Muzzled

by David Rosenfelt

  “Why would he do that?”

  “He was apparently attached to the dog,” Shenton says, frowning.

  “That is admirable. But if he was so attached to his dog, why wouldn’t he have made arrangements to keep the dog in a place where he could get her without having to reveal himself? What kind of plan is that?”

  “Plans aren’t always perfect.”

  “Neither are theories. That’s why they need to be challenged.”

  I let Shenton off and Mahomes adjourns court for the day. I say a quick good-bye to Vogel and head for the back of the courtroom to talk to Laurie.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Corey called; Junior’s on the move.”

  We head home to await developments.

  Corey had called to say that Joseph Russo, Jr., had left his house and gotten in a car with three bodyguards. Corey followed them to a warehouse in Glen Rock. They went in about forty-five minutes ago, and we’re waiting anxiously for Corey’s next report.

  He calls five minutes after we get home, and Laurie puts it on speakerphone. “Russo and his people left two minutes ago. I decided not to follow them. I want to see who comes out of the warehouse next.”

  “Smart,” Laurie says. “We know where Russo will be whenever we want to get back on him.”

  “Maybe we won’t have to,” I say.

  “Somebody’s coming out,” Corey says. “Call you later.”

  Later turns out to be twenty-five minutes. “I think we have Victor.” The excitement is evident in Corey’s voice.

  “Where are you?”

  “I followed him to a motel in Garfield. It’s just off the highway and it’s one of those places where you can drive around to your room and enter from the outside.”

  “What makes you think it’s him?”

  “Just the fact that Russo went to him. He’s also a big guy and has an Eastern European look about him, whatever that is. Bottom line is that I don’t know for sure, but I’d bet I’m right.”

  “Were you able to get a picture?”

  “No, tried but never really had a chance. The good news is that it’s a big parking lot with a good view of his room. We can easily watch him undetected.”

  “What’s the name of the motel and room number?” I ask. “Maybe Sam can find out who is in that room.”

  “It’s called the Senator Motor Inn and he’s in room 208. I’ll get his license number also and call it in.”

  “Great,” Laurie says. “I would say you should give it twenty minutes or so, and if he doesn’t leave, come back here and we’ll figure out our next steps.”

  “Will do.”

  I call Sam and give him the hotel name and room information. “Piece of cake,” he says. Then Corey calls and gives us the license plate number on the car. When I call back and relay that to Sam he says, “Piece of cake.”

  Corey gets to the house about forty-five minutes later. He’s starving, having not had a chance to eat all day except for some pretzels he had in the car. Laurie heats up some leftover chicken parmigiana from last night, and he inhales it as he talks.

  “What do you guys think?” he asks.

  “I see two choices,” Laurie says. “One is we go to the police and tell them who we believe he is. Two is we watch him, see what he does, and hopefully get some insight as to what is going on.”

  I shake my head. “There is no choice to be made. Number two is our only option.”

  “Why?” Corey asks. He and Laurie, as ex-cops, usually lean toward bringing them in.

  “Because our job is not to cleanse the world of bad guys. Our job is to defend our client. If the FBI comes in and takes Victor off to prison, or turns him over to Interpol, or even just alerts him that we know about him, then we gain nothing and our client loses everything.”

  “I agree with Andy,” Corey says.

  That is shocking news. “You agree with me? Are we in an alternate universe?”

  He smiles. “It wasn’t easy to get those words out, believe me. But I see no obligation to bring the police in. First of all, we don’t even know who it is, and we may not know for a while. I doubt Sam is going to find out he checked into the hotel using the name Victor and listing his occupation as Russian Mafia guy.

  “Second, we have absolutely no information that he is wanted for a crime, here or anywhere. And we obviously have no independent proof that he’s done anything that we could give the cops.”

  I nod. “I would like to associate myself with everything Corey just said.”

  “Even I can’t argue with it,” Laurie says.

  The phone rings and it’s Sam. “The motel room and the rental car are both in the name of Luther Walker. The driver’s license he gave to get the car is bogus, so it’s pretty safe to assume that Luther Walker is not Luther Walker. No way to know who it is, unless you can get a fingerprint.”

  We thank Sam and hang up. Corey immediately says, “I don’t think fingerprints are practical at this point. His car is out in the open within easy sight of his window. Also, if we tried to get into it, we would have to hurry and might leave traces which he could detect. Getting into the room on a ruse, or breaking in when he leaves, also seems way too risky.”

  Laurie nods her agreement, and I say, “At this point it’s not crucial that we even know his identity, whether his name is Victor or something else. It’s more important that we know what he’s done and what he’s doing from this point.”

  “So we maintain surveillance,” Corey says. “I’ll take most of it, but I would think Willie and even Sam could help.”

  I shake my head. “Sam might go in shooting. What about Marcus?”

  “I think Marcus should be a backup,” Laurie says. “He can be called in at any time if Victor starts to move.”

  I’m not sure I agree with that, but Laurie and Corey know more than I do about this kind of stuff. And with the defense case, or at least what there is of it, about to begin, I’m going to have to leave it in their hands. “Whatever you guys say.”

  “I’ll call Willie,” Laurie says.

  Figuring out the money connection to this case is frustrating me.

  Whatever is going on has to be about money; it can’t be anything else. It sure as hell is not about Russo junior being jealous about Carla D’Antoni dating Alex Vogel.

  Russo has turned over some of his people, literally sacrificed those people, because the man we know as Victor has enough money to solve Russo’s somewhat desperate financial situation. For whatever cash infusion that represents, it’s certainly not a few thousand bucks. It has to be big-time money.

  But so far I’ve been thinking about this from everyone’s point of view other than Victor’s. If Victor is calling the shots, then his motivation, or the motivation of those he represents, is what is important. What is he getting out of it?

  The answer has to be money, but that answer is counterintuitive. How could Victor need money if he’s buying his way into this in the first place? His resources are substantial enough to be buying Russo, so he can’t exactly be starving.

  Why would the Russian Mafia, represented by Victor, be here in the first place if not for money? I can’t think of a reason, yet if there is one thing they have demonstrated, it’s that they already have plenty of money.

  I can think of two possibilities. One goes back to something that Robby Divine had said to me when we talked about the Pharmacon IPO, something that is sticking in my mind. He implied, admittedly without evidence, that some of the money investors were putting up might be dirty. Money in need of laundering sounds like an organized crime type of doing business.

  But there are two problems with that. One is that I don’t see why Russian organized crime would need to launder their money here. Lieutenant Guttierez, an expert in this area, said that they are already sharing their wealth with members of the Russian government. With that kind of protection in place, I would think that they could operate with relative impunity and not have to launder money.


  The other problem is that if the goal was simply to launder money, then hasn’t it already been accomplished? They bought their stock; why don’t they just sell it and move on?

  Based on what I know, it defies logic. On the other hand, what do I know? I place a call to Sam Willis to ask if he can find out who invested in Pharmacon.

  “Do they release the information?” I ask.

  “They don’t have to go out of their way to release it. Unless it’s of an amount or the type of purchaser that can influence future trading?”

  “What kind of purchaser would that be?”

  “Obvious example would be Warren Buffett, but it might be influential hedge funds, that kind of thing. But not to worry, stock purchases are ultimately public information. Either way, I’ll find it. What are you looking for?”

  “Help.”

  Laurie comes into the office to offer me coffee, and I tell her my thinking on all of this, including the second possibility: that so much money is involved, then what Victor is putting up to buy Russo is a drop in the bucket.

  “Or Russo is in on it,” she says. “Maybe he isn’t just getting paid by Victor for the use of his men, but instead has a piece of whatever it is that Victor is doing. Maybe he’s getting a percentage.”

  “That makes sense. More than the money-laundering angle. But where is the windfall coming from? Giarrusso’s new drug idea? Is the Russian Mafia betting on entering the pharmaceutical business?”

  “Have we heard any indication that whoever stole it has been trying to develop it?”

  I shake my head. “I haven’t. Both Bennings and Tucker, the finance and science guys at Pharmacon, told me they would notify me if they heard anything. Of course, they could have just been saying that to get me out of their offices.”

  “But the bad guys did steal that drug information from the filing cabinet at Vogel’s house. That is a fact.”

  “Right. So they tried to kill the three people that were forming a company to develop that drug. They got two, but missed Vogel. Could it be that simple?”

  “Vogel said he was the target,” she says.

  “And Big Tony said the same thing. Maybe they were wrong. Maybe Tony misspoke; he wasn’t the brightest, and Marcus had just used him as a discus. And maybe Vogel misheard what was said on the boat; he was in fear for his life. Maybe Vogel was just one of the targets.”

  “We’re working with a lot of maybes.”

  Yes, we are.

  One thing has not changed since the beginning of this case:

  Our only chance for success rests with our being able to convince the jury of the possibility that someone else could have done it. We always knew that we were going to have to point to someone and say to the jury, Look at that guy … maybe it was him.

  We were never going to be able to point to Alex Vogel and say that it couldn’t possibly have been him. The facts simply would not make that credible.

  So we’re left with Russo and Company.

  The courtroom has been crowded every day of the trial; I wouldn’t say it qualifies as a huge story, but there has been a good amount of public interest. The media coverage has been substantial as well; I’ve turned down a bunch of offers to do interviews.

  My approach to dealing with the media is simple. If it helps my client, I do it. If it doesn’t, I don’t. It’s fairly easy to make those judgments, so I rarely have to struggle with those decisions.

  In our defense opening I am going to refer to a different, earlier media story, and to do it, I’m calling in a favor. Actually, more than one.

  Vince Sanders is my first witness. He hates appearing in public and also doesn’t think as a journalist he should be seen as taking sides. But he hates buying his own beer and burgers even more. He also knows I am pissed at him for running that story about Alex Vogel coming forward to get Aggie, one that I believe sped up his arrest.

  So Vince has reluctantly agreed to testify and trudges to the stand as if he is pulling a heavy wagon. I could have used anyone for this job; I’m using Vince both because he has some stature in the community, and because I want to get revenge on his ass.

  I take him through his credentials as a leading member of the media and current editor of the local paper. Then I ask, “Does the name Carla D’Antoni mean anything to you?”

  “Yes, she was a young woman that unfortunately became a murder victim earlier this year. She was thrown off of a warehouse building in downtown Paterson.”

  “Did you run a story about it?”

  “Of course we did.”

  I introduce a newspaper article as evidence and show it to him. “Is this your story?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did I ask you to research whether it was widely covered in print and television?”

  “You did, and it was.”

  I get him to read the section where it mentions that Carla D’Antoni was rumored to be the girlfriend of Joseph Russo, Jr. I don’t have to go into detail about who Russo is; the jury would know, and the article makes a veiled reference to his underworld connections.

  Next I show Vince a more recent article, also in his paper, which mentions that Vogel also dated Carla D’Antoni. “Was this also widely covered?”

  “It was.”

  “Do you think dating Joseph Russo, Jr.’s girlfriend is a good idea?”

  “I don’t.” Vince says the words before Trell can object, but once he does, Mahomes tells the court reporter to strike it from the record.

  “Let me ask it another way. Do you think it is a good idea for Joseph Russo’s girlfriend to be caught dating someone else?”

  This time Trell is out of his chair like it is an ejector seat, and Mahomes doesn’t just admonish me, he warns me to be careful. That’s okay, I’ve made my point.

  I turn Vince over to Trell, and he walks to the podium shaking his head, as if irritated he has to deal with this nonsense.

  “Mr. Sanders, do you have any knowledge as to who killed Carla D’Antoni?”

  “No.”

  “To your knowledge, have the police made any arrests?”

  “I don’t believe so, no.”

  “Do you have any knowledge as to whether Mr. Russo knew that Mr. Vogel and Carla D’Antoni had dated?”

  “I do not.”

  “Thank you, no further questions.”

  My next move is to recall New Jersey State Police sergeant Troy Willeford, the forensic cop who testified in the prosecution’s case.

  “Sergeant, you testified that there was a break-in at Alex Vogel’s house the day after the boat explosion. Is that correct?”

  “We believe so, although we cannot be sure exactly when the robbery took place.”

  “You called it a robbery. What was stolen?”

  “That is unclear because we have no way of knowing what was in the house before the event.”

  “So it’s possible nothing was taken?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “And it’s possible the purpose of the break-in was in fact to leave incriminating evidence behind.”

  “Anything is possible” is Willeford’s grudging admission. We had gone over this in cross-examination, but there’s no downside in beating it into the jury’s probably bored heads.

  I show Willeford police photographs of the inside of Vogel’s house, obviously taken after the robbery. One of them shows the inside of the closet, without no filing cabinet to be seen. He confirms that they are in fact police photos.

  Next I show him a Facebook photograph Vogel posted of Aggie a couple of months ago. Behind her can be seen the open closet, with the filing cabinet very much there.

  “Sergeant, do you know what happened to that filing cabinet?”

  “I do not.”

  Later I am going to use the missing filing cabinet to introduce information about Robert Giarrusso’s Alzheimer’s drug.

  I let Willeford off the stand, having once again challenged the forensic discovery of Cintron 421 in the house. If Vogel is going to testify
in his own defense, and I am leaning in that direction, then the trace explosives is the only thing he cannot explain away.

  All he could offer would be what would appear to be a self-serving denial. I am going to ask that Vogel be brought to court early tomorrow, so that we can start to discuss the possibility of his testifying.

  During the break I retrieve a phone message from Laurie, who tells me that Corey reports that Victor is on the move. Nothing special yet, just out to a diner to eat.

  Corey is going to try to get a photograph of his face, but so far the opportunity has not presented itself. I have mixed feelings about that.

  If we identify him from a photograph, then find out that he is wanted for any felonies, we would have a legal obligation to report it. I don’t generally worry about legal obligations; I find them pretty annoying. But Laurie and Corey feel differently about them.

  I can just add it to the list of things to worry about.

  Next I call Pete Stanton, who is even less comfortable helping the defense than Vince Sanders.

  Too bad, Pete. I’m thinking. You and Vince are finding out that when it comes to beer and burgers, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

  Unlike Vince, who merely served as a conduit to report on media coverage, Pete has firsthand information that is directly related to our case.

  “Captain Stanton, please relate the circumstances in which you first met Mr. Vogel.”

  “It was at your dog rescue foundation. You had alerted me that he was going to be there at that time.”

  “Did I say why?”

  “Yes, you said that you had his dog and that he wanted her back. Knowing he was missing and presumed dead, you thought it might be something I would be interested in.”

  “And he did show up as predicted?”

  “He did.”

  “When you introduced yourself, did he make any effort to run away?”

  Pete shakes his head. “No, but he also wouldn’t come down to the station to answer questions.”

  “As was his right?”

  Pete nods. “As was his right as explained to him by you. Even though you said you were not yet his attorney.” It’s a minor dig at me, but not significant.