(2012) The Key to Justice

by Dennis Carstens

  “What can I do for you Jake?” came the pleasant reply. Jake quickly explained why he called and what he wanted and Gondeck, not wanting to bother with the paperwork necessary for a warrant, told him to go ahead and look for the locker. “Tell your detective that if he finds the locker don’t remove anything until we check with the judge. We may want to get one at that point. If he finds the locker we can get a warrant then. We may want to so we can grab the coin box from it and check the coins for prints.”

  “Okay. Good idea.”

  “We probably don’t need one. Fornich would have no expectation of privacy for a public locker. Then again, he might because he paid for it. Whatever evidence we might find could be admitted and let the jury conclude whatever they want from it. But, probably safest to get a warrant. Find the locker first then we’ll get a warrant.”

  “Fine, Steve. Thanks. I’ll see ya’ at two to go over my testimony for tomorrow,” Jake said and hung up the phone.

  “There ya’ have it,” he said turning back to Barnes. “Look but don’t touch. If you do find it,” he continued pointing a finger at Barnes’ chest and sternly admonishing him, “you stay put. Phone it in. Better still, lock it back up and stand guard over the thing till we get there with a search warrant.”

  “Sure thing, Lieutenant. I’ll get right on it.”

  “Good, Gary. Good luck. It’s a long shot but, we’ll see if anything turns up.”

  FORTY-ONE

  Marc replaced the telephone in its cradle on the desk and sat staring, unblinking, at the phone. He stayed this way for a full minute after hanging up thinking about the conversation he just finished. A client, or more accurately, now a former client, had called to fire him as her divorce lawyer and demanded a refund of the three thousand dollar retainer she had paid. No explanation. No reason given at all. Simply told him she had decided she didn’t want him to represent her. Technically, he didn’t have to give her back a dime of the money. The retainer agreement she had signed had the standard boilerplate language in it proclaiming that none of the money was refundable. He knew it was probably bullshit, though. If he didn’t give her back the money she would raise holy hell with the ethics board and probably sue him for it.

  Marc leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling with his arms folded across his chest. He exhaled heavily and softly said to himself, “To hell with it. It’s not worth the headache. I’ll deduct the amount I have coming for the two or three hours I’ve done and give her back the rest.” What really bothered him was not the fact that a client had fired him. That happens from time-to-time to all lawyers. Clients sometimes changed their minds for any number of reasons. What was worrisome was that she was the third one in just the past few days. All unexpected and all without explanation although Marc was beginning to see the picture pretty clearly. Carl Fornich could get to be a pretty expensive proposition if this keeps up. Especially if Carl’s brother doesn’t come up with some money, and soon, he thought.

  Marc sat forward in the chair, pulled up to the desk and resumed the task that the phone call had interrupted. He was working his way through Carl’s file, the police reports and other documents given to him by Steve Gondeck, preparing for tomorrow’s evidentiary hearing. Though it was barely nine o’clock, he had been at it for over three hours already this Monday morning. Marc wanted to finish by noon because of the four appointments he had in the afternoon, three with new clients all of whom looked good for a decent retainer for basically straight forward, simple cases.

  He continued like this for another half hour, bent over the desk, making notes on one yellow legal pad and writing out questions on another one for his cross examination of the witnesses the prosecution would call. Marc was so absorbed in his work he didn’t hear the soft knock on his door or the sound of it being opened. He looked up, startled, when he heard Carolyn’s voice say, “Marc, Deirdre McConnell’s on the phone from Washington. And, Joe Fornich called a few minutes ago. He’s on his way in. Says he has money for you.”

  “Thank God,” Marc replied. “I just lost another client.”

  “Yeah, I figured that. More bad news. All of your appointments for this afternoon called and cancelled.”

  “All of them? Are you serious?” Marc asked incredulously.

  “Afraid so, sorry” she replied

  “Shit. Well, let me know when Joe gets here,” he said as he picked up the phone and pressed the line one button. “Hello, Deirdre. Thanks for calling back. So, since the Government didn’t object to the amount of the award, when can I expect a check?”

  “Probably about four to six weeks. It’s usually sent out in two or three but I always tell people four to six just to be on the safe side. The IRS and I signed off on the appeal. Recommending no appeal of the judge’s decision.”

  “You’d lose anyway and end up paying me for that, too,” Marc said with a laugh.

  “No doubt,” Deirdre agreed. “The judge’s decision on these things is entirely up to him and, unless he’s really out of whack, which he isn’t, there’s no way an Appellate Court would overturn him. Anyway, the Solicitor General’s Office has it now and as soon as they sign off on the appeal, Treasury will issue the check. Should be any day now.”

  After having dealt with the Government for many years with his wife’s case, Marc had learned his lesson about writing things down. Not that he believed they were liars. It just seemed that what they said and what they did were usually two very different things. As soon as he began talking to her, he reached for a notepad and, as he always did when talking to anyone with the IRS or the Justice Department, began taking notes of the conversation.

  “What about the tax lien against our house? Has that been lifted?” Marc asked.

  “Should be by now. I know I sent the paperwork to the Service telling them to lift the lien. I sent that three or four weeks ago. I’m sure it’s done by now.”

  “I haven’t gotten anything from them to verify that,” Marc said pleasantly. “Would you mind checking on it for me. We’re still trying to get the house refinanced and the lien was holding that up.”

  “Sure, I’ll check it. I thought you were getting divorced?”

  “I am. But, I still want to try to get the house refinanced. Lower the payment for her. What about the refund? Any luck on that?”

  “That’ll take a while longer since the payments were collected over time. They’ll have to go back and figure out interest you have coming on each payment from the date it was made. So, that will take a lot of work and more time.”

  “Has the IRS heard about a new invention called a computer? It might speed up the process a bit if they use one,” Marc said sarcastically. “That was a joke Deirdre,” he added when she made no response.

  “Oh, yeah right,” she said flatly. “Anyway, since you owe personal taxes they’ll just apply the refund to those.”

  “I know. I’d just like to get it all done and figured so we can get them paid. I don’t wanna send any money until we’re sure what we owe.”

  “Okay. Well, I’ll check on the refund, but it’ll be at least a few more weeks.

  “That’s okay. Let me know as soon as you know anything.”

  “Sure thing, Marc. Bye now.”

  Marc spent a few minutes making notes of the phone call just completed. Making special note of the assurance that the Federal Government’s lawyer had given him about the futility of an appeal and when he could expect the check for the award of attorney fees. He tore the page from the notepad, opened a drawer in his desk and placed it in the portion of Karen’s case file that he kept in the desk. The full file was almost a foot thick and consisted of several folders. Most of them were kept in a file cabinet, but he kept one for ongoing correspondence and communications in a desk drawer for convenience and access. He was about to resume his work on the Fornich file when he heard a soft rap on his door and looked up to see Carolyn again appear and say, “Joe Fornich is here.”

  “Have him come in,” Marc beamed
as he sat up in the chair. “Hey, Joe, how ya doin?” Marc asked as Carolyn quietly closed the door while Joe sat down in front of the desk. “What do you have for me?”

  “Look, Marc. I got some of it. I cleaned out my 401(K) and I got fifteen grand for you today. I know it’s not enough. Me and my sister are both trying to refinance our homes. We’ll come up with the rest, but it’ll take a little time. Okay?”

  Marc leaned forward in his chair, placed his left elbow on the desk and covered his mouth with his left hand. He sat this way for a moment, silently staring at Joe to give him the impression that he was thinking it over. Knowing the effect would be to make Joe extremely uncomfortable, which it obviously did as Joe lowered his eyes and fidgeted in the chair. All the while Marc was thinking about how relieved he was to finally get a chunk of money for this case and what bills he could get paid knowing he had already billed more time than fifteen thousand could cover.

  After a long minute, satisfied he had created the impression he wanted, removed his hand from his mouth and said, “Okay, Joe. I guess that’ll be okay for now.”

  With obvious relief, Joe pulled a folded check from his shirt pocket, reached across the desk and handed it to Marc. “I’ll get the rest, Marc. Shouldn’t take more than a couple weeks or so. Believe me, you’ll get it.”

  “There’s a couple things you’ve got to understand,” Marc said as he opened the top left hand desk drawer and removed a receipt for the check. While filling out the receipt, “just so we’re clear, the first thirty grand is the retainer. I’ll bill against it, but when it’s gone, and with a case like this it’ll go pretty quick, I’ll need more.”

  “I understand,” Joe answered quickly as Marc held up a hand to interrupt him.

  “But, more importantly, you’ve gotta understand that I work for Carl. Just because you’re paying me, doesn’t mean that you have any say in how things go or what I do or how I handle things,” Marc said as he again held up a hand to Joe to politely stop him as he started to protest. “I know we’ve been over this and I know you understand. But, I have to make this absolutely clear, okay? Not everyone gets this.”

  “I understand. Really, Marc. You won’t have any problems with me. I trust your judgment. You’re the lawyer, not me. My sister, too. I talked to her and she doesn’t want to get too involved at all.”

  “Look, Joe, I know you do and I don’t expect it to be a problem. At least not from you. Sometimes though, it can be. Mostly in divorces. You get a young woman going through a divorce and Mom or Dad paying for it and just because they’re picking up the tab they think that entitles them to call the shots. Tell the lawyer what to do and how things are supposed to go. Lemme tell ya’, that can be one helluva pain-in-the-ass to try to deal with. If I thought you’d be like that on a case like this, I wouldn’t dream about taking it.”

  “No, no problems from me, What about this thing tomorrow? You mind explaining stuff to me as we go along?”

  “No, I don’t mind. At least as much as I can. This thing tomorrow is kind of a mini-trial. The prosecution wants a blood sample from Carl. We’ll have a hearing so the judge can figure a way to give it to ‘em. They’ll have to put some witnesses on to explain why they need it.”

  “You mean the judge will let them take a blood sample from Carl for some kind of test?”

  “Oh, sure. No problem. If there’s any reason at all, he’ll let them do it. And, they have a semen sample from one of the victims so, they’ll run a DNA test to see if it matches Carl.”

  “Then why do the hearing?”

  “Discovery. Gives us a chance to look at their case. Hear from some witnesses. See what they have. Even though they’re supposed to give it to me, show me everything they have, sometimes they try to hedge on it a bit. So they can pull some shit at trial.”

  “What about Carl? Does he know what’s goin’ on?”

  “Yes, I saw him yesterday and reminded him about it. You can come tomorrow but I may not bother to have Carl there. Lemme think about it.”

  “Which brings me back to the money, again,” Marc continued as he held up the check Joe had given him. “We’re gonna have to run our own DNA tests. Hire our own expert witnesses to go over their test results and try to find a way to cast some doubt on any scientific evidence they come up with if it matches Carl. That shit isn’t cheap.”

  “If it matches Carl? Why would it match Carl? “

  “I don’t know that it will. Don’t get ahead of yourself here. We’ll see, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay. No problem,” Joe responded. “Whatever you need to do, do it. Me and Brenda, my sister, we’ll get the equity from our homes. I think she can get 25 or 30 grand herself and I can probably get another twenty.”

  “That won’t be enough, Joe,” Marc answered.

  “Another forty to fifty grand won’t be enough?” Joe asked with a look of disbelief.

  “I wouldn’t count on it.” Marc answered. “We’ll see but. . . “

  “I s’pose I can hit my boss up for a loan. The guy’s loaded. A millionaire easy. I can always threaten to go to his wife with all the shit I know he’s been up to over the years,” Joe chuckled. “Jesus Christ, Marc how do most people pay for this shit?”

  “They don’t,” Marc answered with a casual shrug. “The prisons are full of people who can’t afford to pay. You wanna fight something like this, it costs. And attorney fees are only a small part of it. There’s witness fees, lab tests, investigator fees, you name it and none of this is cheap. I warned you. Besides, in this particular case, I think it will be money well spent. I don’t know how or why yet but I believe your brother’s getting hosed. Someone’s setting him up to take a fall here. Which reminds me, I gotta hire an investigator.”

  “You know one? A good one?”

  “Yeah, I know a couple,” Marc nodded soberly. “One in particular, an ex-cop, I think they’re all ex-cops. Anyway, he’s real good. Got great connections around the Cities. In fact,” he continued with a puzzled look on his face, “now that I think about it, I’m surprised I haven’t heard from him, what with all the publicity this thing’s generated.”

  Marc swiveled in his chair and retrieved the rolodex from the top of the small credenza and heard Joe ask, “How much will he need?”

  “For this, he’ll probably need a retainer of around five grand. That should be enough to at least get him started. Here he is,” Marc said as he pulled a card from the ‘C’ section of the rolodex. “Antonio Carvelli.”

  “Sounds like a mob guy.”

  “No,” Marc said laughing. “But he’s originally from Chicago so, who knows? I wouldn’t be surprised if he knows some down home goodfellas.”

  “Listen, Marc. You need me anymore?” Joe said as he rose from his chair and looked at his wristwatch. “I should get to work. This Caramelli guy, sounds like someone I’d like to meet.”

  “You may get the chance,” Marc laughed. “Tony’s a good guy. Very likeable, personable Italian. And it’s Carvelli, not Caramelli. Give me a call in a couple of days,” he added as he picked up the phone and punched in the number on the card he was holding. Before the second ring finished it was answered by a gruff sounding voice from a throat that had too many cigarettes and too much whiskey pass through it for too many years.

  “Carvelli,” the voice growled.

  “Tony, it’s Marc Kadella. How the hell are ya?”

  “Well, hello counselor,” the growl continued. “I’ve been expecting you to call.”

  “Listen, ...” Marc began.

  “Not on the phone, Marc,” Tony said, the voice having lost it’s edge.

  “What? What are you talking about?” Marc stammered uncertainly.

  “Listen. Not on the phone. Tell ya’ what. You can buy me lunch. Remember that last place we went?”

  “No. Wait, yeah I do, it was ....”

  “Don’t say it. Just meet me there in half an hour.”

  “Man, what’re ya’ getting’ paranoid?”

&nbs
p; “See ya’ about noon and Marc, a word of advice, keep an eye over your shoulder.”

  “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Think about it, counselor,” Marc heard the voice say just before the buzz of the dial tone came into his ear.

  FORTY-TWO

  A half hour later Marc walked through the door of the bar section of a neighborhood restaurant in Northeast Minneapolis. After removing his sunglasses he stood in the entryway for several seconds and allowed his eyes to adjust to the dimly lit room. Concentrating his attention on the row of booths that ran along the right hand wall, looking over their occupants until he looked at the very last one in line. There a solitary figure sat staring back at him, an expressionless look on the face of his luncheon companion.

  “Tony, how ya doin’?” Marc asked as he slid into the booth across from Carvelli. The two men exchanged a brief handshake and Marc continued, “I’ve half expected you to call, what with the publicity and everything.”

  “I’ve been kinda busy, counselor.” Carvelli answered. “So, how you doin’? How’s the big case goin?”

  “Obviously, Tony, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I need an investigator.”

  “Yeah,” the throat growled, “I figured as much. Tell me about it. I wanna hear your story.”

  For the next half-hour, around ordering and eating their lunch, Marc gave Tony an outline of the case against Carl Fornich. The witnesses, the victims and as much as he knew about the evidence against Carl. Tony sat quietly eating his corned beef sandwich and intently listening to Marc’s story. Nodding occasionally, and grunting an acknowledgement at appropriate times.

  “So,” Marc said in conclusion, “that’s about it up to this point. I need an investigator. You know the drill. Run down witnesses and I need someone who can track down my client’s life. Hopefully build an alibi. Maybe someone who can place him somewhere else at the time of the Powderhorn killing and maybe one or two others.”