Leader of the Pack (Andy Carpenter) (28 page)

The fact that Edward had no information, or at least none he shared with me, did not come as a surprise. It was worth a shot.

Once the bodyguards are revived, they and Edward are taken off in one of what seems like twenty thousand FBI cars that have shown up, carrying twenty thousand agents. If the government is serious about dealing with the national debt, they can carve out a big chunk by making FBI agents carpool.

“We’re going to need a statement,” Givens says, after the bad guys have left.

“OK. Here’s one: I’m out of here.”

Actually I wish I could stay and chat, because I’m not at all looking forward to my next stop, which is at the diner to meet Jerry McCaskill. The former agent is waiting for me at a table when I arrive.

“So this is a matter of life and death?” he asks, slightly amused. I had told him that to get him to see me right away. “A little lawyer hyperbole perhaps?”

“I should have said ‘life in prison.’”

That surprises him, and removes the amusement from his eyes. “What can I do for you?”

“When we talked last time, you told me about the surveillance you guys were doing over the years, to break up the Mafia families.”

“I remember.”

“You also said that you didn’t follow Joey Desimone’s trial, because you were out of town on an assignment.”

“So?”

“And you also said that the evidence showed that Joey was guilty.”

I can see in his eyes that he’s figured out where this is going.

“Tell me why you’re here, Andy.”

“I think you also had the surveillance back then, and I think you were completely familiar with it. That’s why you knew the evidence without following the trial.”

He nods. “That’s correct.”

I dread asking this question, because I really dread the answer. But I have to ask it. “Will you tell me what I need to know?”

He thinks about it for a few seconds, which feel like a few years. Finally, he nods slowly.

“Joey Desimone killed Richard and Karen Solarno.”

“Are you sure?” I ask, knowing full well that he is.

“Beyond any doubt, reasonable or otherwise. The tapes prove it.”

“Why didn’t you give them to the prosecution?”

“Because it would have blown the surveillance. Now the bad guys have learned not to talk when we can hear them. But back then they felt like nothing could touch them. We were making too much progress to give up the secret.”

“So you would have let Joey walk?” I ask.

He nods. “But fortunately he didn’t.”

“There’s always a next time.”

“Uh, oh. What’s wrong? Is there a verdict?” are the first words out of Joey’s mouth when he sees me.

“What makes you think something’s wrong?” I ask.

“Well, for one thing, you’re never here this early in the morning unless court’s in session. But mostly it’s the look on your face. You don’t depend on someone for your life and not know their moods.”

“You did it,” I say.

“Did what?”

“You murdered Richard and Karen Solarno.”

He doesn’t seem shocked by what I’ve said, and pauses for a few moments, as if carefully weighing his response. “How did you figure it out?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Actually, to be precise, I murdered Richard Solarno. Karen was self-defense. She was trying to kill me.”

“Why?”

“Probably some misguided revenge because I had just killed her husband.”

“I meant why did you go there that day? Why did you do it?”

Another pause. “OK, I owe you this much … I owe you a lot more. Richard Solarno was a lying scumbag who thought he was bulletproof. He thought he could cheat people like my father. Whether I did it or not, he was going to be killed. The phrase is ‘dead man walking.’”

“So why you?”

“I was making my bones, Andy. I was entering the business. I was joining my father,” he says, before pausing. “And I was earning his approval.”

“Spare me the psychobabble. Who am I, Dr. Phil?”

“I was also getting the girl.”

“How did that work out?” I ask, trying not to sneer.

If he’s insulted, he hides it well. “Not the way I hoped. She saw me shoot Richard from the top of the stairs, and she ran to her room. I went after her, but she was waiting with her gun. I didn’t want to hurt her, but she was going to kill me. We wrestled for the gun, and I shot her.”

“It just went off?”

He shakes his head. “No, I shot her. If not, she would have killed me, or at the very least told the police what I had done. But it was still self-defense. There was no other way; I wish there was. I loved her.”

I’m not often speechless, but I have absolutely nothing to say.

“I served six years for shooting someone who deserved to be killed, and who was going to die either way. If I get out now, it’s not that unfair, Andy.”

Just then the door opens, and in an act of exquisitely bad timing, Hike sticks his head in and says, “Hatchet is calling everyone to the courtroom. There’s a verdict.”

Joey takes a deep breath; he seems to have been hit by a wave of tension. And I’m sure he has; just because he’s confessed to me doesn’t make this outcome any less important to him. The news of his actual guilt, while a revelation to me, is something he’s known and lived with for a long time. Without any apparent effect on his conscience.

He manages a slight smile. “Well, this is awkward.”

I stand up. “Let’s go.”

“How are you rooting, Andy?”

I don’t even have to think about it. “Guilty.”

We head into the courtroom, where the gallery is starting to fill up. Dylan and his team have arrived, and he comes over and shakes my hand, a nice gesture. He doesn’t wish me luck, because he obviously believes we want very different outcomes.

We don’t.

Hatchet comes in five minutes later, and the session is called to order. Joey hasn’t said a word to me, and sits silently as the jury is brought in. Hike is silent as well; I haven’t told him what I’ve learned, so he’s hoping for an acquittal.

Once the jury is seated, Hatchet asks the foreman if they’ve reached a verdict.

“We have, Your Honor.”

“Please hand the form to the clerk.”

He does so, and the clerk brings it to Hatchet, who looks at it and hands it back. “Will the defendant please rise.” It’s a command in the form of a question.

Hike and I rise along with Joey, though my first choice would be to just leave. I have a superstition that I always put my hand on a client’s shoulder as the verdict is read. Since that superstition is supposed to yield a “not guilty” result, I keep my hands folded in front of me.

The bailiff starts to read, “As it relates to count one, we, the jury, in the case of the State of New Jersey versus Joseph Desimone, find the defendant, Joseph Desimone, not guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree.”

Joey mercifully doesn’t turn to Hike or me to shake hands, since I’m not sure what I would have done if he did. Instead he says, “Andy, I’m sorry for you it had to end this way. But I’m very glad for me.” Then, “What happens now? Do I have to sign papers or anything? Or can I just leave?”

“Don’t ask me. I’m not your lawyer anymore.”

I just pack up my briefcase and leave. I can feel Hike staring at me, but I don’t say anything.

I also see Laurie in the gallery, and the look on her face clearly indicates her confusion with my demeanor. I just nod to her; there will be plenty of time to tell her what happened later.

Right now I just want to get out of this courtroom, and this job, and this skin, and this life.

FBI agents were at the St. Louis airport when Tommy Iurato arrived. They didn’t take him into custody, choosing instead to follow him, even though they knew where he was going.

Other agents were already at the airport, watching the large hangars which held the Coastal Cargo planes that had returned from Peru. Using high-tech surveillance techniques, they were determining what they were dealing with in terms of manpower and weaponry.

Whatever it was, they would handle it.

A driver picked Iurato up and took him to the Coastal Cargo planes. It was clear that he had not heard about Edward’s arrest. If he had, he would have tried to escape rather than head to the place the FBI would be most interested in.

The agents knew that Iurato was not armed on the commercial flight, but they made the assumption that the driver had given him a weapon. It was always safer to assume that, and be pleasantly surprised if it were not the case. As it turned out, that caution was warranted, as Iurato had been given a gun moments after entering the car.

When he arrived at the hangar and got out of the car, the agents moved in, using overwhelming force. Iurato made the decision not to shoot it out; he had long believed that going down fighting made no sense.

Even in the moment, he decided that he would instead use the bargaining chip of implicating and testifying against Edward Young to soften his fall. Young would be the key player the feds would be looking to take down.

Having prudently thought about this possibility long in advance, Iurato also would say that Young was the co-planner with Carmine Desimone, since there was no way anyone could know that Carmine was dead. Carmine was set up to be a possible fall guy in death, and there was no reason to abandon that idea now.

It was the largest illegal drug confiscation in the nation’s history, more than two and a half times larger than the previous record holder. And it would set off a law enforcement chain reaction that would reverberate through much of South America.

“You think he did it,” Laurie says, as soon as we get in the car. “I can see it in your face.”

“It’s worse than that; I know he did it. He confessed.” I go on to tell her all that had happened.

“I heard about Edward Young’s arrest just before I got to court,” she says. “I figured it tied into this.”

“I’m going to have to live with this. There’s not a thing I can do.”

“You did what you thought was right,” she says. “And what I thought was right. And what Hike thought was right. It’s the way the system works.”

“So everybody did good, and the system worked, and a double murderer is out on the street.”

She knows there’s nothing she can say that will make me feel better. “Does Hike know?”

I shake my head. “No. I’m not sure I should tell him. He’ll feel just as badly, and there’s nothing he can do either.”

“He needs to know,” Laurie says. “You’d want to know if the roles were reversed.”

I call Hike and ask him to meet us at the house. He gets there about ten minutes after we do, and I tell him straight out that Joey is guilty.

“I figured something was wrong,” he says. “The way you took off after the verdict.”

“Sorry. I should have told you then.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “You give any thought to what we can do?”

“I come up with nothing. Anything we’ve learned is covered by privilege. You know that. And even if we could tell what we know, he’s off the hook for the murders.”

I don’t have to spell it out any more for Hike; he knows that jeopardy attached when the jury was sworn in. Joey couldn’t be tried again for the murders if he went on national television and confessed to the world.

It’s unbelievably frustrating for me. Right now I’d be willing to give up my legal career by breaking a confidence and revealing what I’ve learned as Joey’s attorney. But that wouldn’t even help; he is not guilty of the murders in the eyes of the law, forever.

“So we watch him,” Hike says. “He’s going to move into the family business, right? That’s what the whole thing was about. And with his father gone, he’ll fill the void. He’ll do something we can nail him on.”

“Joey’s smart,” I say. “He’ll be careful for a while.”

“But it won’t last. And think of how sweet it will be when he makes a mistake.”

It is a measure of how bad I feel that Hike is trying to cheer me up. The mind boggles.

At dinner, Laurie and I talk about it some more. I don’t really want to, but I might as well, because I can’t think about anything else. “I liked him,” I say. “For six years I’ve liked him, and he’s been lying to me.”

“You had no way of knowing.”

“Of course I did. The first jury knew he was guilty; how come I didn’t? I feel like Johnnie Cochran.”

“What is it that’s bothering you the most, Andy? That a bad guy got off and is walking free? That you helped him do it? That justice didn’t triumph? That you were fooled?”

“All of the above. But never again. I’m done. I’m going to rescue dogs full-time. Dogs tell it like it is.”

“You’re retiring?”

“I’m retiring.”

“You say that after every case. Even when you win.”

“This time I mean it.” I can’t help but smile. “Actually, every time I mean it. But this time I really mean it.”

“You’re too good at it. There are other people out there that need you. People who deserve help.”

“I helped a murderer walk, Laurie.”

“Just so I can prepare, how long am I going to have to listen to you blame yourself?”

“Till death do us part.”

For the past week, I’ve been a walking contradiction. Actually, a walking and sitting contradiction, because when I’m not taking Tara for a walk, I’m sitting on the couch watching whatever sports I can find. It’s an attempt to take my mind off the trial, but off-hour sports, like poker and lacrosse, do not do the trick.

I completely ignore anything having to do with the Desimone case. I turn off anything about it on the news, I refuse to take calls from the media who want comments on the case, I also refuse to take a call from FBI agent Beall, who leaves a message thanking me for my help. I haven’t even been able to bring myself to send Joey a final bill.

The contradiction is that while I’m ignoring it, I’m obsessing about it. I pretty much think about nothing else, much as I would like to.

To make matters worse, a FedEx package arrives from Agent Beall. He’s making good on the trade I insisted on, in which I gave them the information about the drugs and Edward Young, in return for the tapes they had on Joey Desimone six years ago. Givens didn’t want to do it, but Beall had agreed, had given his word, and he’s following up.