Unleashed

by David Rosenfelt

  “And in return?” Muñoz asks.

  “In return he would receive immunity from prosecution.”

  Clemens adds, “And protection.”

  “Protection from what?”

  “They’re going to try to kill me,” he says. “They’re killing everyone.”

  According to the long-established plan, communications had already ended. Exceptions were permitted for unexpected emergencies, but the standard was that they must be mission threatening.

  The men in the field had long been in place and had ample time to prepare and scout out their local field of fire. The media had unknowingly provided considerable help, broadcasting the time and route the parades would take, and more important, the specifics as to the political speeches that would be made at the conclusion.

  Of course, not all the attacks would come at the respective parades’ conclusions. For example, once the ones on the East Coast had been executed, and the magnitude of the disaster hit, cities in earlier time zones would immediately go into full alert, and plans would be changed.

  In those cities, other plans had already been made. In some cases the attacks would take place at the beginning of the festivities, and in others it would happen midroute. It was crucial that all attacks happen as close together as possible, to cut down on the ability of local law enforcement to anticipate and react.

  But there was no scenario under which the overall impact of the day would not be devastating. The result would be that the entire power of the United States, military and civilian, would do whatever was necessary to track down the perpetrators.

  Without question, some of the men in the field would be identified and arrested. That was understood by all and went with the territory.

  But for those who had sent them there, those who directed the operation so brilliantly and effectively, it was a different situation entirely.

  They would never be found.

  Pete had successfully cleared the way. Diane Glennon is waiting for us. She is probably in her early thirties. I had never actually met her husband, only seen pictures of him, but the information I had said that he was forty-three.

  She seems shaken, as certainly is to be expected. She offers us coffee, but even though I accept, she never brings it to me.

  “We were very sorry to hear about your loss,” Laurie says.

  She nodded. “Thank you. It’s still hard to process.”

  “Are you going to stay here?” I ask.

  “Yes, I believe so. We’ve made so many friends.”

  “Mrs. Glennon, your husband was on his way to meet with me when he died. He said that he needed to tell me something, and he knew that he was in danger.”

  “I don’t understand that,” she says. “Richard was very happy. I would know if something like that was bothering him.”

  “So he never talked to you about something being wrong? About being worried?” In his first call to me, Glennon had said that his wife was “scared to death.” Now she’s claiming she had no idea about any problems.

  “No, and I certainly would have known if that was the case. Richard shared everything with me.”

  This has thrown me off stride. I expected her to be frightened, and my goal was to pry information out of her. She is saying that there’s no information to pry.

  My assumption is that she’s scared, and therefore lying, but I think that if I confront her directly, she’ll just end the conversation. So I have to skirt around the edges.

  “Was Richard happy at work? Any recent problems?”

  “He was very happy there, things were wonderful. They were a very close team, always had been.”

  I nod, though I’m not quite buying all the wonderfulness. “I met with his boss, Mr. Sullivan, but I didn’t get to meet Richard. They got along well?”

  She nods. “Oh, yes. Mr. Sullivan … all of them.”

  Laurie flashes me a look like this is a complete waste of time, but I press on.

  “Do you have help in making all the arrangements?”

  “I’m fine, thank you,” she says.

  “I know Richard has two children from his previous marriage. Are they holding up well?”

  She nods sadly. “Yes, but losing a parent so suddenly, it’s never easy.”

  Laurie gives me another look, and I nod slightly. Our work here is done. We both thank her for her time and say that if there is anything we can do, or anything she remembers and wants to talk to us about Richard’s last days, she should call me.

  “Thank you. I’m just trying to get through this one day at a time.”

  When we get in the car, Laurie says, “Do you think she was lying, or scared? Or do you think her husband kept everything from her?”

  I take out my cell phone. “I think this is a job for Hilda Mandlebaum.”

  I use the ride home to tell Laurie my developing theory, and I’m happy that she doesn’t think I’m nuts. When we get home, we decide to take Tara and Crash for a walk. It takes a few minutes to get ready, because first Crash has to wake up and then stretch.

  Once that is accomplished, but before we get out the door, the phone rings. It’s Agent Muñoz, calling, I hope, to discuss his testimony tomorrow.

  That turns out not to be it. “Can you come down to my office? We need to talk.”

  “Am I going to like this?”

  “Let’s say it will be a mixed blessing.”

  “According to Clemens, everybody is guilty except him,” Muñoz says.

  Muñoz has just told me that Clemens had been in to see him, with his lawyer. “So why did he come in?” I ask.

  “To make sure he doesn’t get prosecuted for the stuff he didn’t do anyway and is completely and totally innocent of,” Muñoz says, his sarcasm obvious. “And because he is scared shitless.”

  “Of being charged?”

  “Yes, but that fear is currently taking a backseat to the fear that he’s going to get his ass shot up.”

  “Why is he afraid of that?”

  “Let me start from the beginning,” he says. “In the world according to Mark Clemens, Barry Price was conspiring with Richard Glennon to launder money for an outside foreign entity. They didn’t know what it was for or even who it was really for, but they made a lot of money doing it. Denise Price, who had an unnatural craving for money, knew about it and supported it.”

  “But Clemens says he had no role?”

  “He knew about it but didn’t stop it. Regrets that now a whole lot.”

  “I’m sure he does.”

  “It gets better. Clemens admits that he and Denise were having an affair, on and off for two years.”

  That’s interesting information for Sam’s case, since she had claimed the affair was with Sam. Of course she was apparently quite capable of carrying on with more than one guy, so the value is limited.

  Muñoz continues, “According to Clemens, Barry was getting worried. Too much money was flowing through, and he was afraid he was going to get found out and arrested. So he decided to stop the money laundering.”

  “Which upset Denise?” I ask.

  “Freaked her out.”

  “Enough for her to kill him?”

  “Clemens says he doesn’t know but that it’s possible. Not only would it have cut off that particular flow of money, but she was afraid Barry was unstable and might tell what he knew in return for immunity.”

  “Which is why he might have been looking for a criminal attorney.”

  Muñoz nods. “That could have pushed her over the edge; it would have destroyed the firm and really impacted her lifestyle. But Clemens doesn’t know who killed Barry. It could have been Denise, could have been the money guys Barry was dealing with.”

  “And now Barry and Denise and Glennon are all dead, so Clemens thinks they might come after him? Because of what he knows?”

  “That’s his concern,” says Muñoz.

  “You believe all this?”

  “I believe a good piece of it, but not the part about Clemens
being on the outside of all this looking in. I think he was knee-deep in it.”

  “So no immunity?”

  Muñoz laughs. “Of course not. What’s the upside, anyway? He says he doesn’t know who the bad guys are or what they’re planning.”

  “And Cardenas, the customs guy?”

  He nods. “Thanks for that. Son of a bitch turned his back when a shipment came in. We’re going to nail his ass to the wall.”

  “What was in the shipment?”

  He hesitates. “There are things I can’t say, but based on where it came from, and some other things we know, it was probably arms.”

  “What kind?”

  “Possibly shoulder-fired missiles.”

  “Shit,” I say, because an entire country in danger brings out the eloquence in me.

  But in terms of my immediate job, making sure that Sam is not charged with murder, it’s been a good day. This information, when expressed by Muñoz, can only be a positive.

  “We need to go over how much of this new stuff you can say in court tomorrow.”

  “Remember when I told you this meeting was going to be a mixed blessing?” he asks, as my stomach starts to sink. “I can’t testify.”

  “That’s bullshit,” I say.

  He nods. “It is, absolutely. But I have people I have to answer to and an oath I have to uphold. And both of them are telling me I can’t speak about these things in court.”

  I want to argue with him, but the prospect of it is frustrating, because I know he is not making the decision. That means he can’t change the decision.

  “You are leaving me with no chance.”

  He nods. “And I’m sorry about that. But there are things happening that are a lot more important than Sam Willis.”

  Our chance in the preliminary hearing has officially died. Muñoz has kicked it in the teeth and shot it when it hit the ground.

  He viewed the news as a mixed blessing, but it’s not that at all, at least not in the short term. His reneging on his promise to testify is a disaster by itself.

  When I can’t truthfully say that if I was the judge I would rule in my side’s favor, then I know we’re in trouble. And the fact is that if I were Judge Hurdle, based on the current evidence before the court, I would absolutely hold Sam over for trial.

  What Muñoz thought was a positive isn’t that at all either, at least not for our case. Clemens’s story, if even partially true, would be very helpful. It certainly casts doubt on Denise Price’s story, gives a motive for someone other than Sam to have murdered Barry, and opens up a sinister, violent world in which other murders have been committed.

  But in making the correct decision to refuse Clemens immunity, Muñoz is ensuring that Clemens will never tell his story in a forum in which it can help us. Maybe someday, if he is charged, tried, and convicted, it can be of use to us. But all the while Sam would rot in jail.

  A realistic, and potentially deadly, outcome for our case is that this all just goes away. The bad guys back off from whatever they are planning, Clemens doesn’t get charged with anything, and nothing new surfaces to get Sam off the hook.

  If that happens, then Sam’s fate will rest on basically the same evidence as we have seen in the prelim, which is to say he will go away for a very long time. The thought of that literally makes me sick to my stomach.

  It’s hard for me to root for a national crisis, assassinations or something else, but the absence of that may mean Sam will be convicted of murder. Talk about a lose-lose situation.

  I am dreading every aspect of the hearing this morning, but none more than my conversation with Sam before it begins. We go into an anteroom, and I tell him the whole story, leaving out very little.

  I’ve been updating him as we’ve gone along, so basically all I have to bring him up to speed on is my meeting with Diane Glennon and then the one with Agent Muñoz.

  “So he would let someone he knows is innocent spend the rest of his life in jail?”

  “I don’t think he’s looking that far ahead. And I assume he’s trying to prevent something that he thinks is worse.”

  “That stinks.”

  I nod. “That it does. I’m sorry, Sam. Demanding this hearing was a big mistake.”

  “But if we didn’t have it, I would have been indicted by the grand jury, right?”

  “Yes, but then we wouldn’t be seen to have failed.”

  He shakes his head. “The way I see it is we went down punching. I don’t blame you, Andy. You did all you could, and I hope you keep on doing it.”

  It’s an incredibly generous thing for him to say, so of course it makes me feel worse. “You can count on that.”

  We get into the courtroom, and Judge Hurdle tells me to call our next witness. “The defense rests, Your Honor.”

  Bader does a quick double take and then shows the hint of a smile. There is murmuring in the gallery, probably reflecting their disappointment. They were likely hoping for a big day.

  “Agent Muñoz will not be testifying?” Hurdle asks.

  “Not at this time.”

  “There is no other time,” Hurdle says and then adds pointedly, “At least not in this hearing.”

  “I understand that, Your Honor.”

  There generally are not closing arguments in hearings of this type, though the judge can ask the lawyers to sum up, if they’d like. Hurdle doesn’t make that request of us, which is just as well, since there’s nothing I could say that might carry the day.

  Instead, Hurdle says, “I will take the weekend to review the record and consider my decision. My ruling will be posted on Tuesday.”

  He slams his gavel down, and the debacle is over.

  The phone rings, waking Laurie and me. Laurie picks it up, because it’s on her side of the bed.

  “Hello?” Then, “He’s right here.” She hands me the phone. “It’s Hilda Mandlebaum.”

  I grab the phone, now wide awake. “Hilda, I tried to reach you all day yesterday.”

  “On the Sabbath?”

  “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.” I notice that it’s still dark outside. “What time is it?”

  “Five fifteen. Don’t worry, I haven’t slept past four thirty in twenty years. And Eli’s always up before me.”

  “Did you get what I need?”

  “Some of it. Do you want to see it?”

  I tell her that I do and ask her to come right over as I’m getting out of bed.

  “Did she get it?” Laurie asks.

  “Yup. Sabbath’s over.”

  Laurie and I go downstairs, and she puts on a pot of coffee. Hilda and Eli arrive about ten minutes later. She’s carrying a plastic bag filled with something that I have to admit I hope is more of her rugelach.

  It isn’t, but what she has is even better. It’s a list of the phone calls Diane Glennon has made since her husband was murdered. At my request, using techniques that Sam had taught her on a previous case, she has hacked into Diane’s phone records.

  I believe Mrs. Glennon lied to us when we went to see her. I have a number of reasons for being quite sure of that; what I’m not positive of is why. And though I think I’m right in my theory, it is the why that Sam Willis and maybe a lot of other people are depending on.

  “This is everything,” Hilda says. “There are thirty-one different numbers, but some of them she called more than once. Here’s a list of the numbers she called more than three times.”

  There are three numbers on that list. One of them was called seven times, one four, and one eight. “Do you have the times the calls were made?”

  “Why not?” she says, then finds the right page and hands it to me.

  I cross-check the numbers that received multiple calls with the time in the hours after Laurie and I left her house. The three numbers were all called in that time frame.

  “Hilda and Eli, I need to know where these numbers are. The landlines should be fairly easy, but these might be cell phone numbers. Do you remember how to do that?”

 
Hilda looks a little unsure, but Eli is nodding his head as vigorously as Eli can nod, which is sort of hard to detect.

  “Eli doesn’t forget anything,” Hilda says. “When you’ve been married fifty-eight years, there are some things you want them to forget, but he never does.”

  Because every cell phone has a GPS device built in, the phone company’s computers always know where that phone is, as long as it’s turned on. And because of Sam’s expert tutelage, if the phone company’s computer knows something, then Eli Mandlebaum knows it as well.

  “Where are Leon and Morris?” I ask.

  “Back at the bunker.”

  “Today’s not Purim or anything, is it?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good, because I need this right away.”

  “All of the numbers?”

  “Yes, but start with the three that were called often. Hilda, this is important.”

  She nods, accepting the challenge. “Let’s go, Eli.”

  It’s almost six in the evening before Hilda and Eli are back. This time they have Morris and Leon in tow; the Holiday Inn bunker must be unmanned. They’ve brought with them the locations of the phone numbers that Diane Glennon has recently called.

  “Which are the three multiple-call numbers?” I ask.

  Hilda points. “Right here. This one is a landline, in Fort Lee; it’s a delicatessen. This is also a landline; it’s the number for the Paterson Police Department.” She had obviously been calling Pete.

  “What about the third one?”

  “It’s a cell phone, but it hasn’t moved since we’ve been watching it.”

  “Where is it?”

  “About thirty miles north of Monticello, New York.”

  “Is it a residence?”

  “It doesn’t seem to be anything,” she says.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Eli?” She turns the floor over to Eli, who says that they have information that it used to be a summer camp but closed more than ten years ago.