Play Dead (24 page)

“W
E’VE GOT TWO
matches,” are the first words Pete Stanton says when I answer my cell phone.

He’s reached me less than five minutes before my going into court for the morning session, and he’s talking about the results from running the fingerprints through the national registry.

I’m actually a little nervous at finally finding out Stacy Harriman’s real identity. Based on my inability to correctly predict anything about this case, I’m afraid it’s going to be Margaret Thatcher or Paris Hilton. “Who was she?” I ask.

“Her name was Diana Carmichael, thirty-four years old when she died.”

“Why were her prints in the system?”

“She was in the Army,” he says, providing me a bit of a jolt in the process. I don’t yet know how that piece of information fits, but I’d bet anything that it does.

“Pete, I’m late to get into court, so…”

“Okay, but I said we’ve got two matches. There’s also one from one of the other prints, and you’ll like this one even more.”

“Tell me.”

“Anthony Banks.”

Lieutenant Anthony Banks. Deceased husband of Donna Banks, wealthy volunteer worker living in Sunset Towers in Fort Lee, and the recipient of the mysterious twenty-two thousand a month from Yasir Hamadi.

Lieutenant Anthony Banks, who, long after his death, seems to have managed to rummage through Stacy Harriman’s things in the cabin, leaving his fingerprints in the process. Just as Archie Durelle, the man he died with, showed up to shoot at me on the highway.

We’ve got ourselves a group of dead guys who really get around.

“I’m going to have Kevin call you and get the details, okay, Pete?”

He’s fine with that and also tells me he’s making progress on checking into whether the type and amount of cargo coming through Franklin’s customs office has significantly changed since his death.

“We’re going to be meeting at my house tonight. Why don’t you stop by?” I say.

“You mean that? So I’m on the team now?” he asks, sarcasm starting to return.

“Well, not the first team. But a damned good backup.”

“Is that right? Well, how about if you kiss my—”

“Thanks, Pete. Gotta go,” I say, and hang up, temporarily depriving him of the last word. As soon as I’m off, I bring Kevin up to date. I want him to call Pete and then take the information and see what Captain Reid at Fort Monmouth can add to it.

I reach the defense table moments before the judge enters, and Richard seems a little agitated at my uncharacteristically late arrival.

“Something wrong?” he whispers.

“Do you know the name Diana Carmichael?”

He thinks for a moment. “No. Should I?”

“You were engaged to her.”

It is an unfair thing to do to him, since I don’t have time to explain it fully right now. During the morning break I’ll do so.

It’s a strange feeling to be opening the defense case in front of the jury while the real action is going on outside, between Kevin, Pete, and Captain Reid. But that’s what I have to do, and I start by calling Dr. Ruff, Reggie’s veterinarian.

Kevin has had a chance to prep her on her testimony, and she’s more decisive than during the hearing. She presents a compelling case that the Reggie she recently examined is, in fact, the dog that Richard owned and took on his boat those years ago.

Hawpe makes little effort to challenge her, and he concludes by stipulating that she is correct, that Reggie survived.

Next up for our side is Dr. Harold Simmons, a blood spatter expert. The fact that there is so much blood getting spattered in this country that we need experts on it is a rather negative commentary on our society, but Dr. Simmons is very good at what he does.

Dr. Simmons’s contention is that the blood spatter on the boat was of a type and in a location so as to render it very likely that it was deliberately placed there. I ask very general questions and let him run with them, and he does so quite well.

Hawpe has some success in his cross-examination, focusing on the fact that it was raining that night and everything was wet. It could have washed away some of the blood and altered the spatter of what remained. Dr. Simmons gives ground very grudgingly, but Hawpe makes some points.

During the lunch break, I return a message from Kevin, telling me what he’s learned. Diana Carmichael was in fact in the Army, stationed in Afghanistan and working for what was called the Afghani/American Provisional Authority. It was the operation hastily set up immediately after the fall of the Taliban to provide much-needed money for reconstruction.

A theory is forming in my mind, but I don’t have the time right now to analyze it in depth. Hawpe has responded to my announced plan to call Jeffrey Blalock to the stand by asking Judge Gordon to refuse to allow his testimony. The judge has decided to convene a hearing, outside the presence of the jury and media, to consider the matter.

“Exactly what is Mr. Blalock going to testify to?” the judge asks.

“He is going to describe documents that he has reviewed that demonstrate conclusively that Stacy Harriman’s background has been faked in an effort to conceal her true identity.”

Hawpe stands. “Your Honor, unless he is prepared to present a credible explanation for how the deception was accomplished, it is pure speculation and should not be admissible.”

“That makes no sense, Your Honor,” I say. “He is going to be stating facts that exist independent of anyone’s knowledge or understanding of how they came about. It is similar to a witness testifying to a cell phone call without understanding the technology behind it. But I might add that Mr. Blalock will also be advancing his view that the fake background was created in the context of the witness protection program.”

Hawpe shakes his head. “The court has already convened a hearing on that matter, and it was determined that Ms. Harriman was not in that program. The U.S. Marshals Service very clearly represented that to the court.”

“We think they lied or were misinformed,” I say.

Judge Gordon does not seem pleased to hear this. “If you’re going to stand up in open court and in effect accuse the government of lying, you’d better have more than what you just ‘think.’”

“We have an expert presenting his point of view,” I say, but I can feel this slipping away.

Judge Gordon shakes his head. “Not good enough. I’ll allow the testimony regarding the background, but in the absence of new factual information, there will be no reference to the witness protection program. Anything else, gentlemen?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I say. “We are in the process of determining Ms. Harriman’s real identity right now. My intention would be to have Mr. Blalock review this new information tonight and then present it to the court tomorrow.”

Hawpe starts to object, but the judge cuts him off so that he can question me about how we learned her real identity. I describe the process of getting the fingerprints from the cabin and running them through the national registry. I leave out the actual identities for now; they are not important to the issue we’re arguing, and I don’t want to give Hawpe a heads-up.

Unfortunately, Hawpe doesn’t seem to need one. He argues that none of the fingerprint information should be admissible. There is no chain of custody, no way to be sure that Stacy left the prints there at all. Anyone could have gotten into the cabin in that time, and therefore it is impossible to say how they were left there, or who left them.

I argue the point, but I have no bullets to fire. Hawpe is right; no one can say with certainty that the woman we know as Stacy Harriman left those prints.

Judge Gordon rules the identity inadmissible unless and until further information is brought forth that could demonstrate its reliability. It has not been a good hearing for us; all we got out of it is the right to argue that Stacy’s background was faked. Any second-year law student could have won that point.

The amount of information we’re gathering is starting to take off, and I can feel us getting closer to the truth. It would have been nice to convey that truth to the people deciding Richard’s fate, but his lawyer couldn’t quite pull that off.

At least my client will have a great story to tell his cell mates.

K
EVIN HAS SPOKEN
to Captain Reid about Diana Carmichael, the woman who became Stacy Harriman.

The army lists her as deceased, but they are not referring to her death in the water off New Jersey. Her death is recorded as having taken place just three weeks after the helicopter crash in Afghanistan that supposedly killed Durelle, Banks, and the others. I suspect that they created this fake death as a way to ease her into the witness protection system.

Unfortunately, that’s all the records show. The rest of her file is listed as classified, and not even Captain Reid or his boss has access to it. Reid considers this very unusual but is powerless to do anything about it.

Kevin and I struggle to come up with a theory, but what we wind up with is vague and only loosely based on facts. Our thought is that Stacy, which is how I can’t help referring to her even though her real name was Diana, was likely stationed in Afghanistan. She was probably a witness to wrongdoing, and witnesses very often need protection.

The wrongdoing could have been misconduct by American soldiers, perhaps mistreating the enemy, or it could have been financial. There have been a number of stories written over the past couple of years about the chaos that existed just after the Taliban was defeated, and the corruption that was part of the reconstruction efforts. Billions of dollars were alleged to have been lost.

Billions. People have killed for a lot less.

It’s possible that the government itself didn’t believe that lives were really lost in that helicopter crash, or perhaps it knew of other bad guys that got away and would pose a threat to Stacy. In any event, those in charge obviously felt it necessary to tuck her away where she wouldn’t be harmed.

Pete comes over and joins the discussion, mainly to report once again that no progress has been made toward finding Reggie, and that he seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. I’m going crazy about it and getting more and more pessimistic that we’ll never get a ransom demand. If we were going to get one, it would have come already.

We bring Pete up to date on what we know and what we suspect about Stacy’s real identity and why she was a protected witness. He has a slightly different take on this. “If it’s money that was stolen, maybe they put her in the program not so much so that she could someday testify, but rather to insure that she never would.”

I don’t understand, and I tell him so. He continues, “That money is gone; they’re never going to see it again. If they catch the crooks and have a trial, then they have to publicly confront the embarrassment that they screwed up and lost billions of dollars. If they don’t, then nobody finds out the truth about it.”

“Right. But if there was some other kind of misconduct, like if she witnessed torture or something, the army might also want to keep that quiet.”

Either scenario makes sense in light of the way the government has acted, trying to keep the case from being reopened and, failing that, attempting to thwart us at every turn.

We kick this around a while longer until it’s time for Kevin and me to start our trial preparation for tomorrow. It’s extraordinarily frustrating to realize that nothing that we have learned today or talked about tonight is going to make it to the jury.

Before Pete leaves, he gives me three sheets of paper. It is the result of the investigation I suggested into Franklin’s work at customs, a comparison of the cargo entering before and after his death. I want to look at it because I still have no idea where Franklin fits into all this, but I just don’t have the time right now.

Kevin and I are at it until almost one in the morning, including a half-hour walk that he takes with Tara and me. I’ve been trying to get Kevin to get a dog, since he loves them, and he’s weakening. He explains that right now he’s trying to figure out what he would do with the dog if he had to spend an extended time in the hospital.

“Why? Are you sick?” I ask.

He smiles weakly. “You have no idea; I just don’t like to talk about it.”

Oh.

Our first witness in the morning session is Michelle Miller, a travel agent with an office in Englewood. She met with Richard the day before Stacy died, and she testifies that the meeting was to finalize their honeymoon plans.

“They were going on a cruise through the Panama Canal,” she says.

“Did he give you a deposit?”

She nods. “He did. One thousand dollars.”

“Was it refundable in the event that they had to cancel their trip?” I ask.

“It was not.”

I turn her over to Hawpe. “Had you spent a great deal of time with Mr. Evans and Ms. Harriman when they were together?”

She shakes her head. “No, I actually never met Ms. Harriman.”

“I see. So you did not know what you would describe as intimate details of their marriage?”

“I did not.”

“If the deposit had been refundable and then Mr. Evans committed suicide, would he have been around to receive the refund?”

I object and Judge Gordon sustains, but Hawpe’s point had been made. A murder-suicide is an irrational act, and simply making a honeymoon reservation is no proof at all that Richard could not have done it.

We then call a series of witnesses who spent time with Richard and Stacy and who talk about how much they seemed to love each other.

Hawpe is basically dismissive of these witnesses, getting each one to admit that they have no idea what goes on behind the closed doors of anyone’s relationship other than their own.

It’s been a day of making small gains and pretending they are big, but we’re going to have to do much better. And our chance will come tomorrow, when we call Dr. King and Jeffrey Blalock.

I head home for a long night with Kevin preparing for our witnesses. Dr. King presents an interesting problem, and a role reversal of sorts. In most cases where there has been a preliminary hearing, the witnesses that testify are almost exclusively those of the prosecution, since the purpose is to establish probable cause. The defense thus has the advantage of having heard the testimony before it is given again at trial.

In this case, because the burden was on us at the hearing to bring this to a retrial, it is our witnesses, like Dr. King, who have already been on record. It’s an advantage for Hawpe, but one we have to live with.

It’s almost midnight when we’re finishing our preparations. Kevin’s getting ready to leave, and I’m reading the report Pete left with me, when I immediately see it. “Look at this,” I say.

Kevin comes over, and I hand him the papers. “It’s the list of companies bringing large amounts of goods into Franklin’s area of customs, before and after his death.”

Kevin looks at it, but nothing registers. “And?”

At the bottom of the second page is a list of companies that have had dramatically less come through customs since Franklin’s death. “If I remember correctly, a few of those names were on the list that Sam tracked down. The companies that Hamadi was dealing with.”

I check back through the files and confirm my suspicions; four of the companies are on both lists. The man whom a worried Donna Banks called after my visit seems to have been involved with Franklin in customs activity. I don’t believe in coincidences, but even if I did, this wouldn’t be one of them.

By the time Kevin and I finish thrashing this out, it’s one thirty in the morning and we’ve got a plan. At least, I’ve got a plan; Kevin cautions me against it.

The first part of the plan involves calling Vince Sanders. I want to do it now rather than the morning, because I will be heading for court early, and I want him to get on it first thing. Also, psychologically I want to get the ball rolling.

Vince groggily answers the phone with “This better be good, asshole.” Apparently he’s not so sleepy that he can’t see his caller ID.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Vince, but I need a big favor.”

He doesn’t say a word, which could mean he doesn’t want to, or else that he fell back asleep. I decide to push on. “Vince, I need to speak to Dominic Petrone.”

“Is that all?” he asks, and then speaks to an imaginary person in bed with him. “Dominic, honey, Andy Carpenter wants to talk to you. And when you’re finished, could you run over to the asshole’s house and put a bullet in his head?”

“Vince, it’s urgent, and I can tell you with one hundred percent certainty that he’ll be glad you set up the meeting.”

“You want to tell me what it’s about?”

“I wish I could, but I can’t.”

“Repeat after me. If a story of any kind comes out of this, Vince is the person I will give it to, along with an exclusive interview.”

I repeat the vow, and Vince agrees to call Petrone in the morning.

Tomorrow is showing signs of being an important day.