the face of the documents, not unless you really knew what to look for. But it would show his fear, his concern, and that might be more telling to Kolarich than the records themselves.
McCabe held his tongue, presumably unsure of what his client wanted to do. This would be Manning’s call, and he had to make it on the spot without equivocation.
Manning shook his head in amusement. “Mr. Kolarich, as much as I’ve enjoyed this conversation, and as happy as I’d be to comply with any subpoena you issue, I’m not going to let some low-rent lawyer dictate who I call and when. It doesn’t work that way, son. Surely you can understand.”
“Sure, I understand,” Kolarich answered with mock sweetness. “By the way, Mr. Manning. My client? He’s accused of killing a paralegal at Mr. McCabe’s law firm. He’s an Army veteran who put his life on the line for his country. He’s mentally ill as a result, and fucked up in ways you and I couldn’t possibly fathom. And on top of that, he’s being accused of a crime that he didn’t commit. Somebody framed this poor guy for murder, and whoever did that is going to burn in hell. You believe in God, Mr. Manning?”
“Don’t talk to me about God,” Manning snapped. “And don’t talk to me about hell.”
“Fair enough. I’m leaving now.” Kolarich got to his feet and nodded at McCabe. “But I’m not going away, Randy.”
Kolarich left the room. Manning glanced over at McCabe, who looked like he’d lost some of the color in his face.
“When does that trial of his start?” he asked.
“December first,” McCabe answered. “A couple of days after the Thanksgiving weekend. A Wednesday.”
“When will he call me to the stand?”
McCabe shook his head. He didn’t know. “Picking a jury will take some time. Then the prosecution’s case goes in. My guess is jury selection will take a day or so. Maybe the judge won’t even begin opening statements until the following Monday, which would be-”
“December sixth,” said Manning. He had that portion of the calendar committed to memory long ago. For eighteen months, he’d been looking at one single day on the calendar: Tuesday, December 7. Recognized officially in the United States as Pearl Harbor Day.
“Bottom line, it’s too much of a question mark,” said Manning.
“I wonder what our friends the Capparellis would say about this,” said McCabe. “They have a vested interest as well.”
“I don’t even know if I can trust the Capparellis.” Manning pushed himself out of the chair and moved to the window overlooking the commercial district. No, he decided, he couldn’t trust the Capparellis. They might have the same agenda, they might not. If they perceived Kolarich as a threat, they might move to eliminate him.
But they might move against Manning as well, to cover all the bases. Better that this particular assignment be handled in-house.
“I need my best for this,” he said. “I need Patrick Cahill.”
40
I looked around the room at my team. Each of them had their assignments, and each of them was giving me their all. Shauna had rescheduled all of her work and even turned down a couple of clients to help on the Stoller case. Bradley John was focusing on nothing else. Joel Lightner, who had a three-person shop, was doing what he could, even though there was little to no promise of payment for doing so. And Tori, who had provided more help than I would have expected, was devoted to the cause as well.
When I was a prosecutor, we had a phrase for how everyone was feeling right now: tired and wired. Everyone was motivated but suffering from sleep deprivation, and no matter how charged up you were, your brain worked less efficiently on little sleep. And mistakes were made.
“Shauna,” I said.
“We’re looking at three companies,” she said. “Global Harvest International, which produces a number of commercial-grade agricultural products. And then two companies that GHI purchased in June of 2009: SK Tool and Supply, and Summerset Farms. We know from the LabelTek lawsuit and those subpoenas that GHI sold fertilizer- Glo-Max 2. 0-to Summerset Farms. And we think it’s a sensitive point for GHI, and the reason they suddenly settled that lawsuit before the subpoenas could be effectuated.” She shook her head. “Everything I can see from public information tells me that Summerset Farms is just a small little local company that grows wheat and sells granola and bread to local grocery stores. They have no dings from any federal or state agency, no citations or lawsuits or anything like that. They’re on good paper with their certificates of incorporation and all that.”
“So there’s nothing,” I said. “Other than the fact that in June of 2009, GHI bought two companies.”
“That’s not all that happened in June of 2009,” she said. “That month, GHI also called off a plan to go public.”
Interesting. “Global Harvest is privately owned,” I said.
Shauna nodded. “It was handed down from Oliver Manning to his son, Randall. It’s grown substantially during Randall’s tenure. But he runs the place flat-out. He owns one hundred percent of the stock. They were going to take the company public. Randall stood to make tens of millions. Then, in June of 2009, he called it off.”
“Okay, so why would he do that?”
“You go public, you have stockholders,” said Shauna. “You have a board of directors. If people don’t like what you’re doing, they throw you out on your ass. Or the shareholders can file derivative suits.”
“You surrender control,” I said.
“Right. You own it outright, privately, you call the shots. Nobody questions you.”
Good. That was a good thing to know. There was something significant about June of 2009, I assumed. Randall Manning decided to keep a firm control on his company, and he purchased two other companies.
“If there’s anything there, I’ll find it,” said Shauna, when I pointed this out.
I threw my football in the air and caught it. “Anything else before we move on?”
“There’s one more thing. Summerset Farms. It wasn’t really a preexisting company that GHI purchased. Summerset Farms was a farm, owned by a farmer, who sold his wheat output to commercial entities.”
“I thought GHI purchased the stock of an existing company.”
“Technically, yes, Jason, but listen to what I’m saying. The farmer incorporated, like any large farm should do. But he didn’t make granola or bread. He just grew wheat and sold it. GHI came along and bought him out. They kept the corporate name, Summerset Farms, but turned it into a different operation. They expanded their operations, too. They purchased more acreage. They bought out a number of neighboring farms. They have several square miles of land in the southwest in unincorporated Fordham County.”
I threw my football up in the air again. “So why would a corporate giant like GHI want to get into the local grocery business?”
Shauna shook her head. “Oh, GHI owns all kinds of companies. They’re incredibly diversified. They’re the principal shareholder in a chain of sporting-goods stores down south, believe it or not. They own outright a personal storage company called We-Hold-It or something like that. They own a men’s clothier out east, a billboard company in California-I mean, it doesn’t end.
“But the better question is, if they did want to get into the local grocery business, why wouldn’t they buy an existing company that’s already in that business? That’s their M. O. They started Summerset Farms basically from scratch.”
“Is that necessarily odd behavior?” Tori asked.
It was a good question. Nobody in the room had ever worked for a corporate giant. Shauna had done lots of corporate legal work, and Lightner had done investigative work for large companies, but none of us knew a thing about strategic planning for an international company.
“There’s gotta be big money in commercial-grade fertilizer,” said Joel Lightner. “Wherever there’s money, there’s ways to skirt things. Maybe somebody at Global Harvest and Summerset Farms was doing something hinky off the books. Maybe this character Randall Manning was embezzling or something. You said he was sensitive about the sales records between GHI and Summerset?”
“Oh, yeah, there’s something there,” I said. “No question. This guy would’ve rather had a proctology exam
