The Devil_s Garden

by Richard Montanari

  TWENTY-SIX

  The courtroom on the first floor was ornate and ceremonial, frequently used in high-profile, media-intense cases. In contrast to the courtrooms on the third floor – four courts reserved for a “Murderer’s Row” of judges, senior, well-regarded justices who treated the spaces as something of a judicial status symbol – courtroom 109 seated more than 150 people in its gallery, and was used when press and security demanded it, when the system needed to flex.

  There were two judges who presided over homicide cases in the division, each called a “part.” There was Judge Margaret Allingham’s part. Judge Allingham was a hardliner, born and raised in the South Bronx, the daughter of a former FBI agent. It was rumored that Iron Meg Allingham kept a six-inch sap under her robe. The other was Judge Martin Gregg’s part. If you were unprepared or unfamiliar in any way with the incredibly complex details of criminal court procedure, you did not want to be up before Judge Martin Gregg, especially on a nice day, a day when he could be out golfing.

  God help you if you showed up late in courtroom 109.

  Michael Roman was late. He was about to be even later.

  As he approached the door to the courtroom he took out his cellphone to turn it off. It beeped in his hand. There was only one message, a text from Falynn Harris. The time code on it was five minutes earlier. All it said was:

  I can’t do it. I’m sorry.

  “Oh, Christ,” Michael said. “Oh no no no.”

  Michael stepped into the small vestibule, scrolled through the phone numbers on his phone, dialed Falynn’s cellphone, got her voicemail. He then called her foster home. After two rings, a woman answered. It was Deena Trent, Falynn’s foster mother.

  “Mrs Trent, this is Michael Roman. May I speak to Falynn?”

  Michael heard a quick intake of breath. Then, “You’re the lawyer.”

  It was not a question. “Yes,” Michael said. “And if I could just speak -”

  “She’s gone.”

  Michael was certain he misunderstood. “Gone? What do you mean she’s gone?”

  “I mean she’s gone. She took her suitcase and she’s gone.”

  “She didn’t say anything?”

  “Just a note telling me she was never coming back.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know. She’s scared maybe. Those boys – the ones responsible for killing her father – maybe she’s scared of them.”

  Michael was incredulous. “Nothing is going to happen to her, Mrs Trent. I could have the police there in two minutes. You have to tell me where she went. She’ll be safe.”

  “I don’t think you heard me. I don’t know where she went.”

  “What about her friends? Can you call one of her friends?”

  Deena Trent laughed, but there was no mirth in it. “Her friends? You’ve met her. You think she has any friends? This is the fourth time she’s up and gone, you know.”

  “Mrs Trent I’m sure she’s -”

  “And to tell you the truth, this is a lot more than I bargained for when I signed on for this. I thought I was just taking in a teenage girl who needed a home. I don’t need this. She’s not my kin. And, between you and me, the money isn’t all that good.”

  What a delightful woman, Michael thought. He made a mental note to look into her qualifications as a state-subsidized foster home. “Look,” he began, his head spinning with the afternoon’s ramifications from this, “if you hear from her -”

  But the line was already dead. Michael stared at the phone for a long time. He tried to remember what his life was like just a few hours earlier, just that morning before the phone rang and it was Max Priest on the other end, Max Priest calling to tell him that Viktor Harkov had been murdered.

  Now his one and only witness was missing.

  Do you promise? Falynn had asked.

  Yes, he had replied.

  He had to plow ahead. He would find her, change her mind. He could not let the court know the state no longer had a witness. He was afraid that without Falynn, there was too much of a chance that Ghegan would walk. No one on the jury had to know.

  Not yet.

  As Michael walked to the prosecutor’s table, he tried to keep the news off his face.

  “Mr Roman,” Judge Gregg said. “Nice to see you. Problems?”

  Michael walked around the table. He set down his briefcase. “No your honor. I’m sorry I’m late.”

  Michael had never been late to Judge Gregg’s courtroom. He had never been late to any courtroom.

  “Is the state ready to begin, Mr Roman?”

  The state is not ready, Michael wanted to say. The state is worried. Not about the case, your honor, but about the fact that Michael Roman, Esquire, defender of the rights of the citizens of this fair state, champion of the downtrodden, speaker for the voiceless victim, has broken the law. Now a man is dead and the proverbial chickens are coming home to roost. What’s worse is that the state itself may soon be coming after the upstanding Mr Roman, pillar of the aforementioned community. Add to that the fact that the lead witness in the current matter before the court has just taken a powder. Oh, yeah. We’re in fighting shape. Never better.

  “We are, your honor.”

  Judge Gregg nodded to his bailiff, who opened the door leading to the jury room. One by one, the twelve jurors filed through the door, followed by the four alternates.

  Michael glanced first at John Feretti, who was resplendent in a bespoke navy-blue three-piece suit. The two men nodded at each other. Michael then glanced at Patrick Ghegan, the defendant. Ghegan wore a long-sleeve white shirt. Michael noticed that the creases from where the shirt had been folded were still in the arms. Ghegan was cleanshaven, combed, angelic, with his hands folded on the table. He did not look at Michael.

  Once the jury was seated, Judge Gregg began to speak.

  “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Gregg then proceeded to give the jury their instructions, reminding them of their basic function, duties and expected conduct, and about how they were not permitted to read or view any accounts or discussions of the case reported by the newspapers or other media, including radio and television. When Gregg was satisfied he had communicated the instructions, he turned to Michael.

  “Okay,” Gregg said. “Mr Roman, on behalf of the people.”

  “Thank you, your honor.” Michael rose from his table, crossed the courtroom, stood in front of the jury. “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen.”

  All twelve jurors and four alternates mumbled some version of an answer.

  “Welcome back,” Michael added. He took a moment, running his gaze across the men and women before him. This was one of the most important moments in a trial, especially a homicide trial. Michael often viewed it as the first image in a film. It set the tone and tenor for everything that followed. A weak opening could usually not be overcome. “This trial is about two men. Patrick Sean Ghegan, and Colin Francis Harris. More specifically, about what Patrick Ghegan did to Colin Harris on April 24, 2007.”

  Michael continued, walking the jury through the events of the crime, slowly building to the moment when Patrick Ghegan pointed his handgun – a large-caliber Colt – at Colin Harris’s head, and pulled the trigger.

  As he began his summation, he walked over to the easel sitting to the left of the witness stand. On the easel was a large blow-up of a photograph of Colin and Falynn Harris, a picture taken just a few months before the murder.

  As Michael turned the large photograph on the easel, he felt a slight shift in the atmosphere in the room behind him. It wasn’t anything specific, not at that moment, just a transfer of energy.

  “Fuck you!” a voice yelled.

  Michael spun around. The entire courtroom was looking at the back of the room. There, a red-faced young man – a man Michael knew to be Patrick Ghegan’s younger brother Liam – was being restrained by a court officer.

  “Rot in hell you fucking cocksuckers!” Liam screamed. “All of
you!”

  As jurors and gallery members scattered, two more officers rushed forward and took Liam Ghegan to the floor. In seconds they had him cuffed. At the door he turned and yelled. “And that bitch? That little bitch? She’s fucking dead.”

  That little bitch, Michael thought. He was talking about Falynn Harris. He looked around the courtroom, especially at the jury. They were, to a last person, shaken. Granted, they were all New Yorkers, and used to incidents of all kinds. But in this post-9/11 world, especially in a municipal building, nerves were constantly on edge. Michael wondered if he could get them back.

  In the movies, this would be where the judge pounded his gavel, calling for order in the court. This was not the movies, and Martin Gregg was not a cinematic judge.

  “Is everyone all right?” Gregg asked.

  Slowly, everyone in the courtroom shook it out, returned to their seats, offered nervous conversation with their neighbors. A minute or two later, it was as if nothing had happened. But it had.

  “In light of this little unscheduled Broadway matinee performance,” Judge Gregg continued. “We will recess for one hour to consider our reviews.”

  Good, Michael thought. A break was what he needed. Maybe he could get them back after all. Maybe he could find Falynn.

  Michael got back into his office just before three o’clock. The court usually recessed for the day at around 4:30, and Michael still had hopes of completing his opening statement. Still, if Liam Ghegan had wanted to disrupt the trial, and especially the jury’s train of thought, he had certainly accomplished that mission. Bringing the jury back into the rhythm of the state’s case was not going to be easy.

  Michael began to make new notes on his statement when a shadow crossed his doorway. It was Tommy.

  “You hear what happened?” Michael asked.

  “I heard,” Tommy said. “Maybe in two or three more generations the Ghegans will finally be able to walk on their hind legs.”

  “Was there media outside?”

  “Oh yeah. Cameras got them hauling Ghegan away, screaming his ass off.”

  Michael thought about this. It was never good. Even worse in this case. If Falynn saw the footage, she might disappear forever. “Can you do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  He told Tommy about the text message from Falynn, as well as the conversation with Deena Trent. “See if you can find out where she might have gone.”

  With any luck, Michael would complete his opening statement today, Feretti would open in the morning – and, if they found Falynn, and Michael could talk to her into it – she would be on the stand by eleven o’clock.

  “You got it,” Tommy said.

  “Thanks, man.”

  When Tommy left, Michael stood, closed the door, took off his suit coat. He found that the tension of the day had settled into his shoulders. He did some of his stretching exercises, soon felt a little better.

  He poured himself some coffee, paced his small office, trying to reengage the mindset. He had only been interrupted during an opening statement once in his career, and that had been in law school, as an exercise. He had not done well that time, but that was a long time ago. Before he was a prince at the Palace.

  A few minutes later his cellphone rang. He looked at the screen.

  Private number. He had to take it. It might have been Judge Gregg’s clerk telling him there was a delay, which would be the first good news he’d had all day. He flipped open the phone.

  “This is Michael.”

  “Mr Roman.”

  A statement, not a question. It was a man’s voice. Foreign.

  “Who is this?” Michael asked.

  “I will tell you this soon. But first I want you to promise me that you will remain calm, no matter what occurs in the next few moments.”

  Michael stood up. Something turned in his stomach, the way it used to when he had a witness on the stand, and the person’s story began to crack. Except at this moment he knew this was wrong, but he wasn’t sure how he knew.

  “Who is this? What are you talking about?”

  “Before I begin, I want your assurance that you will listen to what I have to say in its entirety.”

  Michael would make no promises. “I’m listening.”

  “My name is Aleksander,” the man said. “May I call you Michael?”

  Michael remained silent.

  “I will take that as a yes,” the man continued. He spoke with an accent, the unmistakable Estonian inflection Michael knew very well.

  “By now I believe you have heard about the tragic murder of a man named Harkov. A lawyer like yourself.”

  Michael’s stomach fell. This man was calling about Harkov. Was this a detective? No. A cop wouldn’t be playing games. A cop would be standing in this office with his handcuffs ready. Maybe this was a fed. No. Feds had an even lower tolerance for bullshit. “I heard.”

  “I believe that at one time you retained his services. Am I correct in this knowledge?”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want you to answer my question. It is in your best interest to do so.”

  Michael felt the old anger begin to boil. “What the fuck do you know about my best interest? Tell me what this is all about or I hang up the phone.”

  “Ah,” the man said. “The temper.”

  “The temper? What the fuck is this? Have we met?”

  The man hesitated for a moment. “No, we have never met, but in the past few hours or so, I have learned a great deal about you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You have faced death,” the man said. “You have looked into Satan’s face and lived to tell. As have I.”

  The man continued, but the sounds seemed to drift away. Michael didn’t hear what the man was saying, until he said:

  “I am in your home. Abigail and the girls are just fine, and they will remain so, as long as you follow my instructions.”

  A deadening cold radiated through Michael’s limbs, as if he had suddenly been anesthetized. What had moments ago been a dark possibility – that this man somehow knew about the illegalities of the girls’ adoption – had now blossomed into a different, more terrifying reality.

  The man continued. “Do not call the police, do not call the FBI, do not contact anyone,” he said. “If you do, it will be the mistake by which all other mistakes will be measured until your last breath. Do I have your attention and your belief?”

  Michael began to pace again. “Yes.”

  “Good. I want you to listen to me,” the man said. “My full name is Aleksander Savisaar. I want you to call me Aleks. I am telling you this because I know you are not going to contact the authorities.”

  Up came the prosecutor in Michael. Up came the heat. Before he could stop himself he said, “How do you know what I will or won’t do?”

  A moment. “I know.”

  Michael stopped pacing, every muscle tightening. Every instinct within him told him to go to the police. This was his training, this was his belief, this was consistent with every case he had ever tried, everything he had come to believe. If this were happening to a friend or colleague, it would be the advice he would give them.

  But now it was his life, his wife, his children.

  Michael picked up his office phone. He dialed his home number. There were two house phones in the Eden Falls house, two extensions of the land line. One in the kitchen, one in the bedroom. For some reason he got a disconnect recording. The sound of the disembodied voice chilled him. He dialed Abby’s cellphone. After a second, he heard it ring in the background. It was Abby’s special ringtone. His heart froze. The man was in his house.

  “And now you have proof,” Aleks said.

  “Look” Michael began, his rage a gathering gale. “If anything happens to my family there is nowhere on earth you will able to hide. Nowhere. Do you hear me?”

  For a moment Michael thought, and feared, that the man had hung up.

  “There is no need for anyone
to be hurt,” Aleks said. His calmness was as infuriating as it was chilling. “But this is entirely up to you.”

  Michael remained silent as the clock passed four o’clock. Any second now his office phone would ring. They would be looking for him.

  “I am looking at your schedule,” Aleks said. “You should be in court. Are there problems?”

  “No.”

  “Good. And I see that later today you are due to meet some tradesman on Newark Street.”

  The cold began to spread. Michael found that he had not moved a muscle in minutes. This man knew his whole life.

  “You are to go about the rest of your day as if everything were normal,” Aleks continued. “You will keep all of your appointments. You will not contact anyone about this, or send anyone to this house. You will not call this house for any reason. You will not come home.”

  “Let me talk to my wife.”

  The man ignored him, continued. “You are being watched, Michael Roman. If you do anything out of the ordinary, if you are seen talking to anyone in law enforcement, you will regret it.”

  My God, Michael thought. It was all connected. The brutal murder of Viktor Harkov, the stealing of confidential files. And now a madman had his family.

  But why? What did he want?

  “When you step out of the office, one of the people you encounter will hold the lives of your wife and these little girls in their hands. You will not know who it is. Be wise, Michael. I will contact you soon.”

  “You don’t understand. When I go into the courtroom there will be all kinds of police officers, detectives, marshals. I can’t -”

  “No one.”

  The line went dead.

  What Michael had feared, just a few short moments ago – the possibility he might lose his daughters in a long, protracted legal battle – was nothing.

  Now he was fighting for their lives.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The Queens Homicide Squad was located on the second floor of the 112th Precinct headquarters in Forest Hills, a square, nondescript building with mint-green panels below the windows, and a black marble entrance.

  Of the twelve full-time homicide detectives, only two were women, and that was just the way Desiree Powell liked it. Although she had many female friends on the job, most of them were drawn to other squads as a career – vice, narcotics, forensic investigation. Powell knew she had a knack for this work, always had, even as a child. There was logic to it all, but it was more than that. As a student she had been far better at algebra than geometry. A always led to B then to C. Always. If it didn’t, you had the wrong A to begin with. She did not consider that she had a gift – few investigators were gifted at detection. She believed it was something that came from instinct; you either had the nose, and the gut, or you didn’t.