Immoral Certainty (41 page)

After several minutes she collapsed into racking sobs, and then Karp was able to hug her, and say all the comfortless things that were all he had to offer: that it was in self-defense, that he was a murderer, that she saved both his life and her own life and Balducci’s life….

“It doesn’t help,” she replied through sobs. “I know all that. But … what he did, he didn’t really do it. He didn’t understand. He was like a baby. God in heaven, what she did to him, what his life must have been like! And almost his last words were, ‘I want my Mommy.’” She mopped her damp face with a towel.

“If there’s any evil in the world, that’s evil,” she said. “It’s like that line from St. John—the sin against the Holy Ghost, for which there is no forgiveness in this world, or the next. I never really understood what that meant until now.”

“You can’t blame yourself, Marlene. You did what you had to do.”

“Yeah? Maybe Irma felt she had to massacre little children and murder the soul of her own kid. No, you’re right, but, oh hell! Life is such a shit pie!” She sat up on the bed. “Christ, I need a cigarette, and I know they won’t let me smoke in here. So tell me, where is the old bitch now? In jail, I hope.”

“She’s dead.”

“Dead? What happened?”

“She took poison.”

“Couldn’t handle being arrested, or what?”

“We never arrested her.”

“What! Why not?”

Karp sighed. “It’s a long story, Marlene. Are you sure you’re up to it now?”

“Am I ever! You know me. Everything on the surface. I don’t bury things in a dark Jewish soul like some people I could mention. I had my cry. It’ll always hurt someplace, but I know where it is, and why it is, and, fuck it, life goes on. So tell me, what happened?”

“Well, Raney noticed Mrs. Dean at Felix Tighe’s trial, and started wondering about that, and when he found out she was his mother—”

“What! Dean was Tighe’s mother? Alonso’s brother?”

“Half-brother. Yeah, she was his sweet mom—anyway, when Raney found that out, he realized that there was another connection between you and her, the fact I was putting her son on trial. So he went out to see Mary Tighe, Felix’s wife.”

“That shit was married?”

“Yeah. She turned up in the original murder investigation but Freddie didn’t bother talking to her. I didn’t even know she existed until Balducci told me. So Raney runs out and has a really interesting conversation. According to her, for about six months before he did the murder, Tighe kept her chained to the bed in a booby-trapped apartment, and came home every day or so to feed her and potty her and occasionally whip her with a coat hanger.

“She says he’s doing this because she found out his big secret. One day, she overheard Felix making a date with a girl named Denise. So she follows him to the love nest and finds … are you ready for this? … Denise is Mom.”

Marlene gasped in astonishment. “Mrs. Dean was getting it from her own kid?”

“So it seems. Also Felix was so fucked up behind it mentally that he totally denied it. He was in another zone completely. When the wife tried to get him to break it off, he went batshit and creamed her. After that, whenever he was with Mrs. Dean in her Denise mode, he would come home and whale her. Or beat up on other women, she thinks.”

Marlene shook her head in wonder. “My God, what a family!”

“Yeah, to quote Guma, ‘I heard of bad motherfuckers in my day, but I always thought it was a figure of speech.’ Anyway, one day he forgot to chain her up and she escaped. Felix had to look for other prey. That may be why he slammed into Anna Rivas and why he killed the Mullens. Whatever—I got a conviction and I’m going to ask for the max, two consecutive twenty-five to life terms. And I’ll get it, too.”

“Good. So that’s why Raney came after me.”

“Right. He looked up V.T., who, I understand, ran some traces on Dean for you a while back, and V.T. told him about the third building. Since he knew you weren’t in the other two, he figured you were there.”

“And he told you?”

“And he didn’t tell me. I probably wouldn’t have believed him if he had.”

“So how come you showed up with Balducci?”

Karp related the story of Matt Boudreau, Junior Gibbs, and the dolls. “But,” he added, “even that might not have convinced me by itself.”

“Why not?”

“Because you talked to Judge Rice before you left, and he swore that you were traveling to an innocent interview with Mrs. Dean about some janitor, and we thought we knew that you never got to the day-care center.”

“But he
knew
I was going to the West End Avenue address. He
gave
me the address … Oh, my God! Not him!”

“Yeah, him. That’s what tipped it for me. Guma came in with some information, which I don’t want to know where he got it, that Rice and that minister, Pinder, were pedophiles. They were in with her deep.”

“I’m nauseous,” said Marlene weakly, covering her face with her hands. “I told him everything. I spilled my guts to that man, and he was
so
kind and so understanding….”

“Yeah. Not-Nice Rice. Well named as it turns out. Not a judge anymore, needless to relate.”

Suddenly, she straightened up. “Wait a minute! Why didn’t you arrest Dean?”

Karp took a deep breath. “I’m coming to that. The fact was, we didn’t have much of a case.”

“Get outa here! No case, my ass! You had me, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but what did that prove? Alonso was dead. After she recovered, Dean expressed shock and horror that her dear departed son was this kidnapper and trash-bag killer. What a scandal, and so on, but
she,
of course knew nothing about it.”

“But I
saw
her. She gave me all this devil crap. She drugged me!”

“Sure, but, once again, try to prove it. It’s basically your word against hers. You have a long history of trying to persecute her, you were out of your mind, you’re a D.A., for chrissake! And we’d be fighting some of the most respected names in the community. It’d look like a witch hunt. So to speak. And who’s going to run the prosecution? Me? With my connection to you? Bloom? Give me a break!”

“But what about all the kids?”

“Yeah, also a great case,” Karp said facetiously. “You know how easy it is to tear apart a kid’s testimony on the stand? Kids under seven? And yeah, even if we’re successful, not only do we put a couple of dozen kids and their parents through incredible torture, but we get her on some pissy little procuring charge. What would she get? Eighteen months? Somebody who has connections with the kind of people she knows? Maybe.”

“So what’d you do?”

“I got Felix to rat her out.”

“He ratted his
mother?”

“Of course he ratted his mother. Felix Tighe? The prince?”

“But Butch, you did a deal with that scumbag?”

“Never! He’s going for the max.”

“So how….”

“Freddie Kirsch.”

“But Freddie doesn’t work for us any more,” said Marlene, confused.

“No. But Felix didn’t know that when Freddie went to see him.”

“You set it up? How come Freddie went along with it?”

“Actually, I didn’t exactly set it up. I mean, how could I? Any representation made by Freddie acting as my agent could be construed as a deal.”

“So?”

“It was the Queens burglary. He had to be sentenced for that, in court, in Queens. An opportunity. So I called the firm where Freddie works now and found out when he was going to be in court. Even lawyers like Freddie have to go to court once in a while. And I went up to him and congratulated him on the great job he did on preparing the case on Tighe. That was true at least. And he was knocked over.

“And then he congratulated me on winning the case. We shake, we laugh, we’re buddies. Then I say, ‘Hey, Freddie, Felix wants to see you, how about that?’ ‘What does he want to see me about?’ says Freddie. ‘I don’t know, but do me a favor. Be in Queens County Court on such and such a day and just wave at him. See what he does. It could be important.’

“Now Freddie knows he was a fuck-up here. He’s making a lot of money now, but still … he knows he crapped out in the majors. He could’ve had a big conviction, too, but he didn’t have the balls for it. So here I am, his old Bureau chief asking him a favor, just wave at the guy. Of course he’s going to do it.”

“But wait a minute—how did you know Felix was going to go for it? He didn’t really ask to see Kirsch, did he?”

“No, but I figured when he saw Freddie he’d remember that Freddie almost let him go once. Maybe he would do it again. And it worked. He called Freddie over, they had a nice chat, and Freddie saw him in Riker’s the next day.”

“But didn’t Freddie tell him he wasn’t with the office any more?”

“Of course. He said he was a private citizen. Felix just laughed, and said he knew a lot about a lot of things the D.A. would like to know about, and would Freddie do a deal. Freddie says, hey you want to do your duty and reveal crimes, that’s OK by me, but I can’t deal. Felix laughs. You understand—he’s
reading between the lines. He’s clever!

“And then God reached down from heaven and touched Kirsch with inspiration. Freddie looks Tighe in the eye and says, ‘You know, Felix, if it was up to me, you’d be out of here.’ Which was brilliant because, of course, it’s perfectly true. And then Felix gave it to us.”

“What? Come on, I’m dying here!”

“A safe deposit box, full of records of all her clients, names, dates, what they paid for, the kids involved. And pictures. Mrs. Dean was obviously preparing to cover herself if anything happened. She had shots of some fairly prominent citizens in the act with kids. And worse stuff, too. Snuff films of their rituals. She used to gloat over them with Felix, and he used to run them to the bank, which is how he knew about the box.”

“And when you showed her the evidence, she killed herself?”

“I don’t think it was the evidence, or the fear of going to jail. I think it was Felix. Her whole life was based on a fantasy about him being this noble son of the dark forces. When he turned her in, she collapsed. The air just went out of her.”

“You were there?”

“Yeah. We showed her the stuff and told her how we got it. She didn’t say anything. After a while she asked for a glass of water and took out a regular drugstore vial. She took a pill, right there in front of us, as calm as ice, and in thirty seconds she was blue and convulsing.”

Marlene was silent. He went on, “Felix did not reciprocate. He didn’t bat an eye when we told him his mother was dead. Just asked us if the deal was still good. He was very upset when I congratulated him on his free and public-spirited help in solving his mother’s crimes.
Then
he went crazy.

“By the way, that’s why she grabbed you. Pinder spilled the whole story when we braced him. He was the high priest, or whatever, by the way. She thought all of Felix’s troubles came from someone working a spell on him, or some shit. She picked you as the witch. They were going to take you out to bare earth and run an iron stake through you. It’s traditional. The only thing that saved you was they had to wait for the full moon.”

Marlene shuddered and Karp put a protective arm around her.

“You better rest now. You have to get out of here soon—we got a bunch of conspiracy to commit murder cases to prepare off this, and you’re in charge. Not that we’re going to get much. A schlemiel off the street could plead them on insanity. But it’ll keep them away from kids. For a while.”

Karp spoke briefly about the office, politics, the mysterious collapse of his murder case against Salvatore Bollano. He stopped when he saw that Marlene was barely listening.

Marlene had flopped back on the pillows, suddenly exhausted. The mention of returning to work had brought something urgently to mind. “Uh, Butch—I have some news, too,” she said nervously.

“Oh?”

“Well, you remember how I was always sick the last couple of months, and we thought it was stress and psychosomatic and all that?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, it wasn’t. It was morning sickness. I’m pregnant.”

She watched his face closely. First he started to smile, as if she was cracking a joke. Then, as he observed that she wasn’t joking, a look of pure delighted amazement came over his face, and he looked about ten years old. “But,” he protested, “how come you didn’t know? I mean, periods and all. And you have one of those thingees, don’t you?”

“Well, I’ve tried to shield you from my various female problems, my dear, but in common with many of us skinny hard-driving career girls, I’m about as regular as a rusty alarm clock. And yes I did have one, but it appears that one of your little spermatazoons laid a body check on my thingee and went in to score. It happens.”

A grin spread slowly across Karp’s face until it became an image of complete joy. His gray eyes, which ordinarily had the sheen of sabers, almost twinkled.

“You’re happy, huh?” she asked.

“You could say that. You must be knocked out.”

She nodded. “Funny isn’t it? Out of all this death and misery and murdered children.
Race de Cain, ton supplice, Aura-t-il jamais une fin?
as Baudelaire asks. And the answer? The envelope please. Better kids. Easy, huh?” She saw he was staring mindlessly at her, the idiot grin still fixed to his face. “What are you thinking about?”

“Oh, this, us, a family. It just occurred to me that that’s all I ever wanted in life. It’s just such a gift….”

“I hope that means you’ll change diapers.”

“Yeah, but I thought I’d mostly do the athletic training. Like, we could start this one at point guard. Then as the other four came along we could work them into the team. How does ‘Magic Karp’ sound? It has a certain ring to it. ‘Larry Bird Karp’?”

“It’s a boy, huh?”

“Of course, it’s a boy. I mean, face facts, Marlene. There’s no money in girls’ basketball.”

He rattled on, and she let him, enjoying his delight, but at a distance. She was relaxing now, tuning in to the secret messages her body was sending and enjoying it.
I’m going to
plunge
into this,
she thought.
I’m going to treat it as a gift, a surprise from cruel heaven. And I’m going to call her Lucy.