For the People Chapter 34

Shapiro sinks back in his chair. "It's a bad time for you to take a couple of days, Beckett. I'm doing what I can to plan around your maternity leave, but I wasn't expecting this. I've been keeping it quiet while the investigation proceeded, but the wheels have been turning on another case, one into which you'll have more insight than any of the other ADAs. It's a corrupt cop, one who's been fronting for Victor Racine's organization for years."

Kate leans toward the DA's desk. "I don't understand. Racine and that IA cop who worked for him, Holliwell, have been in prison for years. I thought that mess was cleaned up."

"Perhaps it was – for a while. But Racine's distant cousin, Charlie Pulco, eventually took the reins and recruited another lackey in blue, Douglas Mertree. Mertree's been working behind the scenes to keep the NYPD off Pulco's back. But Holliwell's successor at Internal Affairs, Captain Gates, picked up on him. For six months, Gates has been spearheading an undercover surveillance operation with the Organized Crime Unit to nail Mertree and Pulco. They've managed to gather everything we need to indict and go to trial, and the arrests are scheduled to go down today. Once we get an indictment, we're going to push for immediate trials."

"Even if you get them, trials like that could stretch way beyond my due date," Kate points out, "especially Pulco's."

"I'm not putting you on Pulco's. I'm going to first chair his, and I'll have Fazio and Delaney as second and third. I want you on Mertree. As a former cop, you'll have the most credibility going after him. You can pick your own second chair and a third if you need one. If the trial goes too long, They can take over for you. The court is used to seeing The People switch prosecutors around. We all work for the same client. But we'll try to circumscribe the charges enough to make the proceedings as straightforward as possible. Your thrust will be to send the message that the city and this office will not tolerate police corruption. With your history, you should be able to put that across loud and clear."

"I understand, Sir. And I hate dirty cops as much as anyone could, but I really need some time to get what I need for the baby before she decides to make her appearance. I'm only talking about a couple of days."

"Get the indictment, Kate. Get the case against Mertree on the docket, and you can assign trial prep while you're out of town. But stay in touch. And barring acts of His Name, don't be gone too long."

"Yes, Sir. I can handle that."


Rick plops down opposite Kate over plates of herbed chicken and steamed vegetables. "So Holliwell wasn't the only rotten apple in IA. I can't say I'm surprised. What cop would want a job sneaking around after other cops? Do you know anything about the Captain Gates who's in charge now?"

"Not much. We touched base over the phone this afternoon. She sounded about as by the book as they come. Maybe that's why she wanted to be in IA. But we're supposed to be meeting tomorrow to go over what she has on Mertree. I should get a better idea of what she's like then. If her case is as strong as she indicated, indicting Mertree shouldn't take long. The Grand Jury can probably do it based just on Gates' testimony. Then I'll have to see what the docket of whichever judge I draw looks like. I won't be able to figure out anything else about timing until then."

"And is Shapiro going to keep you working on the usual stream of plea deals?"

"If I have the time. He's putting Mertree first on the agenda. He had a look in his eye when he talked about dirty cops. He seemed even more pissed off about them than he did about Duffy."

"Maybe he got screwed over by a dirty cop somewhere along the line."

Kate pokes at a baby carrot. "It's possible. If lawyers for the defense find out cops broke the rules to get evidence, they petition the judge to throw it out. You know that. Maybe a cheating cop lost Shapiro an important case. From his expression when he brought up Mertree, it must have been a damn important case."

Rick pulls out his phone. "It would be easier on the computer, but I can take a quick look without screwing up our dinner. Going with Shapiro, not guilty…."

"Try planted evidence."

"Got it, planted evidence. Oh, God! The world is full of lawyers named Shapiro. One of them lives down the road from our beach house, and another one is the Attorney General in Pennsylvania. OK. Gidon Shapiro in quotes. That should narrow it down. Right, here we go! Got it. Oh, Kate, this is bad. A fourteen-year-old girl was raped and murdered. A cop planted the murder weapon. But there was a witness, a gardener, who saw him do it. The cop told him if he opened his mouth, he'd call ICE on him. But the gardener was Puerto Rican, an American citizen. And he and his whole family had been hassled by cops numerous times. So he went to the defense. The cop was exposed on the stand, and the jury came back not guilty. The thing is, if the cop hadn't planted the weapon, the suspect, Ernesto Lavonne Smith, would have been convicted. There was a DNA match. But once the jury knew what the cop did, they didn't accept any other evidence as legitimate. Smith walked. Then he raped and murdered another girl, Shapiro's niece. Smith went away for life for that crime. But it never would have happened if it hadn't been for the cop planting evidence."

Kate sinks back in her seat. "Wow! Of course, Shapiro would have a hate on for Mertree. He's not only dirty, he was supporting criminals."

"After what Holliwell did, do you think Shapiro will be able to trust Gates?" Rick wonders. "Will you?"

Kate pokes at another carrot. "I don't know. I can size her up better tomorrow."

"After all your years in the box, you're pretty damn good at sizing people up."

"I hope so."


Victoria Gates stares across a conference table at Kate. "By all accounts, you were a great cop, Beckett. Why did you leave the force?"

"I saw too many bad guys slip through the cracks because prosecutors screwed up. I wanted to fix it. But as long as we're getting down to it, Captain Gates, why IA? Don't you like cops?"

"I love cops – most cops. My father and my uncles were cops. My brother is a cop. But my partner was raped by one of the bad ones, and the department took his word over hers. I couldn't let that go. So I went for IA. You want to clean house from the inside at the DA's office. I want to do the same with the NYPD. So I take it we understand each other, Beckett?"

"Kate."

"Victoria. So Kate, can we get down to business now? I have hours of audio recordings of Mertree making deals with Charlie Pulco. He steered investigations away from protection, arson, assault, and murder."

"How did you get the recordings?" Kate asks. "If you wiretapped, your warrant will have to be ironclad."

"No tap. We had a CI who wore a wire."

"He'd have to be pretty high up in Pulco's organization."

"Not he, she, Racine's daughter, Angela. She hates what her father did, and that Pulco is continuing it. But Pulco decided to cozy up to her to gain cred with what was left of the organization. She let him, to a point, and came to the NYPD."

"Brave woman."

"And one we have to make sure survives to verify what's on those tapes. As far as we know, Mertree has no idea she's been working with us. But if he finds out…."

"All Hell will break loose."