Sudden Death (18 page)

I
CALL A SEVEN A.M.
meeting at my office with Kevin, Laurie, and Sam Willis. Laurie and I lay out our developing theory about Adam’s murder, and Kevin’s excitement is obvious. Not only does he agree with our reasoning, but he makes the point that if someone killed Adam because of what he learned about the deaths of the athletes, then Kenny is innocent. He’s been in jail and is thus the one person with an ironclad alibi for Adam’s murder.

I ask Sam if it’s possible to go on my computer, the one Adam was using, and retrace where he had been on it.

“I can’t do it in depth, but I know someone who can. I’ll bring him in right away.”

“What about the phone records?” I ask. “If he made calls those last couple of days, can you find out who he called?”

He nods. “That’s easy. And once I’m in there, I can also lower your phone bill if you want.”

We agree to meet right after court at my house to get an update on Sam and Laurie’s progress. Kevin and I head for court; we’ve got a case to put on and a client to defend. A client who just might well be innocent.

Just before court starts, I go out to the side of the building where I won’t be overheard. I call Vince Sanders on my cell phone and tell him I have a big favor to ask.

“What else is new?” he asks sarcastically.

“I want you to set up a meeting for me tomorrow night with Dominic Petrone.” Vince knows Petrone fairly well, as he knows pretty much everyone in America, and he has served as an intermediary between myself and the mob boss before.

“You mind telling me why? ’Cause he’s gonna want to know.”

“Just tell him it’s about Quintana. That’s all I can tell you right now.”

“I’ll get back to you.” A click indicates the call is over; Vince never says goodbye.

My first witness today is Donald Richards, a private investigator whose main client is the National Football League. Walter Simmons had put me in touch with him. I take Richards through the way he works for the NFL, leading him into a discussion of the great lengths they go to in protecting the integrity of their game.

“What kinds of things does the NFL worry about?” I ask.

“Gambling is number one. Drugs are a close second.”

He describes the drug testing program, which is not as rigorous as it could be, but substantially more intrusive than those for the other major sports. The NFL, he explains, has comparatively good relations with the players’ union, and therefore the players will submit to testing that the baseball players, for example, will not.

“Was Troy Preston one of the people you were hired to investigate?’

He nods. “Yes. On three separate occasions.”

He goes on to explain that Preston had failed a drug test, which is a red flag for the NFL. Richards was assigned to find out the extent of Preston’s involvement with drugs, and based on his initial reports, follow-ups were deemed necessary.

“Why is that?” I ask.

“Because I learned that Mr. Preston was not just using… he was selling.”

I ask Richards to provide the details of his investigation, and he doesn’t hesitate to implicate the deceased Paul Moreno and the unfortunately very alive Cesar Quintana. It’s a weird sensation that I feel while he is doing this, knowing that Quintana will freak out and redouble his efforts to kill me when he finds out that I have once again exposed his name to unwanted worldwide publicity.

Richards is on the stand all morning, and his performance is impressive. I make a note to mention him to Laurie, in case we want to add him to our team on future cases. It hits me that Laurie may well not be on that team, the first time I’ve thought about that possibility in a while. This has been a difficult and frustrating case, but if nothing else, it has served its purpose as a diversion from my personal concerns.

Judge Harrison cancels the afternoon session because of some other matters that he has to attend to, so Dylan’s cross-examination of Richards will be put off to Monday. I call and ask Sam to come to the house at three to report on what he’s learned, and I tell Kevin and Laurie to be there as well. Willie Miller joins us, along with his dog, Cash. Willie has been hanging around as part of my “security detail,” and it does make me feel more secure, though I would never admit it.

Sam starts off with an apology that he hasn’t made more progress, but he’s only had a handful of hours to work on it. Sam has learned that Adam was apparently focusing on something involving the media; he was trying to locate a Web site for a magazine called
Inside Football,
which hasn’t existed for a number of years. He also placed three phone calls to the
New York Times
in the thirty-six hours before he died.

“Any other significant calls?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “No, doesn’t seem to be. Mostly to players Kenny knew… families of the deceased guys… that kind of thing.”

“Any idea why he would be interested in a sports magazine and the
New York Times
?” Kevin asks me.

“No… but Adam’s parents mentioned that he was excited about talking to famous sportswriters. I thought they meant football players, but I didn’t question them about it. Maybe they were right.”

I call Vince, whose connections would make him the ultimate authority in matters of this type. He’s not in, and I leave a message for him to call me back ASAP. In the meantime Laurie brings us up-to-date on what she has learned.

None of the deaths were considered possible homicides by the various police entities that investigated, which we already knew. However, Laurie has checked into four of them so far, and when viewed through the prism that we now hold, they could look quite suspicious. As examples, she cites the hit-and-run and Matt Lane’s hunting accident. The five heart attacks are bewildering, and I ask Laurie to check with a doctor, one we sometimes use as an expert witness, about whether there is a drug that can cause a heart attack and not show up in an autopsy.

Vince calls back within a few minutes and sounds annoyed. “I told you I’d call you back when I set up the meeting,” he says.

“That’s not why I’m calling,” I say.

“Jesus, what the hell do you need now?”

“Vince, I’m going to ask you a question. I just want you to answer it and not assume it’s important to the Schilling case. I don’t want you to start tracking it down as a possible hot story.”

“Then you must be trying to reach a different Vince,” he says.

“You’ll get whatever I have first. But this can’t go public in any way now.”

He thinks for a moment. “Okay.”

“Did you ever hear of a magazine called
Inside Football
?” I ask.

“Sounds familiar, but I can’t place it.”

“It’s a magazine that’s folded. I need a list of the people that wrote for it in the last ten years and copies of any stories that included Kenny Schilling or Troy Preston.” I have a hunch and decide to throw it in. “I also want to know if any of the writers are currently at the
New York Times.
”

“That’s all?” he asks.

“That’s all.”

“Give me two hours,” he says.

“You’re a genius.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

Vince then proceeds to use up five minutes of the two hours making me swear repeatedly that he will get whatever story comes out of his labor, as well as any story that doesn’t. I’m happy to do so. Vince’s contacts are amazing, and if I’m going to need to learn anything in the media world, he is a person who can absolutely make it happen.

Two hours gives me just enough time to take Tara for a short tennis ball session in the park, as long as I drive there. I haven’t thrown a ball with Tara in a while, but one of her twelve million great qualities is that she doesn’t hold a grudge. Willie and Cash join us, which is fine with me: Though Tara doesn’t have many dog friends, she has always liked Cash.

Cash is the more competitive of the two dogs; it’s very important to him that he retrieve each thrown ball. Tara is more out for the fun of the game, though I toss the ball in her direction often enough that she gets her share.

Willie lets me do the throwing, and I note that his eyes are constantly sweeping the park, probably looking for one of Quintana’s people. I’m just about to suggest that we leave when I hear Willie say, “Andy, get the dogs and get in the car.”

We are near the Little League fields, and I see Willie looking off in the direction of what we called Dead Man’s Curve when we rode bikes down it as kids. It’s about three hundred yards away, and I can see a dark sedan navigating the curve, which will eventually lead to where we are. It is a classically ominous-looking car.

I don’t pause to ask questions, yelling for Tara and Cash to follow me. All three of us are in the backseat within seconds, and Willie follows along right behind us and gets in the driver’s seat. He pulls out, quickly but without screeching the tires, and in moments we’re driving in the security and anonymity of Route 4.

“Was that who I think it was?” I ask.

Willie looks at me in the rearview mirror and shrugs. “Don’t know. But I didn’t think we should wait around to find out.”

“I can’t run away every time I see a car,” I say.

“What are you gonna do, stay and fight?” he asks. “They’ve got Uzis, you’ve got a tennis ball.”

This is no way to live.

T
HE PHONE IS RINGING
as I walk into the house.

“You want me to fax you the articles?” is Vince’s replacement for a normal person’s “Hello.”

“Fax them.”

“I’ll include the list of writers, but only one of them works for the
Times.
”

“What’s his name?”

“George Karas.”

George Karas has, over the last few years, become one of the more well-known sportswriters in the business. He’s done this, as have others, by branching out past writing into television, becoming one of the pundits that are called on to give opinions about the games men play.

Karas would therefore certainly qualify as a “famous” sportswriter, someone Adam might well have bragged to his parents that he had spoken to. It gives me more hope that we’re on the right track.

“How do I get to him?” I ask.

“He’s waiting for your call,” Vince says, and gives me Karas’s direct phone number.

“Vince, this is great. I owe you big-time,” I say.

“You got that right. That reminds me, I set up the meeting with Petrone.”

“For when?”

“Eight o’clock tomorrow night. They’ll pick you up in front of your office.”

“Thanks, Vince. I really appreciate all of this.”

Click.

Since Vince is no longer on the phone, I hang up my end and call Karas at the number Vince gave me, which turns out to be his cell phone. We’re only ten seconds into our conversation when I catch another break: He’s on his way home to Fort Lee and offers to meet me for a cup of coffee.

We meet at a diner on Route 4 in Paramus, and Karas is waiting at a table when I arrive. I recognize him because I watch all those idiotic sports panel shows that he’s on. I introduce myself, then say, “I really appreciate your meeting me like this.”

“Vince told me he’d cut my balls off if I didn’t talk to you,” he says.

“He’s a fun guy, isn’t he?”

He nods. “A barrel of laughs. Does this meeting have something to do with the Schilling case? Vince wouldn’t tell me.”

His question is a little jarring on a personal note. I keep forgetting that the Schilling case, more than ever before, has at least made me nationally recognizable, if not a celebrity. The truth is that more people in this diner would know who I am than the “famous” sportswriter I’m having coffee with.

“It may. It depends on what you have to say. But I have to tell you that this is on background… off the record.”

He’s surprised by that. “Am I here as a journalist?”

“Partly,” I say. “But I need assurance that you won’t use it as a journalist, at least for the time being.”

He thinks for a few moments, then reluctantly nods. “Okay. Shoot.”

“A man that was working for me as an investigator was murdered last week. His name was Adam Strickland. Did he contact you around that time?”

Karas’s face clouds slightly as he searches for a connection to the name. It’s disappointing, but that disappointment fades when I see the light go on in his eyes. “Yes… I think that was the name. My God, that was the young man that was murdered in your office?”

“Yes. You spoke to him?”

Karas is quiet for a few moments, either trying to remember the conversation or trying to deal with this close brush with someone’s sudden death. “He didn’t tell me he was working for you… he just said he was a private investigator. I assumed he was working for some tabloid rag…”

“Can you tell me specifically what he asked you?”

“He was interested in the days when I did some freelance work for a magazine called
Inside Football.
I put together a high school all-American team, and we ran it as a large spread.”

“Is that the team that Kenny Schilling and Troy Preston were on?”

He nods. “Yes. That’s what he was asking me about.”

“What specifically did you tell him?”

He shrugs. “Really not much. I told him that we picked players from all over the country. It’s not an exact science; these are high school kids, playing against all different levels of competition. We looked at their size, their stats, how hard the big-time colleges were recruiting them, that kind of thing.”

I nod; as a sports degenerate I know something about this stuff. Great high school basketball players are far easier to spot than their football counterparts. Kids that stand out in football in high school often can’t even cut it on the college level.

“Did he ask you for a list of players that were there?”

He nods. “Yeah, I wasn’t going to go to the trouble of finding it, but he seemed like a decent guy…”

“He was a very decent guy,” I say.

“I could tell. Anyway, I keep good files, so I faxed it to him.”

I’m now close to positive that we’re on to something. The list was faxed to Adam, it was important to Adam, but it was nowhere to be found in his possessions. The killer almost certainly took it, and I don’t know any drug gang killers that like football quite that much.

Karas tells me about the weekend the players spent in New York, and I ask him if he can recall anything unusual about it, especially anything concerning Schilling or Preston, but he cannot.

“I wasn’t a chaperone, you know? There were around twenty-five guys, and most of them had never been to New York, so they weren’t too interested in me telling them stories.”

He thinks some more, then adds, “We rented out the two upstairs private rooms in an Italian restaurant that Saturday night. I think it was on the Upper East Side. Divided it up, offense in one room, defense in the other. I must have been with the offense, because I remember Schilling being there.”

He has nothing more to add, so he asks me a few questions about what this is about and how it relates to the trial. I deflect them, but promise he’ll be the second to know, after Vince. Knowing Vince as he does, he understands.

I thank him for his help, and we both leave. He promises to fax me the list tonight, and I tell him the earlier the better.

That list could answer a lot of questions—and raise new ones. We’re getting somewhere; I can feel it.

I go home and tell Laurie what I’ve learned, and I can see the excitement in her face as she hears it. It’s not the look of a woman who wants to go to Findlay and plan a schedule for the school crossing guards, but I don’t say anything like that. I don’t want to blow it.

Laurie and I spend the next hour and a half watching the fax machine not ring. I take advantage of the time to think about the trial, which is weirdly running on a parallel track. When we learn more about the mysterious deaths, I’m going to have to find a way to bring those two tracks together. That’s not going to be easy.

The fax machine finally rings, and it seems as if it takes a little over a week for the paper to come crawling out. It turns out there are two pages, and the first is a note from Karas. He writes that he’s just remembered that at the Saturday night party the offensive players asked him to leave the room for a brief time. They said they were going to have a “team meeting.” He considered that a weird thing to request and feared that they had brought some drugs that they were going to use once he left. Not too long later they invited him back in, and to his relief he saw no evidence of drug use.

The second faxed page is the list of high school players who were brought to New York that weekend. Laurie and I compare it to the names of the deceased young men, and we make a stunning discovery.

Seven of the eight who died were members of the offense, the same group that included Kenny Schilling and Troy Preston. The same group that asked George Karas to leave the room so that they could have a team meeting.

Kenny Schilling was close enough geographically to have killed each of those people, though they were spread out across the country. Kenny played professionally, and he traveled extensively, and those young men died at times when Kenny was nearby. Darryl Anderson, the Asbury Park drowning victim, is not on the list.

But there is another name on that list, and if Kenny was there, he was there as well. I’ve been viewing him as a victim, and there’s still a good chance of that, but I’ve just adjusted my view.

I am talking about Bobby Pollard, high school all-American, Giants trainer, friend of Kenny’s.

Possible victim, possible serial killer.