Who Let the Dog Out? (20 page)

“They are not equal possibilities.”

“We’re not looking for equal, Dr. Reny. We’re looking for reasonable. Can you say beyond a reasonable doubt that the two alternative explanations I provided did not happen in this case?”

I can see her mind racing for an alternative to the obvious, but she’s drawing a blank. “I cannot,” she says.

“That’s okay, no one could. Thank you. No further questions.”

There’s a message waiting for me on my cell phone from Sam; and it’s a welcome piece of positive news.

“I checked into Parelli, the dockworker guy,” he says. “He hasn’t taken in any unusual amounts of money, just his salary from the government.”

“I’m not happy to hear that.”

“But I took it a step further and checked his wife’s account. She’s had three hundred grand wired into her account in the last eighteen months, and she is unemployed.”

“Great job, Sam. Can you find out where the wires are from?”

“I’m checking that now.”

“Thanks, Sam,” I say.

Pieces are falling into place. Not rapidly enough, but we may be getting somewhere. Our big task remains to show a connection between Downey and Brantley.

We have some evidence to that effect, but that demonstrated connection has to be much stronger to convince Judge Klingman. I have to be able to tie Downey to the world of diamond smuggling, as a way to show the jury that he was involved with very dangerous people who might well have ended his life.

And I may know how to do that.

I reach Agent Hernandez on the first try. This in itself is a surprise; I thought I’d have more trouble. He’s made his arrest already, so his need for any information I might provide is therefore considerably less.

“You’ve got information for me?” is how he starts the conversation. “Is this you being a good citizen?”

“You can read me like a book,” I say. “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty.”

“Touching,” he says. “Let’s hear it.”

“The bedrock of our country is sharing.”

“I’ve got nothing for you,” he says. “And I doubt very much you have anything for me.”

“What about the customs officer who has been knowingly allowing the stuff into the country? And who has been paid three hundred thousand to do so?”

“On the other hand,” he says, “who doesn’t believe in sharing? It’s the bedrock of our country, depending on what is being shared.”

“You’re a patriot,” I say. “Here’s what I want. I’m sure you have a good case against Divac. But if you don’t even know who they’re using in your own department, then you don’t have everything, and you must be relying on a witness. I want to know who it is, and I want access to him or her.”

“I can’t give you that,” he says. “It’s confidential.”

“Bullshit. Even as we speak, the U.S. attorney is turning the name and every statement he made over to Divac’s attorney. It’s called discovery, and Divac’s attorney has no obligation to keep it confidential.”

There is a pause, and he says, “I’ll get back to you.”

“When?”

“When I get back to you. Sit tight.”

I barely have time to assume the tight-sitting position when he calls back, obviously having checked with his superiors or the U.S. attorney, and probably both. Again I’m surprised at his level of interest in what I have to say, particularly since his first words are, “You’ve got a deal.” Then he says, “You go first.”

“His name is Gino Parelli. He’s a supervisor at Port Newark. The payoffs are going to his wife.”

“How do you know all this?” he asks.

I won’t tell him that; it could come back to bite Sam, who’s been doing the illegal hacking. “That I can’t share with you. But anything you get from Parelli that can help my case, I want.”

Hernandez agrees, so I continue. “Who is the witness against Divac?”

“Guy by the name of Paul Turner. He works for Divac. He was his right-hand man, so he saw everything. If Divac took a shit, Turner wiped his ass.”

“I met him. Is he implicated and you turned him?”

“No,” he says. “Divac was running a private operation alongside the legit one. He was a loner in it; as far as we can tell none of the other employees were involved. Turner is clean, but he’s scared. We’ve got him protected.”

“Tell him I’m coming,” I say. “And tell him I won’t hurt him.”

“And you make sure I’m the first person you go to with any information you get. From anywhere.”

“Doesn’t sound like you’re confident of your case against Divac,” I say.

“Divac is history.”

I call Sam and ask him if Paul Turner’s name came up anywhere on Downey or Brantley’s phone records. I don’t recall seeing it, but I want to make sure.

“No,” Sam says. “First time I’ve heard the name.”

I’m going to contact Turner to set up a meeting, but I’ll wait until the morning, in order to give time for Hernandez to tell him to expect me. Dylan is scheduled to wrap up his case in the morning, and then I’ll ask the judge to let me start our defense on Monday. That will give me a few days to try to make some headway on this.

If I don’t come up with something, the defense case is going to be fairly short.

Paul Turner doesn’t sound thrilled to hear from me. Actually, he sounds fairly miserable. He has pissed off some very dangerous people, and at this point he might be regretting that a bit.

I identify myself and ask if he remembers me from our meeting in Divac’s office. He says that he does, but that it “seems like a lifetime ago.”

“Did Agent Hernandez tell you I was going to call?” I ask.

“He did. He said I should talk to you, which means I guess I have no choice.”

“I’m an excellent conversationalist,” I say. “You should hear me at cocktail parties. Can I come over now?”

I can almost see him shrug through the phone. “Might as well; I’m not going anywhere.”

“Where are you?”

He hesitates for a moment, then says, “I’m in the Crowne Plaza, in the Meadowlands.”

“What room?”

“I don’t want to say over the phone. Just stand in the lobby; one of my protectors will bring you up to my cell block.”

This sounds like one bitter guy.

The Crowne Plaza is only about twenty-five minutes from my house. It’s one of a group of quite nice, modern hotels that have opened in the Meadowlands/Secaucus area. The location makes perfect sense; it provides easy access to Manhattan, Newark Airport, and the Meadowlands Sports Complex.

I park the car and walk into the large modern lobby. There’s a federal agent there, and I would know that even if he wasn’t approaching me. I think all agents share one dark gray suit; they just pass it around to whoever needs it that day.

“Carpenter?” he asks.

“I’m flattered that you recognized me.”

“Let’s go.”

He heads toward the elevator. He doesn’t look back to see if I’m following him; I’m quite sure he doesn’t care either way. He did his job by coming down here in the first place. But I follow dutifully along, since he is going to bring me to Turner, and that is where I want to be.

We go to the top floor, and when we get out of the elevator, I see another agent in the very long hallway. I continue to follow my personal escort to the room all the way at the end of the hall. He knocks twice, and another agent opens the door.

Compared to this agent, the one who brought me upstairs is Chuckles the Clown. I can see behind him that this is a large suite, and all this guy does is frown and jerk his head toward a room adjacent to what is the living room.

“You guys crack me up,” I say, and I head for the closed door of the room he’s indicating.

I knock the same double knock that the agent did, and a voice tells me to come in. I open the door, and see that it’s the bedroom of the suite, and Turner is sitting on one of two chairs across from the bed.

“Let this be a lesson to you: don’t ever do the right thing,” he says.

I nod. “Words to live by. But I assume they’re not forcing you to be here?”

He frowns. “No, but they told me that if I don’t let them protect me, then my life expectancy will be about forty-five minutes.”

“Those actuarial tables are really accurate.”

“Yeah. Well, I’ll do this for a couple of days, and then I’m out of here. I’ll disappear, and come back for the trial.” He pauses, and then adds, “Maybe.”

It’s time to cut back on the chitchat. “How long have you known Divac was bad?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Suspected or knew?”

“You pick.”

“I’ve probably suspected for two years, but a kind of denial sets it. When you don’t want to know something, it’s easy not to know it.”

“How did you find out?”

“That doesn’t matter,” he says.

“So who’s running the company now?”

He shrugs. “I have no idea, and to be honest, I couldn’t care less.”

“So you’re not a part of that company any longer?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” he says. “Now what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

“You know about the case I’m trying?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Not really.”

“Tommy Infante is accused of murdering Gerald Downey. Downey was connected to Eric Brantley, which means he was connected to the conspiracy your boss was running. I also know that Downey was involved with bringing smuggled diamonds in through Port Newark, and I know which employee down there was letting the whole thing happen. I’ve given the information to the customs agents.”

“Do I really need to hear all this?” Turner asks. “I’ve sort of got my own troubles.”

“I understand. I’ve just got a few questions, and then I’ll leave you alone. Do you know anything about Gerald Downey? Ever heard of him? Know of any connection between him and Divac?”

“He was a low-level player, did some dirty work, but not much.”

“What about Brantley? Where did he fit in?”

“He wasn’t a key player. He got the idea in his head that he could bring diamonds into the country illegally. Alan was not about to tolerate the competition, no matter how insignificant it was.”

“So Divac had him killed?”

Turner nods. “I believe so, though it’s only my opinion. I do know that he had Caruso killed, so I assume the same was true of Brantley.”

“And Healy?”

He shrugs. “Healy was Divac’s muscle. My guess is he was trying to play both sides, Brantley and Divac. Apparently Divac found some new muscle.”

“But you don’t know who that is?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t. Are we done here?”

I’ve gotten confirmation of a lot of what I knew, but I still don’t have the provable link between Downey and Brantley, at least not enough of a link to base a defense on.

“Pretty much,” I say. “But I want you to know that there is a significant chance I’m going to call you to testify.”

He actually laughs a short laugh at the prospect. “Testify to what? That I know nothing about your client or his victim?”

“Welcome to my case,” I say.

Our archrival is in my kitchen, and he’s maybe four feet tall. Yes, when I get home there’s Will Rubenstein, starting shortstop for Ricky’s Peewee League team, actually sucking down chocolate milk and cookies with Ricky. And Laurie, believe it or not, is serving him.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

“Andy, come sit down with the boy who is depriving you of the chance to bask in the glory of having a Hall of Fame baseball player for a son” is what Laurie really means when she says, “Andy, come join us. You know Will Rubenstein.…”

“Sure, good to see you, Will,” I say, taking a seat with them.

“Hi.”

“How’s baseball coming?”

“Okay” is all he says, obviously smart enough not to reveal too much.

“You ever play right field?” I ask. “You’d be really good at it.”

“Nah.”

“What about soccer? That’s a fun game.”

“Nah.”

Laurie is staring daggers at me, so I pretend to be friendly for a few more minutes, and then head for the den to do some work.

I’ve got Dylan’s last witnesses to prepare for, but then more importantly, I’ve got to figure out a way to get Judge Klingman to allow me to introduce testimony about Gerald Downey’s connection to Brantley, Divac, and the world of diamond smuggling.

I still don’t have enough evidence of a link to have a chance of getting it in. It’s crucial that I come up with a strategy to overcome this, for one very important reason: jurors want to have someone to blame for the crime. The chance of them acquitting Tommy goes way up if they can point to someone else as the possible killer.

To be able to associate Downey with the dangerous people in the smuggling world, and to be able to point to all these other murders that have taken place, would go a long way toward providing this jury with the reasonable doubt that we need. But to get there, we have to get by the judge.

I bounce back and forth on this, according to my own self-interest, but I think that the admissibility standard is too strict. My basic philosophy is let the lawyer bring it in, and then let the jury decide if it’s relevant and meaningful to the case. If they think the lawyer is fishing, or bringing in unrelated issues, then they can decide he or she is a dope and punish the client for it.

Bottom line, as it relates to Tommy’s case, is that I think this jury should be able to know things like the fact that Downey has been hanging around with vicious killers.

We would all be much better off in a world ruled by Judge Andy Carpenter.

It’s a little hard for me to concentrate on the end of Dylan’s case. I’m already focused on our own, and Dylan’s last witnesses are of little significance. They are basically two more forensics people and Downey’s prom queen landlady, whom Laurie and I spoke with.

But I need to be prepared for all eventualities, so I go over the technical reports that the forensics people prepared. They are not going to say anything that hasn’t been said already; if Dylan has a weakness as a prosecutor, it is the fact that he beats facts to death. The jury has heard it all, and they’re tired, and Dylan making them sit through more of the same has got to be annoying.

Downey’s landlady, Helen Streiter, is another case in point. Reading the transcript of her interview with the prosecutors, it’s clear that she has nothing substantive to offer. Basically, she is going to say that Downey and Tommy knew each other, and that she had seen Tommy go to Downey’s house.