Rescued

by David Rosenfelt

  “Who is Greg Hepner?” I ask.

  “I can see you’ve really studied this company in depth. He’s the CEO and chairman of Sky Robotics.”

  “Where did the outside money come from?” I ask.

  “It was foreign money. A private equity company I had never heard of.”

  “Was it legit?” I ask.

  “I have my doubts.”

  “What is your relationship like with Hepner?”

  “When I didn’t get to participate in the IPO, I told him I wouldn’t piss on him if he were on fire.”

  “So you can’t get me in to see him?”

  “Of course I can get you in. Next year, he may need my money.”

  “Can you get me in tomorrow? I know it’s Sunday, but I’m back in court on Monday.”

  “Call me back at noon. My time,” he says and then hangs up.

  When I call Robbie back at 11:00 P.M., which is 11:00 A.M. in Hong Kong, he answers the phone with, “The son of a bitch won’t meet with you.”

  “Why not?”

  “He said he’s traveling starting this morning.”

  “You sound like you don’t believe him,” I say.

  “I don’t. He was very friendly when I called, and as soon as I mentioned your name, he got all uptight. I think he’s afraid of you.”

  “I’m a scary guy,” I say.

  “Don’t I know it.”

  Today is video day. Unfortunately, it’s a movie that I’ve seen already.

  In fact, I’ve probably watched it fifteen times, but it never gets better.

  It’s the video from the rest stop on the day of the murder, and it will be introduced by the technician who set up the security system. It shows Dave Kramer pull up in his car. He goes into the restroom and then comes out. No one else has arrived, so Kramer stands at the curb for six excruciating minutes, waiting.

  Finally, the tractor trailer pulls up on the other side, parking at that weird angle. Kramer waits for about fifteen seconds, then walks around the side of the building to the truck.

  He stands at the door to the truck and then opens it. It looks as if his mouth is moving, but there is no audio on the tape, so it’s impossible to be sure and obviously impossible to hear what he might be saying.

  Finally, he looks around and then steps onto the truck. Fortunately, there is no sign of him drawing his weapon before he steps on. I would assume that there was a lot of barking going on at that point, but obviously the people in the court can’t hear that. They also can’t hear the gunshot that we all know must have rung out. Somehow the silence seems to make it worse, if that’s possible.

  Forty seconds after he stepped onto the truck, Kramer comes off. He does not look stressed or upset, and certainly one would never guess he had just warded off an attack on his life by shooting and killing his attacker. Not a great look for our side.

  There is still no sign of the gun. He just seems to calmly look around to make sure there is no one else there. Then he quickly walks back around to his car and drives off.

  The tape then continues for almost five minutes, focused on the truck but showing absolutely no movement of anything or anyone. Clearly, Carla has anticipated the possibility of our relying on the “third person” defense and is using the tape to refute it.

  The jury seems mesmerized by it, never taking their eyes off the screen. There is no question that it is devastating; no one watching it would find anything inconsistent with the accusation that Dave Kramer is a cold-blooded murderer. It’s not a smoking gun, but it’s definitely a smoking tape.

  A second tape is shown, this time of John Paxos arriving at the rest stop and ultimately getting onto the truck. It’s unnecessary to the prosecution’s case, in that it merely confirms what Paxos has said, and nobody would have doubted his version in the first place.

  But it does seem to emphasize the coldness Kramer displayed in leaving the truck there, with dogs locked in cages and a dead or dying Zimmer on the floor.

  When the entire show is over, Carla has no questions for the witness, implying correctly that the tapes speak for themselves. My cross-examination consists of one question. I ask if this was the only camera and therefore the only angle. The answer is yes.

  I look over at Kramer, and I can tell that he’s shaken by what he’s just seen. It’s not that it’s inconsistent with the story we have to tell; it’s that it is obvious how difficult it will be to get anyone to believe our version.

  Next up on Carla’s hit parade is Janet Carlson, the Passaic County coroner. She is here to testify to the cause and estimated time of death. Janet is a very competent coroner, and this case didn’t exactly cause her to stretch her abilities very much.

  She attributes the death to a single bullet fired into Zimmer’s heart. As to the time, she can’t be precise, but it generally matches up to the time Kramer was there, as shown on the tape.

  Carla’s main goal here, which she accomplishes quite well, is to introduce photographs of the crime scene inside the truck. The amount of blood lost by Zimmer is very substantial; a bullet in the heart will do that. So the scene is gory, and she wants the jury to see it in full color.

  An added bonus for her is that some of the photographs show dogs still in their cages. Just in case there are any dog lovers on the jury, and the odds are that there certainly must be some, this seems to add a bit more horror to what they believe Kramer has done.

  All in all, it’s hard to picture a more depressing court day. Carla spent it perched on top of the legal hill, firing artillery down on us. We were cowering in our foxhole, unable to return fire, and just wishing for the barrage to end.

  And tomorrow should be worse.

  Greg Hepner’s code name was Brady, and Brady was worried.

  He was so worried that he placed a call to Rodgers, despite being told that was to be done only in an urgent situation. Brady believed that this was nothing if not urgent.

  “This is Brady. I—”

  “I know who it is,” Rodgers said. He was instantly annoyed. Rodgers had a considerable amount of disdain for Brady and would have preferred to have used someone else. Brady was gutless and prone to panic, which made no sense, since his part of the operation was concluded a long time ago.

  “I got a phone call; Kramer’s lawyer, Carpenter, wants to talk to me.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said no; I made up an excuse that I was traveling.”

  “Why did you do that?” Rodgers asked.

  “I don’t know what he knows.”

  “He knows nothing.”

  “Then why the hell does he want to talk to me?” Brady asked, raising his voice more than he’d wanted to. He lowered it and tried to calm himself, saying, “He must know something. Otherwise what could I have to do with his case?”

  “He’s grasping at straws.”

  “Maybe, but right now, I’m the straw he’s grasping at.”

  Rodgers considered telling Brady to contact Carpenter and arrange the meeting, but Brady was too prone to panic. He might say the wrong thing.

  “I’ll handle this,” Rodgers said, and hung up.

  Rodgers thought about the situation for more than an hour. It was his style; he prided himself on never taking precipitous action. But once he came to a decision, he never questioned it or hesitated.

  He called Eric Benjamin, otherwise known as Manning. “Carpenter has become a problem,” he said.

  “I don’t know what we can do about him. Getting rid of him would call too much attention to things; it would be front-page news. And it might even get Kramer off the hook.”

  “I don’t care about Kramer,” Rodgers said. “I don’t know why you have never understood that he doesn’t matter. Carpenter is the only one even close to being in position to put it all together before we make our move. And once we make that move, nothing matters.”

  “Are you saying that we should remove Carpenter?”

  “No. I’m saying you should remove Carpenter.”<
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  Jessica Martinez expected to testify years ago … not now. She was Kenny Zimmer’s girlfriend back then and was hiding in an adjoining room when Dave Kramer paid him a visit the first time around. She witnessed their confrontation and became the key witness against Kramer when subsequent charges were filed.

  She never got to testify then, because Kramer copped a plea to a misdemeanor. I can imagine that was fine with her; I’m sure Kramer doesn’t seem like a guy she would want as an enemy.

  Yet here she is.

  Carla calls Martinez to the stand. I know what she is going to say; it’s all in the discovery. I’m not looking forward to it.

  Carla quickly gets her to set the scene, confirming that she was Zimmer’s girlfriend and that she had been there on the day in question. “I was hiding in the bedroom,” Martinez says, “but the door was open a little bit, and I could see and hear everything.”

  “Did the defendant know you were there?”

  She points to Kramer. “You mean him?”

  Carla smiles. “Yes.”

  “No, he did not know I was there. Not until later. Thank God.”

  I object, and Avery sustains. He orders Thank God stricken from the record; judges clearly wield a lot of power.

  Carla asks her to describe what happened, in her own words. I’m not sure who else’s words Martinez might use, but she doesn’t question the request.

  “It was in the afternoon, and he knocked on the door. Pounded on it.”

  “You mean Mr. Kramer?”

  Martinez nods. “Yes. Kenny went to the front door, and when he heard who it was, he told me to close the bedroom door. But I didn’t close it all the way.”

  “Did Kenny let him in?”

  Martinez nods. “Yeah. Kramer was angry; he started accusing Kenny of hitting on some underage girl. Said he molested her.”

  “What did Kenny say?” Carla asks.

  “First, he said it wasn’t true, but he used stronger words than that, you know? Then finally he said he did it but that no one could prove it.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Kramer started beating him up. Kenny was a tough guy, but he didn’t have a chance. It was awful. When Kramer left, I called 911.”

  “Did Kramer say anything to Zimmer before he left?” Carla asks, clearly leading the witness. I don’t object, because one way or the other the answer will come in.

  “Yes. He said that the next time he saw Kenny, he was going to kill him.”

  “Did you think he meant it?”

  I object that Martinez could not possibly read my client’s mind, and Avery sustains. Carla turns her over to me for cross. I have a lot of information at my disposal, both from the original assault case and from an interview that Laurie conducted with Martinez two weeks ago.

  “Ms. Martinez, I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “What loss?”

  “Kenny Zimmer. His death.”

  “I haven’t been with him for two years,” she says.

  “Oh. What caused you to break up?”

  “We were in Ohio. He was off doing something, and I was having a drink with a guy I met at a bar. An innocent drink; nothing was going on. Kenny comes in, and he starts pounding on the guy. I yelled at him to stop, and he hit me in the face. Nobody does that to me.”

  “So he was prone to violence?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you ever know him to hold grudges?”

  “Oh, yeah. You didn’t want to get on Kenny’s bad side.”

  “Would you say that Mr. Kramer got on Kenny’s bad side when he beat him up?” I ask.

  She laughs. “Yeah, you could say that.”

  “The question was whether you would say that,” I point out.

  “Yes.”

  “After you saw him beat Mr. Zimmer up, did Mr. Kramer discover that you were a witness to it?” I ask.

  “Yes. He saw me through the opening in the door. I was scared.”

  “Did he do anything to you?”

  “Just talked to me, that’s all.”

  “Did he threaten you, because he knew you could testify against him for assault?” I ask.

  “No. All he said was that I could do better than Kenny. That I’d be much better off without him.”

  “Was he right?”

  “Oh, yeah. He sure was.”

  “The incident in Ohio where Zimmer hit you … you broke off the relationship after that?”

  “Yes. I left that night and never looked back.”

  “Between the time Mr. Kramer beat up Zimmer and the time you left him … during that time, did Zimmer ever mention Mr. Kramer?”

  She nods. “Oh, yeah. A lot. He hated him.”

  “To your knowledge, did Mr. Kramer ever contact Zimmer or attempt to do him harm?”

  “No.”

  “No further questions.”

  As slow and painstaking as Carla is, the trial is going way too fast.

  It won’t be long before it’s time to present the defense case, and the problem that presents is that we don’t have a case worth presenting.

  We are going to mount a self-defense theory of the killing, which is simultaneously true and not credible. The background stuff that we have been investigating, concerning Benjamin, Jeffries, Tina Bauer, and the rest of the crew, is for the most part inadmissible.

  We need more to get it over that threshold. But unless the evidence fairy shows up with a basketful of exculpatory facts, I don’t know where we are going to get them.

  The only piece of truly concrete evidence that we have that unquestionably relates to this trial is Benjamin’s fingerprint on the truck. There are other possible explanations for it being there, but it has led us to at least a partial understanding of what might be going on. Our ability to get that in front of a jury, or getting the jurors to believe us if we manage it, is very problematic.

  The real difficulty is connecting the Craddock murder to all of this. I’m confident about that connection in my own mind, especially because of the break-in at Kramer’s house, which removed the Craddock files. But I’m so far from being able to make the connection in a way that Judge Avery would find acceptable that I can’t even convincingly demonstrate that Craddock was murdered.

  I have lunch with Laurie and Hike at a restaurant near the courthouse, and across the room I see Pete, Carla, and two members of Carla’s team engaged in conversation over their own lunch. I wonder if Pete has mentioned to Carla that he discussed Eric Benjamin with me; if not, she might be surprised when I home in on it.

  Pete is testifying this afternoon, and I haven’t yet decided if I will bring up Benjamin or wait for our own case. I’ll go with my instinct in the moment, which is what I usually do.

  Pete, Carla, and the others leave before we do. They don’t pass by our table, but close enough that Pete gives me the prefight Mike Tyson stare. We are simply not friends on the days that he testifies; he knows that I will try to take him apart, and his sole focus is on holding his own.

  We’ve had some tussles in the past, and I would say it’s come out fairly even. Pete is a solid, professional witness, and he has the added advantage of limiting his testimony to facts that he can back up.

  Once Pete is on the stand, Carla spends more time than necessary taking him through his career path. She’s establishing his credibility as a respected cop, and I’m about to object to the length of it, when she suddenly stops and moves to a discussion of why we are all here.

  Pete is on the stand because he was in charge of the case, and he was also the arresting officer. It will be his job to tie the whole case together in a way the jury can understand. He is Carla’s mid-trial closing argument.

  “Captain Stanton, who notified you of the incident at the rest stop, which in turn made you go there?”

  “There were actually two 911 calls. The first was made by John Paxos and the second by Ralph Brandenberger, the county animal control officer. Mr. Paxos’s call was sufficient to generate the police presence.
”

  “Were you the first on the scene?” she asks.

  “I was not. Two other officers were there before me. They secured the scene, knowing I was on the way.”

  “How long was it from the time you arrived until you arrested the defendant?”

  He thinks for a moment, pretending that this testimony is unrehearsed, when actually they’ve gone over every bit of it. “About six hours.”

  “Some people might consider that a rush to judgment,” she says, her smile showing that she is not part of the “some people” she’s talking about.

  “Some people would be wrong.”

  “Can you tell us what went into your decision to make the arrest?”

  “We had access to the security tape, which clearly showed Mr. Kramer arrive, enter the truck, and leave. We knew that Mr. Zimmer was alive before Mr. Kramer got on the truck, and—”

  Carla interrupts. “How did you know that?”

  “Well, the truck didn’t drive itself there, and the tape shows no one getting on or off the truck after it arrived. But if somehow Mr. Zimmer was already dead, then an innocent person’s actions would have been to call the police. Mr. Kramer didn’t do that. I was also familiar with the history he had with the victim and his threat on his life.”

  “Anything else?” Carla asks.

  “Yes, we sent officers to his house, and he had actually left a note for us, telling us we could find him at his criminal attorney’s office.”

  “That’s Mr. Carpenter?”

  Pete nods. “Correct. So we authorized a search warrant. The defendant’s gun was on the kitchen table, and we determined that it had recently been fired. All of that taken together gave me probable cause to make the arrest.”

  “Thank you, Captain Stanton. No further questions.”

  Pete has been very effective, and to leave him unchallenged is to let Carla end her case neatly tied up in a bow. I can’t let that happen, so even though I was going to save everything for the defense case, I have to use part of the ammunition I have to make a statement now.

  “Good afternoon, Captain Stanton,” I say.