“Thanks, Sam. Great work.”
I’m feeling like this is coming into focus more, but I still don’t understand the whys behind it all. Even if this land is sitting on a trillion dollars’ worth of diamonds, how does killing Jake and framing Pups get the bad guys closer to it?
I guess one possibility would be that if Pups is convicted and loses the inheritance, then New Jersey would sell off the estate for its own treasury. Maybe the killers think they have a way into the Jersey officials that will supervise the land sale and can get it for far less than what they know it to be worth.
It’s a possibility, but a very slim one. There is no way they could be close to confident that it could be orchestrated, and all the attention of the killings and the trial has shined a light on Jake’s estate that would make a scheme like that even tougher.
There has to be something else going on.
When I get home, Ricky and Laurie are waiting for me. I’ve promised to help with the only operation that’s almost as bad as decorating the Christmas tree, and that is undecorating the tree.
I’ve been putting it off, but it’s turning brown, and Laurie and Ricky have let me know that it’s time. Getting the strings of lights off the damn tree would be challenging for a NASA engineer, and it’s way beyond my level of competence.
My preference would be to throw the tree out with the lights still on it, then get a new tree next year with new lights. “It would be starting over,” I tell Laurie. “Like a rebirth. Very inspiring and meaningful.”
That goes over like a string of dead lights, so I suffer through the whole operation. The lights are a pain to remove, but the ornaments … my God, the ornaments.
Finally, we’re finished, and it’s Ricky’s bedtime. We’ve developed a ritual that I really like, in which we do a little football trivia as I’m tucking him in. He’s been reading a book for kids about NFL Super Bowls, and his retention of it is amazing.
“Who played in the first Super Bowl?” I ask.
He frowns. “That’s easy. Green Bay and Kansas City.”
“Who won?”
“Dad, come one. Make them harder. Green Bay.”
“Who was the MVP?”
This causes him to think for a moment. “Bart Starr.”
I kiss him on the head. “You’re too good.”
I turn to leave, and he says, “Dad?”
“What is it?”
“Will you take me to a Super Bowl someday?”
“Rick, it will be my pleasure.”
David Barnett is Tressel’s next witness.
As he takes the stand, I have no idea if he is aware that I know he got Calderone to put Hennessey up to complaining about Pups’s dogs. I will operate under the assumption that he does know, because even though I doubt that Calderone would tell him, it’s possible that the resourceful Barnett found out another way.
Tressel is calling him because he was a witness to the murders of Jake and Little Tiny. “Were you at the Bonfire Restaurant the night that Jake Boyer and Raymond Parker were shot?” he asks.
“I was. I had dinner with Mr. Boyer.”
“Were you friends?”
“I would say that we were business associates, but we had a number of interactions, so I would say we were friendly, if not friends. I certainly liked him.”
“You were discussing business that night?”
“Yes, though I can’t recall what the particular subject was. The events after dinner made whatever it was rather unimportant.”
“Tell the court what happened when you left the restaurant.”
“We had driven to the restaurant together in his car, but when we got there the lot was full, so we parked around the corner. After dinner, we walked to the car, and, when we reached it, there were some young men standing nearby. I believe the house we parked in front of was where at least one of the young men lived.”
“Did you recognize any of the young men?”
“No. They were wearing what I felt was gang paraphernalia, with the inscription ‘Bloodz’ on it.” He spells out B-l-o-o-d-z for the benefit of the jury and then grins. “It seemed to me they might be with a gang of some sort, so I was rather anxious to get into the car.”
“So you got into the car?”
He nods. “Quickly, which probably saved my life. I heard rapid-fire shots; I used to belong to a gun club, so I immediately recognized what they were. I dived down, but I could see they came from a passing car. I’m afraid I couldn’t see the shooter or identify the type of car. When it was over, I looked around and saw Jake and that young man, lying on the ground.”
“What did you do next?”
“Nothing. I searched for my phone; in the excitement, I must have dropped it. By the time I found it, the police were on the scene. One of the other bystanders must have called them.”
Tressel asks him a few more questions, really just to set the horror of the scene, and then he turns him over to me. “Mr. Barnett,” I start, “you testified that you had business with Jake Boyer that night, but you can’t recall the exact nature of it?”
“That’s right.”
“What business are you in?”
“Real estate.”
“So it’s fair to say that the business would have involved real estate?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Was Jake Boyer in the real estate business?”
“He was mostly retired, but he owned quite a bit of real estate around the country.”
“Did you ever try to sell any to him?”
“No, I don’t believe so,” he says.
“Did you ever try to buy any?”
“Yes.”
“Did he ever sell any to you?”
“No, he liked to hold on to what he had. He would say that land wasn’t going anywhere, that things disappear, but land doesn’t.”
“Did you make similar offers to Ms. Boyer?”
“I believe that I did, yes. Not as many.”
“Did she accept any?”
“No. Her attitude was the same as her husband’s.”
I could ask him if he knows Randall Hennessey, in the hopes that I could at least get him on perjury later if he denies it and I could prove otherwise. But doing so would be a red flag to him, and he would know for sure that I’m aware of their contact. So I hold off and let him off the stand, but I tell Judge Chambers to inform him that he is subject to recall in the defense case.
I’m making some progress on cross-examination, but I’m just making pin pricks in Tressel’s case. The way things are going, at the end of the day the elephant in the room is going to be the gun in the basement.
The jury knows that the same gun was used in both shootings and that that gun was found in Pups’s basement. It remains a devastating piece of evidence. I’ve got to put on a defense case that not only casts reasonable doubt on Pups’s guilt but also points to an alternative guilty party.
I can put Calderone on the stand to testify that Barnett paid him to approach Hennessey, and hopefully he would do so honestly. But he would make a very shaky witness, and Tressel could easily destroy his credibility. I need another way to tie Barnett to Calderone to bolster that credibility.
During a break in the court session, I do something that I should have done before. I call Sam to put him on the Calderone case.
“Sam, I know you and your team are overloaded, but I need you to do a cyberexam on Frankie Calderone. Phone calls in and out around the same dates as his contacts with Hennessey and a full financial as well.”
“What is it you’re looking for?” he asks.
“I want to connect him to David Barnett. Get me anything I can use.”
“Hilda’s got some downtime; I’ll put her right on it.”
“She knows what she’s doing?” I ask.
“Andy, Hilda is better at hacking than she is at rugelach.”
Luther Crenshaw is a tough cop who has seen it all.
He’s got to be nearing retirement age, but when
he gets there, he’s going to have to be carried off kicking and screaming. Pete once told me that Luther is the single best cop he’s ever been around. Coming from him, that was a huge and memorable statement.
I expected Luther to testify a little later in the trial, but Tressel must not be happy with the way things are going, so he’s changed the order and brought in his big gun now. The jury will then see everything else in the light of what Luther has to say.
Tressel asks Luther what brought him to the Hennessey murder scene, and he says a 911 call. “Who made that call, if you know?”
Luther nods. “It was the defendant, Martha Boyer.”
“What did you do when you arrived on the scene?”
“I had my people secure the area, and I spoke to Ms. Boyer, who was waiting there for me.”
“What did she say?”
“That she saw the body of Randall Hennessey in his kitchen, that he appeared to have been wounded badly in his head, and that she believed he was deceased.”
“Did she tell you how she happened to be in his kitchen?” Tressel asks.
“She told me that Mr. Hennessey called her.”
“What did she say was the purpose of the call?”
“He wanted to give her a gift of some sort,” Luther says, with a very slight smile on his face.
“What did you tell her?”
“To wait in a squad car until I came back to her. I then went in to Mr. Hennessey’s house and found the body in the kitchen, as she described it.”
Tressel then takes Luther through a rather tedious discussion about securing the scene and directing forensics. Finally, he gets back to Martha. “Did you know anything about the relationship between Martha Boyer and Randall Hennessey?”
He nods. “I did; I had seen in the media that she had threatened him. I asked if we could enter and search her house, to negate the necessity of getting a warrant. She agreed.”
“And you searched the house?”
He nods. “We did. We found a gun in the basement.”
“And were forensics tests done on the gun?” Tressel asks.
I could object to this line of questioning because Luther was not involved in the tests, but I’ll deal with it on cross.
“They were. And it came up as a match against the gun that killed Jake Boyer and Tiny Parker a year and a half prior.”
“Just to be clear. Forensics conclusively demonstrated that the gun found in Martha Boyer’s basement killed Randall Hennessey, Raymond Parker, and Jake Boyer?”
“That is correct,” Luther says.
“No further questions.”
I start my cross-examination with, “Detective Crenshaw, you talked about the forensics match on the gun. Did you conduct those tests yourself?”
“I did not.”
“Were there other tests on the gun that you have information about? Such as fingerprints?”
“The gun was tested for prints, and there were none. It was wiped clean.”
“So the way you figure it, Ms. Boyer committed a murder with that gun, wiped it clean of prints, and then ran home to hide it in her own basement?”
“She might have planned to discard the gun later,” he says.
“Then why bother wiping it clean to put in her basement?”
“Only she can answer that.”
“I think you mean, only the person who put it in her basement can answer that,” I say.
Tressel objects that I’m putting words in the witness’s mouth, and Chambers sustains the objections, because in fact I’m putting words in the witness’s mouth.
“By the way, Detective, you said that Ms. Boyer claimed the victim called her.”
He nods. “That’s right.”
“Did you check the phone records? Was a call made from Mr. Hennessey to Ms. Boyer?”
“The call was made from his house,” he carefully says.
I nod as if it’s all clear now. “So you think she might have made the call to cover for herself?”
“It’s possible.”
“Was the call answered?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“So you think she made a call, raced home, and answered it herself?” I point to Pups. “This lady did that?”
“The machine could have answered.”
“Did you find evidence of that?” I ask.
“No.”
“Detective, once you found that the gun was also used in the murders eighteen months ago, did you familiarize yourself with that investigation?”
He nods. “To some degree, yes.”
“Are you aware that Detective Hayslett testified earlier in this trial that Ms. Boyer was fully able to account for her time when her husband was murdered and that he was certain she was not on the scene and did not pull the trigger herself?”
“I didn’t follow his testimony, but I know that is his view.”
“Do you share that view?”
“Based on the available information, yes.”
“Yet Ms. Boyer is on trial here in the courtroom for those murders. Is the assumption that she got someone else to do the shooting for her?”
“I would assume so, yes.”
“Like a hit man.”
He frowns. “When you hire a man to make a hit, that does make him a hit man, yes.”
“So please tell the court how you think the gun was handled.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, for example, whose gun is it? Do you think she hired a hit man who said to her, ‘This is embarrassing, but can I borrow your gun? I don’t have one, and I promise I’ll return it after I kill your husband’?”
“I don’t know. I…”
“Don’t hit men generally own their own guns, sort of their tools of the trade? When they set out to make murder their career, isn’t that the first thing they get?”
He looks worried, unsure of where to go with this, and the gallery is laughing at him. “I would assume the killer had his own gun.”
I nod. “I see; that makes sense. And then after he killed her husband, he gave it to Ms. Boyer as a souvenir to commemorate the occasion? And she kept it in a trophy case, until one day deciding to use it to kill Mr. Hennessey?”
“What’s important is that it is the same gun.”
“That’s what’s important to you, Detective, because you’re trying to make a case where none exists. What we do here in court is present the facts to the jury, and then they decide what is important.”
Tressel objects, but Chambers overrules him.
“Do you have a theory on whose gun this was, the hit man’s or Ms. Boyer’s. And why, according to you, both of them used the same gun a year and a half apart?”
“I can’t be sure what happened, no.”
“Detective, since you seem to be up on the forensics testing that was done on this case, were Martha Boyer’s hands and clothes tested for gunpowder residue?”
“They were.”
“Was any found?”
“No.”
“How do you explain that?”
“She could have washed it off.”
“She washed her clothes as well?”
“It’s possible.”
“Was there any evidence of that? Wet clothes? Clothes in the dryer?”
“No. She could also have disposed of them after the shooting.”
“And ran naked back to her house? Did you find discarded clothes when you searched the area?”
“No, but she could have effectively disposed of them.”
“So let me see if I can sum up. She shot Mr. Hennessey, called herself from his house and then ran home to take the call, pausing to strip naked and dispose of her clothes somewhere you couldn’t find them, wiped the gun clean of prints and hid it in the basement rather than disposing of it with the clothes, washed her hands, got dressed, and then called 911? Is that the official police theory?”
Tressel objects, referring to my badgering as badgering. I finally let Luther off the hook. Tressel is able t
o rehabilitate him somewhat on redirect, but the damage has been done.
This is a cross-examination that has gone very well, and I think, for the first time, Tressel knows he’s in a fistfight.
I told you Hilda was good,” Sam says when he calls after court.
“I like the way this conversation is starting,” I say. “What did she find?”
“I put her on Calderone’s finances, and she went through all his personal stuff, bank account, credit cards … there was nothing unusual.”
“This is going to get better, right?” I ask.
“No question about it. She dug deeper, and she found out he’s a carpenter, although I think it’s more of a handyman. He’ll do pretty much any odd job around the house.”
“Sam, we don’t need our roof repaired, or a toolshed built, and I already knew Calderone was a carpenter. Will you get to the point?”
“I’m about to. He set up a company. It’s not a corporation; it’s a ‘doing business as.’ It’s called Frankie Do-Right. So Hilda found the bank account for the business, and he received ten thousand dollars around the same time that Hennessey got his twenty-five.”
That corresponds to the story Calderone told us in the park. “Who gave him the money?”
“That’s the good part. He got a wire from Committee for a Better America, the same people that paid off Hennessey.”
“Sam, will you give Hilda a kiss for me?”
“Sure, as long as Eli doesn’t mind.”
I hang up feeling much better about where we stand. We had a good day in court but a better day after. Our ability to prove that the same people paid large sums of money to both Calderone and Hennessey means that we can establish a firm connection between them.
It is the link we need to bolster Calderone’s credibility if we call on him to testify. Now it would not just be his word against Barnett’s; there would be solid evidence to back his word up.
My first call is to Hike to ask him to get a subpoena to legally acquire the financial records that Hilda just hacked into. The downside to that is that Tressel will now get Calderone on his radar, but it can’t be helped.
The Twelve Dogs of Christmas Page 13
