False Witness (20 page)

He smiled. “My mother, before her stroke, was a very active fund raiser for ORT. She still hits me up pretty good every year. That’s the extent of my ‘Zionist commitment.’ ”

Dr. Cohen stopped speaking and carefully looked at each of us in turn. He seemed to close in upon himself by the time he faced me.

“Are you serious about all this?”

“Yes, I’m very serious about all this.”

“In that case,” Dr. Cohen said quietly, “I think I would be well-advised to return with my attorney at a mutually agreed upon time.”

“I don’t think that would be a bad idea at all.”

Hell, in his position, I’d be sitting with my lawyer’s hand over my mouth.

“A couple of quick questions, Dr. Cohen, if you don’t mind?” Sister Lucy smiled so sweetly, even I wanted to lean forward and pat her head. Dr. Cohen turned and nearly smiled at her.

“Dr. Cohen, if you don’t mind? I see you have a rather large Band-Aid on your left cheek. Mind telling me what happened? Accident or what?”

He touched the edges of the flesh-colored bandage with the tip of his index finger, barely tracing the shape of it.

“I slipped on a discarded yogurt container in my classroom one day and hit the edge of my cheek on the corner of my desk. Metal corner. Metal and flesh; bad combination.”

“At Columbia, Dr. Cohen? That’s where you teach, isn’t it? Specialized microsurgery classes?”

“That’s where I teach, yes.”

“Was it a serious wound? Many stitches?”

He didn’t answer. He was busy gathering himself together, leaning over to pick up his attaché case; adjusting his handkerchief in his pocket neatly; refitting his glasses.

“When did this happen, Dr. Cohen? Recently?”

Lucy sounded concerned: poor man; wounded on the job.

His mouth opened, then his lips clamped together and he shook his head. “If you feel this is significant in some way, Ms. Capella, then perhaps we’d better discuss it when my attorney is present.”

“Dr. Cohen, I would suggest you try to recall, to the best of your ability, your activities on the night in question—up to when you were summoned to New York Hospital.”

I stood up and walked with him toward the door; looked up at him and asked pleasantly, “Dr. Cohen, how come you were rejected for military service?”

There was no taking this man by surprise, that was what surprised me. His calmness; his readiness for questions from any direction.

He turned and looked down at me; far down from his height to mine. He leaned over and hiked up his trouser leg, then lifted his right foot and showed me his shoe.

“Observe, Ms. Jacobi. Didn’t your research go this far or are you just testing my recall? As the result of childhood polio—I was of the unfortunate generation before Salk—this leg is two inches shorter than my left leg.”

“Not even noticeable, Dr. Cohen. Not particularly handicapping either, is it? You do pretty well in the marathons.”

“Yes,” he said vaguely. “I suppose you will want to know that. Yes.”

I saw the look that had been described to me by his inlaws: a cold, angry, cruel expression fastened on me, and then he turned and walked out of the office.

I
HAD HOPED TO
slip out of my office undiscovered but the District Attorney obviously had a spy planted in my office. He would be a damn fool not to: I had a couple situated in his office.

“Lynne,” he said, “why don’t you tell me what’s been happening?”

It took me a half-hour to update Jameson Whitney Hale. He sat quietly, his face somber and thoughtful.

“When’s your next meeting with Dr. Cohen?”

“At two
P.M.
tomorrow, he’ll appear at my office with his attorney.”

“What are your thoughts in this matter, Lynne?” He watched me closely, trying to penetrate, trying to catch me out should I try to hold back on him.

“If Sanderalee sticks with her story, I don’t feel I’ll have much choice but to bring it to the Grand Jury. What I’m trying to do, of course, is to come up with more than just her word.”

“Your doorman witness, Mr. Timothy-whatsis?”

“Doyle. Mr. Doyle. Mr. Doyle sat in my outer office, on the bench next to Dr. Cohen when Lucy Capella left him for a moment to announce his presence.” I spread my arms. “Nothing.”

“Nothing. Too bad. He seemed a good strong witness. Had he actually witnessed anything.”

“Actually, he studied the doctor from the knees on down. Which wouldn’t be too good an ID at best. But the shorter leg—it does fit in with the ‘special running shoe’ that Mr. Doyle insists on.”

“And Dr. Cohen’s suggestion that you ask that psychiatrist, Dr. Chan, for an evaluation of Sanderalee Dawson’s statement?”

“Lucy will speak to her tomorrow
A.M.
Lucy also hit on something that Bobby Jones is going to follow up. The Band-Aid on Cohen’s left cheek. Sanderalee stated she thinks she stabbed-jabbed-whatever her assailant with that unicorn statue. With the horn. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find out—visually—if Cohen had any abrasion or Band-Aid or whatever on his cheek on the morning of the attack. Bobby is going to check out the TV news tapes.”

“Have you briefed Jim Barrow, Lynne? Are you keeping him up to date on all this?”

“I was intending to; meaning, of course, no, I haven’t been right upfront with Jim. But I called him for a meeting just before you asked me to come up here. Want to sit in on it? I was going to Jim’s office, but if you’d rather, I’m sure he’ll come over here.”

“No, I think not at this point. I do think that search warrants are in order: Dr. Cohen’s residence; his place out in the Hamptons; his office at Columbia Presbyterian; his office at New York Hospital.”

“In the works. I figured I’d ask Chief Barrow to assign people for the searches. Just so he won’t feel too left out. With my people on the scene, of course.”

“Well, you have a busy schedule and I don’t want to keep you, Lynne. Just be sure you keep me updated.” The District Attorney stood and seemed about to escort me from his office, but his hesitation was totally expected. I just wondered when he would slip it in.

“Lynne, about this television documentary thing. With Glori Nichols. I think I should tell you something.”

“Oh, please, Mr. Hale. Not an intimate confidence.”

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t get away with a crack like that. My heart felt like lead. Jameson Whitney Hale smiled and waved away my suggestion as foolish rather than showing an angry reaction to a presumptuous remark.

“Lynne, when, and if—but probably
when
is the operative word—I announce for the Senate, Glori ... Ms. Nichols will be my public relations director. She is good at what she does; she is a strong professional. And we have also discussed your future position.”

“Really? How interesting.”

The District Attorney switched to careful New Englandese, which is sharp, clipped, precise and demanding. “What
is
it with you, Lynne? Do you have something personal against Glori? Since I will be working rather closely with her in the future and since I will be backing you when I make my public declaration and since there must be a certain cohesiveness among the people I am associated with, I think we should clear things up. What’s it all about?”

I shrugged.

Suddenly, he sounded fatherly. Amused and fatherly. He almost put an arm around me: good old Dad.

“Lynne, is it just one of those ‘woman-things’?”

Oh shit. How the hell do you answer a question like that: one of those
woman-things.
Visions of long intimate conversations between ethereal creatures, drifting along early morning beaches in the clean fresh air, discussing such
woman-things
as feminine hygiene, flashed through my brain.

“There seems to be a rather complex if unstated incompatibility of personalities, Mr. Hale. I’m not at all sure what Ms. Nichols has in mind. But I couldn’t possibly allow her to intrude with a camera crew on any of the workings of my office. That would be ludicrous to say the least. And foolish and possibly dangerous professionally. I hardly imagine you’d sanction an ‘open-office’ policy.”

“What she has in mind,” he explained to me, “isn’t an intrusion on any of the confidential spheres of your job, Lynne. She described it to me as a sort of cinéma-vérité with accent on the overall scope of your job. You’d be seen in conference with your staff and visiting the scene of a crime, talking to witnesses. No actual sound, of course. Possibly checking with your people in the field, that sort of thing. What she wants to show is a
woman in charge
of men in a traditionally male-dominated occupation. I should think, given your background, you’d be delighted to cooperate. It would be a marvelous opportunity to show you as a very accomplished, experienced, professional prosecutor. She’d bring in your background in the narrative. Voice-over, I think she called it.”

Oh, Whitney Hale, you are learning all about television. How wonderful.

“And she’d be showing that you are totally qualified and capable of assuming the demands of the office of District Attorney. You could not possibly buy that kind of publicity, Lynne.”

Just what I needed: Glori Nichols’ stamp of approval. What I had worked for for fourteen years.

“But she won’t give me any kind of editorial assurance, Mr. Hale. What if things don’t turn out the way you’re describing? What if something backfires and she’s got it on film or tape or whatever? What if it would make a better story for
her
if I were to screw up on something? Rather than to succeed. Have you considered that possibility, sir?
Her
goal is a
story.”

The District Attorney sighed and shook his head and showed his sadness and disappointment.

“Oh Lynne, Lynne. I think sometimes that we—all of us—are so constantly exposed to the suspicious, the double-talk, the devious, that we look for the devils behind every spoken word and in every suggestion offered.”

“Which, I believe, is the natural function of a prosecutor.”

“Lynne, her purpose in this film is not to ‘do you in’ somehow, but to praise you, to show you as one of three women of great strength and achievement and ability and determination. Women who have held their own during the years when they—you—were substantially alone, without the backing of a women’s movement. Real heroines: those of you who had the fortitude and determination to act on your own. Will you meet with her and discuss this?”

Real heroines. Now I was a heroine from yesteryear. Terrific.

“Do I have a choice?”

Jameson Whitney Hale did not answer. He just kept staring at me. His look suggested disappointment but at the same time confidence. Lynne would come through somehow; she always had; she always would.

“All right, as soon as I have a free moment. But I’m going to be very tied up for a while on the Dawson case.”

“Lynne. The Dawson case.” He came and stood beside me, his hand on my shoulder, gently pushing me to the door. “This could be a tremendously important case for you. In the public eye: a total media event. It could be the
very
thing that would put you over.”

Now, that was not
my
Jameson Whitney Hale speaking. It was
her
Jameson Whitney Hale. Definitely, this man was smitten.

“Find a moment within the next day or two,” he advised me with a smile. A cold, positive, assured smile.

“Yes, sir. I will do just that.”

Like hell I would.

I
T HAD BEEN A
long and unpleasant and exhausting session with Chief of Detectives Jim Barrow and several of his top people. I went alone and sat feeling physically and emotionally small, surrounded by his staff of six-foot detectives with wounded faces. It wasn’t that I had been withholding anything from Barrow; it was just that I hadn’t been sharing fully. I was alone in a room filled with offended giants of delicate sensibility.

It took an hour to update them and during all that time, I did most of the talking and Jim and his henchmen stared and glanced at each other at statements they apparently considered significant.

Finally, I confronted one of his top investigators, a huge red-headed, green-eyed movie-extra type who had been listening intently and I hoped evaluating professionally.

“Well, Detective Kasinski, what do you think?”

“About what?” he asked. True detective style: answer a question with a question.

“About everything you’ve heard in this room tonight. Tell me candidly, without looking at your boss, Chief Barrow, or your partner over there. C’mon, eyes on me. You’ve focused on me for one solid hour: now talk.
I’m
soliciting opinions. Give me yours. Quick. Top-of-your-head!”

Detective Kasinski fish-eyed me: large bright glazed green eyes unblinking and steady.

“The consensus is, Chief Jacobi,” Jim Barrow said in what sounded to my tired head like a semi-whine, “that this has not been exactly a wide-open, totally cooperative investigation. And the general feeling is that we might have avoided certain things and accomplished other things had we been let in on ‘your’ investigation earlier.”

I was going to ask Barrow: How did you do that? How did you arrive at a consensus right before my very eyes? But I was too tired for games. I was remembering my boss, newly smitten and involving me in
his
games with his television lady. I was remembering the expression on Mr. Wise’s face when he kept repeating over and over to us, about his son-in-law, David Cohen: get-him; get-him; get-him.

I leaned back in the uncomfortable chair that had been provided for me, stretched my legs out without finding any place to rest them; sat slumped and drained and looked across Jim Barrow’s desk and said quietly, directly to him, excluding the members of his staff who were placed strategically about the office, “Stop fucking with me, Jim. I’m too tired even to be kissed.”

It embarrassed him, as I had intended. I knew my Jim Barrow: his foul and energetically creative mouth was closed in the presence of a woman. He glanced around at his men and somehow, wordlessly, transmitted a signal and they filed out quietly, politely. Coffee appeared in a short time: hot, fresh from the bakery around the corner and served with paper trays of warm Danish pastry.