[Marc Kadella 02.0] Desperate Justice

by Dennis Carstens

  “That is correct, your Honor.”

  “As part of that agreement, you were to be cooperative and honest in your testimony as I recall. I must tell you Mr. Koll, after listening to you testify, it is my firm belief,” Prentiss continued while the alarm bell in Marc’s head began ringing louder, “I found your testimony not the least bit credible…”

  “Your honor,” Lundgren said as he rose from his chair, “our office is completely satisfied that…”

  “Sit down and be quiet…” Prentiss said sternly, looking at Lundgren.

  “The defense moves to withdraw the plea based on…” Marc said as he began to get out of his seat.

  “Denied and sit down. I won’t tolerate another word out of either of you. I warned your client that he would not be able to withdraw his plea and I meant it.”

  Marc took his seat and glared back at Prentiss, silently seething at what he knew was about to happen to Butch. He glanced at Lundgren who was clearly having the same reaction.

  “What’s going on?” Butch whispered to Marc.

  “Keep quiet, Mr. Koll,” Prentiss said.

  “You’re about to get bent over,” Marc loudly replied to Butch.

  “One more word, Mr. Kadella and you go to jail,” Prentiss warned him. “That goes for you too, Mr. Lundgren.”

  “Mr. Koll, I have made written findings that I do not believe you were honest in your testimony. And I further find aggravating circumstances for sentencing in that you cruelly and deliberately left your victim lying in an alley to die and took no steps whatever to get help for him after you savagely beat him and crushed his windpipe. Therefore, for those reasons and your criminal history score, I am easily within my discretion to deviate upward in your sentence and hereby sentence you to 120 months in a facility to be determined by the Department of Corrections.” With that, Prentiss rapped his gavel and said, “We’re adjourned.”

  Butch shot out of his chair and in one of those rare moments of losing his cool, yelled, “You sonofabitch! You asshole…”

  “Watch yourself,” Prentiss said as he stood to leave. At the same time Marc reached up and gently grabbed Butch’s arm to try to get him to sit back down. Butch shook him off and when Marc stood to again try to settle him down, Butch almost threw him toward the prosecution table.

  Butch then did something that court watchers would talk about for years. He squatted down, reached under the table with both hands, picked it up, lifted it over his head, took several running steps toward Prentiss and threw the table at him.

  As he did this, the court deputy began running toward Butch and the court reporter scrambled out of the way. Marc was still sitting on the floor and Lundgren at his table both sat frozen in place, not fully comprehending the chaos occurring before them.

  The table hit the chest high-wall in front of Prentiss and as Prentiss dove to the floor, the table exploded into dozens of large and small pieces. At the same time the, two clips shot from the deputy’s stun gun stuck in Butch’s chest and the 50,000 volt electrical jolt dropped him to the floor as if he’d been shot with an elephant gun.

  Fifteen seconds after his client went down, Marc, still sitting on the floor, surveyed the chaotic scene, quickly assessed the damage which, fortunately, except for the table turned out to be minimal, and said, “Well, I guess court is really adjourned.”

  Prentiss closed the door to his chambers and took a half hour to calm down. When his nerve finally came back, while still hiding in his chambers, he used his personal cell phone to avoid a record of the call, dialed a private number known to very few people. It was answered on the first ring and Prentiss said, “It’s done. I did what he wanted. Now you tell him I’m out. We’re square.”

  “That’s not the way it works, Judge,” Bruce Dolan said with a short, sharp laugh. “Once you’re in, you’re in until he says so and right now, he owns your ass.”

  “Listen, goddamnit, you tell…”

  “Shut up! Are you on a cell?”

  “Yes,” Prentiss meekly replied.

  “Then don’t use his name, ever, on a cell. They’re radios for God’s sake.”

  “Okay,” Prentiss replied. “But you tell him this is it.”

  “I’ll pass it along, Judge. Thanks for doing him this little favor,” he concluded then ended the call. Dolan immediately punched the speed dial on his phone and waited for Leo Balkus to answer so he could relay the news.

  Later that night, well past midnight, two men silently broke into the office Marc shared with his friends and colleagues. One was a professional burglar occasionally employed by Leo and the other was a surveillance expert. The two of them were in the office less than five minutes and removed the listening and transmitting devices Leo’s surveillance expert had installed in Marc’s office to allow Leo and Dolan to keep tabs on Butch’s case.

  TEN

  The morning after the verdict that cleared Ike Pitts from the most serious charges stemming from the death of Robert Corwin, Steve Fallon drove his late model Cadillac CTS around the concrete, circular driveway and up to the main entrance of the Corwin estate on Lake Minnetonka. It was Fallon who had made the call to Vivian Donahue from the government center hallway to notify her of the jury’s verdict regarding the death of her nephew. Although the woman never lost her poise, Fallon could plainly tell from her voice inflection she was quite displeased and immediately summoned him to this morning’s meeting.

  He parked his car in the driveway and checked his watch to be sure he was at least fifteen minutes early. Fallon then tightened the knot on his tie and buttoned his suit coat as he walked up the granite steps to the front door of the beautiful early twentieth-century mansion.

  Steven Fallon was retired FBI and current head of security for all of the Corwin family interests, personal as well as business. Although the family was no longer in control of Corwin Agricultural, several family members, there were almost forty scattered around the Twin Cities metro area, were on the Corwin Ag Board or were company executives. Also, there were a dozen other businesses, small, medium and large, that the Corwin family was involved with to varying degrees. At the top of the family pyramid, the jewel that gave the family its respectability and was Vivian’s personal pet project was the Corwin Foundation. This was the family philanthropic endeavor which Vivian personally ran.

  Through the Corwin Foundation she collected, and gave away, over one hundred million dollars each year, almost none of it from the Corwin family members. It was through this foundation that Vivian was able to wash the family name of its historical taint.

  Great, Great Grandfather Edward, the founder of the family fortune, had been an agricultural robber baron. As ruthless, if not as well known as Rockefeller, Carnegie, and JP Morgan et al. Edward’s story would still crop up from time-to-time in the local media. There was also Vivian’s grandfather, Robert Sr, who, bored with running a legitimate business, made another fortune running booze from Canada through Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas to the gangsters in Chicago and points east of there. It was even rumored, though never charged let alone proven, that Grandpa Robert was not above personally pulling the trigger to rid him of pesky competitors.

  Robert, Junior, Vivian’s father, had spent his entire life cleaning up the business and starting the Foundation to rid the family of his father’s reputation. He had literally worked himself to death by the age of sixty. Junior did manage to accomplish two significant tasks. One was to divest the family from Corwin Agricultural and diversify into more lucrative fields. The other was to forego turning the business over to his son, Robert III and instead saw in his oldest child, Vivian, the necessary brains, decisiveness and leadership and he made sure the reins were passed to her. This suited Robert III just fine since his interest was more in tune with the types of endeavors that would eventually get his son killed than running a multi-billion dollar business. The apple really didn’t fall far from the tree.

  Fallon knocked once on the large oak door which opened almost immedia
tely. “Good morning, Carmen,” he said to the housekeeper when she pulled the door aside and he stepped in. “It’s nice to see you again. Mrs. Donahue is expecting me…”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Fallon. She told me to tell you she’s in the library down the hall to your right. You’re to go right in.”

  As he closed the library door behind him, Vivian Donahue rose from the sofa in front of the cold fireplace. As always he marveled at how beautiful she still was. She still had her hair colored and highlighted and the few wrinkles around the eyes gave her a mature, almost regal beauty. It was also rumored, and Fallon tended to believe it, that the widowed Vivian Donahue kept several younger lovers around town to take care of her physical needs.

  “Steven,” she said as she approached him with a pleasant smile and outstretched hand. “It’s good of you to come on such short notice.”

  “My pleasure, Mrs. Donahue,” he replied as they shook hands. “It’s always nice to see you and get a chance to visit your beautiful home.”

  “Please have a seat,” she said, taking him by the arm and lightly guiding him to the sofa opposite the one she had been seated on.

  “Actually, I must confess, as I get older, this place seems more and more like a mausoleum or a museum. It is home, though. Anyway, tell me what happened with this dreadful trial.”

  Which he proceeded to do for the next twenty minutes while she sat patiently, hands folded in her lap on what must have been a two thousand dollar dress. At the end of his narrative, he sat back on the couch and waited for her to respond.

  About a minute of silence passed between them when she finally spoke by saying, “Craig Slocum. I knew that man was a fool the first time I met him. A self-righteous ass too. The man couldn’t convict Hitler.”

  “I certainly won’t argue on Craig Slocum’s behalf ma’am. But this was a tougher case than what he thought. I sat through much of it myself and the evidence was pretty thin. They were relying on the jury to connect the dots for them and Dolan did a great job of representing his client.”

  “Bruce Dolan,” she said with ill-disguised contempt. “Quite possibly the most corrupt lawyer ever born and that’s saying something. Plus, his real client was not on trial. That disgusting vermin Leonid Balkus was behind this entire sordid affair.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I think you’re right. What would you like to do next?” he replied knowing Vivian Donahue was not going to let the death of a Corwin go unpunished.

  “I want you to find an investigator, someone good, honest and totally dependable. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, ma’am, that shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll check with my contacts at the local FBI office and the police department and…”

  “No, not you personally. I don’t want your name and position involved. Can you do that? Find someone, very discreetly, who can get to the bottom of my nephew’s death and find out exactly what happened?”

  “Yes ma’am, I’ll take care of it and get back to you in two or three days.”

  “Splendid. Thank you, Steven.”

  ELEVEN

  Two days later, on a cool and rainy June afternoon, Tony Carvelli parked his car next to Steve Fallon’s black Cadillac in the circular driveway of the Corwin mansion. Carvelli was a local private investigator, retired from the Minneapolis Police Department after putting in his twenty years. Like most ex-cops, his police pension was just enough to keep him out of poverty. But Carvelli was a smart guy who made most of his money, more than double what he had made as a police detective, doing corporate security and industrial espionage investigation. The latter was what brought him to Fallon’s attention. Plus he had a well-known and well-deserved reputation among local police departments as someone who was competent, trustworthy and discreet.

  Tony closed the door of his two-year-old midnight blue Camaro, ducked his head and hunched his shoulders together against the rain as he jogged up the steps leading to the main door. Before he had a chance to ring the bell the door opened and Steve Fallon greeted him and ushered him into the huge foyer.

  “Thanks for coming,” Fallon said as the two men shook hands.

  “No problem,” Carvelli replied as he brushed the rainwater off of his suit coat.

  “Follow me,” Fallon said as he led the investigator toward his meeting with Vivian Donahue.

  Fallon lightly knocked on the library door and without waiting for a response, opened it and stepped aside so Carvelli could go in first. As a cop and private investigator with almost thirty years experience, Carvelli had been around the block a few times. He had dealt with wealthy people and seen beautiful homes but nothing like this. And no one quite like Vivian Donahue.

  She rose from the sofa, walked toward him and said, “Thank you for coming, Mr. Carvelli. According to Mr. Fallon, you come highly recommended.”

  “Thank, you ma’am…” the normally smooth talking Carvelli managed to say. “You have a beautiful home.”

  “Well, thank you,” she answered. “Please, have a seat,” she continued as she gently took his arm and led him to the same couch Fallon had used. “Steven, you’ll join us, of course, unless Mr. Carvelli has an objection to that?”

  “Not at all, Mrs. Donahue,” Tony said as Fallon joined him on the couch opposite the Corwin matriarch. “And please call me Tony. When you say Mr. Carvelli, I get flashbacks of Catholic nuns cracking a ruler across my knuckles in grade school.”

  “I’m sure quite undeserved,” she said with a friendly laugh.

  “Absolutely deserved,” Tony replied. “Now, Mrs. Donahue, what can I do for you?” Even though he knew, or least believed it would have something to do with the great lady’s recently departed nephew. “I assume it’s about your nephew.”

  “Yes, Tony, that’s quite astute of you,” she said. “While I did not attend the trial myself, Mr. Fallon did and had others also sit in and keep tabs on it. To say the outcome was disappointing is putting it mildly. To be frank, I was assured by our county attorney himself, Craig Slocum, do you know him?”

  “Not personally, ma’am, no.”

  “He’s an idiot. Anyway, he personally assured me the case was a slam dunk. I’m a closet basketball fan,” she continued with a smile. “Clearly it wasn’t. And from everything I have been able to find out, what really happened to my nephew and all of the people involved, has not come to light.”

  “And you want me to see if I can find out these things for you?”

  “Yes, Tony I do.”

  Carvelli had been prepared for this discussion. Why else would Vivian Donahue want to see him? It could have been for any number of other things, but this was the most likely. He had thought through his response and even with her, he was only going to take on this case if he could do it his way.

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” he began, “I’ll bill you a thousand dollars a day…”

  “A little steep, isn’t it?” Fallon interjected.

  “Not at all,” Tony said while still looking at Vivian. “I already know I’ll have to kick around Leo Balkus’ garden and he won’t like it. More than one body has been fished out of the Mississippi because they got on Leo’s bad side. I won’t be one of them. Plus, Leo is politically connected all over this town. So, yeah, I’ll have to charge more.”

  “Agreed,” Vivian said. “Money will not be a problem.”

  “Plus expenses,” Tony said.

  “Of course,” she replied. “Steven.”

  “Here’s five thousand in small bills,” Fallon said handing Carvelli a plain, white envelope. “I told Mrs. Donahue that you were going to need some cash to pay people for information…”

  “There’s more if needed,” she said.

  “Fine,” Tony replied taking the cash. “There’s one more thing that you need to be prepared for. I will give you my absolute best effort. I am absolutely confident I will get to the bottom of this. But you need to be prepared for the fact that I might come back to you with some things you don’t want to hear about your nephew. And I might come ba
ck to you and tell you that what happened in that trial was the correct story, okay?”

  “Absolutely, I’ve already thought of those things myself and you are totally correct,” she said as she stood up to signify the meeting was over. “Do you need a contract signed?”

  “I’ll get a retainer over to Steve tomorrow or maybe even yet today.”

  “Plus, I will want reports, at least every day or two,” she continued as she reached into her skirt pocket and removed a card and handed it to Carvelli. The card had her name on it, embossed in gold leaf, and a phone number. “That is my private number. Feel free to use it anytime, day or night.”

  “Thank you ma’am, and it was truly a pleasure to meet you although I did see you once before, many years ago. We didn’t meet but I was one of the cops who was involved in arresting the man who murdered your aunt. I was at her house the day after and you came to the house and talked to a cop friend of mine.”

  “I remember that,” Vivian said. “You were there?”

  “Yes ma’am. I was a detective with the Minneapolis Police at the time.”

  “Small world. I hope that man stays in prison.”

  “We all do,” Tony replied. “He is a scary guy.”

  She extended her hand to Carvelli and as they shook she pleasantly said, “Steven will show you out.”

  As the two men were walking through the spacious foyer toward the door, Carvelli said, “Quite a lady.”

  “Yeah, she is. I like her and respect her a lot. She should be president. She could do a damn site better job than the one we have.”

  “And a lot better looking, too,” Carvelli added with a wide smile. “I’ll get started today,” he said as Fallon opened the door. The two men shook hands and Carvelli left.