The Indictments

by William Eleazer

  Moose was sitting behind his desk, facing several stacks of books, files, and papers. He gazed at Scott in the doorway but remained silent.

  “Mind if I have a seat?” said Scott.

  “Sure. Have a seat. What can I do for you … Scott … Scott, right?”

  “Yes, Scott Marino. I understand you are the new supervising attorney for Jessica Valdez.”

  “Well, I don’t expect to be her supervisor for long, but I agreed to take her temporarily.”

  “She was my intern, and her second trial is scheduled for Tuesday, and another is scheduled in two weeks. I have her trial notebook for Tuesday’s trial, and I promised I’d go over it with her tomorrow afternoon. I’m sure she’ll be checking in with you instead. And here is some personal information, along with her schedule. Also, notes I made about her performance in her first trial.” Scott put the notebook and other papers on Moose’s desk.

  “Yes, Will said she had a trial scheduled for Tuesday. He also said she asked for this reassignment. Just ask, and you can get reassigned?” Moose shook his head. “Another case of the inmates running the prison. What seems to be her problem?”

  “I was told she has a personal problem with me. Her first trial went reasonably well. Maybe you can get more details from Will. The reassignment was at her request, not mine.”

  “Well, I think she’s selling her mule to buy a plow. I haven’t ever supervised an intern, so I’m sure she would be better off with you. But I’ve agreed to sit with her next week, and we’ll find someone later to complete her supervision for the rest of the semester. I’m going to be pretty busy trying to fill Nick’s shoes, and I’ll still have responsibility for the grand jury. After Tuesday, she’ll probably be requesting another reassignment anyway.”

  The air in the room was heavy and stale and had the unpleasant smell of the old storage room it once was. Scott was ready to leave, but he was curious about Moose’s attachment to this makeshift office space. “Will you be moving to Nick’s office?”

  “That’s a small office. Where would I put my stuff? I’m not planning to move.”

  Scott got up to leave, but Moose motioned him to stay seated.

  “Now I know you’re the newest in our felony division. All the others have been here a while and know me pretty well. So maybe I should tell you, I’m not much of a social guy. I just do my job, and I expect others to do the same. I don’t mingle much anymore. Times have changed—I don’t like skinny dipping with snapping turtles. But don’t let that keep you from coming to see me if you have a concern. And don’t worry a bit about what that intern might have said about having a problem with you. Our paths haven’t crossed much, but I’ve heard about you, and it’s been good. You prosecuted that Harrison case last year and got a conviction. What changed this time?”

  “Well, I’m sure you heard the eyewitnesses changed their testimony—both of them. Apparently Max Gordon and his team got to them with some serious cash. GBI’s going to investigate. I hope we will eventually be able to charge them with perjury.”

  “Them two witnesses are small potatoes. Max Gordon’s the one that bought that perjured testimony. What do you have in mind for him?”

  “Bribery and anything else we can find.”

  “Bribery won’t work, Scott.”

  “Won’t work? What do you mean?”

  “For bribery, you gotta have a government official—state, county, or city—on the take. That’s section 16-10-3 of the Georgia Code. Witnesses don’t count.”

  Scott paused a moment before responding. “Well, there’s got to be something for buying a witness.”

  “Of course there is. A couple of statutes—section 16-10-93, influencing witnesses, and then there’s subornation of perjury, section 16-10-73. That’s the best one. You can get ten years for that and only five for influencing witnesses.”

  This was all new to Scott. He hadn’t thought about the appropriate charges. The investigation had not even started.

  “You’ve been involved in such cases?” Scott asked.

  “No, we haven’t had any here. They really aren’t very common.”

  Scott ran the conversation through his mind. This guy is spouting off statutes and maximum punishments like he uses them every day. For a moment Scott considered that Moose might just be putting him on. But that wasn’t something that would come from a humorless guy like Moose.

  “Well, thanks for the suggestions. I’ve been appointed office contact for the GBI investigation. Just hope we can get a break.”

  Scott was rising from his chair just as Moose began to respond.

  “If you get a break, it won’t be by way of Max Gordon. Getting Max directly would be as hard as lassoing fish. I expect the GBI will concentrate on the witnesses—waiting for one of ’em to make a mistake. You’re gonna need their testimony to get to Max. And I expect he’s got ’em well briefed—they won’t be displaying any new wealth. And then there’s the two witness rule.”

  Scott gave Moose a puzzled look. “Two witness rule? What’s that?”

  “Been written into Georgia’s perjury statutes since 1863. It’s now in section 24-4-8 and reads … well I think I can quote it … ‘The testimony of a single witness is generally sufficient to establish a fact. However, in certain cases, including prosecutions for treason and perjury, the testimony of a single witness is not sufficient.’ So you’ll need something more than just one of ’em turning. I don’t believe there’re any Georgia cases directly on point—at least I can’t think of any. But there’s an old Georgia Supreme Court case, Herring v. State that makes for good reading on perjury in general. It’s in Volume 119, Georgia Cases. So, let’s see … that would make it a 1903 case. Really old, but still good law.”

  Scott’s head was spinning. The rumors were true: Moose’s recall was beyond belief—and faster than an electronic database. Absolutely amazing.

  Scott took a deep breath, trying to think of something appropriate to say, but all he came up with was, “Thanks, I’ll make sure I read that case.”

  As he walked back to his office, Scott recalled Nick’s response to why Moose was chosen to lead the felony section of the Chatham County DA’s office. He’s been here fifteen years, and he’s the smartest lawyer we have or will ever have. So this is for real, Scott thought. His new boss did not just fall off a turnip truck; he has a mind that has permanently trapped all the legal information it has ever been exposed to. Scott had recently read an article in Slate that no one really had a photographic memory—that “photographic memory” was fiction. Now he wasn’t so sure. If Moose’s memory was not photographic, it surely deserved some descriptive term. Perhaps astonishing would do. What he had just seen was indeed astonishing. But more than that, Scott was generally impressed with his new boss. He was cordial and unpretentious. He certainly was not the klutz that Scott had expected. But still, something was missing. Scott could see it in his sad eyes. Perhaps it was just as Bill Baldwin had suggested—fifteen years of loneliness, yearning for the only woman he had ever loved.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  September 25, 2007

  The following Tuesday, as Scott was standing by the elevators on the first floor of the Chatham County Courthouse, he saw her walking toward him. She was carrying a small tray with a couple of drinks and sandwiches. She was dressed in a dark blue business suit that reminded him this was the day for her trial.

  “Hi, Jessica. How’s the trial going?” It was the first time he had seen her since the night she appeared in his office with the ARP form. He expected this first contact to be awkward, but he would be cordial. He had not mentioned the event to anyone and wanted to forget it, though he wasn’t at all sure that ignoring it was the appropriate response. He was busy with a huge load of cases and did not need the hassle. Besides, she was someone else’s responsibility now.

  “The defendant was a no-show. We waited for a half an hour until the judge said she was issuing a warrant, then we left.”

  “Too bad—I know
you put a lot of work into the case.”

  “Well, it gives me some time this afternoon to help Moose move.”

  “Moving into Nick’s office?”

  “Yes, I suggested he get out of that storage pit. Friday afternoon was the first time I had been in his office, and it gave me the creeps. I told him he deserved better and I would help. So, as soon as we have lunch, we are going to do some packing for the move. I’ve almost convinced him that he doesn’t need all those books—he can do his research electronically a lot faster. He’s resisting, but I think he’ll soon see it my way.”

  The elevator came, the doors opened, and the inside quickly filled with the lunch time crowd returning to their offices. After the elevator stopped on the sixth floor, Scott was the last passenger out. He couldn’t see Jessica, but he recognized the signature sound of her high heels meeting the solid floor far down the courthouse corridor—the same sound he heard a month earlier, when Jessica walked down the corridor in her tight black leather skirt after her first visit to his office. The memory of the image of Jessica as she appeared that day and the wonderful aroma of her perfume once again filled his mind.

  But something else drew his attention—Jessica’s calm, as if their last meeting had never occurred. It was as if she had always been Moose’s student.

  Damn, what a beautiful—and dangerous—woman.

  ****

  In midafternoon Scott was scheduled to have his first meeting with Special Agent DeBickero concerning the Harrison case investigation. Instead, he received a phone call.

  “Scott, Carl DeBickero here. Something urgent has come up, and I can’t make it today. I regret it. Hope we can reschedule soon.”

  Scott was disappointed. He was anxious to see how the GBI would proceed. And his disappointment increased when Carl explained that a concerted investigation was unlikely to get underway anytime soon.

  “I don’t think the delay will make any difference, Scott. If money changed hands, it probably won’t make another appearance for months. They will lay low for now. And we simply don’t have available funds or manpower now to conduct the type of surveillance investigation that may be needed. Last week was a busy week—every crime from the murder of a deputy to an active child porn ring.”

  “I understand. I’m just hoping it will get some traction soon.”

  “Well, it won’t exactly be on the back burner. Last week, as soon as I got the preliminary report from Nick Cox with the names of the actors, we opened a case and entered their names in the interagency network so we can start collecting background information. And our Financial Investigation Unit is on the case. They work with the Federal Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and have access to all the Bank Secrecy Act data stored by the Treasury Department. They are good at what they do.”

  Bank Secrecy Act and Treasury Department sounded far-fetched to Scott for this witness tampering probe. He wasn’t sure what to expect from the GBI investigation, but data from the Treasury Department wasn’t part of it.

  “What kind of data would the Treasury Department have?”

  “Currency transaction reports for one. Of course that only involves cash transfers of ten thousand or more, so it’s just a shot in the dark. But from what Nick told me, those two witnesses were pretty solid citizens, so I’m sure it took more than ten thousand to buy either one. I’m just suggesting you shouldn’t worry about what seems like a delay in starting this investigation. It’s not fully underway, but it’s moving. We have substantial interagency contacts, and there’s a lot of data that we can mine from the network without leaving the office. I’ll call you in a few days and see if we can set up a meeting—maybe over lunch.”

  Scott gave Carl his cell phone number, and they hung up, just as Scott heard a familiar tapping of high heels past his office—a sound as unique as a fingerprint. Drawn to it without thinking, Scott walked to the door and saw her for a few steps before she turned into the hallway leading to Nick’s old office. She was carrying a picture frame in one hand and in the other, a brass saxophone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  September 29, 2007

  It was Saturday night, and Toussaint’s was crowded as usual. Waiters breezed in and out of the kitchen with trays of food, and the tile floors echoed the clamorous restaurant sounds. The incessant din in the main dining room made casual conversation difficult, but the food was unsurpassed, and the customers came for the service and the food. With its widely praised specialties of jumbo lump crab cakes, almond and honey encrusted black grouper, and a fabulous, but reasonably priced wine list, it was one of Savannah’s top-rated restaurants—a favorite of locals and tourists alike.

  Daniel Voss was there with his wife, Doris, and their daughter, Angela, celebrating Angela’s good news that arrived in the morning’s mail. She had been awarded a Callaway Scholarship to Emory University, covering tuition and fees, as well as room and board for four years. This was the first dinner out in quite a while for Angela’s parents, who had experienced a year of tragedies, including the loss of their only son. A sixteen-year-old high school student, he had been a passenger in a friend’s car that crashed in a one-car accident. That, coupled with Doris’s recent diagnosis of a serious neuromuscular disorder, made Daniel wonder if there would ever again be real happiness in his family. But the news from Emory had lifted the spirits of all three, and for the first time in over a year, laughter, smiles, and pure joy were present at their dinner table. Yes—Angela, now their only child, would graduate from high school in June, and then be off to Emory where she would study for a career in medicine.

  It was 9:00 p.m., and in the alcove near the entrance to the restaurant, Mildred Thompson, the cashier, was standing by her register unwrapping a role of quarters. She looked up to see Troy Donaway heading her way to pay his bill. She smiled.

  “Hi, Mildred, busy night I see.”

  “Hi, Troy.”

  “I finally got around to seeing Michael Clayton last night. You were right, great movie.” Troy was a thirty-eight year old Toussaint’s regular, and he and Mildred frequently discussed movies—Mildred’s favorite pastime. She was a longtime movie junkie and knowledgeable critic. She had highly recommended the movie to Troy during a recent visit.

  Before Mildred could respond, a man in a long-sleeve white shirt entered the restaurant and walked quickly toward her. The man had a pistol in his right hand and a three-hole ski mask covering his head. In his left hand was a plastic bag.

  The man pointed to Troy with his left hand, and in a cold, firm voice said, “Both of you get down. Make a sound and you are dead.” The man was now about three steps from Troy. Mildred quickly dropped to the floor, disappearing behind the counter. Other than the masked man, she and Troy were the only people in the alcove, which was not visible from the dining area or the bar.

  Stunned, Troy remained standing. The man then pointed the gun in Troy’s direction, and said, “Down, damn it. Down!” Troy dropped to his knees a few feet from the cash register counter.

  The man stepped behind the counter and motioned to Mildred. “You, up! Place all your cash in this bag. That includes all bills, coins, and rolls of coins. And don’t look at me again. Do as I say and you won’t be hurt. Touch that phone or make a sound and you are dead.” The command was sharp and forceful but only loud enough to be heard in the alcove over the drone of mingled voices in the dining area.

  Mildred did as the man said. She was a middle-age woman who had been working at Toussaint’s since it opened on Benson Street in midtown Savannah ten years earlier. In all that time, there had never been a robbery, but she knew what to do. She had been instructed to do exactly as she was told by any robber. She had been reminded many times by her boss, Carl Brewster: “Never argue with a gun, Mildred. Just do as you are told. It’s only money. You’re more valuable than all the money that will ever be in that cash register.”

  Mildred got to her feet and took the bag from the man’s left hand. She was careful not to look at his face, though i
t would have made no difference, as it was completely hidden by the mask. She opened the cash register and began removing the money.

  “Hurry!” the man said.

  She took the cash from the top tray and placed it all in the bag. Then she removed the tray, quickly scooped up all the remaining bills and checks, and with the pistol aimed at her face, she dumped it all into the bag. Mildred was handing the bag to the man with the gun when a party walked into the alcove from the dining area. It was the Voss family.

  “Stop! Drop down!” the robber shouted, as he whirled to face them. All three stopped with terrified expressions, but they remained standing. The robber grabbed the bag from Mildred and started backing toward the exit, with his pistol pointed toward the Voss family. At that moment, Troy Donaway made his decision—a decision with consequences he could never have imagined.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  At the very moment Troy Donaway made his decision, Scott Marino was leaving the movie theater at Eisenhower Square with Jennifer Stone. It was a beautiful, balmy evening. They stopped for a short while at a nearby coffee shop and then drove to Jennifer’s apartment on West Taylor. As they pulled into a parking space at the apartment, Scott’s cell phone rang.

  Scott was the duty DA that weekend. He was on-call in case any local law enforcement officials needed legal advice from the DA’s office, such as assistance in drafting an emergency search warrant. He reached for his phone and answered.