SITTING AT THE PROSECUTION TABLE, Karp glanced at the clock on the wall of the courtroom: 9:15. Court was supposed to have started fifteen minutes ago with him asking Judy Pardo to take the stand, but he had no idea where she was.
Marlene had called forty minutes earlier saying she was approaching the shelter and would pick up Pardo and drop her off before parking. But they’d been a no-show. He started to wonder if his witness had developed cold feet. Maybe Marlene’s trying to talk her down, he thought.
His case had been going well, with each piece of the puzzle falling neatly into place. The medical examiner, the ballistics expert, the teenagers, and Reverend Lakes had all testified as expected, and Nash had failed to make any headway against them. The only thing she could do was cast aspersions. Now all that remained was for Pardo to provide the lodestar evidence connecting the defendant to the attempted murder of Officer Bryce Kim. Then Karp would tie up the loose ends with his last few witnesses and rest the People’s case.
“Mr. Karp?” Judge Kershner asked. “Perhaps we should move on to another witness.”
Karp rose to his feet. “Just a few more minutes, please, Your Honor. I asked Detective Fulton to find out what’s going on. I should hear from him shortly.”
“Very well, five minutes and then call someone else or rest your case.”
As he took his seat, Karp glanced over at the defense table. Nash was writing on a legal pad with a barely discernible smile. Johnson, on the other hand, was looking at him directly with a grin. The defendant winked.
He knows something about this, Karp thought. I’m sure of it.
Just then Fulton entered the courtroom and walked quickly over to Karp. They spoke for several minutes.
Karp looked over at the defense table, where Nash was now watching them curiously. Johnson had kicked back in his chair with his legs stretched out in front of him and his hands behind his head, which he bobbed as though listening to music that only he could hear.
Controlling his anger, Karp stood. “Your Honor, may we approach the bench at sidebar? This has to do with my next witness.”
“By all means,” Kershner said. “Ms. Nash, join us, please.”
At the dais, Karp kept his eyes on the jurors, who looked perplexed, but he spoke so that only the judge, defense attorney, and court reporter could hear. “Your Honor, Detective Fulton just informed me that there was an attempt to abduct my witness, Ms. Judy Pardo, at gunpoint about forty-five minutes ago. She’s okay and on her way to the courthouse now, but that explains her tardiness.”
“I should say so,” Kershner replied, shocked. “If this is true, it is extremely alarming.”
“Indeed,” Karp responded. “I’d also point out that Ms. Pardo was staying at a women’s shelter, the location of which is kept secret for the obvious reason that the clients there are usually seeking to get away from abusive and oftentimes violent former husbands and boyfriends. We’re not sure how these assailants—my understanding is there were three—learned the location, but we plan to get to the bottom of it.” He gave Nash a hard look.
The defense attorney recoiled angrily. “If you’re implying that I, or my client, had anything to do with this, I take great umbrage.”
“Take it any way you want,” Karp said. “And we had better not learn that this was connected to rumors we’ve been hearing about a reward being offered for information regarding the whereabouts of this witness. In any event, Your Honor, be certain I’ll find out.”
“That’s outrageous,” Nash retorted, and turned to the judge. “Your Honor, this witness is a drug addict and prostitute with a criminal record. I’m sure that she has consorted with all manner of nefarious criminals. It is likely that someone recognized her, or she herself gave out the address, and that if this attack occurred, it has nothing to do with this case. When this witness appears on the stand, I demand that nothing be said about this incident.”
“Don’t worry,” Karp shot back. “We’ll save it for another day.”
“Well, just to be clear, Mr. Karp,” Kershner said, “unless it is directly related to the case, I’m not inclined to allow any testimony about it. In the meantime, you say the witness is all right? Anybody else injured?”
“My understanding is that the witness is a little shook up but okay,” Karp said. “However, the person who was bringing her to the courthouse has been taken to the hospital, suffering from a concussion.”
“What about the kidnappers?”
“I’m told that one died at the scene. Two others are in custody. One of them was apparently knocked unconscious and has also been transported to Bellevue.”
Kershner shook her head. “It sounds like the Wild West out there, Mr. Karp. How would you like to proceed at this point?”
“I’d ask that the court recess until after the noon break so that I can check on the status of the witness and give her a chance to collect her thoughts. It will also give Detective Fulton and me an opportunity to speak to the uninjured suspect and, perhaps, determine if there is a connection to this case.”
The judge looked at Nash, whose lips tightened at the implied accusation. “Fine with me,” the defense attorney said with a sneer. “It will give me a chance to lodge a complaint with the New York Bar about the district attorney’s conduct.”
“I’ll look forward to answering that complaint, Ms. Nash,” Karp responded.
AN HOUR LATER, Karp was in his office on the phone with Marlene, who complained about having a massive headache to go along with “feeling like someone used my arms and body as a heavyweight punching bag” due to the air bags in her truck.
“Well, you’re doing better than Mr. Jason Fuqua, the man you crushed the life out of with that gas-guzzler of yours,” Karp said. “Clay tells me he had a rap sheet for manslaughter, felonious assault, armed robbery, and sexual misconduct, and those are just the highlights. I don’t think the good citizens of Gotham are going to miss him any.”
“What about the other two?” Marlene asked.
“One has been tentatively ID’d as Martin Bell, formerly of San Francisco.”
“No connection to anyone we might know there, I’m sure,” Marlene interjected sarcastically.
“Well, as it turns out, he spent a few years in San Quentin about the same time as Anthony Johnson. Clay and I tried to have a word with him, but he lawyered up pretty quick. We don’t know much about the driver; somebody named Bubba Smith, and yes, Bubba is his legal name. Apparently his headache is even worse than yours and we’ve been unable to speak to him so far. Any thoughts on how these guys knew where to find Judy?”
Marlene was quiet for a moment. “I have an idea. We might have been followed the other day. But it’s something I may bring up with my friend with the dogs.”
“I don’t want to know,” Karp said. “But I trust that this friend won’t do anything to interfere with this trial.”
“How could a man with dogs interfere with a trial when the great District Attorney Butch ‘aka Superman’ Karp is at the helm?”
“Again, I don’t even want to know about your friend or his canines.” Karp shook his head. “I don’t know how you do it, Marlene, but once again you’re in the middle of the action.”
“Tell me about it,” Marlene replied. “Or better yet, send aspirin and flowers, but to the loft; they’re about to let me out of here.”
“Done. I’ll check in with you at the afternoon recess. And Marlene . . .”
“Yes, dear.”
“I love you, and I’m glad you’re okay.”
“I love you, too. Now go get the bad guy.”
Leaving his inner sanctum, Karp paused long enough to ask his receptionist, Darla Milquetost, to send flowers to his residence. “And put a box of chocolates with it. She asked for aspirin, but I think candy is a better bet.”
“Anything you want to put on the card?” Milquetost asked.
“Yeah, sure, put ‘From a secret admirer, Rin Tin Tin.’ ”
“How romantic,” Milquetost said, and rolled her eyes.
Karp laughed. “Oh, and order a few sandwiches for me and the others, please,” he said before walking into the meeting room where Fulton, Murrow, Katz, and Judy Pardo waited. “How are you doing, Judy?” he asked.
Pardo looked up from the coffee she was sipping. “You know,” she said. “I’m okay. I was pretty panicked at first, but then the adrenaline kicked in and . . . well . . . I hate to say it, but I haven’t felt this alive in a long time.”
Fulton laughed. “Once a cop, always a cop.”
Pardo smiled. “I appreciate you saying that, Detective Fulton, but it’s not true. I lost my badge for good reason a long time ago, but maybe I got a taste again of what it was like.”
“Nonsense,” Fulton replied. “I talked to the detective on the case. He said you handled it like a pro.” His face grew serious as he looked over at Karp. “She might have saved Marlene’s life; the perp had the drop on her.”
“It seems you can add me to the list of people who owe you their thanks,” Karp said.
“Aw, shucks, Marshal Dillon,” Pardo said, affecting a western twang. “ ’Twern’t nothin’ . . . But seriously, I’d probably be dead if Marlene hadn’t shown up when she did. So I guess we’re even.”
“Obviously, these guys were trying to help Johnson,” Murrow said. “Do you think Nash was involved?”
“I hope not,” Karp said. “I really do. As arrogant and ideologically driven as she is, the system doesn’t need any more blows; people are going to stop believing, and that’s when we’ll really be in trouble. Defense lawyers trying to knock off prosecution witnesses would be another nail in the coffin. In the meantime, let’s turn our focus back to the trial.” He looked at Pardo. “Do you think you can testify in about an hour?”
“Yes, I’m ready. In fact, I think in a weird way, having to fight for my life has made me more determined than ever to see this through.”
Karp nodded. “I’ve met some tough characters in my time, starting with Detective Fulton and Kenny Katz, who between them have been blown up and shot more times than Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Terminator movie. But I don’t think they have a corner on the market with you and Marlene around.”
“Thanks,” Pardo replied. “If I remember correctly, you took a couple for the team yourself.”
“And that wasn’t the first time,” Fulton added.
“Okay, okay. If you folks can get past this tough love fest, what do I tell the press?” Murrow asked. “There was a television crew on the scene when they were still trying to get Marlene’s truck off the one guy, and the others are clamoring for a comment.”
“Same as we always tell them,” Karp replied. “Come to court, that’s where we do our talking, otherwise no comment.”
“That will make them happy,” Murrow said.
“The taxpayers of New York County don’t pay me to please the media,” Karp said with a smile. “Okay, then, I believe Ms. Milquetost is ordering sandwiches; let’s have lunch and go over what’s next.”
An hour later, with Judge Kershner on her dais and the jury seated, Karp stood and nodded to Fulton. “The People call Judy Pardo.”
As Pardo entered the courtroom, the spectators and members of the media in the gallery craned their heads to get a look at the cop-turned–heroin addicted prostitute they’d all heard or written or talked about. Such a buzz of muted voices rose from the benches that Kershner banged her gavel to bring order to the courtroom.
While Pardo was sworn in, Karp used the opportunity to see how Johnson was reacting. The defendant was glaring at Pardo, but he must have felt the eyes of his nemesis on him and turned to meet his gaze. Karp allowed himself the slightest smile, and was pleased to see the fear in Johnson’s eyes before the killer looked away.
Karp began by asking Judy Pardo to talk a little bit about her upbringing. He wanted her to get comfortable with answering questions, looking at the jury as she did so, and he was also setting the stage for when he had to deal with less pleasant subjects.
“Well, I was born and raised in New Jersey and had a good childhood for the most part,” she said. “Pretty typical Italian family. Dad was a plumber, mom was a stay-at-home housewife. Me, my sister, and brother all went to Catholic school.”
“Were you a good student?”
Pardo hesitated. “Well, I tried hard. I’m dyslexic, though back then they called it ‘slow learner,’ and I had a hard time reading. Some of the other kids called me dumb, so my self-esteem took some hits.”
“How did you compensate?”
“My mother worked with me a lot. And I had some good teachers who were patient and understanding. I don’t take standardized tests well, but I do great with verbal testing.”
“So you made it through high school?”
“And two years of dental hygienist school with a lot of hard work, tears, and frustration. But I got mostly A’s.”
“Yes. It’s not something that goes away with age. With a lot of time, I can read and write . . . slowly. You learn to compensate, but it’s still there.”
“Are you going to school now?”
“Yes,” Pardo said with pride. “I’m studying to be a sonographer.”
“Is it difficult?”
“Yes, there’s quite a bit of reading material and I have to be able to look at results and interpret what I see. But we’ve come a long way in understanding dyslexia and helping people cope. Such as word recognition software my guardian angel bought for me.”
Karp knew who her “guardian angel” was but left the statement alone and moved on to more difficult topics. “Was there an incident, or incidents, during your childhood that also affected your self-esteem?”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Nash said. “This is more Oprah than court, with all due respect.”
“Your Honor, please take this subject in connection with respect to the subsequent revelations of her character, which the People will disclose shortly through her testimony,” Karp responded. “I suspect the defense will try to use it to its advantage. However, understanding Ms. Pardo’s character will better enable the jury to determine the truth of her testimony.”
“Very well, objection overruled, please proceed,” Kershner said.
Pardo nodded. “Yes. My parents liked to have friends over for cocktails and card games. There was one friend of the family, we called him Uncle John, who was over a lot. He used to insist on ‘tucking me in’ when it was time for the kids to go to bed. And he used to touch me inappropriately.”
“These touches were sexual in nature?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“Not right away. I was only seven or eight when this was going on. He told me that I would get in trouble if I told anyone that he’d touched me down there.”
“Did you eventually tell someone?”
“Yes, when I was nine, maybe ten, I told my priest.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said it was my fault. That I must have ‘enticed’ Uncle John.”
“How did you react to that?”
“I believed him,” Pardo said with a shrug. “He was the priest. He spoke for God. I felt even worse about myself, though I didn’t know what I should have done differently.”
“Did you ever tell anyone else?”
Pardo nodded. “I eventually told my mom, and she told my dad.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know exactly, but Uncle John quit coming to our house. I assume my dad said or did something to him.”
“How do you think the sexual abuse affected you later as you got older, became a young adult?”
“A sexually abused child has a difficult time with boundaries,” Pardo said. “I also dealt with a lot of depression in my teenage years and to this day, really.”
“Did you and are you getting any help to deal with this?”
“Yes. I’ve gone to counseling since I was a teenager, though I haven’t been much over the past ten years or so. But I’m seeing a counselor now, and a lot of that is coming to terms with what happened to me when I was a little girl.”
Karp waited as Pardo poured herself a drink of water and took a sip, her hand shaking as she held the cup to her lips. “Ms. Pardo, did you at some point join the New York Police Department?”
The question caused the gallery to start buzzing again. This was the lead-in to what they’d come to hear. But they quieted down with a look from Kershner.
“Yes.”
“Would you tell the jurors how that came about?”
“I was twenty-one and dating a police detective named Gary Proust,” Pardo began.
“Excuse me for interrupting, how did you meet?”
“I answered an advertisement for a ‘consultant’ to work ‘undercover’ for a loss prevention firm,” Pardo said.
“Which is . . . ?”
“A company that worked with other companies to cut down on their losses, such as employee theft.”
“Whose company was it?”
“It was Gary’s; he’d started it about five years before we met. It was supposed to be a sort of moonlighting thing in his off hours, but he probably spent more time on the company than he did police work. I met with him and it sounded exciting. He wanted me to work undercover, gaining people’s trust and then busting them if we could catch them.”
“Were there indications that not everything was on the up-and-up?” Karp asked.
“Yes,” Pardo said. “Some of these theft rings were pretty big, stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Sometimes when we caught them, Gary would let them buy their way out of trouble—he called it a ‘fine’—and we wouldn’t report them.”
“Why did you go along with that?”
Pardo took a deep breath and shook her head. “I guess I was young and stupid. He told me that it was the way things were in the ‘real world.’ He said the companies were covered by insurance, but if we turned these people in, their lives would be ‘ruined’ by criminal charges. He said lots of cops did things that weren’t entirely legal or within the rules—like take money to patrol a little extra in a high-crime area or look the other way on drug deals, so long as the dealer was paying them off. He complained that he couldn’t make it on his detective’s pay—not with two ex-wives, three kids, and all the support he had to come up with every month. Plus, he liked nice things: cars, a boat at his place in the Hamptons, a condo in Midtown.”
“And you believed him about this kind of widespread corruption on the police force?”
Pardo shrugged. “I was twenty-one when we met. He was quite a bit older, forty, and seemed really worldly. I didn’t have a reason to doubt him.”
“At some point did your relationship turn from professional to romantic?”
“He started coming on to me almost right away. But I wasn’t interested, at least not at first. But he was charming, good-looking, and really sure of himself, and I found that attractive. He bought me flowers and nice dinners, even took me to Las Vegas once but was a gentleman and got us separate rooms. Eventually I gave in . . . I guess you’d say I fell in love.”
“So at what point did you decide to become a police officer?”
“Well, I enjoyed the investigative and undercover aspects of what I was doing,” Pardo said. “Gary would tell me stories about his work as a cop, and it sounded interesting and exciting. As I was saying earlier, I lacked self-esteem—which is probably why I was with a man twice my age—and I thought maybe being a cop would restore my lost self-confidence.”
As Karp spoke, he moved along the jury rail, occasionally looking at the jurors’ faces. In reality he was gauging their reactions to his witness, and so far they were attentive and obviously following the story. “Was there an issue, however, with becoming a police officer?”
“Yes. Before you can be considered for the Police Academy, you have to take a written exam, and there was no way I was going to pass that with my dyslexia.”
“Did your boyfriend, Gary Proust, have an answer for that?”
“Yes, he knew someone who oversaw the testing. I went in and took the test, but to this day I have no idea what most of it asked. Most of it was multiple choice, so I guessed and filled in the little dots. I didn’t write anything on the essay part. But two weeks later, I got a notice in the mail that I had passed.”
“Did you think you were doing anything wrong?”
“Yes, but I told myself that I could make up for it by being a good police officer and helping people.”
“How did you do at the Police Academy?”
“I struggled with some of the written work, but Gary helped me and, when necessary, got his friend involved. But in everything else—driving, physical fitness, knowing the law—I was at or near the top of my class.”
“Did that include marksmanship?” Karp asked, allowing a little bit of a smile remembering her account of what she said to the gunman earlier that morning.
Pardo smiled back, relieved to have that inside joke to break the tension. “Yes, I was third in my class.”
“So then, you are familiar with firearms?”
“Yes. We learned to shoot handguns, rifles, and shotguns.”
“What sort of service weapon did you carry?”
“I preferred a thirty-eight-caliber revolver. It’s sort of old-school—everybody else was packing semiautomatics, which hold more bullets and can be fired somewhat faster. But I was more accurate with the revolver . . . and I didn’t think I’d ever need more than six.”
“So you would know a revolver as opposed to a semiautomatic by sight?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Would you be able to tell what caliber a weapon was by sight?”
“Well, obviously that would depend somewhat on how close I was, but even from a short distance I might have a good guess. Maybe not between a thirty-eight and a three fifty-seven revolver, which are very close—in fact, thirty-eight-caliber cartridges can be fired from revolvers chambered for a three fifty-seven, though the converse is not true. But it would be possible to tell the difference between a large-caliber revolver—such as a forty-five or a forty—and a smaller-caliber weapon, like a twenty-two.”
Karp leaned against the jury rail. “Let me back up a little. So after the Police Academy, you applied to and were hired by the New York Police Department?”
“Yes. It was one of the proudest days of my life.”
“I imagine it was also good for your self-esteem?”
Pardo beamed at the memory. “Yes. I remember like it was yesterday, the first time I put on the uniform. I didn’t feel dumb anymore or like I was a slow learner. And I wasn’t just Gary’s girlfriend and employee. I was somebody.”
“So was it all about the exciting nature of the job?”
“No. That was part of it, to be sure, especially for a twenty-four-year-old woman who a few years earlier was studying to clean people’s teeth,” Pardo said with a laugh. “But I think what I was looking forward to the most was helping people.”
“How did the fact that you were a victim of sexual abuse as a child figure into that?”
Pardo looked at the jurors. “Maybe it sounds corny, but I really did think about being somebody a child could turn to if he or she needed help. Maybe not a sex abuse victim. Maybe just kids who needed someone to care about them.”
Karp left the rail and strolled to the well of the court. “Ms. Pardo, have we met in my office to discuss this case, as well as your background?”
“Yes, several times.”
“And during one of our conversations, did you tell me about a dream you had as a young officer . . . something you wanted to accomplish?”
Pardo laughed. “Well, like any young officer, you get tired of writing traffic citations and hauling drunks off to detox and maybe breaking up a brawl and writing them up for disorderly conduct. To be honest, most police work tends to be a little boring and routine, especially when I compared what I was doing to what Gary did as a detective working on major cases. So I had this little daydream about taking a bad guy—a really bad guy—off the streets so he couldn’t hurt anybody else.”
“Did you ever get that opportunity?”
Pardo’s face fell. “No, not really. I made my share of arrests, including a liquor store robber who had a toy gun. But nothing really dramatic.”
“How long were you an officer?”
“Two years.”
“And during that time were you still dating Gary Proust?”
“For about the first six months after I joined the department.”
“What happened after six months?”
“I was starting to have issues with his moonlighting,” Pardo said. “I stopped working for him after I joined the department. In fact, I was learning that not everybody on the job, except maybe Gary’s pals, took bribes or were corrupt. Yes, a few badge-heavy guys liked carrying guns and having power over people’s lives. But most of the cops I worked with were in it for the same reason I was—to help protect the community.”
“You didn’t know it was wrong before that?”
Pardo hung her head. “I’d be dishonest if I said I thought it was all okay. I knew even before I got out of the academy that it was wrong. But I was young and in love, and I’ll confess, I liked the money and having things that I couldn’t buy when I was younger.”
“What did Detective Proust do when you told him you didn’t want to work for him anymore?”
“He laughed. Called me Miss Goody Two-shoes. Said fine, do what I wanted.”
“But you continued in the relationship for another six months?”
“Yes. And I reaped some of the rewards of Gary’s activities. He was still generous, bought me things, even proposed and gave me a beautiful engagement ring when I said yes.”
“What happened to end the relationship?”
“I heard that he wasn’t just ‘fining’ these people who were stealing from their employers,” she said. “He was actually receiving stolen merchandise and then selling it off. He had a whole network set up to do it.”
“Did you report him for these crimes?”
Pardo shook her head. “I should have, but I didn’t.”
“What did you do?”
“I told him he had to stop or I was going to leave him.”
“What was his reaction?”
“At first he didn’t believe me and just laughed. But when he saw I was serious, he got angry. He pointed out that I’d made a lot of money under the table, which was true.”
“Did you stick with your ultimatum?”
“And?”
“And he chose the money.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“I was devastated. I thought he loved me, but all he wanted was a young woman on his arm and in his bed.”
“Did you follow through?”
“Yes, I broke off the relationship and gave him his ring back.”
“How’d he take it?”
“Not well. He’d always been possessive and jealous. I thought it was cute, the way he’d get upset if another man looked at me or I spoke to one. But now he started getting scary. He accused me of breaking it off because I had another boyfriend, and that I was sleeping around. He stalked me and showed up unexpectedly both at work and at home.”
“How long did that behavior last?”
“Months. He called every day, sometimes several times a day. He’d be angry and shouting, calling me a whore and threatening me and anybody I met in the future. Other times he’d cry and tell me how much he loved me and wanted me back. The first couple times he did that I said I’d go back under one condition: he had to shut down his company. But it was always the same. I didn’t understand, he needed the money; it was always about the money. I told him to stop calling me and stop stalking me, or I was going to go to the brass at the department.”
“How’d he take that?”
“He said that if I did, I’d be the one who paid the price. I’d lose my job and be prosecuted and then go to prison. But he’d get off because of his friends high up.”
“Did you turn him in?”
“Not then, no,” Pardo said. “I never went out with him again and wouldn’t take his calls. But I didn’t do anything, either. I believed him when he said I’d be the one who was punished and that he’d get even for me leaving him.”
“And did he?”
Pardo reached for the glass of water, which Karp stepped forward and refilled after she set it down. “Yes. One day I got back to the precinct after my shift and the sergeant said they wanted to see me in Internal Affairs.”
“What about?”
“Somebody had reported Gary, probably someone who got tired of paying him off, but Gary thought it was me. He denied the criminal stuff, but he told them about me cheating on the academy test.”
“What happened?”
“I told them the truth. I cheated. I thought it wouldn’t be that big a deal if I just came clean. After all, I was a good cop. I had several commendations, and I knew my sergeant liked me. I thought I might get written up, maybe even put on administrative leave without pay.”
“Was that what happened?”
Pardo bit her lip. “No,” she said, shaking her head sadly. “They said they would drop the criminal investigation against my part in Gary’s schemes, but I had to resign from the department. So that’s what I did.”
Pardo laughed bitterly. “Apparently the investigation went nowhere. I heard from my sergeant later that Internal Affairs wanted to charge him but they were told to drop it. The union had stepped in and so had some higher-ups.”
“Is he still with the department?”
“No. I heard he retired a few years later, but I don’t know much more than that.”
“What sort of an impact did losing your job with the NYPD have on your life?”
Pardo started to answer but then choked up and buried her face in her hands. As she let out a loud sob, Karp walked up and offered her a tissue from the box on the rail. “Thanks, I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay,” Karp said.
“Do you need a few minutes?” Judge Kershner asked, leaning forward.
Pardo smiled at the judge through her tears. “No, I’m fine. This was bound to happen.” She sniffed a couple more times and wiped at her nose before looking back at Karp. “In some ways, my life ended the day they took my badge away.”
“How do you mean?”
“It wasn’t all at once, more of a long, slow downward spiral, but eventually I got to the bottom of the barrel and stayed there.”
“Were drugs involved in that downward slide?”
“Yes.”
“How did that start?”
“Actually before I became a cop,” Pardo said. “Gary liked to party, and he was into coke and sometimes speed. It was pretty recreational and I didn’t like it much. I stopped doing all of that when I got hired by the department. But after I got kicked off, I went to this party with a guy I was dating, and he offered me heroin.”
“Did you snort it or shoot it?”
“This was the kind you snorted, shooting would come later.”
“Was it a problem right away?” Karp asked.
“No,” Pardo said. “Some friends in the department hooked me up with a private investigation firm. The money was decent, though the work was pretty boring—mostly catching husbands cheating on their wives and insurance fraud. Easy work and a lot of partying in my off-hours. I snorted a lot of heroin and drank a lot of booze—I think to disguise how miserable I was inside.”
“At some point did you start shooting heroin?”
“I was at a party and somebody offered it to me,” she recalled. “They told me it was a better, more intense high. So I tried it. And they were right.”
“How else does the heroin you snort compare to heroin you shoot?”
“It’s not even close. One you want but can live without if it’s not available. The other you need, and you’d swear you don’t want to live if you can’t have more. Your body, your mind crave it. The only time you don’t want more dope is when you’re high, and as soon as that feeling is gone, all you can think about is getting more.”
“Did you become addicted all at once?”
Pardo shook her head. “No, there is a gradual buildup, and there were times when I realized what was happening and I’d force myself to go cold turkey. Sometimes I could go a few weeks, but the entire time all I thought about was how much I wanted it.”
“How did you support this habit?”
As he asked the question, Karp moved so that Pardo’s eyes had to stay on him. He knew this was going to be the toughest part of his questioning, and he didn’t want her to be concerned about the jury or spectators looking at her, judging her.
“I had my job as a private investigator,” Pardo said. “But heroin has a way of taking over your life. At first, you can function, it even gives you energy and a feeling of being on top of the world. Like I said, the highs are intense, but there’s a flip side to that. One of the common side effects of heroin withdrawal is severe depression. I’d already had issues with depression since my teens and this just intensified that. Some days, unless I had heroin, I couldn’t get myself to get out of bed, or even answer the phone. Another side effect is paranoia, not a good thing for a private investigator.
“I lost that job then every other decent job I got after that, even minimum-wage jobs flipping burgers. You stop eating when you’re a heroin addict, and you don’t care, all you want is that next hit.”
Karp could almost feel the spectators in the gallery hold their collective breath, waiting for the next step in Pardo’s fall from grace. He knew she could sense it in the air, too, and felt for her.
“I did anything for a few bucks,” she continued. “Went through the trash barrels in the parks for aluminum cans, shoplifted, and then I started . . .”
What she said next was inaudible. “I’m sorry,” Karp said, meaning it, “but I’m going to have to ask you to speak up so that the jurors can hear you.”
Pardo let out a deep breath and nodded. “I became a whore,” she admitted. “I let men use my body for money. At first, I charged a lot, when I was still young and not too far gone to seed. But the more heroin I did, the worse I looked, and the less men would pay. I’d do anything—oral sex, sex in cars, sex in alleys, sex in restroom stalls. There was nothing I wouldn’t do, no place I wouldn’t go, for the money to buy heroin.”
The witness looked deflated, beaten. Karp wished he could have held back at this point, but he needed this kind of honesty out of her now. He believed it would help the jury understand how far she had fallen and what it took for her to testify today, as well as blunt the edge of the defense attacks that were sure to follow. “Where were you living by this point?” he asked.
“On the streets,” Pardo said. “Occasionally, I’d get a cot and a hot shower at one of the shelters. Sometimes a john would let me sleep it off if he sprung for a room. But I spent a lot of nights curled up on a park bench or under a bush.”
“Wasn’t that dangerous?” Karp asked.
Pardo shrugged. “I guess you could say that. I’ve been raped, robbed, and beaten unconscious.”
Karp let the matter-of-fact statement sink in before he went on. “Were you ever arrested or charged with a crime after you left the police department?”
“Yes, all misdemeanors for prostitution and drug possession. I’ve spent more than a few days and nights in jail. But like we say on the streets, at least you get three hots and a cot, and in the winter, it can be like going on vacation to the Caribbean.”
“You have family in New Jersey,” Karp pointed out. “Why not go to them?”
Pardo looked at him for a long moment. He purposely had not told her every question; the jury needed to see her honest reactions.
“And let them know what I had become? No way. I’d have rather died. I wouldn’t even talk to them for months at a time, afraid that I’d break down and beg to come home.”
“How did you explain that?”
Pardo shrugged. “That I was busy, that I was working undercover as a cop. I never told them I got kicked off.”
“When did they find out?” Karp said, turning to look out at the gallery.
“A few months ago, when the press showed up at their front door and told them.” Pardo looked angry when she said it, but then her expression turned sad. “My mom found out that her daughter wasn’t a cop, like she thought, just a washed-up, drug-addicted prostitute, from some man she’d never met who showed up with a camera and the horrible truth.”
As some members of the media shifted uncomfortably on the benches, Karp turned toward the reason she was on the stand. “Did there come a time when you stopped prostituting yourself?”
Again the bitter laugh escaped Pardo’s lips. “When you’re a heroin addict, there comes a point when no one wants to pay for what you have to offer. No one with money, anyway. The others just take what they want. So I guess you might say I was involuntarily retired.”
“So how did you survive?”
“Well, the good news is I rarely had enough money for heroin. And I was fortunate to meet a sort of street preacher, I guess you might call him, though his name is David. He spent a lot of time talking to me about God and that no matter how far I’d gone down the road, I could always turn around and go back the way I came.” She shook her head. “He gave me and a lot of other homeless people a place to stay and hope. I don’t know how he does it, he doesn’t have a nickel himself, but he just has a way of making even people like me feel better about themselves.
“What about heroin?”
“One of the rules if you want to stay at his place is no drugs, but the thing is, I didn’t want it anymore.”
“But how do you eat?”
“Sometimes soup kitchens, but usually Dumpster diving.”
“Explain ‘Dumpster diving,’ please.”
“It’s like it sounds,” Pardo said. “You crawl into the big Dumpsters you see all over the city in alleys and behind buildings and scavenge for anything useful, like aluminum cans, clothing, or cigarette butts, and of course, food. You’d be surprised how much food gets thrown away that street people think of as a feast.”
Then Karp brought her to the evening when Ricky Watts was shot. As he talked, he walked over to the prosecution table and picked up three photographs.
“I was in Harlem going through a Dumpster in an alley next to a tenement,” she said.
“When you say ‘going through,’ where were you physically?”
“I was inside the Dumpster with the lid closed, having lunch.”
Gasps and groans escaped the spectators. Kershner banged her gavel once.
“Did something interrupt your meal?”
“Yes. I heard voices near the entrance to the alley—”
“Excuse me for interrupting,” Karp said, “but how far was the Dumpster from the entrance?”
“Maybe twenty feet.”
“All right, please continue. You heard these voices . . .”
“Yes, so I lifted the lid a little to peek. You can never be too careful in some of these neighborhoods.”
“What did you see?”
“Three black males. One very large man who appeared to be in his mid- to late twenties. A second man, tall and thin, who also appeared to be in his mid to late twenties, maybe thirty. And what I’d describe as a pudgy teenager; he wore glasses and just seemed out of place with these other two, who were rougher.”
Karp walked up to the witness stand until he was within arm’s reach. “Ms. Pardo, did there come a time when you were asked if you could identify the three individuals you saw that evening?”
“Yes, you showed me several photo lineups.”
“And were you able to make positive identifications of these individuals?”
“Yes, I was.”
Karp held out one of the photographs. “I am handing you what has been marked People’s Exhibit 32 in evidence,” he said. “Is this one of the individuals you identified?”
“Yes, this was the largest of the men. He was probably six-four, three hundred pounds.”
Karp smiled. “You sound like a police officer.”
“Old habits die hard,” Pardo replied with a shy smile of her own.
“Let the record reflect that the witness has identified the largest of the individuals as George Parker,” Karp said, and held out a second photograph. “I’m handing you People’s Exhibit 33 in evidence. Do you also recognize this person as one of the individuals?”
“Yes, that’s the teenager.”
“Let the record reflect that the witness has identified Ricky Watts.” Karp handed her the last photograph. “This is People’s Exhibit 34. Do you recognize this individual?”
Pardo’s eyes flitted to Johnson and back. She nodded. “Yes, this is the tall, thin male.”
“Do you see this man in the courtroom?”
Pardo looked straight at Johnson. Their eyes locked, but he was the first to look away, smiling and shaking his head like it was all a joke. “Yes, he’s right there,” she said, pointing.
Karp strode across the courtroom until he reached the defense table. He, too, pointed. “This man, the defendant, Anthony Johnson?” he asked.
“Yes, that’s him.”
In the silence that followed the accusation, Johnson dipped his head and could be heard to say, “Lying bitch.”
Karp stopped and stared at him, and then continued. “You said you could hear their voices. Could you understand what was being said?”
“Some. I missed whatever they said initially because the lid was down. And after that, I had to be careful, so some of it was hard to hear. But I heard him,” she said, pointing again at Johnson, “tell the teenager, ‘They won’t be expecting you.’ ”
“Let the record reflect that the witness indicated the defendant in her previous statement,” Karp said. “What else did you hear?”
“The kid sort of stuttered, like he was afraid. ‘You . . . you . . . want me to shoot them?’ But Johnson said something about wondering if he’d picked the right man for the job. The kid said, ‘No, I’ll do it.’ ”
“Did the defendant, Anthony Johnson, give anything to Ricky Watts as they were talking?”
“Yes, he handed him a stainless steel revolver with an ivory or mother-of-pearl grip.”
“Could you tell what caliber?” Karp asked.
“Not a hundred percent,” Pardo said. “But it was a large revolver, not a little Saturday-night special.”
“What happened next?”
Pardo again nodded at Johnson. “The defendant told the boy to go into the building and wait. Some of that was muffled. I was afraid they were going to turn around and see me, so I kept ducking. But I heard Johnson say, ‘Boom boom and it’s over. If they’re still moving, shoot them in the head. Then get your ass out of there and we’ll meet you.’ ”
“They walked off toward the front of the building.”
“What did you do?”
“I got out of the Dumpster. I was going to run away before they came back . . . but I didn’t . . . I stayed.”
“Why?”
“Because they were talking about shooting people. I . . . I couldn’t just turn my back. So I crept to the entrance of the alley and peeked around the corner. The two older guys, Parker and Johnson, were hanging out near a parked car. Then I heard two gunshots.”
“You’re sure? Two gunshots?”
“Absolutely. They were almost one on top of the other—ba-bang—but they were different caliber, so I could differentiate them. One sounded like a nine . . .”
“A nine?”
“A nine-millimeter semiautomatic. The other was bigger . . . a forty-five or maybe a forty.”
“What happened next?”
“The teenager came out the door. At first I didn’t think there was anything wrong, but then I saw the big red spot on his chest. He made it to the curb and then crumpled to the ground.”
“What about Johnson and Parker?”
“They walked over to him. They said something, and he”—again she pointed at Johnson—“took the revolver out of the boy’s hand. Then he looked up and saw me. He yelled for me to stop, but I ran down the alley.”
“One of the abandoned buildings on the far end has an open entrance to the basement. There’s a tunnel system. It used to be used for hauling coal for the furnaces, now it’s mostly abandoned. I heard him running after me, but he stopped and didn’t come down into the basement. He knew that wouldn’t be safe.”
“When did you see the defendant again?”
“Not until you showed me the photo lineups.”
“Sorry, I meant in person.”
“Oh, you asked me to come down and see if I could pick him out of a standing lineup through a one-way mirror.”
“And did you?”
“Yes. Immediately.”
Karp walked over to the prosecution table and picked up the evidence bag containing the revolver. He pulled it out and showed it to her. “Is this revolver consistent with the type of revolver you saw the defendant, Anthony Johnson, hand to Ricky Watts?”
“It is,” Pardo answered. “It looks just like it.”
Karp placed the gun back in the bag. “Thank you. No further questions.”
Judge Kershner looked at the clock on the wall. “Let’s take our afternoon recess. When we return, the witness is yours for cross-examination, Ms. Nash.”
“I look forward to it,” Nash said coldly.
“Very well, we’ll reconvene in fifteen minutes,” the judge said to the jurors.
When the judge and jurors were gone, Karp and Katz went over to talk to Pardo, who’d remained silent and thoughtful on the witness stand.
“Once a whore, always a whore, ain’t that right?” The voice was Johnson’s, who remained sitting next to Nash. “And fuck you, Karp,” he added. “Too bad that guy, what was his name, Oliver Gray, yeah, right, Oliver Gray, too bad he was such a poor shot. Next time, I hope somebody puts you down like a dog. Just like they’re gonna do that bitch.”
The court officers jumped up and surrounded the defendant, but Karp told them to relax. Hoping to bait Johnson, he said, “Not to worry. He’s a coward who sets up kids to do his dirty work.”
When Kershner arrived back in the courtroom, the chief court clerk told her what had transpired. The judge looked at Karp. “Is that true?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Mr. Johnson, any outburst from you will be dealt with severely in this courtroom,” Kershner warned.
Johnson started to retort, but Nash put a hand on his shoulder and stated plaintively, “Your Honor, he’s under attack for a crime he didn’t commit.”
Kershner raised her hand. “Stop right there. I stated precisely the behavior I expect in this courtroom. Don’t test me.”
“I know my rights,” Johnson spat.
“You have the right to take the stand in your defense,” Karp retorted, egging him on again.
“That’s enough!” Kershner yelled. She glared from Johnson to Karp and back again. Satisfied that order was restored, she asked for the jury to be brought back in. She addressed them when they were seated. “When we left off, the district attorney had finished his direct examination of the witness. Ms. Nash, you may now proceed with your questioning.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Nash said, striding out from behind the defense table and up to the witness stand. “That was quite the story, Ms. Pardo. But it seemed a little self-serving. I mean, do all dyslexic children end up drug-addicted prostitutes who will perjure themselves on a witness stand?”
“OBJECTION!” Karp thundered. “Has counsel no sense of redemption, sensitivity, or civility?”
“Sustained. Both counsel will please try to stay focused on the evidence.”
Nash’s mouth twisted into a smirk. “Of course, Your Honor,” she said, then turned back to Pardo. “If I understand your testimony, you’ve admitted to committing crimes while working for Gary Proust, a New York City Police Department detective?”
“Yes.”
“And you cheated to become a cop, which makes you a liar. Correct?”
“That’s correct.”
“And after you became an officer with the NYPD, sworn to uphold the law, you knew that your boyfriend, also a sworn officer, was committing crimes?”
“Yes.”
“Did you turn him in?”
“No, I did not.”
“I loved him. I wanted him to stop of his own volition.”
“Did that happen?”
“No.”
“Did you turn him in then?”
“No.”
“No, instead you continued to date him. You were his fiancée.”
“That’s correct.”
Nash crossed her arms. “Would you say that the NYPD is a corrupt organization?”
“No, I wouldn’t say that.”
“But you testified that your boyfriend said ‘everybody’ has some sort of racket going.”
“That’s what he said. That wasn’t my experience.”
“Ms. Pardo, are there a lot of racist police officers at the NYPD?”
“I’m sure there are some. But I never witnessed any acts of racism by a police officer.”
“None whatsoever?” Nash asked, as if she found this hard to believe. “Just black and white officers working together, treating everyone on the streets with dignity and respect?”
“As I said, I never witnessed any acts of racism, either between officers, or officers interacting with the community.”
“Yet three officers were indicted last summer for murder and the attempted murder of black activists.”
“I don’t know anything about that except what I’ve read in the newspapers, the same as anyone else.”
“So this was just a one-time event.”
Nash rolled her eyes and began walking along the jury box rail. “Let’s talk about you for a minute. So you’re a heroin addict?”
“I was. But I’ve been clean for five months.”
“Five months? Do you still crave it?”
“Every day.”
“Every day?”
“Yes, every day is a battle to stay clean and sober.”
“I see. And some of the side effects of long-term use of heroin are memory loss, paranoia, and depression. Is that true?”
“I believe that’s correct.”
“So you don’t always remember everything that happens to you?”
“Depends. If I was high, maybe not. But my memory is pretty good, at least for those times I was sober.”
“But you testified that heroin affects memory?”
“It can.”
“And were you high on heroin on the evening when you allegedly saw three men at the entrance of this alley in Harlem?”
“I don’t remember,” Pardo said, “but probably not. I didn’t have much money at that time.”
“And nobody wanted to pay to have sex with you, correct?”
Karp saw that the question stung. But Pardo smiled. “I don’t think I could have given it away.”
The humor caught Nash off guard as the gallery tittered with laughter. The defense attorney scowled and set her jaw. “I believe you testified that you were willing to do anything for heroin, is that right?”
“Pretty much.”
“Yes.”
“Perform sex acts in filthy alleys and restroom stalls?”
“Yes.”
“And that you violated the oath you took as a police officer?”
“Yes.”
“Lied and cheated.”
“Sometimes, yes.”
“Well, basically it sounds like you’ve lied, cheated, committed crimes, done drugs your entire adult life?”
“Yes. Pretty sad, isn’t it?”
Again, Nash was caught off guard for a moment, as if she didn’t know how to answer that response. Then her face hardened. “You sold your body for drugs.”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that like selling your soul?”
“That’s not a bad analogy.”
“I think it’s a rather good analogy,” Nash retorted. “So I have to ask you, have you sold your soul to the prosecution?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, let’s look at the evidence. Eight months ago, you were prostituting yourself, sleeping on park benches, and eating in Dumpsters. Now here you are, wearing nice clothes, living in a women’s shelter where I assume you’re safe, warm, and well fed. And you’re taking courses at a community college. It would seem that your life took a sudden, miraculous turnaround after you went to the district attorney with your story.”
“Yes, my life is better. But I’m the one making it better, with the help of people at the shelter.”
“Or was it the district attorney who came along and told you what to say?”
“Objection!” Karp shouted as he stood. “Ms. Nash is making wild accusations without one scintilla of evidence to back them up. If she has it, she should put it before this jury now.”
“Sustained,” Kershner said, shaking her head. “Ms. Nash, you must know better.”
Nash’s face was pulled into a sneer. “No further questions.”
Kershner shook her head and looked at Karp. “Anything more?”
Karp, who had remained standing, nodded. “Just a couple more questions,” he said, and looked at Pardo.
“Ms. Pardo, you told me once and testified that as a young police officer, you dreamed of taking a bad guy off of the street.”
“Yes.”
“Is this the way you imagined it?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, was it your dream to appear on the witness stand and be exposed as a liar, a drug addict, a cheater, and a whore?”
Pardo shook her head. “No. This isn’t a dream, it’s a nightmare.”
Karp nodded. “I’m sure. So I want to ask you, why should this jury believe you when you testified that you saw the defendant, Anthony Johnson, and his associate, George Parker, as well as Ricky Watts in that alley? And why should they believe that you saw the defendant hand Ricky Watts a stainless steel, forty-five-caliber revolver with a mother-of-pearl handle and say, ‘If they’re still moving, shoot them in the head’?”
Pardo looked over at Nash and then at Johnson. “Because why would I have put myself through this if every single thing I’ve said today wasn’t true?”
“Now that,” Karp said, “is a good question. Nothing further, Your Honor.”