Law and Vengeance

by Mike Papantonio

  Both sides offered up legal precedents that they believed supported their positions. Judge Sanders listened and occasionally asked questions. When the judge was satisfied that she’d heard enough, she said, “Thank you for your input. Over the course of the next week, I will consider the merits of your arguments and inform you of my decision.”

  The judge’s deferral wasn’t a surprise to either side. In most cases like these, the judge didn’t make an immediate decision. Often the answer came in the form of a written opinion.

  Still, Gina came away thinking it had been a very good day for the law firm of Bergman-Deketomis.

  From his listening post, Ivan Verloc was having trouble staying awake. Lawyers were a different breed, he thought. They could talk all day in what sounded to him to be a different language. No matter how small the point, they argued about it.

  At the moment the Bergman-Deketomis lawyers were playacting in order to get ready for their depositions. One person played lawyer, and one played witness. Everything the lawyer did was open to critique, from the questions asked to the pacing of the questions and the tone of voice used.

  Ivan concluded that his own home team might be in for a wicked few days ahead. After jotting down some notes for Lutz, he decided to tune into a different listening channel. What was Kendrick Strahan up to?

  He’d put the listening device on Strahan’s phone more than a year ago. Ivan was proud of the special bug he’d constructed. It didn’t require Strahan to make or receive calls for him to listen. The bug was voice-activated. Whenever Strahan talked, it recorded. That was how Ivan had gotten the goods on Lutz and Thursby.

  Ivan listened in, but Strahan wasn’t talking. He checked Strahan’s log and saw that nothing had been recorded for the last twenty-four hours. Strange, Ivan thought. He decided to listen in to what had last been said.

  At the first sounds of the gasping and thrashing around, Ivan realized he hadn’t gone back far enough. Either that, Ivan thought, or he’d gone too far. Hearing those sounds made the hair rise on Ivan’s arms. It sounded like someone was dying.

  Ivan found a spot earlier in the digital recording. By the sounds of it, Strahan had been awakened from a sound sleep.

  “Hey! What the hell are . . .”

  Strahan hadn’t gotten the chance to finish his question. Those were his last words, but not the last words that were recorded.

  “Hush!” said a familiar voice. “Just relax.”

  Ivan was guessing that Thursby put Strahan in a sleeper hold. The cop knew about forensics. He knew how to stage a crime scene to tell the story he wanted. And because of that, he made sure Strahan was still alive when he pulled his body up the ladder and put his neck into the noose. Strahan’s garret must have been prepared earlier for him, no doubt while he was asleep.

  “Go for it,” said an encouraging Thursby. “Try and get that noose off.”

  For a moment Ivan couldn’t understand why Thursby would be cheering on Strahan’s struggles. What a sick fuck, he thought. But then the motive became clear: Strahan’s fingerprints and DNA would be all over the rope. Merciful executioners made sure the victim’s neck snapped when coming down. Thursby had not been merciful.

  Ivan listened to Strahan’s choking and thrashing about. And then it became too grisly even for him to listen to any longer. Those final gurgles were sickening. And Ivan sure didn’t want to hear the man’s death rattle.

  Hearing lawyers prepare their case, Ivan thought, was preferable to listening to Strahan’s hanging, although he knew he was completely capable of strangling another human being if money was right.

  28

  A MEETING OF MINDS

  Word of Kendrick Strahan’s death reached Gina and her team just as they were about to leave for the day. A neighbor had detected an unpleasant odor. The preliminary report was that Strahan must have been hanging in his apartment for at least three days.

  Washington, DC police were conducting an investigation into Strahan’s death, even though they said it appeared to have been a suicide.

  “The cynic in me says that Arbalest can’t help but be delighted with this turn of events,” said Ned.

  Gina couldn’t argue. Strahan’s timely death was the best piece of news Madsen-Zimmer could have hoped for.

  “We’re going to have to reshuffle the order of the depositions,” said Gina. “And we’ll need to reexamine those questions earmarked for Strahan to see if they can be asked of others on our list.”

  But not today, Gina decided. She could see everyone was tired. “Enough is enough,” she said. “After all, tomorrow is another day.”

  As everyone gathered up their paperwork, Gina realized that she’d been quoting Scarlett O’Hara from Gone with the Wind.

  Tired “goodbyes” and “see you in the morning” were uttered. Her team had been at the office for thirteen hours. One long day might not have been too hard, but they’d been putting in longer hours for more than a week straight, including weekends.

  Things had been made worse by Bryan. After being shut down by the Bergman-Deketomis switchboard, and exhausting his own efforts to contact Gina by phone, text, and email, he’d convinced two of their mutual friends to call Gina and speak on his behalf. The friends said that Bryan was desperate to talk to Gina and was willing to do whatever it took to make things right between them. Gina had done her best to not blame the messengers. They had been duped by Bryan, just as she had been duped. From them, she learned that Bryan said the Australian shoot was going well, even though he claimed to be desperately upset about not being able to communicate with her.

  “It’s one of those things,” Gina had told the two callers and had pretended that she might get in touch with Bryan.

  But that wasn’t going to happen. The ache in her heart notwithstanding, Bryan was out of her life. It had all happened for the best. Or at least that’s what she tried to tell herself. Arbalest and searching out Angus’s killer was taking up every waking minute of every day. Had she not broken up with Bryan, it was possible the stronger sense of her connection with him might have subdued her personal jihad to avenge the murder of Angus. So without Bryan now, there were no excuses to keep her from focusing in.

  Gina trudged down to her car. Her shadow today was Steve. She was glad he wasn’t a talkative sort. Gina felt all talked out.

  It had been a grey day in Spanish Trace; the clouds had never lifted, but instead had sat heavily along the coast. The haze had seemed to infect her entire team. Or maybe it was just the string of long days.

  There had been one piece of good news, though. Gina’s doctor had said it was likely her walking cast could come off in the next few days. If that was the case, she would start the depositions unencumbered. She even visualized herself wearing heels. No, she decided, not heels but boots, as in Nancy Sinatra. The kind of boots made for walking all over the opposition.

  “Thanks, Steve,” she said.

  “Will you be stopping for food, Ms. Romano?”

  “No, I’ll be going straight home tonight.”

  “I’ll follow you there,” he said.

  Dinner would be canned soup, thought Gina, followed by sleep.

  During the drive to her home, Gina used her car’s voice command system to call Deke’s cell. She knew he was in the middle of his DuPont trial and was surprised to hear how animated he sounded on the phone.

  “Good day?” asked Gina.

  “Great day,” said Deke. “DuPont’s lawyers have been trying to do their three monkeys imitation—‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’—but today those monkeys came home to roost.”

  Gina didn’t bother telling Deke he was mixing his metaphors. When he got excited, Deke tended to do that.

  “After DuPont’s lawyers said that no one at the company was aware of the toxicity of perfluorooctanoic acid—or C-8, as it’s internally called—” Deke told her, “I paraded three former employees in front of the jury. They all testified that the dangers of C-8 were well-known inside the c
ompany, and in fact it was considered so toxic that DuPont’s managers warned their employees that C-8 was shown to cause cancer.”

  Even though there was no jury in the vicinity to hear him, Deke’s voice was becoming loud with indignation. “Before this trial is over, I’m hoping to get my hands on one of those memos that went around warning employees about the poison in the local water supply. I know that memo is squirreled away somewhere. But even if it doesn’t turn up, I’ve got plenty to work with. You know the game; their lawyers are doing the Nuremberg thing of “I know nothing,” and then day after day we’re coming in right behind them showing what DuPont knew and when they knew it. I just wish we had been able to bring this case ten years ago. Think of how much cancer could have been prevented.”

  “Better to look at it from the perspective of how much cancer you are preventing now,” Gina said.

  “Isn’t that the truth?” he said. “Now that the world knows about the hazards of C-8, there’s another interesting development. Prosecutors in the Netherlands are taking a look at DuPont’s pollution in their backyard. They’ve been sitting in court watching the death tolls mount from C-8 exposure.”

  “It sounds like you might be inflicting more than a little pain,” she said. “But I recall a certain lawyer who once warned me, ‘When you’re trying to wrestle big bulls to the ground, you better watch out for their horns.’”

  “Whoever told you that was one smart cowboy.”

  “Speaking of which,” Gina said, “there’s been a new development in our case. Kendrick Strahan was found hanging from a rope.”

  “He was the dirty lobbyist who worked for Arbalest, right?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “I get the feeling you don’t think he killed himself.”

  “He worked for the Gun Safety Institute, and you’re telling me he suddenly developed a conscience?”

  “GSI is not exactly Habitat for Humanity.”

  “No, they’re not.”

  “You think this has a tie-in with our situation?”

  “That thought crossed my mind.”

  “Are you getting closer to finding our person or persons?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “Of course, now that Strahan is dead there’s one less individual on my list.”

  “Before we proceed, we’ll need to be one hundred percent certain.”

  “That’s my feeling as well.”

  “Great minds think alike,” said Deke.

  Gina didn’t tell him that twisted minds thought alike as well.

  29

  MISSING THE TARGET, HITTING THE TARGET

  On a sunny Tuesday at just after nine in the morning, Gina, Bennie, Cara, Ned, Carol, Rachel, and two additional paralegals landed at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Two drivers in large SUVs were waiting for the Bergman-Deketomis contingent. The first deposition was scheduled for ten o’clock.

  Half an hour later, the SUVs pulled up in front of a modern, blue-colored glass skyscraper that was across from Chicago’s lakefront. An express elevator took the group up to the thirty-third floor. Gina’s walking cast had been removed the day before, and it felt like a weight had been lifted from her. Her limp was almost undetectable and her dressy pants outfit hid the temporary atrophy that had developed in her leg.

  One of Madsen-Zimmer’s male paralegals came out of his office to greet them, as well as to provide an escort. He bypassed Gina and Carol in order to shake Ned Williams’ hand first, assuming he was lead counsel.

  The reception area showcased Madsen-Zimmer’s spectacular view. Grant Park, with its many fountains and huge plaza was in the foreground, and Lake Michigan offered a huge blue backdrop. Gina liked the exterior view much more than the interior one. Madsen-Zimmer showcased the firm’s success with ultramodern furniture made up mostly of stainless steel and glass. Everything was sleek, geometric, and cold; that coldness extended throughout the interior, even to the artwork. There were no paintings of sunrises or sunsets and no portraits of individuals. Instead, there were modern takes on city skylines and displays of buildings at night with a few lit offices—black and white images of anonymity amidst the masses.

  The paralegal escorted them to a conference room where an I.T. team was already waiting. The room was set up with digital video cameras and a screen. A stenographer and videographer were both tending to their equipment in preparation for the proceedings. Bottled water, coffee, and soft drinks were available at a table near the door.

  As if magically summoned, the Madsen-Zimmer legal team showed itself. In a game of numbers, they easily could have claimed victory. This time, Zack Templeton merely wooed Gina with his eyes, but didn’t get too close; the nickname of “Quick Draw” was clearly something he didn’t want known. Charles Zimmer was among the lawyers. Gina resisted asking him if he was still working to keep bank executives from spending any time in jail. Zimmer pretended to be an avuncular sort, putting his arm around Gina and telling her a few stories of the interior design costs associated with his firm’s new digs.

  “You’ll have to show me your etchings another time,” said Gina, slipping out of his patronizing arm. “But since we’re working with a seven-hour time clock that I assume is already ticking, I think we had better proceed. Is your team ready to go?”

  Each of the law firms had agreed to a seven-hour deposition window for the first two days. Gina’s pushing along the proceedings wasn’t merely an opening gambit; she wanted the maximum amount of time to ask questions. The game clock wasn’t going to beat her. On too many occasions, she’d seen other lawyers beginning to get to the heart of the matter just as their time ran out.

  Both law firms took up positions on the opposite sides of a steel conference table polished to a high gloss. Gina made sure to take her seat directly across from Paul Long, the morning’s first witness. Long’s lips were already dry; he kept nervously licking them without effect. And while he was being sworn in, he did a lot more licking.

  Gina pulled some paperwork from a thick file and placed it on the table. As Cara had promised, the Cary Jones affidavit had made for compelling reading, but what was even more germane to their case was the paperwork provided by Diaz and Marcus that showed Arbalest was aware of what happened to the soldier all the while they continued to pretend there were no problems with Sight-Clops.

  “Do you recognize the name of Private Cary Jones?” Gina asked.

  “No.”

  “What about Officer Kim Knudsen?”

  Long shook his head, and Gina asked him to respond verbally. “No, I never heard that name,” he said.

  Gina held up copies of Merle Marcus’s emailed documents and signaled the AV guy to show the exhibits on the large video screen set up in the room. “Were you aware that Arbalest had in their possession the files of both individuals I just asked you about as part of their internal investigation of Sight-Clops?”

  Zimmer objected. “We are unaware of those documents you are referring to and question their validity.”

  “First of all, Mr. Zimmer, I didn’t ask you that question. I asked your witness. Secondly, if you believe that you are going to make obstructionist objections and comments throughout this deposition, then we should go ahead and get the judge on the phone right now. You know the rules. I ask questions, you object if you want, and the judge rules later on whether to strike the question. So, I’ll ask the witness again: Mr. Long, did you know the document you now have in front of you was in the possession of Arbalest?”

  “I know nothing about this document. No one has ever shown it to me.”

  “Mr. Long, just to be clear, no one at Arbalest ever told you that we had requested this exact document in discovery and that we were told it never existed? Is this the first time you’ve heard that?”

  “Objection!” Zimmer was on the edge of shouting. Gina noticed his red face and early hints of a sweaty brow and knew she had a fun day ahead.

  “Mr. Long, since you have never seen this document, did anyone at Arbalest share wi
th you what is written on page ten there on the screen. . . . Let’s read it together: ‘There have been a number of reports from the field that show that under certain conditions Sight-Clops has failed to perform as expected.’

  “Is that the first time you have seen those words, Mr. Long?”

  “Yes it is, but just like everyone else who worked on Sight-Clops, I have total faith in the product, and I’m proud to be an Arbalest employee. We always operate at the best of our ability.”

  Neither Long’s body language, nor his words, came across as convincing. He had clearly been coached to parrot company PR pabulum.

  “And since you are a proud employee,” said Gina, “what is it that you do at Arbalest?”

  “I’m an engineer,” he said.

  “Then you would know of a former employee named Robert Diaz, correct?”

  “Yes,” Long said.

  “Did Mr. Diaz ever bring up with you his suspicions that Sight-Clops had serious flaws?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “So you may have discussed that?”

  “We discussed Arbalest products as part of our job. I can’t be expected to remember every conversation I ever had.”

  “I am not asking you to remember every conversation you ever had, Mr. Long,” said Gina. “But I am asking you to recall one particular conversation. Were you at the meeting which took place last October ninth in the Arbalest second-floor conference room where Mr. Diaz brought up his concerns about Sight-Clops and was subsequently fired?”

  “Yes, I was there.”

  “Was the owner of Arbalest, Tim Knapp, also there?”

  Zimmer knew what was coming. “Ms. Romano, I may need to take a quick break at this time.”

  Gina fired back, “No, the only breaks we will take are the ones set out in the agreed order. That’s about an hour and a half from now. Otherwise, I will ask the court reporter to get the judge on the phone and I will make an argument that your conduct has moved from protecting your witness to witness tampering. Now Mr. Long, was Tim Knapp at that meeting? Yes or no.”