A Class Action (21 page)

Jack does a thorough job. He meets with each of the owners and lays the file out for them, making sure to let them know that in no way are they in any danger of getting in trouble, because it’s the defendant he’s after. They all swallow his line, because the cooperation is more than one hundred percent. One of the wives goes so far as to prepare a snack for him while he’s there.

When he returns to the boat this evening for his report, he tells me the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard in a bribery investigation – the witnesses have proof of their payment, because they paid by check.

This means one of two things. Either Joe Morgan is the dumbest person on earth, or he didn’t consider the payments as bribes. Jack didn’t get copies of the cancelled checks but he did get a list of the dates they were made and the amounts, which were all the same. They were for twenty-five dollars each time. At least he’s consistent. The last time Myra arrested him they got copies of his bank statements and found those deposits from Mrs. Berland that we now know were for preparing some fireworks displays. I received copies of his statements before his preliminary hearing, and when comparing them to the dates that the witnesses said they wrote their checks, I don’t see the deposits. Like so many other people in this country, Joe’s sole source of steady income was his paycheck, which was deposited directly to his bank account from the dealership. That deposit is the same every week, and shows up on his statement. If Joe deposited any other amounts, either when they were received or later on, they’d stick out on his bank records like a sore thumb. They aren’t there. They don’t appear anywhere. This may mean that he cashed the checks at the banks they were drawn on, but I doubt it. Those banks are only open during the time that Joe was busy in his service bay, and it’s unlikely that he would drive all the way across town to cash a twenty-five dollar check in rush hour traffic, each time one came in.

I instruct the office to subpoena the witnesses’ bank records and then I drive down to County Jail to visit with my client.

Joe is brought into the attorney visiting area and neither one of us looks very happy.

“
Hello, Joe. How’re you holding up?”

“
About as well as can be expected. What brings you down here? Any news?”

“
Yes Joe, as a matter of fact there is some news. My investigator interviewed the witnesses who claimed they bribed you to authorize warranty repairs to their vehicles, and they claim they paid you by check. We also made a computer run of all those alleged unauthorized warranty repairs and the GM factory rep says that they all could have legitimately been classified as authorized under the warranties. So what the hell’s going on?”

“
Nothing’s going on. The repairs were authorized and would have been done whether they paid any money or not. It’s not my fault if they felt compelled to make some small gifts every once in a while.”

“
That’s bullshit, Joe. It’s too coincidental that the only time they ever made what you call a gift is when they were having some service done to their car.”

“
Of course. What do you think, that they hang out with me in the service bay when they haven’t got anything better to do? The only time I ever saw those people was when they came in for service.”

“
I’m not happy finding out that you’re a petty thief, Joe.”

“
Don’t give me that holier than thou crap. Do you always put as many stamps on a package that are required, or do you try to cheat an ounce or two? And how about your income tax? Is every cent you write off really a business expense, because if you screw around with that you’re stealing from the United States Government, and that means from me, because my taxes have to make up for the slack that you honest do-gooders create with your creative accounting. Nobody’s squeaky-clean Mister Sharp, so please don’t come in here making any judgments. And as far as those witnesses of yours are concerned, you’d better do some more investigating, because you won’t be able to prove I ever accepted a penny from them. Ever.”

Suffice it to say that the interview doesn’t end on a happy note. However, he did get my attention with his remark about never receiving a penny from the witnesses. I’d better wait until their bank statements come in before I visit him again.

Jack gets lucky, because Vinnie does the airport driving for him. Olive’s nails aren’t dry enough to drive and she certainly doesn’t want to ruin a manicure. Jack promises to call me as soon as he checks into his room at the Lincoln Arms in Skokie, Illinois. I know he’ll be in room 2F, so it’s probably at least on the second floor.

There’s a knock on the hull. It’s a messenger from the copy service that was sent to the witnesses’ banks for their records. I tip him two dollars and wonder if it’s a bribe or a gift, and if it makes any difference that he would have handed me the folder even if I didn’t give him anything. While it’s still fresh in my mind I dash off another email to a friend of mine who runs an Ethics Institute here in the Marina. It’ll be interesting to see what his comments are on both Joe Morgan’s actions and mine.

The package from the copy service contains bank statements and a list of the payees of each check. I give the stuff to our office manager, with instructions to find every twenty-five dollar check written to Joe Morgan. I’d also like to know if Joe reported these ‘gifts’ as income, because I know how he looks down upon tax cheats.

It takes less than an hour for my crack office staff to come up with some answers, which are sent to me in the form of a memo delivered by dogmail. Each one of the owners did write checks for twenty-five dollars on the several dates that coincided with their auto repairs, but not one check was made payable to Joe Morgan. They were all written to the ‘St. Mark’s Catholic Church.’

Something doesn’t compute here. An automobile warranty service mechanic does factory-authorized repairs to vehicles in a dealership, and the owners write checks to a Catholic Church on behalf of a Muslim. I must be missing something. This calls for a trip over to St. Mark’s.

When entering the Church I ask the first person I see if there’s someone in charge of receiving donations, and am immediately directed to the basement, where the only person there is a janitor. Actually, this is the main man at Saint Mark’s, Father McCormick. He’s a very cordial guy who I would never have thought was a priest because he’s wearing a pair of Levi’s and a sweatshirt that says ‘my Father went to the Vatican and all I got was this crummy shirt.’ This must be his other work uniform. It looks like he’s trying to fix some plumbing fixture.

After introducing myself to him, we sit down to chat and I explain my curiosity about some checks that were given to him. I open my file and show him the dates, amounts and persons writing the checks. Father McCormick doesn’t recognize any of the names as being members of his congregation, but does recall how the donations were brought in and what they were for.

A few summers ago, the Church started a program to teach swimming to many of the less fortunate kids in the neighborhood that didn’t have access to a private swimming pool. They rented a nearby high school’s pool and hired their own lifeguards. When they put out the word for volunteers to help teach the various levels of swimming courses, Joe Morgan came in. Because of his military background as a U.S. Navy Seal, the Church and all the kids loved to have him there. From what the Priest explained, Joe was a great swimming teacher and role model for the kids and he was terribly upset that Joe was having these present difficulties.

I ask him if he’s aware that Joe isn’t a Catholic, and he says that he knows Joe’s a Muslim, but he still came regularly to teach the kids, and every once in a while he’d bring in a much needed donation.

All this information from the witnesses and the Priest give me a total new outlook on my client. There’s certainly a lot more to him than meets the eye, and if everything I learned about these alleged bribes, along with what Vaughn told me about blasters’ license complaints are true, Myra has absolutely no case against Joe other than from an anonymous phone tip and some triple hearsay from Ralph Eaton. And now that I think of it, I call Myra to ask her only one question. “Did that anonymous tip leading them to arrest Joe Morgan the first time get taped?”

Her answer is “yes,” and my next call is to the high-priced rush messenger service to go downtown, pick up my copy of that call, and bring it to the boat. That tape should have been given to me prior to the prelim, but I haven’t got the time to berate Myra for that now.

My autopsy guy Victor knows people who are experts at every type of criminal forensic job, and this time I have him refer me to an audio analyst. I want to hear who that anonymous tipster is and find out his identity.

You get what you pay for, or in this case, what Indovine’s law firm pays for. Shortly after returning to the boat there’s a knock at the hull. My tape recording has arrived.

It’s on a cassette, so I pop it into my old boom box and give a listen. I don’t recognize the voice. Damn! I was sure it would be Eaton’s voice on that tape. Maybe he disguised his voice. The audio expert should be able to tell if it’s a natural speaking voice or not, but what can we compare it to?

The heavy breathing I now hear behind me is either Laverne in an extremely good mood, or some dogmail. Attached to the dog’s collar is a small micro-cassette recorder. Boy, she’s good. This must be what she recorded when Eaton was in the car. There’s no sense in my trying to compare the voices because I haven’t got the ears or the equipment, so I call Victor’s audio expert to let him know that we’ve got some tapes to work with.

Things are really popping along now. The phone rings and I see that it’s an 847 area code, so it must be Jack B. calling from Skokie. So far, he’s managed to check with the alumni association from Eaton’s high school. His education was on the dealership’s job application, so we had some place to start out. Unfortunately, the old broad he talked to at the school didn’t remember either of the two names Jack gave her, but she said that there was a waitress over at a nearby deli that might know something about the guys.

Jack went over to the Barnum and Bagel, a popular eatery in Skokie, and located who might be a new source for information – a waitress named Phyllis Morse, who had an older brother that went to school with Eaton and Kupchic, the guy who left prints on Joe’s brake tools. This is starting to get interesting. Phyllis told Jack that she seems to remember that Eaton was one of three boys who always hung around together, and their usual meeting place was Sonny’s poolroom on Lawrence Avenue.

The place isn’t there anymore, but Jack located the owner’s son. When they got together, he told Jack that his father had the walls of the poolroom lined with pictures of the guys who hung out there, and he’s sure that stored in a box somewhere, he’s got a framed photo of Eaton, Kupchic, and the third member of their tight little group.

I immediately authorize Jack to spend another hundred dollars of Indovine’s money to hire Sonny Berkow’s son for a search of the storage container where all the photos were kept. Jack finally found the picture and says he’ll Fedex it to me.

“
Jack, why use Fedex, aren’t you coming back here now that you found the picture?”

“
Not really Mister Sharp. I rented my dream car, a Chevy Monte Carlo, and Phyllis and I want to spend some time driving around Chicago.”

“
That’s wonderful Jack, but are you planning to stay at that luxurious place we’re renting for you while you and Phyllis tour Cook County?”

“
Not at all. Phyllis invited me to stay at her place. You’ll really like her – she’s blonde, and looks like a movie star. I’m sending a picture of her along with the Fedex package, and I’ll probably see you in a couple of days.”

I congratulate Jack on finding a temporary soul mate and wish him well, with the admonishment that he shouldn’t make any rash decisions that might affect his life on a long-term basis.

My next call is back to Victor for another referral. This time I need a photo and computer ace that can perform the aging of faces. If the picture that Jack sends is thirty years old, we’ll want to know what the players might look like today. Victor comes through again, and now I’ve got an Adobe Photoshop expert standing by.

Fedex just delivered Jack’s package this morning and I hurriedly open it up. Sure enough, there’s the sepia-toned photo of three young men, all in their early teens. There are no names attached, but I can see that one of them looks like a younger Eaton. It’ll be up to the photo guy to age the others so that Victor can tell if one of them is either Kupchic or Rosenbaum, the two low level ‘wiseguys’ that turned up in our fingerprint search: one on the trunk, and the other inside the trunk. I’m so busy concentrating on the framed picture that I almost don’t notice the other picture that Jack sent of his new love… Miss Phyllis Morse.

I have to agree with Jack’s assessment of her, because she really does look like a famous blond movie star. Unfortunately, it’s Miss Piggy.

*****

Chapter 15

I’ve got a really busy day scheduled today. I’m dropping off the two audiocassettes at our sound guy’s office, to have them compared for similarities. Then it’s over to Victor’s place to meet with the Photoshop guy, who’ll scan in the framed photo and do his aging magic. Victor’s got all the computers necessary because he does a lot of grim stuff there.

Victor’s really good. He doesn’t even need the photo guy to age the people in the picture. Right off the bat, he recognizes Eaton and Kupchic. I guess when you’re in the corpse business you develop some recognition skills.