I go back to the defense table, satisfied that I made the points I wanted to make. Kevin nods his approval and Daniel looks pleased, while trying to maintain the impassive exterior that I instructed him to maintain. I notice him making eye contact with a group of seven people, all from Cleveland, who have made the trek here to show support. Two of them are giving him the thumbs-up, which I will instruct them never to do again.
What they and Daniel don’t seem to realize is that this was easy, and these were just words. Starting tomorrow, we have to deal with the evidence and the facts.
There is no such thing as a normal workday during a murder trial. You work as hard as you can until the hours run out, and then you start again the next day. Court lets out at four, and my standard procedure is to convene a meeting of the team at my house at five-thirty. We order in dinner and spend the night preparing for the next day’s witnesses, as well as looking at the “big picture.”
I get home and walk Tara, then rush back to order dinner. I want to make sure I do the ordering rather than Laurie, since if left in her hands, Kevin and I will be stuck eating healthful food all night.
Preparation for tomorrow’s court day goes relatively quickly, as Tucker will be putting on mostly foundation witnesses, slowly building his case. It gives us time to think about our own defense, pathetic though it currently is.
We have been totally unable to make any connection between the victims, and I think it’s safe to say that there is none. Linda Padilla remains our focus; Sam has not found any significant information, financial or otherwise, on the other victims. We have two possible theories, equally unlikely and difficult to prove. One is that Padilla was the main target and the others were killed to obscure that fact. The other is that all the victims were chosen randomly, by a killer whose only goal was to frame Daniel.
Kevin goes over the list of people and companies that Padilla caused varying degrees of trouble for with her whistle-blowing. Unfortunately for us, the very prominence of her “victims” works against us. Corporate criminals can be as low as their less upscale brethren, but it’s hard to picture most of them strangling women and cutting off their hands.
Nevertheless, our situation is bleak enough that we have to pursue everything. Laurie and Kevin divvy up the list to check them out, putting some aside for Marcus as well. Complicating matters is that many of them are spread out around the country; Padilla by no means limited herself to local wrongdoers.
Particularly annoying, and reflective of our lack of cohesion, is the fact that one of the companies is in Cleveland. Had I known, I could have had Marcus check it out while he was there. The subject is an enormous corporation called Castle Industries, named after its founder, Walter Castle. It was found polluting the water in a Cleveland suburb, and a leukemia cluster emerged. Padilla’s actions cost the company a hundred million dollars, more than my fortune but probably not that big a deal to Walter Castle. And somehow I don’t see a sixty-year-old billionaire running around cutting off naked women’s hands in protest.
There are a few other entities that seem slightly more credible as potential revenge-seekers. I’m just guessing, of course, but my first choice would be a clothing company called Lancer. Padilla revealed them operating sweatshops, which is a major public relations negative if you do it in a place like Thailand. The problem is that they did it in Alabama, and Padilla caught them in the act. It devastated them; they were a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar company one day, bankrupt the next. The owner of the company, one Rudolph Faulk, was particularly embittered, claiming that Padilla set him up.
Kevin and Laurie have their own personal favorites. We discuss them for a while, but I can’t say that I’m remotely optimistic we’re going to turn up a serial killer in their midst. If one of these people wanted Padilla dead, they might kill her, but would likely not preface their actions with murders of random, innocent women.
What we have in our favor is that we don’t have to prove anyone’s guilt. What we have to do is come up with a credible alternative killer for the jury to consider, a daunting enough task in itself.
Kevin is about to leave when the phone rings. I answer it, an act I regret immediately, since it’s Marcus calling. It’s impossible for me to understand a word that he says over the phone; I find myself yearning for subtitles on the bottom of the screen.
I put Laurie on the phone, and she seems to have no problem deciphering his words. She even takes notes, and after a minute or so hangs up.
“Marcus wants you to meet him at this address,” she says.
I look at what she’s written; the location is a particularly run-down industrial area just north of Paterson. “Did he say why?” I ask.
“No, but if Marcus made the call, you can be sure he thinks it’s important.”
“I’ll go with you,” Kevin says.
I offer a simultaneous sigh and nod; I’m not pleased to be spending the next hour or so with Marcus when I could have been in bed with Laurie. “Are you going?” I ask her.
“No, he said I couldn’t. Said it was okay if Kevin went, but that I definitely should stay here.”
“That make any sense to anybody on this planet?” I ask.
Kevin shrugs. “Probably to Marcus.”
• • • • •
KEVIN IS EVEN LESS pleased than I am when we arrive at the location Marcus has given us. It’s on Bergen Street near the river, an old abandoned junkyard that the faded sign indicates was once aptly called “Paterson Waste Material.” Two rats scurry away as we open the door; they’re probably ashamed to be caught living here.
“This place is awful,” understates Kevin.
Through the darkness I see a faint light coming from under a door, so I point it out to Kevin, and we walk toward it. I call out, “Marcus?”
“Yunh,” is the return grunt that I get, and since it seems to be coming from behind the same door, I open it.
The room is surprisingly bright, causing me to adjust my eyes so that I can see. Once I’m able to see, I regret making the adjustment.
Except for some strewn garbage, some of which seems to be smoldering in the far corner, the only objects in the room are a wooden table and chair. On the otherwise empty tabletop is a knife, about the size you would expect Crocodile Dundee to carry. Its point is sticking into the table, and the handle of the knife is pointing straight upward.
Marcus stands near the table, and another man, whom I don’t recognize, sits in the chair. The man is maybe forty-five years old, five ten, a hundred sixty pounds, balding slightly, and naked.
“He’s naked,” says Kevin.
“You don’t miss a thing,” I say. The situation is surreal, and made more so by my realization that Marcus was demonstrating a prudish streak by telling Laurie not to come down here. He didn’t want to embarrass her or himself by having her see this naked guy. The naked guy, for his part, doesn’t seem embarrassed at all. His dominant facial expression is fear, with perhaps a little anger thrown in.
“Uhhh . . . Marcus. Who is this guy and why is he naked?”
“Jimmy,” Marcus says, then points to the corner. “I burned his clothes.”
The mystery of the smoldering garbage has been solved; now we’re getting somewhere. “Why exactly are we here to meet Jimmy?” I ask.
Marcus doesn’t answer me directly, instead issuing instructions to Jimmy. “Tell him.”
“Come on, man,” moans Jimmy. “I told you what can happen if I . . .”
Marcus just looks at him, then looks at the knife. Jimmy looks at Marcus, then at the knife. Kevin and I look at each other, then at the floor. I’m sure I’ve had more uncomfortable moments, but it would take a while to think of one.
“I was in the prison when they killed your friend,” Jimmy says, no doubt referring to Randy Clemens and completely getting my attention. “I was one of the guys arguing in the hall, to get the guards looking at us. But I didn’t kill him; I didn’t even know what they were doing until after it was over.”
“Why did they do it?”
He summons up the dignity to laugh a short, derisive laugh at my expense. “What do you think? He stole their crayons?” He shakes his head at the stupidity of my question.
Marcus takes a step toward Jimmy, which serves as a dignity-remover. Jimmy continues. “To shut him up. He overheard some things, and he wasn’t smart enough to keep quiet about it. When he called you, they put him away.”
“What did he overhear?”
Jimmy shakes his head. “I don’t know, but it had something to do with those murders.”
“Was Dominic Petrone involved?”
Jimmy flinches noticeably, then seems to pause, as if considering his position. The survival rate for people who squeal on Dominic Petrone isn’t too high. On the other hand, Jimmy is naked in a room with Marcus and a knife. Talk about your “six of one, half a dozen of the other.”
He probably makes the decision that Marcus and the knife represent a more immediate threat, so he starts talking again. “I don’t know for sure, but it’s a pretty good bet. The guy who arranged the prison hit was Tommy Lassiter, but I doubt he’d be doing it without Petrone setting it up.”
“Who is Tommy Lassiter?”
Jimmy almost does a double take at my question, then looks over at Marcus. “Come on, man . . .” is his way of telling Marcus he shouldn’t have to explain this to me, an obvious idiot.