Hounded (22 page)

“Spencer Akers. He’s an agent in the local bureau office here.”

“You’re making even less sense than usual,” she says. “Let me speak to Laurie.”

I hand the phone to Laurie. “She wants to talk to you.”

“I think it’s more that she doesn’t want to talk to you,” Laurie says, taking the phone.

Laurie explains the situation to Cindy in clear, concise terms, an approach I never considered. Then she directly asks her if she can contact Spencer Akers and arrange a meeting with him. Then she says, “Thanks, Cindy,” and hangs up.

“So?” I ask.

“So she said all you had to do was say you need a favor that could help Pete.” Cindy knows Pete well, and they like and respect each other.

“Will she set it up?”

“She’s going to contact this Akers guy and will call you back.”

I’m expecting her to get to it tomorrow, but she calls back fifteen minutes later. I’m smart enough to let Laurie answer the phone, and Cindy gives her the news that Akers will meet with me after court tomorrow, at the bureau office in Newark.

“I know how to make things happen,” I say to Laurie after they hang up. “Now, any chance you’ll call Hike for me?”

“Zero.”

“Fair enough.” I pick up the phone to call Hike and tell him I want him to ask the judge to issue subpoenas for all the phone and GPS records that Sam has already collected on Diaz, Alex Parker, and Reynolds. We’re going to need them, and the only way we can use them is if we can show we obtained them legally. Hike says he’ll do it first thing in the morning, before court starts tomorrow.

Next I call Sam. “I need you to get me all you can possibly find about Carson Reynolds. I want to know everything there is to know about him.”

“You mean biography, or financials? You want his credit card bills?”

“I want everything.”

“Business also?”

“Everything, Sam. I want you to give this guy a cyber rectal exam.”

He laughs. “With pleasure,” he says, and hangs up.

Today was a bad day because of the death of Alex Parker, but for some reason I’m feeling okay.

Taking the offensive sometimes does that for me.

I meet with Pete before the court day begins, to apprise him of developments.

When I finally get into court, Hike is there and waiting for me.

“Judge approved the subpoenas,” he says. “Phone companies will have thirty-six hours to comply.”

“Just like that?” I ask.

He smiles. “Not quite. She called Richard in, who proceeded to go nuts. Said no relevance was established, that he never heard of Reynolds and Parker, that it was a fishing expedition, blah, blah, blah.”

“What did you say?”

“That if he never heard of these people, how would he know we were fishing?”

“Beautiful.”

“So the judge approved it subject to our demonstrating relevance later in the trial. Which I assume you’ll be able to do?”

I shrug. “That’s the plan.”

Just then Richard comes over to me. “You want to tell me what’s going on?” he asks.

“Not particularly.”

“You are aware that you are a pain in the ass?”

I smile. “It’s part of my charm.”

Judge Matthews takes her seat on the bench, and Richard calls Dr. Donna Palmieri, a professor of forensics at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Dr. Palmieri examined the bullets and shell casings in the Diaz shooting.

Her testimony, while dry as dirt, sounds authoritative; the lady knows what she is talking about. She describes the very distinctive characteristics of the material she analyzed, and then Richard asks if she has seen those characteristics before.

“Yes,” she says. “The same weapon was used a year earlier, in the murder of Carla Kendall.”

“You’re certain of that?” Richard asks.

“I am.”

“Was the weapon ever found in that case?”

“No, sir.”

“And do you know what police officer was first on the scene, and ultimately conducted the investigation?”

“Yes,” she says, pointing to the defense table. “Captain Stanton.”

I could object, but her testimony has been relatively straightforward, and this gives me something to go after her with in cross-examination.

“Dr. Palmieri, you mentioned that the gun was used in the Carla Kendall case. How much work did you do on that case?”

“I didn’t work on it.”

I feign surprise. “Really? Then how did you know the same gun was used?”

“I was given the ballistics records by Mr. Wallace.”

“When?”

“Last week.”

“I see. But you knew other things about that case. For example, you knew that Captain Stanton was first on the scene, and conducted the investigation. When did you learn that?”

“Mr. Wallace told me that last week.”

“Is there anything you said in your direct testimony that Mr. Wallace didn’t coach you to say?”

Richard is out of his chair and objecting, but this time I’m in the right. “Your Honor, the witness passed on information that she was given by the prosecutor; they were things she did not know independently. That is the classic definition of coaching. Bill Belichick has less control over this team than Mr. Wallace does over his.”

“That last remark was uncalled for, Mr. Carpenter.”

“Sorry, Your Honor,” I lie. I’m playing for the jury, of course, and Richard, as mad as he is, will ultimately know that.

The judge overrules Richard’s objection, which allows me to have a little more fun with this. I don’t get far, but there’s really nothing to get. The gun was used in both killings, and we’ll just have to deal with that.

Next witness up for Richard is Sergeant Cathy Conley, one of the department’s fingerprint technicians. Richard takes much more time with her than he should, in my humble opinion.

Conley lets him guide her through all of the places in Diaz’s house where Pete’s fingerprints were found. They were in the bathroom, the kitchen, the den, and the area near the front door where the shooting took place. I’m not sure what he is aiming for, except to possibly demonstrate that Pete and Diaz knew each other well.

This, in the cross-examination business, is low-hanging fruit. “Sergeant Conley, based on the fingerprints, can you tell me when Captain Stanton was there?”

“I cannot.”

“Could it have been the night of the murder?”

“That is certainly possible.”

“Could it have been a month ago, or longer?”

“Yes.”

“Can you leave fingerprints when you wear gloves?” I ask.

“No.”

“If I may ask a personal question, do you have friends that you visit on occasion?”

“Of course,” she says.

“Have you ever murdered any of them?”

“Certainly not.”

“Of course not; they’re your friends. But bear with me for a second, and imagine you did go over to one of your friends’ house, for the purpose of murdering that friend. Do you think that while you were there, you would go to the bathroom, the kitchen, and other rooms, leaving your fingerprints everywhere?”

“I can’t imagine myself in that situation.”

“But as a trained police officer, you would know how fingerprints work, right? You’d know that if you were inclined to commit a crime, leaving fingerprints behind could be a problem, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Trained police officers would know that, wouldn’t they?”

“Certainly.”

“Now, supposing you didn’t care about that, and you left your fingerprints everywhere, and then shot your friend. Would you put gloves on to do it?”

“I don’t know.”

“If you had brought gloves with you, wouldn’t it have made sense to put them on before you started leaving prints everywhere?”

“I suppose so,” she says.

“As do I. No further questions.”

During a trial, time ranks just below evidence as the most valued commodity.

There is simply never enough of it, and I find myself doing so much reacting that it’s hard to find a moment to actually think.

One of the things I force myself to do, often sacrificing sleep in the process, is to read and reread all of the documents associated with the case. It is important for me to know every detail cold, so that I can react instantly and instinctively in court.

But beyond that, I find that in repeatedly going over documents, new things emerge, sometimes critical, that I have simply missed in previous readings. I’m not sure what that says about my power of concentration, but it’s something I’ve had to learn to live with, and adjust to.

Hike and Sam have made it somewhat easier for me. They somehow managed to copy all the documents onto my iPad. This way I can use any free time productively, without having to carry around a box filled with paper.

It comes in especially handy at times like this, while I’m sitting in the reception area at the FBI offices, waiting to be called in to see Agent Spencer Akers. I’m reading through the information Sam prepared on Carson Reynolds. This is actually the first time I’ve done so, since he just prepared it last night and this morning.

Reynolds’s biography seems relatively uneventful, at least for my purposes. He went to Tufts, then got his MBA at the University of Virginia. He began his career on Wall Street and worked his way up to where he now heads up a private equity fund.

Reynolds and his late wife are philanthropists, having donated millions through a foundation they themselves set up. They did not have any children, and in fact Katherine Reynolds had no family at all. Her parents and younger sister were killed in a car crash when she was eighteen years old. She was at college at the time. Carson Reynolds does not have any siblings either.

There is nothing here to indicate that Carson Reynolds is a murderer; there is also nothing here to indicate I’d want to have a beer and watch a football game with him. He seems upstanding and boring, although I suppose his mistress must see a side of him that I don’t. Actually, that’s a side I don’t ever want to see.

Sam titles every document he gives me with the words “Investigative Dossier, prepared by Samuel Willis.” He thinks he’s James Bond, but he does great work.

There’s a second section, entitled “Investigative Dossier, Section B, by Samuel Willis,” which gives the background on Reynolds’s company. They take controlling financial interest in companies, put their own people in, and then improve the balance sheet until the companies can be sold off at a profit.

I’m reading it quickly when a young woman comes out to tell me that Agent Akers is ready to see me. I close the iPad cover and stand up, then realize what it was that I just read. I say, “One second,” and open the cover again to reread the key part.

It’s a section that lists the companies in which Reynolds Equity has a controlling interest. Most of them I’ve never heard of, but number six on the list is one that I’ve become familiar with just recently.

Blaine Pharmaceuticals.

Workplace of Daniel Mathis, the missing chemist who created the euthanasia drug for animals. And the location where Alex Parker’s phone, presumably in the possession of Alex Parker, was identified as being on the day that Mathis went missing.

The pieces that would not connect are starting to connect.

I apologize to the young woman and then follow her in to see Agent Akers, who looks like he’s in his early thirties. After we say hello, he says, “So my boss says to take Agent Spodek seriously, and Agent Spodek says to take you seriously. So here we are.”

“You received a visit a while back from Sharon Dalton, reporting one Daniel Mathis as missing.”

He doesn’t respond, so I say, “Have you made any progress in finding him?”

He smiles. “We don’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”

“I’ve got a hunch you’re not taking me seriously.”

He smiles again. “Why don’t we start by you telling me why you’re here?”

“I’m here to make a deal with you. I will give you some information, most of which you probably do not already know. If you investigate the case and crack it, you will be a star within the bureau.”

“And in return?” he asks.

“You act quickly, you give me information as you get it, and you apply pressure where it needs to be applied.”

“I should tell you to leave now,” he says.

“No you shouldn’t, for two reasons. First, because you’d have to answer to your boss when this explodes in your face. And second, because the deal costs you nothing, and has the potential to make you a hero.” I smile. “And I say that as someone who is to be taken seriously, and as someone who may call upon you only to make a phone call.”

“Okay,” he says. “Sight unseen this is hard to agree to, but the quick action and exchange of information I can live with. The application of pressure I can’t agree to until I know who and why.”

It’s a reasonable position for him to take, and I say so. Then, “Start with updating me on the status of the Mathis missing persons investigation.”

“There is no status,” he says. “We sent out a bulletin, he’s still missing, and there has not been a single report that he has been spotted anywhere. I don’t have the slightest idea where he is.”

“He’s dead,” I say.

“You know that?”

“I haven’t seen the body, but I know it. He’s one of an ever-increasing group of dead people.”

I lay out every piece of information I have about the situation. It’s a long spiel, and he doesn’t say a word or ask a question throughout. It’s a fairly compelling presentation, and as I speak it, I’m surprising myself with how much we actually have learned. Of course, what is most important to me, which is making it relevant enough to Pete’s case to be admissible, is where we are weakest. But that is not Akers’s concern, nor should it be.

When I’m finished, he says, “That’s quite a story.”

“And I just learned another piece a few minutes ago. One of Reynolds’s companies is Blaine Pharmaceuticals.”

“How do you know all this information about where the cell phones have been?”

“That doesn’t matter; just accept it as true. And by tomorrow evening I’ll have the documents to prove it anyway.”

“So bottom line, what do we have here?” he asks.

“A murder-for-hire business, for only the wealthiest customers. With no risk, because no one has any idea that the deaths are murders.”