Desperate Justice

by Dennis Carstens

  “I want you to get your ass down to that jail and sign on to represent him.”

  “I tried over the weekend. He refused to see me. I can’t force my way in.”

  Leo thought about it for a moment then said, “He’s in Hennepin County right?

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, here’s what we do. Get a hold of Rolando Young and find out if he knows someone in that jail that can get a message to Prentiss to keep his mouth shut.”

  “Prentiss isn’t stupid. He’ll know that.”

  “Well, let’s make sure. No rough stuff. Just get him the message. It will let him know we can get to him anywhere, anytime.”

  The morning after the murder of Catherine Prentiss, Charlie Dudek got up early, packed his car and quietly left town. After any job, Charlie would always disappear for at least two weeks. He could never be sure what kind of blowback would occur so he wanted a cooling off period just to be sure the dust settled.

  Charlie left the Twin Cities and drove south all day and most of the night until he reached his destination, Mobile, Alabama. He had never been to Mobile before, which is why he chose it. Charlie would spend the next two weeks in an inexpensive motel, relaxing, taking in the sites and keeping a low profile. He had brought along plenty of cash to pay for everything, including the motel bill to avoid leaving any trace that he had ever been there.

  Over the weekend he periodically checked his Cayman Island account and his answering service voicemail expecting to hear from Leo. The Monday evening on the day Leo returned from Mexico, Charlie checked his answering service voice mail and finally received a message from Leo.

  The voice on the recording was Ike Pitts but the person doing the talking was certainly Leo. Leo was refusing payment of the second part of the contract. Apparently he was very angry that the job had been botched and the judge had been arrested for his wife’s death. The message went on for another minute or so, but the gist of it was Leo was going to welsh on their deal.

  Charlie erased the message then left the motel room and walked a block to a small tavern he had gone to a couple of times. Over the next two hours, while paying mild attention to a baseball game on the television, Charlie came up with a plan for what he would do about this latest development.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Several days of being a guest of the county had sapped most of the arrogance from Gordon Prentiss. The sense of isolation, fear and helplessness were enough to do that to anyone who had not experienced it before. But what truly drained his humanity was the realization that his life was not his own. He was no longer in control of himself. For all practical purposes, his free will was being replaced by subservience. He did what he was told when he was told and no one allowed him any say about any of it.

  Gordon was sitting in the back row of the common area watching TV with the other inmates. Several of them had recognized him and a few had made comments about being in his courtroom. He was doing his best to keep a low profile and remain as inconspicuous as possible. So far, no one had threatened or accosted him in any way but that did not relieve the fear, anxiety and depression he was dealing with.

  The TV was tuned to what was obviously the favorite show of the jail’s inmates. Every day at 4:00 P.M., the chairs in the TV room would fill just before The Court Reporter with Melinda Pace came on. Oddly, this boisterous bunch of congenital reprobates would sit quietly while the show was on attentively watching and listening. Today, much to the horror of Gordon Prentiss, he was again the focus of attention for Melinda’s show.

  Melinda was giving the audience a verbal taste of the evidence against Prentiss that someone from the prosecution’s office was leaking to her, very likely with the blessing of the county attorney himself. Might as well get a little publicity for his office and taint the potential jury pool at the same time. In our age of indifference to being informed and despite the fact that this case had been dominating local news since the arrest, it would not be difficult to pick twelve jurors and several alternates who had no knowledge of it at all.

  “Here’s what the police have folks,” Melinda said staring seriously into the camera. “The cops found this judge, unconscious, lying on top of his dead wife with his hand wrapped around the handle of the butcher knife still stuck in her chest! And they have pictures of this to present at trial! And this obviously guilty as hell man had the nerve to plead not guilty! If he was a man at all he would have accepted responsibility for what he did and admitted his guilt. What a disgusting, despicable, loathsome creature he must be. We’ll be back following these few messages.”

  After hearing himself described this way, Prentiss got out of his chair and in a semi-crouch, slinked out of the room. Because of the commercial break, every head in the room was turned toward him, several with new-found respect.

  As he was walking down the hall toward his cell, he sensed more than heard, footsteps coming up from behind. As a slight stab of fear hit him, he felt a hand on his shoulder that gently stopped and turned him. He found himself looking directly into the eyes of a young black man whom Gordon knew was also awaiting trial on a murder charge.

  “Hey, Judge,” the man said seeing the fear in Prentiss’s eyes. “Leo says hello and wants to know if you need anything.”

  “No, um, I’m okay. Tell Leo I’m okay,” he stammered.

  “That’s great, Judge Prentiss. He’ll be happy to hear that. I heard he was very worried about you. Just so you understand,” the man continued almost whispering, “Leo can get you anywhere so be sure to keep your mouth shut. And one more thing. You’ll get a visit from some lawyer name Dolan. Be sure you meet with him.”

  When Prentiss got back to his cell, he was still short of breath and sweating profusely despite the coolness of the building. He collapsed into a corner and with his knees pulled up to his chin and his arms wrapped around his legs stared blankly at the wall and didn’t move for a half hour.

  The deputy closed the conference room door leaving Prentiss and Bruce Dolan to converse in private. Dolan was such a regular to visit clients in the jail that he was able to use a fictitious name for himself and Prentiss when he signed in. The deputy did not bother to check the signature or to see if the name matched the inmate he was seeing. Dolan had been video recorded but if anyone checked it, there would be no record of who he had met with.

  “Leo wants to know why you didn’t retain me to represent you,” Dolan said when the door clicked shut.

  “Because I don’t trust you,” Prentiss said with a laugh. “I might as well plead guilty and get it over with.”

  “Fire Kadella,” Dolan said.

  “No, Bruce. I’m innocent, I didn’t do this. I’m being framed and probably by your boss.”

  “I doubt it. Why would Leo…”

  “To punish me for accepting the Senate appointment.”

  “Forget Leo,” Dolan said. “It’s in my best interest to get you off. I don’t believe Leo did this to you.”

  “Bullshit. Why should I believe you?”

  “You know why. Fire Kadella.”

  “No, he’s my lawyer. I’ll take my chances with him. Tell Leo I got his message today and he doesn’t have to worry. I’ll keep him out of it.”

  “Where’s the DVD Gordon?” Dolan asked.

  “What DVD?” Prentiss said feeling relaxed for the first time all day.

  “You know perfectly well what DVD,” Dolan said as he leaned forward and glanced at Prentiss.

  “Relax, Bruce,” Prentiss replied. “It’s very well hidden. They’ll never find it.”

  “They better not,” Dolan said.

  Unknown to both of the men, the police had already found the DVD although they didn’t know it. Or, more precisely, the cops had confiscated and inventoried the damning video.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Marc Kadella parked his car in his reserved spot in the small lot behind his office building. He was still seething at the news he had received from his client, Gordon Prentiss, when he saw him at the jail. Ap
parently there was some kind of glitch in getting the money for the retainer and it was going to take a few days. Prentiss assured him that he was going to get it from his old firm on a short term loan and would have it in just a day or two. As a criminal defense lawyer Marc reminded himself as he closed the door of his car to go up to his office, he should be used to this by now.

  After arriving at his office shortly before 8:00 A.M., he had listened to a message on his office phone. It was from the county attorney’s office informing him that the grand jury had returned a two count first-degree murder indictment against Prentiss.

  He left the office and drove downtown. Marc had planned on seeing Prentiss that morning about the money so he stopped to pick up a copy of the indictment ahead of the visit. The fact that Prentiss had been indicted didn’t surprise him. What did surprise him was the second count of the indictment. After scanning it in the county attorney’s office reception area, he asked the receptionist to page Steve Gondeck, the lawyer Marc believed would be trying the case.

  In less than a minute, Gondeck opened the inner office security door and said, “Hey, Marc, c’mon back and we’ll talk.”

  As the two of them walked through the cube farm that made up the staff area, Marc asked. “Will you be lead counsel on the case?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be first chair,” Gondeck answered as he opened his office door and led Marc inside and closed the door behind him.

  “No Slocum this time?” Marc asked referring to a case they had done before.

  “No,” Gondeck laughed as he took his seat behind the desk. “In fact, he’d be pissed if he knew you were here. I guess you’re wondering about count two, causing death while committing domestic abuse.”

  “You have evidence of him engaging in past acts of abuse?”

  “Yes, we do,” Gondeck said as he picked up a leather bound book from his desk, leaned forward and handed it to Marc.

  Marc took it from him with a puzzled look on his face, opened it and thumbed through the handwritten pages. “What is it?” he asked.

  It’s Catherine Prentiss’s diary. Or journal or whatever you want to call it. We had the handwriting analyzed and authenticated.”

  “When do I get a copy?” a dejected Marc asked.

  “We’re working on it. We’ll have a couple boxes of discovery for you in a day or two. There’ll be more as we go along and find more things to present at trial. Prentiss kept a journal too. Only his was a record of her psychiatric care. Doctors, treatments, what problems she had.”

  Lowering his voice, Gondeck continued by saying, “I always knew Prentiss was an asshole, but wait till you see some of this garbage.”

  “Like what?” Marc asked.

  “You’ll see. I’m surprised you took his case.”

  “He insists he’s innocent,” Marc shrugged. “Says he was set up.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that story. Problem you have is there’s absolutely no forensics to back up his claim that anyone else was there. In fact, there’s no evidence that anyone other than Prentiss and his wife was ever in that room.”

  “On another note, Steve, Prentiss tells me he has received a dozen or so threatening letters. The sheriff’s office has them. Can you get me copies?”

  “Sure,” Gondeck replied writing down a note to do so. “So, you’re going with the SODDI, some-other-dude-did-it, defense?”

  “We’ll see,” Marc said with a sly smile.

  “Good luck,” Gondeck said.

  Marc handed Catherine’s diary back to the prosecutor as he stood up. Gondeck told him he would call over to the jail to have Prentiss brought to the conference room for Marc and the two men said their goodbyes.

  Marc was led into the same conference room where he had met Prentiss the first time and was surprised to find Prentiss already seated. He spent the first fifteen minutes listening to Prentiss make excuses and assurances about the agreed upon fees. Resigned to the reality that he was going to have to wait for the check, he opened his briefcase and removed his copy of the indictment. Without telling Prentiss what was in it, he handed it across the table and sat back while his client read it over.

  When he finished Prentiss tossed it contemptuously back at Marc and said, “This is all ridiculous. Even if I did it, there’s certainly no premeditation and no evidence of domestic abuse. What are they using to back up that claim?” he angrily asked.

  “Your wife kept a diary,” Marc quietly replied. When he did, he watched his client’s reaction to that statement and noticed his expression did not change at all.

  “A diary of what?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Marc answered. “I haven’t received a copy. I spoke to the prosecutor and I’ll get it in a day or two. In the meantime, you work on getting that money together. This is going to get expensive. I’ll schedule an omnibus hearing and start working on that. I’ll see you tomorrow when they arraign you on the new charges.”

  Back at the office parking lot, Marc grabbed his briefcase and suit coat and went out into the ninety-degree midday heat. He tossed the coat over a shoulder and headed toward the building’s back door, grateful business had picked up to allow him to upgrade to a car with air conditioning.

  Marc trudged up the creaky back stairs and went into the office through the main entrance. He found Connie, Carolyn and Sandy chatting with Maddy Rivers which abruptly stopped when he walked in.

  “Did that rotten bastard give you a check?” Connie asked.

  “Not yet,” he sighed.

  “I knew it. The sonofabitch will be jerking your dick for weeks,” Connie answered. “You wait and see.”

  “Give me a break, Connie. Hi Madeline, thanks for coming.”

  “Sharon Packer stopped by with her retainer,” Carolyn told him. “I already deposited it in your trust account. Here’s her file. The receipt is in it,” she said handing him a file. “And this came over the fax. Looks like copies of letters. They came from the Hennepin County Sheriff’s office.”

  Marc set his briefcase, coat and file on Carolyn’s desk and took the copies of the letters from her. He quickly looked them over and recognized them as the threat letters Prentiss was sent.

  He started reading one when Carolyn said, “Hey, um excuse me…”

  Marc looked at her while she waved her hand at the things he had dumped on her desk.

  “Oh, sorry.” He picked up his things, turned to Maddy and said, “Come in, let’s talk.”

  They took their seats in Marc’s office and he started by asking, “How’ve you been?”

  “Fine,” she answered. Maddy leaned forward and said, “Tell me you called me before you called Tony. Tell me you wanted me to work Prentiss’ case and not him.”

  “I called you before I called Tony. I wanted you to work Prentiss’ case and not him.”

  She continued to stare at him across the desk for several seconds then finally said, “It’s a lie, but it’s a nice lie. So, I’ll let it go.”

  “It’s not a lie,” Marc said laughing. “Besides, I think Tony has a conflict.”

  “I knew it! I should be insulted that you would want him first,” she said.

  “Good God, woman. How competitive are you?

  “I’m just giving you a little jazz. Tell me about Prentiss.”

  For the next ten minutes, he told her everything he knew so far. Being an employee of Marc’s working the case, his attorney-client privilege would extend to her so he could fully inform her.

  “What all do the cops have on him?” she asked.

  “I haven’t seen the discovery yet. I talked to Steve Gondeck this morning and they’ll be sending stuff over in a day or two. I’ve heard they found him unconscious lying on her body with the knife in his hand with a lot of her blood on him.”

  “That would figure if what he says is true,” she said.

  “Take a look at these,” he said as he handed the stack of letters to her. “They’re death threats from some of the people who have been through his court. Most of t
hem are anonymous, but Prentiss told me he figured out who each one was from the letters, the dates and the complaints and made notes on them.”

  “How would he know?”

  “It’s not that hard. Read the letters and they’ll indicate when they were in court or what they were sentenced for or things like that. These people are morons. Anyway, since none of them ever did anything to try to make good on their threats, the cops probably just filed them. I need you to start with them. We need to come up with a plausible alternative. It won’t be good enough to make the claim that somebody else did it. We have to give the jury someone. I’ll get you copies of those before you go.”

  “What’s the next step in the proceedings?”

  “I file for an omnibus hearing…schedule it as soon as I can.”

  “What’s an omnibus hearing?”

  “It’s a hearing before the trial judge to try to resolve all of the pretrial issues. I’ll bring a motion to dismiss because the cops had no business going into that house. The prosecution will probably bring a motion for an aggravated sentence to give him more jail time if he’s found guilty. Other issues too like discovery, probable cause that Prentiss did it, any potential Constitutional or procedural issues. Stuff like that.”

  “What happens if the judge decides the cops had no grounds to go into the house that night?”

  “Then we win because all of the evidence obtained after an illegal search would be inadmissible. Don’t worry, that won’t happen.”

  “What about getting paid?”

  “You always have to ask the hard questions, don’t you? He’ll come up with the money. I’m not too worried about it.”

  “Okay, I’ll trust you. I’ll get started on these right away. On a more personal note, how are you and the judge doing?”

  “Good. She wants me to move in with her.”

  “Oh, oh,” Maddy said with a beautiful grin. “Getting serious.”

  “How about you? You look fabulous. Things going okay?”