Sudden Death

by David Rosenfelt

  “Not in these results, no.”

  “Thank you.”

  Kevin and I go back to the office. Adam is there working, and I realize that he wasn’t in court today, though he had said he would be. Maybe the studio is pressing him for what he calls a first draft, but that’s the furthest thing from my mind at the moment.

  Adam stops what he’s doing to listen to Kevin and me dissect the day in court. Kevin is a very good barometer of the trends in a trial, and he thinks we did okay, but not great. He’s quick to say that there was no way we could have done great, but it’s not necessary because I wasn’t insulted. He’s absolutely right: Dylan had the upper hand.

  After about a half hour of this, Adam rather tentatively asks a question. “Let me ask you guys something. Forgetting people you’ve met while practicing criminal law… I’m talking about in your personal lives… how many people your age… friends… do you know that have died in the last ten years?”

  “One” is my answer, thinking of Susan Goodman, a girl I went to high school with who was hit by a car about two years ago.

  “Two,” says Kevin. “Why?”

  “I’ve checked out maybe a hundred and twenty people identified as friends or acquaintances of Kenny’s. Eight—all males—have died in the last seven years. None were over twenty-five years old.”

  I DON’T BELIEVE in coincidences. Never have, never will. It’s not that I don’t think they can happen, and it’s certainly not that I think everything that happens is by a grand design. I’ve just found that it’s always best to assume apparently related events have a logical reason for being, and there is nothing logical about coincidence.

  Eight friends of Kenny’s dying before the age of twenty-five: I don’t know what the actuarial tables would say, but the odds against that must be off the charts. And these are young people, mostly athletes, in the prime of their lives. This is very scary stuff.

  We have got to get into this in detail right away. Adam does not yet know the particulars of the deaths, nor does he have any indication there was foul play. Who knows, there could have been a leukemia cluster, in which case it will turn out to be a false alarm for our case. He also does not know the specifics of the connections between Kenny and the deceased, or the connections, if any, between the unfortunate young men themselves.

  If these deaths are suspicious, related, or in any way tied to Kenny, we’re in deep trouble, and our Quintana theory is most likely out the window. But we’re a long way from determining any of that, and my hope and expectation is that when we find out what we need to know, the problem will go away.

  In any event, we have a lot to learn, and we damn well better learn it before Dylan does. Kevin and I are not going to be of much help, and Laurie’s busy on a million other things, so I decide to let Adam do much of the legwork, since he seems good at it and that legwork can be done on a computer and telephone.

  Adam is eager to dig into it, and I’m confident he can get it done. The truth is, he showed a really good instinct in picking up on this situation in the first place; someone else could easily have missed it or not thought it represented a problem.

  “Let Sam Willis help you on this,” I say. “He can find out things on a computer in ten minutes that could take you ten weeks to track down.”

  “Great,” says Adam.

  “And from now on you’re really going on the payroll, with an investigator’s pay. You’re not just hanging around anymore.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “The top actors and directors are going to be fighting over this one. Besides, this is really cool. I’m glad I can help, and I’m enjoying myself.”

  That makes one of us.

  I go home, take Tara for a walk, and then call Laurie. Tonight’s not one of our sleepover nights, but I want to talk to her about Adam’s discovery. I would do so even if she were not involved in the case, even if she were a pharmacist, ballet dancer, or software designer. When something important happens, good, bad, or confusing, it’s comforting to talk to her. And I’ve got nobody to back her up in this area, no real bench strength, so if she bails out, I’ll be talking to myself. That would be another hell of a loss.

  Laurie’s reaction to the news mirrors my own, viewing this as a potentially ominous development and unwilling to chalk it up to coincidence. “Do you need to share this with the judge and Dylan?” she asks.

  It’s a question I haven’t thought about, which doesn’t say much about my abilities as an attorney. I think about it now and decide that I don’t have to share the information now, and perhaps never. Even if we were to determine that Kenny was involved, even if he’s a serial killer, we would not legally have to divulge the information. We would actually be prohibited from revealing it, the only exception being if we were aware of another murder that was going to be committed.

  I get into bed and think about the situation some more. I don’t want to discuss this with Kenny yet; I want to have more information first so I can better judge his response. On some level I can see the possibility that he had an argument with Preston and killed him, but I simply cannot see him as responsible for multiple deaths. Of course, I’ve been wrong before.

  The window drapes are open, and my mind flashes to Michael Corleone in the bedroom of his Vegas compound, realizing just in time that the drapes being open means he should hit the ground before the bullets come flying.

  I get up and close the drapes, cowardly doing it from the side of the window so as not to expose myself should Bruno Tattaglia want to take a shot at me. As I do, I get a look out into the darkness, and I can only hope and assume that Marcus is there.

  They never mentioned anything about this crap in law school.

  I wake up at six in the morning and call Vince Sanders. I’ve made a deal with him to make him my initial media contact, and I’m honoring that now. I had come to the conclusion that he sent me on what was basically a wild-goose chase to Wisconsin to check out Matt Lane’s hunting accident, but now I’m not so sure.

  Vince grunts angrily at my waking him up, so I tell him that he can go back to sleep and I’ll give the story to someone else. That tends to increase his alertness, so I suggest he meet me at a coffee shop on the corner of Broadway and Thirty-second Street in an hour.

  I take Tara for a walk that ends up at the coffee shop, and we sit at our regular outdoor table. I get her a bagel and a dish of water, and she’s already polished it off by the time Vince arrives, ten minutes late.

  “This better be good,” he says.

  “It is,” I say, launching quickly into what I wanted to tell him, since I’m in danger of being late for court. “My house was broken into by two of Quintana’s thugs. They were going to kick the shit out of me.”

  “But they didn’t?” he asks.

  “Marcus.”

  He nods. Enough said.

  “Quintana is trying to keep his name out of the trial, but he’s also after four hundred thousand that Preston was supposed to give him the night he was killed. He assumes Kenny has it and somehow further assumes that I can get it.”

  “Four hundred thousand?” Vince repeats, obviously impressed. “These guys who tried to break in… why would they tell you this?”

  “Marcus.”

  He nods. Enough said.

  “But they won’t tell it to the police… so I’m telling it to you. You can break the story tomorrow morning, and then I go national with it.”

  “I’m happy to do it,” he says, “but won’t that just piss Quintana off even more?”

  “Maybe, but he’s coming after me to keep me quiet. Once I go completely public, he’s got nothing to be gained anymore by shutting me up. Besides, if he’s got any smarts at all, once I do this he’d know that he’d be the first one the cops would go after if anything happened to me. I’m going to shine as much light on him as possible.”

  “And it helps your client in the process,” he says.

  “Yes. It does.”

  Vince thinks about thi
s awhile and then seems to smile in satisfaction at what I’ve just told him. “Works for me,” he says. “I’ll even buy the bagels.”

  “Good. I was just going to order Tara another one.”

  I get to court with only ten minutes to spare, and I’m barely settled in when Dylan calls Teri Pollard, Bobby’s wife, to the stand. It’s a smart move. He wants someone to testify that Kenny left with Preston to take him home, but he doesn’t want to call one of the football players who were there that night. They are celebrities, and Dylan doesn’t want that celebrity factor to play in Kenny’s favor.

  Teri is clearly not happy to be doing Dylan’s dirty work, but she’s obligated to tell the truth. That truth includes describing to the jury the details of the night at the Crows Nest and the fact that Kenny and Preston left on the early side.

  “Did anyone else go with them?” Dylan asks.

  “No,” Teri says, but then throws in, “unless they met someone outside.”

  Dylan won’t let her get away with that. “But you did not see them meet anyone? And you’re not aware of any expectation they had of meeting anyone?”

  “No” is her grudging response.

  I attempt to get Teri to provide support for Kenny’s general character and goodness, but Dylan objects, since I’m only allowed to cross-examine on areas he covered in direct. That’s okay; Dylan’s objecting makes it look like he’s hiding something.

  “Was that night the first time you had been with Kenny and Preston at the same time?” I ask.

  “No. Bobby… my husband… and I have been out with them together maybe five or six times.” She points toward Bobby, sitting in the gallery aisle in his wheelchair. “But we spend time with Kenny very frequently.”

  “Ever see them argue?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “Ever see them threaten each other?”

  “No.”

  “You never thought Mr. Preston might be in any danger by going with Mr. Schilling?”

  “No, of course not.” Then staring right at Dylan, she says, “Kenny’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.”

  Way to go, girl.

  Next up in Dylan’s parade is the county medical examiner, Dr. Ronald Kotsay. Dr. Kotsay was brought in about six months ago to replace a man who held the position for thirty-eight years, and he’s had a rough go of it. Dr. Kotsay made the mistake of quickly trying to modernize procedures, which did not go over very well with the staff or DA’s office. Simply put, everybody was just used to his predecessor, and Dr. Kotsay’s “sweep out the old” approach faced a lot of resistance. Things have calmed down since, and most people have come to realize what an outstanding medical examiner he is.

  “Dr. Kotsay, you were called to the defendant’s house in Upper Saddle River, were you not?” Dylan asks.

  “I was.”

  “And you examined Mr. Preston’s body at the scene?”

  Kotsay confirms that and goes on to say that he found the body in the closet where I had seen it.

  “Were there any other wounds on the body, other than the fatal bullet wound?” Dylan asks.

  “Yes, there were some cuts and abrasions on the wrists. I believe they were the result of a restraint of some sorts, probably metal.”

  “Handcuffs?”

  “It’s possible, but likely something with a rougher edge. It’s impossible to be sure.”

  Dylan goes over the autopsy, which reports the less-than-shocking news that the corpse with a bullet hole in its chest died of a bullet hole in the chest. “Did you run toxicological tests on Mr. Preston?”

  Dr. Kotsay confirms that he did and that Preston’s blood tested positive for Rohypnol. Under questioning he goes on to explain the properties of the drug.

  There is little I can do with Dr. Kotsay, since everything he has said is one hundred percent accurate. “Dr. Kotsay, would the amount of Rohypnol in Mr. Preston’s system have rendered him unconscious?”

  “No, I certainly would not think so.”

  “Is it an amount one might take recreationally?”

  “Yes.”

  “What effect would the drug have?”

  “Depending on the person’s tolerance of course, it most likely would make him mellow, serene, perhaps tired.”

  “So it is what is commonly known as a downer?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  This is an important point for me to have gotten in, since Dylan will be bringing out the fact that the same drug was in Kenny’s system. A mellow, serene, tired person is not the type one would expect to commit a murder.

  “Did you have occasion to examine Mr. Preston’s prior medical records, including those from the NFL drug testing program?”

  He confirms that he did and also that those records left no doubt that Preston had been using drugs for quite some time.

  “Was he also selling these drugs?” I ask.

  Before Dylan has a chance to object, Dr. Kotsay says, “I have no idea.”

  “Dr. Kotsay, if you know, what percentage of adults over twenty-one in America are frequent users of hard drugs? And I would exclude marijuana from this category.”

  “I could get you the accurate information, but I believe it is between four and eight percent.”

  “And what percentage of adult murder victims that you do autopsies on are frequent users of hard drugs?” I ask.

  He thinks for a moment. “Again, I don’t have the figures in front of me, but I would say in excess of twenty-five percent.”

  “How would you explain that?”

  Dylan objects, but Harrison lets him answer. “Well, I would say that their use and especially their purchase of the drugs brings them into contact with dangerous people. Criminals. Their need for money also can cause them to commit crimes.”

  “So you would say the drug business is a dangerous one?” I ask, fairly secure that the jury will remember I said in opening statements that Preston was selling drugs.

  “Yes, I would certainly say that.”

  I smile, hoping the jurors will think I’ve accomplished more than I have. “Thank you, Doctor, I couldn’t agree more.”

  LAURIE LAUGHS after we make love. Not every time, but tonight she does. I have to admit that the first couple of times it bothered me a little. I mean, I’m not the most confident guy in the world; I wouldn’t take one of those “How sexually secure are you?” tests in Cosmo unless I could cheat.

  But I soon came to understand that her laughter is from the sheer enjoyment of it. Most people I know, myself included, laugh when something is funny, and Laurie does as well. But she also laughs when she is experiencing something that she thinks is wonderful, and at those times it’s an uninhibited, unrestrained laugh that sounds as good as it must feel.

  I have other, different physical reactions after sex, but they are competing. I get simultaneously sleepy and hungry, and the only way to satisfy both would be to set up an intravenous system in the bedroom. One of the problems with this is I don’t think M&M’s and Oreos come in liquid form, so I’ll just have to wait for medical science to figure it out.

  For tonight, hunger wins out, and I trudge down to the kitchen for a snack. Since I am psychologically incapable of being alone in a room without the television on, I turn on the little one on the kitchen counter.

  CNN comes on, with a “Breaking News” banner across the screen. This no longer has the significance that it used to; in a desire to attract viewers surfing through channels, news stations have latched on to these kinds of banners as a way of getting the surfers to stop. So breaking news can be anything from the start of a war to an unusually large rainfall near Topeka.

  This one gets my attention immediately, since I recognize a street in Paterson. The street is filled with police, and the helicopter shot clearly shows a body lying in the center of it all, covered by a sheet. I turn up the sound and hear the announcer say that the victim is a reputed mobster, allegedly a member of the Petrone family in North Jersey.

  This is no doubt pa
rt of a developing war between Quintana and Petrone, and the first shot fired in revenge for the killing of Paul Moreno.

  I turn off the television and go upstairs without eating anything. I also find that once I get into bed, I can no longer sleep. Since I can’t do the two things I usually do after sex, I try to copy Laurie and laugh. I can’t do that either.

  If Quintana has his way, I could be the next one lying on the street with a sheet over me.

  Murders take the fun out of everything.

  I fall asleep at about two o’clock, and the alarm wakes me at six. I groan and tell a sleeping Tara to get the newspaper. She groans slightly and stretches, dog talk for “Get it yourself, asshole.”

  The two stories on the front page of Vince’s paper are the Quintana break-in at my house and the murder of one of Petrone’s lieutenants. My story is the more prominent, and when I turn on the television news, the same is true there. Such is the media power of the Schilling trial that a failed break-in is considered more newsworthy than a successful murder.

  The phone starts ringing, and Laurie helps out by dealing with the onslaught of media requests for interviews. I take a few of the calls, easily enough to keep the story going full blast.

  Before I get to court, I call Adam and ask for an update. He’s learned the cause of death in each of the cases: There are five heart attacks, an ocean drowning, a hit-and-run, and Matt Lane’s hunting accident. None was considered murder by the police who investigated each death, and the only one that attracted criminal attention was the hit-and-run. The driver is still at large.

  I can hear the disappointment in Adam’s voice; he doesn’t think he’s accomplished much, but he’s not understanding the significance of it. Five heart attacks in men this age seems an impossibility and therefore ominous. Adam wants his discoveries to solve the case. I don’t share his goal; if these deaths turn out to be related, it will likely be a disaster for Kenny.

  I suggest to Adam that he give Sam Willis another assignment. By accessing Kenny’s records, especially his credit cards, I want to know where Kenny was when each of these people died. It’s a sign that I don’t trust my client, but I don’t want to just take his word for things. I want the absolute facts. Besides, assuming he wasn’t involved in these deaths, he would have no way of remembering where he was at specific times over the years.