Reign in Hell

by William Diehl

  By the time he finished presenting his case, Vail had still to produce hard evidence directly connecting Warren Smith, the president of Lakeside, to the plot. There was plenty of circumstantial evidence, but Vail knew that his case depended on tying all three of these companies together.

  Herman Kramer would do that. He had accepted bribes from executives of the company, diverted grants from the educational fund into the general fund and from there into public works, where they were used to clear land, build roads, widen streets, even fill lakeside wetlands, all so that Lakeside could develop, develop, develop. Herman Kramer was the little guy who knew it all. He was the link.

  The first witness Neil Jarmon called was Herman Kramer.

  What the hell, Vail said to himself.

  Kramer did not look at Vail when he took the stand. Jarmon, a slick young New Yorker in an Armani suit, wasted no time. After the preliminary questions, who, what, why, he started his questioning with a stinger.

  “Mr. Kramer, in your job as county administrator, did you ever knowingly misappropriate or divert funds in violation of Section 2365 of the state code?”

  “Sir, I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me.”

  Vail was jarred back in his chair. The little bastard was copping out. He glared at Kramer throughout the interrogation, but the witness looked straight ahead as he recited his answer to the next twelve questions.

  “Sir, I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me.”

  Before Kramer’s last refusal, Vail knew what he had to do.

  “I have no further questions, Your Honor,” Jarmon said.

  “Mr. Vail?” the judge said, nodding toward him.

  Vail looked at his watch. It was 4:55. He stood up. “Your Honor, I have no questions at this time.”

  There was a rumble of discontent in the courtroom, mostly from a citizens’ group that had traveled 120 miles from Grand County to attend the trial.

  “However, I request that Mr. Kramer remain in sequester.”

  “Objection,” Jarmon said. “Mr. Kramer is here, ready to testify now. If Mr. Vail has no questions at this time, Mr. Kramer should be excused.”

  “Your Honor, it’s five o’clock. I’m just asking for an overnighter. I’d like Mr. Kramer to show up and be sequestered in the witness room first thing in the morning, when we can get a fresh start.”

  Judge Patricia Robert, a handsome woman with a sardonic sense of humor and an inate sense of fairness, thought for a moment and said, “Not an unreasonable request. I remind the jury not to discuss this case. Mr. Kramer, I expect to see you here bright and early. Court is in recess until nine A.M.”

  She rapped her gavel and left the bench.

  “Do you think he told Jarmon everything?” Shana asked.

  “No. I think Jarmon thought he was being very clever. Kramer just did what he was told.”

  “Why would Jarmon do that?”

  “First shot of his cannon. He was thumbing his nose at us, telling us we aren’t getting anything out of any of his witnesses.”

  “So now what do we do?” Flaherty asked. “We need Kramer to tie in Lakeside and Warren Smith.”

  “Outfox them,” Vail answered.

  By now Jarmon was retrying his case on the front steps of the courthouse, and the media was glued to his every word. Vail, Parver, and Flaherty left the courtroom through the prisoner’s entrance and sneaked out the side door. Abel Stenner was waiting in the car.

  “Abel,” Vail said. “I’ve got a little job for you.”

  Kramer was in the witness room a little before nine. He was nervous to the point of hyperventilating. Vail would be all over him and he knew it. Hell, all he did was what Jarmon told him to do—take the Fifth to Jarmon’s questions.

  “But everyone will assume I’m guilty,” Kramer had whined when Jarmon ordered him to plead self-incrimination.

  “So what?” Jarmon had answered. “They can’t do a damn thing about it. You just do what I tell you to do and don’t worry.”

  But Kramer was worried. Had he shut the door Vail had opened to him?

  At exactly nine o’clock the door to the witness room opened and Abel Stenner entered the room. He looked around and then ushered in Jimmy “the Doc” Fox.

  Kramer was jolted in his chair. His lips trembled as Stenner led Fox, shackled hand and foot, to a chair, told him to sit down. Fox sat and stared blankly at the wall across the room.

  Kramer twitched nervously in his seat. He heard the judge enter the courtroom, heard her bang her gavel. Then suddenly the wiry, hawkish prisoner turned and looked straight at Kramer through pale, ice-cold blue eyes. His expression did not change.

  “Long time no see, Herman,” he said in a flat, harsh voice. Then he resumed his stare at the wall.

  The clerk opened the courtroom door. “Mr. Kramer, you’re up.” Kramer stood. He was trembling and he rubbed sweat from his palms. As he went out he heard Fox say, “Right behind you, Herman.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Kramer, I trust you had a restful night,” Vail began.

  “It was okay,”

  “Good, then we can get a nice, fresh start.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “As I recall, you took the Fifth on thirteen questions yesterday afternoon. Isn’t that correct?”

  “I guess. Yes.”

  “Now that you’ve had a chance to think about it, maybe we can start over.”

  He stood directly in front of Kramer, hands in his pockets, cool and relaxed.

  “Where’d you go to college, Herman? May I call you Herman?”

  “Yes. Sure. I went to the University of Illinois.”

  “Did you finish?”

  “I got my master’s in Business Administration.”

  “You were fifth in your class, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Graduated magna cum laude.”

  “Yes.”

  “When was that?”

  Kramer thought for a moment and nodded. “1973.”

  “And you married just after you graduated?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Get a good job?”

  “Yes sir, I worked for Hildebrand and Cairo in St. Louis.”

  “Tax consultants.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Then what?”

  “I was hired as assistant administrator in Torrence County. And then two years later, the administrator quit and I moved on up.”

  “And how did you find your way to Grand County?”

  “I’d been there three years and they—the people from Grand— approached me to see if I was interested in a change.”

  “Who came to you?”

  “Commissioners Sid Stewart and David Cutler.”

  “What were you making at the time?”

  “Thirty-two.”

  “And what did they offer you?”

  “Sixty-six five.”

  “Quite a raise.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Anything else?”

  “A car.”

  “Uh-huh. That was what, fifteen years ago?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “So, you were about thirty-one, thirty-two then?”

  “Thirty-one.”

  “Two sons?”

  “Yes. Chip and Barry.”

  “So when you went to Grand County you were sitting on top of the world, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “Proud of yourself. Sixty-six thousand five hundred in those days was good money.”

  Kramer nodded. “Still is.”

  “And how were you treated?”

  “Great. We were invited to picnics, fishing trips. Things went very well.”

  “Get a house?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “How much?”

  Jarmon jumped to his feet. “Objection, Your Honor. Relevance.”

  “Attorney Vail?”

  “Foundation, Your Honor.”
>
  “Okay, counselor, I’ll cut you a little slack. Don’t build a house. Overruled, Mr. Jarmon. Answer the question, Mr. Kramer.”

  “Sixty thousand.”

  “Boat?”

  Kramer nodded. “Thirty-two thousand.”

  “Another car?”

  “Yes sir, for my wife. A Honda Accord.”

  “Another what, twenty thousand?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “Your boys were in private school?”

  “Yes.”

  “You got in pretty deep, pretty fast, didn’t you, Herman? How did that happen?”

  “Sid introduced me to a car dealer and I got all interested and he told me, ‘Don’t worry, it can be arranged.’ The bank gave me good loans. They were very helpful.”

  “That was Fidelity Trust?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you get tied up with them?”

  “Mr. Summers introduced me to Charles Thornton, president of the bank.”

  “That would be Jeffrey Summers, vice-president of the Lakeside Company?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  “He, Sid Stewart, and some of the other commissioners went fishing a lot.”

  “Any women, gambling, drinking?”

  “None of that. Some beer on the boat.”

  “So now you had a new sixty-thousand-dollar house, your wife had a car, you had a new boat. Both boys going to private school. That’s a heavy load to carry.”

  “Pretty heavy.”

  “And did there come a time when Sid Stewart asked you to do a job for him?”

  Kramer paused for a moment before saying, “Yes.”

  “Was there anything out of the ordinary about this job?”

  “Yes. He asked me to write a check and transfer half a million dollars from the educational fund into general.”

  “The general fund, that is.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s a felony, isn’t it, Herman?”

  Kramer nodded.

  “And both of you knew it was a felony, is that correct?”

  Jarmon, red-faced and angry, jumped to his feet again. “Objection! Mr. Kramer cannot testify to what Mr. Stewart did or did not know.”

  “I’ll rephrase,” Vail said. “How was this request for transfer put to you, Herman?”

  “We were on the boat.”

  “Your boat?”

  “No, Sid Stewart’s boat. I was sitting in the back. Sid came back and sat beside me and he made some chitchat and then he said, ‘How’s the money holding out?’ and I said things were tight, and he said, ‘Maybe your car note can be taken care of.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ and he said, ‘I need a favor. Nothing big. But we need to cover a shortfall.’ Then he told me if I could move $600,000 from the education fund into the general fund and then channel that into public works, the car note would be satisfied.”

  “He said that, it would be ‘satisfied’?”

  “Just like that. Yes.”

  “Wasn’t that risky? Wouldn’t people know that had been done?”

  “I also had to fix the books to cover the transfer.”

  “So you committed two felonies—you illegally transferred funds and cooked the books to cover the transfer—and Commissioner Stewart, Mr. Summers, and Mr. Thornton took care of your car note.”

  “Yes.”

  Jarmon slammed his hand on his desk. “Objection, Your Honor. That’s pure supposition. Guesswork.”

  “I’ll rephrase,” Vail said. “Did Mr. Summers ever mention the transaction to you?”

  “Yes. A week or two later he told me the Lakeside Company was deeply indebted and if he could ever do anything for me, just call. He also told me to drop by and see Charlie Thornton. That’s what he said, ‘drop by.’ So I did, and Charlie told me Lakeside had purchased the car and they were leasing it to me for a dollar a year. And I signed over the pink slip.”

  Kramer was on the stand for two days. After his testimony, two other defendants caved in. The defense was chewed up and spit out.

  Doc Fox never testified.

  At seven-thirty the twin-engine plane dropped out of the rain clouds, swept low over the highway, and landed on the single macadam strip that served Sheffield. Vail stood under an umbrella at the edge of the hard stand as the plane taxied over and parked.

  Jane Venable had left Germany the night before, flown all night, and taken a private plane to Sheffield. She climbed out of the plane looking like she had just walked out of the beauty parlor. Her green silk suit didn’t have a wrinkle. She brushed her hair away from her face and smiled. The black patch over her eye, the eye she’d lost in an attack by Aaron Stampler years before, was tantalizing, as always. Amazing, he thought. She stepped down and threw her arms around him, and he dropped the umbrella. In the early morning rain, their kiss was immediate and passionate.

  “God, I’ve missed you,” he said.

  “Still love me?” she asked, taking his face in her hands.

  “More than ever. Know what I was thinking?”

  She laughed. “I hope I do.”

  “I was thinking we could go back to the hotel and have breakfast in bed.”

  “Don’t you have to be in court at nine?”

  “Nope. We’re waiting for the verdict. Finished up yesterday afternoon.”

  “Oh no! Congratulations. I’m sorry I missed your summation. I flew all the way from Germany and missed it. Were you brilliant as usual?”

  “As usual.”

  “Gonna win, Vail?”

  “I never predict.”

  She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. It was a hungry kiss. They held hands as they walked to the car. She laid her head on his shoulder.

  “Six weeks. Never, never again will I leave you for six weeks. Not even three weeks. It was agony.”

  “No handsome German duke chased you around?”

  “Several. I told them I had to go back to the hotel and watch my husband on WWN. They were all over this trial.”

  “Yeah. Some old bag wanted to interview me.”

  “Ohhh…”

  “Naomi blew her off. I never even talked to her.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Nazimova, something like that.”

  “Valerie Azimour?”

  “Yeah, that sounds right.”

  “An old bag. The hottest thing on television. Men drool over her. Old bag my ass.”

  “Janie, like I said, I never met her.”

  “Good thing.”

  “Hungry?”

  “Starved.”

  “Then I guess we’ll have to eat first.”

  He ordered a pitcher of fresh orange juice, eggs Benedict, coffee and lots of cream and sugar, while she got out of the clothes she had been wearing for ten hours. When she came out of the bathroom, she was wearing a black silk robe that set off her fiery red hair.

  “Wow,” he said.

  She smiled and twirled around, her hair caressing her face. “Picked it up in Paris. Sneaked off for a weekend.” She tossed him a pair of black silk bikini shorts. He held them up and looked over them at her. “Suppose I got in a car wreck wearing these?”

  “Nurses would be lined up outside your hospital door. And I’d be inside with an AK-47.”

  She pushed him back on the bed and lay on top of him, supporting herself on her elbows.

  “Want me to call down and hold all calls?” he asked.

  “You’re waiting for a verdict to come in, Marty.”

  “Shana or Dermott will have the details.”

  “You’re nuts.”

  “I’m horny as hell.”

  “Not as horny as I am.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  “Bet you a thousand dollars I come first.”

  “You always do.”

  “Don’t be supercilious.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Smug.”

  She spread her legs so she was straddling him and moved
slowly on him, and then finally opened the robe and leaned forward. He ran his tongue around her nipple, then sucked it into his mouth. She groaned, raised up slightly, barely touching him, and began moving in slow circles on him, feeling him growing hard under her.

  “Oh God, how I do love you, Martin Vail,” she whispered huskily.

  She was cradled in his arms, his face was buried in her hair when the doorbell rang.

  “Room service,” the muffled voice said.

  Jane sat up on the edge of the bed and pulled her robe on. “Don’t bother getting up,” she said.

  “I can’t get up,” he said, pulling the covers over him. “I’m naked.”

  “Where are the bikinis?”

  “I don’t know. Somewhere under here.” He looked under the covers.

  She went to the door and a cherub-faced teenager wheeled a hot tray into the room.

  “Morning, Mr. Vail,” he said, and nodding to Jane, added, “Mrs. Vail.”

  She put her hand over her mouth and faked a giggle as the waiter passed.

  “I’ll forge your signature,” she said, accepting the bill.

  “I could arrest you for that, you know.”

  “Waste of time,” she said, scrawling his signature under the tip and ushering the waiter out. “I’ve got the meanest lawyer in the world.”

  “Mean, huh.”

  “But lovable.”

  “I suppose we have to eat now.”

  “Eggs Benedict are deadly when they’re cold.”

  He got up, and pulled on the silk bikini shorts. “What do you think,” he said, striking a pose.

  “I think the paparazzi would give a fortune for a shot of this.”

  He pulled chairs over to the table and they sat down to eat.

  “I was starving,” she admitted.

  “I’m still horny.”

  “Martin, you’re always horny.”

  “Look who’s talking.”

  She giggled and sipped her orange juice.

  “What am I going to do with myself in a month?” Vail said. “I’ll be out of a job come November.”