Muzzled

by David Rosenfelt

  “Until or if?”

  “I don’t have the slightest idea.” I don’t. The percentages say that this will not end well for him, but every case is different. It all depends on the circumstances.

  “I’m sure you won’t be surprised, but I wanted to see you to ask you to be my attorney.”

  “I’m not taking on cases. Yours or anyone else’s.”

  “This is my life that is on the line. I am willing to beg, to pay whatever you want.”

  “It’s not about money.”

  “Then what is it about? Tell me what I can do.”

  I’m feeling sorry for him, but not as sorry as I’d feel for myself if I took this on. “You can get yourself a good lawyer; there is no shortage of them.”

  “Not as good as you. I know all about you. After that meeting at your foundation, I studied your career. I thought it might come to this.”

  Well, he may be a cold-blooded killer, but he’s a great judge of lawyers, and he loves dogs. “Lawyers don’t win cases, Alex, facts win cases.”

  “The facts have to be on my side because I didn’t do it.”

  Hanging over this is a feeling of guilt that I have for being at least partially responsible for his current situation. I’m the one who alerted Pete in the first place, which provided proof that Vogel was alive. Then my conversation with Pete in front of Vince caused the media coverage.

  Maybe this result was inevitable, but if nothing else, I certainly sped up the process.

  “Let me ask you a question. You knew everyone thought you were dead, but you stayed in hiding. You were apparently successful in doing that. But you exposed yourself to potential discovery and arrest by calling Beth to claim your dog. Why did you do that?”

  “Aggie and I have been through a lot together; she saved me in a lot of ways. So I love that dog, but on some level I also owe her. She loves me as well, we’re bonded in a way I never thought possible. It just didn’t seem fair to deprive her of the person she loved, because none of this was her fault.”

  Words are about to come out of my mouth that I am going to regret, but can’t seem to control. “I’ll tell you what. Right now the only urgency is to get you through the arraignment. I’ll handle that, and I’ll come back and listen to your story. After I do, I’ll either take your case or recommend lawyers for you to hire.”

  “That’s all I can ask.”

  “Okay. In the meantime, if I do sign on, then at some point I’m going to have my associate visit with you. His name is Hike Lynch. I want you to tell him everything you can about your life, both at work and especially away from it. Tell him who your friends are, and your enemies. If anyone might have the slightest desire to hurt you, no matter how irrational, tell Hike about it.”

  “Okay.”

  “And just be prepared; Hike is an unusual guy. Clinically depressing is my official diagnosis.”

  “Is he on medication for it? There are some outstanding antidepressants on the market; I’ve worked on some of them.”

  I shake my head. “He’s not depressed; he’s depressing. You’ll see what I mean; after an hour with him you’ll be begging for those drugs.”

  Vogel smiles. “Okay. I’ll be on the alert.”

  “And other than Hike, do not talk to anyone about anything having to do with your situation. No one. You got that?”

  “I’ve got it.”

  “Good. Get some rest. You’ll need it.”

  “I think you handled it just right,” Laurie says.

  With those seven simple words, spoken after I described my meeting with Alex Vogel, she has confirmed my view that I handled it all wrong. Laurie and I have different views of my work situation; she thinks I should have one, and I don’t.

  She continues, “You’re helping him for now, but you’ve left yourself an out, based on what you learn. That’s open-minded and mature.”

  “You don’t understand; the beauty of retirement is that it is a permanent situation. It’s not something to go in and out of. I’m not Brett Favre or Michael Jordan. There’s no reason to leave myself an out, because I’m not in.”

  “Our differences are semantic. You consider yourself retired; I see it as semiretired. I think you should come around to my point of view; that way you avoid disappointment.”

  “How is that?”

  “Well, if you’re retired, then taking a case blows the whole thing out of the water. But if you’re semiretired, then it fits right in. You won’t feel like you failed at retirement. You’ll be a success at semiretirement.”

  “I’m guessing you think I should take the case.”

  “I already know you’re going to take it. I’m being supportive of your decision.”

  She might be right. If I wasn’t thinking of taking it, I should have told that to Vogel straight out. He deserves an answer and he needs a lawyer.

  But never let it be said that Andy Carpenter will ever admit that he’s wrong about anything. “You can’t possibly know what I’m going to do. I don’t even know what I’m going to do, and I’m the one that might or might not do it.”

  “Andy, I’m going to give it to you straight. You like being a lawyer, even though you won’t admit it. Maybe not the nuts-and-bolts part, but you like the challenge, and the strategy, and even the risk. Maybe especially the risk; it’s your version of bungee jumping.

  “And when you’re in court, you get to be badgering and sarcastic and obnoxious, all the things that you love, but that polite society frowns on. And to top it off, you’re good at lawyering, way too good for it to be something you hate deep down.”

  “Do you know how many weeks and months of intense work I’m taking on every time I say yes?”

  “I do.”

  “It would mean putting everything else on hold.”

  “Like what?”

  I was afraid she was going to ask that. “Well, take this week, for example. I was going to get the car washed, I need a new phone charger, and Tara and Sebastian could use a grooming.”

  “Wow, you have a full life.”

  “Exactly. I’m already burning the candle from both ends.”

  I leave the room, which is pretty much the only way I am going to get the last word. I go to my desk and turn on my computer, first checking my emails. There is nothing of importance in them; there never is. I’m not much of an emailer.

  While I agree that computers have added significantly and often positively to modern life, none of that makes up for the fact that, without technology, emojis would not exist. I absolutely hate emojis; they are tiny little irritants, and in most cases I can’t even figure out what they are.

  I don’t know why I even look at them because they add absolutely nothing to the discourse. And don’t get me started on LOL; I can go a week without physically hearing anyone laugh out loud, but if you go by emails and texts, people spend all their time roaring with hilarity.

  And recently I found out what ROTFLMAO means; a soon-to-be-former friend included it in an email in which they were forwarding a joke. It means “rolling on the floor laughing my ass off.” Really? Then how were you typing? And the joke wasn’t even funny!

  Next I google all the news stories I can find about the boat explosion. Initially, and up until this week, three men were believed to have been on the boat, all deceased. In addition to Alex Vogel, the victims were Stephen Mellman and Robert Giarrusso. All three men were executives at Pharmacon, which seems to be a midlevel drug company.

  There was obviously a burst of media coverage when the event happened, and at the time it was thought to have been a tragic accident. Then another flurry of stories, almost as large, appeared after word got out that the deaths were classified as homicides. No information was released as to why the change was made.

  Then coverage had died down, deprived of the oxygen of new information, until this week with the revelation that Alex Vogel was alive. Quickly following on the heels of this was his arrest, which is where we are now.

  If I want to find
out what the reasons are for the cops thinking that Vogel did it, I can easily do so. All I have to do is take the case and read the discovery.

  But that’s their side of the story; Vogel says he has his own side, that there is an explanation for everything.

  I’ll find that out tomorrow.

  Vogel’s case has been assigned to the Passaic County judicial system.

  The homicides, if that’s what they were, took place in international waters, so technically he could be tried anywhere. But he was arrested in Paterson, which is in Passaic County, so the logical move was to try him here.

  I suspect that its being convenient to my home and office did not figure into their thinking when assigning the case.

  I get to the courthouse about an hour before the arraignment because I want some time to speak to Vogel. He’s not here yet, so I head down to the cafeteria for some coffee. It comes out of a machine and, depending on the day, tastes like either kerosene or shit-flavored water.

  I’m in luck; today’s a kerosene day.

  “Andy, didn’t expect to see you here.”

  I turn and see Norman Trell, one of the better prosecutors in the county. He’s not in any way brilliant, and no future law school students are going to study his trial tactics, but he’s incredibly diligent. He treats every fact, no matter how obscure, as crucial. That way he is never surprised, and he is certainly never outworked.

  “Yet here I am,” I say, as he gets his own coffee.

  “I heard you were retired.”

  I nod. “I heard the same thing.” I try to keep the wistful tone out of my voice, but I think it comes through.

  “You on a case?”

  “I’m handling the arraignment for Vogel.”

  “I’m prosecuting. What do you mean, ‘handling the arraignment’? That’s all?”

  “It’s a work in progress.”

  “If you’re in the market for unsolicited advice, this case might not be the one to come out of retirement for.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because even with all your genius, it’s a loser.” He takes a sip of his coffee. He makes a face showing his distaste. “This tastes like shit.”

  “Really? I was thinking kerosene.”

  I head back upstairs, and Vogel is waiting for me in an anteroom. First I tell him what is going to happen once we get inside the courtroom. The prosecution will detail the charges, the judge will ask Vogel how he pleads, and assuming it’s not guilty, he may or may not set a trial date.

  “Not guilty,” Vogel says firmly and with conviction.

  “Okay. Say it just that way when he asks you, but throw a ‘Your Honor’ on the end of it. Now tell me what happened that day. Tell me the absolute truth. If I take this case and then find out that you lied to me, about anything, I will withdraw and you will be toast. I cannot reveal anything you say to me without your permission, so let it rip.”

  He nods. “How much do you know so far?”

  “Just what was in the papers. You went out on your boat with two colleagues and the boat blew up. It was ruled a triple homicide, but your being here turns it into a ground rule double.”

  “I was on the boat, but not when it blew up … obviously.”

  “Start from the beginning.”

  He nods and takes a deep breath, as if preparing for an ordeal. “There were two guys that I worked with, Stephen Mellman and Rob Giarrusso.… I wouldn’t call them friends, but we were together at Pharmacon for a good amount of time. They were already at the pier when I got to it that morning.

  “We would occasionally conduct meetings there. Well, the first few meetings were in March, before the boat was in the water, so we would go to a restaurant. But the boat was better because we didn’t want to be overheard.”

  “Why were you meeting?” I need to move this along; we’re going to be called into court in a few minutes.

  “We were going to start our own company. Robert was a biochemist, brilliant actually. Stephen was in finance; he was going to raise the money. My specialty is research and development, emphasis on research. So I would be in charge of testing new products and bringing them to market.”

  “You had a new product in mind?”

  Vogel nods. “Yes. Companies like the one we were going to form, start-ups in this industry, can easily live or die on one product. Robert had a brilliant idea; we thought it could be huge. You want to know the kind of drug?”

  “I do, but not now; we only have a couple of minutes. Tell me what happened that day.”

  “We were out on my boat, maybe two hours out, and we saw another boat approaching. Smaller than mine, maybe thirty-five feet. We didn’t think much of it; they were still fairly far away and there was no indication it would come straight for us. That wouldn’t make sense. It was a boat I don’t think I had seen before.

  “We had finished our meeting and were having a few beers before we were going to head back. I was going down below to get something, maybe more beer or chips … I don’t remember. I heard these noises; they sounded like two clapping sounds. I didn’t know where they were coming from; the water can carry sounds and amplify them.

  “I yelled upstairs to ask the guys what the noises were, but they didn’t answer. I started up the steps and I saw them; they were lying on the deck.… It was horrible. The only way I can describe it is that their torsos were shattered; they were in distorted positions and there was blood everywhere. I will never forget it as long as I live.

  “I didn’t know what to do. My assumption was that the people on the approaching boat had shot them, so I didn’t want to go up where I would be a target. I couldn’t get up top to the radio to send a distress signal, and there wouldn’t have been time for help to arrive anyway.

  “It seemed like a long time, but it was probably just a couple of minutes before I felt the impact of their boat pulling up alongside ours, and I heard them come on the deck.”

  “How many were there?”

  “I think two; at least I only heard two voices. But I can’t be sure. I heard one of them say, ‘This one could be Vogel; I can’t tell.’”

  “So they were looking for you?”

  He nods. “I couldn’t think of any other explanation, then or now. One of them said that they should search the rest of the boat, that he had been told there would be three on board. So they started to come down the stairs. There is a compartment under the bed, for storage, and I hid in there. I was sure they would find me; the area to search was not that big. I never felt panic like that.”

  “But they didn’t find you?”

  He shakes his head. “They didn’t look very hard. One of them said it didn’t matter; once they detonated the charge, nobody would survive anyway. So they left, and I heard them disembark and their boat pull away.

  “I went up onto the deck; I was literally stepping in my friends’ blood. I decided I had to leave the boat; I couldn’t find the explosive device that they talked about, and I assumed it could go off any second. There was a dinghy alongside the boat; it had a motor on it. I jumped into it and left. I was probably a mile away when I heard the explosion. I actually felt it.”

  “Do you know who the men were?”

  “No, but I got a quick look at one of them. I think I would recognize him again. And I think I know who sent them.”

  There’s a knock on the door; it opens and the bailiff says, “Andy, they’re ready for you. The judge is about to come in.”

  I nod and turn to Vogel. “Hold that thought.”

  Judge Daniel Mahomes is handling the arraignment.

  He’s a competent judge, but completely devoid of personality. Or maybe he just hides any personality from lawyers; I’ve sat at his table at two charity dinners and have found it impossible to engage him in any meaningful, or even meaningless, conversation.

  I asked him if he was related to Patrick Mahomes, the great young quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs. The judge looked at me blankly, waited about six or seven seconds, then said,
“No.” The guy is a barrel of laughs.

  There’s no guarantee that Mahomes will handle the actual trial; that will depend on his schedule and caseload. Based on my experience, I think it will probably be him, but there’s no way to know for sure, and it probably doesn’t even matter that much. There isn’t a judge on the planet who likes me.

  Norman Trell and two backup lawyers are at the prosecution table; at the defense table are just me and Vogel. I didn’t call in the other lawyer in my firm, Hike Lynch, because it was completely unnecessary for this purpose.

  Everything that will happen today is predetermined. The only question that nobody on the other side can be sure about is how Vogel will plead. But in reality that holds little suspense; even if a defendant is ultimately going to plead it out, they will almost invariably go with a “not guilty” at this stage. Then negotiations can follow.

  Trell describes the circumstances of the case and the charges against Vogel. The prosecution has decided that the homicides were premeditated, a pretty easy call to make when explosives were planted and detonated. For that reason, they are charging Vogel with two counts of murder in the first degree.

  If Vogel is convicted, he will never again have to worry about buying sunscreen.

  When it comes time to plead, Vogel and I stand and he delivers his “Not guilty, Your Honor” in a steady voice. I request that bail be granted, which causes Trell to get up out of his seat.

  “Your Honor, the defendant has already faked his own death and gone into hiding. He also has significant financial resources. He is the textbook definition of a flight risk.”

  I argue the point and offer alternatives, like a large bond, home confinement with an electronic ankle monitor, and surrender of his passport. None of it has a chance in hell of success; two counts of murder one means confinement in 100 percent of cases.

  Judge Mahomes dismissively rules against us. I had alerted Vogel to how this would go, so I’m sure he’s not surprised. I’m also sure he’s disappointed; there’s always hope until there isn’t anymore.