Prime Witness (19 page)

If you can ship four more pair, before spring, we believe we can place them before the snows fall. Will await your reply.

Karen

“What do you make of it?” She’s looking at me.

“I’m not sure,” I say. “It would help if we had some way of determining what might have come before this letter. Other pieces in the chain of correspondence.”

“It’s only a guess,” she says. “But I think maybe the writer numbered everything under each topic sequentially, each file with a separate number.”

“Is there any way to find out what else was in the Peregrine directory? To retrieve the lost files?”

She makes a face like this is a long shot.

“Could you do it? Here in the office?” I say. “I can’t allow the computer to leave the office.”

She looks at me like I don’t even trust my wife.

“When am I supposed to come into the office to do this?” she says.

“You can do it at night,” I say. “I’ll watch Sarah.” I can tell I am pressing the outer limits of Nikki’s tolerance. She looks at me almost dazed that I would have the gall to ask this again. The audacity of the lawyer.

She gives me a major shrug. “One more time,” she says, “and then that’s it. And you make an end of this case. Next quarter I go back to school, come hell or high water. Do you hear me?” she says.

I nod my agreement.

“I mean it,” she says. “I don’t care what your problem is. You get back to a single law office or we are history,” she says.

Five days later I am in Feretti’s old office, cloistered with Lenore Goya, preparing for the eventual trial of Andre Iganovich. In Vancouver, they are now three days into an extradition hearing that was originally expected to take only two. We are getting hourly reports, color, and play-by-play from Denny Henderson whom Claude has sent north for this purpose.

Lenore and I are busy preparing for the preliminary hearing where we will test the evidence to date in front of an impartial magistrate, our quest for a holding order on the Russian to bind him over for trial on four counts of first degree murder in the superior court.

In all probability that is at least four or five months off.

The phone rings on my desk, the hot line, direct from the outside.

“Hello.”

It’s Henderson, breathless and excited.

“You’re not gonna believe this.” He’s sucking air like he’s run the four-minute mile. “He’s on the street,” he says.

“Who’s on the street? What are you talking about?”

“Iganovich. The court released him five minutes ago.”

“What?”

“A problem with the documents,” he says.

The blood in my veins runs cold. All documents sent to Canada originated in this office.

“Slow down,” I say. “Tell me what happened.”

“Defense made a motion at the end of the hearing, what they called a ‘no evidence motion’ based on a defect in the documents. It came out of the blue,” he says. “Could have knocked Jacoby over with a feather. Iganovich’s lawyers discovered that the certified copy of the charging statute was the wrong one.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The section of the penal code, the murder statute, that we used to charge the Russian, it was an old statute that’s been repealed and reenacted in another form. We sent the wrong one under certification up to Jacoby.”

Oh shit. I think this to myself, silently, in that place reserved for all private panic. What Henderson is telling me is that someone has botched the uncomplicated job of copying the statute, and certifying it for use in the Canadian hearing.

“Hold on,” I say. I cup my hand over the mouthpiece of the phone.

“Who copied the statutes for the extradition package?” I’m talking to Lenore.

She shakes her head, like she has no idea. “It was done before you brought me on board, into the case,” she says. “What’s goin’ on?”

“The Russian’s been released.”

Round eyes from Goya.

“Find out who assembled the documents. Get ’em in here,” I say.

She’s out the door, to the steno pool.

I’m back on the line. “Where is he now?” I’m talking about Iganovich.

“He left the court with his lawyers. I followed ’em downstairs. They didn’t waste any time. Got in a taxi and left. Jacoby had two RCMP officers follow them. To try and keep tabs,” he says.

“I can’t believe this,” I tell him. “They couldn’t hold him?”

“Jacoby says no. Says everything turned on the documents. Kept telling me the devil was in the detail, whatever the hell that means.” His voice fades a bit, like he’s turned away from the mouthpiece. “Here, you wanna talk to him?”

The next voice I hear on the phone is Herb Jacoby. “Listen, my friend,” he says, “I’m sorry, but there was nothing I could do. With the sixty-day statute running, the court had no choice but to release him. You should be happy you’re not up here,” he tells me. “His Lordship was rather pissed off.” Jacoby’s talking about the Canadian judge. “Three days of his time down the johnny flusher, and forced to release the man on a technicality,” he says. “Not a good show, not good at all.”

I apologize for the screwup. Tell him I’m getting to the bottom of it.

As I’m talking to Jacoby, my mind is wandering back in time, to Chambers’s smug attitude in the washroom that day. Suddenly it hits me, he had been lying in the weeds aware of this deficiency in our filing for weeks, biding his time, waiting to spring this trap.

Jacoby wants to know how long before I can get another warrant up, to rearrest Iganovich. “I trust you can understand, given the man’s propensities we would rather not have him walking free up here—too long,” he says.

“I’ll have one in an hour,” I tell him. “I’ll fax it up there. It may take a little longer for the diplomatic note from the State Department.” This is a requirement to effect a provisional arrest in a foreign country pending an extradition hearing.

Lenore’s back in the office, followed by Irene Perez, one of the stenos.

I can tell by the look on her face that she is scared, primal senses tell her that she is on the carpet, but she doesn’t know why.

I tell them to hold on a minute.

I hit the intercom button on my phone. I get Jane Rhodes.

“Get me the number for the State Department in Washington, the lawyers who did Iganovich. I’ll wait.”

Irene Perez is beginning to shake all over my carpet. I think she may soil it if I don’t relieve the tension. “Sit down,” I tell her. “Relax. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

Rhodes is back to me. “Do you want me to dial them?”

Thank God for a little efficiency. “Yes. Ring me the moment you have them. Tell ’em it’s an emergency. If they’re in a meeting, tell them we have to break in.”

Irene Perez is twenty-five years old, a single mother, with a little baby I have seen in the office on family occasions. She is pleasant and anxious to please. At this moment she is terrified, sitting in a chair across from my desk.

“I don’t hold you responsible,” I say. “It’s my fault for not checking the documents,” I tell her. “But I have to know how this happened.” I explain the mess up in Vancouver, the document in question.

“You shouldn’t blame yourself,” she says.

I look at her, like thank you for this absolution, now tell me what happened?

“It wasn’t among the papers you reviewed,” she says.

“Why not?”

“Because the code books were being updated. The annual pocket parts,” she says. She’s talking about the little inserts that come out yearly, with the new laws, and are inserted into pockets in the back of each volume.

“We were replacing them. All the books were apart in the library.” She talks like she was on top of this project.

“What happened?” I ask.

“A lawyer from Washington called, I think it was the State Department. He said he needed the code section to complete the extradition package before he could send it on to Canada. He said he needed it by the next day. We Fed-Ex’ed it to him.”

I look at her cross-eyed. “Those kinds of calls are supposed to be referred to a lawyer, Irene.”

“But it was,” she says, “referred to a lawyer. You weren’t in.” She looks at me with big, olive-eyed innocence. “The only one here was Roland, Mr. Overroy. He took care of it.”

I sit there, staring at her in stone-deaf silence, uttering a mantra in my mind’s ear, cursing the cruel fates that lifted this thing from the able hands of Irene Perez.

Chapter Sixteen

“
T
he World Center for Birds of Prey.” It is an unlikely name for an organization, but Nikki passes me a slip of paper with this moniker on it, a phone number, and a man’s name. This is the information she’s gleaned from the “Peregrine Directory,” the files missing from Karen Scofield’s computer.

“I think she was writing to this group,” she says.

We are meeting here in the cafeteria at the Capital County courthouse during a midday break. I am finishing up one of my old cases, a request from Harry, the first time I have been back across the river on business in over a month, and strangely, it feels good.

“The place,” says Nikki, “this center is located in Boise, Idaho. The phone number is from information. It’s a current listing,” she says. “I called it last night and got a message tape.”

“Enough,” I say. “You were only supposed to search the computer.”

“No extra charge,” she says. She gives me a mischievous grin. “Now do your part and finish the case.”

There’s no address written on the slip of paper, just a post office box.

“How much of the correspondence were you able to retrieve?”

“Just bits and pieces,” she says. “The backup files were incomplete.”

“It would have been nice to know what was in those other letters,” I say.

“You’re lucky you got this,” she tells me. She’s spooning yogurt in little delicate tastes, turning the spoon over onto her tongue, this from a small plastic container that reads “Yoplait.” We’re sitting in the cafeteria as the noontime crowd mills around us, people looking for tables, a place to sit and eat.

“How was
Fern Gully
?” she says. She’s laughing at me. Nikki took care to ensure that I honored my word to entertain Sarah while she worked on the computer last night. She brought along a dozen kids’ books, the ones with letters the size of skywriting and a videotape that I played on the office equipment. I was camped in my office, Sarah curled up on my lap, reading and watching, until she fell asleep two hours later.

Nikki worked out the final missing pieces from the lost data this morning.

“I got his name, and the name of this center from an envelope she addressed using the computer, probably a label,” says Nikki. “It said ‘William.’ I figure it had to be this guy ‘Bill’ in the letter. It’s all part of the same directory.”

I look at her. “A bit of a reach, isn’t it?”

“Better than nothing.”

I concede the point. “I’ll put Dusalt on it this afternoon.”

Nikki’s looking at the newspaper I have spread in front of me on the table, reading upside down.

“I hope you weren’t planning on running for public office,” she says. A little dig. She’s referring to the headline, halfway down the page.

D.A. BLUNDERS
SUSPECT FREED

It’s a big, bold two columns. It reads like a lead albatross around my neck.

“Farthest thing from my mind,” I say. I am ruing the day I crossed the river to Davenport, took on this thing from Feretti. Nikki and Harry were right. Only pride prevents me from giving them the satisfaction of admitting this.

“If this keeps up, I’m going back to my maiden name,” she tells me. Nikki hasn’t seen the “Davenport Urinal” which boiled me in oil this morning. The larger papers down south and the wires are treating the story straight-up, that Iganovich is under surveillance and is likely to be rearrested as soon as the documents can be prepared, a minor clerical glitch. It is the best spin we can put on the current state of affairs.

It’s a different story here. I am being tarred and feathered in the local papers. The blame for release of Andre Iganovich has fallen squarely on the prosecutor’s office, and more particularly on me. Emil Johnson is quoted in this morning’s paper, stating in definitive terms that the release of Iganovich “is a failure of our legal process,” something that Emil sees as distinct and apart from the agencies of law enforcement, especially his own. Emil excels in the talents of politics. Voters will not see him standing around long near the scene of this car wreck.

Ingel has been all over my ass, an hour screaming at me on the phone. He tells me that this folly will track me back to Capital City, a black mark on my career, and that Acosta is waiting for me there. As for Ingel, he is making noises about calling in the state attorney general’s office for a thorough-going investigation of the errors that led up to Iganovich’s release, pointed questions for me to answer. “It looks to me like gross negligence,” his final farewell before he rings off.

I look over by the cash register, the stainless steel conveyor of trays and customers. I see Lenore Goya. She would not be here, across the river, unless it was something important. She’s scanning like a radar beacon, looking for me. I give her a high-sign with one arm. She sees us, works her way to the table.

“Have a seat,” I say.

She nods at Nikki, a warm smile, the strap of her purse slung on one shoulder; she throws her head to the side, flinging dark tresses from the side of her face.

“No time,” she says. “We’ve got problems.”

“It can’t get much worse,” I say.

“Don’t bet the farm on it,” she says. “Jacoby just called. The Canadian cops have lost Iganovich. He slipped away from them. Last night.”

I’m at full-tilt running for my car in the courthouse garage, heading for Davenport and whatever news I can get of the Russian’s disappearance up in Canada. The court has given me a continuance on my afternoon session here.

I see my car, a figure standing by it in the dim overhead fluorescence of this concrete bunker. I draw up. In the shadows, the face turns. It is Armando Acosta.