Unleashed (23 page)

According to police, a car containing the body of Richard Glennon was found in a ditch off the side of the highway, in Paterson. He had been shot once in the back of the head and would have certainly died instantly.

I call Pete Stanton on his cell phone to see if he can get me any more information. When he answers, I ask if he has heard about Glennon’s murder.

“I’m watching his body being loaded into a van. Why?”

“He was on his way to meet me tonight,” I say.

“You remain a regular good-luck charm. Come on in and talk to me about it.”

“Where are you?”

“Headed to the morgue. Glennon’s wife is on the way to ID the body.”

I agree to come down and talk to him, even though it will probably be a waste of time. I won’t reveal much about my case, and he won’t reveal much about his. But it’s worth a try.

I arrive at the morgue just in time to see a uniformed officer escort a sobbing woman into the building. I wait in the reception area, and ten minutes later the same officer brings out the same woman, sobbing even harder now. My keen investigative mind tells me that she is Mrs. Richard Glennon.

Pete finally comes out, and we go outside to talk. “Any chance you caught the killer?” I ask.

“Why? You want another client? You moved up from amateur killers to professional?”

“This was a professional hit?”

“No doubt. Now suppose you tell me why you were meeting Glennon?”

There’s not really much reason for me to hold much back. The more people who are investigating all of this, the more chance there is that we’ll collectively learn something.

So I tell him what I know and suggest that he call Agent Muñoz to learn more.

“You’d better hurry up and solve this,” I say. “I’ve got a feeling something bad is about to happen.”

He points back toward the morgue. “Worse than this?”

I nod. “Much worse than this.”

“Your Honor, we do not have a full witness list at this time.”

Bader and I are in Judge Hurdle’s chambers before the start of court this morning, and Bader’s reaction my statement is predictable.

“Your Honor, this is ridiculous, and we strongly request that you put a stop to it. The defense wants to present a case, then let them present their case. But we are entitled to prepare for their witnesses.”

“In the course of presenting our case, we will be demonstrating why our witness list is unavoidably not complete,” I say.

Judge Hurdle frowns. “That’s a little cryptic for me.”

“I’m sorry, Your Honor, but my witnesses keep getting murdered.”

“You mean Denise Price?” Bader asks.

“No. I would have called her, but I’m sure she would have refused to testify. I’m talking about other potential witnesses who have met the same fate.”

Bader turns to Judge Hurdle in frustration. “Your Honor, he’s attempting to get in witness testimony that would never have a chance of seeing the light of day in an actual trial. This is why he asked for a preliminary hearing.”

I snap my fingers in mock dismay. “I’m sorry, I must have cut class the day they taught that I was required to reveal my motive for wanting a preliminary hearing. I was probably out late the night before … you know how that is—”

Hurdle cuts me off, which was fine, because I was pretty much finished with that speech. “Mr. Carpenter, who are your first two witnesses going to be?”

Bader’s level of frustration is about to be multiplied by ten. “First, we’ll be calling Lieutenant Jennings back to the stand.”

“For what purpose?”

“To question him about matters that weren’t brought up on direct and that I therefore couldn’t cross-examine him on.”

Hurdle nods; that seems reasonable. “And your second witness?”

“That will be me, Your Honor.”

“Excuse me?”

“I will be testifying myself, with Your Honor’s permission.”

Bader practically launches himself from his seat. “Your Honor, that is completely improper.”

I shake my head. “It is not. As an officer of the court, I submit that I am the only person with knowledge of the events and substance that I will testify to. To prevent me from doing so would inhibit the search for the truth while accomplishing nothing.”

“Mr. Carpenter obviously considers proper procedure and the dignity of this court to be ‘nothing,’” says Bader.

I’ve been looking at and talking to Judge Hurdle the entire time, as if Bader is not there, and it’s driving him nuts. So nuts that he just gave me an opening.

“Judge, you and I know that you are quite capable of maintaining proper procedure and the dignity of your courtroom. That isn’t the issue here. The issue is whether or not Sam Willis should be deprived of his liberty and held over for trial. To do that you need all relevant information, and I am telling you, and I will demonstrate, that my testifying is the only way to get that information out there for you to consider.”

Hurdle does not look convinced. “Mr. Bader?”

Bader makes an obvious effort to appear calm and reasonable. “I would submit that Mr. Carpenter’s motive here is not to ensure that the court has sufficient information. He is playing to the media and the potential jurors who are following this hearing.”

I smile, as if amused by Bader’s tactic. “For days now the prosecution has been presenting their own witnesses, yet I heard no concern that the jury pool out there might hear their point of view.”

“That is information that they will hear at trial,” Bader says. “Your fishing expedition witnesses will never get near the trial.”

“I hadn’t realized you had decided yet that there would even be a trial, Judge. I thought that’s what this hearing was all about.”

“Don’t play me, Mr. Carpenter.”

I nod. “Here’s the reality of the situation, Your Honor. It’s a preliminary hearing, so you have complete discretion as to what you will allow and what you won’t allow. More important, since you will be making the final decision as to whether there is probable cause, you can listen to our case, to my testimony, and assign whatever weight to it you wish. Or give it no weight at all. It’s all up to you; there is no jury here for me to unduly influence.”

I continue before Bader can jump in. “And if Mr. Bader is right, that I’m somehow playing games and interfering with the dignity of the court, then you can cut me off at any time and admonish me in front of the media that Mr. Bader suddenly seems so concerned about.”

“And I will do exactly that if I deem it necessary,” Hurdle says, to Bader’s obvious distress. “I will also direct you to move quickly. We must adjourn early today, because the court has housekeeping issues to deal with. And as you know, we are five days from Memorial Day weekend. When we get there, this hearing had better be in my rearview mirror.”

“Lieutenant Jennings, welcome back.”

“Thank you,” he says, but he’s looking at me as if my welcome was insincere. Why must these people judge me so harshly?

“Sorry to again take you away from your important work,” I say. “I’ll try not to keep you long. By the way, what important work have you been doing?”

“Police work.”

I give an exaggerated nod and snap of the fingers, as if I should have known better than to ask such a silly question. “Of course, police work. Because you’re a policeman. What kind of police work?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I assume you haven’t been working traffic crossings or giving out parking tickets. What have you been doing?”

“Investigative work.”

“Of course,” I say. “Because you’re an investigator.”

“Yes.”

“Have you been investigating things related to this case?”

“Among others,” he says.

“If we looked at the murder book and your time sheets, would we see that a good portion of that time has been on this case?”

“A good amount, not all of it.”

“As I recall, Denise Price told you that she and Sam Willis had been having an affair,” I say. “Do you remember that?”

“Of course.”

“Have you been investigating that claim?”

He nods. “I have.”

“We didn’t hear anything about that in the prosecution’s case, so this is your chance to add it to the record.”

“What are you asking me?”

“Well, since Denise Price told you this weeks ago, what have you learned since then to support her claim that she and Sam Willis were having an affair?”

“A number of her friends have confirmed that she was having an affair.”

“With Sam Willis?”

“They did not know the identity of the man. They couldn’t rule him out.”

“Let’s start over on this one, okay? What have you learned since you spoke to Denise Price to support her claim that she and Sam Willis were having an affair?”

“I haven’t confirmed it yet. It is still a very active investigation.”

“So in your very active investigation, you’ve come up with nothing?”

Jennings looks as if he’d like to kill me; I had better never get arrested in Morris County. “It’s a process,” he says.

“Thank you; I hadn’t realized that. During this process, you say you’ve spoken to Denise Price’s friends. Have you spoken to Sam Willis’s friends?”

“Some of them.”

“I’m going to take a wild guess that none of them told you what you were looking for. Did you search his apartment? His office?”

“Yes.”

“Nothing that would confirm the affair, huh? That must be frustrating for you.”

“His computer is missing.”

“Aha!” I say, as if that must be the answer. “So if he sent her love letter e-mails, you wouldn’t have them.”

“Correct,” he says, giving me an opening.

“On the other hand, you have Denise Price’s computer, so you’d know if she received any. Right?”

“We have her computer.”

“And you have his cell phone, on which his e-mails are synced to his computer, right?”

“We have that, yes.”

“So when you said a moment ago that you didn’t have his e-mails, you were not accurately describing the situation?”

“The computer could have more on it.”

“So let’s recap, if we can. With all the investigative effort you have put into it, at this point Denise Price’s claims of an affair with Sam Willis are completely unsubstantiated?”

“I do not yet have any direct evidence of the affair.”

“What about indirect evidence? What about any kind of evidence?”

Bader finally objects, saying that I’m badgering the witness. He should have made the objection five minutes ago, but once he does, Judge Hurdle sustains it.

“So a person is in jail, facing a charge that could send her to prison for the rest of her life. She suddenly decides to tell you something that she claims she’s known for months and that possibly could free her if you believe it.”

Bader stands up. “Is there a question in there anywhere?”

“I’m getting there,” I say, and I turn back to Jennings. “You then investigate it and turn up absolutely nothing to corroborate her claim. Yet you still refuse to believe she could have lied about it.”

“The question?” Bader demands.

“Here’s the question,” I say. “Lieutenant Jennings, don’t you think you owe Sam Willis an apology?”

“Hello, Andy. Can we come in?” Hilda asks when I answer the door.

Most evenings it might be nice to get a visit from the Mandlebaums, but this isn’t one of them. Hike is over, and we’re preparing for my testimony tomorrow. It’s a weird sensation. In all the time I’ve spent in courtrooms, I have never before been on the witness stand.

“Sure, Hilda. Nice to see you. Hello, Eli.”

Eli Mandlebaum is a man of few words, and he doesn’t use any now, he just smiles and nods. He’s holding a paper bag in front of him.

They’ve met Hike before, so I don’t have to worry about introductions.

“We wanted to talk to you about something,” Hilda says. “But first…” She reaches out for the paper bag, which Eli dutifully hands to her. “Can you give these to Sam?”

“What is it?” For all I know it could be a handgun and a bag of bullets, to help Sam escape.

“Rugelach. It’s a Jewish pastry. I’m sure he’s hasn’t been having any.”

I think it’s a safe bet that Sam hasn’t been sucking down rugelach in his cell. “I’ll make sure he gets it,” I say.

“Try one,” Hilda commands, and I do. They’re fantastic. They’re so good that it’s highly doubtful they will survive until tomorrow. Sam is going to be out of luck, since I’m pretty sure Hike and I are going to devour them when Hilda and Eli leave.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Hilda says, and she opens her pocketbook and takes out two biscuits, which she gives to Tara and Crash. “Sam gave me his recipe.”

I’ve got to move this along. Laurie’s out, so I can’t dump Hilda and Eli on her. “Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Oh, no,” Hilda says. “We want to tell you something about the case.”

“What about it?”

“Well, before Sam … left, he had found another name of someone who had received wired money from that company, Imachu.”

I am immediately more interested in this than in the rugelach, which is really saying something. “He never mentioned that.”

She nods. “Well, maybe he forgot, because … he … he left.” She seems unable to say he was arrested. “Also, we had the name, but we couldn’t attach it to anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“We couldn’t find any information on the person other than his bank account. But Sam told us to keep working, so we have.”

“And you found him?”

She nods. “Eli did.”

Eli just smiles silently, as always content with life. It’s Eli Mandlebaum’s world; we just live in it.

“Who is he?”

“Well, the bank account was for a Mr. Miguel Cardenas, but none of the people with that name matched up. And then Eli decided to check Mike Cardenas, and bingo. Mike is English for Miguel.”

It’s frustrating, but Hilda tells a story at Hilda’s pace.

“So we have a lot of information on him, but I thought you’d like to know where he works.”

“Where?”

“At Port Newark. He’s a U.S. customs manager.”

“Hilda, I don’t say this lightly, but the best thing about you is not your rugelach.”