Hounded (20 page)

Substantively, the cross-examination was less valuable. Yes, Wilson was shown not to have gotten downstairs in one minute, and that is a positive for our case. But the truth is that whether it took one minute, or five, or ten, Pete was in fact on the scene, and was in the house.

Pete called in for backup, and reported the murder himself. Obviously, he had to have been in the house; he admitted it. We can’t and won’t deny it, so Wilson isn’t necessary for Richard to place him there.

At the end of the day, we’re going to have to point to someone else and say that he did it and that Pete didn’t. If we can give the jury an alternative person to consider, then we’ll have made a huge jump toward creating reasonable doubt.

That person is Alex Parker. The problem is that we don’t know where he is or what is his motivation. We don’t even know for sure what happened to Juanita Diaz. We have theories, but that’s all they are.

Worse yet, much worse yet, is that even if we had these answers, we’d have to relate them directly to Danny Diaz’s murder, in order to get the facts in front of the jury. That may be the highest hurdle of all.

I leave the courthouse and head home, and my arrival there is now the second night in a row that I’ve had what for me is a new experience. I’ve been working from home, so I literally haven’t come home from work. The last two days I’ve been at the courthouse, so I’ve not been home all day.

It’s a domestic scene right out of a 1950s sitcom. Laurie is in the kitchen cooking, Ricky is watching TV, and the two dogs come to greet me at the door. It makes me want to call out, “Honey, I’m home,” but I don’t in case Edna is here. I don’t want her to think I’m talking to her.

This just seemed to happen. One day I was a swinging bachelor, except for the “swinging” part, and except for the “bachelor” part, and the next day I’m a patriarch. I won’t say that I dislike it; it’s more that it doesn’t seem real, or natural. At least not yet.

I say hello to Ricky, and Laurie, and then take Tara and Sebastian for a ten-minute walk. I think Tara has loved having Ricky and Sebastian around. She hasn’t mentioned it, but I can tell.

When I get back with the dogs, I go into the kitchen to talk to Laurie. With the case in full gear, and Ricky in the house, talking between just Laurie and me has been in short supply.

“He asked about his stepmother,” Laurie says, softly.

“What did he ask?”

“If she was coming back.”

“What did you say?” I ask.

“That I didn’t know. But that he didn’t have to worry; he will always be taken care of.”

“She’s not coming back.”

She shakes her head. “You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do.”

“We have to protect him,” Laurie says. “He’s been through so much.”

I know what women are thinking just about as often as the Jets win Super Bowls, but suddenly I completely understand what is in Laurie’s mind, and it is borderline horrifying. If Juanita Diaz is in fact dead, and maybe even if she isn’t, Laurie wants to adopt Ricky.

I cannot voice this; if I do so, it will become a topic to discuss, and debate, and I will come in second. We’ve talked about marriage a few times in the past, but neither of us ever considered it important. We’ve even talked about someday having children, with an emphasis on the “someday.”

But certainly we’ve never considered having a child this fast, or this large.

This is absolutely a conversation I do not want to have now, and even though silence does not come naturally to me, I have got to keep my mouth shut.

“You want to adopt him,” I say, amazed at the lack of control I have over my own mouth.

“I think it’s something we should consider.”

“We’ve talked about this. You said you weren’t ready to have kids.”

“I’m not ready to have ‘kids,’” she says. “But I think I am ready to have this particular kid.”

“But I’m not ready to be a father, Laurie. I’m not even ready to be an adult.”

“Just think about it,” she says. “That’s all I ask.”

“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll promise to think about it, if you promise not to think about it.”

“The best I can do is promise not to talk about it,” she says, and then ominously adds, “for now.”

I just about fall down rushing to get out of the kitchen; the conversation with Laurie has shaken me up. I make a mental note to avoid the kitchen in the future.

While I was at court, Stan Phillips delivered the information he was able to get on Alex Parker. I go into the den to read about him.

After five minutes of reading about Alex Parker, I wish I was back in the kitchen.

Alex Parker was U.S. Army Special Forces.

He might still be in the service, except for the fact that he killed two Afghan civilians outside a nightspot in Kabul.

Parker was not charged with a crime, since fellow soldiers testified that the two men approached Parker and threw the first punches. It must have been hard to imagine anyone in their right minds attacking Parker, but the army prosecutors could not make the case.

So Parker walked on the charges, and was invited to keep on walking right out of the army. Phillips has managed to get some records from Parker’s army file—I have no idea how and I don’t want to know—and they are sketchy. Many paragraphs are redacted, meaning that they were classified operations.

Reading between the lines, and the redactions, it is clear that Parker was a stealth operator, sent in to places to both blend in with the environment and cause violent havoc. One thing is for sure, anyone who knew Parker is in agreement that he is extremely dangerous, emphasis on “extremely.”

The time he has spent since, as a civilian, is shrouded in some mystery. There were reports that he worked as a hit man for a Nevada crime family, but then other, just as speculative, reports that he had gone off on his own.

And then, nothing.

I call Lieutenant Coble; since my plan is to use him as a witness, I want him as current and informed as possible. This time he takes my call and doesn’t even start off by insulting me or sounding annoyed, a marked improvement over our previous encounters.

“What have you got?” he asks.

I proceed to tell him about Parker’s background with the Nevada crime family and how dangerous his military record makes him appear. “This is our guy,” I say.

“Let me know if you locate him,” he says.

“You’ll arrest him?”

“Of course not; we’ve got nothing on him, a judge would laugh at us. But I’ll bring him in for questioning and see what shakes out.”

That’s better than I thought, so I promise to keep him advised.

Next, I call Willie Miller and ask him to convey to Joseph Russo the possibility that Parker worked for a Nevada crime family. I figure maybe they all know each other from crime conventions or mobster book clubs or something, and he might be able to get information.

Willie tells me that he already told Russo about Parker, and that Russo said he would see what he could do about finding him. He also promised not to kill him, but rather to deliver him to us, although he wasn’t pleased about it, since he wants revenge for Diaz.

After reading about Parker, maybe killing him isn’t such a bad idea.

I spend the rest of the night reading through all of my files on the case so that I will be prepared for court tomorrow. I try not to think about deadly Special Forces operatives turned bad, or child adoptions. I’m only partially successful, but I force myself to continue, because tomorrow is a big day.

Actually, pretty much every day of a trial is a big day.

Richard’s case is going to kick into gear tomorrow. It’s actually both my favorite and least favorite time of any trial. The reason it’s my least favorite is fairly obvious: one witness after another is going to come on the stand and, in a carefully rehearsed manner, give information that, if taken at anywhere close to face value, will assert that Pete Stanton is a cold-blooded killer.

But I also look forward to it, because cross-examining these witnesses gives me the opportunity to be on the attack. Presenting my own case feels passive and defensive; I’m the one putting the witnesses up, I know what they’re going to say, and then the other side tries to bring them down. Cross-examination is much more fun than direct testimony.

Of course, the risks are great. If I can’t challenge what a witness is saying, and in the process get the witness to back off or appear incorrect, then the incriminating testimony becomes accepted fact by the jury. My only chance then is to introduce rebuttal witnesses much later in the trial, and it can often be too little, too late.

I’m feeling the pressure.

The tip came in the form of an anonymous phone call at eleven p.m.

It had been routed to Lieutenant Coble’s office, because he was in charge of the investigation and had put out the word that he was searching for Alex Parker.

Coble was at home at the time, but the message was relayed to him. Cognizant of how rare it was that tips actually amounted to anything, he directed that an officer on duty drive by the house in question, which was in a fairly rural area near Montvale.

The officer did as instructed, and saw a car parked in the driveway of the house. The license plate and description of the car matched what Coble had included in the information packet, and what he had received from Sam’s reconnaissance of Parker at the diner.

In an instant, the unconfirmed tip had turned into apparent gold. Coble was again called at home, and he requested backup. He would meet four other officers at the barracks in thirty minutes, and together they would go out to the house and bring Parker in for questioning.

Since Carpenter had emphasized how dangerous Parker was, and since the military records Coble obtained had confirmed it, he was going to be extra cautious. Using a detailed description of the house and the grounds around it, Coble devised a plan. They would completely surround the house at prearranged locations, and then approach.

There was one light on in the interior of the house, which was how it had appeared when the drive-by took place. The car remained where it had been as well.

One major advantage for the cops was the seclusion of the house. There would not be any curious onlookers or neighbors, and with no outside interference, they could advance to the house with less chance of being detected.

Once the team was in place, Coble and another officer went to the front door. They were surprised to discover that it was ajar, and their knocking opened it a little more.

Nobody answered, so they knocked again, opening it even further, which was fine with Coble. There was still no answer or sign of life, and without a search warrant, they would not have been able to enter … had they not seen the blood.

It was spattered in the corridor just beyond the door. Coble and the other officer just looked at each other, understanding what the other was thinking. This was obviously evidence of a crime, which removed the restriction on entering.

Coble conveyed what was happening to the other officers. They had to proceed as if someone dangerous were inside, so they entered the house from all sides simultaneously, guns drawn. Coble went through the front, and immediately saw the source of the blood.

There was a body lying at a grotesque angle near the stairwell. The victim had been savagely beaten around the head and shoulders, obviously with the blood-covered baseball bat that was on the floor beside him.

Coble looked down at the body. “Hello, Mr. Parker.”

For Richard, placing Pete at the scene of the drug crime is easy.

Since the illegal drugs were found in Pete’s house, it is fairly credible for the prosecution to claim that Pete had access to them.

But Richard still needs someone to testify that the drugs were in fact there, and he has logically chosen Lieutenant Patrick Bagwell of the Paterson Police Department. Bagwell was one of two leaders of the team that investigated Pete, and he executed the search warrant on Pete’s house, in the process finding the heroin. And while I did not know his name at the time, Bagwell is the guy who arrested Pete at Charlie’s.

Bagwell is here simply to testify about the drugs; his partner will be on later to talk about other aspects of the investigation. Richard takes him through the process of entering Pete’s house and commencing the search.

“Was the defendant at home?” Richard asks.

“No. He had been taken into custody the day before.”

With Richard leading the way, Bagwell describes finding the drugs, hidden in a suitcase in a guestroom closet.

“You knew immediately it was heroin?” Richard asks.

“I was quite certain, but obviously we had it tested after we got it back to the lab. It was high-quality heroin.”

“Can you estimate the street value of it?”

Bagwell nods. “Definitely in excess of a hundred thousand dollars.”

“In your experience, is it possible that this was for one person’s recreational use?”

“That is not possible for any human that I am aware of.”

Bagwell’s people did not find anything else incriminating in the house, and Richard is quite willing to have him say that. The effect is to make himself and Bagwell look reasonable and unbiased; they are simply reporting the facts, good and bad.

Once again I am limited in how much I can accomplish on cross-examination. The facts are the facts; the drugs were there and I’m not going to be able to change that. I have no reason to believe that Bagwell is lying, or that the police planted them. They had no reason to have a vendetta against Pete; he was a valued partner to them for a very long time.

“Were you surprised when you found the drugs?” I ask.

He frowns. “Nothing surprises me anymore.”

“Really? You don’t have expectations going into something?”

“I try not to. I just take the facts as they present themselves.”

“That’s very impressive. But you take experiences into account, don’t you? For example, if you were approaching someone you knew had attacked people violently in the past, you might expect more danger than if, say, you were approaching Judge Matthews?”