Unleashed (21 page)

“Are you planning any other arrests for this murder?” I ask. “Because you could be heading for a record.”

Bader objects again, so I just add, “Lieutenant, in this day and age, it’s refreshing to find such a trusting person.”

Sergeant Darren Leonard is something of a bit player in this. He merely executed the search warrants on Sam’s apartment, car, and office, after Denise had implicated him. Bader is simply using him to describe the actual mechanics of the procedure.

His direct testimony takes less than twenty minutes. He entered the house with a team of forensics people, who did their work while he set about to collect any documentary evidence he could find. To that end, he found nothing whatsoever, which Bader took to be incriminating in and of itself.

“Did you impound Mr. Willis’s personal computer?” he asks.

“No. We couldn’t find it.”

“In neither his office nor his home?”

“That’s correct.”

“Did you ask him where it was?”

“Yes. He told me it was none of my business.”

There’s little for me to do with him on cross-examination, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.

“Sergeant Leonard, did you take any of Mr. Willis’s clothing back to the lab as a result of your search?”

“We did.”

“What items did you take?”

“A winter jacket, a pair of pants, two shirts, and a pair of shoes.”

“Did you just choose those items at random?”

“No, we were looking for them specifically.”

“Really? Why?”

“My understanding is that Mrs. Price said that’s what Mr. Willis was wearing the night of the party at their house.”

“So they had upward of fifty people over to a party, and Mrs. Price remembered each item of clothing that one of those guests was wearing, many weeks later?”

“That’s what she said.”

“Very impressive. Do you remember what you were wearing last Monday night?”

He grins. “Can’t say as I do.”

“Did Denise Price tell you where in the car to search as well?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you find any incriminating evidence in either Mr. Willis’s home or car other than what Denise Price pointed you to?”

“No, sir.”

“Thank you.”

None of what I’ve accomplished so far is going to carry the day for Sam. The media reports have me making more progress than I am, because they’re paying more attention to the sport of it than the legalities.

The overwhelming advantage in this case is with the prosecution. Judges almost always allow these cases to go on to trial so that a jury can decide. For us to win, we have to score repeatedly, spike the football each time, and then hang Bader from the goalposts.

Of course, we haven’t sprung our surprise yet, and its success or failure will tell the tale. What bothers me is that our chances are somewhat reliant on things out of my control.

One of the most important of those things is Richard Glennon’s contacting me again and telling me the information he dangled in our last conversation. He sounded scared, so I don’t want to press him yet, because there is a chance it would push him farther away.

Mr. Glennon, please pick up the phone.

The materials were ready and in storage. The assembly of the various parade floats, as well as the podiums and bleachers for the speechmaking, wouldn’t begin for another week and would take three days. A similar effort was made every year, so it had become very efficient. Yet it was still a lot of work for something that would be disassembled after twenty-four hours.

The Los Angeles parade would begin in Griffith Park, where a large crowd would assemble and the speeches would be given. Every politician of consequence would be there. There was no way they would miss a chance to publicly praise the troops and honor those who had lost their lives in service.

Some of the tributes would be sincere and heartfelt, and some less so. But participating in the event, vowing undying support for the U.S. military, was an absolute must to maintain political viability. It was okay to vote to cut funds for veterans’ health care, but don’t dare miss a chance to jump on the Memorial Day bandwagon.

So the platforms would be built, the sound system would be installed, and the stands would be erected. There was no concern about the weather; after all, this was Los Angeles in late May.

For Carter’s men, it was the perfect venue. It was out in the open and therefore not really presenting any kind of challenge. And with the easy exits from the park, getting out would be relatively simple, especially amid the chaos that was sure to ensue.

They had long ago recorded the coordinates of where the stand would be. The van would be two thousand yards away, but with the accuracy of the guidance system, it was the same as point-blank range.

The governor, the mayor, seven congressmen and -women, and fourteen elected members of city and state government had already committed to be there. As Carter read in the media about each new politician who had decided to attend, his delight increased.

This wasn’t going to be just a targeted killing; it was more a targeted mass killing.

And it was only one of fifteen such mass killings that Carter’s men were planning across the country.

Janet Scarborough is the head of the Morris County crime lab. She’s probably in her early sixties, plain looking but with a warm smile. Definitely the kindly grandmother type, but give her a microscope and she becomes a defense attorney assassin.

The crux of Bader’s case, at least at this point, is the forensics. Motive is where he is weakest, which is the whole area of the alleged affair between Sam and Denise Price. I’m sure he thinks that by the time of trial he’ll have it all nailed down, but for now he is relying on the science. It’s a potent weapon.

Scarborough conducted all the tests and has the credibility to make the results stand up. Since she’s been doing this for a very long time, I’m sure she has had occasion to testify in Judge Hurdle’s courtroom before, and he no doubt respects her.

Bader takes her through her experience, then the techniques she used to run the tests on the evidence in this case. All of that takes awhile, though less time than Bader would drag it out in front of a jury. There is no need to educate Judge Hurdle; he’s heard this kind of stuff many times.

“And in both cases the results were positive for botulinum toxin?” he finally asks.

She nods. “They were.”

“Trace amounts?”

“I would describe them as more than trace amounts. There was more on the jacket sample than the one from the car seat, but both were fairly significant positives.”

Not satisfied with that, he has her demonstrate, in terms of parts of the toxin per hundred, the difference between what she would consider trace amounts and the amounts in this sample. The math, as she presents it, is very clear. This was a fairly significant amount of concentrated, deadly poison.

“Could this be considered in any way commonplace?” Bader asks. “Might these kind of toxins be found frequently in our environment, and we just don’t realize it?”

She shakes her head. “No. Botulinum is a natural toxin, in that it comes from food and is found in soil. But I would venture to say that you could randomly test thousands of jackets and millions of car seats and not find this kind of concentration.”

He turns her over to me for cross-examination.

“Ms. Scarborough, how would you carry botulinum toxin around?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” she says.

“Okay, you’re invited to a party, and you don’t know what to bring. But you can’t stand the host, so you think to yourself, maybe I’ll just bring some botulinum.”

Bader objects and Hurdle admonishes. But the gallery laughs, and that’s who I’m playing to.

Even Scarborough smiles. “I generally bring wine. But if I had occasion to transport botulinum toxin, it would probably be in a secure test tube, inside a sealed, airtight, waterproof carrier.”

“Anything else would be unsafe, correct?”

“In my opinion, yes.”

“And if you were to lay that carrier on the seat of a car or have it brush against your jacket, there would be no transference of the toxin, correct?”

“Correct.”

“So someone who knew the deadly properties of that toxin, someone who possibly even acquired it and planned to kill with it, would always handle it in a safe way, as you would, correct?”

“I would hope so, but I couldn’t say for sure what someone else might do.”

I nod. “Fair point. So let’s say, hypothetically, that someone wasn’t nearly as careful you are, and he or she carried it in a container so insecure that it leaked onto the backseat of a car and onto the person’s jacket. Are you with me?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now the prosecution’s theory is that person literally took the botulinum to a party, and in the process it got on the backseat of his car and his jacket. If that was true, wouldn’t it also be elsewhere?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he wouldn’t likely carry it in front of him. Wouldn’t some be in his pockets or elsewhere on his clothes?”

“That’s certainly possible.”

“If the container was so porous that it leaked in the car, wouldn’t it have had to spread elsewhere?”

“I couldn’t say.”

I frown, trying to show that she is avoiding the obvious truth. “But it doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Let me try another hypothetical, and you tell me if this would be more likely, speaking only scientifically. Suppose someone wanted to make it appear as if the defendant used the toxin, and to do so, that person deliberately put some on his car seat and his jacket when he entered the party and took it off. Is there anything scientifically incorrect about that scenario?”

“Not scientifically, no.”

“Thank you, no further questions.”

The court day has gone fine; even Hike gives me the thumbs-up. But the best moment of the day comes on the way home, when my cell phone rings, and Richard Glennon is on the line.

“Mr. Carpenter,” he says, “I’m ready to talk.”

Denise Price was growing angrier by the minute. It had all started out so well for her. Once she had made the determination that the trial was going badly, she took the decisive action of putting Plan B into effect. She thought that it should have been the original plan, but she was not the one calling the shots.

Once she spoke to the judge and told the new story, however, things took an immediate turn for the better. A mistrial was declared, depriving the twelve cretins on that jury from deciding her fate.

She didn’t have to hire another lawyer, one just showed up, courtesy of her friends. He seemed really confident and didn’t keep warning her not to be too optimistic too soon, like Carpenter did.

She was proud of herself, the way she planned for all contingencies, even though in some cases she was just following directions. The biggest piece of luck was when Sam showed up late that night, having hit the dog.

She had heard only a few hours earlier that Barry had invited Sam on the flight. She had been somewhat concerned that he’d be able to take the controls when the poison hit Barry, but the dog sealed Barry’s fate. It also provided a backup person to blame for the murder.

Poor, stupid Sam.

Her new lawyer told her she’d be out of jail in no time, that in return for testifying against Sam, the charges would most likely be dropped. At the very least, according to the lawyer, she’d get bail.

But it hadn’t happened, at least not yet. He kept claiming it was about to be finally resolved, but there was always an excuse. And meanwhile, she was in this humiliatingly awful place, surrounded by criminals.

Except for when she had visitors, she was allowed only two hours a day out of her cell, for exercise and to spend time in the common area. She barely used that time, preferring to be in her cell. She had enough “social interaction” during mealtimes, when they served that garbage that they referred to as food.

Her lawyer was due to come in that evening, just after six o’clock, and she was going to read him the riot act. She’d give him forty-eight hours to get her out or she was getting another lawyer, one who knew what he was doing.

Denise went to dinner at the appointed time; she was hungry and would see if there was anything worth eating. She nibbled on some tuna salad, sitting as far away from the other inmates as she could manage. She took some pleasure in noting to herself that she was probably worth more money than everyone in the crowded room put together.

On the way back to her cell, there was a commotion, with inmates milling about and angry words being yelled. She tried to avoid the crowd, but it seemed to move toward her, and she found herself in the middle of a bunch of obvious lunatics.

Even with the aid of surveillance cameras, there was no way to tell who put the ice pick through Denise’s heart, but it was still there when she hit the floor, already dead.

She was going to miss the meeting with her lawyer.

I don’t want to appear desperate, and I certainly don’t want Glennon to hear me salivating all over my cell phone.

“I’m ready whenever you are. What are we going to talk about?”

“I know it all. Barry Price, Donald Susser, Augusta … I know who they are and what they’re planning to do. I’m afraid I had a part in it.”

“I understand,” I say, though there’s a good chance I don’t. I assume the fact that he actually sent the wire transfers means he’s afraid he’s committed a crime. He may or may not be right, depending on what he knew.

“Then you need to help me. I don’t want to go to jail. I’m a married man; I want to have a family.” He sounds frantic.

Now it makes sense that he’s calling me rather than the police; he wants to be my client. Just what I need, more clients.

“Let’s talk,” I say, “and I’ll do everything I can. Where would you like to meet?”

“I don’t know; it can’t be in public. If they find out … you don’t know what these people are like.”

“Do you have a car?

“Yes.”