by Randy Singer
"You got a better idea?" Quinn asked.
* * *
The Rogue's security guards escorted Quinn into Hofstetter's enormous office. Quinn was still wearing the suit coat and slacks from his courtroom appearance that morning in Virginia Beach, his white shirt open at the collar.
"I heard about the case," Hofstetter said. "Congratulations."
"Thanks."
"How's the eye?" Hofstetter asked, nodding toward Quinn's swollen cheek.
"Better than the ribs," Quinn said.
One of the security guards pulled out a metal wand to check Quinn for weapons and recording devices.
"Hold your hands straight out to your side," he said.
"I can't," Quinn said, giving the man a fake grimace. "Torn rotator cuff, remember?"
"You really ought to get that fixed," said Hofstetter.
They wanded Quinn and picked up a signal from his suit coat pocket. Quinn pulled out a digital recorder and held it in front of him.
"My, my," said Hofstetter. "I thought that was illegal in the state of Nevada. A man could lose his law license, you know."
Quinn smirked. "Secretly recording a conversation is illegal. Playing back a prior one is not."
Hofstetter placed his elbows on the desk and studied Quinn over the top of his fists. The man's square face was tan, contrasting with whiter skin in the shape of sunglasses around his eyes. His hairline was unnaturally even, the precise result of a multitude of hair plugs. The eyes held a death wish for Quinn--a mutual loathing, Quinn realized. "This better be good," Hofstetter said.
"It's for your ears only," Quinn countered. He could feel sweat forming underneath his T-shirt--there was no margin for error here.
Hofstetter nodded at his henchmen. They left the room, and Quinn breathed a little easier. He placed the digital recorder on the desk and turned it on.
For the next several minutes, Hofstetter listened to a telephone conversation between Quinn and Annie, recorded during Quinn's call to his sister a few hours earlier. Quinn told Annie about the existence of the Oasis Limited Partnership interest that had belonged to Richard Hofstetter Jr. and the importance of those voting rights in a battle to sell the Oasis casino. "This is why Claude Tanner suddenly came back into Sierra's life," Quinn explained. "And I think he did so at the urging of Richard Hofstetter Sr., who would benefit handsomely if Tanner voted to sell the casino to Hofstetter's business partners."
Hofstetter stared at the recorder without emotion as the exchange played out. Not even a flicker of surprise.
"You've got no proof of any of this," he said.
Quinn didn't answer. The tape could speak for him.
"I'm going to propose a three-way deal to your father-in-law when I meet with him tonight at six," Quinn said to Annie during the recorded call. "It's the only way I know to protect Sierra. I'll talk to Carla Duncan and get your plea agreement back on the table. You plead guilty and serve three years, then get permanent custody of Sierra afterward. In the meantime, I get temporary custody of Sierra. Tanner gets chaperoned visitation rights and gets appointed as trustee of all Sierra's assets, including the voting rights for the Oasis Limited Partnership. Hofstetter gets his casino; we get Sierra."
Quinn and Hofstetter listened a few more minutes as Annie asked various questions about the deal and its implications. After a long pause, she tearfully agreed that it made sense.
The two men continued to listen as Quinn gave Annie some additional instructions. "Before I started taping this call," Quinn's voice said, "I told you about a location that would contain a microcassette tape of the call. I'm going to make two tapes of this conversation. I'll take one to the meeting with Hofstetter and put the other in the location I mentioned to you. If you don't hear from me by 6:30, or if anything happens to me, tell Carla Duncan about the Oasis Limited Partnership, the location of the tape, and my meeting with Mr. Hofstetter tonight."
Quinn picked up his recorder, turned it off, and took his seat. "We can all win, Mr. Hofstetter, or we can all lose. If I walk out of here without a deal, I'll amend the estate filing to include the Oasis Limited Partnership interest. Annie will go to trial and, if she loses, Tanner gets custody of Sierra and voting rights for the Oasis asset. But I'll raise so much stink about the impropriety of him selling that casino to your business partners, and my suspicions that you put him up to it, that he'll never be able to pull the trigger. You lose. Annie loses. And Sierra loses.
"Or we can all win. You call off Tanner--he doesn't really care about Sierra anyway. You get your casino; Annie and I get custody of Sierra without interference."
Quinn looked at his watch. "It's 6:15, Mr. Hofstetter. You have fifteen minutes."
107
Hofstetter called in his security guards and asked them to escort Quinn outside. He told Quinn to take his digital recorder with him. Five minutes later, Quinn was allowed to return.
"If you propose your deal to Mr. Tanner tonight, I am reasonably confident he will accept," Hofstetter said matter-of-factly. Quinn could tell the man was choosing his words carefully. "It's only idle speculation, of course. And, just to be clear, I didn't even know that my son owned this limited partnership interest in the Oasis until you told me about it tonight. But still, I have to agree with your perspective that Sierra's real father seems to be in this just for the money. Given that perspective, I see no reason he wouldn't take the deal."
Quinn stared across the desk at Hofstetter. He despised the man. Hated the doublespeak. But Hofstetter was a pro; Quinn had to give him that much. There was a reason he had never been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Does that mean we have a deal?" Quinn asked.
Hofstetter smiled, spreading his palms. "It sounds like a good deal to me," he said. "But of course, I don't have any financial interest in it one way or the other. Only Mr. Tanner can tell you whether the deal makes sense to him."
"It's 6:25," Quinn said.
"So call Mr. Tanner right now," countered Hofstetter. "I'm sure you have his cell phone number."
Instead, Quinn dialed the Las Vegas jail. He explained that he was an attorney and had an emergency need to speak with his client. The deputies could call Carla Duncan if they needed verification.
A few minutes later, Annie came on the phone. "We have a deal," said Quinn, staring at Richard Hofstetter. The old man said nothing in return.
* * *
When Quinn got in his car, he called his consultant. "What did you get?" he asked, breathless.
"He called Claude Tanner when you left the office."
"And?" Quinn asked.
Quinn knew that Hofstetter would check for recording devices, but he had guessed that the casino owner would do so just once, at the beginning of the meeting. Accordingly, Quinn had his consultant attach a small magnetic transmitter to the underside of the digital recorder. With his pinky--a move Quinn had practiced for fifteen minutes before leaving for Hofstetter's office--Quinn had flipped on the tiny transmitter when he turned on the digital recorder to play back his phone call with Annie. When Quinn had picked up the recorder from the desk just before leaving the office the first time, he'd flicked the transmitter into a crack in the padding of his chair.
"It picked up every word of Hofstetter's phone call with Tanner," said the consultant. "Every incriminating word."
* * *
Quinn called Carla Duncan and agreed to meet at her office at eight.
"Where's your sense of the dramatic?" she asked. "You still have four more hours."
At the meeting, Quinn explained his sting operation on Hofstetter and gave Carla a copy of the recording that his consultant had made of Hofstetter's phone call with Tanner.
"Taping somebody's phone call without their consent is illegal," Carla said. "You know that."
"But as long as the government didn't direct it or participate in it, the tape's admissible in court."
Carla nodded. "I can use it against Hofstetter. But it might cost you your law license."
"Th
at's the least of my worries," said Quinn. He trusted Carla Duncan. She was a tough prosecutor, but she was fair. "That confession I signed in Virginia Beach is true, Carla. I came to talk about a deal."
108
Catherine O'Rourke found out about Quinn's ploy while watching the news on Wednesday morning, her first full day of freedom. The euphoria of sleeping in her own bed and watching the sun rise over the ocean was swept away by the despair of seeing Quinn torn apart on national television. He didn't deserve this; he was a good man. Watching the coverage literally made her sick, yet she couldn't pull herself away from it.
She had thought about him a lot during the first few months of her incarceration, even before the trial started. Dreamed about him, really. He was part of a fairy-tale ending she knew could never happen: being found innocent by the jury, starting a normal relationship with Quinn outside the pressure cooker of the case, falling in love. She allowed herself to dream this dream even though she had pled insanity, even though a not-guilty verdict would lead to institutional treatment, not a relationship with Quinn Newberg.
During the trial, she had felt a deep bond develop, more than a lawyer-client relationship--way more. They had leaned on each other. Needed one another. Quinn had stood with her when others had run away. Not to mention that her vision Monday evening had saved Quinn's life.
And now she was free, just like in her dreams. But Quinn was gone. And Carla Duncan was holding a press conference, announcing a plea bargain that would send Quinn to jail for three years.
He would essentially serve the same length of time that had been offered to his sister, Duncan said. The prosecutor had taken into account the fact that Quinn was trying to protect his sister and had probably saved her life. But the shooting wasn't technically defense of others, because Hofstetter had already dropped the knife when Quinn shot him. And Quinn was also a lawyer, Duncan argued, an officer of the court. He had committed a massive fraud on the system and could not go unpunished. Moreover, he had committed other crimes that were wrapped up in this plea deal as well, including the unauthorized tape-recording of others without their consent.
In a related matter, Duncan announced the indictment and arrest of Richard Hofstetter Sr. and several of his associates on racketeering, fraud, and assault charges. Networks showed Hofstetter's "perp walk"--his trademark scowl, hands cuffed behind his back. Duncan said she intended to prosecute Hofstetter and his cohorts, including Claude Tanner, to the fullest extent of the law.
There were some who rallied to Quinn's defense. His law partners, personified by a man named Robert Espinoza, defended Quinn's overall integrity, while admitting some lapses of judgment on this one case that was so personal to him. Abuse groups still hailed Quinn as a hero. Annie staunchly defended him, telling the world through tears that her brother should not have to spend a single day behind bars.
Catherine would join the cause--it was the least she could do. Though she had sworn off media interviews after her acquittal, she decided to make an exception for Quinn. She would write an op-ed piece and send it to all the major newspapers. And she would make herself available to the local news stations. What he had done was not right, but she still cared about the man too much to sit this one out.
Some were comparing Quinn to Marc Boland, noting that both lawyers had taken justice into their own hands and then allowed others to take the blame. Vigilante justice with a scapegoat, they said. But Catherine saw the two situations as totally different. Boland had hunted people down and murdered them in cold blood. Quinn had protected a sister whose life had been threatened. Who among us wouldn't have been tempted to do the same?
Before she wrote her editorial, Cat needed to clear her head. She threw on a pair of workout shorts and a running bra. She grabbed her Rollerblades and took them out to the front steps of her duplex so she could lace them up in the warm sunlight that she no longer took for granted. She knew she would be seriously out of shape from months of wasting away in the city jail, but she would hit the workout hard. It would be great to smell the salt water in the air and feel the muscles burn.
The vision hit her as she sat on the steps, tying a double knot in her left Rollerblade. It began with a familiar pressure building in her head like a migraine, a tropical storm sucking her conscious thoughts into a vortex of otherworldly images. Ghostlike and hazy, the figures seemed to materialize from the scalding concrete of the sidewalk as if the heat waves had taken on human flesh and now stood before Cat, unaware of her existence. There was an argument . . . shouting . . . a fight. Cat watched the entire event unfold, almost as if she could reach out and touch the apparitions before her. She sat there in fascinated horror, unable to turn away.
Unlike her previous visions, this time she saw the detailed outlines of the faces--every wrinkle of the man's leathery skin and angry scowl, the determined look on his wife's familiar face. The other visions seemed like they had taken place in a dark tunnel, with nebulous figures and shrouded identities. But this one unfolded in the light of day. This time, Cat could name names.
The gunshot startled Cat and exploded the vision, leaving her shaken and confused. She didn't want this power, this awful knowledge of facts concealed from others, knowledge too dreadful for one person to bear.
She dialed Rosemarie Mancini immediately. "We've got to talk," Cat said. "I've had another vision."
"I'm at a conference in Colonial Williamsburg," Mancini said. "Can we talk by phone?"
Colonial Williamsburg was less than a two-hour drive. Cat could use the time to collect her thoughts and get hold of herself.
"I'll come to you," Cat said. She knew her voice sounded frantic, but she didn't care. "We need to talk in person."
109
They met at the Barnes & Noble bookstore located on the edge of Colonial Williamsburg, across the street from the College of William and Mary. Rosemarie suggested they go for a walk--a quiet stroll down the tree-lined Duke of Gloucester Street, a cobblestone road that took visitors back more than two hundred years. For Cat, it also had the effect of taking her back just eight years, to her senior year in college, adding another layer of stress to an already confusing day. If the quaint colonial setting was supposed to be relieving Cat's anxiety, it was not working.
After walking a few minutes and telling Rosemarie how great it felt to be out of jail, Cat got down to the point of her visit. "I saw the murder of Richard Hofstetter Jr.," Cat said. "It felt like I was sitting right in the Hofstetters' living room." She was still wound tight as she remembered the ghostly figures, images burned into her mind. "I saw Hofstetter and Annie argue."
Cat looked off into the distance. The trees cast shadows across the street while late-summer tourists traveled in small packs, their noses glued to their guidebooks, figuring out what attraction to see next. Cat couldn't even remember when life had seemed so simple.
"Annie pulled out a gun and started threatening Hofstetter with it," Cat continued. "She backed him down, made him kneel and beg. He was on his knees when she pulled the trigger. That's when the vision faded--exploded, really. The last thing I saw was Annie dropping the gun, putting her hands over her mouth, and screaming."
Cat paused. Just recounting the vision had drained her energy and constricted her chest. She glanced at Rosemarie as they walked and couldn't quite read the psychiatrist's expression. "Quinn wasn't even in the room," Cat said. "He didn't shoot his brother-in-law."
She had been wrestling with the implications the entire drive to Williamsburg. Quinn was innocent! How could she keep that information to herself? She had to do something.
But if freeing Quinn meant that Annie went to jail, how could Cat possibly tell anyone other than Rosemarie? Quinn would hate her for exposing his sister to serious jail time, for separating his niece from her mother. Cat needed Rosemarie Mancini's advice, and as usual, the psychiatrist was one step ahead.
"I know all that," Rosemarie said. "But this was undoubtedly part of Quinn's plan all along. I don't think he ever intende
d to let his sister stay in jail. He wanted to give the second jury a chance to do the right thing at trial, but if they didn't, he was ready to take the blame. When it became obvious that putting his confession on the table would also help him nail Marc Boland, he played his ace early."
Cat was stunned that Rosemarie seemed to take this all in stride. "He told you this?" Cat asked.
"He didn't have to. I was Annie's psychiatrist, remember?" Rosemarie looked up at Cat as they walked. "You, I could never completely figure out. But Annie was an open book. She killed her husband, Catherine. It happened exactly the way Annie described it in court.
"But Quinn always covers his bets. I knew he had something radical planned. I saw it in his eyes when I talked to him about Sierra, about the need to break the chains of abuse that get passed from one generation to the next. I knew he had a plan he wasn't telling me about, an ace in the hole.
"Did you notice how carefully he crafted his own confession?" Rosemarie continued. "If he had made it appear too much like self-defense or defense of others, Carla Duncan would have been suspicious. She would have seen it as a contrived attempt to make sure nobody went to jail for the murder. But by saying he shot Hofstetter after the man dropped his knife, Quinn guaranteed he would end up taking Annie's place in jail."
Rosemarie motioned toward an ancient brick building on their left, rimmed by a graveyard on the side and back. "St. Bruton's Parish," Rosemarie said. "It was on the tour I took yesterday. Want to peek inside?"
Cat shrugged. Not really. She had seen the church a few times during her college years. But Rosemarie had already veered off to see if it was open. Finding it locked, she banged loudly on the thick wooden door.
"A shame," she said. "It's really peaceful in there."
"So you're thinking I shouldn't say anything?" Cat asked, trying to get the conversation back on topic.