Premeditated Murder (28 page)

“It looked legitimate,” Boris continued, “but I told him I would need clearance from my boss. He said that was all arranged. I figured he was nuts, but when I got back to work, I had the clearance to do the project.”

“What did he ask you to do?” asked Matt.

“He wanted me to generate a list of names and addresses, sorted by zip code, of every taxpayer in the country that had a
q
in their name that was not followed by a
u.
”

The tension in the room was broken for a moment by some smiles at the absurdity of Boris's mission. “It sounds nuts,” admitted Boris, “but imagine what that kind of a list would look like.”

“It would look like a list of Arabic names,” Carlos said quietly. And suddenly, the tension was back.

TWENTY

Dear Kev—

     I had another bad dream the other night.

     We were at the beach, playing, when suddenly I couldn't find you. I panicked, but then I saw you out in the water, and I relaxed for a minute. You wanted me to come out there with you and play.

     Then this huge wave came up and just sort of crashed into you from behind, knocking you down. You got up, but you were so scared and hurt from the fall that you ran out of the water, and you wouldn't go back in.

     I knew how much you loved swimming, so I got really mad at the ocean, and I started shouting at it. Then all of a sudden there was nobody on the beach but me, and while I was shouting at the ocean, I started throwing things into it. First I threw our cooler, then the chairs we brought down, then our beach blanket and all your toys. And I got madder and madder, shouting louder and louder.

     Then suddenly, you're standing next to me again, and you're crying, and you say to me, “Daddy, stop!”

     And then I woke up, feeling really bad.

I miss you.
Love, Daddy

(Letter #51 from Calvin Thompkins to deceased son, Kevin)

… It is therefore the order of this court that for the pendency of this matter, there shall be no communication of any nature regarding any facet of this matter, either direct or indirect, from the defendant, the defendant's attorneys, any member of the defendant's attorneys' staffs, or from anyone working for or associated with the Office of the District Attorney for Hampshire County, to any member of the public, including but not limited to any member of the television, radio, or print media …

Further rulings on live coverage of court proceedings are deferred until this matter is transferred to the trial judge.

By order of the Court,
Harold D. Baumgartner,
Justice of the Superior Court

(Trial Paper Number 16)

May 28—Northampton, Massachusetts

DISTRICT ATTORNEY FRANCIS X. O'NEILL couldn't believe his eyes. “This can't be right,” he said out loud, in his empty office. “This cannot be goddamn right!” He stood up, holding the court order he had just read, and headed straight for Stacey Ruben's office. That stupid Judge Baumgartner couldn't permanently cut them off from all contact with the press. A temporary injunction was one thing. But a permanent injunction? A gag order? How was he supposed to spin any publicity out of this case if he couldn't
talk
to the damn press?

Stacey was on the phone when he stormed into her office, so he sat in a chair in front of her desk to wait until she was through. What the hell was he supposed to do when the press called? Ignore them? That was idiotic. And unconstitutional. Whatever happened to freedom of the press? It was right there in the Bill of Rights, goddamnit. They'd appeal this, right to the SJC if they had to. The people had a right to know what was going on here. And he had a right to get some goddamn publicity out of the biggest case in the Commonwealth in the last fifty years, for the love of God.

Finally Stacey hung up. “What the hell is this?” F.X. demanded, holding out the order to Stacey. “Can he do that? Can we appeal it? This is the goddamnedest thing I've ever seen.”

Stacey took the order from him and began to read it. She didn't have political aspirations, which was a good thing, because she was Jewish, and in western Massachusetts Jews had about as much political clout as blacks. But Stacey was book smart. They needed her kind in the office. There were a lot of book-smart defense attorneys out there, and you had to have somebody on your side to handle that part of the case.

Stacey finished reading the order and handed it back to him. “I don't know, F.X.,” she said. “This kind of thing is almost always left to the discretion of the trial court. We can appeal, but I think it might be spending a lot of time for nothing. I don't see how we can show that this order is an abuse of discretion. That's a pretty high standard to make on appeal. And besides, the trial is only a month away.”

This couldn't be happening. Having press conferences during the trial was vital. The media coverage would be huge. What was he supposed to do? Sneak in and out of the courthouse with a trench coat over his head? “Yes, but, Stacey, for God's sake. When this trial starts, the place is going to be hip-deep in reporters. How are we supposed to avoid any contact with the press?”

She looked at the order again. “It just says that we can't make any statements to the press during the pendency of this matter. But Judge Cottonwood is handling the trial, isn't he? Judge Baumgartner specifically left the decision to televise the trial to him. He'll probably let it go, won't he?”

Thank God for small favors. Dick Cottonwood knew how to try a case. And he wasn't going to be afraid of a few cameras in the courtroom. “Yes, but sweet Jesus, what about the pretrial coverage?” F.X. asked. “There are going to be an awful lot of phone calls between now and then.”

“Well, it's not as bad as it could be,” Stacey told him. “He could have ordered the press to stay off the case entirely. They can say whatever they want. We're the ones who can't talk. At least for now.”

That sounded promising. “What do you mean ‘at least for now'?”

“Well, when the file gets transferred up to Judge Cottonwood, we can always ask the court to reconsider its ruling. There's a much better chance that Judge Cottonwood will reverse Judge Baumgartner's order than the SJC would on appeal.”

Whatever. At least there was a chance he could get back in front of the microphones. F.X. had some serious business to do in this case, and it was business he needed to do in public. He didn't just plan to ride Calvin Thompkins's guilty ass into the execution chamber. He planned to ride it right into the Governor's Mansion.

June 10—Dearborn, Michigan

LENA FELT LIKE SHE WAS DRESSED UP FOR Halloween.

She was sitting in the passenger seat of the two-hundred-year-old car that Becca had rented, wearing a full-length gown and a headdress with a veil over her face. Becca was dressed identically, except her veil was pulled up so she could drive without getting them killed.

Becca Spellman and Lena Takamura—undercover Muslims.

Curiously, all of the break-ins that Lena had discovered had taken place in Arab households in Dearborn. The only way she could possibly go out in public was in disguise. So Becca took a day off, and she and Lena, dressed as Muslim women, drove out to Dearborn, to meet with three of the burglary victims—Ria Khalil, Mirene Qafar, and Mona Muqqar. Ria and Mirene were friends, and agreed to drive together to Mona's house, where they would all meet.

The Muqqar house was a small ranch, on a street featuring small ranches. After Becca and Lena entered the house, they joined Ria, Mirene, and Mona in the modest living room and tried to figure out why anyone would want to take their computer equipment.

“I never even used the computer,” Mona told them. “My husband was the one who bought it, but he just used it to play video games. We weren't even connected to the Internet.”

“Did they actually steal the computer?” asked Becca.

“No, they just took the little case of CDs that came with the computer, and some disks that my husband had bought,” the young woman replied. “Back when he thought he was going to do more than play Donkey Kong.” The three women laughed.

“And how do you know each other?” Lena asked.

Mirene answered. “Ria and I met at a PTO meeting in the elementary school where our children go. We had lived in the same neighborhood for a few years, but we hadn't met before then.”

“And how about you, Mona?” Lena asked. “Do your children go to the same school?”

“My children are in college now,” Mona answered.

“So you have no connection to this school?” Becca asked.

“No,” Mona said. “We only moved here from Cleveland about two years ago. I had never heard of Mirene or Ria until Lena called me and told me about how the break-ins at their houses were like mine. They only took worthless computer stuff and messed around in our file cabinets. I was so angry when I found out someone had been inside my house. It was like, I don't know. It was like a violation.”

Just then, Becca's cell phone rang. She went into the kitchen so that the others could continue their conversation. The three women were all very willing to discuss possible connections between them, but in the end, it seemed that the only common threads were their religion and the fact that they lived within a few miles of each other.

About fifteen minutes later, Becca came back into the room. She had her cell phone in one hand and a tissue in the other. It was obvious that she had been crying.

“Becca, what's the matter?” exclaimed Lena, standing with the others.

“We have to leave right away,” said Becca. “I'll tell you about it in the car.” Then she turned to the Muslim women. “And you should all go home, too,” Becca said. “Don't tell anyone about this conversation. We all could be in very serious danger.”

ON THE DRIVE HOME, BECCA ALTERNATED BETWEEN intervals of verbal outbursts and silent seething.

“Those motherfuckers!” she yelled, banging her hand on the steering wheel. “They will not get away with this. I am going to sue the shit out of each and every one of them.”

According to Becca's neighbor, Mrs. Cyr, about an hour ago, two men from the FBI walked right into the apartment building and started banging on Becca's door. When no one answered, the men broke the door down and tore the apartment apart. Belongings were scattered everywhere, the couch was ripped open, and even Ernie the tree had been turned over and broken. When they saw Mrs. Cyr watching from the hallway, they told her that Becca had been selling drugs from her apartment and was in serious trouble, and that she should call them if she saw Becca or knew where she was.

Mrs. Cyr knew that Becca would never do anything illegal, so as soon as the men from the FBI left, she called her.

While Becca drove, Lena struggled to make sense of it all. Somehow, the men who had planted the drugs in her apartment must have discovered she was staying with Becca. Someone at Becca's workplace must have found out about her extracurricular investigation and reported it to whoever was doing this.

And by the way, why were they doing this? The talk with the three Muslim women had left her more bewildered than ever. Aside from the fact that all of their homes had been broken into by thieves who took only computer CDs and disks, there was nothing that linked their households except that they were all Muslim. And that didn't line up with Phillipe LeClerq, the Detroit schoolteacher who had died during the burglary of his home. He was Catholic. The types of computers were different. They simply didn't share any common history.

The only thing which caught Lena's attention was that Ria thought that she'd heard about a mosque somewhere in Ann Arbor that had had a rash of these kind of incidents about a month ago.

As soon as Becca turned down her street, she abruptly pulled her veil down over her face and hissed, “Jesus, there's Ira and Manny in an unmarked. I can't believe they've got my apartment staked out. Oh my God. Put your veil on. We can't stop here. Oh my God.”

Becca drove right past the dark blue Ford that was parked three doors away from her apartment. She knew most of the cops who worked in her neighborhood. Her hands were shaking as she made a left turn and drove away from her home. “What do they think I'm going to do? Turn myself in? For what? Hiding somebody that they're trying to frame? Is this crap supposed to scare me?”

Lena turned to check if they were being followed. “Well, it's scaring me,” she told her friend. “And now I'm scared for you, too.” The street behind them was empty. How did this get so out of control? Why was this happening?

Becca turned again and headed north on Lincoln Avenue. “All I know is that I'm pissed. You never did drugs in your life, I never did drugs in my life, but according to Mrs. Cyr, we're like Detroit's newest cocaine kingpins. This morning I drive you to meet with some crime victims, and this afternoon I'm a fugitive. This is bullshit.”