Muzzled

by David Rosenfelt

  “Why?”

  I knew he would ask that, and I’ve thought about it. I don’t see any downside in telling him what we believe. If he uses it and comes up with exculpatory evidence for Vogel, I know he’ll bring it forward. Pete, like any cop, likes to make arrests and convictions. But he likes the truth more.

  “I have reason to believe that Orlando Bledsoe, and most likely both of them, were the guys who set off the explosives on the boat.”

  “Vogel’s boat?”

  “No, the Lusitania. Come on, Pete, try to keep up.”

  “So in your pathetic attempt to help your client escape justice, you’re scouring the news reports for dead guys to blame?”

  “Vogel saw Bledsoe on the boat.”

  Pete frowns. “Sure. And then Bledsoe said, ‘I’m going to let you live, but you need to go into hiding for weeks.’”

  “Pete, who are these guys?”

  He looks like he’s going to argue some more, but then sighs. “They’re hired guns. Used to work for Petrone, then Russo senior. Once those two bosses both bit the dust, they went out on their own.”

  Dominic Petrone was head of the crime family, actually the founder, before he departed this world. Joseph Russo, Sr., took over, then also involuntarily moved on.

  “Why did they leave?”

  “Russo junior is said to be in a bit of a money crunch. He’s reduced his staff.”

  “Could they have still been working for Junior on a contract basis?”

  “Always possible. They’d work for whoever paid them.”

  “Who might have killed them?”

  “Somebody very good and very dangerous.”

  “Do you know why?”

  Pete shakes his head. “Not yet.”

  “Allow me to speculate. They were killed because they screwed up and failed to kill Alex Vogel.”

  “Allow me to speculate. You’re full of shit.”

  “While we’re talking about cases you can’t come close to solving, how are you doing on Carla D’Antoni’s murder?”

  He smiles, though it’s more of a smirk than a smile. “You know about that?”

  “About what?”

  “That your client was sleeping with her. Maybe you’ll have another trial to make money on.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that a lot of people in Alex Vogel’s world seem to turn up dead.”

  I laugh. “You think Vogel killed her?”

  “You’ll know that soon enough, Counselor.”

  “You going to make him for the Kennedy assassination also? He could have been in Dallas that day; I heard he’s a Cowboys fan.”

  “Let’s just say he’ll get what he deserves.”

  “What’s the record for most stupid mistakes by one cop on one case?”

  “The only mistake I can think of was taking this meeting, which is now officially over.”

  “Russo’s name keeps turning up,” I say.

  “First the D’Antoni connection, but now Bledsoe and Phillips.” I’m talking and drinking wine with Laurie in the den. Ricky has been asleep for a couple of hours, and Tara and Sebastian have been walked.

  So let the murder talk begin.

  “But you still don’t think he’s involved?” Laurie asks.

  I shake my head. “No. I can’t get past the fact that it was done out on the ocean. It’s just not his style. Also, if it was Russo, he wouldn’t have framed Vogel by leaving explosive traces in his house when he failed to kill him. Russo would just have tried to kill him again.”

  “Bledsoe and Phillips got a single bullet in the head. That would be very much Russo’s style.”

  I can’t argue with that, so I don’t make the attempt. “It could be that I’m reading too much into it. Pete says that the two of them broke away from Russo and went on their own. He had no evidence that they were still working for him.

  “And so what if there once was a connection? They’re criminals and he’s the head of an organized crime family. Of course they crossed paths; they’re part of the same business. Maybe they spoke on the same panels at crime conventions. I know plenty of lawyers, don’t I?”

  “But it’s still a coincidence,” Laurie says. “And the last time I checked, we don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “No, we don’t. But in one way it almost doesn’t matter.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Trell will have no trouble placing Vogel on that boat, and even less trouble getting the jury to understand that he acted guilty by hiding and letting everyone think he was dead.”

  “So?”

  “So my only shot with the jury is going to be to point to another potential killer. And that person has to be credible. When it comes to potential killers, Russo is as credible as they get. So whether I really believe it or not, I am going to have to introduce evidence about Russo and make the jury think he could have ordered it. That gives me at least a chance at reasonable doubt.”

  “They’re still going to want an explanation for why Vogel acted the way he did.”

  “He was afraid of Russo because of the affair with D’Antoni. It’s not the greatest story I’ve ever heard, but Vogel says it’s true, and from his point of view it makes sense. She was killed and then somebody tried to kill him, so he connected it to Russo.”

  “So you’ll put Vogel on the stand to tell that story?” She’s clearly surprised at the possibility.

  “It’s the nightmare scenario, but I might have to. There’s no one else to tell it.” Defense attorneys generally loathe putting defendants on the stand and subjecting them to cross-examination. “The problem is that Trell will have him for lunch.”

  “This trial will get a lot of media attention,” Laurie says. “There’s a pretty good chance that Russo will not appreciate your calling him a murderer.”

  “What about if I smile when I say it?”

  “You do have an adorable smile.”

  I nod. “And that certainly should be enough, but just in case there are one or two members of the jury resistant to my charms, I could use some corroboration. Pete knew that D’Antoni was dating Vogel. He had to have heard it from someone.”

  “D’Antoni had a sister. I was about to tell you about her.”

  “Have you contacted her?”

  Laurie nods. “I have.”

  “Would she talk to me?”

  “She’d like nothing better.”

  “Because of my smile?”

  “No doubt about it.” Then, “Let’s go to bed.”

  I silently ask myself, Did she just say what I think she said? I don’t mean the words; I heard them clearly. It’s the meaning I am unclear on, and in matters of this type, clarity is important to me. “You mean bed-bed? Or just bed?”

  She shakes her head and smiles. “I married a fourteen-year-old.”

  “I’m just trying to understand the situation; it will determine whether I brush my teeth.”

  “Brush them. I mean bed-bed.”

  I am trying to stifle a stupid grin when the phone rings. It’s unusually late for us to be getting a call, so Laurie stays downstairs and waits to hear who it is as I answer it.

  It’s Sam Willis. “Andy, I’m ready to give you a partial report on the two dead guys in Pennington Park. Can I come over? I can be there in ten minutes.”

  “Come over? Now?” I’m horrified at the prospect. I don’t add that I am preparing for bed-bed.

  “I’ve got some important stuff to tell you.”

  “Will it still be important in the morning?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then let’s do it then. My mind will be fresher and more absorbent.”

  “Okay. Whatever you say.”

  “That’s what I say. Thanks.”

  I hang up the phone and turn to Laurie. “Wrong number.”

  “There’s a lot still out there for me to learn,” Sam says.

  If I needed further reassurance that I was right in opting for bed-bed rather th
an a late-night meeting with Sam, and I don’t, then this opening statement has provided it.

  “I found an interesting thread, so I just kept pulling on it. You know what I mean?”

  “Yes, Sam. We understand the thread-pulling analogy.” I look over at Laurie, sitting at the kitchen table with us. She avoids rolling her eyes, quite a feat in these circumstances. Mine have already done three complete circles.

  “I figured you did. I got the cell phone numbers for Phillips and Bledsoe and did a deep dive on them. Tracked calls in and out, GPS information, everything.”

  Sam has the ability to get into the phone company computers and unlock the amazing amount of information that cell phone use can yield. It’s not legal for him to do it, but I’ve come to terms with that. I’m sure the police have already done it for these phones as part of their own investigation, so I see Sam’s work as evening the playing field.

  We can’t get this kind of information in discovery because we can’t yet make a showing that Phillips and Bledsoe have anything to do with our case. Therefore the cops, and prosecution, have no reason to provide it to us.

  Which brings us to Sam.

  “There was nothing significant to be found,” Sam says. “The phones were rarely used or taken anywhere. Calls and texts, which were few and far between, were a waste of time.”

  “Sounds promising.” For some reason Sam’s style is to reveal negative news first and relate everything so slowly it makes me want to grab and shake him. “Can we move this along? Maybe get to the good stuff?”

  “Sure. Anyway, I figured that nobody uses phones like that; I mean, everyone lives on their phones, right? So I checked their credit-card records, and Bledsoe had made a purchase for seventy bucks at an electronics store in Paramus. On a hunch, I went into the store computer. And bingo.”

  “Bingo?”

  Sam nods. “Double bingo. He bought two burner phones.”

  I can see Laurie sit up a little straighter when she hears this; it could well be leading to news that is worthy of a double bingo.

  “There were a bunch of calls on them, especially on Bledsoe’s phone, but I haven’t gotten names and addresses to attach to them yet. I will.”

  “How do you know which phone was Bledsoe’s?”

  “That’s the good news. Some burners don’t have GPS systems in them, but these phones were top-of-the-line, so they did. I could see which phone spent time at Bledsoe’s address, and which one was at Phillips’s house. Piece of cake.”

  “So tell us the good news,” Laurie says.

  Sam nods. “Here it comes. On the day that the boat explosion happened, both phones were down in Toms River. So I did some more checking; Bledsoe chartered a boat. He used a credit card.”

  “Triple bingo,” Laurie says.

  “Sam, get out of here and get back to work. If you come up with more stuff like this, we’ll let you shoot somebody.”

  “Don’t tease me,” he says, but leaves to illegally invade more computers.

  Once he’s gone, Laurie says, “This is huge.”

  “It can be, if I can figure out how to use it.”

  She shakes her head. “You’re thinking like a lawyer.”

  “What a terrible thing to say.”

  She laughs. “No, I mean it. For now, forget how you will get it in front of a jury; instead pull back and look at the big picture. This proves that Vogel is telling the truth about what happened. If Bledsoe and Phillips chartered a boat twenty miles away that day, then they killed those people. They had to; there cannot be a coincidence that big.”

  Laurie is absolutely right. I had never fully believed Vogel’s story, but it has essentially now been completely corroborated.

  “Which means that our goal is at least capable of being accomplished,” I say. “Before we were trying to prove something that might not be true. At least now we know it is.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And it gives me another chance to look past the positive and focus on the negative.”

  “You find a negative in this?” she asks. “Why am I asking? Of course you do.”

  “Look, I’m obviously glad he’s innocent, and also glad that we have an opportunity to uncover real facts. That outweighs everything else.”

  “But…”

  “But it ratchets up the pressure exponentially. Now if I lose, there is no doubt that an innocent man will spend the rest of his life in prison. Before it was at least conceivable that a loss would mean a murderer would get the punishment he deserves.”

  “I have the solution to that,” she says.

  “And that is?”

  “Let’s win.”

  Ricky’s leaving for camp today.

  The way it works is that we, and all the other parents, drive our kids to a designated place in Ridgewood, where they all board the bus to camp. I dread the process; I can’t stand that I won’t see him for weeks.

  Dread is not how I would describe Ricky’s attitude; he loved camp so much last year that he’s been waiting for this day to come for months. Any pain that he might feel in missing his father has not revealed itself yet.

  Laurie shipped his clothing to the camp, per their direction. This year each camper is only allowed one large trunk, which was a problem because she had bought enough to fill two large tractor trailers.

  So Laurie had to decide which clothes to ship and which to leave behind, a task she took seriously. She developed a strategy and implemented it; it took a great deal of time and planning.

  Think D-Day, only with boys’ underwear.

  The bus pulls up and it’s time to say good-bye. Laurie and I each hug Ricky, wish him a great summer, and tell him how much we will miss him. Laurie cries openly and I pretend not to be affected.

  It’s a lie; I am totally and completely affected. I am going to miss the hell out of him. But I know he is going to have a great time, so I think I’ll hold on to that.

  It annoys me that the parents cheer when the bus pulls away, but Laurie and I don’t linger to chat with any of them. I’m going to drop her off at home and then go see Robby Divine.

  I’m wealthy, the result of an inheritance and some lucrative cases. But Robby Divine is in another class; he’s thirty-four years old and Forbes says he is worth $16 billion. He was pissed when the magazine came out, claiming that they undervalued some assets. Money is the way he keeps score.

  I figured out once that in thirty-four years he had lived a little over one billion seconds, but he managed in that time to accumulate $16 billion. I’m not sure why I bothered to figure that out.

  Robby told me once that if you converted all his money into hundred-dollar bills and laid them end to end, you’d never finish because he keeps making so much money.

  Robby is slightly obsessed with money.

  We met about five years ago at an insufferable charity dinner; one of those occasions where I would much rather have not gone and instead written a check. I would have thrown in the cost of my surf-and-turf dinner.

  Robby and I were the only people there not wearing ties but wearing sneakers. We became sort of friends, and he’s the guy I turn to when I need information about the world of high finance. I’m the guy he turns to … never.

  He lives in the city but plays golf at a country-club course in Alpine, New Jersey. I head there to meet him in the clubhouse, where he’s waiting for me after playing eighteen holes. He introduces me to three of his friends, then we go off to a table to have a drink and talk.

  “What does my peasant friend want to discuss today?” he asks. “Since baseball is off the table at the moment.”

  Robby is a fanatic Chicago Cubs fan. They lost yesterday, which is why he is not wearing his Cubs cap right now. He gets extremely bitter after a loss, as if they have let him down personally. Baseball will cease to exist for him again until they win a game.

  “Pharmacon,” I say.

  “As long as we’re going to talk about pathetic losers, we might as well talk about the Cubs.”


  “Pharmacon is a pathetic loser?”

  “I may have overstated it. What do you want to know?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  He nods. “That’s my favorite thing about you, your clarity of thought.”

  “It’s one of my best features, second only to my smile. Can you just talk about them, tell me what you know?”

  He frowns, but complies. “They’re one of ten million pharmaceutical start-ups. As we’re talking, some of them are going under. It’s a capital-intensive business, heavily regulated, which makes it harder on them.”

  “Harder how?”

  “Harder How? Who does he pitch for?” Then, “The process of going through the various testing protocols and ultimately getting FDA approval for a drug is time-consuming, and time is money. It’s a hit-or-miss business, and the bankruptcy courts are filled with misses. That’s why the big companies dominate the field: they can afford the misses.”

  “But it can be lucrative?”

  “Absolutely; if one hits, the profit can be enormous.”

  “Pharmacon is doing an IPO.”

  He frowns his disdain. “Not going to do well; they would be better off not going forward, but they need the money. It’s a tough situation because they would do much better if they had positive news to tell.”

  “Are you buying any shares?”

  “I looked at it, but I’m not interested. They’re pricing it at ten dollars a share, and it sold out, but it will go down from there.”

  “How did it sell out if it’s not a good buy?”

  “Must be a lot of buying within the company and by handpicked investors. I don’t have any personal knowledge of this, but some of the money might not be squeaky-clean.”

  If I had antennae, they would have just gone way up. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s a way to launder money. You buy stock through a shell company, hold it for a little while, sell it, and you’ve run it through the washing machine. As long as the company you’re buying into is willing to not look too closely, then it doesn’t matter that much if the stock goes up or down. The point is not to make a profit, it’s to launder the money.

  “Like I say, I have no idea whether that happened, but by the time I looked at it, there was nothing left, although I wouldn’t have bought in anyway.” Then, “Hey, those were Pharmacon guys who died on that boat. Is that why you’re interested in this?”