One Dog Night (28 page)

But before long he found himself in the very large warehouse, and he certainly seemed to be alone. Sam took out his own cell phone, and dialed Loney’s number. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard it ring; the GPS signal was right after all. The phone was there.

Sam headed for the sound, but it stopped ringing before he could find it. He had to call it twice more before he had enough time to locate it, but eventually did so.

What attracted his attention, more than the cell phone itself, were the obvious bloodstains just a few feet away. And it didn’t take a forensic scientist to follow the smeared blood to the large drum lying on its side.

Sam was scared to death, but determined to take the top off the drum and see what was inside. It came off easily, and Sam realized it had only recently been placed there.

There was no reason to empty or explore the drum, the body was obvious as soon as the top came off. And Sam was not about to examine it, or stick around; he made a beeline for the same window he came in, and ran to the street.

Sam had no idea what to do, but he knew who to ask. He called Laurie and told her the entire story. He had to stop a few times to catch his breath; he was that scared.

“Laurie, I’m sure I left my prints all over the place … on the window, the drum, I don’t know where else.”

“That’s okay, Sam, because you’re not going to deny you were in there. You’re going to report what you found to the police, and answer any questions they have.”

“They’ll ask me why I was in there in the first place.”

“Right. And you’ll tell them the truth; you are there because it’s part of an investigation being run by Andy for the Galloway trial. You were looking for Loney, but you really don’t know anything more specific than that. They really need to ask Andy why he sent you there.”

“Okay. Should I just call 911?”

The question made Laurie think of another way. “No. Just stay where you are; I’ll take care of it. Give me the exact address.”

He did so, and Laurie got off the phone and called Cindy Spodek. This had been an FBI investigation from the start, and she would rather Cindy take the lead, at least for the moment. Cindy knew Sam, and the people she was directing would therefore be less inclined to think Sam committed the murder.

So Laurie called Cindy, explained the situation, and Cindy promised to get agents there immediately.

Laurie hung up and waited for Andy’s plane to land. She would have quite a story for him.

Laurie calls me five minutes after I get off the plane.

I can’t talk to her, because I’m on the phone with Cindy Spodek, who called me one minute after I got off the plane. It would have been four minutes after I got off, but I spent three minutes waking up Marcus.

I tell Laurie I’ll call her back and that I’m on with Cindy. Based on the start of the conversation, I’d rather talk to Laurie.

“Andy, what the hell was Sam Willis doing in a Delaware warehouse with a dead body?” Cindy asks.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I say.

“You don’t know anything about this?”

“I know Sam Willis, but that’s it.”

“He found the dead body of one Alan Loney in a drum in a Delaware warehouse. He claims that you sent him there as part of an investigation.”

“Oh, that Delaware warehouse. I wasn’t sure which one you meant. The state is full of them.”

“Andy, unless you want to spend eight hours in a room with four agents who have no sense of humor and look exactly alike, tell me what you know about this.”

She doesn’t sound in a bantering mood. I’m not either, but I don’t know what the hell is going on, and I don’t want to say anything stupid. “Cindy, Sam is working on the investigation. We are trying to find Loney, and I gave him some leads to follow, all of which are protected by attorney-client privilege. I assume one of them took him to this warehouse, but it sounds like he got there too late.”

She asks me a bunch of additional questions, some of which I evade because I really don’t know the answers, and the others I evade because I want to evade them. The entire time we’re talking, I’m wondering if crazy Sam actually shot the guy.

“Do you know the time of death?” I ask.

“Why? You trying to come up with an alibi?”

“No, I’m covered on that score. I was with Marcus in Vegas; believe me, people noticed us.”

“You saw Ricci?” she asks.

“I did. Charming gentleman.”

“Let’s see how charming he is when he finds out that his top man was stuffed in a drum in Delaware.”

“You were about to tell me the time of death,” I say.

She tells me the coroner’s estimate, which is soon after my meeting with Ricci. Could he have reacted to our talk by immediately having Loney killed?

I promise Cindy I’ll fill her in as I get more details, which we both know is an out-and-out lie. As soon as she lets me off the phone, I call Laurie, who gives me the version of events according to Sam.

“Do you think Ricci could have had Loney hit because of my threat?” I ask.

“I don’t think so,” she says.

“Why not?”

“Well, for one thing, you’re not really that intimidating. For another, I can’t believe that what you said was news to Ricci. Loney couldn’t have been doing all this behind his boss’s back; so if Ricci wanted him to stop, he wouldn’t have had to kill him to do it.”

Neither of us has any other explanation for Loney’s murder; we can just add it to the list of things we are bewildered by.

“How is Sam doing?” I ask.

“He’s on cloud nine,” she says. “Except for a high-noon shootout, this is the most fun thing that could have happened to him.”

When I get home we talk some more about it, and I call Sam to hear it fresh from his perspective. It’s a rather lengthy perspective, and he so obviously relishes the telling that I think the recounting takes longer than the actual event. For example, it takes a good five minutes for him to describe how he followed the bloodstains to the drum; unless the trail was half a mile long, that seems like a bit much.

I admonish Sam for doing what he did; it was dangerous and not an area he should be involving himself in. My gentle reprimand clearly has no effect; Sam has now tasted the “action” and will want nothing more than to jump back in the fray.

I call Hike and ask him to come over. We have developed quite a bit of evidence in our investigation, though it’s hard to be sure just what it is evidence of.

The problem is that the jury knows nothing about it. We’ve got to get it in front of them, which is not going to be an easy thing to do. Dylan will say that it’s not relevant, and Judge De Luca will be hard-pressed not to agree with him.

The problem is that Dylan can argue that none of the material we have is necessarily related to the Galloway trial. It all began, for instance, with someone following Laurie and me. We assumed that it was related to this case, but we have no proof of that.

If we can’t convince De Luca that Camby was following me because I was representing Noah, then everything that followed is legally meaningless, and certainly inadmissible.

The reasoning that we will have to employ is something Hike is particularly good at, and he helps me focus in on the key points to present to De Luca. If the judge doesn’t buy them, we are nowhere.

I contact the court clerk, who is available even on weekends, and tell her that I need a special session in chambers before court on Monday. I describe it as urgent, and I have no doubt that it will be granted.

I then call and leave a message for Dylan, telling him what I’ve requested of the court. I say that I’m doing it as a courtesy, but I’m not. What I’m really doing is giving Dylan something to worry about.

Alex Bauer saw the story about Loney’s murder in the newspaper.

It was buried on page six, and he almost didn’t notice it. There was nothing that significant about it to warrant more attention; no connection was known between Loney and the Galloway case.

But for Bauer, it just about jumped off the page, and he quickly went online to see if he could find more coverage. A couple of outlets mentioned Loney’s suspected mob ties, but that was basically it.

Bauer immediately picked up the phone and called Andy’s office. Andy was in court, but Laurie took the call, and she could tell immediately that he sounded scared.

“Loney is dead,” Bauer said. “He was murdered.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“Was it Ricci? Did he have it done?”

“I don’t think the police have any leads yet, but we’re not privy to their investigation.”

Bauer yelled at her. “I don’t care what the police think!” Then he lowered his voice, trying to remain calm. “I want to know what you think.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But it’s certainly possible.”

“Does Ricci know that I talked about Loney? Could that be why he was killed? Because his involvement in all this was revealed by me?”

“I have no reason to believe he knows about anything you said. If he does, he didn’t learn it from us.”

He was trying to read between her words, to pick up any information he could. “Did you talk to Ricci? Did Carpenter?”

Laurie was not having any of it. “Mr. Bauer, we really can’t talk about what is going on in our investigation. But believe me, your name has never been mentioned by Andy or me, in any context. That I can guarantee.”

“All right,” he said, calming somewhat. “It’s just that soon after we spoke, I saw this about Loney.”

“I understand your concern, and you were right to call,” she said. “Have you been approached by anyone else? Anyone stepping in for Loney?”

“No. You think I will?”

“Yes, you need to expect that.” For a CEO and no doubt an educated, sophisticated man, he wasn’t thinking very clearly. Fear will do that to you. “Whatever Loney had on you, whatever he wanted, he was just the front man.”

“God, I wish this were over,” he said.

“Please let me know when you are contacted,” she said. “I’ll try to help and—”

She didn’t finish the sentence, because she realized he had already hung up.

Less than an hour later, Bauer received a call, and the caller ID showed the number was blocked.

“Hello, Alex,” said Brett Fowler, a smile on his face as he talked. “This is your new contact.”

“Your Honor, next he’ll be talking about Colombian death squads.”

Dylan is referring to the attempt by the original Simpson lawyers to claim that Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were killed by mysterious, vicious Colombians in some kind of drug vendetta.

They had absolutely no evidence to support their theory, and Dylan is saying that my presentation regarding Loney et al. is similarly without relevance to this trial. If I were in his shoes, I’d be saying the same things, and I’d be confident in my position.

“These people make the Colombian death squads look like Donny and Marie,” I say. “People are dying all over the place, and my client is sitting in jail. The jury has a right to know that.”

Dylan thinks he’s playing a winning hand here, and he will not let anything go unanswered. “The fact that there are murders being committed in large metropolitan areas is not exactly unusual,” he says. “If that were simply the standard for admission, trials would never end. Mr. Carpenter has to establish a connection, and he has not come close to doing that.”

It’s my serve. “Your Honor, Mr. Camby was following me, and was killed before I could question him. I firmly believe that his interest in me related to this case, since Mr. Galloway is my only client at the moment. However, the fact that we have phone records connecting Mr. Camby to Mr. Butler would push the possibility of coincidence way beyond logical.”

“Camby never called Butler,” Dylan points out.

De Luca is sitting back and letting us fight this out. “Loney is the connection,” I say. “Camby called Loney repeatedly, and Loney called Butler. And now Loney is dead as well.”

“The phone calls could have had nothing whatsoever to do with this case.”

I see an opening, and I try to pounce on it. “You know what, Your Honor? Mr. Campbell is right. The phone calls could somehow be unrelated to this case, and just an extraordinarily bizarre coincidence. And maybe the jury would decide that’s exactly what it is. But we gain nothing except a few days by not giving them that chance.”

Dylan is vigorously shaking his head. “That could be said about anything. Why not let the jury hear it and decide? But that is why we have standards of admissibility, and why it is clearly within the province of Your Honor to rule it out.”

Dylan also raises the issue of the accuracy of the phone records, and questions where they came from. I don’t answer that directly, but instead I ask Judge De Luca to allow us to issue a subpoena for the same records, so that there will be no question of their authenticity should they ultimately be ruled admissible. He agrees, which gives me some confidence in what his ruling will be.

I have one significant advantage over Dylan in this situation, and that advantage could be called unfair. Most judges, when faced with a decision like this, are more inclined to side with the defense than the prosecution.

The reason for that bias is that if the defendant is convicted, the defense can appeal the verdict. If the verdict is for acquittal, the case is over with no appeal possible. That would be double jeopardy, and is absolutely prohibited.

So to side with the prosecution is to invite a future appeal, and if there is anything a judge hates more than annoying lawyers like me, it is being overturned on appeal. Siding with the defense, at least on matters that could go either way, is a way to avoid that embarrassment. No judge would ever admit that this is a factor, and no lawyer would ever doubt that it’s often the determining one.

There is also the more human side. To send someone away for the rest of his life is a very serious matter, and compassionate judges would certainly try to avoid doing that unjustly. It just seems easier and more decent to let the jury decide what they believe, rather than preventing them from hearing it at all.

But even with all this on our side, I am still very concerned about our ability to prevail in this argument. The link between our evidence and the case is tenuous at best, and De Luca must know that it would lead the jury down a convoluted and lengthy road. He would not want to do that; I’m just hoping he feels he has to.