SS 18: Shark Skin Suite: A Novel (26 page)

Chapter
FORTY

THE NEXT MORNING

A
Mount Rushmore portrait of the Ivy League sat at the defense table. Great spirits. From here on out, it would just be that imbecile Ziggy on the other side of the aisle.

The judge was going to cite Ziggy for contempt over the previous day’s antics, but the defense implored Boone to accept his explanation of “rare seizures.”

Ziggy continued sitting alone, chomping breath mints.

The doors in the back of the courtroom opened.

Dartmouth was still all grins when he idly turned around. His mouth fell open. He elbowed the lawyer next to him. No response. He elbowed again.

“Knock it off,” said Yale. “I’m trying to tell a joke here.”

A harder elbow.

“Hey, that hurt! What’s the deal?” Yale turned around, then the rest of the lawyers.

“What the hell is she doing here?” said Harvard. “I thought they told us she wouldn’t set foot again in this courtroom—”

“Shut up!”

Brook confidently took her seat at the plaintiffs’ table and opened her briefcase.

Yale glanced at the others. “I need to call this in.” He got up and went out in the hall.

“All rise,” said the bailiff.

The judge appeared from chambers. “Call your first witness.”

The day’s proceedings took on a weird rhythm. The defense stalled and drew out every line of questioning into painful tedium. Brook was on the fast break.

They recessed for lunch.

Out in the hall, the defense team faced disarray. “What’s taking them so long?”

“Be cool,” said Dartmouth. “We can’t let on.”

Yale’s cell rang. A short, clipped conversation and he hung up. “It’s all good. Right after we reconvene . . .”

At the other end of the hall, Ziggy got a case of jitters. “What if it doesn’t work?”

“Have faith,” said Serge. “It can’t fail . . . Brook, what’s the matter? Don’t tell me you’re beginning to doubt my plan?”

“No, that’s the problem.” She uncharacteristically bit her nails. “It
should
work, but the whole thing is so volatile that the outcome could explode in any direction. You need to get as far away from here as possible.”

“But it’s going to be so priceless,” said Serge. “Not a chance I’d miss this.”

“It could backfire or worse.” She worked her way across her fingertips like a cob of corn. “If you go back in that courtroom, there’s a good chance you’ll be in jail before dark.”

AFTER LUNCH

The respective esteemed parties climbed the steps of the Monroe County judicial complex and filed back into the courtroom.

The first defense witness of the afternoon was a low-level junior accountant whose purpose was to put the jury to sleep.

Dartmouth leaned with an unhurried air against the railing of the witness box. “Please explain again the depreciation schedule.”

“You take the original purchase price and determine the applicable number of years from the tax code . . .”

One juror held his eyelids up with index fingers.

“ . . . Then you apply the bracket rate . . .”

The back doors of the courtroom burst open. A new character rushed up the aisle to the defense table.
Great,
thought the judge,
more drama.

“Your Honor,” said the lawyer questioning the witness. “A brief moment to confer?”

“Granted.”

The defense team grouped around their table like a rugby scrum. Then they broke. “Your Honor, may I approach?”

Judge Boone waved him forward.

The lawyer carried a plastic bag containing a small leather case.

“What the heck’s that?” asked the judge.

“If it pleases the court, one of our private investigators has uncovered a murder weapon.”

“Murder?” said the judge. “This is a civil case about foreclosures.”

“I know it’s highly unusual, but if I may have some latitude to explain.”

“Bailiff, take the jury out.” The judge turned back to the attorney. “This better not be another waste of the court’s time.”

“I assure you it isn’t.”

“Okay,” Boone said with mild sarcasm. “Who’s the killer?”

“She is.”

Boone’s head jerked back. “The plaintiffs’ attorney? Is this some kind of joke?”

“I couldn’t be more serious.”

“Then who did she kill?”

“A man named Bones Dickel. Deputies just pulled his body out of Blue Hole. Had to get it away from an alligator.”

“Up on Big Pine?” asked the judge. “But why would she kill him?”

“He was blackmailing her.”

The judge turned to Brook. “Is it true you were being blackmailed?”

“Your Honor, in light of these bizarre tactics by an obviously desperate defense, I must refer all questions on this matter to my lawyer.”

“Can’t say I blame you one bit.” The judge’s eyes returned to the defense. “Where are you getting all this?”

The lawyer pointed behind. “One of our private investigators.”

“Step up,” said the judge. “What’s your name?”

A sallow individual with sun blotches came forward, wearing a black guayabera with yellow palm trees and dandruff. “Tommy Corona.” He handed the judge a business card for redundancy.

Boone rested his chin atop folded hands. “Where did you get your information?”

“Someone called in an anonymous tip.”

“What a surprise there,” said the judge. “Why did he call
you
?”

“I hand out a lot of business cards.” He gave the judge another one from habit. “A lot of people I approach refuse to speak to me, and others act like they have no idea what I’m talking about. But if you spread enough cards around, people who don’t want to be identified will give you a ring . . . If you’ll just order a ballistics test on that gun.”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself.” The judge reclined in his padded chair. “I may regret this, but back up and start at the beginning and go slow.”

“I was tracking a bail jumper for a bondsman in Miami. Goes by the name Tennessee Knox. Word on the street was he fled for the Keys. So I talked to relatives, known associates, unsavory types, handing out more cards, and the next day I got a call that he was supposedly living in a trailer on Boca Chica near the naval air station. But here’s the strange part . . .”

“We’re already at that dance,” said the judge.

“The caller said I’d find a murder weapon in the trailer, and I asked who the bail jumper had killed, and he said, not the jumper—the killer was a female attorney who’s trying a case against one of my other clients, the Riley firm, which was quite a coincidence.”

“Too much to be a coincidence if you ask me,” said the judge. “Continue.”

“The caller said the gun’s ballistics would match the bullet they’re about to pull from the dead blackmailer at Blue Hole, and that the female attorney’s fingerprints would be on the handle. So I go out to the trailer and case the place for back exits. I get a lot of runners. And I’m ready to knock on the front door and it’s ajar. I called inside for him but no answer.”

“Let me guess,” said Boone. “You went in. You trespassed.”

“I’m allowed to. Have a bail-bond license and he was a fugitive.” Corona ran a hand through oily hair. “So I get inside and the place is stacked with all these TVs, computers, DVD players, microwaves, construction tools, a trombone. Then I saw a leather case on the coffee table, just like the one the anonymous caller had described. The one I just gave you.”

“You removed evidence from a crime scene?”

“Technically it wasn’t a crime scene yet,” said the private eye. “Sure, it looked like a burglar’s stash, but for all I knew, he enjoyed collecting stuff. Still, I felt it my duty as a citizen to report what I had discovered to the sheriff’s office, and then I came right here.”

“After stealing the gun?”

“Excuse me, Your Honor,” said the Dartmouth attorney. “Right now the only person with standing to accuse Mr. Corona with theft of the gun is the bail jumper, who would be required to step forward—”

“A fugitive coming forward,” said Boone. “Isn’t that convenient? Just like having a bondsman’s license to trespass. I smell a fixer in the brush pile.”

“And as far as taking evidence,” continued Dartmouth. “He immediately produced it here. People are always bringing evidence to the police department—or in this case your court.”

Boone stopped and looked at Brook. “Is this your gun? Was it stolen?”

“My attorney . . .”

“Understandable.” The judge swiveled in his chair and stared in thought at the broken clock. Then he swiveled back. “Well, this is a matter for law enforcement to investigate anyway.”

“And concerning opposing counsel?” asked Yale.

“What do you want me to do, have her arrested?”

“Yes. She’s a murder suspect.”

“Out of the question,” said the judge. “There’s not remotely probable cause—just the craziest story I’ve ever heard in all my years on the bench. Still, I’m bound to have them run fingerprints and ballistics . . . Bailiff, take this gun to the sheriff’s—”

“Your Honor,” said Harvard. “Before you release the gun, there is one other thing the anonymous caller told our investigator.”

“What’s that?”

“There’s a computer thumb drive in the gun case’s accessory pouch.”

“So?”

“It reportedly contains information about opposing counsel’s prior involvement with the deceased concerning other crimes and her motive to silence him.”

The judge waved the bailiff forward. “Still a matter for law enforcement, not a civil court.”

“It also contains evidence of her misconduct in this case, suborning perjury from multiple witnesses and collusion in the theft of documents submitted earlier. It will clearly demonstrate that the previously admitted stolen papers from Consolidated should now be suppressed. I make a motion that the thumb drive be removed from the gun’s case and submitted as evidence in this trial.”

Brook’s eyes flew open. “Objection! Any digital files relating to me are my personal property!”

The swing in events grabbed the judge’s attention. “Do you realize what you’re saying? If the thumb drive is yours, it connects you to the gun.”

“I’m not saying that at all,” said Brook. “My objection is limited solely to stolen evidence being admitted.”

“Your Honor, the DeSoto case,” said Dartmouth. “It’s only fair. She used it to get in her stolen evidence against us. What’s good for the goose—”

“Objection!” said Brook. “The precedent only applies if the thief wasn’t an agent of the attorneys, and by their own admission the private investigator is on their payroll.”

“She’s wrong,” said Yale. “
DeSoto
applies only to the original thief, which was the bail jumper living in that trailer. Anything after that . . .”

“He’s right,” said the judge.

“Objection!” said Brook. “I’m being set up. The court must weigh the impossible number of coincidences. If the evidence was just taken from my rental cottage by their investigator, it would be inadmissible. They needed an intermediary. Isn’t it convenient about that burglar and the anonymous call? I’m guessing the next thing they’ll say is the fingerprints of Tennessee Knox will probably be found all over my cottage after breaking in.”

“Actually we were,” said Yale.

“Your Honor,” said Brook. “If we can be given a couple days for the sheriff to find this Mr. Knox, I believe he’ll have some interesting things to say about opposing counsel. Once he realizes how he’s been used and how deep they’ve gotten him, he’ll have no trouble loosening his tongue.”

“Everyone stop talking,” said Boone. “I find this whole matter most disturbing. It strains credibility that there wasn’t some teamwork involved here. But at every turn, the actions walk right up to the line without legally crossing it”—he turned with a glare toward the defense—“almost as if lawyers had been advising the players.”

The attorneys looked at the floor.

“However, my primary concern is the trial currently before this court,” said Boone. “And I take matters of suborning perjury and evidence tampering very seriously. Therefore I’m ruling the thumb drive admitted as evidence, pending my own review of its contents.”

“Objection!” said Brook.

“Counsel, it won’t kill you for me to look at the files,” said Boone. “I’ve made my ruling.”

“Objection for the record,” said Brook.

“So noted.” The judge surreptitiously pressed a hidden button under the edge of the bench. “In the meantime, everyone in this courtroom will be guests of the county tonight.”

The back doors of the courtroom flew open as a half-dozen deputies arrived in response to the judge’s panic button.

Boone held up a hand to signal it was a low-level event. “Take them all into custody as material witnesses. Before we get this straightened out, I wouldn’t want anyone to suddenly visit a sick relative out of state.”

Dartmouth began stuttering. “Y-y-you’re going to make us sleep in jail tonight?”

“Whether you sleep or not is your business.” The judge vanished into chambers.

NEAR MIDNIGHT

An adhesive seal stretched across the edge of a door. The sky roared as an F-14 Tomcat from the naval base kicked in its afterburners over the Gulf Stream. Then quiet again on Boca Chica. The seal on the door told anyone reading it that the double-wide trailer was an active crime scene.