Exquisite Justice

by Dennis Carstens

  Maddy’s eyes turned to slits, her lips pursed together as she looked first at Marc then Tony.

  “Worth the wait,” Judge Spears said. “Every minute of it.”

  “Thank you, your Honor,” Maddy said looking at Spears. She looked back at Marc and Tony and said, “At least there’s still one gentleman left.”

  “Hey, he just beat me to it,” John Lucas, Carolyn’s husband said. “Owww,” he yelped after Carolyn gave his ribs a sharp elbow.

  For the next hour, the banter around the table, the good-natured back and forth, continued. The band began to play at 9:00 and a few minutes later Marc and Maddy were the first ones on the portable floor. After the third song, Judge Spears broke in to spin Maddy around the dance floor.

  While Marc walked back to their table, he saw Vivian across the pool speaking with Tony Carvelli. Carvelli saw Marc and motioned for him to join them.

  “What’s up?” Marc asked them.

  “Vivian hasn’t heard from Nicolette for two days,” Carvelli said.

  “It’s been, what,” Marc began, “ten days since the hearing? Have you been in touch with her?”

  “Just about every day,” Vivian answered. “I spoke with her Thursday and she assured me she would be here tonight. It’s almost nine thirty and she’s not here. I called a couple of times and she didn’t answer.”

  “I told her I’d run over and check it out,” Carvelli said.

  “You want me to ride along?” Marc asked.

  “Would you two do that for me?” Vivian asked.

  “Of course,” Marc said. “Do you have a key to her house? Do you know where it is, Tony?” Marc asked.

  “Yeah,” Carvelli said. He held up a piece of paper. “The lock and alarm combinations.”

  “Let me tell Maddy, then we’ll go,” Marc said.

  The Saturday night traffic was light and with Carvelli’s heavy-foot driving, the drive was barely fifteen minutes. On the way, Carvelli called the MPD non-emergency number. He identified himself—the person taking the call knew him—and requested that a uniform patrol meet them at Nicolette’s. When they arrived, Carvelli parked in the driveway. The squad car was in front of the house.

  “Hey, John,” Carvelli said to the MPD sergeant while shaking the man’s hand.

  The three of them met in the yard and Carvelli introduced the cop, John Hendrik, to Marc.

  “The lawyer,” Hendrik said, “Should’ve worn gloves.”

  “Hey…” Marc started to protest.

  “I’m just giving you a little jazz,” Hendrik said with a grin. Turning serious he asked Carvelli, “What do we have, Tony?”

  As they crossed the front yard to the door, Carvelli gave him a quick rundown of the situation. Carvelli read the numbers by a streetlight off the note Vivian had given him. He punched them into the lock and opened the door.

  “Go ahead, John,” Carvelli said.

  The policeman went in first, carrying a flashlight and his service pistol. Carvelli, also carrying a gun, followed by Marc trailing.

  They went through the main floor then the sergeant went upstairs. He found her in the bedroom.

  While the crime scene unit and the medical examiner worked inside, Tony and Marc waited in the yard. They had gone upstairs and looked through the door into the bedroom. Nicolette was lying on the bed, very pale with blue lips, arms at her side, unmistakably dead. On the nightstand next to her were three or four pills, an empty pill bottle and an empty bottle of Grey Goose.

  “Let’s finish clearing the house then I’ll call it in,” Hendrik had said.

  “You should call Vivian,” Marc said. “Maddy’s called three times in the last ten minutes. I don’t want to call her back until Vivian knows.”

  By this time, they had been standing around in the yard for a half hour. Vivian would be getting worried.

  “I know,” Carvelli acknowledged. “I’m hoping we hear from the M.E. soon.”

  Five minutes later, one of the crime scene techs came out through the front door. He was carrying a clear plastic bag. From all of the lights of various cars and emergency vehicles lighting up the place, they could see there was a piece of paper in the bag. The tech walked directly to them and handed Carvelli the bag. Tony held it so Marc could read along. It was handwritten with the flair and precision of a woman.

  Dear Aunt Vivian,

  Ever since my surgery three years ago, I had a benign tumor removed from my thigh, I have had an opioid addiction. Gary and the kids had no idea.

  It has gotten worse since I met Chip. In fact, he was my main supplier, which is why I killed him. He told me he was leaving me and cutting me off. I could not deal with it.

  Now, with the specter of prison looming, I could not face it.

  Please don’t show this note to Gary. Tell them I still love him and of course, the boys, and I am terribly sorry, but I cannot go on.

  Nicky

  “The M.E. is ready to call it a suicide. Unless we find something, and it doesn’t look like it, that’s what this is. The house is clean. We’ll finish going through it but…”

  “You’d better,” Carvelli quietly said. “You should know, her aunt has a lot of clout.”

  “Hey, we do our job.”

  “I know,” Carvelli said. “I just thought I’d give you a heads up. This thing will go to the chief and the mayor.”

  “Really?” a now concerned tech asked.

  “Yeah. Don’t worry. The aunt is very sensible. Here,” Carvelli said handing the man the note back.

  The tech went back inside while Carvelli pulled out his phone. Before he called Vivian, Marc spoke to him.

  “This makes sense, the opioids. Her husband, Chip, the gigolo and his latest squeeze both had them in their system.”

  “From the autopsy?”

  “Yeah,” Marc said.

  With that, Carvelli put the phone to his ear while Marc used his to call Maddy.

  Seventeen

  Vivian Corwin Donahue was seated front and center at the gravesite. To her left were her two grandnephews, Nicolette’s two boys, Paul, age 15, and Tad, age 12, named for his dad’s father. Next to them, the third seat to Vivian’s left, was their dad, Gary Anderson. To Vivian’ right was her favorite escort, Tony Carvelli. Nicolette was being interred in the family plot at Lakewood Cemetery.

  The only attendees were family with a few exceptions allowed by Vivian. Marc Kadella and Maddy Rivers were among them. They were all seated under a lawn canopy solemnly listening to the minister’s final words. Being Lutherans, the ceremony was relatively short and sweet.

  Vivian Corwin Donahue was the current matriarch of the Corwin Family. They were one of the most socially prominent, politically connected and old-money wealthy in Minnesota. Their lineage could be traced directly back to the 1840s when the family patriarch, Edward Corwin, immigrated to the mostly empty prairie that was Minnesota at that time, started farming and began building an agricultural empire that was worth billions today.

  The minister completed the service and the crowd started to disperse. Everyone had already paid their respects to Vivian and given sincere condolences to Gary and the boys. While Carvelli stepped aside to patiently wait, Vivian gave the boys a hug, then gave one to Gary.

  “At least she’s not in pain now,” Gary said to Vivian. “I’m just sorry I wasn’t able to…”

  “Stop, Gary,” Vivian quietly said. “You had these two to take care of. What happened to Nicky was not your fault. Meet someone. Get on with your life.”

  “I have met someone,” he replied.

  “Good, I’m glad. Bring her around. I’d like to meet her. Is she good with the boys?”

  “Yes, they seem to get along pretty well, all things considered. The boys tell me we should get married,” he said with a smile. “You’ll get an invitation.”

  “I’d better,” Vivian chided him.

  Carvelli escorted Vivian away from the grave toward the limo they came in. Along with Vivian to his right, on Carvell
i’s left arm, was Vivian’s favorite granddaughter, Adrienne. She was home from college for the summer and staying with her grandmother.

  “I feel terrible about the boys,” Adrienne said. “Don’t people think about the damage they do when they do that…commit, you know…”

  “Suicide,” Carvelli said for her. “I have no idea what anyone is thinking about at that moment.”

  “She was in a lot of pain. Addicted to drugs, looking at prison after throwing her life away. She wasn’t strong enough to deal with it,” Vivian said. “I just wish she had reached out, to me or someone…”

  “Don’t do that,” Carvelli said. “You just got through telling Gary not to accept the guilt. Don’t start finding reasons to take it on yourself.”

  Vivian was walking with her left arm looped through Carvelli’s right arm. She looked at him, gave him a pained smile, patted him on the shoulder and said, “Thank you, Anthony. You’re right. It’s just so very sad.”

  Marc and Maddy, along with the limo’s driver, an ex-cop friend of Carvelli’s currently working for another ex-cop friend, were waiting for them.

  “I think these are worse than homicides,” the driver, Dan Sorenson, said to Marc and Maddy.

  “Think so?” Marc asked.

  “Yeah, I do. A murder may seem senseless, but they don’t normally leave the guilt behind that a suicide does,” Sorenson quietly said.

  A few seconds later the people they were waiting for arrived. Maddy gave Adrienne and Vivian big hugs and wiped a tear from Adrienne’s cheek.

  “You’ll be okay,” Maddy told her.

  “We’re meeting the probate lawyer at Nicolette’s house tomorrow morning at ten,” Vivian told Maddy. “You’re welcome to…”

  “I’ll be there,” Maddy assured her.

  Vivian looked at Marc and said, “We’ll go through the place, make an inventory and get it ready for an estate sale.”

  “If I knew anything about probate…” Marc started to say.

  “Stop,” Vivian said. “I know plenty of lawyers. It’s just the ones I know are boring corporate types. None do the interesting things you do.”

  “I’m not sure interesting is the word I would use,” Marc replied.

  “We should go,” Carvelli said.

  Dan Sorenson opened the limo’s back door then said his goodbye to Marc and Maddy when his passengers were aboard.

  “Estate sales don’t usually net much money,” the probate lawyer, Ken Frost said.

  It was the morning after the funeral and Vivian, Adrienne, Carvelli, and Maddy were standing in the living room of Nicolette’s house. They were here to make an inventory to prepare for the sale.

  Vivian looked around the immediate area and said, “It’s amazing what we collect even in a short lifetime. Then we’re gone and what does it matter?”

  “You’re acting a little melancholy this morning,” Carvelli said to her.

  “I have some forms for you to use,” Frost said before Vivian could reply. “For each room, kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms,” the lawyer said as he handed a small stack of paper to Carvelli. “The rest of the estate seems to be pretty straightforward,” he continued looking at Vivian. “Her money was in a few investment accounts. She had named Osborne as the beneficiary of all of it…”

  “Do his heirs inherit?” Maddy asked.

  “No, he died before her, so the accounts and her remainder estate passes to the secondary beneficiaries, the two boys. She even set up trusts for each of them,” Frost explained. “Nicolette stands to inherit from him if we find anything.”

  “Even if she killed him?” Adrienne asked.

  “That was never legally adjudicated,” Frost replied. “I have an assistant doing a search on him. If we find something, the boys will likely get it.”

  “Good!” Vivian replied.

  “Unless you have any questions, I’m going to leave you to it,” Frost said.

  “Thank you, Ken, for stopping,” Vivian said.

  “No problem, Mrs. Donahue. If you have any questions, call my cell number.”

  “Will do,” Vivian replied. “Well, I guess we should get at it.”

  Each of them took a different area of the house and started the inventory.

  Carvelli chose the basement. It was fully finished and there were four rooms, including an unused, full bathroom. He went through the two smaller rooms in about an hour.

  He moved into what looked to be a TV room but had become a storage room. Carvelli found several boxes filled with items that obviously belonged to the late Chip Osborne. They were stacked up against a sofa. When he moved them to open and look through them, Carvelli noticed something. The carpeting the boxes covered showed a definite sign of wear from the sofa being moved. It looked as if the sofa had been pushed back and forth to and from the wall many times. His curiosity piqued, Carvelli moved it himself.

  Along the wall, all the way around this room, was decorative wainscoting. He had expected to find something behind the couch, but everything looked in order. Carvelli checked the area out thoroughly wondering why the sofa had been moved so much. There was plenty of dust built up behind it, so it was not from vacuuming. He even looked under the sofa and carefully checked the back of it.

  When he finished, to help himself get up off of his knees, he placed his right hand on the paneling. That’s how he found it. One of the panels was not completely flush with the one next to it. If he had not felt it with his hand, he would not have noticed it.

  Still on his knees, he carefully examined the two panels. At the bottom, where the paneling met the baseboard, he found a small opening. Using his pencil, he placed it in the opening, and one of the panels easily swung outward. It had been hinged to open from left to right. Inside the panel, neatly stacked, were several plain brown boxes that looked to be 3 inches deep by 4 inches high by 6 inches long. There were 6 altogether. Next to them, also neatly stacked, was money, cash and a lot of it––at least fifty or sixty thousand dollars.

  “Drug stash,” Carvelli whispered. “Looks like Chip had a nice little business going.”

  Carvelli ran up the stairs and out to his car. From the trunk, he took out a pair of latex gloves and a digital camera then hurried back inside. He found Vivian and Maddy together in the kitchen and told them both to come downstairs.

  While the two women watched, he quickly took 8 photos of everything inside the wall hideaway. Carvelli then opened one of the boxes and held it up while Maddy took 3 shots of the contents.

  “What are they?” Vivian asked.

  “OxyContin, oxycodone,” Carvelli said. “Opioids.”

  He held one of them up in the light and said, “These are 80 milligrams worth between eighty and a hundred bucks each on the street. I’d guess there’s five hundred, maybe more, in this box. Worth between forty and fifty grand in one box.”

  By removing the box that he was holding, a book that the boxes were covering was revealed. Carvelli removed a few more of the boxes then brought out a 6 x 9-inch book. He stood and sat on the back of the couch. With Maddy and Vivian looking over his shoulder, he paged through what was obviously a ledger.

  “This is his customer list,” Carvelli said. “Recognize any names?”

  “Unfortunately, I do,” Vivian quietly said.

  “Really?” Maddy asked.

  “Yes, I do,” Vivian said again. “These are not street people. They are well-to-do, upper middle class and even wealthy people. Do you mean to tell me they were buying drugs from Chip Osborne? Opioids?”

  “I think so,” Carvelli replied. “At least that’s what I think this is.”

  “I know kids at school,” they heard Adrienne say. All three of them turned and saw her standing at the bottom of the stairs.

  “My god, Adrienne! Please tell me you’re not…” Vivian exclaimed.

  “I’m not, Grandma. But these drugs are easier to get than beer. It’s everywhere. I know a guy who overdosed and died. I went to his funeral,” Adrienne said.

/>   “Come here, child,” Vivian said.

  Tears were running down Adrienne’s cheeks as she walked quickly into her grandmother’s arms.

  A couple of silent minutes passed, then Vivian said, “Anthony, we have to do something about this.”

  “What do you suggest? You need to understand something. This is a mountain to climb. There is so much money being made. Everyone—the drug companies, crooked doctors, politicians, pharmacists, you name it—is in this up to their eyeballs.”

  “We can at least go after the dealer who sold to Chip Osborne and killed my niece,” Vivian said.

  “What do you want to do about this?” Maddy asked Carvelli, pointing at the stash in the wall.

  “We need to call the cops,” Carvelli said. “Turn it into them.”

  “Why, so they can keep the cash and sell the drugs themselves?” Maddy asked. “There’s a good chance that will happen.”

  “Maybe,” Carvelli solemnly said. “But they’re not getting this,” he said holding up the ledger. He looked at Maddy and said, “Maybe we should stop looking the other way. Let’s think about this. I’ll call Minneapolis and get them out here. But this goes in the trunk of my car. If we do go after this,” he continued tapping a finger on the ledger, “this will be a place to start.”

  Eighteen

  The first two days following the leak by Reverend Ferguson of the internal investigation of Mikal Tate’s death brought on the largest protests in Minnesota since the Vietnam War. The leak was done through Philo Anson. The first day, with a couple of hundred Black Lives Matter members in front of a crowd of at least five thousand, the protest brought Downtown Minneapolis to a virtual standstill.

  Each day it started around 4:00 P.M. on Sixth Street under the Government Center Building. The more or less peaceful parade went West along Sixth to Hennepin Avenue. There it turned South, went two blocks to Eighth Street then back East. When it reached Fifth Avenue, a block East of the Government Center, it went North back to Sixth Street.