Capture (Butch Karp Thrillers) (28 page)

“Does that matter, Mr. Karp?” Rosenmayer asked.

“Oh, I believe so, Your Honor.” Karp nodded. “And I intend to demonstrate that to the jury.”

“I’ll allow it. The record will reflect that this photograph is received in evidence as…Mr. Karp, what number are we up to?”

“People’s Exhibit Nine, Your Honor.”

“Very well, you may show the witness the photograph and then distribute it to the jury.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Karp said, and did just that. As he walked from the jury box back toward the witness stand, he asked, “Miss Perez, what hand is your sister holding the gun in?”

“Her left,” Tina replied.

“Was it common for her to use her left hand more than her right?”

“She did everything left-handed…wrote, drew…” Tina suddenly laughed. “And pulled my hair when she was mad at me.”

Karp laughed with the rest of the courtroom. “I have a couple of boys like that,” he said as he turned to the defense table. “No further questions, Your Honor.”

Leonard seemed subdued when he began his cross-examination of Tina Perez, which disappointed Karp, who’d hoped that he would start off by harassing a young woman with whom the jurors were
obviously empathetic.

“Miss Perez, you told the jury that you are living in Northampton, which is what, five hours’ drive from Manhattan?”

“Yes, about five hours by car,” Tina replied.

“And I take it that going to school, you spend most of your time there.”

“That’s correct. I try to come home pretty often, but it’s expensive and we are…we were…both pretty busy.”

“So at such a distance, and leading busy, active lives that kept you physically apart, isn’t it possible that things were going on in your sister’s life that she didn’t want to bother you with?”

“Like what?” Tina scowled.

“Like losing roles to other actresses,” he said. “Or getting older in what we all know is a young person’s game…especially for women.”

“Actually, she was working more now than in her twenties,” Tina said defensively.

“Still, isn’t it fair,” Leonard retorted, “to say that if a woman doesn’t ‘make it’ by a certain age, it’s tougher to get a job than it is for a man of the same age?”

“I’ve heard that’s true,” Tina agreed. “But Gail was okay with getting older and maybe fewer roles in the future. I think she was hoping to find somebody to settle down with and maybe move on…teach drama.”

“But still…” Leonard said, holding up a finger as if trying to make a point in a debate. “Still, there’s that hope: ‘If I can just get a break, I’ll show them I can be a star. It’s not too late.’ And if you hold on to that dream…after all those acting classes, and voice lessons, and working menial jobs just to pay the rent…and put up with all those auditions and the unfairness of people with less talent getting the roles you—”

Karp objected. “Mr. Leonard is making speeches, not asking questions. Maybe he could get to the point.”

“Sustained. Mr. Leonard, a question please.”

“Certainly, Your Honor,” Leonard replied. “I like to think of what I was saying as adding context, but I’ll move on to my question. Miss Perez, did you talk to your sister the night she died?”

“No, I spoke to her that morning.”

“So you had no firm idea of what was going through her mind at approximately eleven that night?”

“I know she wouldn’t have been thinking about killing herself.”

“Really?” Leonard said as if surprised. “Miss Perez, have you ever attempted to kill yourself?”

“Objection,” Karp said, rising to his feet. The alarm bells were starting to go off in his head. “It’s one thing for Mr. Leonard to put Gail Perez on trial, and another to dig into the personal life of Tina Perez.”

“I’ll allow it,” Rosenmayer said. “But get to the point quickly, Mr. Leonard.”

“I will if Miss Perez will answer the question, Miss Perez,” Leonard replied, moving toward the witness stand until he was only a foot or so away.

Tina Perez looked down at her lap. “No.”

“No?” Leonard said as he held up a paper. “I have here a medical record from the medical clinic at Smith College that says you were admitted two months before your sister took her own life due to an overdose of Xanax and alcohol.”

“Objection!” Karp yelled, leaping to his feet. “Medical records are confidential and can only be obtained with consent or a warrant from the court. I’d like Mr. Leonard to produce either before he starts waving confidential records around and discussing personal medical history. The witness is not on trial here…or isn’t supposed to be.”

“Mr. Leonard, do you have a court order, or Miss Perez’s permission, to possess her confidential medical file?” Rosenmayer scowled.

“It was slipped under the door of our law office when we arrived at work this morning,” Leonard claimed.

“How convenient,” Karp retorted. “Your Honor, I’m going to object to this document and ask that the jury be instructed to ignore everything that has been said about it or Miss Perez.”

“Sustained,” Rosenmayer said angrily. “Mr. Leonard, please surrender that document to my clerk as well as any copies or other documents that fall under anyone’s right to privacy.”

“Your Honor, it is not our fault that this document—”

“You heard me, Mr. Leonard!” the judge demanded.

Leonard bowed. “Of course, Your Honor.” He then made a show of handing the medical report to the clerk. Then he turned to the judge and asked as though nothing had happened, “May I resume my cross-examination?”

Rosenmayer glared at Leonard and looked like he might say something, but then thought better of it and nodded. “Yes, Mr. Leonard, but beware, you are on thin ice.”

“I’ll remember that, Your Honor,” Leonard said before whirling to face Tina Perez again. “So Miss Perez, I’ll ask you one more time, have you ever tried to commit suicide?”

Tina Perez looked from Karp to Leonard and shrugged. “You just read that to everyone. But it’s not what it seems. I was homesick, and my boyfriend had just dumped me for another girl back home, I started drinking and wasn’t thinking clearly…”

“Objection,” Karp said, this time coming to his feet. “He’s using the medical record to question the witness. It might as well have been admitted into evidence!”

Leonard shrugged. “I didn’t say anything about the record. In fact, I returned to a question I asked before there was any mention of a record. It is the witness who just referred to this record
after
I was required to hand it over to the court. How can I be blamed for what your witness said?”

Karp didn’t answer except by turning to the judge. “Your Honor, Mr. Leonard’s protestations of innocence to the contrary, he knows what he was doing, and I ask that you prohibit this line of questioning.”

Rosenmayer looked from lawyer to lawyer and then shook his head. “We’re watching a couple of pro tennis players here, folks,” he said. “This time, Mr. Karp, I have to overrule you. I know what he did, too, but he did it cleverly. Mr. Leonard, you may ask your question again.”

“Thank you, Your Honor, I appreciate the analogy,” Leonard said with a smile. Then his face hardened as he turned back to the witness stand. “Miss Perez, please!” he scolded. “Did you try to kill
yourself?”

“No…not really…maybe that’s what I was thinking, but not what I wanted,” she tried to explain. “It was an accident.”

“People who unsuccessfully attempt suicide often say things like that,” Leonard said. “My question to you now is: did your sister know you were thinking about killing yourself at that time?”

Tina shook her head. “Of course not. She only found out later when the hospital called her.”

Leonard backed up as if he scored a major point in the debate and then drew himself up to his full height as he turned to the jury. “So even though you talked to your sister pretty much every day—about everything—the evening you overdosed on pills and booze, you did not tell her you were contemplating suicide.”

Tina Perez bit her trembling lip. “That’s correct.”

“Then isn’t it possible that you wouldn’t have known if your sister was contemplating suicide on the night she died?”

“I don’t believe that.”

“I’m not asking you what you believe, Miss Perez. I’m asking you, given what you just told us about your own experience with this, isn’t it possible your sister may not have given you any warning either?”

Tina Perez sighed and then began to cry quietly. “I suppose it’s possible.”

Leonard glanced over at Karp, his mouth twisted into a triumphant half smile. “Thank you. No further questions.”

“My bad,” Kenny apologized as he bit into one of the meat knishes Darla Milquetost had sent a law clerk to buy from a vendor in the park across Centre Street. “Tina Perez was my responsibility to re-interview, and I missed it.”

“Missed what?” Karp asked.

“The suicide thing,” Katz said. “But I asked her if she’d ever attempted it and she said no.”

“Just like the first time she was asked by Leonard,” Karp noted. “You heard her, it was an accident; she doesn’t see it as a suicide at
tempt because she didn’t really want to die. But Leonard had the benefit of some sleazeball getting him that medical record—and I hope she sues his ass later. Anyway, lesson learned.”

“Thanks, boss. I’ll do better next time. What was that about being left-handed?” Katz asked.

Karp grinned. His young ADA protégé was not part of the preparations involving the Medical Examiner’s Office and the cause-of-death issues because they’d seemed so self-evident. “I’m going to let you think about it in light of what else we know. Get back to me.”

“Oh yes, Zen Master Karp.” Katz laughed as he wiped a stray bit of yellow mustard from his mouth. He pulled an apple out of his briefcase, which had belonged to Stewart Reed, and bit into it. “Are you going to try to get the cowboy picture in now?”

Karp wiggled his eyebrows. “You betcha,” he said.

The “cowboy picture” was the framed photograph that Karp had noted in the crime scene photographs he’d asked Detective Frank Cardamone about. It was the same photograph that had been in Stewart Reed’s briefcase with the sticky note that said “
pantaloni di cuoio dispari
.”

“Well,
‘dispari’
means ‘odd’ or ‘strange’ and
‘pantaloni di cuoio’
are leather pants,’”
Marlene had told him when he came home that night from the Reeds’ house in Queens.
“Kind of a strange way of saying it. What was he trying to get at? Maplethorpe was wearing tight leather pants? Or maybe he was wearing buttless pants with his ass hanging out.”

Karp had laughed about his wife’s description and didn’t think about it until he looked again later at the photograph of young Maplethorpe standing with his mother.
“I still have a copy of the photograph in the file; he’s all dressed up like a little cowboy,”
Stewbie had noted at that meeting before he died. And that’s when Karp noticed the chaps. The boy in the photograph was wearing play versions of chaps worn by real cowboys.

Everyone had missed it. Whoever the police used to interpret the expression for the transcript of the interview had simply noted “leather pants” and left it at that. At the first trial, Gianneschi had
been asked if Maplethorpe was wearing leather pants when the concierge arrived at the apartment. He’d replied yes, but no one asked him about the type of leather pants.

“But what if he meant that Maplethorpe was wearing leather chaps when he pulled out his cowboy six-shooter…and next thing you know, Gail Perez is dead,”
Karp said to Katz when they were discussing the photograph later.

“Maybe I’m dense here,”
Katz replied,
“but where are you going with this?”

“Not sure yet,”
Karp said with a shrug.
“Maybe Maplethorpe was into some kinky costumed sex act involving leather and guns?”

“Okay, so he’s into the S&M cowboy crowd, probably not so unusual with the theater set. But it helps our case how…?”

Karp made a few notes on a yellow legal pad and then said,
“Well, if our argument is that Maplethorpe may not have intended to kill Gail Perez that evening, but his reckless behavior created the circumstances that led to him shooting her, maybe role-playing figures in.”

“I’m pretty familiar with the evidence seized at the house, but I don’t remember any leather chaps,”
Katz said.

“They didn’t know to look for them,”
Karp said.
“I’m sure they searched for any clothing with bloodstains, and they found the smoking jacket under the bed. But what if Maplethorpe put the chaps away? Obviously, he’s a clotheshorse and the cops executing the search warrant wouldn’t have confiscated something unless they had a reason to.”

“Nobody put it together until Stewbie saw that photograph, which Leonard submitted as part of a strategy in case they went for an insanity defense. Apparently, there is something about that photograph that set Maplethorpe off.”

Katz looked sideways at Karp.
“The Water Pitcher Incident?”

“The same,”
Karp agreed.

“You old fox! Are you going to bait Maplethorpe by getting the photograph admitted now?”

Karp grinned.
“The thought’s crossed my mind. But there’s more to it than just trying to get under Maplethorpe’s skin.”

“The role-playing.”

“You got it. And I think Stewbie did, too. His last official act in this case was to ask Judge Rosenmayer for a search warrant on Maplethorpe’s apartment. His request was very narrow; he said he would be looking for ‘leather pants, leather chaps.’ And that was it.”

“So what’s the next step?”

“I want to talk to Hilario Gianneschi. And I’m taking the photograph.”

“I
THINK
I
’M GOING TO BE SICK.”

Tran peered over at Jojola in the dim lighting beneath the tarpaulin covering the lifeboat where they’d holed up three days earlier. They were hungry—having eaten only a partial loaf of stale bread and a can of sardines Tran had managed to swipe from the ship’s kitchen late the second night. There’d been plenty to drink with the rainwater that seeped in under the cover during frequent squalls, but the rain also made them cold.

The worst part, however, had been the cramped quarters of the lifeboat. At least that was the worst part for Tran.

The seasickness was what was getting to Jojola. Even in the partial illumination of a deck light several yards away, the Indian’s usual bronze-hued face had a greenish cast to it. “Don’t even think about it,” Tran warned. “It already stinks in here from the last time…. I thought you Native Americans were supposed to be tough. You get seasick like some child.”

“You might recall,” Jojola groaned, “if your senior dementia hasn’t robbed you of all your faculties, that my people live in an arid climate. The biggest body of water we had until whitey showed up and started putting up reservoirs in the desert were rivers you could throw rocks across. And the land didn’t go up and down under your
feet like a fat man’s belly. We’re not doing much good here, either, so Jaxon can show up any moment as far as I’m concerned. I wonder when the cavalry’s going to arrive.”

“Me, too,” Tran agreed. Ever since they’d come aboard, they’d done little more than hide. The reefer wasn’t a large craft, nor did she seem to have a very large crew from what little Tran and Jojola had been able to gather by sneaking around after dark. There weren’t that many unsecured places they could hide, and the crew was certain to notice any strangers among them.

Perhaps, as a Trojan horse, they’d be of use when Jaxon and the U.S. Navy caught up to the ship. But right now the only thing they could do was stay out of sight.

Tran guessed that somewhere beyond the horizon or in the skies overhead, they were being tracked by U.S. Navy vessels and aircraft. “They’re probably waiting for Malovo and Abdullah to tip their hand as to what they intend, or possibly setting a trap for other conspirators,” he said.

“Well, then I wish they’d all—bad guys and good guys—hurry up,” Jojola replied. “I don’t have anything left in my stomach, or I’d already have lost it. But one more set of swells like that last one, and I’m going to puke my guts up through my nose.”

“Nice imagery,” Tran said, disgusted. “And I think medically impossible.”

As if to further Jojola’s torment, the ship’s engines, which had been turning over at a dull roar since leaving Trinidad, suddenly shuddered and labored at a much slower pace. The ship began to wallow.

“That does it,” Jojola complained, “I’m giving myself up so they can put me out of my misery.”

“They’ll put us both out of our misery, now hush,” Tran said, and held still as he listened. After a moment, he nodded. “We’ve definitely slowed, which is why the ship is rocking more.”

“I’d rather have my fingernails pulled out.”

“That can be arranged when we get back home. Right now, something’s up.”

“How do you know?”

“We’re in the middle of the ocean, not even close to land judging
by the direction and size of the swells, but we’re slowing down on purpose,” Tran replied.

Jojola didn’t question how he figured this out. Tran knew his way around ships. First as a “boat person” fleeing Vietnam after the triumphant North Vietnamese began purging former Viet Cong guerrillas from the country. And later as a “successful businessman in the import-export trade” with his own fleet of ships.

“Maybe this is what their plan is all about,” Tran said. “I’m going to go check it out.”

“I’m coming, too,” Jojola said. “I can use the fresh air.”

The two men slipped out from under the tarp. But Jojola wobbled and then sat down heavily on the steel deck.

Tran knelt next to him. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said. “Do you still have your knife?”

Jojola nodded. They’d been prevented from carrying guns in Trinidad, as they were only supposed to be there as observers assisting the national security agency’s antiterrorism teams. But the Indian had keep his long, razor-sharp fighting knife tucked in a sheath behind his broad back.

“Good. Then wait here. Get some air, but stay out of sight.”

With that, the Vietnamese gangster stood and disappeared. He worked his way forward from the stern, where the lifeboat was stowed, and over to the port side, where he saw crew members hurrying about in the dark.

Whatever they were preparing for, they were hampered by heavy seas and a light rain. He noticed that they kept staring out over the waves. But if they could see something, he couldn’t make it out from farther back in the shadows of the superstructure.

Suddenly, Tran found himself bathed in a dazzling bright light that blazed out of the night. At the same time, lights from the reefer illuminated the massive shape that rode on the waves thirty yards away.

Tran actually jumped back as the sudden materializing of the supertanker made it appear that the small cargo ship was about to be squashed like a bug. But he quickly realized that the tanker was running parallel to the smaller reefer and maintaining a constant distance. Instead of a collision course, it was more like a mother
elephant running alongside her calf. It was not until he saw the mother’s “trunk” reaching out of the dark that he started to catch on to what was happening.

We’re refueling?
he wondered.
But we just left Trinidad.

For a moment a swell lifted the reefer up to where he got a better view of the behemoth across the water. He saw the four dome-like structures jutting out of the main deck of the bigger ship and his mind made the next leap.
It’s an LNG tanker. We’re taking on liquefied natural gas. I’ve got to find a way to let Jaxon
—

Tran’s thoughts were interrupted by the feel of steel pressed to the back of his head and a woman’s voice.

“We meet again, Azahari Mujahid, or whatever your real name is,” Malovo sneered. “Now put your hands on the wall while my man frisks you.”

Standing outside on the flying bridge, Ariadne Stupenagel gazed in amazement at the LNG supertanker as it plunged up and down through the heavy seas in tandem with the smaller ship. She stumbled a little and her guard, a young Sudanese man named Ebenezer, reached out to steady her. She was still wearing her Gucci heels, having complained to her captors that “if I have to die, a girl wants to go well dressed.”

“Thank you, Eb,” she said with a shy smile. He started to smile in return but then remembered his duty as a jihadi, and frowned as he stepped back and lifted the nose of the MAC-10 submachine gun.

“So what’s a good-looking holy warrior like you doing in a place like this?” she asked.

Ebenezer backed farther away. “Do not speak to me, woman,” he demanded, though his teenage voice lacked authority.

They both turned to look when the hatch opened from the main bridge below. The scarred, bearded face of Omar Abdullah appeared, followed by the rest of his body, as soon as he saw the coast was clear.

“Couldn’t resist another look, big boy?” Stupenagel said in her best Mae West impersonation.

Abdullah scowled and spoke to Ebenezer. “Leave us.”

“Uh, don’t I have any say in this?” Stupenagel continued. “I was sort of getting attached to Eb. You know how I like younger men.”

Abdullah’s eyes blazed. “You’re a witch and a whore. But soon you will answer to Allah for your sins.”

“What about yours? The last I remember, you were comparing my fine white ass to the moon over the Caribbean on a warm summer night.” She winked at Ebenezer, who’d stopped to listen to the exchange with his mouth hanging open. “Bet you didn’t know the Big O here was such a poet, did ya, Eb? Yep, he tended to wax rather enthusiastically when he was boinkin’ this fine little piece of infidel booty.”

“I said go below!” Abdullah yelled at the young man, who jumped and ran for the hatch. He then turned to the journalist. “You bewitched me once before, but never again.”

“Bewitched, my ass,” Stupenagel scoffed. “You were just as horny as I was. And you know what, Omar? What we had there, for a little while, was pretty good. Of course, that was back when you laughed and enjoyed life, even with the Soviets breathing down your neck. Back then you believed in something other than the deaths of innocent women and children.”

“I believed in Allah then as I do now.”

“Bullshit! You believed in Allah and the rightness of a cause to keep a small country from falling into the hands of a totalitarian regime. I remember how you used to talk about returning to Trinidad someday and running for parliament. You said you’d had enough of war and wanted to create a Muslim state through peaceful means.”

“The world changed.”

“Really? Or was it you who changed? Don’t you remember watching the moon rise over the Panjshir Valley, wrapped in our little sheepskin blankets?”

Abdullah’s eyes softened for a moment, but then they hardened, even angrier than before. “Silence! Yes, I’ve changed. That man you knew was filled with evil desires and had lost the way of Allah. The Soviets taught me in their torture chamber that I needed to purify myself and understand that women only weaken the resolve of a mujahedeen. And so I see you as you really are now…a demon in the body of a woman sent to distract me from my true
calling. But Allah has sent you to me again so that you can join me on my final voyage, and we will both be cleansed in the holy fire of Allah.”

“What?” Stupenagel exclaimed. “I thought this was one of those Caribbean booze cruises. It’s a Muslim crew? No wonder I can’t get a drink.”

“Enough with the stupid jokes!” Abdullah snarled and motioned to the hatch. “Go below. We’ve caught your associate and it’s time the two of you were reunited.”

Tran fell painfully to his knees, unable to catch himself because his wrists were bound behind him, when his guards shoved him through the door and onto the bridge. He got back up on his own and was then shoved against a bulkhead, where he watched the crew and officers who were occupied with the delicate operation of fueling at sea. He noted that while most of the crew and even officers of the ship appeared to be Middle Eastern or black, the man at the helm was a Caucasian.

Stepping onto the bridge, Malovo saw his glance and explained. “Allow me to introduce Sasha Sukarov, an officer in the navy of the once glorious Soviet Union. He was executive officer of a fuel tanker and an expert at this sort of procedure. His counterpart on board the tanker is also former Soviet navy. They make more money now, eh, Sasha?”

Sukarov grinned at Malovo. “
Da
, lot more money,” he said before returning his attention to business.

Malovo stepped in front of Tran and slapped him hard across the face. “That’s for ruining my plans and nearly getting me killed last September,” she said. During the attack on the New York Stock Exchange, she had been in charge of destroying the NYSE backup computer in a high-security building in Brooklyn. However, she’d been thwarted at the last minute by Tran—who’d been posing as the terrorist named Azahari Mujahid—Jojola, and her former lover-turned-archenemy Ivgeny Karchovski.

“Pleasure to have been of service,” Tran replied, spitting out the blood he tasted in his mouth.

Malovo stepped closer until her face was just a few inches from Tran’s. “So what are you, Chinese?”

“Don’t be insulting,” Tran replied. “I’m Vietnamese.”

Malovo laughed. “Excuse me, Vietnamese. But then you subhuman Asians all look alike to me. Speaking of subhuman, where’s your friend, Abu Samar?” she asked, referring to Jojola’s alias during the NYSE incident.

Tran shrugged. “He’s not so good with ships; he gets seasick. I left him in Trinidad.”

“I take it he’s not Vietnamese,” Malovo said. “What was he? Pakistani? Indonesian?”

“American Indian.”

Malovo looked surprised. “You mean like in cowboy movies? I love cowboy movies, especially Indians on the warpath.” She patted her mouth and mimicked a war dance. “Woo-woo-woo-woo!”

“Yeah, that kind of Indian,” Tran said. “And the next time you two meet, he told me he’s going to take your scalp with that wicked long knife of his. Just like in the movies…. Hey, do you think it might hurt?”

Malovo’s smile twitched and her eyes wavered, but just for a moment and then she scoffed. “The Americans must be getting desperate recruiting old Chinamen and fat Indians to fight terrorism.”

“No, they just didn’t figure you were worth wasting the time of their best agents.” Tran shrugged apologetically. “So they sent me. Sorry, that has to be bad for the ego.”

“Ha, that is a good one.” Malovo laughed. “And the woman…Stupid-neegel…who pretends to be a journalist!”

“She is a journalist.”

Malovo sneered. “She’s an American spy just like you. We know all about the two of you sneaking on board. In fact, here she is now.”

Tran turned in the direction Malovo pointed and saw Ariadne coming down the ladder from the flying bridge. He thought quickly.
The two of us? They must not know about Jojola.

Tran shrugged. “Hello, partner,” he said pointedly to Stupenagel. “I guess they’ve got us.” He turned back to Malovo. “You do realize that our people know where we are, and you might as well give up.
Make this easy and we’ll put in a good word for you with the executioner to make it quick.”

Malovo smirked. “Did I forget to tell you?” she said. “Your message to your boss never got sent. The man you asked to relay the information actually works for a man in the Russian embassy, who happens to be employed by the people I work with. We didn’t realize you were on board because we’ve been maintaining radio silence. However, the message was passed to us from our friends on the tanker, telling us to watch for two spies. That’s how I knew to look for you. We already captured the first spy when this stupid woman pretended to be a journalist to get on board.”