The Hidden Man (35 page)

“Listen—”

“Half an hour,” I said, closing the cell phone.

I returned to the judge’s clerk and canceled today’s 1:00 P.M. hearing. Then I called the prosecutor, Lester Mapp, and broke the news to him. He didn’t seem to care much about the hearing but said he wanted to continue our “previous discussions,” meaning a plea deal, though I put him off.

At ten minutes to noon, I called my assistant, Marie.

“Just got it,” she said. “Let’s see. ‘Affidavit of Marcus Mason.’ ” She read the contents to me. “ ‘My name is Marcus Mason. I have personal knowledge of all matters stated herein. I have a relationship as an undercover informant with Detective Dennis DePrizio. I was working with Detective DePrizio on an operation involving the sale of a substantial quantity of firearms and rock cocaine. The plan had been that a man who called himself “J.D.” and I would meet on Saturday, October 6, 2007, at an abandoned warehouse previously owned by Lanier’s Amusement Supply Company, on the 3300 block of West Summerset. However, on Friday, October 5, 2007, near the hour of midnight, I received a call from “J.D.” in which he insisted that we make the purchase immediately. I had no choice but to agree. I immediately contacted Detective DePrizio at his home. As far as I could tell, Detective DePrizio had been asleep. Then I drove to the old Lanier’s warehouse to meet with “J.D.”

“‘Before Detective DePrizio arrived, “J.D.” arrived at the warehouse and we began to discuss the terms of the purchase. He informed me that he had received a telephone call from someone who would be arriving, not to purchase the rock cocaine or the firearms, but for an unrelated reason that had nothing to do with me or the transaction. He told me this person’s name was “Pete.” He asked that I not mention anything about our transaction.

“‘This gentleman, who introduced himself as “Pete,” arrived shortly thereafter. He was Caucasian, approximately five foot nine, approximately one hundred sixty pounds. He asked “J.D.” if everything was okay. He seemed concerned and asked “J.D.” what was taking place. “J.D.” told him it was nothing that concerned him and he shouldn’t ask questions. “Pete” seemed suspicious and said that he was going to leave.

“‘At that moment, Detective DePrizio entered the warehouse and announced his presence. “J.D.” was not apprehended. I assume that he escaped to the rear entrance. “Pete” was arrested along with me. “Pete” did not appear to have any idea what was taking place between “J.D.” and me. I have no reason to believe, and do not believe, that “Pete” had anything to do with the transaction involving the rock cocaine or the firearms. ’ That’s it, Jason,” said Marie. “It’s signed by Marcus Mason and notarized.”

It was like a song with the most beautiful lyrics I’d ever heard. It absolved Pete of all wrongdoing—not even a minor drug charge. Smith’s desperation was evident.

“Scan that affidavit into the computer and e-mail it to me, to Shauna, to yourself, okay?” I didn’t want to run the risk that a paper copy would get “lost” after I’d made this deal with Smith. My cell phone buzzed, indicating another call. “Gotta run, Marie.”

The new call was Smith, five minutes early. “You got what you wanted,” he said.

“I got most of what I wanted, Smith. What I really want is those charges against my brother dropped.”

“There is no way your brother could be prosecuted with that affidavit out there. But I can’t make those charges disappear. That wasn’t our deal. You said all I had to do was produce that affidavit by today—”

“Yeah, don’t you hate it when the other side doesn’t play fair? So shut up and listen to me, Smith. I’m going to reach out to that detective, and he better have that affidavit in his hand. And it better be enough to convince him to drop the charges.”

“
I
can’t control what that detective—”

“I said shut up, didn’t I? So shut up. If DePrizio has the affidavit, I’ll withdraw the motion for now. But you and I both know that I can renew that motion. And if the prosecution doesn’t want to drop the charges against Pete, then I
will
renew that motion. For your sake, you better hope DePrizio buys this affidavit and can sell it to the prosecutors.”

“That affidavit—”

“That affidavit,” I said, “could be explained away later by some kind of bullshit. Mason could say I put a gun to his head and made him sign it. I’m not taking any chances, Smith. So I guess you better pray.”

I hung up the phone and paced the halls, forcing myself to bide my time. Twelve-fifteen. Twelve-thirty. I made the call.

“Detective DePrizio, please,” I told the receptionist.

A moment later, he answered. “DePrizio.”

“This is Jason Kolarich, Detective.”

“Kolarich. Kolarich. Just the guy I wanted to talk to. Guess what I’m looking at?”

“Probably the same thing I just got in my office.”

“Yeah? Like you don’t know anything about this?”

I didn’t respond to that. He was just doing this for show, anyway. He was part of the game. And my brain was too frayed to get creative with him.

“Okay, so maybe Mason
was
my CI,” he said. “We had a sting set up but it’s like the affidavit said, this scumbag J.D. called an audible. It started early and I barely got there in time. I just talked to Mason and I guess you were right—your brother was in the wrong place, wrong time.”

Sure, whatever. I didn’t see where I could add anything to the conversation. The ball was rolling down the hill and the best thing I could do was to simply get out of the way.

DePrizio sighed. “I guess your brother’s owed an apology.”

My brother was owed a lot more from this scumbag of a cop, but I just said, “No apology necessary. A dismissal of the charges would be fine. I want the charges dropped within twenty-four hours or we’ll sue.”

DePrizio groaned. “Let me see what I can do. Personally, I think it’s the least we can do for your brother.”

I rested my head against the glass wall, looking down at the passersby, lawyers and clients scurrying to court. My brother, Pete, wouldn’t have court to worry about anymore. He would walk completely from these charges. I took a moment to celebrate, to savor this victory in the battle.

Because that’s all it was—one small battle in a larger war. They had my brother, and they had no intention of ever letting him go. Whatever else they might tell me, as soon as Sammy’s trial was over, they’d kill him and then come looking for me. The trial started in thirteen days, and once it began, I’d be too tied up to find Pete.

I had thirteen days to find my brother. The only way I knew how was to locate Smith. And the only lead I had on Smith was the murder of Audrey Cutler. I was now sure that Smith’s client had been behind that murder. I had less than two weeks to solve a cold case.

“I’ll find you, little brother,” I promised.

48

I
’D JUST RETURNED to my law office when Smith called again. “You withdrew the motion, I trust,” he said.

“I withdrew it, yes,” I said into my cell phone. “Now, we have to set a few more ground rules, Smith.”

“I still have your brother. Let’s not forget that.” Smith seemed calmer now, trying to reassert control. I’d spooked him good with the threat of that DNA motion, but he was getting his groove back.

“I want to hear from Pete every day. I want him to read that day’s headline from the
Watch
. And I want you to send me a photo every day that shows me that you aren’t hurting him.”

“If I think it’s to our advantage to let you hear his voice, I’ll do that,” he said. “If not, I won’t. But don’t forget what I said, Jason. You’ve pissed these guys off beyond belief, and they have a pincushion named Pete Kolarich to take out their frustrations. Do not fuck around, son. Not one inch off course. You keep your nose clean, they won’t hurt him any further.”

Further
. My stomach sank.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, picking up on my hesitation. “You didn’t think your little stunt would go unpunished, did you?”

“Tell me what you did to him.”

“It’s nothing that would prevent him from fully functioning, if things go as we all hope.”

“Smith, you tell me—”

“Let’s focus on the future, Jason. Beginning with two days from now, this coming Thursday. The prosecution is contesting the testimony of Mr. Butcher.”

I struggled to control my emotions. He knew he was stinging me with his mention of what he did to my brother. But I had to keep the upper hand here. I made myself believe that he was bluffing, anything to stifle the images flooding my brain.

He was correct that this Thursday, the prosecution would be asking the court to bar the testimony of Tommy Butcher’s identification of Kenny Sanders as the black-guy-fleeing-the-scene. I’d told Butcher that this might happen—it’s what I would do, if I were the prosecutor—and I had agreed to the hearing this Thursday. I hadn’t yet seen the prosecution’s written motion, but yesterday, Lester Mapp had promised it was forthcoming. He told me yesterday he’d file it today, and I recalled a particularly disturbing comment—
Your star witness isn’t such a star.

I went to the county Web site to pull up the notice of the motion. There it was, the line for “Contested Motion—Prosecution,” followed by, “Hearing—10/18/08, 9:30 A.M.”

“This will be a critical moment,” he said. “Mr. Sanders is crucial to this case. The jury must know that Mr. Butcher identified him as fleeing the scene. Don’t fuck this up, Jason.”

Your star witness isn’t such a star
. “We’ll beat the motion,” I predicted, hoping they weren’t famous last words. “But Smith, if you want me to beat that motion, you won’t be sending any more goons like Nino and Johnny after me, will you?”

He didn’t answer.

“How are they doing, anyway?” I asked. “Last I saw, they’d taken some pretty good beatings.”

“Enjoy that, Kolarich. Have a good laugh. Because your brother certainly didn’t.”

With that, the line went dead.

AFTER TALKING TO SMITH, I put in a call to Kenny Sanders at the restaurant where he worked. The first time I did so, the phone was eventually hung up. I tried again and the second time was a charm.

“It’s Jason Kolarich, Mr. Sanders. The lawyer.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“You have to be in court this Thursday,” I said. “The prosecution is going to fight this evidence.”

“Gonna fight, okay. Yeah, okay.”

“Have you received a subpoena from them?”

“Haven’t got nothin’. No, sir. Didn’t know ’bout it.”

“Well, you will get a subpoena, probably today. You have to be there. Can you do that?” I gave him the time and location.

“So what do I gotta do?” he asked.

“Probably nothing except show up. But just in case, we should go over your testimony again before the hearing.”

I made some arrangements with Sanders to talk again.

Marie walked in with a copy of Lester Mapp’s motion to bar the testimony of Thomas Butcher, which would be heard in two days, along with a notice of the issuance of a subpoena to Butcher to attend the hearing. There was no subpoena issued to Kenny Sanders, though. That was interesting. The prosecutor didn’t want to question Sanders, only Butcher.

The motion to bar Butcher’s testimony was rather brief, but attached to it was the criminal history of Tommy Butcher. Butcher, it seemed, did not have a spotless record. He’d pleaded guilty to submitting fraudulent bid documents for a public construction job in 1982, for which he’d spent five months at a Club Fed. Then, in 1990, he pleaded to lying to federal prosecutors in an investigation into payroll-tax fraud and received a year and a day in a federal penitentiary.

Not just crimes, but crimes of dishonesty. I’d have vastly preferred a good old-fashioned assault and battery. Butcher had twice pleaded to what, in essence, was lying under oath.

Mr. Butcher’s history of perjury, together with his suspiciously last-minute identification of a man approximately one year after the occurrence, takes this matter beyond the traditional balancing of probity versus prejudice to a preliminary issue of the inherent unreliability of Mr. Butcher’s testimony
. Lester Mapp was laying it on pretty thick, but he had to. He had to convince Judge Poker that the testimony was so wholly unreliable that the jury shouldn’t ever hear it in the first place. It was always a problem for me that Butcher had come forward over a year after the trial, and now we were going to ask a jury to believe that he could remember a man—Kenny Sanders—who he’d seen for all of a few seconds as Sanders ran past him on his way out of the apartment building.

I put in a call to Tommy Butcher but got his voice mail. He had to know that his criminal history would be a part of this, but he hadn’t mentioned anything to me. Maybe a layperson doesn’t think about such things. Butcher struck me as someone who probably wouldn’t feel a whole lot of remorse for his prior actions, and maybe the whole thing hadn’t occurred to him.

My cell phone rang. It was about to die and I plugged it into the cord.