Fatal Conceit

To those blessings in my life:

Patti, Rachael, Roger, Billy, and my brother, Bill;

and

To the loving Memory of

Reina Tanenbaum

My sister, truly an angel

To my legendary mentors, District Attorney Frank S. Hogan and Henry Robbins, both of whom were larger in life than in their well-deserved and hard-earned legends, everlasting gratitude and respect; to my special friends and brilliant tutors at the Manhattan DAO, Bob Lehner, Mel Glass, and John Keenan, three of the best who ever served and whose passion for justice was unequaled and uncompromising, my heartfelt appreciation, respect, and gratitude; to Professor Robert Cole and Professor Jesse Choper, who at Boalt Hall challenged, stimulated, and focused the passions of my mind to problem-solve and to do justice; to Steve Jackson, an extraordinarily talented and gifted scrivener whose genius flows throughout the manuscript and whose contribution to it cannot be overstated, a dear friend for whom I have the utmost respect; to Louise Burke, my publisher, whose enthusiastic support, savvy, and encyclopedic smarts qualify her as my first pick in a game of three on three in the Avenue P park in Brooklyn; to Wendy Walker, my talented, highly skilled, and insightful editor, many thanks for all that you do; to Mitchell Ivers and Natasha Simons, the inimitable twosome whose adult supervision, oversight, and rapid responses are invaluable and profoundly appreciated; to my agents, Mike Hamilburg and Bob Diforio, who in exemplary
fashion have always represented my best interests; to Coach Paul Ryan, who personified “American Exceptionalism” and mentored me in its finest virtues; to my esteemed special friend and confidant Richard A. Sprague, who has always challenged, debated, and inspired me in the pursuit of fulfilling the reality of “American Exceptionalism”; and to Rene Herrerias, who believed in me early on and in so doing changed my life, truly a divine intervention.

R
OGER
K
ARP ARRIVED OUTSIDE THE
Casablanca Hotel off West 43rd a little after eight on a Monday morning. It was no social call. He was the district attorney for New York County and upstairs in the hotel was the body of a man whose death was certain to be the lead story in newspapers and newscasts across the globe. He wanted to be out ahead of the cloud of media locusts that would soon descend upon his city to join their brethren already there.

As he approached the hotel entrance, a glass door opened and the broad coffee-colored face of Detective Clay Fulton appeared. “Morning, Butch,” he said, using the nickname that friends, family, and foes alike knew him by. The detective pushed the door open further. “This way.”

Karp followed the detective into the elegant lobby of the Casablanca, a boutique hotel a block off Times Square. He was pleased to see that so far there were no media types evident. Several people, presumably hotel employees by their uniforms and name tags, were over by the front desk talking to two plainclothes police detectives. A young woman in uniform cried inconsolably among them.

Fulton pointed to her. “She found the body when he didn't answer the door for room service this morning.”

Karp nodded. “Where we going?”

“Sixth floor, room 648.”

The two large men, both about six-foot-five though the detective was a bit stockier, crossed the lobby headed for the elevator. A young, freckle-faced uniformed police officer was holding a door open for them. “Good morning, Mr. Karp,” the officer said.

Pausing for a moment to get a good look at the young man, Karp then smiled. “Aren't you Jimmy Fallon's son Richie? Wow, seems like it was yesterday your dad was a rookie working in the detective squad for DA Francis Garrahy, and I was a scrub assistant DA. Now you're a cop, too. Like father, like son, eh?”

The young officer beamed. “Kind of you to remember, sir.”

“Say hello to your father for me.”

“Can't do that, sir, he drank himself to death last year.”

“Oh, hey, sorry to hear that; he was a good man.”

“Yeah, he was. But you know us Irish cops, if we ain't in church, we're hittin' the booze, though I never touch the stuff myself. Not after seeing what it did to Pops.”

“Your mom still with us?”

“Yes, sir. I want her to move in with me and the missus, but we can't get her out of the old house in Queens. She says Pops' ghost keeps her company, and she's afraid he won't be able to find her nowheres else.”

“Home is where the heart is, Richie. Say hi to her for me.”

“I'll do it. Thank you, sir.”

After the door of the elevator closed, Karp shook his head. “Didn't know that about Jimmy.”

“Yeah, he got bounced from the force for drinking on the job and hitting a pedestrian with his squad car. Next thing I heard, he went on a binge to end all binges, drank himself into a coma, and never came out. Guess he didn't know what to do if he couldn't be a cop.”

“It's a tough job.”

“That it is, boss, that it is.”

The men fell silent for a moment then Fulton asked, “Any word on Lucy and Ned?”

Karp shook his head and had to clear his throat to answer. “Nothing new. Not much more than has been in the papers.” His voice was husky, and the detective let it be.

The elevator slid open again on the sixth floor and the two longtime friends and colleagues exited. Fulton pointed to the left. “Down here.”

They rounded a corner and Karp saw another uniformed officer standing guard outside a room at the end of the hallway. As they walked toward him a door opened halfway down the hall and an older woman in a robe, her face made up with too much eye shadow for that time of the morning, peered out. “Is everything okay?” she asked in a tremulous voice.

“There's been an incident, but it's under control,” Fulton assured her. “If you could just remain in your room for a little while longer I'm going to ask an officer to stop by and ask you a few questions, then you'll be free to go.”

We'll see about everything being under control,
Karp thought as the woman gave a small cry and disappeared. The dead bolt slid home.

Twenty minutes earlier, Karp was just about to leave his family loft apartment on Grand and Crosby Streets for his office at the Criminal Courts building at 100 Centre Street. He'd been looking forward to the walk. The air was crisp with the promise of fall though it was supposed to warm up nicely into another lovely Indian Summer day on Manhattan Island.
Perfect day for a brisk hike.

Then Fulton called from the Casablanca. Instead of a pleasant stroll to work, Karp hopped in an unmarked sedan driven by his omnipresent bodyguard, NYPD Officer J. P. Murphy, to take him to the hotel. On the ride uptown, he looked out the windows at the crowds on the sidewalks but hardly saw them in his shock and disbelief over the identity of the victim and the initial report from
Fulton regarding the cause of death. “Looks like suicide . . . an overdose. But I don't know, Butch, something isn't right.”

Normally Karp wouldn't have responded personally to a suicide in a New York City hotel. But given the prominence of the deceased and certain recent events there was no question that he would oversee this case from the get-go. A small voice in his head even speculated that there could be a connection between the man's death and what had happened a week earlier to his daughter, Lucy.
There's certainly a nexus,
he thought,
however tenuous.

Nodding to the officer guarding the scene, Karp entered the room ahead of Fulton. Located on the top floor of the hotel, room 648 was a suite with a sitting area that contained a work desk, coffee table, and a couch with two end tables; through wooden double-doors, currently open, was the bedroom. The first thing he noted were the scattered remains of a room service breakfast the traumatized young woman downstairs apparently had dropped on the plush maroon carpeting in the sitting area when she noticed the body on the king-sized bed. He turned his attention to where two crime scene technicians were working at the desk, on which a laptop computer sat open.

“What's up?” Karp asked.

One of the CSI techs, who was using a razor blade to scrape the dried residue of a liquid off the glass-covered desktop and into an envelope, stopped what he was doing and looked up. “Covering our bases, Mr. Karp,” he said. “Got a little spill here, looks pretty fresh; probably just some of the scotch he was drinking, but we'll test it anyway.”

“I see the bottle. Where's the glass?” Karp asked, looking around.

The technician pointed toward the bedroom. “In there.”

Karp looked at the other technician, who was moving his finger on the laptop's touch pad as he watched the screen. “Anything interesting?”

“Mostly making sure I don't lose any information before I shut
it down and take it to the lab to look over. . . . There is a note.” He moved his finger and then clicked on the pad.

A document file appeared on the screen, blank except for six words.

“ ‘I'm sorry about everything. Forgive me,' ” Karp read.

“Short and sweet,” said Fulton, who was looking over their shoulders.

“What was he sorry about?” Karp wondered aloud.

“Wasn't he supposed to testify before a congressional committee tomorrow?” Fulton said.

“Think there's a connection?”

“Who knows? I'm sure the media will tell us soon enough.”

“Yeah, but will they get it right?” Karp asked.

“Since when did that matter? So long as they're first and it doesn't buck the status quo.”

Karp turned and walked into the bedroom, where several people were working around the corpse. The dead man lay on his back on top of a white down comforter, his head propped on a pillow. He was wearing a silk smoking jacket and long, striped pajama bottoms. His hands were clasped on top of his belly; his eyes were closed and his lips gave no hint of an expression. Except for the pallor of his skin and the absolute stillness with which he lay, he appeared to be sleeping.

Looking down at the familiar face, Karp felt a wave of sorrow pass through him. Here were the mortal remains of a dynamic man, a true American hero that he and many other people around the world respected. Karp couldn't fathom what drove the man to take his own life.
Something he was sorry for.

“So sad,” said a white-haired woman in a long medical coat who was gently examining the body.

“Yes it is. But good to see you, Gail,” Karp said.

Assistant Medical Examiner Gail Manning smiled, her kind blue eyes wet in spite of her long service to the New York Medical Examiner's Office where death had been a constant companion. “I
always thought of him as a good man . . . sort of above it all,” she said.

“I think many of us felt the same,” Karp replied.

“I guess he had demons none of us knew about.”

“If so, they got the better of him and that's our loss. Can you tell me anything?”

“Well, judging from lividity and his core body temperature, my preliminary finding on time of death, subject to revision, is about ten hours ago.”

Karp did the math. “About 10:00 p.m. last night?”

“That's an educated guess. I'll be able to tell more at the autopsy and after running a few tests.”

“How'd he do it?”

Manning pointed to a pill bottle next to a glass partly filled with an amber liquid on the nightstand beside the bed. “The old-fashioned way, tranquilizers with a scotch chaser. At least that's what it looks like.” Her face screwed up as if she was trying to reconcile her answer with something running through her mind.