Wrongful Death (27 page)

“Any evidence I would have had, Your Honor,” he said, locking eyes with Kessler, “died with those other three men.”

OUTSIDE THE COURTROOM,
Sloane huddled with Beverly Ford and her four children. After the hearing, Judge Natale had called counsel into chambers, though Rachel Keane had not attended. Sloane was explaining to Beverly that Judge Natale had dismissed their case.

“That’s the bad news. The good news is she dismissed it as premature.”

Judge Natale had no choice once Pendergrass submitted the witness statements. The difference, Sloane explained to Beverly, was that he could re-file the complaint if he found evidence that James Ford was not acting incident to his service.

“Is there any?” Beverly Ford asked.

“That’s what I hope to find out,” Sloane said.

“They’re all dead?” Beverly Ford asked. “All those men who served with James?”

“Not all of them,” Sloane said. To his right, Captain Robert Kessler wheeled himself to the bank of elevators, Pendergrass at his side. Kessler looked demoralized. As the elevator door opened, he turned his head and looked at Sloane, then wheeled his chair inside.

A few minutes later, Sloane rode the elevator with Beverly and her children to the lobby and escorted them to the pay parking lot across from the courthouse. He told Beverly he would keep her advised of anything that happened. After they drove off, he walked back to the courtyard. Charles Jenkins stood near the cast aluminum fist sculpture.

“He took the bait,” Jenkins said, referring to Pendergrass.

“His ego took the bait.”

“How did you know Kessler’s statement was false?”

“You remember that day in his office when I handed it to him?”

“He never looked at it,” Jenkins said.

“And if someone wanted to coordinate statements to reflect not what happened, but his version of what happened, wouldn’t he start with the commanding officer’s statement?”

“If you’re right about this, Argus will come at you hard.”

Sloane nodded. “I’m counting on it.”

T
om Pendergrass sat behind the desk that wasn’t his, in the office that wasn’t his. His had been a single assignment—get the court to dismiss Beverly Ford’s claim—and he had succeeded. Judge Natale had dismissed Ford’s claim as premature. She didn’t have a choice. She couldn’t rule on the merits, not after he had boldly admitted the witness statements.

Stupid.

It had been a stupid mistake, a move blinded by his ambition. Worse, Sloane had set him up, and he’d been so confident that Pendergrass would fall for it, he’d gone so far as to subpoena Kessler to the courtroom. It was embarrassing, and had likely ruined any chance Pendergrass had of joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office after his commitment.

But what bothered Pendergrass most was he could not figure out how Sloane could have known what Kessler would say.

Pendergrass distinctly remembered Sloane telling him that Kessler had refused to talk to him once the claim had been reopened.
So how had Sloane known that Kessler didn’t prepare his own witness statement? Where had he obtained all the information about soldiers stealing supplies from convoys? And those were not even close to the most nagging question Sloane had skillfully left for all in the courtroom to ponder: What were the odds that all of those men in James Ford’s squad would die after returning stateside and all within six months of one another?

About the same as the odds that four witness statements could be so similar, particularly when one witness had no recollection of the events. Pendergrass opened his file and reconsidered the highlighted statements. If Colonel Bo Griffin had written Captain Kessler’s statement, then he had also coordinated the other statements. There was no other logical conclusion.

But why?

“Those were some fireworks this morning.” Pendergrass closed the file as Rachel Keane entered his office, closed the door, and took a seat. “I thought you conducted yourself well.”

“I don’t know about that,” Pendergrass said. “It was a mistake to admit those witness statements. It opened the door for Sloane to put Captain Kessler on the stand.”

Keane shrugged as if unconcerned. “Maybe, but what did it get Sloane in the end?”

“That’s what I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out,” he said. “What did you make of it?”

“Make of what?”

“Sloane’s suggestion that the soldiers were stealing supplies and selling them on the black market?”

Keane shrugged. “I’d say Mr. Sloane was trying to create a hypothetical set of facts so Judge Natale wouldn’t dismiss the claim. Personally I think he could have picked a better story—it bordered on the fantastic, don’t you think? Jo knows that. She just didn’t want to embarrass him in front of his client. You’ve been
through the files. You prepared the litigation report. Did you find any evidence to support such a theory?”

“No, I didn’t,” Pendergrass said.

But he had not conducted the investigation. Command had done that, Colonel Bo Griffin, to be precise. The file to which Pendergrass had been given access was limited.

“Sloane was desperate,” Keane continued. “He knows he can’t prove his case, so he slung mud hoping something might stick. He overreached and Jo shot him down.”

Pendergrass nodded.

“Something else bothering you, Captain?”

“What about those other three men?”

“What about them?”

“They’re all dead. What are the odds of that?”

Keane leaned forward. “Higher than you might initially expect.”

“I don’t—”

Keane stood. “It’s a lawyer’s trick, Tom. You put three completely unrelated events together, find one common fact, and it makes it look like something unusual has occurred. We do it all the time, and Sloane is obviously a very skilled lawyer. But when you consider each case individually, they’re not unusual at all. Phillip Ferguson’s suicide sounds as though it was directly related to his being blind. The other two sound like deadbeat drug dealers. That’s a dangerous business. I know—I tried a lot of drug cases. It’s only a matter of time before bad luck catches up to you. Don’t get sucked into Sloane’s mind games.”

Pendergrass nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Keane put an envelope on his desk. “This is for you, for all of your hard work.”

The envelope was embossed. Inside was an invitation. Pendergrass was dumbfounded.

“Have you ever met a president?”

The invitation was to the reception for Senator Johnson Marshall at the home of Houghton Park Jr.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say yes. You’ve done an excellent job, Tom. You have all the skills I look for in my trial attorneys.”

Pendergrass read the fine print on the invitation. “Black tie. I’m afraid I don’t own a tuxedo.”

“Don’t be silly. Tuxedos are common and boring. You’ll wear your dress uniform. You earned that right. Besides, I simply won’t accept common for my escort.”

Pendergrass felt his face flush. “Your escort?”

“Would you mind? I don’t have a date for the evening.”

He thought of Keane riding in his Ford Taurus with over 100,000 miles on it.

“I’ll meet you there,” she said. “I’m in meetings out of the office the rest of the day. Unless you don’t want to…”

“No,” he said. “I mean yes, I do.”

Keane stood and opened the door to leave.

“I’ll submit a final memorandum to the Tort Claims administrative staff,” Pendergrass said, “to let them know the file can be closed.”

Keane turned back. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll have someone here take care of it. You have more pressing business. You need to get your medals polished.” She winked and walked out.

Pendergrass sat back down, feeling like what a convict on death row must feel like upon receiving a reprieve.

The telephone rang. When he answered he didn’t recognize the voice.

“Captain? This is Joann Cox with the Tort Litigation administrative staff.”

“Thank you for getting back to me.” He had called to request James Ford’s file to complete the memorandum necessary to close it. “I guess I won’t—”

“Don’t thank me yet. I think there might have been a mistake.”

“A mistake?” Pendergrass asked.

“About the name of the claimant you provided to my staff.”

“What about it?”

“We can’t seem to find a file matching that name.”

ARGUS INTERNATIONAL

AS THE GUARD
stepped from the booth, Sloane thrust his driver’s license out the window. “I’m here to see Robert Kessler.”

The man hesitated. This was a break in routine. He held up his clipboard. “I don’t see your name.”

“Get on the damn phone and tell Kessler I’m at the front gate. I don’t have time for bullshit from some petty-ass rent-a-cop.”

The guard’s smug expression vanished. He froze momentarily, then turned and started back to his booth, his movements stiff and robotic, as if he were holding himself together and could literally explode, showering the area with springs, wires, and circuits. Inside his booth he picked up the telephone and appeared to be explaining the situation to someone on the other end. After another moment he hung up the phone, took his time doing something in the booth, and emerged carrying a visitor’s pass.

He handed Sloane the white plastic card. Sloane threw it on the seat and looked up at the guard, challenging him. When the man’s thumb remained hitched in his belt, Sloane said. “Either you open it, or I drive through it.”

The guard’s thumb slid to the button.

Sloane parked in front of the third building, not surprised to see Anne, Kessler’s assistant, waiting to escort him. Ordinarily he never abused staff, but he was here to make an impression, and
not a good one. The only thing Charles Jenkins hadn’t liked about Sloane’s plan was that Sloane had made himself the bait. Jenkins had likened it to a “crocodile hunt,” an expression he said he learned in Vietnam from a soldier from Florida. Apparently, when you hunted crocodiles, you set out bait, waited for the crocodiles to take it, and killed them.

“Mr. Sloane—”

He waved her off. “I know I don’t have an appointment. I assume he’s in?”

“He is, but it’s company policy that you wear the white visitor’s card.”

Sloane had left the card on the passenger seat. “I don’t care about company policy. I don’t like people keeping tabs on me. You know where I’m going, and I suspect with all the security goons you employ that I wouldn’t get far if I wandered off without an escort, which appears to be your sole purpose in this operation.”

Anne stiffened.

“So are you going to take me to Captain Kessler or fail at that as well?”

“I’d be happy to take you,” she said, neither looking nor sounding happy.

At Kessler’s office Anne knocked twice, opened the door, and stepped aside. Kessler sat behind his desk with his eyebrows knitted and worry lines creasing his forehead.

Kessler turned his wheelchair and came around the edge of the desk.

Sloane turned to Anne. “Thanks for showing me the way. If I need to use the bathroom, I’ll have someone call you.”

Anne looked to Kessler, who nodded, turned and pulled the door closed behind her.

Sloane never gave Kessler the chance to speak. “I’m not here for pleasantries, Captain, so we can cut the tours and cute jokes.”
He jabbed a finger at Kessler’s face. “Why would you sign a report saying you got lost in a sandstorm when you did not?”

“I told you I don’t recall—”

“Bullshit. You know exactly what happened. Your lack of memory is a convenience.”

“A convenience? I’m in a wheelchair because of that convenience.”

“You’re in a wheelchair because you were selling and buying drugs on the black market and it caught up to you.”

“You don’t really believe—”

“I know all about it, Captain. Colonel Griffin filled me in.”

“Colonel Griffin—”

“You were stealing supplies off that convoy along with whatever narcotics you could get on base to sell or to trade.”

Kessler opened his mouth but Sloane again cut him off.

“Griffin told me everything—what you were doing and how you got all of your men to agree on what to say in those reports.”

“Griffin?”

“But it wasn’t Griffin who made up the story, it was you. I spoke with Cassidy just before one of your men shot him.”

“What?”

“He told me about your operation, Captain. He told me you gave the order to drive into that town. Only you picked the wrong town on the wrong day and—”

“He couldn’t have—”

“And I recorded it. That’s right, Captain. I recorded everything Cassidy had to say. And it will prove that Ford was not killed incident to his service.”

Kessler looked as though he were fighting a migraine.

“I was also there when the bullet took off the top of Cassidy’s head. I know he didn’t blow himself up. You had him killed, just like you had Phillip Ferguson and Dwayne Thomas killed.”

Kessler gripped the handles of his wheelchair, his knuckles white. “I brought them home. I brought them all home alive. Ford was—”

“You gave an unlawful order and led those men into that ambush. Then you convinced them to lie for you, to say it was the sandstorm. Griffin told me all about that too.”

“That’s not true.”

“Everything was fine until Beverly Ford began to question what happened to her husband, and I became involved. But I’m not going away. I know the truth.” He pulled open the door before Kessler could respond. “This isn’t the end. It’s the beginning. I’ll have the Justice Department and the FBI all over you and Argus.” He stormed back down the hall, shouting for others to hear. “The hammer is going to drop, Captain, on you and everyone else.”

Outside, Sloane walked quickly to his car, started it, and pulled from the parking spot. As he drove back down the access road to the gated entry, he let out a sigh of relief, though he also looked in his rearview mirror.

He had played his part. Now he just had to wait for the crocodiles to take the bait.

LAKE WASHINGTON
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

TOM PENDERGRASS HAD
only seen pictures of Houghton Park Jr.’s home. Built on the shores of Lake Washington, it looked like a chalet from the Italian Alps, which the newspapers and magazine articles indicated was just what Park had intended. Park had apparently visited Bolzano, Italy, and became so enamored with its ancient castles that he had dispatched architects and engineers to study the finer architectural attributes. He bought and
tore down multimillion-dollar structures on the lake, brought in cranes, and began laying stones. The process took more than two years to complete, with crews working under a cloak of secrecy and behind a large mesh screen erected along the shore to keep boaters from taking pictures. Rumors spread about lavish luxuries, including tunnels under the home where Park kept, among other things, a submarine he could launch into the lake.

The rumors only made the entrance to the property, which Pendergrass saw from the window of a luxury bus shuttling guests to Park’s home from a designated parking area, more disappointing. There were no imposing gates or walls, no guards—nothing to give away the fact that the property belonged to one of the richest men in the country, if not the world. The entrance was a simple one-lane drive with two four-foot-tall brick columns on each side, a nondescript light fixture atop each. Still, Pendergrass didn’t doubt that the property was equipped with sensory devices that when tripped unleashed a horde of security personnel.

The invitation had included directions to the designated parking area three miles from Park’s home. Pendergrass knew the arrangement was to minimize having to search so many cars, but he was just grateful to leave his Taurus behind, parked amidst cars that cost nearly as much as a down payment on a home. However, as the bus descended the road, Pendergrass noticed the owners of those luxury automobiles also subtly craning to look out the tinted windows at the manicured lawns, fountains, and pristine gardens. It reminded him of the moment in the movie
Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
when the lucky Gold Ticket winners and a family member first entered the inner sanctum of the chocolate factory.