Unleashed (20 page)

The least of it is Sam’s presence at the house, alone with Denise, the two times that the police showed up. When they informed Denise that Barry had died in the crash and when they came to arrest her after the service, Sam was there. It tends to support her claim that they were having an affair, though far from conclusively.

There are three bombshell pieces of evidence. One is a trace amount of botulinum toxin found on the backseat of Sam’s car. Another is a similar find on his jacket, which he had worn to the party at the Price house the night before Barry’s death. To fill out the dismal trifecta, a beer bottle with Sam’s prints on it was found in the basement of the Price home, not far from the sink where the botulinum traces had been found.

I head down to the jail to see Sam, dreading the conversation. Even though I know exactly the kinds of things he is going to say, I have to give him a chance to say them, just in case I’m wrong.

I’m not wrong. Sam goes nuts when he hears about the evidence. To be innocent, and to hear this kind of stuff, must reach a level of infuriating that has to be excruciating.

When he calms down, he explains what must have happened, as best he can. “When I pulled up to her house, she came out to tell me that Barry had already left. She was at the passenger-side window, which I thought was a little strange but not a big deal. Then she looked in and said that the backseat was wet, and she opened the back door and reached in to wipe it off. I’ll bet that’s where they found the poison.”

He’s right about that, and I tell him so.

“She invited me in, and when I got inside, she hung up my jacket. She must have put it on the jacket then; it would have been a piece of cake. Damn, I walked right into this.”

“There’s no way you could have known,” I say. “Was it the same jacket you wore to the party?”

“Yeah.”

“What about the beer bottle?”

“I drank coffee when I was there the night Barry died. But then she brought out two bottles of beer, to toast old times.”

“So she made sure she kept the bottle with your prints on it, just in case.”

“Damn,” he says, thinking about the implications of all this. “She set me up. And she killed him. She killed Barry.”

“She was certainly involved in it,” I say. “And a hell of a lot more.”

“It’s humiliating what she did to me,” he says.

I don’t mention that she had planned a worse end for him. Denise had planned to give Barry the botulinum toxin, which she assumed would never be discovered in his incinerated body. When she learned that Sam would be flying with Barry, she considered his death in the crash merely “collateral damage.” When he didn’t make the flight, she used him as a person to frame when things went bad for her.

“Andy, you’re going to get me out of here, right?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact I am.”

“When is the hearing?”

“Friday.”

“Are we ready?”

“We will be.”

He nods. “Good.”

I head home to continue the process of getting ready, but first I’m going to take a walk with Laurie, Tara, and Crash. Most dogs, when you hold a leash up, go nuts and run to the door. Crash, on the other hand, barely looks up from his spot on the couch. His expression is saying,
What the hell are you doing with that thing?

But dogs need exercise, so once again we manage to coax Crash outside. I doubt Tara is pleased, because Crash’s presence means we’ll be walking a lot slower than usual.

We don’t talk about the case, other than Laurie asking me how Sam is holding up. “He’s scared, but probably doing better than I would in the same situation.” I point to Crash. “He’s counting on his good-luck charm to save him.”

She smiles. “Not his lawyer?”

“I am merely the conduit through which Crash works his magic.”

We cut our walk short, both because I need to get back to prepare for the hearing, and because the full walk at Crash’s pace would take until morning.

When we get home, the phone is ringing, and Laurie rushes to get it. After saying “hello” and listening for a moment, she hands the phone to me.

I decide to mimic Laurie’s conversational gambit and say, “Hello.”

“Mr. Carpenter, this is Richard Glennon … from the bank.”

It wasn’t necessary for him to tell me where he works. I know that he is the officer at the Island Bank of the Caribbean in charge of the Imachu account. We were supposed to meet, but his boss, Randall Franklin, intervened.

“I know who you are, Mr. Glennon. What can I do for you?”

“We need to talk.” His voice is a little shaky, maybe with nervousness, maybe fear. I can’t tell which.

“Okay. What about?”

“Things that I know.”

“When would you like to meet?” I ask, trying not to sound too eager.

“You can’t tell anyone that I contacted you.”

“I’m fine with that.”

He doesn’t seem to think that is reassuring enough. “My wife is scared to death. If they find out, they’ll kill me.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

“I’ll get back to you.”

“When?” I ask.

Click.

If I’ve been more frustrated, I can’t remember when. I don’t think I said anything to scare him, but he definitely backed off. It certainly sounded like he had something important to say, and Sam and I can use whatever help we can get.

I look around for Crash and discover that he summoned up the energy to get back on the couch. I walk over and pet him on the head.

“Make him call back, Crash. Make him call back.”

The media are really into this. The usual pattern, even in a high-profile criminal case, is that the arrest is made, and it is months, or in some cases more than a year, before the public gets to hear the evidence. Because in this case there is a preliminary hearing, at least some of the facts can be examined and weighed when the case still feels “fresh” to the media.

And the things we’ll be talking about are right up the media alley: murder, money, sex, infidelity, betrayal. It’s fair to say this stuff is more likely to make the front pages than tort reform and debt ceiling negotiations.

Bader has to make a strategic decision concerning how much of his case to present. Typically the prosecutor wants to show as few cards as possible, just enough to make sure the case proceeds to trial.

Complicating matters for him is the fact that he really hasn’t had time to put his case together. He must feel that once he’s able to conduct a full-fledged investigation, he’ll be in a much stronger position. But I’ve called his hand well before he’s ready.

He also has to know I’m coming at him. I wouldn’t have called for the hearing if I was just going to let his witnesses sail through. And I am, in fact, going to challenge them. But I’m going to do a lot more.

And that is something Bader couldn’t possibly anticipate.

When Sam is brought into the courtroom, he seems more upbeat than at any time since his arrest. He thinks the world is finally going to hear his side of it, and in part he’s correct. What he’s not focusing on is that the same world is about to hear the State of New Jersey accuse him of murder.

The truth is that it’s extremely unlikely I will convince Judge Hurdle to dismiss the charges. I hope that he will, but he is not really my audience here.

There’s no jury in the room, so a lawyer in my position generally sticks closer to the book and eliminates the theatrics that juries might eat up but that judges frown on. But that’s not how I’m going to play it, because I’m speaking to the media and the potential jurors that are out there.

Bader’s first witness is Lieutenant Chuck Jennings of the Morristown Police, and Bader will likely use him to present his overall theory of the case.

“Lieutenant, were you at the Price residence on the night that Barry Price died?”

“Yes.”

“What was your reason for being there?”

“I was breaking the news to Mrs. Price that her husband had been killed.”

“Were you and she alone?”

“No. My partner was with me, and Sam Willis was with Mrs. Price.”

“What time was this?”

“Just after eleven
P.M
.”

“And how did Mrs. Price react to the news?”

“She became hysterical,” Jennings says. “Some neighbors heard the commotion, and they came over to console her.”

“What did Mr. Willis do?”

“He left.”

“When and where did you next see Mr. Willis?”

“At the Price residence two days later.”

“Why were you there?”

“To arrest Denise Price for the murder of her husband.”

“Was she once again alone with Mr. Willis?”

“Yes.”

Bader pauses a moment to let this sink in, recognizing that the public is watching. The idea that Sam seemed always to be alone with another man’s wife, ultimately his widow, has to raise at least some suspicion.

“When did you next see Mrs. Price?”

“I met with her at the jail early last week.”

“For what purpose?”

“She had spoken to Judge Hurdle and made some allegations, which I was going to hear and investigate.”

It is here where the rules of this kind of hearing work against us. Denise has been correctly advised by her new attorney not to testify, but unlike in an actual trial, hearsay testimony is permitted. Therefore, Jennings is able to recount what Denise said as if she were in the court saying it.

He says that Denise told him that she had been having an affair with Sam, not for a long time, for less than a month. He quickly became far more invested in it than she was, and that fact worried her.

Denise was in an unhappy marriage, and she recognized that her affair was just a way of expressing her anger at Barry, while at the same time getting some of the love and attention she felt that she deserved. That was all the affair meant to her, and Denise had no intention of ever letting it become more than a brief fling.

Sam, however, was taking it much more seriously. He started to make suggestions that she leave Barry, and then became more insistent about it. She was considering breaking it off but was worried that Sam would overreact and might even confront Barry.

Then, in a conversation at the jail soon after Denise’s arrest, Sam told her that she shouldn’t worry, that Andy Carpenter would get her off, and then they could be together. “This had to end this way,” is what Denise quoted Sam as saying, and she believed at that moment that he had killed Barry.

I believe that Denise said these things to Jennings, but it’s still weird listening to him spout this nonsense about me and Sam. And it proceeds to get worse. According to Jennings, Denise said that she told me about Sam’s comments and her suspicions of Sam. According to her concocted story, I told her not to tell anyone about it, that it would be better for everyone that way.

Bader beats this to death for a while longer but doesn’t get into the other evidence that was subsequently found against Sam. He’s going to bring forensics people in for that testimony, which makes sense. They’re harder to challenge.

So basically the only thing for me to cross-examine Jennings on is his conversation with Denise, since that is all the direct testimony was about.

“Lieutenant Jennings, you said your conversation with Denise Price took place in the jail?”

“That’s correct.”

“She was incarcerated there?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” I ask, as if I didn’t know.

“She was on trial for the murder of Barry Price, her husband.”

“The same Barry Price Sam Willis is accused of murdering?”

“Yes.” Jennings is pretty much sneering his disdain at me.

“Did you put her there? Did you make that arrest as well?”

“Yes.”

“When she later told you this story about Sam Willis and myself, you believed her?”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“But when you subsequently sought a search warrant for Mr. Willis’s house, based solely on her statements, you told a judge in writing that you believed her?”

“That’s not the way it was worded; I said that it was more likely true than not.”

“Sounds like you believed her, but you weren’t positive. Is that a fair way to describe it?”

He’s stuck. Not to agree with that is to admit to falsifying a search warrant, something judges don’t exactly view with fondness.

“Yes,” he admits.

“When you arrested her for the murder, did she claim to be innocent?”

“Yes.”

“Did you think that was truthful?”

“No.”

“So at that time you thought she was a liar, in addition to a murderer?”

“I didn’t think she was being truthful at the time.”

Jennings has just given me a big opening, and his wincing slightly shows me that knows it. “So you believe her now? You now think that when she said she didn’t murder her husband, she was telling the truth?”

He’s in a tough spot. Denise is still in prison, charged with the murder. If the arresting officer says under oath that she was being truthful when she proclaimed her innocence, it would be devastating for that prosecution.

“I’m not sure.”

“You have a reasonable doubt?” I hate helping Denise this way, but this line of questioning also helps Sam.

“I’m not sure.”

I nod, as if I now understand. “I get it. So you think she might be a liar and a murderer, but you think she was telling the truth about Mr. Willis.”

He doesn’t want to defend himself by saying that they’ve uncovered other evidence, because it would then open the door for me to ask about it.

“I believe she was telling the truth about Mr. Willis” is his lame, unexplained response.

“Did you consider the possibility that she was trying to blame Mr. Willis in the hopes of saving herself from prosecution? Any chance that entered your mind?”

“I certainly considered it.”

“If you think a liar and a murderer trying to talk her way to freedom is somebody worthy of being believed, is there anyone on the planet you wouldn’t believe? If Charles Manson said he was surfing on the day of the Tate murders, would you have asked to borrow his surfboard? Did Lee Harvey Oswald just feel like taking in a movie?”

Bader objects, and even with the relaxed standards of this hearing, Judge Hurdle sustains and tells Jennings not to answer.