"And he had to go to San Francisco to do this? The Internet
is everywhere."
Herman didn't answer. He just shrugged.
"Have it your way, but I wasn't born yesterday, Mr.
Strockmire. My take is, he went up there to steal some corporate documents,
then sent them down to you, so you could decide if they were worth going
after—then you'd write your discovery motions. If that's what happened, I want
whatever he sent you, and I want it
now.
It's evidence. It might contain
a motive."
"I received nothing," Herman said. "And I resent
the implication that I would cheat to win a case." A lie, but what choice
did he have?
"And I resent the way this guy was murdered," Cole shot
back. "Mr. Minton is in a morgue refrigerator in six separate rubber bags.
I'm looking for evidence in a murder. Computer crime is way down on my list, so
relax. Whoever did this is a vicious son of a bitch. We're still trying to
figure out how the body was ripped apart like that."
"You're sure it was him? That it was Roland?" Herman
asked. "If
the body was . . . was mutilated, maybe his license was planted on someone
else's body."
"We have his head," Halverchek said. "It's a
match."
"I beg your pardon?"
"He was decapitated." Dusty Halverchek seemed to be
enjoying this. It was as if they were discussing ball scores. "His head
was ripped off and thrown on the bed."
Susan turned and ran out of the room in tears.
"Shit, Dusty," Cole said.
Herman was wondering how he would get through the next few minutes.
Miraculously, his heart stayed on rhythm, although the bedside monitor beeped
ominously.
"What kind of information was he after?" Cole asked.
"He was looking for information regarding a case we had in
court. We were suing three labs and a handful of federal agencies over careless
testing of bio-enhanced corn."
"I see," Cole said, looking over at Halverchek, who
shrugged. "And you say he sent you nothing?"
Herman nodded. "He hadn't contacted me in two or three days,
which is unlike him. I was expecting to hear yesterday, because we started
trial this morning. When he didn't call I got worried. I didn't know what could
have happened to him."
"He died sometime around five this morning," Cole said.
"You're absolutely sure he gave you nothing? Sent you nothing? No
material—or anything that might suggest who could have killed him?"
"How many times do I have to tell you? We were expecting him
to call. He didn't. I was getting worried."
"I see." Cole looked at Halverchek again and they had
some kind of silent cop moment. Then Cole turned back to Herman. "Anything
else you can think of that might be important?"
"He has a mother. Have you notified her?" Herman asked.
"Not yet. We didn't have any next of kin. If you have her
number, we'll do it."
"I'd like to be the one to call her. He was her only
child."
"Sorry," Cole said. "We have to do the notification
of death,
then
you can contact her. Where does she live?"
"Washington, D.C."
"You can call her sometime tomorrow after lunch."
Herman wrote the number down and handed it to Sergeant Cole.
"We'll need a list of names of the corporations and agencies
you were suing."
"It's in my briefcase . . . on the top. They're listed on a
motion I filed yesterday. It's a copy, so you can have it."
Halverchek opened the briefcase, found the motion, and held it up
for Herman to see. He nodded. Then the nondescript cop folded it and put it in
his side pocket.
"Okay, then you have no further knowledge of who or what
might have killed him?" Cole asked.
"Did you say
what
might have killed him?" Herman
furrowed his brow.
"The body was ripped apart. Shredded," Cole said.
"There was no surgical intervention. He wasn't cut apart, is what I'm
trying to say. We know of nothing that would have enough strength to disjoint a
man physically like that . . . pull him limb from limb. Our ME is telling us it
would take more than a thousand pounds per square inch to accomplish that. Also,
the window frame was bent open. We can't imagine the killer got in that way,
because there was no balcony to stand on, but the window
was
pried. No
human would be strong enough to do it. There was urine mixed in with all the
blood. It doesn't match the urine left in the deceased's bladder, so whoever or
whatever did this urinated on the body parts."
Herman's mind was wrestling with what Sergeant Cole had just said.
"Okay, Mr. Strockmire. I'm going to end this now because your
doctor says it's a terrible time for this interview, and he wanted us to keep
it short. But I'm going to have to ask some follow-up questions later. I may
require you
to come up to
San Francisco. Would that be possible?"
"Yes."
"Here are my numbers," Sergeant Cole said, handing him
an embossed card that was a lot nicer than the flat, cheap Institute for
Planetary Justice cards that Herman gave to his clients.
After Sergeant Cole and Detective Halverchek left, Herman lay
quietly in the hospital bed listening as his heart beeped hypnotically from the
bedside monitor. He was horrified about Roland, feeling responsible and full of
remorse. But his mind kept coming back to Sergeant Cole's statement:
We know of nothing that could have enough strength to disjoint a
man physically.
With all that he knew about the abuses of the federal government,
Herman had a few ideas of his own. But he dared not even contemplate their
ramifications.
A
t 9:45 the next morning Herman was still
in the hospital. He had changed into his regular clothes, waiting to be
released, and was sitting on the side of the bed talking to Roland's mother on
the phone.
"I'm so sorry, Madge." His voice cracked. Tears stung
his eyes. "I feel like . . . I don't know. I feel like . . . like I sent
him to his death."
There was a long silence on the phone while Roland's devastated
mother evaluated that admission. "No," she finally said. "It
wasn't you."
But he knew it was. He would never forgive himself. He had really
come to like Roland. More than like, even— Roland had been a treasured friend.
He remembered his first meeting with the geeky hacker. They'd been
in the attorneys' room at the D.C. federal lockup. Roland Minton had been
convicted of federal computer crimes. He'd penetrated the White House Budget
Office mainframe for some harebrained reason that was never fully explained.
God
only knew what he had been up to.
What the feds were doing with the
national budget was bad enough without having Roland in their damn computer,
screwing around with the data. Herman had agreed to represent the skinny little
hacker whose mother was a motel maid.
Herman wondered why Roland didn't get a job, didn't do something
to help Madge and his two sisters, instead of doing show-off criminal hacks—but
that was beside the point. Herman had been hired to get Roland's conviction
overturned on
appeal. If he didn't get it reversed, this skinny, vulnerable kid was going to
end up at Raiford, and Herman didn't wish that on some computer geek with
purple hair.
That was four years ago. Herman had found a loophole in the search
and seizure of Roland's computer, which the original trial judge had wrongfully
admitted as evidence. Then Herman did a standard "fruit of the poisonous
tree" defense, which dictated that all evidence or testimony resulting
from an illegal search and seizure was inadmissible.
After that, the government's case came apart like antique
stitching and Herman had Roland back on the streets.
During the appeal he discovered the skinny hacker was much more
intriguing than he would have guessed. Roland had a sly sense of humor and a
world-class IQ. As a high school student Roland also had no friends, so he and
Herman compared locker stories. Roland was so
smart that he became bored easily and withdrew into his computer world. His
criminal hacks began a year later. He and Herman began matching wits. Herman
usually won on theory and abstract thought, Roland on anal logic and X-over-Y
deductive reasoning.
Herman often tried out his legal
arguments on Roland and found, to his surprise, that the young hacker could
almost always find embellishments and improvements. His mind was so logically
bulletproof that Herman was often put to shame.
They soon learned that they shared the same latent anger and sense
of disenfranchisement. They began to bond with each other for support . . . or
for protection? Or both?
Now his friend was gone.
He could hear Madge sniffling on the other end of the phone, in
her little walk-up apartment in Washington, D.C.
He could picture her chapped, dishwater hands, her
soft-but-wrinkled complexion, her tired gray eyes.
"Madge, I'm going to find out who killed him," Herman
promised, not using the pronoun
what,
as Sergeant Cole had.
Not wanting to add the specter of some
savage, unearthly beast ripping and shredding her only son.
"Herman, it's not your fault," she repeated, sniffling.
But Herman shook his head, vigorously denying that, even though she couldn't
see him.
"He was killed trying to get information that I asked him to
get. How can it
not
be my fault?"
"The police said I couldn't have his body yet. . . that they
. . . they . . ."
"I know," he said, interrupting, trying not to put her
through that sentence. "Madge, I'll get his body back for you. It'll be
the first thing I do, okay?"
"Would you?" she said softly. "Please—it would mean
a lot. I feel. . . it's like . . . it's not finished until he's home with
me."
"I promise. They can't hold it for long. Once the medical
examiner is through I'll make them release it. I'll go up there myself if I
have to."
"Thank you, Herm."
They were both silent, listening to each other's sad breathing on
the phone. Madge finally spoke: "You know, he loved you, Herman. It was
strange, the effect you had on him. He told me once that you were the most
special person he had ever known. I guess that even included me."
"No, Madge, not you. You were his mother. I was . . . I was
just somebody he could try stuff out on. I was like his intellectual godfather,
or something."
"I've got to go now," she said. He could tell by her
voice that she didn't want to talk about this anymore.
"I'll be in touch," he promised and, after the
good-byes, hung up the phone.
It was almost 10:00
a.m.
and
he was still waiting for his release form to be signed, when Susan came through
the door with Dr. Shiller.
"I'd like to just move you upstairs right now and get you
prepped for tomorrow," Dr. Shiller said.
"I know. I. . . it's just. It's just that I have to meet with
a federal court judge this morning. Her office left a message that I should be
in her chambers in an hour, at eleven.
"Don't be late,' she told me. If you ever got a chance to
examine this judge, you'd discover a cardiopulmonary first: no heart and an
extra lung. So I'd better do what she says and not be late."
"We'll see you back here no later than two or three,
then?" Dr. Shiller said sternly.