Leader of the Pack

by David Rosenfelt

  He is also the man Edward has in effect loaned to me, for the purposes of testifying at this trial. Edward feels, no doubt justifiably, that he was the target of a shooting to prevent him from testifying. He wants to avoid that, and is sort of using Halitzky as his bulletproof vest.

  Ironically, I think the jury, or at least those members that can stay awake, are finding Halitzky to be a compelling witness. His lack of emotion somehow adds to his credibility, as does his encyclopedic knowledge of his subject matter.

  His investigation of Solarno had been remarkably thorough, and the documents that Edward had provided me didn’t tell nearly the entire story. Halitzky is more than capable of filling in the blanks, and by the time he is finished, I don’t think anyone could doubt that Solarno was a criminal who dealt with other criminals.

  When I turn him over for cross-examination, Dylan unfortunately takes the perfectly correct approach to him.

  “Mr. Halitzky, in your extensive investigation, did you uncover any evidence that someone other than Mr. Desimone murdered Mr. and Mrs. Solarno?”

  “I did not.”

  “If you had, you would have provided the police with that information, correct?”

  “Correct,” Halitzky says.

  “Did you uncover any evidence that would tend to prove the defendant’s innocence?”

  I stand. ”Objection, Your Honor, that is outside the scope. Mr. Halitzky did not investigate the Solarno murders, nor did he investigate anything that Mr. Desimone did or did not do. To save time, he also found no evidence relating to the assassinations of Presidents Kennedy or Lincoln.”

  Hatchet looks at me with disdain. “Next time I would advise you to stop your objection at ‘outside the scope.’ Sustained.”

  Dylan nods and goes on. “Did you find any evidence of threats against Mr. Solarno by any of the people he did business with?”

  I stand again, because Halitzky did not look for any threats; that wasn’t the job Edward assigned him to. “Objection. Outside the scope.”

  “A quick-learning lawyer,” Hatchet says. “How refreshing. Sustained.”

  On redirect I pound home the fact that Halitzky not finding exculpatory evidence on Joey, and not uncovering threats against Solarno, was of no significance since he didn’t look for them.

  By the time he leaves the stand, Halitzky has delivered on his two missions. He helped my case, and he kept Edward from having to testify.

  Next I call two expert witnesses to counter the forensic testimony that Dylan had presented. The term “expert” is loosely used in courtroom proceedings. There are always, and I mean always, experts on both sides of every issue. If two people take completely opposite positions on issues within their supposed areas of expertise, how can they both be experts?

  Basically my experts say that the gunshot residue on Joey’s jacket could have been there for a very long time, months even, and that the same is true for the fingerprints on the gun.

  They also say that the gun could have been fired by other people without removing Joey’s print.

  Dylan questions them and makes some points, and this remains in my opinion the strongest area of his case. My experts have made some headway, but as in most trials, it becomes a question of which experts the jury will believe.

  Next will come the big decision, whether or not to let Joey testify. He did not do so in the first trial, in fact, only two of all the clients I’ve ever had have testified in their own defense. When last I checked, both of them were getting along really well with their wardens.

  Joey and I have discussed this, and he wants to take the stand. It’s a regret of his that he didn’t do so last time. Having said that, he also promises to defer to whatever I think is best.

  It’s a tough one, so I head home to take Tara for a walk and discuss it with her. She wags her tail a couple of times when I mention the possibility of Joey testifying, but I think it might be because she saw a squirrel across the street.

  “How about paying attention?” I ask. “If it wasn’t for you trying to be the Sigmund Freud of golden retrievers, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. You and your therapy.”

  She doesn’t say anything, not so much as a bark. It’s a technique that all shrinks employ; Tara is just better at it than most. And now she’s trying to get me to make the decision about Joey testifying, by following my own instincts.

  She wants me to get in touch with my “inner lawyer.”

  We head home and I talk it out with Laurie. She has no inner lawyer, and therefore is more inclined to let defendants testify. She thinks the more that comes out, the easier it will be to reveal the truth. And unlike we lawyers, the truth is what she usually roots for.

  There are two factors making me more willing to consider my client testifying in this case. For one thing, I think Joey can be a compelling witness. He is smart, articulate, and believable. The jury is looking to convict a monster, and Joey simply does not fill that bill.

  The other consideration is that I have no illusions about how successful we have been so far. I believe that we have been effective, but the “presumption of guilt” burden that I think all defendants carry, just by nature of being charged, is a large one. And I don’t think we have closed the deal yet.

  “I think you should sleep on it,” Laurie says.

  “Why don’t we sleep on it together?”

  She shrugs. “That works.”

  The rainy season in Peru lasts for five months, and it can be relentless. Heavy downpours, often lasting for days, are commonplace.

  That’s what they had been telling Simon Ryerson, just as they were telling him that it should have started a full two weeks ago. But every day he got the phone call, telling him that except for an occasional drizzle and ever-present mist, the real start to the season was late in coming.

  It was the one thing that could not be planned, and could not be compensated for. The rain was not necessary to execute the plan, but it was very necessary to cover the tracks, at least long enough to ensure success.

  Costa and Bruni had still not been found, dead or alive, and that fact made Ryerson uncharacteristically uneasy. He still did not believe that Bruni had killed Costa and fled, nor did Iurato. Which likely meant that someone else had killed them both, which in turn meant that they were dealing with a very deadly adversary. Because Bruni and Costa were not two men who would have gone down easily.

  Neither the Desimone trial, nor Andy Carpenter’s investigation, were of real concern to Ryerson anymore. The investigation, while worrisome at first, had so far made little progress, and the danger time was about to pass.

  As far as Desimone was concerned, Ryerson was relatively uninterested in whether he stayed in prison or went free. Although there was always the danger that Joey, if he went free, would try to avenge his father’s murder.

  Ryerson almost smiled at the thought. Good luck with that, Joey.

  So all Ryerson could do was that which he hated to do … wait. There was a limit to how many times he could check things in Peru, and in the United States. There was a limit to how many times he could reassure his own nervous people that things were going to be fine, and a limit to how often he could go over the plans once the action began.

  And then he got the call he wanted to hear.

  It had started to rain.

  Hard.

  “If you still want to, then I think you should testify.” I tell this to Joey in our daily meeting before the start of the court day.

  He doesn’t respond for a few moments, and then says, “Oh.”

  I had expected him to be enthusiastic, but that’s not the reaction I’m seeing at all, so I ask him what he’s thinking.

  “Well, I’m mostly glad you said that, because I definitely would like to testify, especially if you think I should. But the fact that you think I should means you think we’re in trouble.”

  It’s an absolutely correct analysis, so I nod. “We’re definitely in trouble; if I had to quantify it I
would say that we have a twenty-five percent chance of winning, maybe thirty.”

  “Which means there’s a seventy-five percent chance I spend the rest of my life in prison.”

  “If you testify, I think there is the potential to improve those odds. But there is always the chance that it can backfire, and that would mean disaster.”

  “How could it backfire?” he asks.

  “Dylan could trip you up. Make you look bad.”

  “How can he trip me up? I’ll be telling the truth.”

  “That matters, but not as much as you think,” I say. “Cross-examination is a game, maybe even an art, and Dylan has a lot more experience at it than you do.” I tap the table. “This table has more experience at it than you do.”

  “I can handle it, Andy,” he says, and I believe that he probably can.

  “OK.”

  We make a plan to meet after court, to go over what his testimony will be. I don’t like to overrehearse a witness; we both already know what he’s going to say, and I don’t want to reduce the spontaneity with which he will say it. In fact, I don’t call them “rehearsals,” the way some lawyers do. That sounds too much like acting out prepared dialogue, which I do not want my witnesses to do.

  I don’t have to play for time and call witnesses to fill out the day today, since Hatchet has notified us that another commitment is causing him to adjourn at two o’clock. That will give me time to meet with Joey, and let him get a good night’s sleep.

  Tomorrow will be the most important day of his life.

  My witness for today is Luther Karlsson, the shrimper who worked for Solarno, and who quit shortly before his death. I start by taking him through a little bit of his career, and then on to his job for Solarno. That job was fairly simple; it was to catch shrimp, just like he has been doing his entire life.

  His testimony is actually somewhat poignant, although poignancy-recognizing has never been a specialty of mine. I don’t really have a way to detect poignancy on my own, so I judge it based on how other people react. If, for instance, women put their hand to their mouths, or someone gets teary-eyed, that’s a sure sign of it.

  But I digress. Karlsson loves what he does, always has, and it comes through in the way he talks about it. And judging by the reaction of the jurors, I think they’re moved by it.

  His love for his job also leads me to the obvious question, “Why did you leave?”

  He describes a growing dissatisfaction, as over time Solarno Shrimp seemed to become less about the shrimping. Boats weren’t being sent out at optimum times and to optimum places; the shrimping seemed to not be the most important thing to the company.

  “What was the most important thing?” I ask.

  He shrugs and shakes his head. “Can’t say that I know.”

  I take him through the day that he saw the boat loaded with armaments of various kinds. It was really by accident; he heard a strange noise in the motor of the boat as it came in, and decided to take a look and make sure everything was OK. He wound up seeing a lot more than the motor.

  “What did you do after you saw the weapons?” I ask.

  “I told them I didn’t want to work there no more.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I didn’t want to work there no more.”

  It makes perfect sense. In fact, I don’t question him anymore because I don’t want to question him anymore. Instead, I offer Dylan the opportunity.

  “Mr. Karlsson, are you aware that arms smuggling is illegal?”

  “I’m not sure what arms smuggling is, but I think it’s legal to own guns. I got three of my own.”

  Dylan smiles, a little too condescendingly. “Based on your testimony, this was quite a few more than three, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Wouldn’t I say what?”

  “That this was quite a few more than three.”

  “It sure was.”

  “And you didn’t believe that to be illegal?” Dylan asks.

  He pauses for a moment. “Didn’t really think about it much either way.”

  “But you quit immediately?”

  “The next day.”

  “Because of the guns?”

  Karllson nods his agreement with that. “That’s right.”

  “What about the guns made you quit?”

  “They weren’t shrimp.”

  It doesn’t take much more like this for Dylan to let him off the stand; in fact, I think he’d like to throw him off the stand.

  But the bottom line is that Karlsson did not do much damage to Dylan’s case. It’s been pretty well established that Solarno was dealing arms, and that’s really all Karlsson could testify to. Too bad he knows nothing about the actual killer of the Solarnos.

  Once Karlsson is off the stand, Hatchet sends the jury out and asks me how much longer my case is going to take.

  “We have one more witness, Your Honor.”

  “Who might that be?”

  “Joseph Desimone,” I say, and Dylan reacts.

  “Well, that answers my next question,” Hatchet says. He was going to ask if Joey was testifying, since if he was not, Hatchet would have to instruct him that only Joey could make that decision. He’s asked the question a few times before, and I’ve left it open, saying that he might testify, but that we hadn’t decided yet. If Joey was not testifying, he would have to verbally say so to Hatchet, and confirm that he was told his options and voluntarily declined.

  Dylan is obviously surprised, both at the fact that Joey will take the stand, and that I gave him a heads-up in this manner. I could have announced it tomorrow, and claimed that we decided it tonight. I wasn’t giving Dylan a break by breaking the news now, it was more an attempt to curry a little favor with Hatchet. Dylan is too good a lawyer not to have been prepared for the possibility of having to question Joey, so he’d be ready either way.

  Of course Dylan, like all lawyers, believes that any lawyer who lets his client testify is nuts.

  This time they all may be right.

  Technically, the Montaro Dam should be called the Montaro Dams. While it is generally assumed to be a single dam, it is actually a series of four. There is the main one, amplified over the years on a number of occasions, and then three adjacent ones, added to reduce the pressure that has increased over time.

  The purpose of the dams are twofold. They divert water into large reservoirs, which the entire central area of Peru lives off of during the dry season. But most important, they stop the water from descending down into the valley below, which by any standard would be a catastrophe.

  During the dry season, the dam holds back about two hundred million cubic feet of water, a comparatively puny amount. Once it starts to rain in force, usually in November, that amount rises to an average of six hundred million cubic feet. At times, the total can rise to over eight hundred million, and the dam is graded as safe under a billion.

  Inspections are done on a fairly regular basis, usually twice a year, in January and September. They are conducted by Peruvian army engineers, and the last one was done the week of September 18, just three weeks before the planting of the explosives.

  The rains started three days ago, steady at first, then torrential. The villagers below the Montaro Dam took it in stride; this weather was nothing unusual, and certainly no cause for concern. The dam had protected them since before the oldest villager was born, and there was no reason to doubt its strength now.

  The explosives were detonated remotely. There were thirty-eight detonations in all, executed one every forty-five seconds. It was done slowly so that it would not be noticed; the explosions themselves were each relatively small, and muffled by the fact that they were underwater, and there was a loud, driving storm above them.

  By the eighteenth explosion, the dam was sufficiently weakened that it was barely holding back the water. By the twentieth, it gave way, and by the twenty-fourth, all parts of the dam were breached.

  It took six and a half minutes for the water to reach the first villa
ge, and another twenty seconds for that village to cease to exist. Reaching the last of the twenty-two villages in its path took another fourteen minutes, and later estimates would be that twenty-eight thousand lives were lost in that timeframe.

  For the next forty minutes, in an act of irony that no one appreciated, the rain stopped and the sun came out.

  Way too late.

  It was fourteen minutes later that recently appointed Minister of the Interior Omar Cruz received the shocking emergency phone call he knew was coming.

  Within eleven minutes after that, he had notified the president and all of his fellow cabinet ministers. The president followed his suggestion to declare the situation to be a national emergency, and to appeal to other nations and world relief organizations for help.

  Due to the remoteness of some of the affected areas, it would be some time before the full scope of the disaster became known.

  But one thing was certain. Peru would need help to deal with it. They would need all kinds of provisions and emergency supplies, in what would have to be a full-scale international relief effort.

  They would have to come in by the planeload.

  Many, many planeloads.

  The preparatory session with Joey goes very well. I bring Hike with me, and we divide the work into two parts. I take Joey through the direct portion of his testimony first. I don’t ask him specific questions; I just tell him the type of questions I will ask. And Joey, in turn, discusses how he will answer in general terms, so as not to affect the spontaneity at trial.

  Next I have Hike conduct a mock cross-examination, and I instruct him to come at Joey as hard as he can. Hike is actually very good at it. His mind is capable of intense focus, and he possesses an ability to detect and hone in on inconsistencies.

  Additionally, the fact that Hike can be the most annoying person on the planet helps his cross-examination technique. You want the witness to get angry and frustrated, so that he might make a key mistake. Hike is easy to get angry at, and he’s a walking, talking frustration machine.