Sudden Death

by David Rosenfelt

  I put my hand on his shoulder. “Come on, we’ll drive you home.”

  Laurie drives, and after we drop Willie off, we go home. She makes us drinks, and we sit down in the den. I just can’t seem to clear my head, to accept as fact what has happened. I don’t want to be a part of this; I don’t want people to die because of what I do for a living. I don’t want to be around this anymore.

  “You want to talk, Andy?” Laurie asks.

  “All I do is talk.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Laurie says. “You couldn’t know this was going to happen.”

  “What do I need this for? I’m a lawyer. Did I cut the class in law school when they said that people were going to die just because they knew me?”

  “Andy—”

  I interrupt. “I want to do what other lawyers do. I want to sue doctors for malpractice because they forgot to remove the sponge after my client’s appendectomy. I want to represent huge corporations when they merge with other huge corporations. I want to make cheating husbands pay through the nose in alimony. I want to do everything but what I’m doing.”

  “No,” she says, “you’re doing exactly what you should be doing. And you do it better than anyone I know. As one of your former clients, I can say with certainty that you’re needed right where you are.”

  I shake my head, not giving an inch. “No, you’ve got the right idea,” I say. “Findlay is a better place to live than this. I think you should go. I should go with you.”

  She shakes her head. “You can’t run away, Andy. I won’t do that, and I won’t let you do it either. If I go, if we go, we’ll be going toward something, not running away.”

  I know she’s right, but I refuse to say so, because then I might have to stop feeling sorry for myself. An old Joe Louis expression pops into my head, as if he were talking about me. “He can run, but he can’t hide.”

  Right now all I want to do is hide.

  I TAKE IT UPON myself to call Adam’s parents in Kansas and notify them of the death of their son. It is one of the more difficult conversations I’ve ever had in my life, but I can only imagine how much worse it is for them. They want his body flown home for the funeral service, and I promise I will help them make the arrangements. It’s a murder case, so by law an autopsy must take place first, but I don’t see any need to mention that right now.

  They seem not to want to end the phone call, as if I am their final connection to their son and they want to keep that connection going as long as possible. They show incredible generosity by telling me that they had been receiving phone calls from Adam, telling them how much he enjoyed working with me and how excited he was to be meeting important sportswriters. He’d been meeting football players, not sportswriters, but I certainly don’t bother to correct them. Memories are all they have, and I don’t want to blur them in any fashion.

  I tell them Adam was hoping to buy them a house, that he talked about them lovingly and often. They thank me and finally say goodbye, to retreat into their agony.

  In the morning I have Kevin, Sam, Marcus, and Edna join Laurie and me at the house for a rare Sunday meeting. Willie comes over as well, since he wants to be involved in whatever way he can in protecting me and nailing Adam’s killer. I’m happy to have him; the trial is not going to stop while we mourn for Adam, and I have to make sure that as a group we are ready to deal with what happened and move on.

  We spend the first hour or so talking about Adam and how we felt about him. He had made a very deep impression on each of us with his enthusiasm for life, an enthusiasm that makes his death feel that much more tragic. Marcus even adds two words to the discourse: “Good guy.” It’s the Marcus equivalent of a normal person delivering an impassioned twenty-minute eulogy.

  Kevin forces us to look at the impact that this horrible event will have on the Schilling case. I’ve been thinking about asking Judge Harrison for a two-day recess, to give me time to get my head together, as well as helping to catch up on the work Adam was doing.

  Kevin thinks a recess is a bad idea, that the publicity from Adam’s killing can only have the unintended and ironic effect of helping in Kenny’s defense. Despite Judge Harrison’s admonition to the jurors not to expose themselves to media coverage of this case, there is no realistic possibility that they haven’t heard what has happened. The inescapable conclusion to be reached is that there are murderers, not sitting next to me at the defense table, who are involved in this case. We might be able to convince the jury that it is “reasonable” to assume that those same people murdered Troy Preston as well.

  I think Kevin is probably right, though his point is probably moot, since it is unlikely Judge Harrison would actually grant the recess anyway. So I decide to push on, even though there is nothing I would rather do less.

  I ask Sam to bring us up-to-date as best he can on Adam’s work, but there isn’t much he can offer. Adam had given him specific things to do, and their assignments really didn’t overlap. We are not even aware of how Adam put together the list of people he was checking out. When Pete returns Adam’s notes, it will make Sam’s job easier.

  Sam has been working hard, though, and his report on his own progress is very worrisome. He has managed to place Kenny within a three-hour drive of three of the deaths, not including Matt Lane’s hunting accident. This is no small revelation: We are talking about four cities in very different parts of the country. To make matters worse, Sam hasn’t ruled out Kenny’s presence in the other death locations; he just hasn’t finished the complicated process of checking.

  I am both nearing and dreading the time when I will confront Kenny with what we have learned. His reaction, his explanation, will determine how I handle things and, more important, will most likely determine his entire future.

  Laurie brings up the matter of my protection. Quintana is in jail, but Pete has told us off the record that there is little concrete evidence to tie him to Adam’s death. He undoubtedly hired someone to do the killing, keeping his own hands clean. There is a real possibility that he will be released, and a just as strong possibility that he will come after me again.

  Laurie makes the suggestion that Marcus’s total focus be on protecting me and that he recruit some of his more energetic colleagues to help in that endeavor. Marcus grunts his agreement, but it is clear that he considers more aggressive action necessary. He’s got a point: Had we let him go after Quintana when he suggested it the first time, Adam would be alive today.

  Everybody leaves, and I start to go over my case notes, hoping to get myself emotionally geared up for the resumption of the trial tomorrow. It’s not going to be easy, and within a half hour I find myself turning on the television and taking comfort in NFL football.

  In the morning Judge Harrison once again calls Dylan and me into his chambers to discuss the events outside of court. He and Dylan express their condolences, and Dylan is somewhat regretful for his comments last time, when he intimated that my revelation of the threat was mostly an attempt to sway the jury.

  Harrison unsolicitedly offers me a one-day recess, which I decline. Dylan asks that Harrison poll the jury, to see if they’ve actually been deligently avoiding press coverage. It’s a surprising request and makes me realize just how worried Dylan is about what is taking place outside the courtroom. If the jury admitted to having seen the coverage, the only real remedy would be a mistrial, and I am stunned to realize that apparently Dylan would consider that.

  Harrison declines to poll the jury; this is not a judge who is going to give up on this trial. He agrees to admonish the jury in even stronger terms than previously not to expose themselves to any press reports.

  Dylan calls Stephen Clement to the stand. Clement is the neighbor of Preston’s whom Laurie discovered and who has information that cuts for both the prosecution and the defense. Dylan is making the smart move of calling him, since his ability to question him first will allow him to frame the testimony, both positive and negative.

  Clement, under Dylan’s q
uestioning, tells the situation in simple, direct terms. He was out walking his dog that night when a car pulled up and Preston got out. He never saw the driver, but he describes the car, with the GIANTS25 license plate. He also knows that the driver was a male, because he heard Preston and the driver arguing.

  “Could you tell what they were arguing about?” Dylan asks.

  Clement shakes his head. “I really couldn’t hear them… I was across the street, and the car was running. It might have been about a woman; the driver might have said, ‘You leave her alone.’ But I could just as easily be wrong.”

  “But you were close enough to be sure that they were arguing?” Dylan asks.

  “I’m quite certain of that.”

  Dylan asks what happened next, and Clement says that the car pulled away, at a higher-than-normal speed.

  “Did the car return?” Dylan asks.

  “Not while I was there. But I only walked the dog for another three or four minutes.”

  “So the car could have returned after that and you wouldn’t know it?”

  Clement nods. “That’s correct.”

  Informationally, I have no reason to even question Clement, since everything he has to say has been said. I just need to spend a little time putting a more favorable spin on it for our side. Laurie has questioned him extensively, so I have some information at my disposal.

  “Mr. Clement, when you were out walking, did you have a cell phone with you?”

  “Yes. I always carry one.”

  “When you heard these men arguing, did you call the police, fearing violence was about to break out?”

  “No.”

  “Did you try to intervene yourself? Try to prevent anyone from getting hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Did you quickly leave the area so that you and your dog wouldn’t be injured?”

  “No.”

  “So it was not an argument that was unusually loud or volatile? Not one where you were worried that someone could be badly hurt? Because if it were that bad, I assume you would have taken one of the actions I just mentioned. Isn’t that right?”

  “I guess… I mean, they were just yelling. It wasn’t that big a deal.”

  Having made the point, I ask him how fast the car was driving when it pulled away, since Clement had referred to the speed as being higher than normal.

  “I would say about forty miles an hour,” Clement says. “It’s a residential neighborhood, so that’s pretty fast.”

  I put up a map of the neighborhood and get Clement to explain that he walked home in the same direction that the car pulled away. That adds a few minutes to the time he would have had to see the car if it returned. It’s a small point, but it works against the image of an outraged Kenny storming back after the argument and killing Preston.

  Court ends for the day at noon, giving two jurors time to attend to personal business, probably doctor’s appointments. I can certainly use the time, and I call Pete Stanton and ask for a quick favor. He knows he owes me big-time for the ridiculous birthday party, so he readily agrees.

  One of the names on the list of mysterious deaths was a drowning in the ocean in Asbury Park, a Jersey beach resort about an hour south of Paterson. I know that Pete has a number of connections with the police department down there, and on my behalf he calls one of them to arrange for me to be able to talk to the officer most familiar with the young man’s death.

  I don’t hit much traffic going down there, since it’s a weekday and not during rush hour. Arriving in Asbury Park provides a bit of a jolt; I spent a good deal of my youthful weekends down here, and the city hasn’t held up very well. The buildings have eroded considerably faster than my memories.

  Sergeant Stan Collins is there to meet me when I arrive at the precinct house. He didn’t speak to Pete directly, but he knows what I’m there to learn and suggests that we drive to the scene of the drowning.

  Within ten minutes we’re near the edge of Asbury Park, and the ocean seems rougher than it did when I drove in. Collins says that this is common and has something to do with the rock formation.

  He points out where Darryl Anderson died on a September day six years ago. “There was a hurricane warning, or a watch,” he says. “I can never remember which is which.”

  “I think the warning is worse,” I say.

  He nods. “Whatever. A bunch of local teenagers weren’t too worried about it, and they decided it would be really cool to ride the waves in the middle of the storm.”

  “Anderson was one of the teenagers?” I ask.

  “Nope. I think he was twenty or twenty-one. His brother was one of the kids out in the water. Anderson heard about it from his mother, who was upset and asked him to make sure the kid was okay.”

  Collins shakes his head at the memory and continues. “The undertow was unbelievable, and Anderson started yelling at the kids to get out of the water. He was a big, scary guy, a football player, so they did. Except one kid, a fourteen-year-old, couldn’t make it. The current was pulling him out.”

  “So Anderson went in after him?”

  He nods. “Yeah. Got to him and grabbed him but couldn’t make it back. Their bodies were never found.”

  “Is there any way,” I ask, “any way at all, that he could have been murdered?”

  His head shake is firm. “No way. There were twenty witnesses to what happened, including me, although I got here for the very end of it. Everybody who saw it said the same thing. It was preventable… those kids should never have been in the water… but there is absolutely no way it was murder.”

  It’s a sad story, but one that has the secondary effect of cheering me up. Kenny obviously had nothing to do with this death, and if I can find that to be true of most of the others as well, then coincidence will actually have reared its improbable head.

  When I get back home, an obviously distressed Laurie comes out to meet me at the car. I hadn’t told her where I was going, and she was panicked at the possibility that Quintana had gotten to me and dumped my body in the Passaic River.

  “I’m sorry I upset you,” I lie, since I’m thrilled that she’s upset. “I had to leave in a hurry.”

  “You had a cell phone, Andy. You could have called me.”

  She’s right, I could have called her, and I’m not sure why I didn’t. It’s not like me. I didn’t consciously think about it, but was my subconscious trying to worry her? Or am I subtly separating from her, so as to prepare myself and lessen the devastation when and if she leaves?

  “I should have.”

  She lets it drop, and I update her on what I learned. She is relieved, as I am, but points out that it’s not proof that Kenny wasn’t involved with any of the other deaths. She suggests that it’s time that I speak to Kenny about it, and I make plans to do so before court tomorrow.

  Laurie and I had planned to go to Charlie’s for dinner tonight, but she doesn’t want to leave the house. She wants to make a quick dinner and get into bed. With that as the ultimate goal, there is no such thing as a dinner quick enough. But I inhale some kind of a sandwich, and Laurie and I are in bed by nine o’clock.

  Our lovemaking tonight is more intense than usual, and Laurie is one hundred percent responsible for that. I think that she was really shaken and worried about me today, and this is how it is manifesting itself. Of course, the next time I successfully read a woman’s mind will be the first, so I stop trying to figure it out and simply go with the flow.

  It turns out to be one of the best flows I’ve ever gone with.

  I WAKE UP WITH that awful feeling of remembrance about Adam. I know these feelings will be with me for a long time, because I still have them about Sam’s assistant, Barry Leiter, and he died almost two years ago. I’m going to have to start allocating scheduled time for my various guilt issues so I don’t get them confused.

  I arrive at court an hour early for my scheduled meeting with Kenny about the information Adam was developing. I bring Kevin with me, not for him to particip
ate, but to have an independent opinion on Kenny’s reaction to my questions.

  Kenny seems surprised and a little concerned when he’s brought in for the meeting, since the unusual nature of it makes him think that something has come up.

  I get right to the point, reading him the names of the eight young men who have died. When I’m finished, I ask, “Do those names mean anything to you?”

  Kenny thinks for a moment, then says, “Well, Matt Lane is the guy who died in the hunting accident that we talked about. And Tony George played for Penn State, a linebacker. I don’t know where he is. And I think Mike Rafferty played out West somewhere; I met him a long time ago. I think I heard something happened to him. Are these guys all football players?”

  “They were,” I say. “Now they’re all dead.”

  If the look of surprise on Kenny’s face is an act, it’s a damn good one. “What do you mean, they’re all dead? What happened to them?”

  “Various things… you don’t know anything about it?”

  The awareness starts to dawn on Kenny that we might be tying this to him. He stands up. “Hey, wait a minute! Are you saying I killed them? Are you out of your fucking minds?”

  He’s yelling so loud that I’m afraid the guards outside the door will hear him and come rushing in. “No, Kenny, that’s not what I’m saying. But you can be sure that’s what the prosecution will be saying if they find out.”

  “Find out what? Except for Matt, I don’t even know where these guys live. How could I have killed them?”

  “Okay,” I say. “You’ve told me what I need to know.”

  He is far from calmed down. “Jesus Christ,” he says, “I thought you were on my side.”

  We talk for a brief while longer, then Kevin and I leave for some last-minute preparation for today’s witnesses. Kenny still seems upset, but he’ll just have to deal with it.

  Once we’re out of earshot of Kenny, I ask Kevin what he thinks. “He obviously got upset,” Kevin says, “but that could be because he’s innocent or guilty. I’d vote for innocent; he really seemed confused before you told him what you were talking about.”