by Mike Lawson
That was a lie, but how would Janet Kerns know otherwise?
“If you’d like to avoid the hassle of traveling to New York at your own expense and possibly spending several days waiting to be deposed …”
“What do you want to know?”
“The first thing I want to know is what your son did for a living.”
“I really have no idea, and that’s the truth. Bill got a law degree, then was disbarred due to a terrible misunderstanding in San Antonio, and then he started some sort of consulting business. But Bill and I weren’t close, and I really have no idea what he did for a living.”
DeMarco didn’t believe her, at the least the part about her not being close to her son.
“And what can you tell me about Ella Fields?”
“Nothing, really. I barely knew the woman. I met her at Bill’s wedding, then didn’t see her again until Bill came here to … to die.”
“Why did he come here to die if you weren’t close to him?”
“He didn’t have health insurance, so he came here so I could help him. He had pancreatic cancer and there wasn’t anything they could do for him, other than make him comfortable. So he and Ella lived here with me until he passed, and after the funeral, Ella left, and I haven’t seen her since.”
“Do you know where she lives?”
“No. Bill didn’t own any property, he rented, so as far as I know she didn’t have a home to go back to.”
“Do you have a phone number for her?”
“No. Ella and I never became friends. You would have thought that taking care of Bill while he was dying would have brought us together, but it didn’t. I really didn’t care for the woman at all.”
“I see,” DeMarco said. What he wanted to say was: If you didn’t care for her, why are you being so goddamn protective of her?
“Do you have any of your son’s possessions here, papers that might give me an idea where she might be? Maybe you kept his phone, and it would contain her number.”
“No. The only thing I kept of Bill’s was a watch I gave him when he graduated from law school.”
She looked away, and DeMarco thought for a moment she might cry, but then she sniffed and said, “If there’s nothing else, I’m late for my Pilates class. I’m sorry, but I have no idea why Bill married that woman or where she might be right now, and I’m sorry you wasted your time coming here.”
DeMarco thanked her and gave her his card and asked her to call him if something occurred to her that would help. He was sure the card was going to end up in a trash can—or, this being California, in the recycle bin.
DeMarco was certain that Kerns had lied to him. She cared about Ella Fields, and he bet she knew where Fields was. Or if she didn’t know where she was, she probably had a phone number where she could reach her.
He thought for a moment, and called Justine Porter.
“We need to look at Janet Kerns’ phone records,” he said. Before he’d flown to California, he’d told her about Bill Cantwell’s mother. “I think she might call Fields, and if she does, and if Fields is using a cell phone, we can locate her.”
“How many times do I have to say it, DeMarco? We don’t have justification to get a warrant to look at anyone’s phone records, much less the phone records of some woman in California whose son died before Toby Rosenthal did anything.”
“I wasn’t thinking about a warrant. I know a guy in DC. He’s basically a hacker. I think he could—”
“No! I will not do something illegal, nor will I allow you to do something illegal.”
“Do you want to win this goddamn case or not, Justine?”
Justine hung up on him.
Janet Kerns suspected that the investigator, detective, whatever he said he was, didn’t believe her about not knowing what Bill did for a living and where Ella was. But she’d told him the truth.
Bill had told her that he was a jury consultant and provided other services to lawyers after he was disbarred. And she supposed that might have been the case—he had a law degree and he might have been able to assist practicing attorneys in some way—but she’d always suspected he was lying. Her son had been one of the most charming people she’d ever known—and one of the biggest liars she’d ever known.
She’d always believed—although she never said this to him—that Bill was some sort of flimflam man. The way he lived—the houses he rented, the wedding in Kauai, the cruises he took, the way he and Ella dressed—made it obvious that he lived high off the hog. She’d always been afraid that one day she’d hear on the news that her son had been arrested for swindling millions of dollars out of a bunch of gullible fools.
Whatever the case, she’d told DeMarco the truth: She didn’t know what her son did for a living. She’d also told him the truth when it came to Ella: She didn’t know where Ella was and didn’t have a phone number for her. But she’d lied about their relationship: She’d become really close to Ella as Bill was dying, and she would be forever grateful for the way Ella took care of Bill in his last horrible months. After Bill’s funeral, though, Ella hugged her and said good-bye, and they both knew that they would most likely never see each other again.
But now Ella was in danger; Janet was certain of that. She didn’t know why DeMarco wanted to talk to her, but he was clearly hunting for her. If Ella and Bill had been engaged in something illegal, and if Ella was still doing something illegal … Well, she owed Ella. She owed her for bringing joy to her son’s life and for being there at the end of his life, and that meant much more to her than whatever laws Ella and Bill might have broken.
And though she didn’t know how to contact Ella directly, she thought there might be a way to get a message to her. Bill had told her, years ago, that if she ever had an emergency and needed to reach him urgently, she should call a lawyer named George Chavez in San Antonio. Bill had said that his job required him to move frequently, which meant he was constantly changing addresses and phone numbers, but Chavez would know how to reach him. What Janet didn’t know was if Chavez would be able to get a message to Ella.
She called her Pilates instructor and canceled her session and went online. She found a number for a “George Chavez, Attorney-at-Law,” in San Antonio. He appeared to be the only Chavez practicing law in San Antonio, which surprised her.
She called the number, and the phone was answered by a woman who said, “Law office.”
“I need to speak to Mr. Chavez,” Janet said.
“I’m sorry,” the secretary said, “but Mr. Chavez isn’t in the office today.”
“This is urgent,” Janet said.
“Well, I still can’t help you. Mr. Chavez told me that he wasn’t to be disturbed today for any reason. Would you like me to take a message? He’ll probably be in tomorrow.”
“Yes. My name is Janet Kerns, and I’m Bill Cantwell’s mother.”
“Okay,” the secretary said, sounding like: Is that supposed to mean something to me?
“Tell Mr. Chavez he needs to call me as soon as possible, that this regards a very serious matter. My phone number is …”
The next morning, as Janet was about to walk out the door to have lunch with a girlfriend, her phone rang.
“This is George Chavez. You called my office yesterday.”
“Yes. As I told your secretary, I’m Bill Cantwell’s mother.”
“Yes.”
Just “Yes,” which seemed odd to her. Why wouldn’t he have said, I’m so sorry that Bill died, or something like that?
“Bill told me once that if I ever needed to get a message to him, like if I was sick or got into an accident, I should call you and you would be able to relay the message.”
“I don’t know why he would have done that. Bill worked for me years ago, but he left my employment, oh, gee, back in the ‘90s, like ‘93 or ‘95, and we didn’t stay in touch after that.”
Chavez was lying. Bill had told her about Chavez long after 1995. Was he worried that someone was monitoring the phone call? Or maybe he didn’t reall
y believe she was who she said she was.
“Listen,” she said. “All I want you to do is pass on a message to Bill’s wife, Ella Fields. Tell her to call me. It’s urgent. She may be in some sort of danger.”
“Some sort of danger? What does that mean?”
“I don’t know you, Mr. Chavez, and you don’t know me, and I’m not going to say anything more. But if you cared about my son and if you care about Ella, please have her call me.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know any Ella Fields. I have to go now.”
“Wait.” But he was gone. Goddamnit.
Well, there wasn’t anything else she could do to warn Ella. She was sure Chavez was lying, or at least she was sure he was lying about not having had any contact with Bill since the 1990s. But was he lying about not knowing Ella? She had no way to be sure, nor did she have any other way to contact Ella. But she’d done her best; she’d tried.
Good luck to you, Ella dear. Now where the hell were her car keys?
40
Ella had been busy. She was like the guy in the circus act, the one who starts all the plates spinning at the top of a bunch of long poles and then runs from pole to pole, giving each pole another spin to keep the plates aloft.
One plate was Jack Morris, going over his testimony and making sure he understood he was to testify that Carmine Fratello was a frequent customer in McGill’s.
A second plate was the barmaid; she’d called Kathy four times to go over her testimony. The waitress said all the right things, but, unlike Morris, she lacked conviction. She paused and hesitated, hemmed and hawed. At the conclusion of one phone call, Ella screamed that if she didn’t get her fucking act together she was never going to see her fucking kid again. All that did was make Kathy cry, and it took five minutes to get her calmed down so Ella could make her repeat her testimony.
She called her old friend Shearson out in Seattle, and he confirmed that Edmundo Ortiz was still at sea and would remain at sea until after the trial. And as far as Shearson knew, no one had come around asking about him. By the way, Shearson said, Edmundo was doing a damn fine job as the ship cook.
She checked on Esther Behrman’s condition by talking to Curtis, the maintenance man. According to Curtis, Esther just lay in bed all day, couldn’t move much more than one arm, and sounded like a duck when she tried to talk. Curtis didn’t think Esther was long for this world—which would be a blessing to everyone, including Esther, as far as Ella was concerned.
Ella’s biggest problem at this point was Carmine Fratello. She’d met with him in a motel in Jersey to go over his testimony. She didn’t like meeting with him, but they had too much to talk about to do it on the phone. One problem with Carmine was that he thought he might be able to get her into the sack, and she’d hurt his feelings when she told him there was a greater chance of Martians landing in Times Square than of him screwing her. The major issue with Carmine, however, was that he wasn’t very bright.
“Do you go to McGill’s Bar and Grill frequently?” Ella asked, pretending to be Slade cross-examining him.
“‘Yeah, uh, I guess.’”
“No! Don’t say ‘I guess.’ Why the hell would you say ‘I guess’?”
“It’s just an expression.”
“Well, stop using it! When you’re asked if you go there frequently, just say yes. In fact, don’t say anything more than yes. Then the lawyer will ask ‘How often do you go?’ And what do you say?”
“Shit, I don’t know. ‘Frequently.’”
Jesus Christ. “You say you go there two, three times a week. ‘And were you there on the night of March fifteenth?’”
“‘I don’t know. I don’t remember.’”
“Good. That’s good. How could you possibly remember where you were four or five months ago?” Ella said. “Now: ‘Do you have a trench coat like Exhibit A?’”
“Exhibit A. What’s Exhibit A?”
“You’re killin’ me, Carmine,” Ella said. “The defense attorney is going to enter Dominic DiNunzio’s coat into evidence. He’ll call it Exhibit something or other. Exhibit A, Exhibit D, whatever. Haven’t you ever been to court before?”
“Yeah, lots of times,” Carmine said, sounding proud of himself.
And so it went, but in the end, Ella was confident—well, maybe not “confident” but pretty sure—Carmine would do okay on the stand.
Overall, Ella was feeling good about the Rosenthal case, and she decided to take a day off and treat herself to another afternoon at the spa, followed by an expensive dinner. There was nothing wrong with rewarding herself for a job well done.
Ella walked into the apartment in Chelsea a little tight from the wine she’d had with dinner, and just as she opened the door, her cell phone rang. But not one of the cell phones she used to communicate with David Slade and the witnesses—the one she used to talk to George Chavez and a few other folks.
She looked at the caller ID and, by God, it was George calling. Why was he calling? Had he lined up a new case for her already?
“Hello, George,” she said.
“I got a call from Bill’s mother.”
“What? Why would she call you? How did she even know to call you?”
“She knew to call me because Bill told her one time that if she ever had an emergency and needed to reach him, I would know how to get a message to him. I’m a little pissed about that, but since Bill’s dead …”
“So what did she want?”
“She wants you to call her. She said it was urgent and that you might be in danger.”
“Danger?”
“That’s what she said. I pretended not to know who you were or how to reach you, but I decided to pass on the message. You do what you want. How’s the case going out there?”
“It’s going fine,” Ella said, distracted by what she’d just learned. “Thanks for calling, George.”
What on earth could Janet mean by saying that she was in danger? And how would Janet know?
She had to find out what was going on. She decided not to use a cell phone in case someone decided to look at Janet’s phone records. She found a pay phone—it took her forty minutes to find one—and made the call.
“Janet, it’s Ella.”
“Thank God you called,” Janet said. “A New York cop came to see me a couple of days ago. He said—”
“A cop?”
“Yeah. His card says he’s a special investigator for the Manhattan DA, so I guess he’s a cop. Anyway, he was looking for you.”
“Why would he ask you?”
“He said he knew you’d been married to Bill. He also knew that Bill had died here in Santa Barbara. Maybe he looked at the death certificate. Anyway, that’s why he came to see me, and he wanted to know if I knew where you were or how to get in touch with you.”
“But why?”
“He said it was related to a murder in New York.”
“A murder?”
“Yes. When I asked him if he was accusing you of murder, he said he knew for a fact—those were the words he used, that he knew for a fact—that you weren’t involved in the murder. But he said you had information related to it.”
“Well, I don’t,” Ella said. “I have no idea what he’s talking about. So what else did he say?”
“Nothing else, really. He just wanted to know if I had a number for you or knew some way to reach you.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him I had no idea how to get hold of you.”
“I appreciate that, Janet. I don’t know what he wants, but I don’t want to have to deal with him.”
Janet paused. “I like you, Ella, I really do. I’ll always be grateful for the way you stuck by Bill when he was dying. So I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t want to know, but I thought you should know that this guy’s hunting for you.”
“What’s his name?” Ella asked, but she was thinking: This cop could destroy everything I’ve worked so hard for.
“His name is Jose
ph DeMarco.”
“DeMarco,” Ella repeated. “What does he look like?”
“Like a thug. Dark hair, hard face, maybe six feet. Oh, and he uses a cane.”
41
DeMarco returned to Manhattan, intending to break the law.
The problem he had was that one point six million people lived in Manhattan. During the workweek, people poured in from the other boroughs and New Jersey and Connecticut, and the population swelled to three million. And, for all DeMarco knew, Ella Fields wasn’t living in Manhattan. She could be living anywhere in the five boroughs among the eight point six million people in the greater New York area. Finally, there was nothing to say that she was using her own name; in fact, at this point, and after the way Sarah had hunted for her, DeMarco was sure she wasn’t.
While he’d been in California, Sarah had continued to beat the bushes, trying to find someone who had leased or rented an apartment to Fields. She’d contacted upscale hotels to see if Fields might be staying in one, living off room service. She’d continually checked to see if Fields had used a credit card in the New York area or anywhere else in the world. She’d checked with auto rental companies to see if Fields had rented a car. She’d checked with the NYPD traffic boys to see if Fields might have been issued a parking ticket, a speeding ticket, a DUI. Nada, nada, nada, and nada. Which made DeMarco more certain than ever that Fields had a fake ID and that Sarah was never going to find her.
He couldn’t give up on the case, for one thing because he knew Mahoney wouldn’t allow him to give up. Another reason was that he’d promised his aunt Connie that her son’s killer would go to jail, and the way it looked at the moment, that might not happen. Justine was down to only one solid witness, Rachel Quinn. Rachel might be able to convince the jury that Toby did it, but with no motive and no physical evidence, the odds were dropping.
But there was also a third reason he wasn’t going to give up: his ego. He hated to lose, and he refused to let Ella Fields beat him.
