Long Knives

by Charles Rosenberg

  “Of course, Oscar,” Dr. Wing said. “Please proceed.”

  Oscar kept his hands behind his head. “You said, Mr. Giordano, didn’t you, that Professor James, with the map and the survivor account, would be able to find the ship ‘just like we did.’”

  “Yes.”

  My question is, did you actually find the ship, or did you just make this all up?”

  “Yes, of course we found it.”

  “Where is it exactly, by longitude and latitude?”

  “That’s confidential, and anyway, I only have the latitude. I need Primo’s map to get the longitude.”

  “How deep is the water where the ship is?”

  “That’s confidential, too.”

  “Well, can you at least tell us how you found the ship, or is that confidential, too?”

  “I can tell you that,” Quinto said. “We hired a company that does sonar searching on the ocean bottom, gave them the general location where we believed the ship was, based on a survivor account, and asked them to search.”

  “What’s the name of the company?”

  “That’s confidential.”

  “How long did it take them, whoever they are, to find it?”

  “About three months.”

  “What did that cost?”

  He hesitated. “About four million dollars.”

  “Where did you get the money?”

  “From investors.”

  “Who are they?”

  “That’s confidential?”

  “Why, Mr. Giordano, should the names of your investors be kept confidential?”

  “That’s the way they want it.”

  “So we have a ship on the bottom of the ocean in a confidential location at a confidential depth, found by a search conducted by a confidential company financed by people whose names you won’t tell us.”

  Quinto didn’t answer immediately. Finally, he said, “That’s not the way I’d put it, but that’s correct overall.”

  “You said correct overall,” Oscar said. “Is there some way underall in which it’s not correct?”

  “No.”

  Oscar turned to the panel. “Lady and gentlemen, I move that this witness’s testimony be totally excluded. You can’t come into a court—and this certainly is a court—and tell the court, ‘Hey, I want you to believe me about something very important, but I won’t tell you any of the details that would allow you to test whether I’m telling the truth.’ And then, just for a little icing on the mystery cake, the witness adds, ‘with regard to the coroner’s report, I can tell you a detail, but I haven’t actually seen it, and you can’t see it either.’”

  Dr. Wing looked at Professor Broontz. “Greta, what do you have to say about that?”

  “I don’t think that’s correct at all,” Greta said. “Mr. Quesana is wrong. This isn’t a court. It’s an informal procedure in which you can sort the information into reliable and unreliable testimony and make a decision based on what you find reliable.”

  I thought to myself, as I listened to the back and forth, that Greta was, after all, a civil procedure teacher, and she knew how to distinguish between what courts do and what more informal panels do. It was the old divide between courts, who are picky about evidence, and arbitration panels, who say, “Well, we’ll listen to everything, including the junk, and sort it out later.”

  Dr. Wing looked at Trolder and then at Healey and said, “I think this is important enough that the panel should take a few minutes to discuss it. We’ll take ten, adjourn to another office and return with a decision.”

  I poked Oscar. “Ask who their next witness will be.”

  “Excuse me,” Oscar said, “may I ask who the next witness will be?”

  “It will be Julie Gattner,” Greta said.

  CHAPTER 86

  Oscar,” I said, after Greta, Quinto and the panel had left the room, “I need to make another phone call. I’ll be right back.”

  “What have you got up your sleeve, Jenna?” Oscar asked.

  “Nothing, Oscar.” As I said it, I considered telling him, but then I thought better of it, for fear he and Robert would object, cautious souls that they were, and we’d have a row about it. And somehow my plan would be derailed. But I was sure it was the right thing to do, and I didn’t want anything to interfere.

  Robert grinned. “It must be something. During my trial you were always off on some private project.”

  “Right,” I said, “which got the charges against you dismissed.”

  “True.”

  “Anyway, I need to make this call.” I went out the door and looked for a spot where I wouldn’t be overheard. When I got back ten minutes later, everyone had reassembled, and it was clear they were just waiting for me.

  Dr. Wing looked around, no doubt ready to announce his ruling. In looking at him, it was clear to me he was relishing the role of judge. He’d probably missed his calling.

  “Well,” he said, “we’ve caucused and agreed that we’ll let Mr. Giordano’s testimony stand. Although we’re skeptical about it, we can always weigh it, and that seems fairer in this informal setting than applying some obscure rules of evidence and excluding his testimony entirely.”

  “I would argue,” Oscar said, “that those rules are hardly obscure. With all due respect, they’re common sense. But I’ll accept the panel’s ruling and move on to my final questions.

  “Mr. Giordano,” Oscar asked, “do you know a gentleman by the name of Cabano who lives in Seville, Spain?”

  “Like I told you in my deposition, I know of him, but I don’t know him personally, and I’ve never communicated with him.”

  “If I were to tell you that my colleague here, Mr. Tarza”—Oscar pointed at Robert—“had gone to Spain and met with Mr. Cabano, and that Mr. Cabano had told Mr. Tarza that he had met with both you and your brother, would you be surprised?”

  I smiled to myself, because that was the kind of question you couldn’t get away with asking in a courtroom without objection. No one on the panel even blinked, and to my surprise, Professor Broontz said nothing.

  Quinto hesitated not even a second. “I would be surprised.”

  I noticed that he hadn’t said it wasn’t true.

  Oscar followed up. “Is what Mr. Cabano said to Mr. Tarza true? Did you meet with Cabano?”

  “No.”

  I thought back to the question Robert had asked Quinto in the deposition concerning the penalty for perjury. Because if Cabano had told Robert the truth, Quinto had lied in the depo and he was lying now. At least he was lying consistently.

  Professor Trolder spoke up. “Where is this going, if I might ask? We on the panel don’t even know who Mr. Cabano is, or why this is important.”

  I smiled inwardly. These guys were becoming more like real judges every minute.

  “I’ll move on,” Oscar said, “and come back and link that up later.” He looked directly at Quinto. “Mr. Giordano, it’s correct, isn’t it, that you inherited this confidential map from your grandfather?”

  “Yes.”

  “His name was Sven Johannsen, I think you said in your deposition?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he died, I think you said, several years ago?”

  “Yes.”

  Oscar was doing what good lawyers do all the time. He was asking the witness a series of seemingly softball questions, but to me it had the feel of setting him up for something. Perhaps Oscar had his own secret plan.

  “Would it surprise you to learn, Mr. Giordano, that I spoke to your grandfather yesterday?”

  “Yes, because he’s dead.”

  “Well, since this is an informal hearing, I think I’ll just testify a bit and say that a private investigator located your grandfather Sven, who is now living in a small village in Norway, where he’s been for the last ten years or so.”

  “You were talking to an impostor.”

  “If so, he’s a very good impostor, because he was able, without prompting, to name you, your bro
ther Primo—even though Primo was only his stepgrandson—all of your other siblings and your mother and father. He also knew your mother’s address in Pittsburgh.”

  “I don’t know how he got that information, but my grandfather is dead.”

  Professor Broontz woke up from the dead. “What does this have to do with anything? We’re trying to learn who killed his brother. Whether his grandfather is alive or dead is irrelevant.”

  “No,” Oscar said, “I have a fax from Sven Johannsen in my briefcase, confirming everything I’ve just said. What it demonstrates is that Mr. Giordano is an outright liar. About everything. There is indeed a survivor account in the archive in Seville, but there was no expedition to find the Ayuda. The whole thing is a scam.”

  “Well,” Dr. Wing said, “this is indeed both interesting and, if true, distressing, but, like Professor Broontz, I’m not sure how it ties into how Primo Giordano died.”

  “An educated guess,” Oscar said, “is that Primo was about to blow the scam wide open and Quinto killed him to shut him up.”

  I was as surprised about everything Oscar had just revealed as everyone else in the room appeared to be. And puzzled as to where it was leading or how it would end up pointing to Julie as the killer. I leaned over to Oscar and whispered, “I thought we were implementing Plan B, which was to target Julie.”

  “This is Plan C,” Oscar said. “I only got the info from Sven this morning.”

  “Well,” I said, “our original Plan B is underway, and I have no intention of stopping it, because I still think it’s the right plan.”

  CHAPTER 87

  Quinto had been silent through the entire exchange between Oscar and Dr. Wing. As Oscar finished, he rose from his chair and said, “I haven’t lied about anything. My brother is dead, and this whole proceeding is a joke. I’m leaving.”

  “I think you said your next witness would be Julie Gattner,” Oscar said. “I’m ready for her right now.”

  I had to admire the approach. Oscar had decided simply to ignore Quinto’s departure and let everyone think about it as he moved on to the next witness, as if nothing out of the ordinary had transpired.

  Trolder went to the door, went out, found Julie in the hallway and brought her in. As soon as Julie came in, I sent a text from my cell phone that I had already keyed in. Then I keyed in a second text but held off sending it.

  Dr. Wing went through the usual, after which Greta started in on her first question.

  “Ms. Gattner,” she asked, “can you tell us your relationship to Primo Giordano?”

  Before Julie could answer, Oscar interrupted and addressed Dr. Wing. “Dr. Wing, I know it’s out of the ordinary, but since this is so informal, I wondered if I might ask Julie a question of my own before she answers Professor Broontz’s question. I think it will clear up her relationship with Primo and save us all a lot of time.”

  “Any objection, Greta?” Dr. Wing asked.

  “I guess not,” she said.

  “Good,” Oscar said. “My question is this: Ms. Gattner, isn’t it the case that you poisoned Primo and did it because he had dumped you a few days earlier?”

  Julie looked stunned. For a moment she seemed unable to answer. “I didn’t kill anyone,” she said.

  “Well,” Oscar said, “let me point out a few things to the panel. Informally, of course.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Professor Trolder,” I said, “that’s a defense witness who’s a bit early. May I go and let her in and tell her to come back a bit later?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  I got up, walked around to the other side of the table and opened the door. In the background Oscar was trying to get Julie to answer another question, and she was responding with outrage. When I opened the door, Sylvia Menendez was standing there. “Come in,” I said, “and I’ll explain.”

  “I thought,” she said, looking around at all the people, “that this was a job interview.”

  “It will be in a moment. There’s a delay while we finish a meeting.” I said it really loudly, and everyone in the room stopped talking and looked at us.

  “Grab a seat in that chair over there, Sylvia.” I pointed to the other side of the table. As Sylvia began to walk toward the chair I had pointed to, I swiveled my hand and pointed to Julie. “Ms. Menendez, is that the woman who bought the sodium azide from you?”

  Sylvia stopped, turned her head and looked at Julie. “No, she’s not. What is this about?” She looked around the room, seeking to make some sense of it. “You tricked me, and I think I should go.” She turned around and started to head back toward the door. Then she stopped in her tracks and pointed at Greta Broontz. “That’s the woman who bought the chemical from me.”

  I pushed send on the text I had preprepared.

  “Excuse me,” Dr. Wing said, “how can you be so sure?”

  “The woman who bought the chemical from me had one brown eye and one blue one, just like she does. And a, uh, craggy face.”

  “That is absolutely not true,” Greta said. “This is an outrage.”

  “You see,” Julie said, “it wasn’t me!”

  Sylvia looked again at Julie. “You were in the store, too, but you were hanging back. I saw the two of you come in and leave together.”

  The door to the room opened, and Detective Drady walked in, accompanied by four other UCLA police officers, all in uniform. Two were men, two were women.

  “Detective,” I said, “this woman is an employee of the chemical company from which the sodium azide was bought. She has just identified the woman who bought it as Professor Broontz, and the woman who was her accomplice as Julie Gattner.”

  Drady looked at Sylvia. “Is that true, ma’am?”

  “I don’t know their names, but yes. That one, there, bought it.” She pointed at Greta. “And that one, there, was with her.” She pointed at Julie.

  “I’m placing you both under arrest for the murder of Primo Giordano,” Drady said. He nodded at the two female police officers, who proceeded to pat down Greta and Julie and, aided by the two male officers, handcuff them. They were reading them their rights as they were led out of the room.

  Julie said nothing, but Greta was screaming at the top of her lungs that the whole thing was an outrage, and she was going to sue everyone, especially me.

  Dr. Wing looked at me and said, “I guess this proceeding is over, with a finding of nonresponsibility on your part, Professor James. And I suppose it’s none of our business, really, but what was Professor Broontz’s motive?”

  I thought to myself that I could respond by telling him I didn’t know, or I could tell him what I had pieced together since Tess had told me that Greta was the person secretly trying to buy my apartment. I opted to tell him what appeared to be the truth, so far as I could understand it.

  “Dr. Wing, it’s hard for me to wrap my head around it all, but it seems Greta wanted my condo, in order to create a two-story condo with a fabulous view. And whether I was framed for killing Primo or just failed to get tenure and had to leave town, either way, she figured I’d sell.”

  “Is that all there was to it?” Dr. Wing asked.

  “No. On top of that she hated me, and somehow the mixture of hatred and real-estate envy—my condo is the penthouse—made her snap. I don’t know, maybe this kind of thing can only happen in Los Angeles.”

  “It could easily happen in New York, too,” Professor Healey said.

  “What about Ms. Gattner?” Dr. Wing asked.

  “She just wanted Primo dead. For dumping her.”

  Professor Healey asked the last question. “Just as a matter of understanding relationships on this campus, how did the two of them figure out they had a compatible mutual interest?”

  “Oh,” I said, “Julie was taking an independent study from Greta. I assume they managed to achieve what graduate faculties are always trying to bring about: true bonding between faculty and students.

  “Dr. Wing,” I said, “there’s
one more thing. This young woman, Sylvia Menendez, who’s been so helpful to us, is actually here for a job interview. She wants to apply for the opening in your lab for a trainee med tech.”

  “Job opening?”

  “Yes, you know the one I’m referring to.”

  A broad smile broke out on his face. “Oh, of course. Ms. Menendez, please come with me to my office, and we’ll get you set up for the interview. I think you’ll like working here.”

  Oscar leaned over to me. “Which plan of yours was that, Jenna?”

  “Plan D.”

  “Did you know it was both of them?”

  “No.”

  “Which one did you think it was when you thought it was only one of them?”

  “I’m not saying.”

  I wasn’t saying because, in truth, I was so elated that the whole thing was finally over that I couldn’t in the instant really remember who I’d most suspected. I looked down at my hands and saw they were shaking again. But this time, at least, they were shaking from the adrenaline generated by relief instead of fear.

  “Let’s,” Robert said, “go to the Bel-Air and celebrate. Tess will be waiting for us. Jenna, will Aldous be joining us?”

  “No, but I think there’s someone else I’d like to invite.”

  EPILOGUE

  The ensuing months have been busy ones for me. Early in the New Year, I testified in Greta Broontz’s sanity hearing. According to the psychologist’s report, which I read with great interest, Julie and Greta did in fact hatch the whole thing in the independent study Julie took from Greta in the fall semester. Exactly how and why they decided to act together isn’t yet fully known.

  To my disappointment, Greta was ruled unfit to stand trial for murder and is now committed to a state mental facility. It seems she had been off her meds for months (although no one at the law school other than the dean had seemed aware she was even on them). Her motives, so far as anyone could make them out, were exactly as I had described them to Dr. Wing. She simply hated my guts and became fixated on getting my condo so she could have a two-story place with great views. Since I have some fixations of my own, I can kind of understand.