Unleashed (22 page)

I tell him we can meet at the pavilion near the sports fields in Eastside Park in Paterson. It’s only about a half hour from the city and easy for him to find.

The good news is that I’m obviously very familiar with it; in fact, I’ve arranged similar clandestine meetings there with nervous informants in the past. The bad news is that none of those meetings went particularly well.

But he seems fine with it, and we set the time at ten o’clock tomorrow night. The best part is that he doesn’t insist that I come alone. I doubt there’s any danger, but I’ve been wrong before, and I’ll bring Marcus just in case.

Actually, if I were Richard Glennon, I’d probably be buying as much term life insurance as I could find. Whether it’s the three guys in Augusta or Kyle Austin in Columbus, association with Andy Carpenter seems to put people down rather low on the actuarial table.

When I get home, Laurie calls Marcus and makes sure he can be there. Then she and I take Tara and the canine dynamo to that same Eastside Park for a walk. We don’t go down to the lower level, where the meeting will be held, but we don’t need to. I’m very familiar with it.

“He wants immunity,” I tell Laurie. “I’m pretty sure of it.”

“He won’t get it if he has blood on his hands.”

“I don’t think there’s any actual blood involved in wire transferring. My best guess is they compromised him and then used him. But we’ll know tomorrow.”

“If you represent him in any way, you’ll be playing a lot of roles in this case,” she says.

It’s something that worries me; I’d be taking conflicts to something of an extreme. “If it comes to that, I can sever Hike from our team, and he can represent Glennon.”

When we get back, Marcus is waiting for us in the living room. The house was locked, and there is no sign of a break-in, so I have no idea how Marcus got in. And I’m not about to ask.

Laurie explains the setup to him. His eyes are open, so I don’t think he’s asleep, but he has absolutely no reaction. Finally, at the end, she asks, “Any questions?”

“Nunh,” he says, proving that he’s really energized by all this after all.

I use this time to read the background information on Glennon that Sam and his team put together. It might help in my dealing with him.

The file is fairly complete, but when I’m finished I go on the computer myself, to see if I can find anything additional about him. However, the only Richard Glennons I can find are a Roman Catholic cardinal and a navy rear admiral, both of whom died in the 1940s. I don’t think I’ll be seeing either of them in Eastside Park tomorrow night.

I won’t be seeing Marcus there either. It’s his style to stay completely out of sight while simultaneously managing to have the entire place surrounded. I’ve learned to have total confidence in him, even in situations where I think there is substantial danger.

I don’t think this will be one of those times, but there’s always a chance.

Everything in this case seems to be happening twice. The bailiff comes over to talk with me as soon as I arrive in court and tells me that the judge wants to see me. The only difference is that Bader is seated at the prosecution table, and the bailiff goes over to him and gives him what must be the same message. We both get up and head for the judge’s chambers.

“Mr. Bader,” the judge begins, “I expect you know this already, because of your position.”

Bader nods, apparently knowing exactly where the judge is going but not interrupting him on the way there.

“But I am officially telling both of you that Denise Price was murdered outside the prison dining hall yesterday. She was stabbed through the heart.”

I’m certainly not happy to hear this, but I’m not going to take too long to get over my devastation. “Have they caught the person who did it?”

“Mr. Bader?” the judge asks. “Do you have updated information on that?”

“No one has been apprehended, Your Honor. My sense is that no one should anticipate an arrest any time soon, if ever. It would require someone coming forward and informing.”

“I don’t see this as having any effect on this hearing,” I say, and both of them agree. The truth is that it might have a significantly positive effect for us if it goes to trial. Denise will obviously not be there to testify, and Lieutenant Jennings likely won’t be able to provide her hearsay testimony, as he did under the less strict rules of a preliminary hearing.

We head back out into the hearing room, and I tell Sam what has transpired. He seems really upset by the news, which is pretty amazing. Denise is one hundred percent responsible for the horrible situation in which he finds himself, and he’s reacting like they were just days away from going to the fraternity formal.

Today is pretty much wrap-up day for Bader. He brings in three friends of Denise, all of whom say that she was having an affair, though none are aware of who it was. It’s circumstantial evidence against Sam at this point, and barely that. Bader had better have something a lot more specific than this if we wind up going to trial.

I take it easy on these witnesses, merely asking enough questions to reemphasize the fact that they have absolutely no information tying Denise’s alleged affair to Sam. I also point out that they believe Denise’s affair had lasted for a number of months, whereas she told Jennings that she was seeing Sam for only one month.

The only way to resolve this discrepancy is either that she was lying about Sam or she also had other affairs. They both play well for us, especially the former.

Bader’s last witness is Sergeant Ben Thompson, a prison guard for twenty-two years. He is responsible for the visitors’ room at the prison, and he testifies that Sam visited her on six different occasions.

“Was he her most frequent visitor?” Bader asks.

“Yes, by far. Even more than her lawyer.”

“Did you notice anything unusual between them?”

“I’m not sure what you mean by unusual,” he says. “She would occasionally put her hand on his or touch his arm. That kind of thing.”

When it’s my turn, I start with, “Sergeant Thompson, when you saw this physical contact that you describe between Mr. Willis and Mrs. Price, did you put a stop to it?”

“No.”

“So you didn’t consider it improper?”

“No. Not really.”

“You’ve seen that kind of thing before?”

“Sure.”

“Sergeant, where did you go to high school?”

“Montclair High.”

“Are you still friendly with any of your classmates from back then?”

“Yes. We get together all the time.”

“If one of them was charged with a crime, and you were sure he was innocent, might you visit him in jail while he was on trial? Would you consider supporting him in that way?”

Thompson doesn’t hesitate. “I sure would.”

“Thank you,” I say.

Bader rests his case, and Judge Hurdle asks me if I will be presenting witnesses. “Yes, Your Honor.”

“Can you provide their names to the court?”

“Not at this point, Your Honor, I’m sorry. We’re working as fast as we can to put it together.”

Bader objects, but the defense gets a lot of leeway in preliminary hearings, partially because of the very limited time we have to prepare.

I promise the judge I will have a list on Monday morning when we resume, and say that if Bader then needs some time to prepare, the judge can issue a continuance. There is as much chance of that happening as the judge handing out tickets to the lawyers for a Justin Bieber concert. Judges have an inbred hatred for delays of any kind.

I’m once again reasonably pleased with how the day went, though my meeting tonight with Glennon in Eastside Park will determine just how good the day really is.

At first Carter was annoyed. Since the situation with the locals in New Hampshire, Maine, and Ohio had been cleaned up rather violently, the operation had proceeded with remarkable precision. Yet now, when it was so close to bearing fruit, his superior officer was suddenly asking for all the details.

It was ridiculous. If he was going to be seriously questioned, it should have been during the strategic preparation, when substantive changes could have been made. At this late date, other than slight revisions, it was either proceed or abort, and no one was prepared to abort.

But along with the annoyance, Carter felt more than a little pride. It was a masterful plan, followed by what to this point was a masterful execution. They were making history, and no one had any right to be one-tenth as proud as Carter.

But the money people had to be given their due. For all of Carter’s brilliance, he could not have come close to pulling this off without the unlimited funding he had been provided. And the truth is that they were also making him rich beyond his wildest dreams.

So he put all the relevant information on computer disks and prepared a PowerPoint presentation to show his superior when he arrived. Such was the detail that the presentation could continue for many, many hours, but Carter doubted that would be necessary.

His assumption was that his audience would quickly understand that Carter had done everything there was to do, prepared everything there was to prepare, and left nothing to chance. He figured that within an hour his superior would smile and tell him to continue on exactly as he had been doing.

The knock on the door came at eight o’clock. Carter let him in, and other than a brief acknowledgment, no other words were spoken. Neither of them was prone to chitchat.

Carter’s guest requested a beer before they begin, and it was while Carter was getting one from the refrigerator that he felt the gun against the back of his skull.

“What the hell is going on?” Carter asked as his mind raced for a way out of his predicament.

The superior laughed. “You’re familiar with targeted killings, aren’t you?

“I’ve been loyal,” Carter said. “I’ve given you what you wanted.”

“I’m sure you have. Now I’ll take it from here.”

“We’re on the same side; let’s talk about this.”

But the man holding the gun had little time to talk and none to waste. Yesterday Denise Price was eliminated, and now Carter. But his work tonight was not finished.

Richard Glennon was next.

When I was fourteen, I kissed Tina Stahlman in Eastside Park. It was easily the high point of my early formative days in the park, and my recollection is that Tina was formed pretty well by then too. Even though she subsequently and repeatedly denied the event to friends, it has remained in my mind a rare but major triumph.

My other early park days were marked by fairly consistent failures on the baseball diamonds; I was a pitcher and shortstop, but I could neither hit nor throw a curveball. I also played cornerback here on our fraternity football team, where I earned the nickname “Toast,” because I was so frequently burned by opposing wide receivers.

My adult years here have been a mixed bag. There have been the always pleasant walks with Tara and Laurie, mostly during daylight hours.

I’ve had a few clandestine nighttime meetings with people relating to cases I’ve been working on. They haven’t gone so well: a car blew up, a guy got splattered on my windshield, a couple of violent deaths. Businesswise it’s fair to say that Eastside Park hasn’t been my good-luck conference room.

Of course, the mere prevention of death, mine or anyone else’s, is not going to be good enough tonight. If Glennon can give me a road map to what the hell is going on, it will be perfectly timed to fit in my strategy on how to get Sam off.

I arrive at the designated meeting place at nine forty-five. I prefer being the first to arrive, though I’m not sure why. It might be because it gives me the chance to get used to the darkness and the silence, which are not two of my favorite things. I also like to see the other person arriving, and better yet, I want Marcus to see the other person arriving.

Of course I haven’t seen Marcus since last night, when he was emptying our refrigerator. I know he’s here, and even though I don’t think Glennon presents any danger, I’m glad that he is.

There is a winding road that leads down from the upper part of the park to the lower part, where I’m waiting. As kids we called it Dead Man’s Curve, though to adult eyes it looks somewhat less fearsome.

The directions I gave Glennon included coming down that way, even though there is another entrance into the lower level of the park. So it is that road that I keep my eyes on, watching for car lights coming around the bend.

By ten fifteen I’m getting concerned that those lights are not going to appear, and by ten thirty I’m pretty sure of it. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised; Glennon seemed scared to the point of being unstable.

I take out my cell phone to see if perhaps he had called and the phone didn’t ring due to weak service in the park. But there are three bars and no message on the phone.

I stick it out until ten fifty and decide to leave. Glennon has my number and can certainly call if he’s running late and still wants to meet. I’m not holding my breath.

I yell out, “Marcus, we’re outta here!” but he doesn’t answer. Marcus sticks to the script; he maintains radio silence even without radios.

I start walking toward my car, once again checking my cell phone for messages. As I do so, it rings, and in the quiet night it sounds like about a thousand decibels. It scares me so much that I drop the phone. Fortunately, it lights up when it rings, so I’m able to see it on the ground without much difficulty.

“Please be Glennon,” I actually say out loud, but the caller ID removes any suspense in that regard. It isn’t Glennon calling; it’s Laurie.

“Andy, where are you?”

“At the park. I was waiting for Glennon, but—”

She interrupts. “He’s not going to show up.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s dead.”

Eastside Park strikes again.

“Marcus, now we’re really outta here!”

I make the five-minute drive home, and Laurie tells me she had been watching the local news. She was probably afraid she was going to see a story about a prominent defense attorney murdered in Eastside Park, but instead the breaking news was of something that happened on Route 80.