THE UNIFORMED POLICE OFFICER STATIONED AT THE FRONT entrance of the apartment building on the Lower East Side placed his hands on his hips and shook his head. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t let you in.”
“Don’t you know that women hate being called ma’am?” Marlene scolded, but with a smile. “Especially attractive ‘mature’ women when addressed by good-looking young police officers like yourself—as if you’re talking to your mother or, worse, your grandmother.” She held out her hand. “I’m a lawyer, my name is Marlene Ciampi, and I represent the tenant of the apartment.”
“I don’t mean to offend, mmm . . . Miss Ciampi,” the officer replied, reaching out and shaking her hand. “You’re nothin’ like my mom or grandma, believe me, but I still can’t let you go in. This is a homicide investigation, and I got orders.”
Marlene contemplated whether it was time to switch from polite and mildly flirtatious to imperious and demanding. She’d showed up at Dirty Warren’s apartment—she was still getting used to the idea that he had a last name, Bennett—hoping to persuade the building manager to let her in to look around. But the cops were still on the scene.
She still had not had a real conversation with her client to figure out what this was all about. By the time Warren was transported to the Westchester County jail and booked the previous night, visiting hours were over, and she’d been told to come back after ten in the morning. She’d had only a brief few moments in the hallway, in which she reminded the distraught, twitching, cursing, frightened man not to talk to the police, and he’d begged her to go by his place in the morning to feed his cat, Brando, and his pet birds.
So far, most of what she knew about the case was from reading the New York Times that morning, which had carried a front-page story and a photograph of “brutally murdered socialite” Michelle Oakley, who had been found dead in her home in Purchase by her maid on Sunday afternoon. A “source close to the investigation” said that Oakley had been stabbed several times and possibly sexually assaulted. The police had taken a suspect, whose name was being withheld, into custody Monday evening. Other than that, the cops weren’t saying much.
The newspaper had located Harry Lee, a Westchester County cab driver, who claimed that he’d dropped off a passenger outside the home at about seven P.M. on Saturday. The self-described “star witness” hypothesized that his fare was “obviously a very disturbed individual,” who swore like a “Jersey longshoreman.”
“I thought he was kind of creepy,” Lee said. “But I have to say he did tip well, whereas a lot of so-called upstanding citizens are too cheap to throw a starving dog a bone.”
District Attorney Harley Chin had, of course, chimed in for the story. He told the newspaper that he was “personally sickened by the vicious, senseless murder of one of Purchase’s most upstanding citizens.” He pledged that the killer would be brought to “swift and certain” justice and that his constituents could rest easy in their beds, knowing that the law never slept at the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office.
As she finished reading the story that morning over a cup of coffee, Marlene had wondered why she’d stepped in and said she was Warren’s lawyer. It was obvious the poor man needed help—whether he was guilty or not—and was only digging himself a hole with his language. But while she’d kept her license to practice updated, it had been years since she’d been in a courtroom as an attorney. Yet there she was, acting like Clarence Darrow and telling her client to keep his mouth shut. Then she’d told Butch that she needed a rain check on their visit to Karchovski’s restaurant and followed Warren to the Westchester County jail.
When she’d got home some five hours later, Butch was still up waiting for her and concerned about her and Warren.
“I personally don’t believe that Warren is capable of murdering anyone,” Butch had said. “Either way, he deserves effective counsel. He’s lucky to have you.”
Butch had turned in soon after. The Jabbar case was starting in the morning, and given the evening’s sudden drama, he’d opted to catch some shut-eye. He’d kissed her good-bye that morning and wished her luck as he marched out the door ready to do battle with the forces of evil in the person of Megan O’Dowd and Imam Sharif Jabbar.
As requested, Marlene had taken a cab to Warren’s apartment to care for his pets but also to see if there was anything in the apartment that might help his cause. But it looked as if gaining entry was going to be difficult. Might as well try imperious and demanding, she thought.
“Look, I know you’re doing your job, Officer O’Brien,” she said, reading his name tag, her voice suddenly stern and rising in volume as she went on. “But I have a job to do, too, and a man’s life might be at stake. Now, I insist that you either let me by or call someone with some authority, and perhaps he’ll understand that I have a right to go into my client’s apartment.”
The officer looked confused, probably as much by the change in demeanor as by what she’d said, and was about to say something again when a gruff voice rolled out from inside the building. “What’s going on out there, Eric? If it’s the fucking press again, I’m gonna kick some journalist ass, I swear to—”
A big, rugged-looking man with olive skin and a dark seven o’clock shadow in an ill-fitting suit stepped out of the building with a scowl on his face. But he grinned when he saw the person confronting the officer. “Well, ain’t this a pleasant surprise, Cousin Marlene! Or, as we used to call her in the old neighborhood in Queens, Stinky Ciampi.”
Marlene rolled her eyes and addressed the perplexed young officer. “That is not what they used to call me, although they did use several other words that weren’t always appropriate for someone of my delicate nature.” She stood up on her tiptoes to kiss her relative on both cheeks. “Cousin Bobby! I heard you’d left the NYPD for Westchester County, but I didn’t know you were working homicides.”
“The pay’s a lot better,” Detective Sergeant Roberto “Bobby” Scalia said, and laughed. “Also, Westchester is mostly full of rich people, so we get a better grade of criminal. Fewer gangs, dope fiends, and nutcases—though I have to tell ya, this current perp is a piece of work. He’s got a mouth on him that would have made my dad—God rest his alcoholic soul—sound like the pope, and he jumps around and twitches like somebody stuck a live light socket up his keister. He ain’t saying much, though, that ain’t a surprise; his asshole lawyer already got to him and told him to keep his yap shut. But enough business. I ain’t seen you since Pop’s funeral. Where you been, and what the hell are you doing here?”
“I’m the perp’s asshole attorney,” Marlene said with a grin. “And by the way, he’s got Tourette’s syndrome, which is why he behaves like that.”
“Perdonilo, cugina, io non ha saputo,” Scalia apologized.
“È giusto. Forget about it, Bobby, obviously you didn’t know,” Marlene said, patting his shoulder. “And besides, there are plenty of asshole defense attorneys. I hear about them every night at the dinner table.”
“What’s Tourette’s? Some fancy name they got for having a mouth like a Forty-second Street hooker?”
“For the record, Detective Sensitivity, Tourette’s syndrome is a brain disorder that makes him blurt inappropriate things and have muscle spasms. He can’t help it any more than you could ever help passing gas after a serving of your mom’s meatballs. And now that I think about it, you’re the one we called Stinky.”
The detective laughed. “Well, I guess I had that comin’. But lay off my mom’s cookin’—not every Italian mom is a great chef like yours. So, you think your guy’s innocent?”
“I don’t know yet. But I do know that it’s completely out of character for him. My husband has known him for years and considers him a friend, and Butch is usually a good judge of character.”
“Well, if he didn’t do it, I hope it comes out in the wash, but it don’t look good,” Scalia said. “We got his fingerprints in the house. And a cabbie putting him at the crime scene Saturday night.”
“What’s his motive?”
The detective shrugged. “I’m only second fiddle on this one, but I heard there was a sexual assault.”
“Which would be even more out of character.”
“Like I said, I’m just helping out on this one; the main detective is a guy named Jake Meadow. I don’t like him much—sort of a blowhard and lazy, too. He likes his cases nice and easy. And just so you know, the DA’s got a hard-on for your boy, too. He wanted the reports on his desk yesterday morning, and he’s going to the grand jury this afternoon, but you probably already know that. I haven’t seen a case move this fast in Westchester County . . . ever. Not that I give a rat’s ass about what that little prick wants, but Meadow sure jumped when Chin called.”
“Yeah, I’m on my way over there to talk to my client when I leave here,” Marlene said. “But I’d like to have a look inside, both for professional reasons and because my client asked me to feed his cat.”
Scalia scratched his head. “There’s no cat,” he said. “I was the first one through that door, and the place ain’t very big. There are a couple of birds but no felines. Come on in. We’ve about wrapped it. I’ll take you back up myself. It’s okay, O’Brien.”
The young officer stepped aside. “I meant no offense.”
“None taken,” Marlene replied with a smile. “You were just doing your job. Lead the way, detective.”
As they entered the turn-of-the-century brick building, Marlene noted the worn carpeting in the dim hallway and the cracked and peeling paint. After climbing the stairs, which creaked and groaned with each step, they reached the second floor, which was in about the same sad state of disrepair as the first.
Most of the doors in the hall were closed, though she could hear the muffled sounds of morning shows on a half-dozen televisions. About halfway down the hall, two men—one of them in an NYPD uniform—hovered outside the only open door.
Scalia led the way to the door, where the two men looked at Marlene, shrugged, and stepped back.
“Careful where you put your feet,” her cousin cautioned. “Your guy wasn’t much of a housekeeper, and he has his stuff piled all over the place.”
Marlene walked into the tiny apartment and immediately saw what the detective was talking about. Clothes and books and magazines were strewn about, and every dresser drawer and closet door was open, with clothes hanging out or lying on the floor.
Warren apparently had a large collection of films on DVD and video, but while there was a shelf that could have easily held them, most were scattered about on the small desk and on the floor, and many weren’t in their cases. Recalling how neatly he stacked the newspapers, magazines, and other merchandise in his newsstand, it seemed odd.
She walked over to the small kitchen. Every drawer and cabinet door was open here, too. She was about to turn away from the scene when a puzzled look came over her face. “Hey, Bobby, notice anything strange about the kitchen?” she asked her cousin, who was talking to one of the crime-scene technicians.
Scalia walked over and glanced around. At first, his smile was merely one of tolerance for his cousin, but then his thick eyebrows rose. “No dirty dishes,” he said.
Marlene smiled. “You always were a great detective,” she said.
“Apparently, only second best in the family, or I would have noticed that. So, this guy is such a pig that he can’t put his clothes away, and his prize film collection is scattered all over Timbuktu . . .”
“. . . but there are no dirty dishes in the sink or on the counters,” Marlene said, continuing the thought. “No food wrappers, spills, or rotting garbage. The place is a mess, but it’s not dirty.”
“Maybe he’s afraid of germs, but he doesn’t have a problem leaving his clean clothes all over the place?”
“That what you really think?” Marlene asked with a sideways look at the detective.
Scalia’s lips puckered as if he’d just tasted a bitter lemon, and then he shook his big head. “No. I think the place was tossed before we got here. Which means somebody got in here last night.”
“Looks like they were in a hurry, too,” Marlene noted. “Whoever it was, he wanted in and out of here fast.”
“Maybe one of the neighbors, or a not-so-good friend, heard your client had been arrested and used the time to rip him off?”
“The DVD and VCR players are both still here. I don’t think he has much else to steal. I wonder what they were looking for?”
“Maybe they found it. And maybe they let the cat out when they came in.”
Marlene nodded slowly. “Yeah, maybe. Nice exercise in deductive logic, Detective Sergeant Scalia. But do me a favor, and don’t make a big deal out of our little observations right now. If someone else is involved in this murder, I’d like a little headstart.”
“The other stuff is guesswork, so it doesn’t go in my report,” Scalia said, “if you promise to keep me in the loop if you find anything. It’d be funny to make this bust while Meadow’s sitting on his fat ass. Meantime, have a look around, but don’t touch anything unless you ask me first, capice?”
“Si, capice. And I promise I’ll let you know if I find something.”
Five minutes later, Marlene had seen enough. There was nothing in the apartment that was going to jump out at her to establish Warren’s innocence or a clue to who might want to frame him. At least, nothing that wasn’t going to be in the police report.
She hugged her cousin and turned to leave. “Ciao, Roberto. Say hi to your beautiful mom and sisters.”
“I will,” he replied. “Vada con il dio, la mia cugina graziosa.”
Just then, Officer O’Brien showed up at the door with a large orange tabby in his hands. “Is this the missing cat?”
Marlene looked at the name tag on the collar. “It is,” she said, accepting the cat into her arms. She held him up so she could look into his face. “Where have you been, Brando? And who did you see?”