The Wrong Man (25 page)

Jason Kolarich had to die right away.

After my morning jog, I ate some eggs and made it to my law firm by eight-thirty. I was feeling pretty good, all things considered, after last night with Tori. It seemed like she had some remorse afterward, but I was getting used to baby steps with her, and that was okay by me. Especially because I had this one thing going on, this murder trial, that required some attention.

It was the day after Thanksgiving, but by nine-thirty Bradley and Shauna and Marie were there, and we’d been on the phone several times with Joel Lightner from his office. At three-thirty in the afternoon, my expert on post-traumatic stress disorder, Dr. Sofian Baraniq, arrived.

At one time, Dr. Baraniq had been my entire case. That was back when my client was pleading, in essence, insanity, and the case would rise or fall on whether the jury believed Dr. Baraniq. That part of the case was gone now, and to some people’s minds, that meant Dr. Baraniq was no longer relevant to the case. But he was. I still planned on using him. And while my case no longer rested entirely on him, he was still crucial to our defense.

He was in a conference room with Shauna. I stopped in to say hello. I liked this guy. He had a boyish face but was bookish, too, with his glasses and trim beard and precise manner of speech. He had a sense of humor and self-deprecation that would make him credible but not arrogant to a jury. Most important, he could break down technical testimony into
something that was accessible to lay jurors. A good expert is a teacher, and he spent most of his time teaching grad students.

“Good to see you again, Doctor.”

He was on his cell phone but quickly got off. He extended a hand. “Hello again, Mr. Kolarich.”

“Might as well call me Jason.”

“I understand the court has entered a ruling on my testimony.”

“The insanity defense is out, yes. But we have some other ideas for you. Shauna will explain.” I rubbed my hands together, experiencing an adrenaline dump as I plotted the beginning of our defense. “So I think you’ll be our first witness, Doctor. That’s my current thought. The trial starts next Wednesday, December first. You’ll be first after the prosecution rests. So it will be probably early the following week—probably about that next Tuesday or Wednesday—that we’ll need you.”

Dr. Baraniq was wagging a finger at me. “I do want you to recall, I have an obligation that following Tuesday after the trial begins. I mentioned that to you.”

That stopped me. I’d forgotten. “Something you can’t break,” I recalled.

“A religious obligation.”

Shit. It was possible, depending on what we could turn up in the meantime, that Dr. Baraniq would be one of only two witnesses, and I needed him to go first. The order mattered to me. If the prosecution rested by Tuesday, or even midday Tuesday, I needed Dr. Baraniq ready.

“I’m sorry, but I thought I reminded you,” he said again.

Apparently my frustration was evident. I flapped my arms. “Well, if you can’t do Tuesday, you can’t do Tuesday.”

Once again—shit. But it reminded me of something. I excused myself and pulled Shauna out of the room with me. We huddled in the hallway.

“He told us about this commitment back when we first met with him, Jason. But I think it should work out just—”

“I don’t care about that,” I said. “So listen. I want you to find a way to get his religion in.”

She drew back. “You want him to testify that he’s Muslim?”

“Yes, I do. It adds to his credibility.”

She didn’t get that. “First of all,” she countered, “it has nothing to do with anything. And second of all, if anything, we might get someone on the jury who doesn’t like Muslims. You may have noticed, there are some bigots in the city. You and I grew up with some of them.”

She was right about that. But she was missing the point. I shook my head. “Anyone who doesn’t like Muslims will love an American soldier fighting in Iraq like Tom. They’ll want to help him. So I’m not worried about that. But more than anything, it shows the strength of the doctor’s convictions. Why would a Muslim who clearly takes his religion seriously want to go out of his way to help one of the soldiers who was occupying a Muslim country?”

Shauna thought about that. “So he must feel very strongly about what he’s saying. That’s your point?”

“That’s my point.”

“And my point is it’s condescending to the jury. It’s insulting. It might look that way to the jury. If we overplay that hand—”

“Then don’t overplay it. He’s your witness, Shauna. Do it smoothly. Hell, use the Tuesday thing as an excuse. Ask him why he couldn’t be with us on Tuesday and he can tell you why. Or find a way to bring it in subtly.”

She played this over and came back with the same reaction. “I don’t like it.”

“We need to do it.”

“Jason!” Marie was standing in the hallway.

“I’m against this,” said Shauna. “I don’t want to do it.”

I leaned in to her, so Marie couldn’t hear me. “Shauna, I don’t have time for a lecture on political correctness or stereotypes or making this world a better place, okay? I have a guy with his life on the line. This is a fucking murder trial. So man up and get it done. If you can’t, I’ll take the witness and do it myself.”

“Man up?”

I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t have time to hear it. And regardless of what I’d just said, Shauna was going to take this witness, not me. And I knew her well enough to know that she was going to do only what she wanted to do.

“What, Marie?” I said, walking away from Shauna.

“You have a phone call,” she said. “Someone named Sasha?”

I didn’t recognize the name.

“She said she was Lorenzo Fowler’s girlfriend,” Marie said. “And it’s urgent.”

I took the call in my office. “This is Jason Kolarich,” I said.

“Mr. Kolarich.” It was a woman’s voice, thick with an Eastern European accent. Russian or something like that.
Mee-ster Kolareech.

“My name is Sasha Maldonov. Do you know who I am?”

I only knew what Marie had told me. “You knew Lorenzo Fowler.”

“Yes. I loved him. When he was… When they shot him, he’d come from my apartment.”

I didn’t know that. The police wouldn’t tell me what Lorenzo had been doing on West Arondale the night he was murdered.

“Go on,” I said.

“I am in danger. I know this. I cannot stay at my home. They think that Lorenzo told me things. Things I… should not know.” There was background traffic noise on her end of the phone. She was on a cell phone or a pay phone, if pay phones even exist anymore.

“Did he?” I asked, my pulse kicking up.

She paused. “Can you… protect me?”

“I’ll protect you,” I promised, which was a bit reckless of me. “Tell me what you know.”

“I know many things. Lorenzo knew I would not tell. He knew I would keep his secrets. But now…” Another, longer pause followed. Car horns honking.

“You’re afraid they want to kill you for the same reason they killed
Lorenzo,” I gathered. “So the best thing for you to do is testify for me. Once it’s said publicly, there’s no reason to kill you.”

Clearly, she’d come to the same conclusion. “Can we meet?” she asked.

“Yes. Anytime,” I said. “Right away.”

Another pause. I had a moment of pause myself. I had to be sure this woman was legit. “Prove to me you’re who you say you are,” I said.

“Prove this to you? Lorenzo told you about me, no?”

“No,” I said.

“Ah. Well…”

“Why are you calling me?” I asked.

“Because Lorenzo went to you. He did not want to speak with the usual lawyers that he was given. He wanted someone who was not connected to the… family.”

That was true enough. “What did we discuss?”

“He told you… that he could provide the identity of someone. He wanted protection.”

“Whose identity?” I asked.

Another pause. “Not over… the phone,” she said.

I suppose I couldn’t blame her. And I didn’t want to push her too hard. I didn’t know where she was, and she could hang up this phone and disappear forever. It was a delicate dance, and I was getting desperate. She needed me, but I needed her more.

“Gin Rummy,” she said. “He told you he had proof.”

I closed my eyes. Lorenzo Fowler had said those very words to me—he had proof.

“Are you now satisfied?” she asked me.

“Tell me where you are,” I said eagerly. “I’ll leave right now.”

Traffic was light on my side of the commercial district, given the unofficial holiday of the day after Thanksgiving, plus it was just after four in the afternoon. The sun was close to setting, but among skyscrapers in the city, it was, for all practical purposes, nightfall already. I steered clear of the east and north sides, where the stores were presumably swollen with early Christmas shoppers. I didn’t like to think about Christmas. It reminded me too much of my wife and daughter.

I avoided the expressway on the western border of the commercial district and took side streets south. Sasha Maldonov wouldn’t tell me where she was staying, but she told me where she wanted to meet. She wanted a public place, she said, but not too obvious.

The street was zoned commercial, but the stores weren’t exactly bringing in the early shoppers. The city’s southwest side didn’t attract Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus and Macy’s. This street had consignment stores and payday loan services and convenience shops.

I pulled my SUV into the parking lot of the boarded-up restaurant on the southeast corner. There were no working lights, and by now the sun had set, so visibility was poor. To the east of this building was a big-and-tall store that also advertised secondhand clothing. Its neighbor to the south was another vacant building that used to be a shoe store, I think. But in between the two vacant buildings was an east-west alley.

And standing on the street, next to the alley, was a woman in a long black coat and baseball cap. Sasha Maldonov. Tall, attractive, long dark
hair spilling out beneath the cap. She said she’d be in a dark coat and red baseball cap. I couldn’t make out the color of the cap in the dark, but there was no doubt we’d connected.

I nodded to her. She nodded in return and turned down the alley.

I approached the alley with caution. I looked down it before committing. The alley wasn’t a through-and-through; it dead-ended about a hundred feet down. There were garbage dumpsters along the right side and at the far wall. The lighting was poor, provided mainly by a streetlamp across the street. Sasha stood near a door that was part of the now-vacant restaurant. She gave me a curt wave, urging me to get away from the street and farther into the alley.

I kept my approach cautious. I had a tape recorder in my pocket. I didn’t have a gun. I didn’t make it a habit to carry it and lacked the permit to do so. I probably should have stopped home to get my weapon, but I hadn’t.

I passed the garbage dumpsters and got within maybe fifteen feet of her. She seemed apprehensive, and I didn’t want to rush anything.

“Mee-ster Kolareech,” she said to me in a thick accent, as I approached her. “I can be sure you were not followed?”

“I wasn’t followed,” I said, though I wasn’t sure of that fact at all. I raised my hands in a calming gesture. “Tell me how you want to do this.” I took another step toward her.

Then the door next to her burst open. A man stepped out, and Sasha—or whatever her name was—stepped inside, disappearing. Now it was me and this guy, who was wearing a leather jacket and a turtleneck.

And holding a Beretta in his right hand, aimed directly at me.

Then I heard noise behind me. Another guy, similar in look and build, had been hiding behind one of the dumpsters. He had a gun, too. He stepped out behind me. One in front of me, one behind me.

I did a double-take, then something registered with me. These were the two guys from Vic’s who were harassing Tori the night I first met her. The guy in front of me was the one I had clocked and sent to the ice outside.

“We meet again,” he said, giving me a wide smile.

It didn’t make sense. But this was no time for logic games. I had to assess and do it quickly. He was too far away for me to reach him, to kick
out or lunge for him. But it seemed like that was my only play here, because of the second guy behind me. There was no way I could turn and run, as goon number two had cut off my exit. My only chance was to charge the first guy and hope that the second guy opened fire on me, missed, and hit his partner. The odds of success were right up there with lightning striking each of them dead simultaneously.

All of these thoughts passed within a second or two. I didn’t have too many more seconds to spare.

“How’s the shoulder?” I asked, to buy some time, at least make him want to say something wise in reply, at which time I could make my move and pray.

“Oh,” he replied, “it’s doing much—what the—”

I started my lunge forward, but his eyes had moved beyond me and then an explosion impacted his right shoulder, followed rapidly by one to his chest that sprayed me with his blood. His gun fell from his hand with the shot to his shoulder. His body collapsed with the chest shot.

Instinctively, I altered my direction from a lunge forward to a dive to the left, hitting the ground hard, pain shooting through my kneecap and confusion reigning in my brain. This didn’t make sense. The second goon shot his partner?

Another shot fired, and then I heard the guy behind me drop, too.

I waited for a count of one or two seconds before I raised my head. Both of them were down. Neither was moving. I got to my feet and realized I had totally fucked my left knee in my dive. I limped over to the first goon, who was dead beyond any doubt. Still, I kicked his weapon far away from him. I dragged myself over to the one who’d been behind me. The bullet had entered his left temple. Presumably, he’d turned to look back toward the street and was shot before he could complete a pivot, much less fire his weapon. His gun had fallen behind him, but I kicked it away, anyway.

I had more questions than ever. But I was unbelievably lucky to be alive, however odd the circumstances. So sore knee and all, I decided not to press my luck any further and got the hell out of there.