the same guy, who never broke skin on nine, decides to tear number ten to shreds.

"No, we'll get this asshole the usual way. Canvassing the area. Snitches. He'll make a mistake-"

JoAnne Caputo suddenly leapt to her feet and slammed her fist on the desk. "That's it! That's it! I'm so dumb!" She slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand and then retrieved her printout. She sat down again and began scribbling rapidly on it.

"What's going on, JoAnne?" asked Marlene cautiously.

Caputo wrote for a half-minute longer before answering, then threw her pencil down and sat back with an expression of fierce triumph. "There! It's perfect!"

Guma and Marlene moved around the desk to look over her shoulder as she explained. On the paper before her, she had penciled in five additional lines:

Case Club Date Descr.

1 D 12/15 v

2 C 1/03 w

3 A 1/17 x

4 O 2/01 Y

5 T 2/15 z

6 D w

7 C 3/12 x

8 A y

9 O z

10 T 4/25 v

11 D x

12 C 5/24 y

13 A 6/07 z

14 O v

"Mamma mia! There's the pattern," Marlene exclaimed.

"Yeah," said Guma, "the clubs repeat, but what about the X and Y business?"

"That's how he keeps the disguises straight," Caputo explained. "He can't afford to repeat a disguise in a club where he's made a hit. So he runs the disguise sequence out of sync with the club sequence. Look-at number six, the beginning of the second sequence, instead of starting with Mr. V again, he starts with Mr. W. The next sequence starts with Mr. X, and so on. He can keep that going for twenty-five hits. At twice a month, that's a whole year."

Guma knotted his brow. "It's still hard to believe. I mean, there's a zillion clubs. Why does he bother with this?"

"Because it's part of his thrill," Caputo answered with passion. "It's elegant, it's clever, and he figures no one will ever catch on. Also, the guy's a nut. Maybe he feels more in control this way. Maybe he's nervous in a completely strange place. Who the hell cares? We got him."

Marlene was studying the altered chart. "JoAnne, what's number fourteen? Why did you add one at the end?"

"For Wagner. I bet if you check at the Omega Club you're gonna find that the third weekend in June she was talking to a guy five-foot-ten, short blond hair, blue eyes, in white jeans and a windbreaker."

"I'll get the cops moving on it," said Guma, showing real excitement at last. "This, they can understand."

"What can I do for you, Butch?" asked Chief of Detectives Denton. The receiver of the phone was uncomfortably warm and slick against Karp's ear. He thought, what you can do for me is to get me out of this goddamn situation, say it never happened, say Clay Fulton is back among the decent living souls instead of wherever he is, say that the line between the good guys and the bad is still bright and shiny.

What Karp actually said was, "I got a call from Manning. You know, the cop on Bloom's task force?"

A pause. Then, "Yeah?"

"Yeah. He was full of news. It seems somebody tried to assassinate Tecumseh Booth at his mother's apartment house."

"I thought Booth was in custody," said Denton.

"Sprung on a technicality."

"Couldn't you stop that?"

"I wasn't sure I wanted to. I figured Booth in play on the street was a better bet than Booth with his lip buttoned in the cells. Not to mention that Rikers is not the safest place in the world if somebody wants to do you. And I was right, as it happened. It brought them out."

"Did anyone see the hit man?"

"Yes, well, as a matter of fact, Manning said the shooter was identified leaving the scene. According to the cops there, who happened to be his own men, it was Clay Fulton himself. Speaking of whom, when your detectives pressed upon Mr. Booth the basically unsafe nature of his position, and that if he wanted police protection he was going to have to come up with some names, the name Mr. Booth came up with was Clay Fulton."

An expletive that Chief Denton did not ordinarily use hissed over the line. "I agree," said Karp, "but what are we going to do about it?"

"Do about it? Not a damn thing. So some mutt named him. We know it's not him, and who can figure what a mutt is going to say? I could give a rat's ass. As for the other thing-hanging out near the shooting-it's part of the plan. Fulton can handle himself."

Karp took a deep breath, waited, and said, "Yeah, I guess. Look, Chief, you remember a couple of years back we had a bunch of Cubans running around killing people? I recall these guys got their start infiltrating terrorist groups for the feds, and in order to, like, prove they were the real goods, they would pop a couple of people, show their good intentions. Now, do you think it's in the realm of possibility that Clay is doing the same thing? Showing he's a friend by wasting this mutt?"

A silence on the line. Then, "I'll check it out."

"Please," said Karp. "And for the record, Chief-if that's the game plan, official or unofficial, I'm gone. I'm off the court. It's wide open, no deal, whatever falls out. Sorry, but-"

"I understand," said Denton curtly, and hung up. "How was your day?" asked Marlene. They were in a cab, traveling north toward Karp's aunt's apartment.

"Hell on earth," replied Karp in a tone that did not encourage exploration. "How was yours?"

Marlene shrugged. "Nothing much. Putting asses in jail."

"Where did you run off to in such a hurry?"

"Oh, just had to see somebody I forgot about. Nothing special."

She was disinclined to share with Karp the revelations of that afternoon concerning the panty-hose rapist-or the panty-hose killer, as he now was. Karp was being withdrawn and sullen. She could play that game too, although she knew it was stupid and infantile to play back to him what he was putting out. Why should she always be the one to jolly him back to humanity? She was running a major jollying deficit herself, which she did not intend to keep doing into the indefinite future.

Nor did she quite trust him to share her enthusiasm on this case. It wasn't Karp's kind of case, and he would be annoyed to see her plunging into something new when he expected her to be leaving the D.A. in a few weeks. She would drop it in his lap only when it was good and ripe, when they had the guy, and the loose ends were sewn up.

After a few minutes Karp said in a dull voice, "I guess you're starting to close things down, right? Since you're leaving and all."

"Right," said Marlene, intending no such thing.

Silence reigned for the rest of the ride. Karp slouched in the corner of his seat, exhausted, the despair growing in him. He'd burned his bridges with Denton, that was for sure, however this mess turned out. He was surprised at how acutely he felt the loss. Perhaps he had imagined the extent of feeling in the relationship. What was he to Denton after all? A chip on the table? A useful tool?

Faces flashed before his mind's eye as he subjected various relationships to the skills honed at a thousand Q amp;A's. Garrahy, a man absolutely himself, a model. How did you get that way? Where did the sureness come from? Denton. In the Garrahy mold, but… maybe it was that Karp was older, more experienced. Maybe he would have seen the same duplicity of motive in Garrahy if… No, that was crazy. Garrahy was all right. Denton was OK too. Fulton. Impossible to believe he was corrupt. There must be some mistake about shooting Booth. Maybe. Maybe nothing was as it seemed. The image of the lawyer Rich Reedy floated into his mind. A rogue, maybe, but an honest rogue. No pretenses. Maybe that was the way to survive. No illusions, no hypocrisy.

Karp felt again a familiar painful emptiness. He defined it to himself as missing Garrahy and the ability to speak his mind frankly to a man he respected, but at some level he understood that it was more than that, something injured and missing behind the deepest defense. Now, and unusually, he thought of his father. He would have to do something about his family. He was getting married, after all.

He imagined visiting his father, and his father's hot young wife, and telling them. His father would take him aside. "They got any money?" he would ask confidentially, meaning Marlene's family, feeling for the business possibilities. No? Then he would grin conspiratorially and say, "She's a good piece of ass, huh?" Money and sex, the twin poles of existence. He might also say, "Schmuck! Rich girls got pussy too," one of his favorite expressions.

Dan, the younger of Karp's two older brothers, would say the same thing, probably in the very same words. He had abraded his own personality into a pathetic clone of the old man's, in a suicidal search for a morsel of attention. Richard, the eldest, had gone off the other end, seeking purity in a return to the faith. Assuming that Rabbi Richie could even bring himself to see Butch the Apostate, Karp imagined himself sitting in his brother's musty living room, in which even the thick air had been passed as strictly kosher, and telling him that he was-the final infamy-marrying a shiksa. They would hear the blast in Tel Aviv.

So much for family. Karp shook his head, as if clearing it after a physical blow. Why did he have to be alone like this? He was going to be a father soon, for God's sake! What the hell did he know about being a father? What could he teach the kid? Shooting hoops? Cross-examination? He was the one who needed a father.

But this thought, which might have occasioned much profitable internal dialogue, and also explained a good deal about Karp's career thus far, was cut short by the arrival of the taxicab at its destination, a large apartment house on Central Park West.

"That's four-eighty," said the cab driver.

"Ground control to Butch," said Marlene. "We're here."

Karp snapped to, fumbled for his wallet, paid, and left the cab. Marlene looked up at him, a worried expression on her face, and squeezed his arm. "Where were you?"

Karp shrugged. He really didn't know. "Just tired, I guess. Let's go up."