by Michael Kahn
“How much could you bench press back then? Two hundred pounds?”
Jacki gave him a demure smile. “Actually, Your Honor, three hundred and twenty pounds.”
“Whoa!” Flinch applauded. “What a gal. Well, Counsel, I am ready to rule.”
“Your Honor,” Crane said. “Opposing Counsel’s motion has blown this matter way out of proportion. No matter how much they try to puff this up, this is a minor dispute.”
“Minor?” Flinch said, eyebrows raised in disbelief. “If this is so minor, why did you bring all those lawyers with you. Hell, you outnumber the womenfolk here two to one. Four lawyers, and now you claim it’s no big deal?”
He chuckled and turned to us. “You know why the lawyers in Mr. Crane’s firm are like wolves? They travel in packs.”
He looked up at the three lawyers standing behind Crane and gestured toward the door.
“Speaking of which, would one of you los lobos go out there and call in my clerk?”
The youngest of Crane’s associates stepped outside and returned a moment later with the judge’s docket clerk, a middle-aged black woman.
“Lucinda,” Judge Flinch said. “Today is Tuesday. Block out this Thursday and Friday for a two-day evidentiary hearing on this emergency motion for—” he reached for the motion papers and frowned at them “—rule to show cause and so on and so forth. And notify the boys and girls down in the press room that it’s open season for the media.”
He turned back to us. “See you folks on Thursday at ten a.m. sharp. Be sure to dress pretty for the cameras.”
Chapter Forty-seven
I assumed Rob Crane and Ken Rubenstein would take the gamble, despite the considerable risks.
And they did.
I hoped they would lose.
And they did.
The official time of defeat—according to the time stamp on the two-sentence per curiam opinion faxed over from the Missouri Court of Appeals the following afternoon—was 1:37 p.m. The ruling denied Ruby Productions’ emergency petition seeking a reversal of Judge Flinch’s order granting a hearing on my motion or, in the alternative, seeking a reversal of Judge Flinch’s order opening his courtroom to all media. In plain English, the Court of Appeals ruled that the hearing could proceed on Thursday with full media access.
What made the gamble so risky for Crane and Rubenstein is that any effort to gag the press not only heightens its interest in the dispute but elevates the story’s significance in the reporters’ minds. Nothing is more important to the press than a story about an attempt to muzzle the press—as evidenced by the flurry of media coverage generated in response to Crane’s efforts. He had filed the emergency appeal Tuesday afternoon. We were the lead story on all local TV stations Tuesday night. By Wednesday morning, attorneys for two local TV stations had intervened in the appeal.
If Crane had won his gamble—i.e., if he had prevailed in the court of appeals—the story would have faded quickly, along with whatever leverage I had. But the denial of his petition transformed the upcoming hearing, at least in the eyes off the press, into the biggest Missouri court battle since the Dred Scott case. It was, by any measure, a public relations catastrophe for Crane and his client. Indeed, Judge Flinch’s docket clerk notified the parties Wednesday afternoon that she’d received inquires from representatives of the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and, of course, all of the local TV news shows.
I suspected that the publicity nightmare posed by the upcoming hearing would be the least of the concerns for Ruby Productions and its attorney. Although I still hadn’t been able to fit all the pieces together, the pattern that had emerged from the connections among Ruby Productions, Corundum Construction, and the various city officials certainly resembled a criminal scheme. And if Milton Bornstein’s experience was typical of the city officials, the list of co-conspirators included Rob Crane. And if that was so, then Rubenstein and his attorney had good reason to be flustered.
My first call from Crane came on Wednesday at eleven-thirty—almost two hours before the Court of Appeals ruled on his petition. The timing didn’t surprise me. Crane’s firm was wired into the system, which meant that someone at the Court had tipped him off. He said his client was prepared to settle the dispute by filing a stipulation in court that there had been no breach of the settlement agreement and, further, by agreeing to reimburse the plaintiffs for all legal fees and costs incurred in connection with the proceedings. I turned him down and replaced the receiver as he was trying to convince me to discuss the offer. He called back five minutes later. I had my secretary tell him I was busy.
And I was.
Jacki and I had been preparing for Thursday’s hearing ever since returning from Judge Flinch’s chambers on Tuesday. Benny taught two classes on Wednesday morning but came by after lunch to help us out. By the time he arrived, we’d sent off the last of our process servers with subpoenas and were in the process of selecting which of the exhibits needed to be added to the big-screen presentation for the judge (and the TV cameras).
I’d placed a takeout lunch order with Adriana’s on the Hill—an assortment of her Italian meatball and salsiccia sandwiches and a triple order of her homemade eggplant caponata. By the time Dorian returned with the order, we had received the fax from the Court of Appeals announcing the decision denying Crane’s emergency petition. High fives all around.
Thirty minutes later we were in the conference room finishing our lunches and going over hearing strategies when my secretary cleared her throat. I looked up. She was standing in the conference room doorway.
“Rob Crane,” she said.
“Again?”
She help up her hands. “He says it’s urgent.”
“Tell him I’m at lunch, Dorian.”
“No,” Benny said. “Take it.”
“Why?”
“Think about it, Rachel. Tomorrow’s hearing is your hearing. That means you’re the only one with the power to stop it. No one knows that better than Crane. He and his client are strapped inside the Flinch Flyer, a/k/a the Roller Coaster from Hell. If they’re starting to shit bricks over their predicament, then this just might be the right time to lay a real demand on those bastards.”
I mulled it over and turned to Dorian. “Sometimes he’s right.”
She smiled. “Line two.”
I used a napkin to wipe my hands and mouth, picked up the receiver, and pressed the Line 2 connection.
“Yes, Rob.”
“My client wants to settle this dispute once and for all.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“I’m serious.”
“I’ve heard that line, too.”
“Jesus, Rachel.”
“Go ahead. Make it fast.”
“Number one: we will file a stipulation that there has been no breach of the settlement agreement. Number two: we will pay all fees and costs incurred in connection with this dispute. And number three: as a show of respect to your clients and a sign of our sincerity, we will make a payment of two-thousand dollars to each household in Brittany Woods.”
He paused.
I said nothing.
He said, “I think even you would have to admit that my client has made an extraordinarily generous offer to your clients. It covers every possible concern of yours.”
“Not quite.”
“For chrissake, Rachel, what else could you possibly want from us?”
“The real story of Nick Moran’s death.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“What are you talking about? Who is Nick Moran?”
“Ask your client.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I, Rob.”
I could hear him breathing on the other end.
“Nick Moran?” he said.
“Yes.”
“He’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“You think his death has some connection to your case?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. You made me a settlement offer, Rob. I rejected it. You asked me what else I wanted. I just told you.”
I paused and winked at Jacki.
“Rob,” I said, “if you want to play in the big leagues, then listen carefully. You get me what I want, and we’ll have a deal. And just so we’re clear, when I say I want the real story, that includes admissible evidence to verify it.”
“Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.”
I hung up.
Benny chuckled.
“What?” I said.
“You got some Kong-sized beitzim, woman.”
I shook my head. “We don’t have to go forward with the hearing tomorrow. This whole circus is for Nick and his sister. We’re just trying to get the prosecutors interested in these TIF scams in the hope that maybe they’ll stumble across Nick’s killer in the process. If we can get to that same result quicker this way, if we can find out the real story behind Nick’s death and turn it over to Bertie Tomaso without that hearing, that’s fine with me.”
“You think Crane knows anything about his death?” Jacki asked me.
“It didn’t sound like it.”
“So what do you expect him to do?” she said.
“I’m guessing he calls back in an hour to tell me that Nick Moran died of a drug overdose in Forest Park.”
“What do you say then?” Jacki asked.
“I repeat my settlement demand: I tell him I want the real story—not the one that was faked up for the cops.”
“Reality check,” Benny said. “How’s he going to get the real story?”
“If I’m right—if Corundum is somewhere in the background—then we get the answer by motivating the lawyer for Corundum.”
“How?” Jacki asked.
“Fear. We need to be able to tie Crane directly into this kickback scheme, and then we need to make sure he understands his predicament.”
“Can Bornstein do that?” Jacki said.
“In a heartbeat,” Benny said.
“Yes and no,” I said to Benny. “We promised him we wouldn’t use his name.”
“That’s okay,” Jacki said. “We’ll have all those other dirty city officials under subpoena for tomorrow.”
“Don’t count on it,” I said. “If those officials were really doing what we think they were doing, they’re going to be lawyered up by the time they get on the witness stand tomorrow. I’m guessing most of them will take the Fifth, and the rest will lie. For our sake, I’m hoping for the Fifth.”
“That’ll still make them look guilty as hell,” Jacki said.
“But not Crane,” I said. “That’s why we need to find an innocent city official. Someone who can tell the truth without fear of incriminating himself.”
Jacki frowned. “An innocent city official? What does that get us?”
Benny laughed. “Rachel is a genius.”
He turned to Jacki.
“You want to know what an innocent city official gets us? Rob Crane’s balls in a vise, that’s what, and Rob Crane’s balls in a vise might just get us the name of the killer.”
“Assuming he can find that out,” Jacki said.
I poked my head out of the conference room. “Dorian?”
She came around the corner. “Yes?”
“How are you doing with the contacts information?”
“I have home addresses and phones for most of them.”
“What about Cloverdale?”
She smiled. “All of them.”
“You’re awesome, Dorian. Bring in what you have and go home and get some rest. We’re going to have a long day tomorrow.”
I returned to the conference room.
I said, “Dorian found us home addresses and phone numbers for most of the aldermen and city council members who voted against these TIFs, including all of the Cloverdale no votes. We need to divide up the list and try to reach each of them tonight.”
Jacki was frowning. “I’m still lost. You want us to talk to city officials who voted against the proposed TIF in their town? The good guys?”
“Right,” I said.
“Why?”
“Remember Milt Bornstein’s story. He told us that Rob Crane was the go-between. Crane was the one who proposed the deal with Corundum. Bornstein wanted an in-ground swimming pool. He’d already priced them out. It would have cost him at least thirty thousand dollars. Crane told him that if he voted in favor of the TIF, he could get that same pool built for five grand.”
“Okay,” Jacki said, uncertainly.
“Now we need to find someone who got the same offer from Crane but said no. Someone who listened to the proposal and rejected it.”
Jacki frowned. “Crane wouldn’t be crazy enough to make those kickback offers blind.”
“I agree,” I said. “I’m sure he was careful. I’m sure he and Rubenstein sized up each council member and only approached the ones who seemed susceptible. And I’m sure he was careful to raise the subject in a subtle way to gauge the other party’s reaction before going any deeper. But no one is perfect. Maybe he misjudged one or two of them. If so, maybe we can find one who’d be willing to take the witness stand and describe the kickback offer. If we can do that, we’ll put that person’s name on our witness list and serve it on Crane. It’ll be his very own Sword of Damocles.”
Benny laughed. “I love it.”
Chapter Forty-eight
There were three television cameras in the crowded courtroom—one against the back wall and one along each side wall. I was at the counsel table to the left of the judicial bench with Jacki seated on my right, Benny on my left. At the other counsel table sat Rob Crane, Ken Rubenstein, and the three attorneys who had been in Judge Flinch’s chambers with Crane on Tuesday.
The gallery behind us was almost full, although many of the seats were occupied by reporters or subpoenaed witnesses—mostly city officials, mostly accompanied by attorneys, which suggested this would be a big day for the Fifth Amendment. The entire Cloverdale neighborhood steering committee sat in the first row on our side of the center aisle, along with Nick’s sister Susannah. The rows behind them on both sides of the aisle included a scattering of spectators mixed in with the press, witnesses, and lawyers.
Indeed, the only missing player in the courtroom was the judge himself. His order scheduling the hearing had stated “10 a.m. sharp,” and thus we’d all been in our seats and ready to begin at ten that morning. At 10:10, I’d checked with his docket clerk, who assured me that there was nothing else on his docket. Nevertheless, it was now 10:20 and still no sign of the Honorable Howard Flinch.
We’d gotten to the courthouse around eight that morning to set up our equipment, which was all in place by the time Crane and his entourage arrived at quarter to ten. Our equipment included a large flat-screen LCD monitor on a stand against the wall above the empty jury box, which was to my right and the judge’s left. The monitor was hooked up to a laptop computer on the table in front of Jacki.
I glanced over at the other table. Crane was jotting notes on his yellow legal pad. Ken Rubenstein was hunched over a crossword puzzle. The other three attorneys were seated motionless, each with a stack of papers in front of him on the table.
I studied Crane. Despite his macho façade, he had the slightly frayed look of someone who understands that he and his client were, in Benny’s words, strapped inside the Flinch Flyer. His emergency appeal had failed, and now he was back in the clutches of Missouri’s kookiest judge. Worse yet for Crane, the Court of Appeals’ denial of his emergency petition had surely emboldened a judge who didn’t need further emboldening.
As predicted, Crane had called me
late yesterday afternoon to tell me that he’d done some investigation and had learned that Nick Moran died of a heroin overdose. I told him that anyone doing a name search on Google could have come up with the same answer. I wanted the real story.
“The real story,” he’d repeated, exasperated. “That’s not just what some newspaper said. It’s what the police said.”
“I told you my terms, Rob. The real story.”
He didn’t call back that day, and we hadn’t spoken this morning.
I took out the typed list of names I’d prepared late last night. I showed it to Jacki and gestured toward Crane’s table. She nodded. I walked over to Crane. He look up from his notes. Rubenstein was still hard at work next to him, a stopwatch resting on the table near the half-completed puzzle.
I said, “Here’s a list of the witnesses we may call. We aren’t required to provide it to you, but I’m doing it as a professional courtesy.”
Crane frowned as he took the document from me. Rubenstein clicked the stopwatch and peered over Crane’s shoulder at the list.
I watched, trying to read Crane’s reaction as he skimmed down the list. Most of the names should not have surprised him. They were the witnesses he would have expected I might call. He’d probably heard from all of their lawyers already.
One name on the list might have been unfamiliar to him; however, if he called around during a break he would discover that Robert Early was a frequent expert witness in lawsuits over construction costs.
But the last name on the list—placed last for a reason—was Abraham Lincoln Johnson. It was a name that would have special meaning to Crane. It was a name that should send a wave of unease down his spine.
He glanced up at me and then turned around to survey the gallery. I guessed—hoped—he was looking for Abraham Lincoln Johnson. He wouldn’t find him. I’d told Abe not to come to Court until I telephoned.
“Do you have your witness list for me?” I asked, knowing Crane didn’t and not really caring, since I assumed his sole witness was the man seated next to him.
Crane turned back from the crowd and looked down the table at the other three attorneys, who were looking back at him uncertainly.