Exquisite Justice

by Dennis Carstens

“Did you ever know Rob Dane to be involved in any of it?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “How did you get here today?”

  “I paid my own way to come here. I would have gone anywhere to do this.”

  “Your witness.”

  “Colonel Stewart, how long has it been since you saw or talked to the defendant?” Gondeck asked.

  “Since he separated, I suppose. I’d say seven or eight years.”

  “Isn’t it true, Colonel, you have no idea what the defendant’s attitude toward black people is today, do you, sir?”

  “I’d be very surprised…”

  “Please, Colonel, yes or no?”

  “No, I don’t,” he agreed.

  “People can change in that time, can’t they?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “In fact, if the Robert Dane you knew had to stand on watch for several days while crowds of angry black people marched passed him yelling at him, cursing him, even spitting on him, isn’t it safe to say that Robert Dane could get fed up with it?”

  “No,” Stewart emphatically said.

  “No? How can you be so sure?”

  “Because he was a disciplined soldier who knew how to follow orders.”

  “That’s right,” Gondeck agreed. “The Robert Dane you knew was, and I emphasize the word ‘was’, a disciplined soldier eight years ago. But you can’t possibly say he is the same today, can you?”

  “I believe he is.”

  “Nonresponsive, your Honor,” Gondeck said.

  “Answer the question, Colonel, yes or no,” Tennant told him.

  “No, I can’t positively say that,” Stewart said almost in a whisper.

  “Isn’t it also true, Colonel, you were not out there on that street with the defendant dealing with the protestors, were you?”

  “No, I was not.”

  “I have nothing further, your Honor,” Gondeck said.

  “Redirect, Mr. Kadella?”

  “No, your Honor.”

  “We will take fifteen minutes. You may step down, Colonel Stewart.”

  Stewart stopped at Marc’s table while the courtroom emptied.

  “Sorry, Rob,” Stewart said.

  “No, thank you, Colonel,” Rob said, then saluted the man. After Stewart returned the salute, he turned to Marc.

  “You were fine. You answered honestly, and I thank you for coming. I think I know what just happened,” Marc said. “Do you need a ride? What time is your flight?”

  “One fifteen,” he replied. “I would be delighted if Miss Rivers could act as my driver one more time.”

  “My pleasure,” Maddy said.

  When they were gone, Marc turned to Rob and Arturo.

  “He just about gave us an argument against both first and second-degree,” Arturo said, referring to Gondeck’s cross.

  “Yeah, we could convince the jury that he snapped. But that’s not what happened. He’s gonna give us a plea deal for manslaughter,” Marc said.

  “No way, I won’t…”

  “No one’s asking you to. But, as your lawyer, I suggest you keep an open mind. We’ll see,” Marc told him.

  For the next day and a half, Marc presented a parade of character witnesses. Every cop who had ever spent any significant amount of time with Rob was put on the stand. And every one of them testified the same way: they had never heard Rob utter a single word or do a single act that could be construed as racist. Saving the best for last, Marc put Sergeant Dave Powell, a black man, on the stand. Powell was the first policeman, along with his partner Diane Logan, to the Cedar/Riverside mini-riot that resulted in Rob’s first civilian complaint.

  Powell testified about how well he knew Rob and about his performance at the conflict.

  “What caused this altercation?” Marc asked.

  “What caused it, and what continues to cause this on an almost daily basis, is something the media never reports. Somali men of all ages are extremely racist and bigoted. They especially hate African Americans and are quite racist toward them,” Powell said.

  Judge Tennant looked at Gondeck for an objection and when she did not get one, she stepped in.

  “There will be no more of that, Sergeant Powell. In fact, strike it from the record as without foundation. The jury will disregard the last statement by the witness.”

  “Yes, your Honor.”

  “Tell the jury your thoughts when the defendant arrived,” Marc said.

  “I was relieved. I know officer Dane to be a cool and competent cop who would be of help if anything got out of hand.

  “At first, his presence helped settle things down. Then, all hell broke loose. Faaruq Noor sucker punched Rob, got him down, was trying to stab him and get his gun. If he had gotten it, he could have killed several people. We’re lucky he did not.”

  “Based on your experience, would you characterize Rob Dane as a racist?”

  “No.”

  “Ever heard him say or do anything to make you think he was?”

  “No.”

  “Your witness.”

  It took Jennifer Moore less than two minutes to establish that Powell was not in the locker room before the shooting. He had no idea what was said there. Also, he was not on crowd control and could not know what the other officers were thinking, putting up with or how they were being treated.

  While the crowd was leaving for the day, Gondeck walked the three or four steps to the defense table.

  “Let’s talk,” he said to Marc.

  “Sure,” Marc replied. Here it comes, Marc thought.

  While a deputy stayed with Rob, the four lawyers went into the conference room adjoining the courtroom.

  “What are we going to talk about?” Marc asked as innocently as possible while they all took seats around the small table.

  “We’re finding out things about the dearly departed Reverend Ferguson,” Gondeck started off saying.

  “Like what?”

  “This isn’t the time or place,” Gondeck said. “Let’s just say no one will put him up for sainthood. Plus, the cops out there did have to take a lot of abuse…”

  “Get to it, Steve. What are you offering?”

  “Third-degree. We’ll request the minimum from the guidelines, one hundred and twenty-eight months. He’ll do two-thirds, be out in seven years.

  “You didn’t charge third-degree,” Arturo said.

  “Oh, I think the judge will let us amend for a plea,” Gondeck said.

  “What do you think?” Gondeck asked Marc. “Will you recommend it?”

  “Since my client insists this was a righteous shooting, well, I’ll tell him about it because I have to, but I’m not sure I can recommend it. I’ll let you know.”

  “Cut the recommended time down to seventy-two months, then maybe,” Arturo said.

  Marc looked at his co-counsel and was appalled. Never counter without your client’s consent.

  “I’ll run it by my boss,” Gondeck said.

  When Gondeck and Moore left, Rob was brought in. Marc told him the offer without Arturo’s mistake. Rob rejected it out of hand. After he was taken home, Marc had a chat with Arturo.

  “Lawyers do things differently, but I never make a counteroffer without talking to my client. Or at least having a good idea what he thinks,” Marc said.

  “Sorry, I just thought…”

  “It’s okay. I’ll tell you this, too: Steve Gondeck is his own boss. If he wants to, he can pretty much accept any deal, especially for sentencing. He could have offered to reduce it further. If he wanted it, he would have jumped on it. He doesn’t need Felicia’s permission.

  “Besides, he already told her what he was going to offer. If she didn’t like the final sentence, he can always blame a sentencing departure on the judge. Just so you know.”

  Fifty-Eight

  “What’s the matter, baby?” Gretchen purred into Philo’s ear.

  Philo was laying naked on his stomach on a bath towel in bed in the Hyatt on Fourth an
d Seventh in downtown Minneapolis. Gretchen was dressed in black lace undergarments. For a woman in her forties, she pulled it off with style. In fact, most twenty-somethings would wish they could do it as well as her, feminism notwithstanding.

  During dinner, Gretchen could see that whatever had been bothering him was getting worse. He barely touched his meal and drank more than usual. She even chastised him about his drinking—something she would normally never do to a client. Gretchen knew better than to point out their flaws. She was not their wife, mom or counselor.

  Gretchen was straddling Philo, giving him a rubdown with a scented body lotion. She had been at it for about five minutes and Philo was barely responding. Something was wrong.

  Gretchen rubbed the cinnamon scented oil on her hands. She started just above his waist and worked her way along his spine to his shoulders and neck. When she got there, she leaned in again and whispered, “Tell Momma your troubles.”

  “How’s the trial going?” Philo asked.

  “What trial, baby?” she asked trying to be coy.

  “The cop who shot the fat, black minister,” Philo replied.

  Gretchen continued her massaging as she said, “Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t been following it.”

  “How can you miss it? It’s on the news and in the papers every day,” Philo turned his head and angrily said.

  “Sorry! I have better things to do than follow a trial in the news,” Gretchen replied, acting annoyed, thinking she should play along.

  “Sorry,” Philo whispered. “I didn’t mean, well, you know…”

  Gretchen poured more oil on her hands and went back to work. After a sufficient pause, while sitting up, she stopped.

  “It’s time you tell me what’s bothering you, Philo. It has something to do with this trial and it’s been bothering you for a while now. What is it?”

  Gretchen climbed off of him and the bed. She picked up a damp hand towel and wiped her hands clean. She sat down at the room’s table, retrieved a cigarette from her purse and lit it.

  “This is a smoke-free hotel,” Philo said. “May I have one?”

  Gretchen gave him hers and lit another for herself. They silently smoked for almost a minute while Philo was thinking.

  He got up and put on a bathrobe. Finding his phone in his coat, he went back to the bed and sat on the edge right next to Gretchen.

  They both put their cigarettes in a plastic glass with water. Philo was scrolling through his phone while Gretchen waited.

  “This is what’s been bothering me,” he said. He held the phone out to her so she could see what it was.

  Gretchen looked closely at it for a moment, then said, “What is it? I’m not sure what I’m looking at.”

  Using an index finger, Philo explained what it was.

  “This is the fat Reverend Ferguson. The large, black man with the angry look on his face,” Philo said.

  “It looks like he’s holding a gun and pointing it at something,” Gretchen said.

  “Or someone,” Philo said. “But he’s not. Look closely, that’s not his arm. You can see Ferguson’s right arm here,” he pointed out to her. “Underneath the gun.”

  “Yes, I see that. You’re right. It is below the gun. Then whose…”

  “Watch,” Philo said. “If I zoom in, look over Ferguson’s right shoulder, right behind his neck. What do you see?”

  Gretchen took a close look and asked, “Is that the top of a baseball cap?”

  “Yes, it is,” Philo said. “The cop who shot Ferguson has claimed all along that Ferguson pointed a gun at him. Ferguson didn’t point the gun at him. Someone else did. He snuck up behind Ferguson, reached around him with the gun and caused the cop to pull out his gun and shoot believing it was Ferguson who had the gun.”

  “Who did this?”

  “There was a homeless guy marching in the protest. Nobody paid much attention to him. He looked like some homeless guy that you wouldn’t look at twice. I saw him a lot and I’m not sure I could identify him. I know he had on a battered, old Twins cap. It has to be him. I now believe he was checking out the protest march the first three days looking for a cop and the place he might be able to pull this on. He found both.”

  “You think so?”

  “It has to be. Nothing else makes sense,” Philo replied. “The question is: why? Who was he working for?”

  “You think he was hired? A pro?”

  “Would have to be and he would have to be very, very good. Brass balls to pull off a stunt like this,” Philo said. “And the photo doesn’t lie.”

  “You have got to go to the cops with this. Or the lawyers, somebody.”

  “I know,” Philo heavily sighed. “I’m scared I’ll get in trouble for withholding evidence. I’m not sure what to do.”

  “I know someone—an ex-cop. He’ll know what to do. And I think he’ll know how to protect you,” Gretchen said.

  “Really? Who? That would be great. How…”

  “Email that photo to me. In fact, email all of them you have,” Gretchen said.

  “I only have that one of what happened. Then, a few shots of Ferguson lying in the street and some of the crowd before the shooting,” Philo said.

  “Whatever. Send them,” she said and gave him her email address.

  While Philo sent the photos, Gretchen made a call.

  “Come on, answer your damn phone,” she said while it rang in her ear. After the sixth ring, Carvelli’s personal phone went to voice mail.

  “Hey, it’s Gretchen. Call me the instant you get this no matter what time it is. We need to talk. I have something important for you.”

  When she finished the call, Philo started getting dressed.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll pay you. Put it on my card,” Philo said. “I haven’t felt this good in weeks.”

  Gretchen was checking her phone to make sure she received the photos. Satisfied, she looked across the room at Philo.

  “Why didn’t you come forward before this?” she asked.

  “The honest answer?”

  “That would be good,” Gretchen said.

  “I thought I might be able to make some money with this. Or make some kind of a big splash news wise revealing it at the last minute or something.”

  Gretchen stopped getting dressed, looked at him and scolded him, “A man’s life is on the line!”

  “I know, I’m sorry, I already feel like an asshole,” Philo pitifully replied.

  Gretchen finished dressing, then calmly said, “Hey, forget it. What’s done is done. Let’s see if we can’t fix it.

  “The guy I called will call me back as soon as he gets the message. It could be any minute or maybe not until morning. Keep yourself available,” she said and then paused.

  “I will, I promise. Call me as soon as he gets back to you. In fact, just to be on the safe side, I’m staying here tonight.”

  “Good idea. I’ll call you right away.”

  When Gretchen called him, Carvelli was in a late-night meeting with FBI agents Johnson and Tess Richards. Paxton O’Rourke was on the phone from Chicago. Washington had listened to and viewed the latest batch of recordings from Damone’s headquarters. Without revealing why, Washington had reason to believe that Damone Watson was a serious flight risk. The timetable for throwing a net over everything was being moved up. At most, one week, if not sooner. Of course, recently it had become the highest priority.

  “Hey, it’s about time,” Gretchen said into her phone. “I’ve been calling all morning.”

  “Yeah, well, it was a late night and sorry, but I didn’t check my messages before I got up.”

  “Tony, it’s ten o’clock in the morning. Get your ass moving.”

  “What’s so important?”

  “Philo spilled it last night. Tony, I have a photo of the gun that was being pointed at Rob Dane when he shot Ferguson.”

  “Are you serious? He had a picture of it? How clear? How…”

  “It’s good. Now, get moving. I’ll c
all him back and we’ll meet at his condo.”

  “I’ll be at your place in twenty minutes…”

  “Shower first,” Gretchen said.

  “…wait for me downstairs.”

  Precisely twenty-two minutes later Carvelli, driving his Camaro, pulled up to the front door of Gretchen’s building.

  “Hi,” she said as she closed the passenger door. “Your hair’s still wet so you must have showered.”

  “I even shaved,” he replied.

  He was weaving his way through traffic while Gretchen checked to make sure her seatbelt worked.

  “You talked to him?”

  “He’ll be at his place when we get there,” she replied.

  “Email those photos to me,” he said, then gave her his email address.

  He took his wallet from an inside coat pocket and gave it to her.

  “There’s a card in there from a lawyer…”

  “Marc?”

  “Yeah. His email address is on there. Send him the photos, too. Then call and tell Sandy or Carolyn, whoever answers, that you’re with me and you sent photos to Marc. Ask her if she can make sure he got them.”

  Carvelli’s phone rang a couple of minutes later. He checked the ID, then answered it.

  “What did you come up with?’ Carvelli asked.

  “The phone is in the name of an Angela Emmett,” Paul Baker, Carvelli’s hacker, said.

  “You run a check on her?”

  “Yeah and I don’t get it,” Paul replied. “As far as I can tell, she’s a thirty-seven-year-old mother of three, married, lives in Chaska and has no criminal record of any kind. Even traffic tickets.”

  “Husband?”

  “Michael Emmett, age thirty-eight. Manages a Target and he makes a good living. No criminal history. Not exactly criminal types.”

  “Not too helpful,” Carvelli said. “Let me think about it. I have to go.”

  “Okay, let me know if you want me to do anything more.”

  Fifty-Nine

  “Detective Shepherd,” Marc said in preparation of asking his next witness a question.