The Defense: A Novel (27 page)
The following day, a Saturday, I paid a visit to Berkley’s home. The IO had given me Berkley’s laptop, which they had seized in the initial search. NYPD techs had found zero evidence on the laptop and were now giving it back. I told the cop I’d return it personally; I wanted Berkley out of my life ASAP because at that time I was not convinced that the jury had brought in the right verdict. My instincts told me Berkley was dangerous, that he was hiding something behind his perfect life.
He wasn’t at his apartment, and I took the liberty of driving to his summer house, which he visited on weekends.
I knocked and waited. His Porsche was parked in the driveway. I heard the shower. After two or three minutes, he opened the front door, his hair and chest wet, a towel wrapped around his waist. Just below his navel, the towel bore fresh, reddish brown stains.
“Something wrong, Eddie?” said Berkley, breathing hard.
“The cops gave me your laptop. I’m just returning it.”
“You didn’t need to come all the way out here. I could have picked it up from your office.”
I didn’t want Berkley near me or my office.
“It’s okay, I…” Before I could give a lame excuse for driving out there, I heard a cry.
Berkley smiled and said, “I left the TV on.”
“I didn’t ask you anything,” I said, as I put my foot in the doorjamb.
He tried slamming the door. I pushed back, threw my shoulder into the door, and it caught Berkley square on the head, busting open a cut above his eye and sending him to the floor.
The cry became a scream.
I ran into the hall and kicked Berkley in the face as I passed by.
The scream seemed to echo around the house. Downstairs was empty. On the first floor, I saw a bedroom door open. On the edge of the bed I saw a foot, bright red, tied to the corner post.
I opened that door. I had done it many times since; almost every night I opened that door in my dreams and saw her again.
Hanna Tublowski’s hands and feet had been tied to each corner of the bed with wire that bit deeply into her flesh. A ball gag had slipped from her broken jaw and hung loosely below her neck. My guess was that Berkley had tried to knock her out when he heard me at the door. He hit her too hard. With her jaw broken and dislocated, the gag had fallen from her mouth, allowing her to scream. Droplets of blood stood on her blue lips.
She was naked.
Dried blood covered her crotch and belly. Bite marks blossomed over her breasts and neck. Each mark surrounded by purple and black bruising and blood where Berkley’s teeth had broken the skin. Her left eye was completely closed; her right eye was wide and wild in panic.
I couldn’t untie her. The wire would need to be cut. Instead, I knelt beside her and told her she was safe and that the police were on their way.
Dialing 911 from the phone in the kitchen, I guessed that the police response time in this area would be superfast, maybe five minutes. Turned out to be less. The cops arrived at the house in less than three minutes. If they had arrived any later, I had little doubt that Berkley would have been dead by then.
He still lay in the hall, although he was starting to come around. Straddling him, pinning his arms down with my knees, I began pounding his face. When I felt my left hand break, I started using my elbows, throwing my body forward with each blow and crushing his skull between my elbow and the tiled floor. At the time, I couldn’t feel the pain from my broken hand. I could only feel the wisps of hot blood that splashed my face after every blow. I don’t remember the cops dragging me off of him. I don’t remember being arrested. But I remembered seeing Christine’s face when she bailed me out. The DA’s office didn’t prosecute me; the only reason Hanna had survived was because I’d saved her. But in my mind, I’d let her be tortured and raped because I had not acted on my instincts about Berkley.
The state bar was ready to pull my license and disbar me for beating a client half to death. Harry represented me at the hearing before the disciplinary committee. Instead of telling them how good a lawyer I was, he read out the list of injuries that Hanna had suffered. She lost an eye; her jaw, despite having been rebroken and reset a number of times, would never properly heal, leaving her face permanently disfigured. She was scarred for life both physically and mentally.
Berkley had caused so much internal damage that Hanna would never be able to have kids.
Although Harry was saving me, for the second time, I could feel my world slipping away; I was just as responsible for those injuries as Berkley.
Berkley got twenty years. I got six months’ suspension.
I had to live with the fact that he had been able to do that to Hanna because I had gotten him off. It was my fault. No amount of booze would ever change that.
Before the jury acquitted Berkley, I knew in my heart that he was guilty and that he could do this again. I tried putting my faith in the fact that he would be unlikely to try to grab a young girl a second time, considering his last attempt failed so badly. My gut told me otherwise, and that same feeling brought me to his house on that blood-red day.
I would not make the same mistake again. Guys like Berkley, Volchek, and Arturas had to be stopped or they would go on destroying lives.
Sitting in the limo with my eyes closed as we raced toward the courthouse, I knew that I had made the right move; taking down the Russians was the only way to keep my family safe. I’d set my phone to vibrate, and even though I felt sure that I hadn’t felt it go off, with the movement from the car and the sound of tires rolling on rippled streets, I couldn’t be certain. I opened my eyes to see Volchek cross his legs, close his eyes. Was he thinking about the day ahead? I wasn’t sure. The scarred one looked out of the window, unable to fix his gaze on his boss. My hand almost reached for my phone. Just to check. Just to make sure. Adjusting my tie, I cleared my throat and forced myself to look at the street and think about my next move. Arturas was playing his own game, and I felt that it was about time I found out what it was.
The closer we got to Chambers Street, the more I was convinced that my answers lay inside those vans in the basement parking lot.
We arrived at Chambers Street just after seven thirty. The sun had already begun to warm the cold courthouse steps.
I had less than eight hours left before Volchek fled the country. I had to get whatever I could on Volchek and find a fed I could trust before four o’clock.
Volchek, Arturas, and Victor all got out of the limo with me, and together we headed toward the entrance.
“After you,” said Arturas, and I walked in front, skipping up the steps to security.
As I got higher, I was able to see the lobby entrance. I didn’t recognize a single security guard. They all looked new to me. I didn’t have a briefcase, or the usual lawyer trappings. This time I wasn’t concerned about security discovering the bomb. I didn’t have it on me, but I had an illegal secure-water spray, what I believed to be the actual detonator for the bomb, the UV flashlight, and a cell phone. If the Russians saw any of those items, it was all over.
Once I got within twenty feet of the entrance, I did recognize a guard. He was blond, young, and eager—Hank, the same kid who’d tried to search me yesterday morning before Barry called him off.
Hank saw me coming. He stood in front of the security door, cracking his knuckles. If he could, he would’ve given me a cavity search.
Just then I heard quick footsteps coming up the stairs behind us. I turned and saw Special Agent Bill Kennedy jogging toward me, accompanied by the two agents I’d seen yesterday.
“Glad I caught you, Mr. Flynn. I wanted to apologize for yesterday. But I do need to have a talk in private. Let’s take a ride. It won’t take long. I promise.”
Volchek looked at the agents and then looked at me.
“All right, Mr. Flynn. You can go with the agent. We will wait for you in the upstairs office,” said Volchek. “Just don’t be late for court. You wouldn’t want me to have to make a call, now, would you?” said Volchek. He leaned close and whispered, “
If you try anything, I will cut your little girl.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t be long,” I said.
As I walked away from Volchek, I could feel his eyes upon me.
The other agents didn’t speak at all. The short, squat agent with red hair walked ahead of Kennedy and the tall agent with the athletic frame fell in behind me.
“Are we going anywhere nice?”
“We’re going to the river, Pier 40. By the way,” he said pointing to the tall, elegant agent behind us, “this is Special Agent Coulson.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I said. We shook hands.
Kennedy pointed at the red-haired man ahead of us and said, “This is Special Agent Tom Levine.”
Levine didn’t extend a hand; he just nodded. I nodded back, more in knowing than anything else. Now I knew why all of a sudden Volchek was happy for me to take a ride with the FBI: I was also taking a ride with Volchek’s dirty fed, and everything I said would go straight back to him.
“Why are we going to Pier 40, Agent Kennedy?” I asked.
“You’ll see, Mr. Flynn … You’ll see.”
There was little conversation on the way to the pier. Levine drove and didn’t say a word. Coulson sat up front, and I lounged in the back beside Kennedy.
“So what’s at the pier that’s so important?”
“You seen the
Times
this morning?” he asked.
“Haven’t had the chance yet,” I said.
He handed me a copy of the
New York Times
. My picture was on the front with the headline R
USSIAN
M
AFIA
T
RIAL
C
ONTINUES.
“Look at the story below the fold.”
I turned over the paper and saw the picture I’d seen on Sunday—a cargo boat called the
Sacha
moored along the riverbank. The same boat that sank on the Hudson on Saturday night with all her crew. The article in the paper thanked all the crewmen from neighboring boats for their help trying to locate the lost crew and the ship.
“We found a crewman who saw the
Sacha
go down near Pier 40. The Hudson is a big river, but we found the ship last night and some of the crew. We’re here now. You can see for yourself.”
We pulled up at a set of tall, iron gates. A cop waved us through, and we parked behind an NYPD patrol vehicle. Coulson and Levine got out and waited at the pedestrian entrance to the pier. In the distance, beyond the gates, sunlight glimmered on the river. The muscular Hudson looked choppy. Kennedy came close to me before we reached his colleagues and kept his voice low as he spoke.
“If there’s anything you need to tell me, now’s the time.”
“I don’t have anything to tell you,” I said, looking over his shoulder at Levine, who was pretending to exchange small talk with Coulson but secretly keeping an eye on me.
“Fair enough,” said Kennedy with a sigh.
A single question ricocheted around in my mind; why hadn’t I heard from Jimmy? Something must have gone wrong. Maybe Amy wasn’t in the apartment. What if the Russians took down Jimmy’s guys? I gripped the phone in my pocket, squeezing it, willing it to vibrate. Stress often hit me physically, like a python twisting itself around my spine, and at the first spike of pain, I breathed and stretched to help loosen my neck and tried to organize my thoughts. I was exhausted. I hadn’t slept, and my body was ready to quit.
Kennedy’s stiff-soled shoes crunched on the gravel that led to the boat house on Pier 40. I kept my head down and let my feet follow Kennedy’s. When I heard his footsteps come to a rest, I lifted my head just in time to duck underneath a length of yellow crime-scene tape that stretched across my path.
A low murmur, my cell phone vibrating.
A text. Either Amy was alive or still missing—or dead.
Blood rose to my face and I struggled for breath. I had an answer, but I couldn’t risk taking a look with Levine around.
Ahead, Coulson and Levine put their backs to the boat house and Kennedy spoke to two CSIs in white plastic coveralls. I saw a coast guard boat anchored to the pier and divers in the water. Kennedy called me over to a tent, and I knew what kind of tent it was and what was likely to be inside. It was the same kind of tent that the police use all over the world, to keep the elements from interfering with the bodies they’ve found.
Inside the tent, two body bags lay on the ground. I pulled the door zipper all the way to the ground. Just me, Kennedy, and two body bags.
Kennedy put his back to me, knelt down beside the bodies.
The phone was in my hand immediately—
We got her. Clean. Four men and the woman down. Amy shaken but okay.
My legs gave way. My knees dove into the gravel, and I covered my face in my hands. I mouthed
thank you
over and over. The pain in my neck seemed to vanish. It felt like a dark, poisonous lead weight that had threatened to crush my heart had suddenly evaporated. Taking a huge lungful of air, I felt suddenly ready.
Ready to take Volchek down.
“They had these guys in the meat van a half hour ago. I had them brought back in here so you could see them,” said Kennedy.
“Thanks—that’s exactly what I needed to see before breakfast. What the hell has this got to do with me?” I said.
“You tell me.”
Kennedy knelt and put a hand on one bag, and as he did so, I saw water trickling from the zipper. I knew that bodies found in lakes or rivers were usually bagged in the water, to preserve whatever evidence was around them. Sometimes that evidence helped with the cause or time of death.
The zipper stood brightly against the dull, death gray of the bag, and the metal teeth parted as Kennedy worked the zipper around. He flipped open one bag, then the next. Inside each bag was the body of a male. Both wore navy blue coveralls; both were white; both looked to have been in the water more than twenty-four hours; and clearly both had been murdered. I saw two bullet wounds in the chest of the first victim. There were identical wounds on victim two. Whoever murdered them knew how to handle a gun and group their shots, but the third bullet hole in each body gave a strong hint at a professional hit. The third wound was clearly an insurance shot; both took a bullet in the head at close range.
