SEVENTY-TWO
Marc arrived back at his office a few minutes past 5:00 p.m. to find it almost deserted. Sandy Thrane was the only one left and she was getting ready to leave when Marc came in through the entryway door.
“Well, there you are,” Sandy said. “That lawyer from Washington, Sharon Marzell, has called three times this afternoon,” she continued handing Marc three pink message slips. “She said she’d wait all night for your call.”
“Really,” Marc said grinning as he took the slips from Sandy’s outstretched hand. “They must be getting worried. We go back to Court next Wednesday afternoon and I’m betting this judge is gonna nail their ass.”
“Well, give her a call so she stops bugging me,” Sandy said as she slung the strap of her purse over a shoulder and came around her desk toward the door. “How’s Carl’s case going? The papers make it sound like he’s pretty much convicted.”
“Do they really?” Marc asked, a look of concern on his face and in his voice.
“That’s the impression we all get,” she answered sweeping an arm around the office space.
“Great,” he said glumly.
“Don’t go by us,” she said softly. “We’ve all become too jaded with too many years in this business.”
“True enough,” he said arching his eyebrows. Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he added, “If he gets convicted, he gets convicted. I gave it my best shot. My conscience will be clear. Have a good weekend, Sandy. I better go make this call. It’s after six in D.C.”
“You have a good weekend too, Marc,” Sandy said as she opened the door to leave.
Marc went into his office, took his seat at the desk and made his call. Marzell answered it before the first ring had finished and Marc smiled to himself with the thought of how much her attitude had toned down since their first conversation.
“Thanks for calling, Marc,” she began. “I wanted to let you know we’ve made a lot of progress on resolving your wife’s case.”
“That’s good,” Marc said casually. “Like what?”
“Well, we’ve released the tax lien on your house, I have it right here and I’ll fax it to you now if you want.”
“It needs to be filed with the county,” Marc answered. “You guys didn’t have this much trouble filing the original lien. I want you to file the release too. Fax it to me, but make sure it gets filed.”
“No problem,” she said. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it. I also have the check for your fees. If you’d like, I’ll Fed Ex it overnight to you.”
“Federal Express?” he asked dryly. “The U.S. Government doesn’t use the U.S. Postal Service? They use Federal Express? Why doesn’t that surprise me?” he added sarcastically.
“Well, um,” she began. “I don’t know about all of the Government, but yeah, we use Fed Ex here at Justice. Anyway…”
“Send it here to the office to be delivered on Monday,” Marc interrupted. “No one’s around on weekends. Besides, I’ve waited this long, a couple more days won’t matter.”
“You sure? Okay. That’s fine,” she answered. “As to the refund, I’ve been assured by the Service they’re doing their best to get it figured but it’ll take some time ‘cause ...”
“They better hurry. We’re going to Court on Wednesday,” Marc said, silently smiling at the thought of her twisting in the wind a bit. “They’ve had months, Sharon.”
“I know, I know,” she wearily replied.
“Listen, Sharon. I don’t care that much about the refund. You’re just gonna grab it to offset our taxes anyway. I got no problem with that. I do want it done but it’s not that big a deal.”
“Good. That’s great, Marc,” she said with obvious relief. “We’ll get it done. I promise. I’ll see to it personally. Now,” she continued, “about your contempt motion. I’ve been authorized to offer you the two thousand in additional fees plus another five hundred as a, sort of, fine or payment for your troubles.”
“We’d already agreed to the two grand for fees, Sharon,” Marc reminded her.
“I know we did. Then there’s the extra five hundred. I don’t think you appreciate how extraordinary that is. No one around here has ever heard of anything like it. That offer comes down from the Division head. Second only to the U.S. Attorney General,” she added in an obvious attempt to impress him.
“Well, if five hundred’s the best you can do, I’ll drive downtown St. Paul on Wednesday,” Marc calmly said rejecting the offer.
“Marc, look,” she answered with an audible sigh, “I’m trying to get this thing done and save the taxpayers some money.”
“Now you’re trying to save the taxpayers some money? After all of this. After the years of bullshit from the IRS, the lawsuit and the aftermath of the case, now you’re trying to save the taxpayers some money? At this point, Sharon, I don’t think there are too many taxpayers that would be sympathetic. Look, I know you’re personally working hard and doing your best. But, if five hundred bucks is the best they can come up with, I’ll see ya’ in Court. Have a nice weekend, Sharon,” he concluded with a smile knowing a nice weekend was the last thing she would have. And smiling, too, at the thought of a nine thousand dollar check on the way to solve at least some of his short term financial problems.
SEVENTY-THREE
After leaving Marc at the Government Center downtown Maddy went back to her apartment and made a light dinner for herself. She relaxed for about a half hour, grabbed her gym bag and headed for the health club. Trying not to be too rude, she brushed off several would be suitors as she went through her two hour routine. Ignoring the envious looks she invariably received from the other women, she went through first, the machines, then the free weights and, as always, capped it all off with four miles on the track. She drew more stares from the semi-crowded women’s locker room as she quickly showered, dressed and left.
Now, she was sitting in her three year old black Audi coupe parked a half block from the small, stuccoed house of Louise Curtin. She had been on station for over two hours watching the obviously empty, darkened home becoming more pessimistic about her chances of seeing Jake Waschke’s mother tonight. She glanced around the quiet, tree-lined street, looked at her watch again, decided she’d give it another hour and turned back to the romance novel she was reading by the light beaming down from the small dome light.
The romance novels were her one secret, frivolous indulgence. The shrinks would probably explain it as an escape. The search for the hole in her life she would like to fill with one truly meaningful love interest with a decent man that wanted her for all of her and not just lusting after her physical attributes. She had had her share of boyfriends over the years. With the emphasis, she would remind herself, on the word boy. With one exception, mostly immature, insecure children in a man’s body. The exception turned out to be the worst of the bunch. A charming, handsome doctor in Chicago that was not only married and cheating on the woman that put him through medical schoolbut cheating on Maddy as well. It was after she found out about the wife and other girlfriend that she had finally had enough of Chicago, packed her bags and headed to Minneapolis and a fresh start. Many hours of counseling later had convinced her to be patient and sooner or later, the right one would walk into her life. Someone like Marc, she thought to herself reflecting on it. A little younger would be good. One that doesn’t already have children and would want one or two. But, definitely one with a little substance to him.
She looked up at the still darkened house, sighed deeply, as she always did after reflecting on her loneliness and went back to her book. Ten minutes later the Audi’s interior suddenly filled with the light coming from the headlights of a car that had pulled up directly behind her. She set the book face down on the passenger seat, removed the small .32 caliber semi-automatic handgun from her purse and, holding the gun in the palm of her right hand out of sight alongside her right leg, waited for the cop to tap on her window.
A moment later he did just that. She push
ed the window’s button causing it to hum downward and opened it halfway. Her eyes were stung by a flashlight’s beam and she reflexively held her left hand up to avoid the glare and try to see the face behind it. Neither spoke for a long ten seconds and Maddy felt, more than saw, the second cop approach the car.
“Is there something I can help you with?” Maddy asked finally breaking the silence.
“Out of the car,” she heard the voice say from behind the light.
“Let’s see some identification,” she said.
“I said out of the car, now,” the voice angrily replied.
Scared now, but maintaining her calm, she pushed the button on the window and it quickly hummed upward. By the time it had completely closed, the second man had slapped his gold shield up against the window as she heard the same voice yell, “Open the goddamn door, now.”
She opened the window another inch and said, “You boys lost? That looks like a Minneapolis badge to me.”
The voice came again, this time quieter and directly from the small opening in the window, “You get out of the car now or I bust the window open. Am I being clear to you?”
“Okay, officer,” she replied as she unlocked the door and let the small pistol slip from her hand between the seat and the console.
The two men stepped back from the door as she exited, the silent one that had flashed the badge kept a hand under his cheap sport coat obviously holding the handle of a gun. The one with the flashlight still directed into her face slammed the car door closed as she stepped away from it. “What are you doing here?” he asked abruptly.
“I might ask you two boys the same question,” she replied looking them both directly in the eyes. With her height and the two inch heels of her boots she was as tall as the one with the light and taller than the second one. “Minding my own business. Which, by the way, is none of yours.”
“That’s it,” the second one said as he stepped toward her removing his hand from beneath his coat. He grabbed her left bicep, twirled her around and roughly slammed her up against the car. He kicked her feet apart and began running his hands over her, starting with her arms and back but giving her breasts, buttocks and legs extra attention.
“Having a good time, Bill?” the one with the flashlight asked with a quiet laugh.
“Yeah, having a good time Billy?” Maddy sarcastically mocked him.
He shoved her completely up against the car and, with both hands gripping her butt, put his mouth to her ear and said, “I’ve had better, bitch.”
“I doubt it you dickless wonder,” she said doing her best to keep the fear from her voice.
“Hey,” she heard the other say as she felt Bill being pulled off of her. “Hold the light. I think you may have missed a spot. I better check her again,” the other one said as Bill took a half step backwards and began reaching for the flashlight.
More angry than scared now, Maddy quietly said, “I don’t think so, asshole.” With that, she rifled her right elbow directly into the face of the lecherous cop and drilled him squarely on the nose almost smashing it flat as the blood exploded from it. The man let out a loud yell, dropped the flashlight and grabbed his face with both hands.
In the same instant, Maddy made a quick half-step toward Bill by crossing her left foot over her right, pulled her right leg up and, with all of the power and force she could summon, drove her right heel directly down on the instep of Bill’s left foot, breaking several bones and disabling the man with one blow. He screamed from the sudden excruciating pain, bent forward to grab his foot just as Maddy stepped into him and drove her left knee directly into his face sending him flat on his back onto the asphalt.
She then turned her attention back to the first one, wheeling on her right foot she spun around and drilled him with a kick from her left foot squarely onto the left side of his head and face. The force of it drove the top of his head banging into the door of her car with a sickening thud and his now unconscious body slumped heavily to the ground.
Maddy quickly stepped over to the moaning Bill, reached inside his coat and yanked his semi-automatic service gun from the shoulder holster. Holding the gun in her right hand, she ran her left hand over both of his ankles checking for a second gun. Finding none and satisfied he didn’t have one, she stood up and casually tossed the pistol across the trunk of her car and onto the boulevard grass. She quickly repeated this process with the bigger cop and threw his gun in the general direction of where she had thrown the first one.
Leaning against her car, Maddy surveyed the carnage she had caused while Bill lay moaning and the bigger one came out of his stupor. She stood like this, her arms casually crossed over her breasts while Bill struggled to sit up.
“Ya’ know Billy,” she finally said, “I’ll bet you’re right. I’ll bet you have had better than this.”
“Harry,” Bill weakly said to his partner. “You okay?”
Harry, barely conscious, finally managed to sit up on one elbow while the blood still flowed from the pulp that was recently his nose. “No, I aint okay. She broke my goddamn nose,” he said.
“On that face, Harry,” Maddy said, “it’s not gonna matter much.”
“You’re gonna pay for this, bitch,” Bill said.
“Why do I doubt that?” Maddy asked. “Let’s see you two idiots explain this. Explain what you were doing here in the first place and how you two big strong men managed to get your butts kicked by a woman. That should be interesting. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Where’s my gun?” Bill weakly asked.
“Over on the grass along with dickhead’s here,” Maddy said jerking a thumb toward the still groggy Harry. “Now, Harry, be a good boy and roll your fat ass outta the way. I’m leaving now, boys. Have a good evening.” With that, she got back in the car, started the engine and drove off leaving the two men in the street.
“And you wonder why you can’t find a good man?” she quietly asked herself as she headed off steering the sleek car with her left hand while retrieving the small handgun with her right. She replaced the gun in her purse, picked up her cell phone and flipped it open. She punched in the phone number she wanted, turned the corner and headed back toward St. Paul. The phone was answered by a familiar voice on the second ring and Maddy said, “We’ve got a problem.”
“What?” Marc asked.
As she drove she told him about what had just occurred. “Great. So Waschke knows we’re looking for his mother. Which, if he’s obviously this worried about it, makes me believe there’s something there. Something he doesn’t want us to find out.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Get outta there for now. Cool it with her for a few days and we’ll see. Let me think about it. We gotta find her though.”
“Agreed,” she said as she cut off the call.
SEVENTY-FOUR
Monday’s testimony was taken up by media witnesses. A sampling of the people who had been part of the mob at the jail when Carl had been arrested and brought in. Slocum had presented a list of over thirty people who had been there at the time, all of whom had personally witnessed Carl’s outburst when, Slocum alleged, Carl ‘confessed’ for the cameras It was a ridiculous claim Marc had pointed out, since, at that point, Carl hadn’t been charged with anything, was obviously distraught, without the benefit of counsel and, the whole thing was technically hearsay though clearly admissible by the myriad exceptions to the hearsay rule. Slocum’s list had been the subject of much argument and Prentiss had finally ruled that the prosecution could present three of these people to testify and let the jury view one of the videotapes.
Through the jury selection process it had come out that virtually every one of the prospective jurors had seen the tape anyway, so Prentiss ruled that seeing it again wouldn’t make much difference. Marc made his objection for the record to preserve the issue for an appeal and quietly accepted yet another adverse ruling from the bench.
Slocum took each witness through the process and had e
ach one testify as to exactly where he or she was and exactly what he or she heard Carl say. With each one, Marc limited his cross exam to a few brief questions about the situation. He asked them simple, yes and no questions about the lights flashing from the still cameras, the ones blazing away for the minicams and the cacophony of voices yelling questions at a man surrounded by the police. Questions designed to show the jury that Carl had been scared and confused by a pack of braying jackals in that hallway. By the time he finished with each of them, he had them all but apologizing for their own behavior as he finished up with contempt laden questions. Each of them fumbling with the same lame excuse, “We’re just doing our job,” as the jury looked on with obvious distaste.
During the lunch recess Marc made a call to the office to check for messages and find out if his check from the Government had arrived. Carolyn told him it had, which flooded him with considerable relief, and told him that a Federal Magistrate’s clerk had called. He quickly dialed her number and the woman told him that the judge handling the contempt motion he was bringing against the U.S. Government had requested a settlement conference first. It was Marc’s motion and he didn’t have to agree to it, but the judge was asking that the hearing be pushed back a couple of hours and the parties meet with a Magistrate to see if a settlement could be reached. Marc wasn’t too crazy about the idea. He wanted to go back before the original judge and listen to the government’s lawyer try to explain why they had not abided by his Order. Since it was the same judge requesting the settlement conference, Marc didn’t want to be the one appearing unreasonable.
He spent a few minutes on the phone with the Magistrate’s clerk and waited while she called Washington to set up the time with Sharon Marzell. He then called his soon-to-be ex-wife, Karen, and told her what was going on and that the Magistrate wanted Karen to be there too.
He grabbed a quick bite to eat and went back to the trial to spend the afternoon finishing the media witnesses.
(2012) The Key to Justice Page 38
