Gabriella was also savvy enough to know that if she treated them well, this interview was likely just the beginning. The cops and prosecutors were probably coming after Mackenzie.
The interview itself would get maybe fifteen minutes of air time during Gabriella’s half-hour show which consisted of twenty-two minutes of air time. The taping took almost an hour, most of which would be cut.
When it was finished, Marc was quite satisfied. They were able to make several salient points. First, that Mackenzie knew nothing about any drugs that may have been found during the second autopsy. Second, Mackenzie had no idea how they got into her husband and from Marc, there is no way anyone could say definitely that Sutherland’s heart attack was caused by this drug or was anything but a natural death.
Gabriella’s boss, Hunter Osgood the station’s news director, sat in and watched the interview next to Maddy Rivers. When they finished he personally assured Marc the 6:00 and 10:00 P.M. newscasts would lead with their denials. Not because he believed them, but because it would scoop their competitors.
“Heather, it’s Marc Kadella,” Marc said into his cell phone. He was driving east on I-94 with Mackenzie and Maddy following in Maddy’s car.
“What can I do for you, Marc?” she politely asked.
“I’m just wondering when the search warrant is going to be served on Mackenzie Sutherland.”
“What makes you think…”
“Give me a break, Heather. We both know, you’re getting one now,” Marc said.
Heather hesitated for a couple of seconds before saying, “How did you find that out?”
“I didn’t, I was bluffing. But it seemed reasonable,” Marc said.
“I don’t have to tell you about a search warrant or when we choose to execute it,” Heather told him, annoyed he had outfoxed her a little bit.
“Heather, let’s stop this. Do you have a search warrant, yes or no?”
“Yes, Marc. We just got it a few minutes ago,” she admitted.
“Okay,” Marc continued. “I’m on my way to the Sutherland house now. Mackenzie is with me. We’ll be there in ten minutes. Why don’t you and your guys meet us there and we’ll get this over with?”
“We don’t have to do this at your convenience,” Heather said immediately regretting her testy tone.
“Heather, if your guys show up in the middle of the night I’ll hold a press conference, tell them about this conversation and make you look like the Gestapo.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll get some people together and see you in about an hour.”
“You going to be there?” Marc asked.
“Yeah, I think I will. It will give me an excuse to get out to the office.”
Marc parked his SUV in Mackenzie’s driveway and Maddy pulled up next to him. As he was shutting off the engine, his phone rang. Marc looked at the ID and took the call while sitting in the car.
“Marc, it’s Oscar Johnson.”
“Tell me something good,” Marc told his pathologist.
“Sorry, no can do. I called the lab and told them about the IL-2 found by Ramsey County. They rushed the test and found it also.”
“I guess I expected that,” Marc said.
“There’s something else,” Johnson continued. “I went over the original autopsy report and there was no mention of needle marks.”
“So?”
“IL-2 is normally administered intravenously; by a shot or IV drip. There was no indication of that.”
“What does that mean?” Marc asked looking through his windshield at the two women and holding up an index finger to them indicating they should wait.
“To bring on a heart attack, especially one that causes death a single dosage would have to be fairly large. There is no indication of that here. It looks like the drug was ingested probably through food or drink, in small amounts over time.”
“Shit,” Marc quietly said.
“Yeah, shit,” Johnson agreed. “Now, I don’t have to put any of this in a report or even testify to it as a medical certainty.”
“Okay,” Marc said.
“Between you and me it looks like the deceased was poisoned with small amounts over time and the cumulative effect brought on the heart attack. The good news is: they’re going to have a tough time proving that beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“Or who did it,” Marc added.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Marc, Mackenzie and Maddy were seated at the dining room table. Marc told them about the call to Heather Anderson and the soon to be served search warrant. He also told them a little about the call from Dr. Johnson. Basically limiting what he told them to the fact that he, too, found IL-2 in William’s tissue samples. For now, he decided to keep the news about the poisoning himself.
A half-hour later, Heather Anderson arrived with six St. Paul police, including detectives, Max Coolidge and Anna Finney. While Mackenzie and Maddy remained in the dining room, Marc went to the door.
“Hi, Heather. Come in,” Marc said. “Here’s your copy,” she told him and handed Marc a copy of the warrant.
While Marc and Heather stood in the foyer Marc read over the one-page document. As he did this, the four uniformed officers, led by an overweight, surly-looking sergeant tried to muscle their way past into the house.
“Hold it, just hold on a minute,” Marc said to them.
The sergeant turned to him and said, “Don’t interfere or try to tell us what to do, lawyer.”
When the cop said this, Heather visibly cringed, knowing what was coming.
“Oh, you must be the tough guy. The one that thinks he’s in charge and can intimidate me,” Marc said taking one step toward the man. When he did this, the cop, being used to bullying people, took an involuntary step back.
“I want everyone’s name, rank and badge number,” Marc said as he continued staring at the sergeant. “You will get cooperation, but if you guys think you’re going to go through here and tear the place apart, guess again. Any of that kind of nonsense and I’ll sue every one of you.”
“You can’t win that suit,” Heather weakly said.
“Maybe, but I can make their lives a living hell for three or four years,” Marc answered her while still staring at the cop.
He pointed toward the living room and said, “My assistant has a pad of paper. She will take down the information.”
While Marc did this, Max Coolidge was watching with a large smile. He knew the uniformed sergeant and despised the man. Max knew he was a bully and a closet racist as well.
“Sergeant Collins,” Max said to the man. “Why don’t you wait outside while we do this?”
“Good idea,” Heather chimed in.
The chastened sergeant angrily left. As Max walked past Marc he winked at him and whispered, “Nicely done, counselor.”
Marc finished reading the search warrant while Heather watched.
“You’re taking her car and her husband’s SUV? Why?”
“To look for evidence. She’ll have them back in a day or two, unless we find something,” Heather told him.
“What do you expect to find in the cars?”
Something to put your client away for life, Heather thought. “Don’t know. We’ll see.”
For the next hour and a half, while Marc and Maddy kept watch, the five cops carefully went over every inch of the house. Maddy, as Marc expected, served as a distraction for two of the younger men who paid more attention to her than their work.
While this went on, Mackenzie moved Marc’s SUV and Maddy’s Acura out of her driveway. Two tow trucks arrived and took the Beamer and Tahoe to the downtown police department.
When they finished the only things they removed were the personal computer from William’s den and Mackenzie’s laptop. Marc almost asked why these were being removed before realizing why. The police techies were going to look for internet searches for drugs that can cause heart attacks.
“Thanks for being here,” Mackenzie said to Marc and Maddy when the cops were gone.
“At least they didn’t make a mess.”
“They kind of like to do that,” Maddy acknowledged.
“I need a car,” Mackenzie said. “I guess I’ll rent one, somewhere.”
“Can you help her with that?” Marc asked Maddy. “I need to stop back at the office and check on things.”
“Sure, no problem,” Maddy said.
“Then you’ll take us both to dinner. Some place nice,” Mackenzie said.
“Yeah, none of this Arby’s or KFC stuff,” Maddy added.
Marc looked as if he was going to protest but the look he got from both women stopped him cold. Instead, he said, “Yes, I was going to suggest the same thing.”
“And you’re not going to do what most downtown big-firm lawyers would do and bill her for it,” Maddy added.
Two days after the search of Mackenzie’s house, there was a meeting in Heather Anderson’s office. Max Coolidge, Anna Finney and Heather’s boss, Shayla Parker were in attendance.
“I heard back from the tech guys. They went through William Sutherland’s computer and found something interesting. Beginning about four months before his death, someone was on his computer searching for drugs that can cause heart attacks. There were twelve general searches and three specifically for the drug they found in him.”
“Let’s arrest her, now,” Max said.
“It’s not enough,” Shayla Parker spoke up. “It’s not even her computer.”
“Do you think Bill Sutherland did this to himself?” Max asked Shayla.
“Of course not,” Heather answered for her. “But Shayla’s right. It is a piece of evidence but not enough. We’re a little weak on motive…”
“The money,” Anna Finney said. “She stood to inherit the whole thing.”
“She claims she didn’t know that,” Heather said. “And the lawyer who wrote the new Will backs her up.”
“I’ve been thinking about him,” Max said. “What if he’s lying to help her out? When I was at Bill Sutherland’s funeral, I noticed them together.
“I watched them a little bit and he, the lawyer, this Cooper Thomas guy, followed her around like a puppy. Like a teenage boy with a crush on a teacher. It looked a little strange.”
“You’re a cynical cop,” Heather said with a smile.
“I’m paid to be a cynical cop. What if he lied for her because he’s smitten with her? He doesn’t look like the toughest guy in town. He’s a corporate lawyer not a litigator. Maybe we could take a run at him.”
“How?” Shayla asked. “He could claim attorney-client and not say a word.”
The four of them sat silently thinking this over for almost a full minute.
“What do you know about him?” Anna asked Max. “Is he married? His wife might find a little gossip about her husband interesting.”
“I don’t know,” Max said. “Probably. No, wait. I remember he was wearing a ring. I specifically looked when I saw him with Mackenzie.”
“I’ve heard enough,” Parker said. She stood to leave then said, “I don’t want to know the details but if you can get to him, it’s worth taking a shot.”
“He signed an affidavit,” Heather blurted out. “He signed an affidavit swearing that William Sutherland had him change the Will and Mackenzie knew nothing about it. I have it in the file,” she said as she started looking for the document. “Here it is!”
“Perjury, if he wasn’t telling the truth,” Parker said. “I’m leaving. Do what you have to do to bring this woman down, but don’t tell me about it.” With that she left.
“How do we do this?” Heather asked.
Max and Anna looked at each other then Max said, “We could go interview him again. You know, just tell him we’re doing routine follow up because of the second autopsy.”
“Then during the interview, we can ask him about the affidavit; he’ll say it’s accurate. Then I’ll ask him if lying on an affidavit is perjury. Make it sound like I’m just curious,” Anna said.
“Then in a few days, I could bring him in here and put the fear of God into him. Tell him if I find out he’s lying I’ll prosecute his ass. He’ll also get disbarred and fired,” Heather said.
“Better yet,” Max said, “We bring him downtown and interrogate him in one of our rooms. Let him look at a holding cell to see what is in store for him if he doesn’t cooperate.”
“And the wife and kids will be gone,” Anna added.
“We’ll go see him now, just before lunch. Then we’ll sit on him and see if he goes to Mackenzie,” Max said.
“Good,” Heather said. “It probably won’t work but we might shake something loose.”
The two detectives stood to leave and Heather asked Anna, “What happened to your other partner, Kubik?”
“He’s ah, got some personal issues to deal with.”
Heather touched the tip of her nose and sniffed loudly indicating a cocaine problem.
“Among other things,” Anna said.
“Do you have an appointment to see Mr. Thomas?” the law firm receptionist asked them.
“We’re the cops,” Anna reminded her. “We don’t make appointments.”
Totally intimidated, the young woman called back to Cooper and told him there were detectives to see him. He assured her he would be right out.
Cooper Thomas replaced the phone in its cradle then stared at the wall in front of his desk. He could feel a bead of sweat break out at his hairline. He took three or four deep breaths then quietly said to himself, “This is why I went into corporate law.”
Cooper Thomas was a fair corporate lawyer. A partner in a fourteen lawyer firm in downtown St. Paul, he made an excellent living with a healthy list of mid-size corporate clients.
While in law school at Michigan, he spent a summer clerking for a trial judge. This experience was enough to let him know, if he didn’t know it already, that litigation was not in his future; especially criminal litigation.
Now he sat staring at a wall while two detectives were waiting in the reception area. Cooper had little doubt who they were and why they were here. The black man, Max something-or-other, intimidated him without even trying.
Another couple of deep breaths and he went out to fetch the two detectives.
Twenty minutes later, Max and Anna left his office and found their own way out. Cooper was thankful he did not have to show them to the exit. His knees were so weak after their questioning he was barely able to stand to shake their hands.
The conversation itself did not go into anything the police did not already know. They said they were doing a little more investigation because of the second autopsy and wanted to make sure all of their T’s were crossed and I’s dotted.
Cooper calmly dealt with most of it because he had been through it before. They again asked about Bill Sutherland’s Will and the sale of the company. Some of it he acknowledged; some of it he covered with attorney-client privilege. On the whole, he handled it well and just when he thought they were finished, the woman asked him about affidavits and perjury.
Cooper had always been a terrible poker player. In college, his fraternity brothers liked playing with him because he was always good for losing a lot. When Detective Finney asked him the perjury question, he felt his face give it away. They knew the affidavit was a lie. And sooner or later, even though neither of them said a word, they were going to come for him.
TWENTY-NINE
Ten minutes after the two detectives left, Cooper Thomas was barely beginning to breathe normally again. They knew, he thought. Their questions about an affidavit containing false statements being perjury was not a guess. They knew. They were not fishing.
Using his personal iPhone he punched a number and put it to his ear. On the third ring, she answered.
“Hello, Cooper. I was just thinking about you,” Mackenzie lied.
“Can you meet with me? I need to talk to you,” he managed to calmly say.
“Well, I guess so. What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Th
e police were just here. Those two detectives, the black man and the white woman. They came to my office. To my office, Mackenzie! I’m surprised the managing partner hasn’t called me to her office.”
“Calm down, Cooper. I’ll meet you at the restaurant we met before. Do you remember?”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll leave now. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
Ten minutes later he was in the parking ramp attached to his office building on Sixth Street. As calmly as possible he walked to his car, got in, backed it out of his reserved spot and headed toward the exit on Cedar.
“He just pulled out and he’s headed toward the exit on Cedar. You should pick him up in a minute,” the handheld radio Ann Finney was holding informed them.
“Roger, that,” she replied. “Are you following him?”
“Yes, I’m one car behind him,” the rookie cop answered her. His name was Bret Jurgens. He was barely old enough to shave and Max liked to tease Anna about having a cougar crush on him. They had tapped him to watch Cooper’s car. In plain clothes and driving his own car he was delighted to get the chance to help the two detectives.
Not being a professional crook, Cooper was quite easy for them to follow. Barely fifteen minutes after leaving his office, he entered the ramp on the east end of the Mall of America. After parking their cars, the three cops, Bret included, followed Cooper into the huge shopping mall.
“God, I hate this place,” Anna said as they strolled along with the shoppers and mall walkers.
“If we don’t have a terrorist attack here, it will be a miracle,” Max said.
“I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already what with Minneapolis being the number one terrorist recruiting center in America.”
“I just realized something,” Max said. “If he’s meeting Mackenzie…”
“She knows the two of us and may spot us. Bret, you stay with him. Use your radio to let us know where he goes,” Anna added.
Marc Kadella Legal Mysteries Vol 1-6 (Marc Kadella Series) Page 201
