by David Ellis
“So, Senator Grant Tully has the information in hand. He knows he has the ability to knock his opponent off the ballot. So what does Grant Tully do with this information? He consults with Jon Soliday and they come to a conclusion. They decide to do nothing. Nothing. They decide it would be wrong to knock off a gubernatorial candidate on a technicality. They could have. Nothing could have stopped them. But they don’t. And they tell Dale Garrison that. They tell him the information is going nowhere.”
This is more than a stretch but it’s relatively harmless.
“But the story doesn’t end there, Your Honor. Because Dale Garrison still has the information. And what does he do?” Ben returns to the table and picks up the extortion letter. “He seeks out the Republican candidate for governor, Langdon Trotter. The man whose nominating petitions are insufficient.” Bennett opens his hands. “He tells Langdon Trotter that he and he alone knows of this mistake. And for a nice quarter of a million dollars, the ‘secret that nobody knows’ will remain a secret. Or else he can always tell the senator—Senator Tully.”
The judge has shuffled through her papers and is reading the blackmail note now.
“Dale Garrison was extorting the Attorney General. Give me two hundred and fifty thousand dollars or I’ll tell Senator Tully about your defective statement of candidacy. But money never completely silences someone, does it? There could be more demands for money. The only way to really silence a blackmailer is to kill him.”
The noise from behind is not murmuring so much as a collective gasp. The judge is frozen in attention. During this trial and beforehand, she had warned both sides about making explosive accusations. The fact that the judge is not stepping in means that things are making sense to her. Besides, if this is what we intend to prove, how can she keep us from arguing it?
“This is where the information from 1979 comes in handy,” Ben says. “Lyle Cosgrove was recently released from prison. He’s a violent career criminal. And he’s penniless. He makes minimum wage at a pharmacy. Attorney General Trotter comes to him and offers him money to kill an elderly man who won’t put up a fight. He takes it. He doesn’t know why he’s been picked. There are plenty of ex-cons who could have recommended him. All Lyle Cosgrove knows is that he’s spent years and years in prison, he doesn’t want to go back, and when the chief law enforcement officer of the state says to do something, he’ll do it. Especially for ten thousand dollars.”
The last comment catches the judge’s attention most of all. The rest of this could appear to be speculative, but the mention of a concrete amount of money tells the judge we have evidence.
Bennett nods with satisfaction. “Langdon Trotter was very deliberate in picking Lyle Cosgrove as the killer. Because if the evidence ever pointed to Lyle Cosgrove, it would eventually point back to 1979, too, and embarrass his rival for the governor’s seat.” Bennett holds out two fingers. “Two birds with one stone. The blackmailer’s out of the way and his election opponent gets smeared.”
Bennett flaps his arms. “It was easy to set up. First, he makes a copy of the blackmail letter and he sends it to Jon. So it will be in Jon’s possession beforehand. Then he begins his plan. The Attorney General is not without his resources. He finds out Dale Garrison is set to meet with Jon Soliday on a Thursday for lunch. The Attorney General has that appointment changed to Friday, August eighteenth, at seven in the evening. How does he do that? Simple. He calls Garrison’s secretary, Sheila Paul, pretending to be from Jon’s office, and reschedules. Then he calls Jon’s secretary and pulls the same stunt. Neither Dale Garrison nor Jon Soliday changed the appointment. Each of them thinks the other one did.”
The judge purses her lips. We might be gaining some ground here.
“On the day of Dale Garrison’s death—Friday, August eighteenth—Lyle Cosgrove, at the direction of the Attorney General, steals a cellular telephone from a woman named Joanne Souter. He needs an untraceable phone. Cosgrove hides in Dale Garrison’s office that night, some time after five and before seven. As Sheila Paul, Mr. Garrison’s secretary, testified, someone could easily walk into that office without Dale Garrison knowing about it.”
I look at the judge, the most important person in the courtroom. She is not pleased. I don’t think it is from disbelief—I hope it isn’t. This case is getting bigger and bigger. Both candidates for the state’s highest office are implicated to some extent in this case; one of them is being accused of murder. That means more headlines. A spotlight. Nicole Bridges is a relatively new trial judge who, like almost every judge in the state, would like someday to occupy the court of appeals, maybe even get an appointment to the federal bench. This case can do nothing to assist her. If she does a perfect job on rulings and flawlessly conducts this trial, she will receive few accolades. On the other hand, if anything goes even slightly amiss, it could all fall on her. Particularly if there is the appearance that things are out of control. That’s the worst thing that can be said about a judge. And here we are, throwing out inflammatory accusations that may not be proven. There’s not a lot she can do. We are entitled to predict the evidence. But the more she hears, the uglier the downside for her.
Which leads me to another thought. If she acquits me, there will be no appellate review of this trial. She says “not guilty” and the proceedings stop right there. If she convicts me, the appeals court might criticize her, and there would be stories about that as well. Things will go easier for her with an acquittal. I wonder if that has entered her mind, as well.
“So Cosgrove hides in the office and he waits,” Ben continues. “He waits for Jon Soliday to arrive and leave. Then he kills Dale Garrison. First things first. He strangles Dale Garrison. It couldn’t have been very hard. He does what he’s told by the Attorney General. Besides, Cosgrove always blamed Mr. Garrison for not providing an adequate defense when he was convicted in 1988. Sure, he’s happy to do it.”
Bennett wags a finger. “After the killing, which wouldn’t have taken more than a few minutes, Cosgrove uses the phone he stole and calls Jon Soliday. Jon couldn’t have gotten far. Couple blocks, at most. And he tells Jon to return to the office. Continue the discussion. Jon will tell you, when he testifies, that the reception was bad, cell phone to cell phone. He couldn’t hear very well. So what does Jon know? He has no reason to be suspicious at this point. He thinks Dale Garrison has called him, so he goes back to the office.”
Bennett strolls a moment. He likes to break up his oration.
“Lyle Cosgrove leaves the building before Jon comes back. And when Jon returns to the office, Dale is in the same place he was when Jon left. At his desk. Only this time, his head is on his desk. Now, what does Jon think, when he initially sees Mr. Garrison—in the first two, three seconds he sees Mr. Garrison? He thinks that a seventy-year-old man, frail from cancer, at past seven o’clock at the end of a long week, may have fallen asleep.” Bennett shrugs. “That’s what he thinks. But almost as soon as he has arrived, Mr. Hornowski, the security guard, comes down the hallway. And after they look at Mr. Garrison a moment—about ten seconds, Mr. Hornowski said—they realize something might be amiss. Jon”—Bennett opens a hand toward me—“Jon attempts to resuscitate his colleague. He tries mouth-to-mouth, everything, to bring Dale Garrison back. He tried to save his life. He didn’t kill him.”
Bennett moves toward the judge. “But it sure looks bad, doesn’t it? Being in the same office with the deceased? That’s why Langdon Trotter set it up that way. And now he has his opponent’s top aide on trial for murder. The Attorney General kills the blackmailer and assists his campaign effort, in one blow. Perfect. Or I should say, almost perfect. There is one person who can still spoil this plan. Lyle Cosgrove. Who now has conveniently turned up dead.”
Bennett places his hands together, as if in prayer. The analogy may be apt. “Your Honor, Jon Soliday did not kill Dale Garrison.”
Ben takes a seat and reaches for the water again. Erica Johannsen rises. “Your Honor—so much—Mr. Carey has thrown ou
t so many allegations here. This is all new. I respectfully request a continuance.”
From his chair, Ben says, “There’s nothing here that requires notice to the other side, Your Honor. There’s no alibi. There are no new witnesses. Langdon Trotter is on our list. And frankly, I find the whole notion of surprise a little disingenuous. They’ve had this memorandum about the Attorney General’s nominating papers all along. If they chose not to investigate that, at best it is negligence. At worst, it’s something else.”
“Mr. Carey—” the judge starts.
“There’s no surprise, Your Honor. Nothing unfair whatsoever. We’re not required to disclose our theory of the case.”
“We’re going to recess for a half hour,” the judge says. “At which time, Mr. Carey, you may call your first witness.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
“And Mr. Carey?” the judge adds. “Nothing you have said in your opening statement is evidence. I expect you to back up each statement with facts.”
“Of course, Judge,” Ben says. He looks at me, each of us wondering if we’ll be able to accomplish that.
55
“THE DEFENSE CALLS Senator Grant Tully.”
I hear the faint repetition of the name from the back of the courtroom—the bailiff or some court officer, hollering out into the hallway. I turn back to look. The courtroom has about a dozen members of the press there.
Grant Tully has been inside this building for two hours. He didn’t want to arrive to a flurry of reporters who had heard Bennett’s opening statement. That’s what they expected. Instead, he came into the building through the private judges’ entrance with one of the jurists he helped put on the bench. Then he stayed in the office of the county recorder, a political patronage office, someone who’s a good friend of the senator, on the eleventh floor.
Grant Tully looks like he always does—pretty much an ordinary person. He is handsome and youthful but, probably because of his age, he doesn’t reek of power like some of the silver-haired old-schoolers. This is a good thing for me. He makes a good, subdued appearance. The judge gives Grant his due, making a point of saying “good afternoon” to the senator and wearing a respectful expression. This judge didn’t get elected with Grant’s help, but Grant Tully could still make plenty of trouble for her if he were so inclined. He could talk to the chief judge of the circuit courts, who assigns judges to courtrooms. Judge Bridges could find herself in night narcotics court if the right person wanted it that way.
Bennett takes the senator through some warm-ups—name, rank, and serial number. “I realize you’re in the midst of a campaign,” says Ben. “So why don’t we just get right to it?”
Grant is wearing his public face. This is going to be painful but he’ll handle it.
“June of 1979,” says Bennett. “You and Jon Soliday are seventeen years old.”
“That’s correct.”
“You and Jon went to a party.”
“That’s correct.”
“You go to a town in Summit County, across the state line.”
“That’s correct.”
“Did you meet some people at the party?”
“Yes. We met someone named Lyle, someone named Rick, and someone named Gina.”
“Last names?” asks Ben.
“I didn’t get their last names,” he says.
“Is the ‘Lyle’ you mentioned someone named Lyle Cosgrove?”
“I don’t know. It certainly could be.”
Bennett will not elaborate on Rick—who we now know is Brian O’Shea, the man who broke into Ben’s home. He didn’t mention Rick’s true identity in the opening statement, either. It’s beyond what we need to show, and there are enough things already that we probably won’t be able to establish.
“All right,” says Ben. “Now, at the end of the night, Senator, did you leave that party?”
“Yes.”
“With whom did you leave?”
“I left with Rick, I believe. It’s been a long time.” Grant was not too pleased to hear that Rick’s name emerged in this case. But there was little that could be done.
“You left with Rick?” asks Ben. “Or Lyle?” He seems confused a moment. He’s had to digest a lot of information about 1979 in a short time.
“I left with Rick,” says Grant.
“You’re sure about that? You remember leaving with Rick in your car?”
“I do remember that. As well as one can remember something like that so long ago.”
“Okay.” Ben delivers the next question quietly. “You’d been drinking.”
“Yes, I had. I had drunk beer.”
“But not Rick.”
“No.”
“So Rick drove you home.”
“Right.”
Voters are far beyond the shock value of a seventeen-year-old drinking some beers. It makes us look forthcoming without hurting Grant. There could be plenty else to damage him.
“What about the others?” Ben asks. “Gina and Lyle and Jon?”
“They left separately.”
“Why didn’t you leave with Jon?”
“It was my understanding that the young lady had asked Jon to her house.”
“Gina Mason, you mean?”
“Gina, yes.”
“Who told you that? That Gina wanted Jon to visit her at her house?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Carey. One of the other boys. Lyle or Rick.”
“And then what happened?”
Grant shrugs. “I went home.”
“So, just to be clear here, Senator. You and Rick took your car. Jon and Lyle took Lyle’s car. Gina had already gone home before you all.”
“That’s correct.”
“But Gina had invited Jon to her house.”
“Yes.”
“All right. Now, did you come to learn that the young lady, Gina Mason, had died that night?”
“I did learn that. I was very sorry to hear that, obviously.”
“Did you speak with the police about that incident?”
“I spoke with someone at the investigator’s office. Yes.”
“All right. Do you happen to know whether Mr. Cosgrove was questioned?”
“I understand that he was.”
“Do you know whether Mr. Cosgrove had a lawyer?”
“Yes. Mr. Cosgrove—the Lyle I knew—had a lawyer. Dale Garrison.”
“How did he come to retain Dale Garrison?”
“He asked me if I could recommend someone. I gave him Dale’s name.”
“Senator, what was your state of mind at this time? Did you have a belief as to Jon’s guilt or innocence?”
Grant slices the air with a hand. “I wasn’t there, so I didn’t know. But I believed, number one, that Jon Soliday was my best friend and someone I trusted and respected. And someone who could never commit an act of violence like that. Never. And number two, I was aware that he was highly intoxicated. Even still, I didn’t think he would do something like what they were investigating. I didn’t. I still don’t.”
“Senator, you’re aware of this supposed blackmail note.”
“I am.”
“Okay,” says Ben. “Senator, let’s get something out of the way. Let me show you this exhibit.” Ben leaves the lectern and grabs the blackmail note, then hands the copies to the judge and the witness. “Please read this over to yourself.”
Grant complies.
“Now, Senator—you’re aware of this letter.”
“Yes, vaguely.”
“Let me ask you, sir. Is it possible that this blackmail pertains to what happened in 1979?” Ben takes a step. “I mean, is it possible that Dale Garrison was threatening Jon to tell you something about 1979 that you didn’t already know? A secret?”
“Objection,” says the prosecutor. “Speculative.”
“Sustained.”
“The letter mentions the ‘senator,’ Your Honor.”
“That doesn’t make your question any less speculative, Counsel,” sa
ys Judge Bridges. “Move on.”
Bennett is stuck a moment. He composes himself, reaching for an appropriate question.
“Senator, we know that Mr. Garrison was Lyle Cosgrove’s lawyer back in 1979.”
“Yes, we do.”
“Okay. Is it possible, Senator, that Mr. Garrison was threatening to tell you that Jon was in fact guilty of a crime back in 1979?”
“Objection.” Erica Johannsen is on her feet. “Calls for speculation.”
“No, it does not,” Ben answers quickly. “I think the senator’s answer will show that.”
“I’ll strike the answer if it is speculative.” The judge nods to Grant. “Senator.”
Grant nods backs at the judge, then fixes on Bennett again. “There is nothing about 1979 that hasn’t already been discussed by Jon, and Dale, and myself. All of us know that there is a minute possibility that something occurred there, between Jon and that young lady—given Jon’s intoxication. A very minute possibility. But all of us believe that Jon did nothing wrong.”
That conversation never occurred. Grant is covering for me.
“But, Senator,” says Ben, “couldn’t that be the point? You didn’t think he was guilty of anything, but maybe Dale knew something different?”
“Dale knew very well that I had no interest in dredging up the past. I made it very clear to him and to Jon that what happened in the past should stay there. Dale knew very well that I wouldn’t discuss the topic. Jon knew that, too. There was no threat.”
That’s not true, either, but it’s not far off. And no one will contradict the testimony.
“Well, Senator, is it possible that Dale was simply threatening to expose the fact that you were involved, however tangentially? I mean, it’s not the most pleasant topic in the world. And you are running for governor. Is it possible that Dale was going to spill the fact that there was an incident in the past in which a young woman died—maybe a rape/murder—and you and Jon Soliday were near it in some way? Just guilt by association?”