Murder One

by Robert Dugoni

  With a flick of his eyes, Underwood looked to Sloane, who said, “Judge, Mr. Vasiliev was under indictment for drug trafficking by the U.S. attorney’s office.”

  “But never convicted of anything,” Underwood said.

  “Never convicted,” Sloane agreed.

  “So what’s the relevance?”

  “Your Honor, the state’s own papers, starting with the police certification of probable cause, have consistently argued that my client’s motivation for this killing was that Mr. Vasiliev provided the heroin that resulted in the overdose death of her daughter. If the state is willing to stipulate that it will not raise that argument”—Sloane knew Cerrabone had no intention of giving up Barclay’s motive for committing the crime—“I would be happy not to mention Mr. Vasiliev’s occupation.”

  Sloane’s intuition was right. “Let me clarify,” Cerrabone said. “The state’s concern is the defense’s listing an assistant United States attorney, Rebecca Han, as a witness.” Both sides had been obligated to exchange a list of known witnesses and their anticipated testimony. “The only potential relevance Ms. Han could have is that she prosecuted Mr. Vasiliev on the federal-drug-trafficking charge.”

  Underwood, well versed in both sides’ pleadings, raised his hand again. “And you’re concerned that the jury will see Ms. Han’s testimony as somehow a tacit statement that the government is on the side of the defense. All right, gentlemen, here’s what we’re going to do. If the state is willing to stipulate that Mr. Vasiliev was under a federal indictment for drug trafficking in heroin, then I see no reason for Ms. Han’s testimony.”

  “The state is willing to so stipulate,” Cerrabone said.

  “Then we’ll leave it at that. But under no circumstances, Mr. Sloane, do I want to hear the words ‘Russian mafia’ in my courtroom. Is that understood?”

  “It is,” Sloane said, taking the first blow but a glancing one.

  Underwood turned to the next motion. “The state wants to exclude a fingerprint of a Drug Enforcement agent?”

  Cerrabone nodded. “Your Honor, it’s the state’s position that the fingerprint is a false positive, which the court knows does happen. We have looked into this matter in great detail, and there is no evidence that the agent, Julio Cruz, was present at the crime scene. Mr. Cruz was a DEA agent who worked out of Miami in the 1980s and has long since retired, with no known ties to Seattle.”

  Sloane had refrained in his written opposition to the motion from bringing up anything about Centac; he did not want to give up the information until he knew its significance.

  “What does Mr. Cruz have to say?” Underwood asked.

  “Neither side has been able to locate him,” Cerrabone said, answering for them both.

  “The latents unit identified the fingerprint,” Sloane said. “There’s no indication in their report that it is not a good fingerprint, that it could be some sort of false positive, which is extremely rare. In fact, they note it’s a ten-point confirmation. The defense has the right to bring this evidence to the jury’s attention, just as the jury has the right to know that the state has no explanation for the two other sets of shoe prints running along the left side of the property to the patio at the back of the house. The state can call whomever it deems fit to explain that Mr. Cruz should have had no interest in this case and that it therefore believes the print to be a false positive. But the evidence is what it is. The weight is for the jury to decide.”

  Underwood’s eyes flickered to Cerrabone, but not for comment. “I agree with Mr. Sloane. The evidence is what it is. If you believe the print to have been in error, you can have a witness explain that to the jury and let them weigh the evidence.”

  On they went for the next two hours. Underwood was efficient but did not rush either side, allowing them to make their arguments, though once and only once. This was a man who understood the adage that saying something twice did not give the argument more weight. It usually detracted from it.

  As they neared completion, Sloane said, “Your Honor, the defense has been waiting nearly sixty days for the contents of the defendant’s computers, financial records, and cell phone records. We were promised the information some time ago by the state and—”

  “Where are they, Mr. Cerrabone?”

  “It took time to get the records, Your Honor, and the number of documents is substantial, more than twenty-five thousand.” Cerrabone got as far as saying that the documents were in the process of being Bates-stamped, meaning sequentially numbered so that both sides could be certain that nothing could be mysteriously slipped in or removed, but Underwood cut him off.

  “And the state has had plenty of time to do that. I want them delivered no later than tomorrow.”

  “I’ll try, Your Honor.”

  “You’ll do better than try. It will happen, or I will impose penalties.”

  It was, for Sloane, a hollow victory. There was no way on God’s green earth he and Pendergrass could get through twenty-five thousand documents with the laundry list of things that needed to be done in the next day and a half. But there was also nothing Sloane could say that was about to change that. Underwood had already pushed back his chair and stood to shake their hands.

  “I’ll see you both Wednesday morning,” he said.

  Outside the courthouse, Sloane slipped on his long wool coat and gloves before calling the office. Pendergrass said he was sitting in the conference room with Barclay, and put Sloane’s call on speakerphone. Sloane told them they would be getting a substantial care package from the prosecutor’s office and advised them on the outcome of the motions. “Won some, lost some” was how he put it, with a promise to fill them in further when he returned. That was the way it went with most pretrial conferences. With experience, the good lawyers learned they were never always right. Sometimes motions were brought not to win but to test the waters, determine how far a judge would allow the lawyer to go, or to flush out the other side’s argument. Sloane hadn’t expected Han to be able to testify when he listed her as a witness, but by putting her on the list, he had forced Cerrabone to bring the motion and expose his position, which allowed Sloane to educate the judge about Vasiliev.

  “Are you on your way back?” Pendergrass asked.

  “Not just yet. I have an appointment to speak to Felix Oberman.”

  “You finally reached him?” Barclay asked, her voice anxious.

  “No. But he’s going to have to tell me no to my face. I’m out of time and patience.”

  LAW OFFICES OF DAVID SLOANE

  ONE UNION SQUARE

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  Late afternoon, Jenkins walked into Alex’s office with two cups of coffee in paper cups with lids. He set them on the desk and rubbed his hands to get feeling back into his fingers.

  “Temperature’s dropping again,” he said. “I called my mother and told her to turn up the thermostat until I could get up there this weekend and wrap the pipes.”

  “Which one is mine?” Alex asked. She drank lattes. Jenkins drank black coffee, though with three packs of sugar.

  “The one on the left.” He wore blue jeans, boots, and his black leather car coat. He had been out on a boat, taking photographs of the back of Vasiliev’s house, as well as the public easement.

  “I take it you had another uneventful morning?” She had not seen him since he left at five A.M.

  He picked up his cup and let it further warm his hands. He’d spent several hours every evening and early morning watching Judge Myron Kozlowski’s apartment building on Capitol Hill. He stayed until he was certain the judge had gone to bed, then returned to follow him to the federal courthouse garage. So far, the most exciting thing Kozlowski had done was go to the supermarket.

  “You could set your watch by the guy: lights go on at six on the dot, out the door to walk the poodle by six-fifteen, back by six-forty-five with a doggie poop bag that he deposits in the blue bin at the back of the building. He leaves for work by seven-thirty, works through lunch, and le
aves the office at six. Home by six-twenty. Out the door with the pooch and another poop bag, home by seven-twenty.” He sipped his coffee, which remained scalding-hot, then fingered the roof of his mouth, knowing he’d just burned it. “What did you find out?”

  “She purchased a ticket to the benefit that day. She used a credit card.”

  Jenkins put down his coffee.

  “I also found out Oberman is a season ticket holder, has been for fifteen years.”

  “So he had the tickets when they were married.”

  Alex nodded. “And it would have been simple enough for her to get on the Internet and find the date and time of every performance or a benefit.”

  Jenkins thought about it. “She says she bumped into him, just like she bumped into David that night.”

  “And she very well might have. Think about it. Why would she purposefully bump into her ex-husband and tell him she wanted to shoot Vasiliev? If we’re assuming this was a calculated act by a calculating person, wouldn’t that person, weighing the positives and negatives, have concluded it was better not to have the statement out there?”

  “One would think,” Jenkins agreed. “But one of them is lying, and if she didn’t say it, then Oberman is more than a vindictive ex-husband; he’s a sick son of a bitch.”

  “She says he is.”

  “I know.” He pulled out his gloves from his jacket pocket.

  “Where are you headed?”

  “I’m going to see if I can speed things up. I’m too old to be staying out this late freezing my ass off.”

  OVERLAKE MEDICAL PARK

  BELLEVUE, WASHINGTON

  Sloane had put Carolyn to a task for which she was particularly well suited—getting information out of other assistants. She didn’t let him down. As he grabbed a bite to eat and waited at a restaurant in the Lincoln Plaza, Carolyn called to confirm that the receptionist at Dr. Felix Oberman’s office, Shawn Cortes, had informed her that Oberman’s schedule had not changed, and the doctor would be in appointments until five P.M. Cortes said that if Carolyn’s problem was an emergency, she should call the hospital hotline. Otherwise, Oberman could fit her in tomorrow.

  Oberman’s office was located in a single-story complex in Bellevue, not far from Overlake Hospital, where he maintained medical privileges. The exterior of the wood-sided buildings looked in need of a paint job, and the pavement had been patched with tar, though there remained several significant cracks. Surrounding the complex, multistory buildings were in various stages of construction, including a new Seattle Children’s Hospital surgery center across the street. Sloane deduced that the owner of Oberman’s complex was using the property as a land bank, spending the minimum on upkeep until the economy turned and he could sell the entire site to a developer looking to construct another highrise. That meant the tenants were likely on short leases at reduced rents to accommodate tight budgets. Oberman’s psychiatry practice was not booming, as Barclay had deduced it.

  At just after five, Sloane watched a diminutive man who fit the physical description Barclay had provided exit the building carrying a leather satchel. Her ex-husband was ten years older and looked to be midfifties with curly soot-colored hair and a matching unkempt beard. Oberman wore round, frameless glasses, though reading glasses dangled by a chain around his neck and bounced against a plaid shirt tucked neatly into brown corduroys. A heavy winter coat with a hood hung to his knees.

  Sloane intercepted Oberman as the doctor stepped to the driver’s side of an older-model blue Toyota Corolla retrieving keys from a worn suede satchel.

  “Dr. Oberman?”

  Oberman dropped the keys. Turning, he didn’t bother to ask Sloane’s name or offer his hand. His eyes confirmed that he either recognized Sloane or had known from the series of phone calls to his office that this meeting was inevitable. “I’m not going to talk to you,” he said, bending to recover his keys.

  “Can I ask why not?”

  “Because I don’t have to.” He lowered one knee to the pavement and reached beneath the car.

  “Actually, that’s not true, Dr. Oberman. You’ll have to talk to me in court, on the witness stand.”

  Oberman stood again and turned his back, inserting the key in the door lock. “The prosecutor told me to call him if you showed up.”

  “You could do that. I have his cell phone number programmed into my phone. But why would you? I’m just trying to get the same information you provided him; I’m doing my job, like he is.”

  Oberman pulled open the car door. “I’ll think about it. Leave a card with my receptionist.”

  “I’ve left a dozen messages with your receptionist, Dr. Oberman. Frankly, I’m out of time. I have to give an opening statement day after tomorrow.”

  “Then perhaps you should use your time preparing for that.”

  “Do you hate her that much?”

  Oberman wheeled and took a hostile step toward Sloane. “Hate? . . . Hate has nothing to do with this,” Oberman said.

  At least Sloane had the man’s attention. “Doesn’t it? Then why are you punishing her?”

  “I’m not punishing her. I simply told the detectives and the attorney what she said.”

  “Then why are you punishing me? You talked to the prosecutor. All I’m asking for is the same professional courtesy. I don’t have an ax to grind, but I have a document from the prosecutor saying you are going to testify that Barclay told you she was going to kill Vasiliev.” Sloane held up the prosecution’s witness list.

  “She didn’t use the word ‘kill.’”

  Sloane shrugged. “That’s all I’m trying to do—clarify what she did and did not say.”

  Oberman’s lips pursed. Worry lines formed between his eyebrows. “The prosecutor said I should call.”

  “You can do that. But I have to do this today, and I’ll tell him that, and it will just take longer while we wait for him to get here. Look, if you don’t like a question, you can tell me to pound sand.”

  Oberman’s breath marked the cold air. “What do you want to know?”

  What Sloane wanted was to get Oberman away from the car and the prospect of easily fleeing. He rubbed his hands together, then crossed his arms. “Is there a warm place we can talk?”

  Oberman seemed to consider the question—not whether there was a place but, again, whether he wanted to talk. “I’ll give you fifteen minutes,” he said, and shut the car door with a thud.

  Sloane followed Oberman inside the building and down a hallway of worn carpet and poor lighting. Oberman unlocked and pushed open a cheap door, his name on a plastic plaque, the kind that could be easily and inexpensively removed at the end of a lease. Oberman did not sit behind the desk in the office. He dropped his satchel beside a high-back leather chair and plopped into it, his coat still on. Sloane took one of two upholstered seats. With the shade drawn on a narrow sidelight, a muted desk lamp offered the only light. A framed print of the earth taken from space hung on the wall behind the desk, below it the word imagine. Two bookshelves took up a corner of the room, a potted plant in need of watering at the intersection.

  Before Sloane could say a word, Oberman’s voice became harsh. “Tell me, has she only hired you, or is she also fucking you?”

  The vulgarity, coming from an educated man in an office environment, set Sloane on his heels; he wasn’t quite sure how to respond. It sounded almost as if Oberman wanted to add the word “over” to the end of his question.

  “She hired me to file a civil action for wrongful death against Vasiliev. After her arrest, she asked me to represent her in the criminal matter.”

  Oberman closed his eyes, seeming to take a moment to calm himself. “I’m sorry. When it comes to matters regarding my former wife, I’m not always at my best. I apologize. I suppose I should ask, how is she holding up?”

  The question sounded sincere, but coming so soon after the outburst, Sloane wasn’t sure what to think of it. When it came to his ex-wife, Oberman clearly remained conflicted, and Sloane
assumed that to be the reason the man had reacted so strongly to the word “hate” when Sloane used it in the parking lot. Oberman might not hate his ex-wife, but neither was he ambivalent about her, as some divorced couples became—live and let live. Barclay still provoked deep-seated emotions.

  “She’s strong, but obviously, this hasn’t been easy. It’s taken its toll,” Sloane said.

  “Yeah, she’s strong.”

  Again, Sloane detected a hint of what—sarcasm, bitterness? “I understand that your divorce wasn’t amicable?”

  Oberman scoffed. “That’s an understatement.”

  “Hard feelings?”

  “Many.”

  Might as well get it out on the table, Sloane thought. “Barclay indicated you believed she was responsible for your daughter’s death. She said you accused her of not being a good mother.”

  Oberman gave Sloane a cold, hard stare, and Sloane expected the man to exercise his right to tell Sloane to get out, but then Oberman diverted his eyes as if resigned that he’d have to answer the question eventually. He reclined in the chair and tilted his chin. “I was upset. My daughter was dead, and I was in pain. Maybe I said things I shouldn’t have.”

  “We’re all guilty of that at times,” Sloane said, hoping to plant the seed.

  “My wife tended to put her career—maybe I should say herself—ahead of everything, Mr. Sloane, including me and Carly. I’m not surprised she didn’t realize Carly had started using again.”

  Barclay had said it was Oberman who put his career first, and he’d sacrificed a relationship with his daughter in the process.

  “Can you tell me the circumstances that led to your meeting with the detectives?”

  “I called them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because when I saw the news on the television that Vasiliev had been killed, my first thought was that my lovely ex-wife shot him.”

  “Why did you conclude that?”

  “Isn’t it in the statement?”