VC01 - Privileged Lives (37 page)

“Scottie couldn’t have put the box there. Mama made him move into the Princeton Club the day I went to the hospital.”

“Who else could have put a box of insulin on your bedside table?”

“I don’t know who, but it’s absurd to think Scottie would incriminate himself so carelessly, so stupidly. That box was planted so that Dina would find it.”

“I happen to know Dina pretty damned well. We’ve worked professionally together and we toured the Sid Vicious book. She’s a totally sweet gal—and she would not print a lie.”

“Maybe not knowingly.”

“Babe, even if Dina was careless—which I find highly unlikely—magazines check their facts. People who tell fibs in print get slapped with big fat libel suits.”

“After the second verdict I’m surprised Scottie didn’t sue you.”

“Not bloody likely. He’s a crook—as well as a liar and a murderer manqué. The civil rules of evidence are far more relaxed than the criminal. He’d have lost. Unlike Oscar Wilde, he knows when to stop.”

“Then what’s to keep
me
from suing you?”

Dobbsie glanced up at her. “What in the world for?”

“Libel.”

“I never libeled you.”

“What do you call that tan alligator bag in the closet? Scottie never owned a bag like that. So the implication is that it was mine. And whose drugs were in it? The state never proved that Scottie used drugs. So the implication is that the liquid Valium was mine too.”

“I never said that.”

“But you published it. The implication’s right there in print, with your name on the book. And now I’m back from the dead, civil rights restored.”

A hint of hesitation flickered in Gordon Dobbs’s handsome face. “What would you hope to gain in a lawsuit?”

“Answers to questions.”

“Like what?”

“Like why you wrote that book the way you did. What did you stand to gain by prejudicing Scottie’s appeal?”

Gordon Dobbs was looking at Babe carefully now, and she knew he was estimating her power to hurt him, weighing it against her usefulness to him, calculating what sort of fresh tack to take with her.

“You’re right to be suspicious of the book,” he sighed. “I signed an agreement with your parents’ lawyer. Bill Frothingham set up the interviews and gave me the information.”

Babe heard Dobbsie out in silence, fighting to control her growing anger.

He explained how Lucia Vanderwalk had hired an ex-police detective who had extremely good connections and wasn’t bound by the law. He explained how the detective had reconstructed the crime. He explained how the reconstruction had formed the basis of the book.

“In return I let Bill Frothingham see the manuscript. He vetted it for errors. There was no obligation to change anything, just to consider your family’s suggestions. They allowed a great deal to stand that wasn’t at all favorable to your great-grandfather.”

“Did my family pay you?”

“Yes, I received a consideration.”

“Naturally they let you publish old family scandal—no one would think they were behind the book. But how could you have put your name to someone else’s accusations?”

“Frankly,” Dobbsie said, “I believe Scottie was guilty. The book was published after the first trial, so it certainly didn’t harm him. He got his appeal. He got his reduced plea. He got everything.”

“Of course it harmed him. Coming from my parents it would have been revenge and no one would have paid attention. Coming from you it was news and hundreds of thousands of people believed it. Why else do you think my parents paid you?”

Dobbsie took Babe’s hands in his. “I’m a bad person, Babe, but I’m not an
unusually
bad person. I lay no claim to your respect, but I do hope for your friendship.”

“Did my parents pay Dina too?”

“I have no idea,” he said. “You’ll have to ask her that yourself.”

“Do you know what I can’t understand?” Babe said. “Why did the insulin in the stud box show up after the first trial and not before?”

Dina Alstetter gave a cold little smile that wasn’t a smile at all. “It would have showed up anytime anyone had had the sense to look.”

“And you were the first to have the sense?”

“I was the first to have the curiosity.”

“I’ll tell you what I think,” Babe said. “I think that bottle of insulin was planted long after my coma.”

Dina Alstetter exhaled. She didn’t move or even show a reaction. “Why would anyone have planted it?”

“So you could drive another nail into Scottie in print.”

“That’s rather naive of you, Babe.” Dina Alstetter’s hair was long, straight, and dark and she gave it a quick toss. “It’s not my habit to allow myself to be used.”

“If the insulin wasn’t a plant,” Babe said, “why wasn’t it evidence at the trial? Why didn’t the police even find it?”

“Because the police are not particularly effective at their work.” Dina Alstetter rose smoothly from the chair. She wore designer blue jeans and a bodiced lace blouse, and most of her length was in her legs. She walked to the window of her Beekman Place sitting room. Sunlight poured through in a dazzling slant. “Babe, you’ve been away an awfully long time. A lot has changed in this city.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“You may not know that I’ve taken up investigative journalism since my divorce. I’ve won awards. I’ve even been mentioned for a Pulitzer. I’m not trying to impress you, but you should have some awareness that I enjoy the respect of the journalistic community—I may be Ash Canfield’s sister, but that doesn’t mean I’m some neophyte dumb enough to run a story that’s a plant.”

“Did my parents pay you to publish that article?”

Dina’s head whipped around. “Absolutely not.”

They stared at one another.

“Did the police ever look at the bottle?” Babe asked.

“As a matter of fact, they didn’t. I don’t suppose New York’s Finest get around to reading
SoHo
magazine.”

“And you didn’t take it to them?”

“My lawyer advised me not to.”

“Then who has it now?”

“I have it.”

“I’d like to see it.”

Babe wheeled herself across the sidewalk, steering clear of shade trees and uniformed maids walking poodles. The neighborhood was a luxurious preserve of solidly built pre-World War I co-ops, with the odd brownstone town house sprinkled in.

The Provence Pharmacy stood on the corner of First Avenue. As Babe approached, the automated door opened onto a splash of yellow and green
frictions de bain
on special, piled in neat pyramids.

A cool breeze of perfumed air conditioning fanned her face.

The young druggist behind the counter looked at her wheelchair with frank curiosity. “Help you?” he offered.

Babe took the bottle from her purse. “I phoned the manufacturer,” she said. “They told me they sold this lot number to you.”

The smile on the druggist’s face dimmed. His hair was richly dark and clipped almost in a crew cut. His face betrayed a residual sprinkling of teenage acne. His eyes met Babe’s for just a second longer than necessary. “It’s possible,” he said.

“Is there some way you can check?”

A frown slipped across his face. “I can see if it’s in the computer,” he said doubtfully.

“I’d be grateful,” Babe smiled.

He went behind a glass partition and two minutes later he came back holding what looked like a three-inch cash register printout. “We filled this prescription almost six years ago.”

Babe’s heart gave a skip behind her ribs. “Could you tell me who you filled it for?”

32

“Y
OUR HONOR, THIS IS
a wholly improper arrest,” Ted Morgenstern’s voice boomed into the half-empty courtroom. Cords stood out at the base of his extraordinarily wrinkled neck. “Lieutenant Cardozo interrogated Mr. Loring without counsel and without advising him of his Miranda rights.”

Watching Morgenstern, Cardozo felt a sort of weary, sick recognition: not only of the face that was never without a tan, the hawk eyes, the thin nose and lips, the gray-fuzzed shaven head crossed with wrinkles and scars, but of the delivery, the cranked-up outrage, the whole farce of legal nit-picking that masqueraded as a struggle against injustice.

Lucinda MacGill, tall, showing a mouthful of fine white teeth, moved with a tennis pro’s grace toward the bench. Her hair bounced lightly. “Your Honor, Lieutenant Cardozo wasn’t obliged to read Mr. Loring his rights until arresting him.”

“From the
moment
Lieutenant Cardozo waved a warrant in my client’s face, Mr. Loring was effectively under arrest!” Morgenstern made a heroic gesture that threw open the jacket of his tux, revealing mother-of-pearl shirt studs and a blue silk cummerbund. It was unlikely dress for court, but Counselor Morgenstern obviously had no time to rush home and change before tonight’s dinner-and-dancing date.

Behind Judge Joseph Martinez’s eyes was a sudden flare-up of interest. He lifted his chin and cocked his head slightly to one side, arching his graying moustache. “At what time did Lieutenant Cardozo wave an arrest warrant in Mr. Loring’s face?”

Cardozo rose from the front row of pale varnished benches. “Shortly after ten this morning Claude Loring was shown a warrant issued by Judge Levin.”

Judge Martinez’s eyes were cold and assessing. “When did you read him his rights?”

“After talking with him and determining there was cause for arrest.”

“What time, Lieutenant?”

“Around noon.”

“By which time,” Ted Morgenstern broke in, “Mr. Loring was suffering acute methaqualone poisoning.”

Lucinda MacGill stood there, tall, light-haired, alert and sharp. “The police did not drug Mr. Loring. He went to the men’s room and drugged himself.”

“One thing at a time, Counselor. Did Lieutenant Cardozo interrogate Claude Loring for two hours without reading him his Miranda or allowing him counsel?”

“Five hours, Your Honor,” Ted Morgenstern interrupted. “I didn’t see my client until three o’clock this afternoon at Saint Clare’s Hospital.”

Cardozo’s eyes connected with Morgenstern’s and hate flashed between them. The emotion was more than personal: it was a natural instinct, an antipathy between alien species.

They both knew the city: who the players were, how things got done, what worked. The difference between them was that they played on different teams for different rewards. Morgenstern had the notoriety, the plugs in gossip columns, the town house in the East Sixties, the dukes and duchesses to dinner, the limo. Cardozo had the citation for bravery, the forty-seven thousand salary, the walkup apartment, Mrs. Epstein going dutch with him on lamb chops, the Honda Civic.

“For three hours no one could see Mr. Loring because he was unconscious,” Lucinda MacGill said. “That was Mr. Loring’s
choice.”

The judge’s head had tipped back, his mouth slightly open. “It’s the police’s duty to safeguard any person in their custody. In this duty, as in his Miranda obligations, Lieutenant Cardozo conspicuously failed.”

Without a beat of hesitation Ted Morgenstern stepped forward. “Your Honor, I request that this charge be dismissed.”

“Murder one? Dream on, Counselor.”

“In that case I request reasonable bail for Claude Loring.”

Lucinda MacGill stepped toward the bench. “The people oppose bail for Claude Loring. He’s a sociopath, impulsive and unreliable. To free him before trial could put innocent citizens at risk and it could result in his absconding.”

“Your Honor, it could be a year or more before this case comes to trial. Are the police asking a South African-style preventive detention?”

“Your Honor, I resent the attempt to turn this arrest into an act of political repression. Mr. Loring is accused of a serious and brutal charge, the taking of an innocent human life.”

“Genug,
young lady.” Judge Martinez waved an impatient hand. “Let’s weigh risks. There’s the risk society faces if Mr. Loring is free on bail. As he has no previous record, that risk is minimal. Then there’s the risk Mr. Loring faces if he remains in police custody. So long as we have right-thinking gay-bashing hombres like Lieutenant Cardozo on our force, that risk is considerable. Bail of one hundred thousand dollars is granted.”

Outside the courtroom, Cardozo’s white-knuckled fist came up and slammed into the wall.

He stood there a moment, hardly breathing, hardly moving. The light slanting down from the fluorescent strip in the ceiling flickered.

A chip of plaster flaked down.

He punched the wall again.

Cardozo was reading the five on Midge Bailey, a new homicide.

No sign of forced entry, of struggle or violence. Nothing missing from the apartment. Eighty-seven dollars and a
VISA
card and a MasterCard in her purse.

The woman next door had been almost apologetic for having called the police.
The dog was howling. The door was open.

Cardozo studied the crime scene photos of the fifty-five-year-old housewife. He had spent his career digging around in the mud of low tide, but when he saw a human being worked over the way someone had gone over Mrs. Bailey, he realized he knew nothing whatsoever about the things that crawled on the ocean floor.

The phone gave two sharp clangs. He reached over, dragging it closer by the cord, lifting the receiver. “Hello?”

“Lieutenant Cardozo?” A woman. Cultivated voice.

“Speaking.”

“This is Babe Devens.”

Cardozo settled himself back in his chair. “Well, hello.”

“Am I calling at a bad time?”

“You’re calling at an excellent time. What’s the trouble?”

“If you have time, I’d like to talk to you.”

“I have time,” he said. “Talk.”

“Could we meet?”

“Mrs. Devens, what are you doing in half an hour?” He knew a restaurant on Sixty-seventh Street: bad food, watered booze, good privacy. “There’s a place near here called Danny’s.”

Cardozo walked up Lexington toward Danny’s Bar and Grill, not thinking about Midge Bailey, not minding the mugginess, not minding the red light that stopped him on Sixty-sixth, enjoying the sunshine and the skimpy, bright clothes on the women.