“Argumentative. Calls for speculation.”
“I’m going to allow it.” The judge is pissed.
“I don’t know,” Malone says.
“Well, there are only so many possibilities,” Berger says. “Is it possible it was stolen from the evidence locker and sold to alleged drug traffickers? Is that a possibility?”
“I suppose that’s possible.”
“Or is it more possible,” Berger says, “that you took this weapon in order to plant it on the suspects and cook up a pretext for probable cause?”
“No.”
“Not even possible, Sergeant?” Berger asks, enjoying himself immensely. “Not even possible that you burst into that domicile, shot two suspects, killed one of them, planted weapons on them, and then lied about it?”
Hinman jumped up. “Argumentative, speculative. Calls for a hypothetical. Your Honor, defense counsel is—”
“Approach the bench.”
“Your Honor,” Hinman says, “we do not know the provenance of this document, we were not allowed sufficient time to investigate its legitimacy, its accuracy—”
“Goddamn it, Mary,” the judge says, “if you cooked up this case—”
“I wouldn’t for one moment impugn Ms. Hinman’s ethics,” Berger says. “But the fact remains that if Sergeant Malone did not see the weapons as he claims that he did, there was no probable cause, and any evidence found in the domicile is fruit of a poisoned tree. I’ll move to dismiss, Your Honor.”
“Not so fast,” Hinman says. “Defense counsel himself brought up the possibility that the weapon was stolen from the locker, and—”
“You bring me one big headache here,” the judge says. He sighs, then adds, “I’m going to exclude the MAC-10.”
“That still leaves the TEC-9.”
“Right,” Berger says, “the jury is going to believe that one weapon is dirty but the other is clean. Please.”
Malone knows that Hinman is considering her options, all of them shitty.
One of them is that NYPD officers are selling automatic weapons out of their evidence rooms to drug dealers. Another is that a highly decorated NYPD detective perjured himself on the stand.
If she goes with that it could open up a flood of headlines, the shooting becomes wrong, and IAB launches an investigation on one Sergeant Denny Malone, including all his previous testimony. Hinman could lose not only this case, but have twenty others reversed. Twenty guilty skels will walk out of prison and she’ll walk the plank.
There’s one other option.
He hears Hinman ask Berger, “Would your client be open to a plea offer?”
“It depends on the offer.”
Malone feels the bile rise in his mouth as Hinman says, “One count of simple possession. A twenty-five-thousand-dollar fine, two years with time served deducted, and deportation.”
“Twenty thousand, time served and deportation.”
“Your Honor?” Hinman asks.
The judge is disgusted. “If the defendant agrees, I will accept that plea and issue the negotiated sentence.”
“One more thing,” Hinman says. “The record is sealed.”
“I have no problem with that,” Berger says with a smirk.
There was no media in the room, Hinman thinks. There’s a good chance of keeping this off the radar.
“The record is sealed,” the judge says. “Mary, the court is not happy about this. Go do the paperwork. Send Malone into my chambers.”
The judge gets up.
Hinman walks over and tells Malone, “I’m going to fucking kill you.”
Berger just smiles at him.
Malone goes into chambers. The judge doesn’t offer him a seat.
“Sergeant Malone,” the judge says, “you were about three syllables away from losing your shield, your gun, and being indicted for perjury.”
“I stand by my testimony, Your Honor.”
“As will Russo and Montague,” the judge says. “The Blue Wall.”
Goddamn right, Malone thinks.
But he keeps his mouth shut.
“Thanks to you,” the judge says, “I have to release an almost certainly guilty defendant. To protect the NYPD, who are supposed to be protecting us.”
It’s thanks to Berger, asshole, Malone thinks. And some careless assholes at the Three-Two too lazy to shit-can an old evidence voucher. Or who are on Berger’s pad. Either way, I’ll find out.
“Do you have anything to say, Sergeant?”
“The system is screwed up, Your Honor.”
“Get out, Sergeant Malone. You make me sick.”
I make you sick, Malone thinks as he walks out. You make me sick, you hypocrite. You just participated in a cover-up of this thing, you know what’s going on. You didn’t protect cops out of the goodness of your heart, you protected us because you have to. You’re part of the system, too.
Hinman is waiting for him in the hallway.
“Both our careers were swirling around the bowl in there,” she says. “I had to cut that bastard a deal to save us.”
Poor you, Malone thinks. I cut deals every damn day, a lot worse than this one. “You knew the score, so cut the Joan of Arc routine.”
“I never told you to commit perjury.”
“You don’t care what we do when you get convictions,” Malone says. “‘Do what you have to do.’ But let something go south, then you say, ‘Play by the rules.’ I’ll play by the rules when everyone else does.”
After all, he thinks as he walks out, they don’t call it the Criminal Courts for nothing.
Chapter 15
Malone meets his team up at Montefiore Square, which isn’t a square but a triangle formed by Broadway, Hamilton Place and 138th.
“What do we got?” Malone asks.
“Fat Teddy’s made thirty-seven calls to Georgia area codes in the past three days,” Levin says. “The shipment’s definitely coming.”
“Yeah, but coming where?” Malone asks.
“Teddy won’t give them an address until the last minute,” Levin says. “If he does it from the office, we might pick it up, but if he does it from the street, we’ll know when he makes the call, but not what he says.”
“Can we get a warrant on Teddy’s phones?” Monty asks.
“Based off what he heard off an illegal tap?” Malone says. “Not these days.”
Levin grins.
“What’s funny?” Russo asks.
“What if we take Teddy?” Levin asks.
“He’s not going to tell us shit,” Russo says, “I don’t care how many Ding Dongs we have.”
“No,” Levin says. “I have a better idea.”
He lays it out.
The three older cops look at one another.
Then Russo says, “See, this is the difference between City College and NYU.”
“Sit on it,” Malone tells Levin. “Let us know when it’s on.”
Malone sits down with Sykes in the captain’s office.
“I need buy money,” Malone says.
“For what?”
“Carter’s guns coming up on the Pipeline,” Malone says. “Mantell’s not going to sell them to Carter, he’s going to sell them to us.”
Sykes gives him a long look. “Mapp issues?”
“There won’t be any. We’re going to do it on the street.”
“Behind what?”
“A CI’s going to give us the meet,” Malone says. “We’ll take the CI’s place.”
“Did you file this CI?”
“Right after I leave your office.”
“How much?”