by Lawson, Mike
“The other advantage we have, although this might be somewhat embarrassing for Molly, is we can show that with her financial situation, she didn’t have half a million to invest.”
“Well, of course she doesn’t have that kind of money,” Mary Pat said. “She’s only been out of school four years.”
Apparently, no one had told Mary Pat about her daughter’s credit card debit—and DeMarco didn’t want to be the one to tell her.
“The government is going to say that Molly has a rich partner,” DeMarco said.
Caine smiled at DeMarco. The smile said: leave the lawyering to us real lawyers, sonny. “They can say that,” Caine said, “but they can’t prove it.”
DeMarco hated to say it front of Mary Pat but he had to. “And the fact that Molly’s in debt also gives her a motive.”
“What?” Mary Pat said, her head spinning in DeMarco’s direction. “What are you talking about, Joe? What debt?”
“Molly owes a rather large amount on her credit cards, Mrs. Mahoney,” Caine said.
“She does?” Mary Pat said.
“Yes, but that’s not really a problem,” Caine said, waving the issue away with his right hand. “So she owes some money? Big deal. If a jury is impanelled—I mean if this case ever goes to trial—I’ll do credit checks on all the jurors and say: I know that at least four members of this jury have significant debts, but you’re not criminals, are you?”
Mary Pat nodded but DeMarco could tell she was still thinking about her daughter’s credit card situation.
“So what we’re going to do,” Caine said, “is subpoena Misters Campbell, McGrath, and Praeter.”
“Are these the three men you mentioned earlier?” Mary Pat asked.
“Yes. Three men who may have been using insider information to buy stock in companies that are clients of Reston Tech, and two of them have been previously investigated by the SEC.”
“If the SEC knows these men could have done this, why aren’t they . . .”
“The SEC can’t prove they’ve done anything illegal, Mrs. Mahoney,” Caine said, “but as I’ve told you, that’s irrelevant. That just shows how smart these people are. So we’ll subpoena their financial records, and we’ll subpoena them to testify at the trial. We’ll subpoena PNC Financial and show that Praeter’s and Campbell’s finances are linked via Mrs. Campbell’s trust fund. That is, we’ll show that Campbell, who works for Reston Tech, and Mr. Praeter, a very clever investor, have a connection.”
“You can subpoena them,” DeMarco said, “but you need to understand that I didn’t find anything connecting them to Molly. They just look . . . well, funny to me.”
“Exactly!” Caine said, as if DeMarco had just made his point. “We’ll put these three on the stand and ask them questions about their wealth and their success in the market and point out that Campbell, unlike Molly, has been at Reston Tech during the time the SEC has noticed a pattern of insider trading.”
“But if you can’t prove these men have done something illegal . . .” Mary Pat said.
“They provide a plausible alternative, Mrs. Mahoney,” Caine said, his impatience showing just a bit. “I need to give a jury someone else to consider—someone other than Molly, someone who owns a sixty-foot boat like Mr. McGrath or a two-million-dollar home in Chevy Chase like Mr. Campbell. Juries tend not to like people who own two-million-dollar homes, not unless they own one, too.”
“I understand all that,” Mary Pat said, “but if these men are innocent you could unjustly damage their reputations.”
Caine shrugged—and the message was clear: Molly was his client and whatever should befall Campbell and his pals was not his problem.
“Okay,” Caine said, rubbing his hands together, wrapping things up, “we’ll keep plugging away. We’ve asked for time to file motions and review the material we’ve subpoenaed. With the court’s calendar being the way it is, I don’t expect we’ll go to trial—assuming we ever go to trial—for at least six months.”
“But Molly’s been suspended from her job,” Mary Pat said.
“Suspended with pay,” Caine said.
“Still, it makes it look like she’s guilty. This will set her back professionally.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Mahoney,” Caine said, “but I can’t do anything about Molly’s suspension from work. However, after the criminal case is settled in her favor, we may be able to sue Reston Tech or the SEC for damages. Molly might never have to work again.”
“Oh no, I don’t want that,” Mary Pat said. “I just want this to be over with.”
Caine made another small shoulder shrug that could have meant anything. “Well, that’s something we can always discuss later,” he said.
As Mary Pat and DeMarco were leaving Caine’s office, Mary Pat said, “You need to find Molly, Joe. Something’s wrong. She should have been here.”
“I will,” DeMarco said.
“And this credit card stuff, Joe. Do you have any idea what that’s all about?”
“All I know is she owes a lot of money but I don’t know why.”
“How much?”
DeMarco hesitated. He hadn’t even discussed Molly’s credit card situation with Mahoney. “About a hundred thousand.”
“Oh my God.”
28
A fire truck and a police car were blocking the street near Molly’s apartment building, so DeMarco had to park a block away. As he walked toward Molly’s, he saw a burnt-out car on the other side of the street, looking like something you’d see on the streets of Baghdad. The lights on the emergency vehicles weren’t flashing and the car was no longer burning; it had been soaked down thoroughly by the firefighters and water was streaming toward the gutter drains. The incident must have happened recently, however, because there were still a few gawkers at the scene.
As DeMarco walked toward the entrance to Molly’s building, he asked one of the gawkers—a young woman pushing a baby in a stroller —what had happened.
“Someone bombed that car,” she said.
“Bombed it?” DeMarco said.
“Fire-bombed it.” Pointing at a short Hispanic woman in her sixties who was talking to one of the cops, she said, “Mrs. Gomez saw him do it. She was looking out her window like she always is, and saw this kid throw something into that car. It just exploded, she said, and then the kid took off, running like Carl Lewis. I just don’t understand what’s wrong with people these days.”
“Huh,” DeMarco said. Probably some kind of gang thing, he thought.
DeMarco entered the apartment building and because the elevator wasn’t working, took the stairs up to Molly’s floor. He knocked on the door, and no one answered. He thought about the way Molly had been drinking the last two times he saw her and wondered if she was inside, passed out, and if that was why she’d missed the appointment with her lawyer. He hammered on the door long and hard. Molly didn’t answer, but the old woman who lived in the apartment across the hall stuck her head out to see what was going on.
“Have you seen Molly Mahoney?” he asked the old woman.
“No. But she’s obviously not home, you beating on the door hard enough to wake the dead.”
“Sorry,” DeMarco muttered, wondering where the hell Molly had gone and why she wasn’t answering her cell phone.
As he left the building, he looked over at the burnt-out car again. Station wagon. Then he remembered when he met Molly the other night and he’d walked her to her car, she’d been driving a station wagon, but he hadn’t paid any attention to the model. All he remembered was that it looked like it hadn’t been washed in a year. He couldn’t tell if the smoking pile of scrap metal on the street was the same car, but it could be.
He walked over to the cop who was still chatting with Mrs. Gomez.
“Excuse me,” DeMarco said.
> The cop turned to look at him. “Yeah?” he said.
“Do you know who that car belongs to?” DeMarco asked.
“Why are you asking?” the cop said.
“Because I think it may belong to a friend of mine, but I’m not sure. So do you know . . .”
“Who’s your friend?” the cop said.
This guy was starting to piss him off, answering every question with a question.
“Her name’s Molly Mahoney,” DeMarco said.
“Well, that’s who the car belongs to,” the cop said. “We ran the plates. You got any idea why anyone would want to do this to your friend’s car?”
“Was Molly hurt?”
“I asked you . . .”
“Yeah, I heard what you asked. And I want to know if Molly was hurt.”
Mrs. Gomez answered before the cop could turn pissy. “She wasn’t hurt,” she said. “I saw her leave with a man just before it happened.”
“Do you know who the man was?” DeMarco asked.
The cop started to say something, but Mrs. Gomez talked right over him. “No. Just what I told this policeman. He was a short, strong-looking guy wearing fancy white cowboy boots. I didn’t really notice his face. Just the boots.”
“Do you have any idea why somebody would want to destroy Ms. Mahoney’s car?” the cop asked DeMarco.
“No. I don’t have clue,” DeMarco said and turned to walk away.
“Hey, wait a minute,” the cop said. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
Aw, shit. DeMarco pulled out his congressional ID. “My name’s DeMarco. And like I told you, I’m a friend of Molly’s and I just stopped by to see her.”
Five minutes later, after the cop pestered him with a dozen questions he couldn’t or wouldn’t answer, DeMarco left. The car bombing could have been some sort of random act of vandalism, he thought, although destroying someone’s car went way beyond tagging a wall with graffiti. Or maybe somebody saw Molly on television as she was leaving the courthouse after her arraignment, and decided to use a Molotov cocktail to express his displeasure at folks who engage in insider trading. Maybe—but unlikely. The good news was that Molly wasn’t hurt. But why did she miss the appointment with her lawyer and run off with some guy wearing fancy cowboy boots? Before he could guess at an answer to this question, Mahoney’s secretary called and told him the man wanted to see him.
29
The lights were out in Mahoney’s office and the blinds were closed. DeMarco wondered if Mahoney was having one of his migraines, the headaches usually occurring when he smoked too much and didn’t eat anything but bourbon. Mahoney refused to believe, however, that there was a connection between his habits and his headaches. But this time it wasn’t a migraine; it was just a father sitting in the dark brooding about his daughter.
“Boss, I just came from Molly’s apartment and someone . . .”
Mahoney cut him off. “What did her lawyer have to say?”
“Didn’t Mary Pat tell you?”
“She called while I was in a meeting and I haven’t called her back yet. I wanted to hear what you had to say first.”
“Well, according to Caine, things are looking pretty good,” DeMarco said, and he told Mahoney about the discussion in Caine’s office and Caine’s strategy for creating reasonable doubt. Mahoney didn’t interrupt once while he was speaking, which was surprising, and he wondered if Mahoney was paying attention. DeMarco concluded by saying, “But there is one problem, though.”
“Oh, yeah. What’s that?”
“Molly has a motive,” DeMarco said. “She’s carrying a lot of debt. She’s maxed out every credit card she has.”
“How do you know this?” Mahoney asked. He didn’t sound shocked by DeMarco’s pronouncement. It was more like DeMarco had confirmed something Mahoney already knew and Mahoney’s question was literal: how did DeMarco know about his daughter’s debt?
“I ran a credit check on her,” DeMarco said.
DeMarco waited for Mahoney to blow up at him for having the balls to check out his daughter’s credit rating, but Mahoney didn’t say anything. He just nodded his big head, a white blur in the darkened room.
“The other thing is, Mary Pat knows about Molly’s credit card situation. Caine brought it up during the meeting and I had to tell her how much she owed.”
“Aw, shit,” Mahoney muttered.
“So the SEC is going to argue that Molly’s motive was all the debt she’s carrying, but like I said, Caine still thinks he has a pretty good defense. The other good news is that Caine’s managed to kick the trial downstream at least six months. I’m going to need the time to figure out who deposited the money in Molly’s account. I know a guy, a computer guy. He’s out of town right now, but when he gets back . . .”
“Molly did it, Joe,” Mahoney said.
“What?” DeMarco said, not sure he’d heard what he’d just heard.
“I said, she did it. She’s guilty. So don’t bother with the computer guy.”
“But what makes you think . . .”
“And she not only maxed-out her credit cards, she’s in hock to a casino for another hundred grand. My daughter’s a gambling junky, Joe.”
Those two words—gambling junky—answered a host of questions. They explained Molly’s credit card debt and why she lived in a dump. But instead of saying what he was thinking, DeMarco tried to comfort Mahoney. “She may owe some money, but that doesn’t mean she . . .”
“And the half million deposited into her account?” Mahoney said. “It came from the same casino she owes the hundred K to. She went to the head of the casino and pitched him the insider trading scheme.”
“How do you know all this? Did Molly tell you?”
“No, the guy who runs the casino told me.” And Mahoney told DeMarco about the meeting he had with Ted Allen in Atlantic City.
Neither man spoke for a minute, then DeMarco said, “So what does he want?”
“What the hell do you think he wants?” Mahoney shouted. “He wants his money back. He also wants the federal government to give the state of New Jersey a hundred million bucks to help build a convention center in Atlantic City.”
“A convention center?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I dunno for sure, but I’m guessing he’ll make a bunch of money if it’s built.”
“Is there anything else?”
“Yeah, there’s one other little thing. I think the guy who runs the casino is connected to the Mob.”
Before DeMarco could react to this news, the phone on Mahoney’s desk rang. Mahoney tapped the speaker button and said, “What is it?”
“Your wife’s on line two,” Mavis said. “She said she needs to speak with you urgently.”
“Tell her . . . Oh shit, just tell her I’ll have to call her back.” He disconnected the call and said to DeMarco, “I’m gonna catch hell for that.”
* * *
“It sounds like the smart thing to do is give Ted Allen his money and let Molly take her chances at the trial,” DeMarco said. “Caine thinks he can win and . . .”
“I don’t want a trial, Joe. Going to trial when you’re innocent is one thing, but going to trial when you’re guilty is a whole other thing. And as for the money . . . Counting her credit card debt and her legal bills, we’re talking about seven hundred grand. Seven hundred! I don’t have that kind of money.”
This surprised DeMarco; he’d always thought that Mahoney was rich.
“I’d have to sell the house in Boston and maybe Mary Pat’s boat to raise that kind of cash. God would that ever break her heart, if we had to sell that boat.” He started to say something else but stopped and just shook his head.
“You have a lot of friends, boss,” DeMarco said. “
And there are a lot of other people out there who I’m sure would be willing to help you out.” What DeMarco meant, but didn’t say, was that a lot of people would be happy to give Mahoney the money in return for his influence.
“No!” Mahoney said, banging his fist down on his desk.
Aw, shit. DeMarco knew what was coming next. He knew because he didn’t work for a reasonable man.
“I’m not giving these people a fucking thing!” Mahoney said. “You got that? These bastards got my daughter hooked and then they coerced her into committing a felony.”
DeMarco wasn’t too sure about any of that, but he knew it was a distraught father talking.
“Well?” Mahoney said. “Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” DeMarco said. “I understand. You want me to get Molly off for a crime you now know she’s committed and you want to get the Mob off her back without paying them.”
“That’s right,” Mahoney said. “And I don’t want this case going to trial and I don’t want her mother to find out what she did.”
30
DeMarco was on the Atlantic City Expressway, a straight-as-an-arrow drag strip designed to reduce the time people spent driving and thereby increase the time they spent giving the casinos their money.
When he had told Mahoney how Molly’s car had been firebombed, the blood had drained from Mahoney’s normally red face. That was the first time DeMarco had ever seen John Mahoney looking scared.
Mahoney’s first question had naturally been: “Was she hurt?”
Before DeMarco could answer, Mahoney’s face turned back to red again, like a chameleon dropped onto a Chinese flag, and he screamed, “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this the minute you walked in here?”
DeMarco didn’t bother to say that he’d tried. Instead he said that Molly hadn’t been in the car and that before the bombing she was seen leaving her apartment with a guy wearing white cowboy boots.