“Sam, it’s very important that you don’t leave any trace of yourself in this.”
“Of course not. Why?”
“Because the person who owned this phone and stayed in that room was murdered today.”
Sam lights up like a little boy who’s just been given a lollipop. “He was? Was he a bad guy or a good guy?”
“A bad guy.”
“That is so cool… did you kill him?”
“Of course not.”
“Did Marcus?”
“No.”
He nods. “Cool. I’m on the case.”
Once Sam leaves, my next call is to Pete. “I talked to Double J,” I say.
“Good for you.”
“He doesn’t think Noah did it.”
“Maybe you should try and get him on the jury,” he says. “Are we nearing the point of this call?”
“I need your help.”
“That is the sole reason for my existence.”
“I have a beer bottle. I need it dusted for fingerprints, and then run through the computer for a match.”
Pete is going to give me a very hard time about this, and I considered getting the information from a few other sources available to Laurie and me. But Pete is the only one I trust to do it quickly and discreetly, so I’m willing to endure the abuse.
“Does this relate to the Galloway case?” he asks.
“It does.”
“Give me the beer bottle at Charlie’s tonight,” he says. I wasn’t planning to go, but now I will. “You can give it to me in the parking lot, but keep it separate from the cases.”
“What cases?”
“The two cases of beer you’re going to give me for doing this for you. American beer, none of that stick-your- pinkie-out-when-you-drink stuff.”
“You’re demanding a payoff?” I ask.
“I am.”
“I thought all you cared about was getting to the truth.”
He pauses for a moment. “I see nothing about receiving beer that is inconsistent with the search for the truth.”
“I’ll see you at Charlie’s,” I say.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
For the first time in the entire operation, Loney was worried.
He had made a couple of mistakes, and made some tough decisions, and they seemed likely to come back to haunt him.
His first mistake was hiring Camby, and then having him follow Carpenter. He had no respect for Camby’s smarts or ability, and should have realized that Carpenter would realize he was being followed. Beyond that, there was little value in watching Carpenter at all, and certainly not enough to justify the risk.
Mistake number two, and a much bigger one, was in giving Camby a cell phone, and letting him use it to call Loney. Once Marcus Clark had left, Loney had gone into the motel room and done a quick search. Camby’s phone was missing, and Loney assumed that Clark had taken it with him. That was a real problem.
Loney didn’t feel in any personal jeopardy, at least not from the police and certainly not from Carpenter. Nor was he worried about the people who ran the operation; they were businessmen and weren’t personally dangerous. They hired people to be dangerous for them, which was why Loney wound up in their employ.
No, the man Loney was worried about was his real boss, Carmine Ricci. Carmine provided the muscle for the operation; Loney was the prime example of that. Loney didn’t know if Carmine got a piece of the action, or just a healthy fee, and it really wasn’t Loney’s business.
But whatever the arrangement, it was all predicated on Carmine being kept well out of it. Anything that came back to him personally, or caused him a moment of worry, was something that Loney was not to have happen.
This situation with Camby and the cell phone, while a couple of layers removed from Carmine, was still a cause for concern. And the first decision Loney had to make was whether to tell Carmine about it.
If he didn’t tell him, there was always the chance that the phone records could lead to Loney’s phone, and then eventually to Carmine, or people close to him.
But Loney knew something about the law, and he knew that Carpenter did not have subpoena power. Therefore the phone records would be difficult, if not impossible, to obtain, and in any event the process would be very time- consuming.
Loney decided that it was a risk worth taking not to tell anyone, at least for the moment. He would be alert to problems as they came up, and he’d handle them the way he always handled problems.
By killing the people who created them.
But at the moment he had something else to do. He had a trial to stop.
Judge Anthony De Luca is the judicial version of me.
Just as I’m a lawyer who doesn’t like lawyering, Judge De Luca is a judge who avoids judging whenever he can. I can respect that.
The way De Luca does it is to call the parties to the dispute before him, and ominously warn that a settlement is in their best interest. Since most cases result in a winner and a loser, it’s a testament to De Luca’s persuasiveness that he can make each side panic and feel their interests are in great peril. He served as an officer in army intelligence in his younger days, which may be where he acquired some of his talent for making people cave.
Of course, De Luca’s tactics are more effective in civil cases than criminal ones, but while he used to operate mostly in that area, in recent years he has moved to almost exclusively handle criminal matters.
The reason for that is simple. De Luca comes from a very prominent local family, and they have long been fixtures in the legal and business communities. There have been Judge De Lucas as far back as the eighteen hundreds, and those De Lucas who haven’t been judges have been practicing lawyers and leading businessmen. There are few major law or business schools in the country that haven’t graduated a De Luca.
The problem with that is the fact that with their enormous extended family, it seemed like some De Luca, somewhere, had an interest in most civil matters that came before the court. Either a De Luca lawyer was representing one of the parties or a De Luca businessman was suing or getting sued.
If you stand in front of the courthouse and throw a dart, you’ll hit a De Luca.
All this meant that Judge Anthony De Luca was constantly having to recuse himself, which on one level fit in with the deficient work ethic that he and I share. But it was getting embarrassing, so he switched to criminal court. There were far fewer De Lucas to be found there.
He still tries to intimidate the lawyers into settling their cases without a trial, but has far less success in criminal court. Most resistant to his strong-arm tactics are cases which are very public and in which there are political considerations.
Both of those things are very prevalent in the Galloway case, so it is unlikely that the hearing he has convened today will have any effect. Of course, Dylan doesn’t know that, and he probably still believes we may cave and avoid a trial.
I bring Hike with me, since for all his personality issues, he’s as smart an attorney as I’ve ever met. Dylan brings four lawyers from his office, all young and fresh-faced and carrying identical briefcases. They represent the cream of the crop from the law school at Cookie Cutter U, but I’d bet Hike could wipe the legal floor with them.
The gallery is empty, because De Luca has dictated that the hearing was to be closed. He is planning to cajole or intimidate, whatever is necessary, and he wants to do it in private.
There are a lot of press gathered outside, which is very unusual for a pretrial hearing with a defendant not named Simpson. It’s a sign of what will be intense interest in the actual trial.
Once we’re all seated, Judge De Luca asks, “Where are we, gentlemen?”
Dylan just about jumps to his feet. “The state is ready to proceed at whatever trial date Your Honor sets.” He’s
