He’s yelling so loud that I’m afraid the guards outside the door will hear him and come rushing in. “No, Kenny, that’s not what I’m saying. But you can be sure that’s what the prosecution will be saying if they find out.”
“Find out what? Except for Matt, I don’t even know where these guys live. How could I have killed them?”
“Okay,” I say. “You’ve told me what I need to know.”
He is far from calmed down. “Jesus Christ,” he says, “I thought you were on my side.”
We talk for a brief while longer, then Kevin and I leave for some last-minute preparation for today’s witnesses. Kenny still seems upset, but he’ll just have to deal with it.
Once we’re out of earshot of Kenny, I ask Kevin what he thinks. “He obviously got upset,” Kevin says, “but that could be because he’s innocent or guilty. I’d vote for innocent; he really seemed confused before you told him what you were talking about.”
That’s my feeling as well, but like Kevin, I’m well aware that I could be wrong.
As Judge Harrison is about to come into court, I go to turn my cell phone off. It’s something I do every day, to save myself the embarrassment of his confiscating it if it should ring during the court session. I see that there is a text message on the phone from Sam, asking me to call him and identifying it as “important.” The cell phone probably didn’t get reception in the anteroom where I met with Kenny.
I’m worried about what Sam might have discovered, but I have no time to call him now. I also have to switch my mental focus to Dylan’s first witness, Captain Dessens. As the lead investigator and arresting officer, Dylan will use him to sum up his case.
In truth, Dessens has little to add to the facts of the case. The jury has already heard about the blood evidence, Kenny’s actions the day of the arrest at his house, and the discovery of Preston’s body in the closet. Those are the main facts, and all Dessens does is repeat and embellish them. It is almost as if Dessens is giving Dylan’s closing argument for him.
Dylan is painstaking in his questioning, and he doesn’t turn the witness over to me until almost noon. Harrison decides to take the lunch break before I cross Dessens, and as soon as I can get to where I can talk privately, I call Sam.
“What have you got, Sam?” I ask.
“Nothing good. I’ve got Schilling within seventy-five miles of six of the eight deaths at the time they happened. I’ve cleared him on one, and I’m still working on the eighth.”
“Shit,” I say, once again displaying my characteristic rhetorical flourish.
“Andy, these deaths took place all over the country. The odds against Kenny being in each of these places at those particular times are astronomical. Beyond coincidence. Way beyond.”
“I know,” I say, because I do know, and there’s nothing to be gained by my first choice, which would be to remain in denial. I make arrangements to see Sam after court is over, and go to find Kevin. His reaction is the same as Sam’s, and we agree to figure out tonight just how we are going to deal with this.
Dessens gets back on the stand, no doubt prepped by Dylan for a full-blown cross-examination covering everything. He’s not going to get it; I’ve made whatever points I’ve had to make with previous witnesses. Instead, I’m going to use this cross to start presenting the defense’s case.
“Captain Dessens, you testified that Mr. Schilling became the focus of your investigation early on. I believe you said that within twelve hours he was your prime suspect.”
He nods. “That’s correct.”
“Who were your less-than-prime suspects?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Let me try to be even clearer. Who were on your list of suspects; who were the people you crossed off that list when you decided Mr. Schilling was your man?”
“There were no specific names; it was early in the process, and we hadn’t had a chance to go deep into our investigation.”
“So Mr. Schilling was your only suspect as well as your prime one?”
“Yes.”
“Generally, in a murder investigation, when the prime suspect doesn’t jump out at you so fast, is it fair to say you have a large list of suspects and then you pare them down?”
“Generally, but every case is different.”
“But you never prepared such a list for this case? You stopped looking after Mr. Schilling was arrested?”
He shakes his head. “We continued our thorough investigation, but we had our man.”
“Did your ‘thorough’ investigation uncover the fact that the victim was dealing drugs?”
Dylan jumps out of his chair to object that this is not within the scope of his direct examination, but I argue that it is, since Dylan had Dessens talking about his investigation. Harrison agrees with me and allows Dessens to answer.
“We had indications of that, yes. Nothing that has been proven.”
“In the same way that Mr. Schilling’s guilt in this case hasn’t been proven, since the jury has not yet returned a verdict?”
Dylan objects that this is argumentative, and Harrison sustains.
I push on. “Did you learn where Mr. Preston got the drugs he was selling?” I ask.
“Not with enough certainty that I can name anyone here today.”
I nod. “Fair enough. I’ll name some people, and you tell me if they were possible drug suppliers to Mr. Preston. Here goes… Albert Schweitzer? Pope John Paul? The queen of England?”
Dylan objects again, calling my questions “frivolous,” which is not exactly a news event. Again Harrison sustains.
“Captain Dessens,” I ask, “is it your experience that drug suppliers are dangerous people, who often employ other dangerous people?”
He agrees to that but little else. I let him off the stand having basically made my point: Troy Preston associated with people who seem a lot more credible in the role of killer than does Kenny Schilling.
As Dylan rests the prosecution’s case, I believe I have a slight but real chance of convincing the jury that Kenny doesn’t fit the bill as the killer of Troy Preston.
That’s because they don’t know what I know.
* * * * *
SAM LAYS OUT THE information he has learned in a straightforward, serious way. He doesn’t even song-talk, such is his understanding of the implications of this material. Sam is a numbers guy, and he understands the laws of probability. These facts do not obey those laws.
The question is what to do now. I do not see how we can ever bring any of this before Judge Harrison. If we determine the best, that Kenny has no culpability, then that is the end of it. If we determine the worst, that Kenny has committed a series of bizarre murders, we are prohibited from revealing it. Anything in between, if there can be anything in between, would likewise be privileged.
All this work we are doing is essentially to satisfy our own curiosity, and our energies could be better spent in helping defend our client against the charge he faces, not what he might have done besides that. The only legally ethical justification for our actions is to claim that we are preparing for the remote possibility that Dylan will learn what we are learning, and we will have to defend against his use of that knowledge against Kenny. Having said that, I certainly won’t be charging Kenny for any of the hours we spend on this end of the investigation.
I ask Laurie to devote herself full-time to learning about these mysterious deaths. I want her to investigate each one individually, much as I did Darryl Anderson’s drowning in the ocean off Asbury Park. Maybe she can clear each case as definitely not a murder, but I doubt it.
Marcus is going to continue to guard me, since our concerns about Quintana are absolutely real. Quintana may not have killed Preston, but he’s already sent people after me, and Adam’s fate is testimony to his ruthlessness. This is a bad guy, whether our courtroom claims of his involvement in the Preston murder are true or not.
Lying in bed is when I do some of my best thinking. Tonight Laurie lies next to me, awake, so instead of just rattling around in my head, the words I am thinking come out through my mouth. “The thing that gnaws at me, in a good way, if there can be such a thing as good gnawing…”