Shadow of Power (28 page)

For a while he is silent, leaning forward, elbows on his desk, steepled fingers to his chin. “I take it it’s Scarborough on this side of the table?”

“Without question,” I tell him.

“You can’t see him,” says Tuchio.

“No, but you can hear his voice,” says Quinn. “This, ah…this item on the table,” he says. “It’s only a copy.”

“As far as we know, but that may not matter,” I tell him. “The words on the page, what it says, may have intrinsic value, not necessarily in dollars but to the person who took it.”

“You mean whoever killed Scarborough.”

“We know who killed Scarborough,” says Tuchio. “He’s in the lockup downstairs, on his way back to the jail as we speak. He—”

“Humor me, Mr. Tuchio.” The judge cuts him off.

“It may not be the letter itself,” I tell Quinn. “The original, I mean, but the message it delivers—or doesn’t deliver, if it’s destroyed or disappears.”

“What are you saying?” says Quinn.

“Scarborough ignited considerable racial unrest with the current book. According to Bonguard, he was planning on going nuclear in the next book with whatever was in that letter.”

“And you think a two-hundred-year-old letter could cause that kind of an uproar?” says Quinn.

“I don’t know. But we do know a few things. Scarborough had it in his possession when he met with Ginnis over the table in that restaurant. And you saw all the furtive expressions on the justice’s face and read the transcript.”

“I’d like to see that transcript,” says Tuchio.

“And the letter wasn’t found in the hotel room after Scarborough was killed, or in his Georgetown apartment. So where did it go?”

“The item on the leather portfolio,” says Quinn.

I give him a look like,
Bingo.
“You saw it come out of Scarborough’s pocket. Letter paper, folded in thirds. It matches the size of the shadow,” I tell him.

“Any piece of business correspondence folded for an envelope would fit the size and shape of that shadow,” says Tuchio. “Your Honor, we’ve been all over that video. The police have seen it and listened to it. I’ve seen it and listened to it.”

“I’m surprised you had the time,” says Harry. “Since the property room delivered it to you only two days ago, after we discovered it in the police evidence locker.”

Tuchio shakes this off. He doesn’t respond.

“Is that true?” says Quinn. “The police never saw this?” He waves the transcript at him. “You never saw this or the video before charging Arnsberg?”

“I still haven’t seen that, Your Honor.” Tuchio means the transcript. “I’d like to know where they got it, and for that matter whether it’s even reliable, because you can’t hear a damn thing on the video.”

“Where did you get it?” Quinn looks at me.

“We have a certified declaration,” says Harry.

As Harry is fishing this from his briefcase, I tell Quinn, “We got it from a man named Theodore Nons, Your Honor.”

“Teddy Nons.” Quinn looks at me with arched eyebrows. “I haven’t had Teddy Nons in my court since analog tapes went out.”

“Who is Teddy Nons?” says Tuchio. The judge hands him the transcript, and Tuchio starts scanning it, flipping pages.

“He’s a blind man, sightless since birth,” says the judge. “But he
has an extraordinarily acute sense of hearing. He’s a qualified audio expert.”

“They say he can hear some things that dogs can’t even pick up.” Harry hands the declaration to the judge, who glances at it and sets it aside.

“Sounds like an urban legend.” Tuchio is still riffling through the transcript.

“No, you can take it to the bank,” says Quinn. “Teddy used to make the claim in newspaper ads in the local legal sheet advertising his services. Some lawyer challenged him in my courtroom, a demonstration on that very point. And Teddy beat the dog.”

Quinn is looking at the calendar on the blotter of his desk. He bites his upper lip, sucks some air through his teeth, as he dances a pencil over the blotter. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t do this, but it looks like you caught a little luck, Mr. Madriani.”

“How is that, Your Honor?”

“Monday is a holiday. Memorial Day.”

“Judge. Your Honor!”

“Relax, Mr. Tuchio. I know it gets confusing, but it’s not just about winning and losing. The world won’t come to an end if we give the defendant two more days. Today is Wednesday. The court will go dark Thursday and Friday,” says Quinn. “With the weekend and Monday, that gives you five days. Make good use of them. Come Tuesday morning you will be in my courtroom with your opening statement, ready to go. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Your Honor.” Harry and I say it in unison as he is popping the disk out of the judge’s computer.

“I wonder, could I keep the disk and the transcript over the weekend?” says Quinn. “I’ll make a copy of the transcript for Mr. Tuchio.”

Harry looks at me.

“Sure.” Something tells me there will be a lot of black robes huddled around Quinn’s computer between now and the weekend.

He smiles. “Then I wouldn’t waste any more of your precious time here,” he says.

Harry and I are out the door.

T
hey say bad news comes in threes. I believe it. When Tuchio rested his case, we didn’t know it, but messages were waiting for us at the office. The process servers in New York and Washington both missed their last two marks. The only one they’ve managed to serve is Scarborough’s editor, James Aubrey.

According to her office, Trisha Scott left on a sudden vacation that afternoon, off to Europe for the next three weeks, and Bonguard just as quickly disappeared somewhere out on the road with a client. His secretary wasn’t sure when he would be back. She asked our man if he wanted to leave a message. First rule of process serving: When you’re trying to tag somebody with a subpoena, you don’t leave voice mail.

Ten o’clock Wednesday night, Harry and I are trying to catch some Z’s crushed into coach seats like steerage on a packed flight somewhere over the Southwest. I’m learning more than I ever wanted to know about the island of Curaçao. For one thing, if you want to get there, you have to slingshot across the country to Miami before you can even start to head south—almost fourteen hours in transit, and this is one of the quicker flights. I’m beginning to think that this island is a remote dark hole in the earth, off the beaten path, a place where a person might go if he wanted to hide out for a while, perhaps dodge the scent of scandal.

In the office, going out the door, Harry fielded a phone call from Harv Smidt, the crusty newspaper reporter. He has been dogging the trial from behind the scenes since it started. Harv only occasionally graces the courtroom with his presence. He has brought in two younger reporters from the L.A. newsroom of his paper. While they are in court, Smidt is humping up and down the back corridors talking to people in offices—judges, bailiffs, clerks, anybody with a little excess dirt to share. He wanted a quote from Harry about some historic mystery letter that was supposed to be on Scarborough when he was killed.

When Harry swallowed his tongue and went mum, Smidt told him to get on his computer and go online. Harv’s story was already running on the national AP wire, setting forth every little detail we had mentioned in chambers, starting with rumors about Ginnis and including the backgrounders on the J letter from Trisha Scott and Bonguard.

This would explain why they both disappeared. You would, too, if your phone started lighting up with calls from every reporter in the Western Hemisphere. This is what happens when you start sharing videos and transcripts with the curious in the courthouse.

If we’re lucky, we might be twenty-four hours ahead of the press and media mob when they parachute onto the island. People in the marble temple, the Supreme Court and its staff, will no doubt close around Ginnis like the Praetorian Guard to seal off his whereabouts. Unfortunately, we can’t count on the same kind of discretion from “Art and Maggie’s” neighbor out in Chevy Chase. As soon as the media dig her out of her garden, they’ll be flogging jets southward. Harry suggested that we stop off on the way and bag the lady so she could join us on a quick trip to the islands. But the law being what it is, people tend to frown on kidnapping.

Just before eleven the next morning—and we’re only half awake—Harry is squinting in the bright sunshine as I drive and he navigates the rental car from the airport toward Willemstad. It’s the only sizable town on the island and the seat of government for the five islands that make up the Dutch Antilles.

Curaçao was once a Dutch colony and today is a dependency of the Netherlands. The island has its own parliament, prime minister, and
council of ministers, along with a governor-general appointed by the queen of the Netherlands.

Harry and I are trying to find our way to the Kura Hulanda, the hotel in town where Herman is staying. Strangely enough, Harry tried his cell phone, Verizon, and it worked. Roaming charges from the States are probably a million dollars a minute, but he hooked up with Herman, who is now headed into town from another direction.

Herman has been combing the island for the better part of two days, trying to hunt down the location of Ginnis and his wife. It may not be a huge island, but apparently it’s big enough that Herman is still searching, with no luck.

The island is arid, desertlike, a lot of rock and dry scrub, with patches of large cactus. Occasional glimpses of the ocean in the distance from the highway reveal azure waters, translucent to the white sand bottom. The sea is tinged green in places by shallow coral reefs. From what I can see, it is the image that might pop into your mind when you hear the words “tropical beach.” Unfortunately, Harry and I aren’t here to swim, though we may drown in Quinn’s courtroom if we don’t find Ginnis.

“Living history,” says Harry.

“What?”

Harry is looking at some literature he grabbed at the airport while I was getting the rental car.

“Says here ‘Living History, Museum Kura Hulanda.’ Apparently it’s by the hotel,” says Harry.

“Does it tell us how to get there?”

“No. But it does say, ‘See how the slave trade was done.’” Harry is reading again.

I glance over. Harry is holding a small printed flyer on card stock, what appears to be a pencil or ink drawing on one side. He flips it over. “‘We will take you back in time to the selling of newly arrived slaves from the west coast of Africa, around the 1700s.’” Harry looks up at me. “Interesting.”

The Hotel Kura Hulanda is situated on the main waterway, the channel that leads from the Caribbean to a generous harbor that spreads out in
the center of the island. The harbor includes an oil refinery that was built in the early part of the last century. Today it provides revenue and good jobs for islanders. This, along with tourism and the export of Curaçao liqueur made from the peels of an orange native to the southern Antilles, keeps the island going.

The town of Willemstad itself is split by the channel, maybe three hundred yards wide, enough to admit oceangoing vessels, tankers, and midsize cruise liners.

On the north side, where our hotel is situated, are a number of restaurants, a few offices, taverns, and a small plaza with some shops.

Across the inlet on the other side are buildings three to four stories high, many of them with quaint Dutch façades, painted in bright colors, yellow and aqua, pink and maroon. These stretch for several blocks until they reach an old stone fortress that guards the mouth of the inlet at the sea.

The only way across the channel that divides the town is either to drive on the main highway over a high arch that spans the inlet at the point where it widens toward the refinery or to walk across a broad pontoon bridge. The floating footbridge, situated a few blocks to the west of our hotel, swings open for ships to pass and then closes again like a gate to connect with the other side.

The bridge is hinged on our side. At the far end, on the bridge at the other side, is a small hut. Every once in a while, you can see the belching exhaust from the roof of the hut and hear the diesel engine as the operator engages the prop that drives the gatelike bridge to open and close.

The hotel, the Hulanda, is actually a series of low-lying buildings situated around a large, meandering courtyard set into the hillside on the north edge of the inlet. It is separated from the waterway by a street with paved sidewalks on each side. A few shops and a restaurant—the Gouverneur de Rouville, a three-story red and white Dutch Colonial building with louver-shuttered windows and a veranda overlooking the water—complete the complex.

Harry and I dump our luggage in our rooms and join Herman at a table on the restaurant’s veranda to compare notes and find out what progress he has made. Given the lack of sleep, Harry has iced tea. I have soda water, and Herman hunches his broad shoulders over a beer.

“So far I’ve tried every real-estate office I can find that handles seasonal rentals,” says Herman. “None of ’em, at least the ones who would talk to me, recognize the name Ginnis.”

Herman has been telling the rental agents that there is an emergency back home and that friends and relatives have been unable to contact the vacationers with the news. So he is trying to locate them.

“I figure it’s a waste of time to check the hotels and resorts, since the neighbor in Chevy Chase told us Ginnis’s wife rented them a house,” says Herman.

“Is there any way to check passport control or immigration?” asks Harry. “They gave us a form on the plane coming in. One of the questions was where we were staying.”

“I thought about it,” says Herman. “The fort over there—” He points toward the old stone fortress at the ocean end of the inlet on the other side. “Inside is government square. The problem is, we go in there askin’ questions about passports and who’s landed on the island in the last year and they’re gonna wanna know why.”

“We could just cut to the chase and ask them where Ginnis is,” says Harry. “They have to know. Hell, with all the security, U.S. Marshals service, he probably came in on a government jet. You would think they’d know.”

“If they do, they’re not going to tell us,” I say. “And they’d probably call the marshals and warn them that somebody is nosing around. Once Ginnis finds out, he’ll be off the island in a heartbeat.”

“But there may be a way,” says Herman. “I gotta find the right person to do it.”

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I’d rather not do jail time down here,” says Harry.

“No,” says Herman. If he can do it, Herman will try to find a local PI, someone with connections, maybe former police. “They’d be more willing to let their guard down and tell somebody like that where he’d be—Ginnis, I mean.” So far Herman hasn’t been able to find anyone who fits the bill. “How much time have we got?”

It is now midday Thursday. “Three days. Come Monday morning Harry and I have to be on a plane headed back,” I tell him. “By Tuesday morning, if we haven’t found Ginnis and served him with a subpoena,
my opening statement to the jury is going to be a very brief and sad story.”

“That’s not much time,” says Herman.

“Tuchio did a number on us,” says Harry.

“And that’s
if
we can serve him,” I tell Herman. “What I’m hoping is that maybe Ginnis will sit down and talk to us. Tell us about the letter and what was going on with Scarborough. So if you tag him, try to be as friendly as possible. See if you can stay with him until we can get there.”

“With thoughts like that, you must still believe in the Easter bunny,” says Harry. “What if Ginnis killed him? You saw the look on his face when Scarborough laid the letter on the table in the video. For a second I thought he was gonna reach out and cut his throat with the butter knife. In which case,” says Harry, “I don’t think Ginnis is going to wanna talk to us or anybody else. And if he appears in court, which I doubt, he’ll spin some yarn and say he doesn’t know anything about the letter.”

“In which case we can treat him as a hostile witness and impeach him with the video,” I tell him. “Because then we have a legal basis to bring it in, along with a witness who can tell us when and where it was taken, since his face is all over it.”

“True,” says Harry. “But what if he doesn’t appear, subpoena or no subpoena? What do you tell the jury in your opening then?”

“I’ve thought about that. If we can serve him, I’m prepared to wing it on opening. I’ll tell the jury what we know, based on the conversations with Scott and Bonguard and what’s in the video. We’ll have to do the best we can to fill in the blanks.”

“Like who gave the letter to Scarborough,” says Harry, “and what’s in it.”

“I’m prepared to tell the jury that Ginnis gave Scarborough the copy and that Ginnis has the original. I think that’s pretty clear from the video and the transcript. The contents of the letter are another matter.”

“And what if Ginnis doesn’t show and you have no witness?” says Harry.

“Then at least we have an argument for more time,” I tell him. “Our entire defense in a death-penalty case hinges on one witness, a justice of
the United States Supreme Court who has been duly served with process and who refuses or has failed to appear.”

Harry mulls this in silence for a moment.

“You would have to think that every judge up the chain,” I tell him, “from Quinn to the top, would have to ponder that and pause at least for a second or two, before they vote to slip the needle into Carl’s arm.”

Harry thinks about this for only a second or so. Then he slaps the surface of the table. “Let’s go find the bastard and serve him,” he says.

The only real downside to any of this is if we can’t find Ginnis.

Herman gives us his notes including the real-estate and rental offices he hasn’t had time to check yet, along with a few private parties who have listed homes on the island for rent on the Internet. A few of these we can check by phone; the rest we’re going to have to visit. We all have cell phones, and they work. We all agree that the minute any one of us finds Ginnis, before we even move on him, the call goes out. The three of us will try to gather and get in close before one of us tries to pounce and we lose him.

Harry and I split up. He takes Herman’s rental car along with a map and heads north.

Herman gets on the phone. His task is local. If he needs wheels, he’ll use a cab. His task is to find an investigator or somebody else who can get to passport control or riffle the forms for inbound visitors.

I take the rest of the rental list, get into the car from the airport with the map from the rental company, and head south. The problem is that some of the real-estate and rental agencies that Herman called didn’t answer their phones. They were probably closed or out showing houses or property. We may have to rattle a few doors or ask around to find the agents.

I drive the island, getting lost three times on winding back roads and find four rental agents, two of them with distinct British accents, Dutch who learned their English in the U.K. I use the same story that Herman used: an emergency in the States, and I’m trying to notify the vacationers. They are all friendly and helpful, but none of them have ever heard the name Ginnis, except as an ale in a pub, and then it was spelled differently.