Guardian of Lies

by Steve Martini

  “It was nothing like that,” I tell him.

  “Right,” he says. “And your heart didn’t go pitty-pat either, I’ll bet. Well, if she met her lawyer that way you can figure she may have found men to do other things for her in the same way. Spread a little honey around and bees will come.”

  The blood drains from my head as I filter all the details. The cops showed up at our office door with my business card, the one they found in Katia’s purse when they arrested her. I had given it to her that morning at the grocery store in Del Mar. The police asked me if I was her lawyer, and if not, how she came by my card. I explained it to them, and they left.

  If the cops have been busy looking for a co-conspirator, it begs the question. Why have they never returned to ask me if I had an alibi for the night of the murders? My mind starts to race. Where the hell was I? I have a sudden compulsion to tear through the pages of my calendar. I can’t remember.

  Harry and I sit stone faced, staring at the Dwarf from across the desk.

  “You look surprised.” Although this is not directed at one of us in particular, Templeton seems to be looking at me as he says it.

  “Do I?”

  “Surely you didn’t think she did it alone?”

  “I don’t think she did it at all,” I tell him.

  Templeton ignores me. “She would have needed help to blank out the camera at the side of the house and to take down the motion sensors. You didn’t think we bought into the concept of coincidence, did you? Hell, she couldn’t possibly have carried all those coins herself. We got an estimate from a coin expert, just on the stuff we know is missing, and the weight would have been more than a hundred and forty pounds. That’s more than she weighs, and it doesn’t include the stuff she took, the coins she hocked along the way on her bus trip. No, there’s no question, somebody entered the house from that side, and they left the same way when they were finished.”

  This would, of course, explain what happened to the large cache of missing coins and Pike’s computer. According to the police, Katia’s co-conspirator has them.

  “And there’s a good chance that whoever it was set her up,” says Templeton.

  “What do you mean?” I say.

  “Well, think about it. He left with the lion’s share of the coins, and he avoided having his picture taken on the security cameras coming and going. You notice he sent her out through the front gate, right into one of the security cameras that was still working. Guess he figured somebody had to take the rap. So now he’s got most of the gold, and she’s left facing the death penalty, twisting in the wind, as you might say.”

  He allows this to settle on us like mustard gas.

  “Bullshit,” says Harry. “If what you’re saying is true, she’d be mad as hell. You don’t think she would have told us by now?”

  “Maybe there’s a reason for that,” says Templeton.

  “What?” says Harry.

  “I don’t know. Mr. Hinds, maybe you should talk to your client. You are, of course, free to make of this evidence whatever you can in her defense. Personally, I don’t think it will make a difference,” says Templeton.

  “Spare us your heartfelt assessment of our case,” says Harry.

  “Of course, but there is one more item, the reason I asked you to come over here today. A bit of a wrinkle that’s developed.”

  “What wrinkle?” I say.

  “Do I have your word that what I’m about to say doesn’t leave this room?”

  I look at Harry. He nods. “Go ahead.”

  “It better be good,” says Harry.

  “Ordinarily I’d let you flounder for a few weeks, push and shove over the items in dispute. I could leave you with the illusion that they’ve simply been misplaced. But that would be deceptive.”

  “And, of course, you’d never do that,” says Harry.

  “Never,” says Templeton.

  “You’re talking about the missing photographs?” says Harry.

  “Six of them, I believe. They were taken from your client and inventoried when she was arrested.”

  “Where are they?” I ask.

  “That’s the problem.”

  “Don’t tell me they’ve been destroyed,” I say.

  “No, at least not as far as we know.”

  “What do you mean as far as you know? Listen,” says Harry, “either deliver them up or tell us where they are.”

  “That’s the problem. I can’t.”

  “Why not?” I say.

  “I can’t tell you that either. What I can tell you is that you would be wise to take the matter into court at your earliest opportunity. File a Brady motion. I won’t oppose it. Give you my word. Get a ruling from the court if you can.”

  Brady v. Maryland is the seminal case in criminal discovery. Under the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the government is required to deliver to the defense any and all exculpatory evidence. Even if the evidence by itself may not prove innocence, if it tends in that direction the state must turn it over.

  “Personally, I think the photos are probably irrelevant and immaterial,” says Templeton. “It’s hard to see how you could fashion a defense around six photographs. Of course, I don’t know what the photos represent. Maybe you could enlighten me,” he says.

  “Last time I looked, Brady is a one-way street,” says Harry. “We don’t have to truck information in your direction.”

  “I just thought as long as we were sharing things,” says Templeton. “And, of course, as far as I’m concerned you’re entitled to look at the photographs.”

  “But you can’t just give them to us?”

  “Sorry,” he says.

  “I don’t get it,” I tell him. “If you think the photos are immaterial, why wouldn’t you oppose a Brady motion?”

  “File it and find out,” says Templeton. “That’s all I can tell you. You won’t get the photographs any other way.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Anyone familiar with such things might have been skeptical, but Nitikin knew that regardless of the passage of time, more than forty years, the device itself was virtually pristine.

  The reason for this was the manner in which it was stored. Soviet physicists had long known that the greatest threat of deterioration to a gun-type nuclear device would be from oxidation and corrosion of the metal parts, and degradation of weapons-grade uranium if it were subjected to oxygen and hydrogen in the atmosphere for long periods.

  Corrosion resulted from the close proximity of highly enriched uranium and ferrous metals, in this case tungsten carbide steel. Separate the uranium from the steel, and store each of them properly, in the case of uranium in a vacuum-sealed container, avoiding moisture and humidity, and the shelf life for a weapon of this kind would be extended geometrically, almost indefinitely.

  The two subcritical elements of uranium, the projectile and the four concentric rings of the target, had been machined to precision and stored in their separate sealed lead-contained vaults while the weapon was still in the Soviet Union, before it had ever been shipped to Cuba. They had never been removed.

  Nitikin had never even seen them, but he knew they were there from the periodic Geiger readings he took through the test vents in each of the lead cases. From these readings he knew that the two separated elements of weapons-grade uranium, the target and the projectile, neither of which alone possessed critical mass sufficient to cause a chain reaction, would, when combined under pressure at the proper velocity down the gun barrel, result in a massive chain-reaction detonation.

  If it worked properly, the entire sequence, from detonation of the cordite initiator launching the uranium bullet down the barrel, to the flash of light hotter and more brilliant than the core of the sun, would take but the barest fraction of a second.

  The parts were relatively easy to assemble as long as you had the proper tools, protective gear, and, most important, a deft touch with the tongs needed to position each of the elements while they were bolted or fitted into place.

&nb
sp; For Nitikin it was this last part that had become the problem. He had developed a slight palsy in his hands. Over the past few years it had worsened. He knew that he could no longer manipulate the metal tongs either to load the gun with the subcritical uranium projectile or to fasten the uranium target rings to the tungsten carbide tamper at the muzzle end of the barrel.

  Nitikin had told no one about this, least of all Alim or any of his cadre. He was afraid of what they might do if they knew, not for himself, but for Maricela, his daughter.

  Nitikin, at least in his mind if not his heart, remained the staunch warrior. But he knew that Maricela was afraid, fearful of what was happening. He kept the details from her for her own safety. But she was not stupid. How much she knew, he couldn’t be sure. He told her not to ask any questions and to remain out of sight as much as possible.

  She had asked him to leave with her on her last trip, to go back to Costa Rica and to live with her and her children there. For Nitikin it was strange. For the first time in recent memory, he actually wanted to go. But by then it was too late. Alim and his men had arrived with money for the FARC rebels and funds for the cartel in Mexico. Alim knew about the device. Nitikin was trapped.

  For himself he did not care. Living and hiding with the bomb had been the purpose of his life for so many years that it no longer mattered. But he loved Maricela and did not want her harmed.

  He had stalled for time, hoping Alim would allow her to leave, to go back home to her family. Twice he had asked Alim to permit men from the FARC whom he trusted to see her home safely and twice Alim had put him off. Nitikin had already told Maricela that if they permitted her to go, she was never to return to visit him again, under any circumstance. Though the thought crushed his heart, he would say good-bye to his daughter and never lay eyes on her again in this life. Yakov Nitikin knew he was a dead man. If age did not take him soon, Alim would, the moment his usefulness ended and his knowledge became a burden.

  TWENTY-TWO

  If the study of crime is a science, its first rule of physics is the law of opportunity. Every cop on the beat will do two things first: nail down the time frame for the crime, and then cast his net over the universe of possible suspects and start trolling for calendars.

  If you kept your appointments, and your social agenda for the evening didn’t include sticking knives in Emerson Pike, they would cross your name off the list.

  When they are done, the police will zero in on the names that are left, concentrating on people like me who don’t have an alibi for the night in question. It may not be rocket science, but it works.

  I have scoured my calendars, the one at work as well as my personal Outlook file from my smartphone, the cellular I carry on my belt. There are no entries on either for the night that Pike was killed, nothing but blank space. I have gone so far as to check my phone records to see if I might have made calls from the house or my cell phone during the period that the police believe the crimes were committed, a rough ninety-minute time frame between nine and ten thirty. I am left to conclude that after hours I lead a dull life. I could find nothing.

  Some people would at least slap their computers around, send an e-mail to a friend. Generally I don’t even do that. If I’m not prepping for a case, I’m reading or watching a movie on cable. With my daughter, Sarah, away at college, widowed and living alone as I do, unless a nosy neighbor peeked at me through a window, I have no way of proving where I was that night.

  “You worry too much,” Harry tells me.

  This afternoon I am driving over the bay, on the bridge from Coronado to the courthouse downtown, Harry in the passenger seat. We have an order-shortening time, allowing us an early hearing on a Brady motion. We are going after Katia’s photographs. True to his word, Templeton has filed no objection.

  “You don’t think it’s strange the cops never came back and asked me what I was doing that night, where I was at the time of the murders?”

  “Cops screw up,” he says. “It’s the order of the universe.” According to Harry, “They probably just forgot. They talked to you once. Maybe they just didn’t go back and look at their notes, figured they had everything they needed. Don’t go kicking a sleeping dog,” he tells me.

  “This particular dog is four feet tall and the last time I looked he wasn’t sleeping. Templeton didn’t forget. If homicide didn’t come back and ask me for an alibi, it’s because the Dwarf told them not to.”

  “And why would he do that?”

  “You tell me.”

  “You’re getting paranoid,” says Harry.

  “Then what was all that chatter from Templeton about the stream of men following Katia around, the fact that she was a man magnet, and oh, by the way, isn’t that how you met her?”

  “That’s just the Dwarf jerking you around. He’s trying to get under your skin,” says Harry.

  “Then you can tell him he’s succeeded.”

  “If you’re that worried, check your credit card statements, your ATM card. Chances are, if you went anywhere that night you might have used plastic to buy something. That’ll put you someplace other than Del Mar. We can send a copy of the receipt to Templeton and you can start sleeping again at night.”

  I have already done this and come up empty. I don’t tell Harry because I have a bigger problem.

  “Forget about it,” he says. “I mean, there’s no reason to worry, right?”

  I look over at Harry in the passenger seat. “Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”

  “What I mean to say is, you know you didn’t do anything.”

  “Is that a question or a statement?”

  “Don’t put words in my mouth. You tell me you didn’t do anything. You say you talked to her once in the grocery store, and I believe you. That’s the end of it. Let’s just get this thing done. Get the photos, see what’s in them, and maybe we can make this whole mess go away. Besides, if you ask me, Templeton’s whole theory of a co-conspirator is screwy. You can take every one of his facts, turn them around, and explain them away based on the killer coming in through the back door as Katia went out through the garage.”

  “I’d agree with you except for one thing. Juries don’t like scenarios that hang on good fortune and serendipity. Templeton’s theory that two people did it would be much easier to sell.”

  Harry says nothing. Silence in the car for a moment. “And so you’re thinking this is especially true if the second person is Katia’s own lawyer.”

  “We’ve been working together for too long. You’re now doing mind melds,” I tell him. “Let me ask you a question?”

  “Shoot.”

  “What would you say if I told you I met up with Katia more than one time before the murders?” I am concentrating on the road, but as I say it I can tell that Harry gets whiplash turning his head to look at me.

  “What are you saying?”

  “That I saw her one other time before Pike was murdered.”

  “Aw, shit,” says Harry.

  “I know. Don’t say it. I didn’t tell the cops. One of the stupider things I’ve ever done.”

  “This is like a bad dream,” he says.

  I glance over and Harry is bug eyed, staring out at the road as if in a trance.

  “Nothing happened,” I say. “It was in the afternoon, about a week before the murders. She called me at the office, said she was going to be in Coronado later that day. She said her friend had some business to conduct and she was going to be window-shopping. She wanted to know if I could get together with her for a drink. I checked my calendar. I had nothing up, so I told her sure, why not? We met at the Brigantine, out in front of the office, had two drinks. The conversation lasted maybe forty minutes, that was it. She left and I went home.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the police?”

  “They didn’t ask for an alibi, so I figured they weren’t looking for an accomplice, they were just trolling for information. They wanted to know if I was representing her, and if there was no lawyer-clien
t relationship to get in the way, they wanted to know how I met her and what we talked about. What could I say? There was no lawyer-client relationship when we met. You can be sure they’d already talked to Katia and they knew that. I told them about the first meeting, how she got my card, and that was it. They asked me if I’d talked to her or seen her since, and I said no.”

  Harry gives me one of his stern looks.

  “You don’t have to say it, I was stupid. I felt sorry for her, in the country all alone. I knew she wasn’t happy. When we had drinks at the Brigantine, she told me she wanted to go back to Costa Rica but the guy she was living with wouldn’t let her go. I told her to call the Costa Rican consulate or the police and they’d find a way to get her home. I told her if she had problems with them to call me and I’d wade in. If I told the homicide detectives this, it would have been all they needed to hang her. They would immediately assume she’d found another way to get free and that she willingly turned her back on the simple legal recourse that was available to her. So I didn’t tell them. So go ahead and shoot me,” I tell Harry.

  “Find me a gun,” he says.

  “I figured it was none of their business. If they were looking for evidence to bury her, they’d have to find it someplace else.”

  We rumble over the freeway for a couple of minutes in silence as Harry absorbs all of this, his head in his hand as his elbow rests against the lower sill of the window on the passenger side.

  “Katia didn’t have a cell phone,” says Harry. “She had to take Pike’s to call the taxi when she escaped from the house. That means there’s a good chance that when she called you to set up drinks that afternoon, it was from the landline at Pike’s house.”

  “And Templeton would have the phone records,” I say. “I know that now. It’s why he’s breathing down my neck. He knows somebody at the house called the law office just a few days before the murders. He knows you didn’t know her. We’d never done any legal work for Pike, so he wouldn’t be calling us. So it had to be Katia who was calling and it had to be me on the other end, because he knew we’d already met.”