Marc Kadella Legal Mysteries Vol 1-6 (Marc Kadella Series)

by Dennis Carstens

  “Julian, behave yourself you old dog,” Connie mildly chastised him. “She’s too young for you.”

  “My eyes still work,” he said smiling at Connie.

  The female guard unlocked the door and let Maddy go in. Marc introduced her to Julian and they all took seats.

  “I wanted to meet you and tell you where we are with your appeals. I have a half dozen very good students working on your brief, with my close supervision, of course. The brief is due next week at the court of appeals and it will be ready.”

  “How does it look?” Maddy asked.

  “It’s too early to tell. I’ll know more when I get the documents from the state so I can see what they have to say,” Bronfman replied.

  “That’s your polite way of saying it doesn’t look good,” Maddy said with a chagrined smile.

  “Not necessarily, no,” Bronfman quickly said.

  “Don’t get down on yourself,” Connie added. “We’re going to win and get you out.”

  Connie reached over and squeezed Maddy’s hand who said, “Thanks, Mom,” and smiled a genuine smile.

  Bronfman went over every aspect of the appeal process and Maddy’s particular case. He also regaled her with numerous stories of long-shot cases he thought were total losers that he eventually won. By the time he finished, he even had Connie and Marc believing he would prevail.

  While buckling up their seat belts when they were back in Marc’s SUV, Marc turned to Bronfman in the backseat.

  “Okay, bullshit aside, what do you really think?”

  “I make our chances at maybe twenty percent. Judge Graham did a good job. He was fair and impartial in his rulings and I think it’s a stretch to say he went outside the scope of his discretion. Our best chance is to continue to investigate and try to prove she’s innocent.”

  When Bronfman said this, Connie looked at Marc and said, “Tell him.”

  Marc nodded his head slightly, turned back to the professor and said, “She is innocent. We know it for certain. But we found out in a way that can’t be used.” He then proceeded to explain exactly how they knew and how they found out. The only thing he left out were the names of those involved.

  “Are you serious? Wow! That’s the greatest story I’ve ever heard,” Bronfman joyously replied. “It’s like something out of a movie. It’s fabulous.”

  Connie turned in her seat, looked directly at him and said, “Julian, I can’t tell you how many felonies were committed.”

  “Oh, quite a few,” he said using his right hand to give Connie a dismissive wave. “He wasn’t hurt, this man Rask?” he asked Marc.

  “No, he’s fine. Folded like the proverbial cheap suit. Told them everything.”

  “And you didn’t know about it ahead of time?” Bronfman again asked Marc.

  “No, of course not, I…”

  “Then it’s no problem. Ethically, we’re covered. Relax. But what do we do with it?” Bronfman said.

  “That’s the question,” Marc replied as he started the car’s engine.

  “You’re not going to tell me who it was that helped your investigator, Tony Carvelli, do this, are you?” Bronfman asked.

  “Tony who?” Marc said peeking at Bronfman in the rearview mirror. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “What we need to do is figure out a way to tell this, legitimately,” Connie said looking back at Bronfman as Marc drove out of the parking lot.

  “Yes,” Bronfman sighed. “That’s the problem.”

  Joel Dylan, Mike Anderson and Holly Byrnes were, once again, seated at a conference room table. They were in the office of the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, waiting after being summoned by the man himself. The investigation of CAR Securities was coming up on a one year anniversary and Winston Paine wanted an update. As usual, the three of them had been waiting almost a half-hour for Paine and his shadow/bodyguard to grace them with his presence.

  Anderson and Holly Byrnes were seated along the side of the table side-by-side. They had their backs to the sixth-floor window opposite the room’s entryway door. Dylan was at the far end of the table to their left.

  “Please, Mike,” Dylan said. “Don’t say anything. Just let it go.”

  This was said in response to Anderson checking his watch for the third or fourth time in the last five minutes.

  “I have to live with this guy, okay?” Dylan added.

  “Hopefully, not much longer,” Anderson growled. “We get a new president, he’ll likely head back east for a big bucks firm.”

  “I keep praying,” Dylan said.

  A few minutes later, Paine came through the door held open by his bodyguard.

  “How many death threats do you get?” Anderson asked Paine.

  “What?” Paine asked looking at the FBI Agent.

  “I’m just wondering why you think you need a bodyguard with you all the time, especially in your own office? Do you get death threats from the staff? That wouldn’t surprise me,” Anderson said. He also sneaked a quick peek at the bodyguard who had taken a seat in the corner. The man was obviously suppressing a smile.

  “We’re here to discuss your investigation,” Paine said ignoring Anderson and looking down the table at Dylan. “When can we expect some indictments?”

  “Very soon,” Dylan replied.

  “When is very soon?” Paine asked.

  “We’ll be able to take the case to a grand jury within the next four to six weeks,” Dylan said.

  “That’s not what I’m hearing from the guys in forensic accounting, Joel. They’re telling me what you have so far is not very conclusive.”

  “Our informant tells us he is on the verge of obtaining definite proof that CAR Securities is laundering drug money and operating a Ponzi scheme.”

  “These guys are running a Ponzi scheme using Mexican cartel money? That’s living dangerously,” Paine said somewhat skeptically.

  “No, they’re not running a Ponzi scheme on the cartel,” Anderson interjected. “They’re making money laundering the cartel money and using legitimate money to keep the cartel money coming in. At least that’s the way it looks to our informant.”

  “And he’s on the verge of getting us what we need. Plus, they’re dealing in fraudulent securities. We are going to have a RICO case, Winston. We just need a couple more months,” Joel Dylan said.

  “You’re sure?” Paine asked.

  “No, we’re not sure,” Anderson said. He placed his forearms on the table, leaned forward and added, “We’ll know when we get the evidence. We have our informant and he’s running scared. These things take time.”

  “Do you have enough for a search warrant?” Paine asked looking at Dylan again.

  “Maybe, but it’s a little thin. If we get one and we don’t come up with enough, well, there are some pretty prominent people with money invested with them. If we go crashing in there and grab everything and we’re wrong, they’ll howl like hell and it could be your ass, Winston,” Dylan told him.

  The thought that a botched investigation could potentially tarnish him, personally, caused Paine to stop and think. The room went silent for a minute while he did so.

  “Yes, I see what you mean. Probably best to proceed with caution and be sure of ourselves. How about putting a little heat on this informant,” Paine said looking at Mike Anderson.

  “Man, that’s a great idea, Winston. I wish I’d thought of it. We’ll get right on that,” Anderson disingenuously replied which went right over Winston Paines’ head. “I’ll see what we can do.”

  “Good, good, Special Agent Anderson. Well, very productive meeting,” Paine said looking at his watch. “I’m running late so, well,” he continued as he stood and looked at Joel Dylan, “keep me informed.”

  “Yes, sir,” Dylan said trying not to laugh.

  The door to the conference room barely closed when Holly Byrnes said, “Why do I have to come to these things?”

  “Why do any of us?” Anderson asked.

  “It’s no
w Thursday,” Dylan said. “Get a hold of Pascal and get his ass in here on Monday with something.”

  “Monday’s Presidents’ Day,” Holly reminded him.

  “Okay, Tuesday. We’ll meet at your office. Set it up, will you, Mike?”

  “Sure, I’ll get to him today or tomorrow.”

  “Did anybody ask why we’re shutting down the office for the weekend and giving everybody Friday off?” Corbin Reed asked his small group of conspirators.

  The five men, the principals of CAR Securities, were meeting in the private conference room across the hall in Suite 2007. It was after 6:00 on the Thursday evening before the Presidents’ Day weekend. This had been their target date all along and they were right on schedule.

  “Sure,” Jordan Kemp replied to Reed’s question. “But they seem satisfied that we just decided everybody needed an extra day for a long weekend. The markets are always slow on Fridays before a holiday so, it won’t raise any alarms.”

  The other three men, Rask, Espinosa and Pascal, all nodded their heads in agreement.

  “What do you have left to dump?” Reed asked Pascal.

  “Not much. Less than eighty million,” Pascal answered him.

  Reed turned to Kemp and asked, “Will that raise any flags?”

  Kemp shrugged and said, “Maybe but the holiday weekend should cover for it. Nobody will want to ruin their weekend making a fuss about it. If anyone notices, it will sit until Tuesday morning. By then it will be too late.”

  “What about the rest of it, the other accounts? Everything set to make the transfers?” Reed asked the group in general and Kemp in particular.

  All four men nodded their heads and said “yes” to the question.

  While the after-hours meeting in 2007 of CAR Securities was breaking up, Charlie Dudek was in an elevator on his way to his hotel room. In order to be closer to downtown, he was checking into the Radisson near the University of Minnesota. Paying with cash would have raised some eyebrows so he used the only credit card he had, a Visa card in a fake name. Of course, he also had a Missouri driver’s license to go with it. Charlie wasn’t thinking about that as he rode up to his room. He was mentally going over the plan he had come up with on the drive back to Minnesota.

  FIFTY-ONE

  Despite the stiff-upper-lip façade Maddy put on when Marc, Connie and her new lawyer, Julian Bronfman visited, her heart felt like a stone in the pit of her stomach after they left. Every time someone came to see her, when they left, she always had the same feeling of despair. Sooner or later, their efforts to get her out were going to end. Over time, their lives would catch up with them, they would be defeated, move on and she would still be here, her life no longer her own.

  The prison itself was not the nightmare that terrorized most people’s imaginations. At least the facility itself was not. Her ‘cell’ was a good sized room with two real beds, a table and chair for each inmate and it even had separate closet and drawer space for each of them. Her cellmate was a forty-eight-year-old African American woman named Viveca Brown. Viveca, Maddy found out, was doing six years for first-degree manslaughter. One night she buried the claws of a hammer into the top of her very abusive, junkie boyfriend’s head while he slept. Charged with murder, she had pled down to manslaughter because it was obvious she was not in immediate danger while the man slept. That and the only record of violence between them was an event that occurred two weeks prior when the cops had intervened and found the two of them going toe-to-toe throwing punches at each other.

  Maddy’s first night was the worst. Lying in bed, unable to sleep a wink, she was determined not to break down. While Viveca softly snored in the bed next to her, Maddy spent the entire night lying on her back staring at the ceiling. What drove her into an almost crushing feeling of hopelessness was the overwhelming sense of loneliness. Despite the fact she had numerous friends very close by that she knew would visit soon, she had never felt more alone in her life. It went through her mind like a video on a loop. How could she possibly keep her sanity and how could she not become institutionalized if this was what she would deal with for the next seventeen years? Maddy would walk out of this place a bitter, angry, hard, old woman. Despite her best efforts the tears still leaked out of the corner of eyes for much of the night.

  Because of her status as an ex-cop and her level of education, Maddy was assigned to soft duty in the library. This caused her serious concern because she did not know how the other inmates would respond to such preferential treatment. After not speaking a single word to her for the first three days, Viveca finally broke the ice with her about this.

  “You get the library because everybody knows who you are. You’re that hot, white chick on the TV that did her boyfriend, ain’t you?” Viveca flatly said.

  It was the morning of Maddy’s fourth day. She had finally slept the previous night and was now lying in her bed staring at her cellmate. Viveca was sitting on the edge of her own bed looking down at Maddy when she spoke.

  “I did my boyfriend, no account, black-ass junkie that deserved it and here I am,” she added.

  “I didn’t kill him,” Maddy quietly answered her.

  “Innocent, huh? You and just about everybody else in here,” Viveca replied.

  Maddy tossed the blankets aside, reached down and touched her toes to stretch. She turned her head to look at Viveca and said, “Don’t believe me then, I don’t care. It’s true, I didn’t do it.”

  “It’s okay, honey,” Viveca said only this time she had a friendly smile. “Someone looked you up online and found out who you are. You already got a rep as a bad-ass. No one gonna fuck with you, believe me. There’s some bitches in here but they ain’t as bad as they think they are. You be okay. My name is Viveca,” she continued and extended her hand to Maddy. While shaking hands, Viveca added, “Looks like we gonna be roomies for a while.”

  Maddy had finally made at least one friend. Before that same day was over, she would find there were a lot of women wanting to have her on their side. On the fifth day, she took some haircut advice from one of her library co-workers, a young woman barely in her twenties doing time for acting as a drug mule, her fourth conviction.

  Her name was Cheryl and at one time she had been as pretty as Maddy. A homecoming queen and the most popular, hot-chick of a south suburban high school not far from where she was doing time. Drugs and the people involved in it destroyed Cheryl’s idyllic life and here she was, rock-bottom.

  Under the watchful eye of a female corrections officer, Cheryl was allowed to use scissors on Maddy’s hair. When she finished, instead of the locks flowing over her shoulders and down her back, it was barely long enough to cover her ears.

  After Marc and the others left, she spent the rest of her day like every day; going through the monotony of life on the inside. For someone like Maddy, the boredom, drudgery and tedious repetition was mind-numbing. In just a couple of months it was already making her a little stir crazy. Fortunately, the library was decently stocked and she figured if she were in here for the full sentence, she would read every word of every book in it.

  That evening she sat with a couple of friends, including Viveca, in the common area watching TV. Every once in a while she still caught herself reaching to comb her hair with her fingers then catching herself when there was nothing there to comb. Cheryl, who had latched herself to Maddy, caught her doing it again now and teased her about it.

  “Like everything else in here, honey,” Viveca said, she always referred to her as honey, “you’ll get used to it.”

  “I hope not,” Maddy quietly replied.

  Maddy’s little support group was seated at a table away from the TV behind a set of chairs. As usual, the chairs were occupied by the same seven or eight women who normally sat in them. This bunch was about as close to being a ‘gang’ as there was in the prison. Their self-appointed leader, a tough-looking, tattoo covered, motorcycle mama named Beverly was in the middle of the couch directly in front of the TV. So far they ha
d mostly ignored Maddy. The word Maddy heard about this was there was a story going around about Maddy and a serial killer who had attacked her in her apartment. The true story was bad enough, but as it made the rounds of the prison grapevine, the embellishment had made it significantly more colorful. Between that and her friendship with Viveca, who had plenty of friends of her own, the Dyke Gang, as they were called behind their backs, had kept their distance, so far.

  “Keep looking, you crazy bitch,” Viveca quietly said when Beverly turned around to look at Maddy. She smiled and winked at Maddy then slowly turned back to the TV.

  “Sooner or later, honey,” Viveca said to Maddy, “you gonna have to deal with that.”

  “We’ll see,” Maddy said with a resigned shrug.

  Viveca’s prediction of sooner or later turned out to be sooner — much sooner. The very next day Maddy was working in the library pushing a cart filled with returned books up and down the aisles. She was placing them back on the shelves in their appropriate places, a tedious task but one that at least gave her something to do.

  There were seven or eight women in the library scattered about the tables quietly reading. All of a sudden Maddy noticed a mild commotion and looked out at the reading area and saw all of them pack up and scurry toward the exit. Maddy was standing in-between two tall bookshelves and could not see what was going on. With a premonition of what just happened, Maddy placed the two books she was holding back on the cart and calmly walked out into the reading area. She looked at the exit just as her young friend Cheryl looked back with a frightened expression on her face. Maddy lightly waved a hand to her to indicate she should leave, which she quickly did.

  Maddy stood still, her heart jumping a bit feeling the adrenaline flowing into her. She silently watched as Beverly and her pals came toward her. As her gang members spread out in a semi-circle around Maddy, Beverly plopped down on a table seven or eight feet in front of her. For several seconds, they all waited silently while Maddy calmly looked at Beverly who leered back at her with a sinister smile.