An Engineered Injustice

by William L. Myers Jr.

  Vaughn feels his whole body go numb. He knows what’s coming. He wants to counterpunch, swing, fight. But he cannot. He is frozen in place. All he can do is wait for the body blows.

  Olin continues, “Engineers from the NTSB’s Vehicle Recorder Division downloaded information from the cell phone, and determined that the phone was used twice during the run between 30th Street Station in Philadelphia and the crash. The first call was placed from the cell phone to a private number. It lasted one minute and thirty seconds, from 12:08:10 to 12:09:41. The second phone call was placed to the cell phone at 12:17:50, and lasted through the time of the crash twenty-eight seconds later, at 12:18:18. That second call was placed from another cell phone, another so-called burner phone. We do not know who owns that phone, or who placed that call.”

  Here, Olin pauses, takes a deep breath. “The phone number to which the first call was placed from the cell phone was the home number of engineer Edward Coburn. Fingerprints were taken from the cell phone, and we expect they will match those of Mr. Coburn.” Olin pauses again, then resumes. “The Board will shortly be reaching out to Mr. Coburn’s attorney to find out whether Mr. Coburn is willing to be interviewed a second time. We have also served Mr. Coburn’s home-phone carrier, Verizon, with a subpoena for the home records.”

  Olin continues for a few minutes more, then leaves the podium. The news coverage switches back to the studio, where the Morning Joe hosts and guests take turns skewering both Eddy and Vaughn. One guest accuses Vaughn of using his own press conference to “sell us a bill of goods.” Another accuses Vaughn of conspiring with his cousin to mislead NTSB investigators by failing to disclose the second phone. “Certainly, his cousin/client would have told him about the second phone. Yet in his press conference, attorney Coburn pretended there was only one cell phone and represented that the engineer wasn’t on the phone at the time of the accident when, clearly, he was.”

  Vaughn changes channels to Fox and then CNN, only to hear more of the same.

  Sensing someone behind him, Vaughn turns to see Susan Klein standing in the doorway. Her eyes, fixed on the TV screen, are filled with anger. Seeing Vaughn turn to face her, she lowers her gaze to him. Her nostrils flare, and Vaughn sees her fight to control herself. He opens his mouth to say something, but his boss waves a palm.

  “Don’t,” she says. Then she turns and walks away.

  Vaughn closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them and slams his hand against the conference-room table. An instant later, he’s racing for the elevator. Ninety minutes after that, his Jeep is kicking up dirt on the road leading to the farmhouse where his cousin has been holed up for the past three weeks.

  Eddy walks onto the front porch even before Vaughn’s car is stopped. Vaughn is out of the car and walking fast toward the porch before the dust settles.

  “What the fuck, Eddy?” Vaughn takes the steps two at a time and gets right up in his cousin’s face.

  “It’s not what it seems!” Eddy backs up until he’s against the front door.

  “A second cell? And you let me stand in front of the whole damn world and say you weren’t on the phone? That you couldn’t have been because your phone was tucked away in your knapsack!”

  Eddy drops his head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? By not telling me?”

  Eddy’s eyes are filled with anguish. “I messed up. I know, I know.”

  Vaughn takes a deep breath, then backs away. “Why, Eddy? Why didn’t you tell me? And why did you have two phones to begin with?”

  Eddy exhales and closes his eyes. After a long moment, he opens them. “It was for Kate. I wanted her to be able to reach me. In case . . . She was eight months pregnant. And our next-door neighbor was just beaten up and robbed, inside her house. The railroad won’t let us have phones on our runs, but what about emergencies? What if something happened with Kate and she couldn’t get ahold of me?”

  Vaughn shakes his head. The words come out almost as a whisper. “Why didn’t you just tell me this?”

  “I was afraid you’d tell the NTSB and Amtrak. They didn’t find the burner phone the first time, but I knew they might find it if they looked again. And they’d know I talked to Kate during the run. I’d never get my job back then. And—”

  “Your job?” Vaughn interrupts. “Eddy, what aren’t you getting here? No matter what happens with the investigation, you’re never going to work for Amtrak again. Or any other railroad. You crashed a train, and thirty-six people died. Hundreds more were injured. No one’s going to touch you, man.”

  Vaughn sees Eddy’s eyes fill with water, sees them searching his own eyes.

  He really doesn’t understand. He thought he was going back to Amtrak.

  “I’m sorry, Ed. I’m . . . Come on, let’s go inside and sit down.”

  They take their places at the kitchen table and sit facing each other. Neither one says anything for a while, then Vaughn breaks the silence. “Tell me about the calls. The NTSB says there were two calls, the first one to your house.”

  “That was me calling Kate, just to tell her I had started the run and to check in on her. It only lasted a minute.”

  “What about the second call?” asks Vaughn. “They say it happened seconds before the crash. And came from a burner phone. What the hell, Eddy?”

  Eddy looks him straight in the eye. “I have no idea. That’s the truth. I don’t remember it at all. I don’t know who it could’ve been from.”

  “Well, who knew the number of the second phone? How did you even know how to buy a burner phone?”

  “I didn’t buy it. Another guy gave it to me. He’d be the only one who knew the number.”

  “What guy was that?”

  Eddy stops breathing. He stares at Vaughn. “It was Reggie. Reggie Frye.”

  Vaughn leaps from his chair. “The track foreman? Are you kidding me? The guy in charge of the TracVac? The one who’s disappeared?”

  Eddy sighs. “That’s the other reason I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to be connected to him. I knew it would look bad.”

  Vaughn tries to rein in his anger, but he can’t. “Of course it would look bad! Two Amtrak employees sharing a secret phone. One of them is in charge of a TracVac that somehow winds up where the other one can crash his train into it?” Vaughn pauses and Eddy stares at him. “Did the two of you have some kind of suicide pact?”

  “That’s crazy!” Now it’s Eddy’s turn to lose his temper. “I’m married. I have a kid on the way. I don’t leave people behind!”

  The remark stops Vaughn cold. He and Eddy, now both standing, square off. Neither moves for a long time. Then Vaughn lowers his own head and takes his seat. After a bit, Eddy sits down as well.

  “This is just awful,” Eddy says. “This whole thing. What am I going to do? What’s going to happen now?”

  Before Vaughn can answer, Eddy’s new cell phone rings. He glances at the number. “It’s Kate,” he says, pressing the button to answer. Eddy says hello, listens for a few seconds, then stands up fast. “This is it! Kate’s on the way to the hospital. She’s having the baby.”

  Without another word, the two of them are racing for Vaughn’s Jeep. Eddy spends the ride into Center City on the phone with Kate, with her mother, with his own mother, Vaughn’s Aunt Claire. The two older women are keeping Kate company until Eddy gets there. He’ll take over then, and stay with Kate through the birth. It’s all planned out; it’s why Kate and Eddy had started weekly birthing classes before the crash.

  Vaughn is speeding north on 222 when he sees a black Cadillac Escalade heading south. He thinks of Johnny Giacobetti, and his heart beats faster. Could that be Johnny G.’s Escalade? Has Nunzio—in a fit of rage over the disclosures about the second cell phone—dispatched his enforcer to the farm to dispatch Eddy? It’s going to happen, sooner or later, unless he can find a way to clear his cousin.

  The ringing of Vaughn’s cell phone pulls him from his thoughts. He recog
nizes Tommy’s number on the display and answers.

  “Where are you?” Tommy asks.

  “I went to see Eddy. Now we’re on our way back to Philly. Kate’s about to deliver. What’s up?”

  “I’m not sure, but I just found out that the DA and a whole army of cops spent the last few days reaching out to the victims of the crash and their families. They’ve been calling them in or going to their houses and hospital rooms, collecting birth and death certificates, medical records, affidavits. Something big’s going down. You know what it could be?”

  “I’ve a pretty good idea,” Vaughn says. “Shit.” The district attorney’s going to charge Eddy criminally. His burner was just what Day and Balzac needed to push the DA to act. The prosecutor and police have probably been working to get their ducks in a row since the minute the NTSB found the second phone. “I’ll call you later, tell you what I think,” Vaughn tells Tommy before hanging up. He doesn’t want Eddy to hear.

  Forty minutes later, Vaughn pulls up to the hospital and lets Eddy out. Then he drives the car to the parking garage. Ten minutes later, Vaughn is walking down the hall on the maternity floor. When he turns the corner, he’s thrown into confusion. Just ahead of him, Eddy is on his knees, held there by two men. His hands are cuffed behind him. He’s shouting Kate’s name. Vaughn can hear Kate’s own screaming from the doorway. Kate’s mother and Aunt Claire are shouting, too, cursing at the men restraining Eddy. Nurses, doctors, patients, and family members crowd the hallway, staring.

  “Just let me see her!” Eddy pleads.

  “Just let him see her!” the two mothers shout.

  Vaughn calls out to the two men restraining his cousin, demanding to know what’s going on. They turn toward him, and when they do, Vaughn’s stomach drops. One of the men he doesn’t recognize, but the other one is all too familiar: Detective John Tredesco. A lanky, stoop-shouldered man with a potbelly and limp black hair, Tredesco has bad history with Vaughn’s boss Mick. The detective did everything he could to prosecute Mick’s old friend in the Hanson murder case, including persuading a key witness to perjure himself. Mick found a way to win the case despite Tredesco’s efforts, and Vaughn can tell from the gleam in the detective’s eyes that he’s thinking he’s found a way to get even.

  “Attorney Coburn . . . ,” Tredesco intones. “Just in time for your client’s arrest.”

  “On what charges?” Vaughn asks, as if he can’t guess.

  “Well, let’s see. There’s thirty-six counts of involuntary manslaughter, two-hundred-plus counts of aggravated assault, and a list of other charges longer than a donkey’s you-know-what.”

  “For crying out loud. His wife’s in labor. Do you have to do this now?”

  “Have to? Nah, probably not. But, hey . . .” Tredesco and his partner pull Eddy off the floor and start to march him away.

  “At least let him see her!”

  Tredesco looks at his partner, then at Eddy, then back to Vaughn. “No,” he says matter-of-factly. And with that, the two detectives squeeze Eddy’s arms and drag him away.

  Vaughn’s aunt Claire begins screaming again. “Vaughn! Vaughn! You promised! You promised Eddy wouldn’t go to jail!”

  Vaughn stands, paralyzed, in the middle of the hall. As though through a fog, he sees his aunt screaming, hears Kate’s own cries through the doorway. He wants desperately to console the women, but there is no time. Clearing his mind, he turns and runs toward his cousin, shouting after him and the two cops.

  “He invokes his right to counsel! You hear that, Tredesco? You can’t question him.”

  Tredesco and his partner ignore Vaughn and continue marching their prisoner past the stunned faces gathering in the hall and doorways.

  “Don’t talk to anyone, Ed!” Vaughn shouts. “Don’t say anything other than to demand to see your lawyer.”

  Vaughn follows the officers and his cousin until they reach the elevator, where Tredesco forbids his entry. As the doors close, Vaughn races down the stairs, reaching the elevator bay just as Eddy and the two detectives exit. He follows them to the hospital entrance. His heart sinks when he sees what’s waiting on the other side of the large windows: a cackle of reporters. Someone made sure to alert them that Eddy was going to be arrested.

  Eddy and Vaughn are assaulted with questions as soon as they all leave the building. The reporters follow them, encircle them, the whole way to the waiting police car. Vaughn shoves against them, and it takes all his willpower not to start throwing roundhouses.

  Tredesco and his partner load Eddy into the back seat, then pull away. Watching it unfold, Vaughn feels like he’s been gut-punched. He wants to double over, catch his breath. But he remains standing. He feels his stomach tighten, feels his hands form into fists, his eyes narrow. The reporters, still surrounding him, fade into the background as his mind focuses and his chest fills with rage.

  Vaughn turns back to the hospital, back to his aunt and to Kate and her mother. They’ll be desperate, he knows. It’ll be his job to calm them down, get them to concentrate on the immediate task at hand: the birth. “I’ll take care of Eddy,” he’ll tell them, then watch as their eyes fill with doubt. He’s been doing his best to take care of Eddy since the crash, but the press has trampled his cousin just the same. And now, it’s clear: the wheels of justice are going to run over Eddy Coburn like a goddamned freight train.

  21

  THURSDAY, JULY 24

  The preliminary arraignment takes place at eleven o’clock the next morning in the basement of the Criminal Justice Center. The arraignment court magistrate, Delia Smick, sits at her bench, which is cluttered with file folders and a computer screen. Her courtroom is positioned behind a wall of Plexiglas through which spectators sitting in the waiting area can watch the proceedings. Both the hearing room and waiting area have gray walls, gray carpeting, and low ceilings. The waiting area itself has five rows of black benches, split down the middle by an aisle. This morning, the benches are filled.

  Sitting at the defense table in the hearing room, Vaughn glances to his right. Across the room at the prosecutor’s table is Assistant District Attorney Christina Wesley. Vaughn remembers her from the Hanson trial. She was first chair to the lead prosecutor, Devlin Walker. She looks different now, harder—in the eyes and body—and, frankly, more attractive. Her face, though, still carries its permanent scowl. Vaughn wonders if the woman ever laughs.

  Vaughn turns toward the back, looks through the Plexiglas to take in the scene behind him. A number of the benches are taken up by members of the press. Some in the crowd have casts and crutches—clearly injured crash passengers. A pair of Amtrak police officers have shown up to watch. Half a dozen well-dressed young men and women are seated in one of the back rows, and Vaughn decides they must be associates from Day and Lockwood, the Balzac Firm, and one or two others sent to gather intelligence. Finally, Vaughn spots Eddy’s parents and his own. Vaughn hasn’t forgotten for a second that his entire family has been drawn into this tragedy with his cousin.

  Vaughn is about to turn toward the bench when he sees two men walk into the back of the waiting area. One of the men is solidly built, with jet-black hair; he wears an expensive Italian suit and tie. The second man, in a suit jacket and black-collared shirt, is enormous.

  James Nunzio and Johnny G.

  Nunzio spots Vaughn and glares at him, his black eyes radiating hostility. Giacobetti’s eyes are more matter-of-fact, though no less frightening. Vaughn holds their stares until he sees everyone’s eyes dart suddenly toward the bench. He turns to see that his cousin has now appeared on the big, freestanding flat-screen TV to the magistrate’s left. Eddy is being held in a cell at the Roundhouse, the Philly police headquarters and jail at Eighth and Race Streets. His image is broadcast to the hearing room, via closed-circuit TV.

  The charge: thirty-six counts of involuntary manslaughter, defined under Pennsylvania law as causing the death of another person as a result of performing an otherwise-lawful act in a reckless or grossly n
egligent manner. Thirty of these counts are misdemeanors of the first degree. Six are felonies of the second degree, because the victims were under the age of twelve. The felonies, Vaughn knows, are each punishable by up to ten years in prison. Each of the misdemeanor charges carries up to five years. For the passengers injured but not killed, Eddy is charged with 205 counts of felony aggravated assault, the complaint asserting that he recklessly caused serious bodily injury to another under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life. The import of all the charges, Vaughn knows, is that if Eddy goes to trial and is convicted, his newborn daughter will be old enough to retire by the time he gets out of prison.

  “What is your position regarding bail, Ms. Wesley?” asks Delia Smick over top of the black-rimmed glasses sitting on the end of her nose.

  “This is a Mass. Homicide. Situation.” Christina pauses after each word. “The defendant has a prior criminal conviction for recklessly causing the death of a police officer. There is no question that the defendant must be held over for trial.” Short and simple.

  “Mr. Coburn?” the magistrate asks.

  “We believe the court should grant bail. The most serious charges against Mr. Coburn are involuntary manslaughter, not murder. He vehemently denies that he caused the accident and very much wants his day in court, to clear his name. He is no flight risk; he has strong ties to the community, has no prior history of flight, and he lacks the means to flee. He doesn’t even have a passport. And,” Vaughn adds with emphasis, “Mr. Coburn and his wife just became parents. Yesterday.” Saying the words makes Vaughn’s blood boil. Eddy missed the birth of his own daughter. “Mr. Coburn’s arrest robbed him and his wife of his right to be there while she gave birth. He needs to be present for his wife and child during this critical time.”