Leader of the Pack (Andy Carpenter) (23 page)

“I was not. We never discussed our personal lives.”

“Would you have approved of it?”

I object, but Hatchet lets him answer. “I would have attempted to discourage him from continuing it.”

“Would you have thought him capable of such a thing in the first place?” Dylan asks.

“The flesh is weak.”

“You testified that the defendant is still financially supporting you?” Dylan asks.

For the first time, Father Manning’s tone changes, and takes on a harder edge. “He has continued to donate to our program, to the children.”

It was a mistake on Dylan’s part to imply, however subtly, that Father Manning might be testifying because of financial considerations. He backs off quickly, and lets him off the stand.

All in all, it was a pretty good day for us. Not good enough, but pretty good.

Cindy Spodek clearly didn’t have to be very persuasive to make this meeting happen. I get my first sense of that when she comes out to the reception area to greet me on my arrival at the Newark FBI office. I had no idea she would be here.

“You work in Boston,” I say.

“Thanks for the info,” she says. “I was coming in anyway for some Christmas shopping.” Then, “My colleagues thought it was a good idea for me to be here. You have a reputation that precedes you.”

“Nice to hear,” I say. “Colleagues? As in more than one?”

“Yes, you’re meeting with two agents, not counting me. The one who will do most of the talking is Gregory Beall. He’s based in Washington. The other is Jeffrey Givens, who covers organized crime in the tristate area.”

“Why such a good turnout?” I ask. If both of these agents showed up for a meeting that I requested, something I said must have touched a very sensitive chord.

“You’re a celebrity attorney,” she says. “You’ll probably just sign a few autographs and leave.”

“Sounds good,” I say.

We start to walk toward the office, when Cindy says, “Behave yourself; I’m here to make sure you don’t act like an asshole.”

“You think you’re up to it?”

“No chance.”

When I get into the office, Cindy makes the introductions, and, as predicted, Special Agent Beall takes the floor.

“You have information for us?” he asks.

“You left out the ‘vice versa’ part.”

He tries to look bemused. “You think we have information for you? I don’t believe we called this meeting.”

“No, but you sure turned out in force,” I say. “In lawyer-land, we call that a ‘tell.’ So here’s the way we can work this, and jump in if you’ve got another idea. I’m in the middle of defending Joey Desimone on a murder charge, and I find myself with information that you’re clearly interested in. But I’m not sure how the information relates to my case.”

“You want to get to the point?” Beall asks.

I nod. “I’m on the way. I’ll tell you what I’ve got, you tell me what you’ve got, and you tell the court whatever you develop that can be helpful to my client.”

“We’ll make that decision when the time comes,” he says.

“That’s reasonable,” I say, and stand to leave. “Call me when the time comes.”

“Andy…” Cindy says.

“Sorry, Cindy. I forgot to mention when we spoke that I wanted to meet with serious people.”

“Sit down,” says Beall, who is no doubt used to people sitting down when he tells them to.

“I can’t remember the last time I was this intimidated,” I say, still standing.

Beall doesn’t say anything for a few moments, pretending to ponder what he can and can’t say. There are few things less sincere in the world than agent-pondering in a situation like this; they have gotten their marching orders long before the meeting about what they can or cannot say.

“Let’s get this over with,” he says.

“So we agree on the arrangement?”

“Within reason. What have you got?”

“Carmine Desimone is dead.”

They exchange quick looks among themselves, and Givens shakes his head slightly. “Not possible,” he says. “We’d know about it. So how about you stop wasting our time?”

Givens has instantly annoyed me with his condescending attitude. “Well, he is very dead, and you apparently are in the dark,” I say. “You spend a lot of time in the dark?”

“Better than spending my time with a dog and a dying fat man. Did Nicky tell you Carmine’s death was his fault also? Or just Joey being convicted?”

I look at Cindy, not pleased that she related details about my meeting with Nicky Fats to Givens. She shakes her head, but I’m not sure why she’s doing that. What I am sure about is that Givens is thoroughly on my nerves.

“Is anybody here interested in a serious discussion?” I ask. “If not, let’s hug and part friends.”

Beall asks, “OK. How did Carmine die?”

“Not sure,” I say. “But it’s a safe bet it wasn’t quietly in bed with his loved ones surrounding him.”

“Who?”

“Not sure of that either, but one of the participants was a man named Bruni. He’s unfortunately also gone to that great cellblock in the sky.”

“How do you know all this?”

“That I will take to my grave,” I say. There is no way I am going to tell anyone about Marcus’s role in this.

Beall asks me a bunch more questions about Carmine, which I answer in varying degrees of completeness. But I don’t think they are here to talk about Carmine at all, which is why Givens has given up total control of the meeting to Beall. I think the mention to Cindy of Simon Ryerson is what brought Beall up from Washington.

Finally, he says, “OK, let’s talk about Simon Ryerson.”

“You know, I’m a little talked out. Why don’t you talk while I rest?”

He nods, obviously having expected this. “Simon Ryerson has been running arms for the last sixteen months. Mostly for domestic consumption, and we’re not sure where he’s getting them. But if there’s a nutjob west of the Mississippi with a rifle, chances are they got it directly or indirectly from Simon Ryerson.”

“But you haven’t arrested him because he’s branching out, and you want to wait until he makes his big move.”

“Right. And we think it’s South America,” Beall says.

“Oh, it’s definitely South America. Seven trips that I know of in the last eight months. Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru…”

“How do you know all this?” Beall asks, obviously surprised.

I turn to Cindy. “You didn’t tell them about my investigative prowess?”

“I must have left that out,” she says.

“He’s met with some government officials in each place, but if there’s a legitimate business reason for it, we can’t find it.”

“Don’t we already arm most of these countries?” I ask.

“Their military, to some extent,” he says.

“So if the United States government is already peddling arms, why do they need Simon Ryerson?”

“You may not be as bright as you think,” he says.

“That’s certainly possible. Think of this as your chance to educate me.”

“Each of these countries has large, private entities that deal in illegal substances.”

“Cartels.”

“Right. And these cartels are both wealthy and violent. They are also, shall we say, resistant to government intervention.”

“So they need weapons,” I say.

“Weapons that we don’t want them to have. And weapons that we believe are going to be supplied by Simon Ryerson. We don’t know how, and we don’t know when,” he says. “So tell me something about Simon Ryerson that I don’t already know.”

“He’s the new, unelected head of the Carmine Desimone crime family.”

Steven Halitzky and Sam Willis should switch places. Sam is an accountant who thinks of himself as a private eye, and Halitzky is a private eye who looks and talks like an accountant, or at least the common caricature of one.

Halitzky is maybe five eight, a hundred fifty pounds, balding slightly, and wears thick glasses. He talks in a monotone, with very little expression, and always seems to be reading aloud, even when he’s not.

He is the investigator that Edward Young assigned to investigate Richard Solarno, after he had reason to believe the by-then dead Solarno had been involved with arms dealing.

He is also the man Edward has in effect loaned to me, for the purposes of testifying at this trial. Edward feels, no doubt justifiably, that he was the target of a shooting to prevent him from testifying. He wants to avoid that, and is sort of using Halitzky as his bulletproof vest.

Ironically, I think the jury, or at least those members that can stay awake, are finding Halitzky to be a compelling witness. His lack of emotion somehow adds to his credibility, as does his encyclopedic knowledge of his subject matter.

His investigation of Solarno had been remarkably thorough, and the documents that Edward had provided me didn’t tell nearly the entire story. Halitzky is more than capable of filling in the blanks, and by the time he is finished, I don’t think anyone could doubt that Solarno was a criminal who dealt with other criminals.

When I turn him over for cross-examination, Dylan unfortunately takes the perfectly correct approach to him.

“Mr. Halitzky, in your extensive investigation, did you uncover any evidence that someone other than Mr. Desimone murdered Mr. and Mrs. Solarno?”

“I did not.”

“If you had, you would have provided the police with that information, correct?”

“Correct,” Halitzky says.

“Did you uncover any evidence that would tend to prove the defendant’s innocence?”

I stand. ”Objection, Your Honor, that is outside the scope. Mr. Halitzky did not investigate the Solarno murders, nor did he investigate anything that Mr. Desimone did or did not do. To save time, he also found no evidence relating to the assassinations of Presidents Kennedy or Lincoln.”

Hatchet looks at me with disdain. “Next time I would advise you to stop your objection at ‘outside the scope.’ Sustained.”

Dylan nods and goes on. “Did you find any evidence of threats against Mr. Solarno by any of the people he did business with?”

I stand again, because Halitzky did not look for any threats; that wasn’t the job Edward assigned him to. “Objection. Outside the scope.”

“A quick-learning lawyer,” Hatchet says. “How refreshing. Sustained.”

On redirect I pound home the fact that Halitzky not finding exculpatory evidence on Joey, and not uncovering threats against Solarno, was of no significance since he didn’t look for them.

By the time he leaves the stand, Halitzky has delivered on his two missions. He helped my case, and he kept Edward from having to testify.

Next I call two expert witnesses to counter the forensic testimony that Dylan had presented. The term “expert” is loosely used in courtroom proceedings. There are always, and I mean always, experts on both sides of every issue. If two people take completely opposite positions on issues within their supposed areas of expertise, how can they both be experts?

Basically my experts say that the gunshot residue on Joey’s jacket could have been there for a very long time, months even, and that the same is true for the fingerprints on the gun.

They also say that the gun could have been fired by other people without removing Joey’s print.

Dylan questions them and makes some points, and this remains in my opinion the strongest area of his case. My experts have made some headway, but as in most trials, it becomes a question of which experts the jury will believe.

Next will come the big decision, whether or not to let Joey testify. He did not do so in the first trial, in fact, only two of all the clients I’ve ever had have testified in their own defense. When last I checked, both of them were getting along really well with their wardens.

Joey and I have discussed this, and he wants to take the stand. It’s a regret of his that he didn’t do so last time. Having said that, he also promises to defer to whatever I think is best.

It’s a tough one, so I head home to take Tara for a walk and discuss it with her. She wags her tail a couple of times when I mention the possibility of Joey testifying, but I think it might be because she saw a squirrel across the street.

“How about paying attention?” I ask. “If it wasn’t for you trying to be the Sigmund Freud of golden retrievers, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. You and your therapy.”

She doesn’t say anything, not so much as a bark. It’s a technique that all shrinks employ; Tara is just better at it than most. And now she’s trying to get me to make the decision about Joey testifying, by following my own instincts.

She wants me to get in touch with my “inner lawyer.”

We head home and I talk it out with Laurie. She has no inner lawyer, and therefore is more inclined to let defendants testify. She thinks the more that comes out, the easier it will be to reveal the truth. And unlike we lawyers, the truth is what she usually roots for.

There are two factors making me more willing to consider my client testifying in this case. For one thing, I think Joey can be a compelling witness. He is smart, articulate, and believable. The jury is looking to convict a monster, and Joey simply does not fill that bill.

The other consideration is that I have no illusions about how successful we have been so far. I believe that we have been effective, but the “presumption of guilt” burden that I think all defendants carry, just by nature of being charged, is a large one. And I don’t think we have closed the deal yet.

“I think you should sleep on it,” Laurie says.

“Why don’t we sleep on it together?”

She shrugs. “That works.”

The rainy season in Peru lasts for five months, and it can be relentless. Heavy downpours, often lasting for days, are commonplace.

That’s what they had been telling Simon Ryerson, just as they were telling him that it should have started a full two weeks ago. But every day he got the phone call, telling him that except for an occasional drizzle and ever-present mist, the real start to the season was late in coming.

It was the one thing that could not be planned, and could not be compensated for. The rain was not necessary to execute the plan, but it was very necessary to cover the tracks, at least long enough to ensure success.

Costa and Bruni had still not been found, dead or alive, and that fact made Ryerson uncharacteristically uneasy. He still did not believe that Bruni had killed Costa and fled, nor did Iurato. Which likely meant that someone else had killed them both, which in turn meant that they were dealing with a very deadly adversary. Because Bruni and Costa were not two men who would have gone down easily.