An Engineered Injustice

by William L. Myers Jr.

  “See, now that’s where Mr. Nunzio would disagree with you. All of that stuff those lawyers said is important, because it has to do with whether your cousin is telling the truth when he says he doesn’t remember what happened.”

  “Look, I don’t know what to tell you. No one wants to know what happened more than my cousin—”

  “You think?” Giacobetti interrupts. “I know about two hundred people who probably care more about why that train crashed than your cousin, thirty of which are dead and one of which is Mr. Nunzio’s son.”

  Vaughn glares at the big man. He’s more than a little nervous, but his patience has run out. “Where are we going with this? Are you here to knock me around, send me a message?”

  Giacobetti laughs again. “Knock you around. That’s a good one. As if Mr. Nunzio would waste time with that in this particular situation. No, there won’t be any beatings at this point. But you’re right about the message part. So here it is: ‘No more surprises.’ If any more information gets out that your cousin knows more than he’s saying—that he really is to blame, which, to me, already pretty much seems to be the case . . .” Johnny leaves the rest of the sentence hanging.

  “Yeah? Then what?”

  The big man shrugs. “Do I really have to say it?” With that, he turns away, walks around the car, and gets in.

  Vaughn watches the big SUV pull away from the curb, drive down Sixth past Washington Square Park, and turn left onto Walnut. He exhales once the car is out of view. “Shit.”

  Vaughn walks down Spruce Street, toward his own second-floor walk-up twenty blocks away on the 1900 block of Spruce. He’s exhausted from last night, but after the exchange with Jimmy Nutzo’s muscle, he needs the walk to clear his head. By the time Vaughn reaches his apartment, he’s soaked with sweat. He takes a long, cool shower but still seems to be sweating as he towels off. He turns his window air conditioner down as cold as it will go, then fries himself some eggs. He doesn’t turn on the TV; he can’t bear to watch the news, can’t stomach any more negative press about Eddy.

  Vaughn eats quietly, the only sound in the small apartment the steady hum of the Frigidaire. His thoughts meander from his renewed relationship with Erin to his troubled past with Eddy to the tension at work with Susan and now Mick. He has to make this work out well for Eddy; he owes his cousin. But how? Even if the NTSB—given Eddy’s inability to remember what happened and the lack of hard evidence—doesn’t blame the accident on his cousin, and even if Eddy never faces criminal charges, Eddy’s career is over. Amtrak will never take him back. And any other railroad would be crazy to touch him. In fact, why would any employer ever hire Eddy? And then, of course, there’s the biggest problem of all: Jimmy Nutzo. The NTSB investigation, Eddy’s future job prospects, even the possibility of jail, are thin threats compared to the cloud hanging over Eddy so long as the mobster thinks he’s culpable. Vaughn shakes his head as the realization sinks in that the only way he can save his cousin is to prove that he was blameless for the crash.

  “But that’s impossible,” he says aloud. There’s no way that Eddy can’t be at fault here. He had to have been distracted not to have seen the huge TracVac his train collided with. But what possible distraction could there be that would justify him taking his eyes off the track ahead? For a full fifteen seconds? None that Vaughn can see. The bottom line is that Eddy Coburn is screwed, and all Vaughn will be able to do for his cousin is to stand beside him, fight with him, champion his hopeless cause until the NTSB reaches its final conclusions and Eddy is forced to enter the next—and likely last, and short—stage of his life.

  “Jesus.”

  More than anything right now, Vaughn wishes he were in his uncle’s gym, hitting the heavy bag. Or sparring with someone as angry and frustrated as he is.

  In the office, Vaughn asks Angie to print out the complaints that have been filed so far on behalf of the train-crash victims. He’s had her checking the docket of the federal court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where most of the cases are being filed, as well as the federal dockets in New York and New Jersey. His plan is to review the complaints over the weekend. He’s not sure what he’ll find in them, but you never know; maybe he’ll come across a piece of information he doesn’t have.

  Susan comes into Vaughn’s office and snipes at him for not getting her a brief she’d asked for earlier in the week. He apologizes and promises the brief, in final form, first thing the next morning. As soon as Susan leaves, Angie buzzes and tells him Nelson Wexler is on the phone. Vaughn remains upset at what happened at the NTSB’s interview of Eddy and has declined to answer a half dozen calls from Wexler. He’s about to tell Angie to put Wexler off again, but changes his mind. He might need his help down the pike. Vaughn says he’ll take the call and pushes the button that connects him to Wexler.

  “Vaughn Coburn,” he says.

  “Mr. Coburn, thank you for picking up. I wanted to apologize for the adversarial tone taken by Mr. Bunting. Our interviews are not intended to be accusatory. He overstepped his bounds, and I told him so after you left.”

  “Thank you for doing that,” Vaughn says, his voice flat.

  “You’re welcome. And to offer you another olive branch, I’m going to share something with you.”

  “You found out something about what caused the accident?” Vaughn asks, both hopefully and with trepidation.

  “I wish that were the case. No, what I learned is that your district attorney is being pressured to bring criminal charges against your cousin.”

  “What? By whom?”

  Wexler pauses. “Let’s just say the pressure is coming from people who might have a lot to gain, financially, should your cousin’s culpability rise to the level of a crime.”

  “Eddy’s culpability? What about the track crew that left the machine on a live track? Why isn’t anyone pressing to bring them up on charges?”

  “We’ve questioned the crew members, and it’s pretty clear to us that they didn’t leave the TracVac on Track 2. It seems they left the machine on Track 1, and we’re coming to believe that it may have been moved to Track 2 by vandals. The track crews’ only malfeasance was in not properly securing the giant excavator against movement, which is being chalked up to their lack of experience in using the new machine. I would have told you all this had you taken my earlier calls.”

  Vaughn kicks himself for pushing Wexler off until now. Still, he goes on the offensive. “Really? The machine was moved by vandals who just happened to know how to maneuver a complex piece of railroad equipment?”

  “We interviewed everyone on the track crew, and they all swear they left the machine on Track 1 the afternoon before. Other trains passed down Track 2 that afternoon and evening, and on the morning of the accident, before Train 174. More than a dozen. The TracVac had to have been moved during the thirty minutes before the crash, and we know the track crew was working out by Thorndale at that time.”

  “What about the foreman, Reggie Frye? The media are saying he claims he was out sick that day.”

  “The railroad confirmed Mr. Frye called out that morning. When we interviewed him, Frye gave us permission to obtain his medical records. They showed he’d gone to his physician that morning with a bad stomach virus. Nonetheless, to be thorough, we’re in the process of re-interviewing the track crew, including Frye—once we succeed in reaching him.”

  “Reaching him?”

  “He’s not answering our calls, or the press’s, either, from what I understand.”

  Vaughn thinks for a minute, then changes direction. “How did you find out about the pressure to charge Eddy?”

  “The Philly DA called me himself to give me the heads-up and to ask if I had any information that would justify bringing your cousin up on charges.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “The truth. We know that your cousin failed to react to the presence of the TracVac, by either slowing down his train or throwing it into emergency, but we don’t know why. Your cousin
can’t remember what happened in the moments leading up to the crash, and the inward-facing camera can’t tell us because it was turned off. We do know your cousin wasn’t talking on his cell phone, wasn’t texting, so that can’t be why he was distracted—if, in fact, he was distracted as opposed to unconscious. And on that score, we have no evidence of any medical conditions that would’ve caused your cousin to pass out. So, in my opinion—and this is what I told him—the record at this point isn’t sufficient to lead to any firm conclusions one way or the other.”

  “And what did he say to that?”

  “He mumbled something about being between a rock and a hard place. I got the impression that the people behind this are strong-arming him.”

  “How are they doing that?”

  “Some are saying the DA’s going to run for mayor next year.”

  “So?”

  “Political campaigns are very expensive.”

  “So they’re offering him money? To go after my cousin?”

  Wexler sighs but doesn’t answer.

  Vaughn thanks Wexler for the tip, and they hang up. Vaughn jumps from his chair and paces his office, stewing. After a few minutes of doing this, he makes a decision.

  Time to go on the offensive against these assholes.

  Vaughn walks to his phone, picks up the receiver, and calls Tommy.

  “Vaughn, how you doin’?”

  “I’m pissed is how I’m doing.” Vaughn tells Tommy about the call from Wexler, including that someone is pushing the DA to bring charges against Eddy and offering money to do so. “He didn’t name names, but I’m sure it’s those two carnival barkers, Day and Balzac. I want to find out everything I can about them. Can you poke around? Also, if you can use your contacts at Amtrak, I need to find out about Jack Bunting. He was the railroad-management rep on the go-team who interviewed Eddy.”

  “Why do you want to know about him?”

  “Because unlike the others, he really went after my cousin in his questioning. It felt to me like he was planning a hatchet job from the outset.” Vaughn realizes he probably sounds paranoid to Tommy, but he doesn’t care. He is feeling paranoid. “And see what you can learn about the track-crew foreman, Reggie Frye. It seems he’s gone underground.”

  “Got it. I know some guys. I’ll find out what I can. And I’m glad to see you swinging the sword on this one and not just hiding behind a shield. You know what they say about the best defense.”

  Vaughn is glad that Tommy’s down with his plan. Not that he’s surprised. Tommy’s never been one to hesitate. Unlike his brother, Mick, who is more careful about striking out, Tommy’s been through a lot. He did a stretch in prison when he was younger. Vaughn would love to know the full story on that. But neither Tommy nor Mick has never offered the tale, and Vaughn knows not to press an ex-con about his past.

  He spends the next three hours working on the brief for Susan. He focuses on the work, but even so, an idea percolates in the back of his mind.

  If he really is going to go on the offensive, why shouldn’t he hold a press conference of his own?

  14

  SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, JULY 12–13

  It’s Saturday morning just after eleven o’clock, and Vaughn sits at his kitchen table. He called the farmhouse the night before to check up on his cousin and Kate. They both said they were okay, but he could hear the strain in their voices. He did his best to allay their fears by saying he was making some progress in his investigation into the accident, but he doubted he sounded very convincing. He still hasn’t told Eddy and Kate about the threat posed by Nunzio. It would be worse than pointless to do so; they couldn’t do anything about Nunzio, so knowing would only add to their already unbearable stress. Nor would it help to relocate them again. Wherever he moved Eddy and Kate, Nunzio would surely find them. Hell, Johnny Giacobetti’s probably watching his apartment at this moment. Hanging up the phone, he felt worse than before he called, and he was pretty sure his cousin and Kate did, too. Needless to say, he hadn’t gotten much sleep.

  Sitting before Vaughn on the table is the pile of complaints Angie printed out for him on Friday. It’s been less than a month since the train crash, and already fifty civil cases have been filed. Thirty-five cases have been brought in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania by Day and Balzac. Six cases are pending in the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York. There are three cases in the District Court of New Jersey, and four other cases sitting in the district courts of Massachusetts, Maine, and Maryland. Two cases have been filed in state courts.

  Every one of the complaints includes a count asking for punitive damages. The complaints condemn Amtrak based on the company’s hiring of a locomotive engineer with a known or discoverable propensity for reckless and deadly operation of motor vehicles and a history of alcohol abuse and criminality. As to Eddy himself, the complaints assert that his failure to observe and respond to the TracVac constituted “outrageous and reckless” conduct. The complaints written by Day and Balzac appear to have been filed earliest, with the other lawyers’ complaints coming later and parroting Day and Balzac’s language almost word for word. Something about the allegations scratches at the back of Vaughn’s mind, but he can’t figure out what it is.

  In addition to the complaints, Angie printed a motion by Day and Lockwood and the Balzac Firm to the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. In the motion, Day and Balzac ask the multidistrict panel to centralize all pretrial proceedings in the federal court in Philadelphia, and to appoint the Day and Balzac firms as liaison counsel, putting them in charge of the entire litigation.

  Vaughn finishes reading the material, then stuffs it into the leather satchel he uses as his briefcase. He puts his sweatpants on over his shorts, grabs his gym bag, and leaves his apartment. He’s going to Northeast Philly to spend some time at his uncle’s boxing gym, then have lunch with Eddy’s side of the family. Forty minutes later, Vaughn pulls his old Jeep Wrangler Sport against the curb on Longshore Avenue in the Tacony section. Frank Coburn’s Boxing Club is housed in a three-story brick pile built at the turn of the last century and looking, on the outside, every bit its age.

  Vaughn climbs a set of stairs to enter the gym on the second floor. He pauses in the doorway to take it in and is immediately hit with a familiar smell—a suitcase full of socks that haven’t been washed in a month. His ears take in the machine-gun-fast thumpada-thumpada-thumpada of the speed bag and the cracking of gloves against the heavy bags. Vaughn looks around. Fluorescent tube lighting hangs on the ceiling. Support beams run down the center of the room, from front to back. The walls are cheap paneling and drywall, overhung by boxing posters and photos of club boxers. Five Everlast heavy bags hang from the ceiling by thick chains.

  The main attraction is a three-rope ring. Right now, two fighters are sparring. Vaughn walks past the bench press and bags and pauses to watch them. Both fighters are about Vaughn’s size, five ten, mid-160s. One, in red trunks, is light on his feet; the other has a longer reach and hits harder. They must’ve been going at it for a while; they are drenched and tired. Vaughn envies them. It’s been a long time since he’s sparred in the ring.

  “There he is,” says a gruff, gritty voice.

  “Uncle Frank.” Vaughn turns, offers his hand. It disappears into Frank’s huge paw. “I thought I’d come in, do some bag work before lunch.”

  “Make yourself at home,” Frank says.

  Vaughn smiles. Growing up, this place was like a second home to him.

  “But first, let’s talk a minute,” Frank adds, nodding toward his office.

  Vaughn follows his uncle into an eight-by-ten room off the gym. The space, enclosed by dark-paneled walls hung with photos of club fighters, is crammed with two gray filing cabinets, a black metal desk, a pair of worn swivel chairs patched with duct tape, a small table with a Mr. Coffee machine, and an assortment of trophies sitting on the floor against the walls.

  Frank closes the door and motions for Vaughn to take one of the
swivel chairs. Frank sits down in the other, and the men sit facing each other no more than two feet apart. “So,” Frank says, “what’s your plan?”

  Plan? Vaughn doesn’t say it, but Frank can read his face well enough.

  “You need a plan, boy. A strategy. Isn’t that the first thing I taught you and Eddy when you both started here?”

  “Yes, sir.” Vaughn remembers well his uncle telling him and Eddy that their most important weapon against an opponent wasn’t their speed or their strength, but their battle plan: the strategy forged from a keen understanding of their opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, and of their own. “Actually, right now, I am gathering information on the major players.”

  Vaughn tells his uncle about the surprise ambush by Jack Bunting, the missing track foreman, Reggie Frye, the NTSB’s belief that vandals moved the track machine, and the pressure that Day and Balzac are putting on the district attorney to bring criminal charges. The last point seems to hit home with Frank. Seeing the stress etching his features, Vaughn decides not to tell his uncle about his meeting with Jimmy Nutzo and his men.

  “I always hated lawyers,” Frank says. “No offense.”

  “None taken.” Vaughn forces a smile and looks away. He’s made it sound to his uncle like he has been gathering intelligence on Day and Balzac and Jack Bunting as the first step in formulating a strategy. In fact, he’s merely grasping for a clue as to what to do next.

  Frank Coburn studies his nephew for a long minute. “You’ll figure it out,” he says, and Vaughn knows from the tone of the older man’s voice that his uncle has seen through him. “Now go and work out some of your frustration.”

  Vaughn stands and thanks his uncle. He leaves the office and breathes a sigh of relief. Frank didn’t bring up Vaughn’s chit—the debt he owes to Eddy, to the whole family, because of what he’d done to his cousin. The liability that weighs on his heart every day, which, on his worst nights, wrenches him from sleep and shouts in his ear, Coward! Deserter! and forces him to relive his moment of profound personal failure.