The Hidden Man

by David Ellis

  I gave a little taste of the details and signed off.

  “You tried to kill me today,” I said to Carlo. I thought it deserved mention.

  He nodded. “I knew it was over. I was ready to go to the cops. I just wanted to protect the rest of my family. This was my doing. It should be me who pays. Me. Just me.” Carlo rose from the chair with some effort and approached me. He took my arm as he began to lose composure, his body trembling, tears falling. “I beg you, Jason. I beg you. The brother—he’ll hate me. He’ll hate all of us. He has every right to. But please, son—please convince the brother to donate a kidney.”

  MY BROTHER ARRIVED at the hospital at almost the same time as the police. He showed up without an escort, having been dropped off at the hospital with instructions to head to the sixth floor. His left hand was bandaged where he’d lost the finger and he looked like absolute hell, but he was relatively intact and the sense of relief was all over his face.

  My brother and I weren’t much for hugging over the years, but we had a long embrace and then I checked him over, with one arm over his shoulder. “I’m okay,” he insisted. “Other than the finger, they didn’t lay a glove on me. They pretty much ignored me, actually.”

  I patted his chest. “A braver man than I.”

  Police officers were streaming in now. Carlo had left Audrey’s room and was being questioned by Carruthers and other cops in an empty room down the hall. The whole thing was turning into a madhouse.

  “Let’s get lost,” I suggested. Pete needed to have his hand examined—at least we were in the right place for that. But mostly I wanted to usher Pete away from this scene, from the entire affair, as quickly as I could. And once we broke away, there was another stop I wanted to make, too.

  61

  HIS NAME WASN’T SMITH. It was Raymond Hertzberg, an attorney in private practice who specialized in transactional work, an interesting way to describe what he did. His clients were a who’s who of shady characters—some whose names and photographs would be found on flow charts in the FBI offices, and many who didn’t quite rise to the level of mafia but had some connection or another with organized crime.

  He was at his office until well after ten o’clock. He stuffed a number of documents into his old suitcase and carried an additional gym bag for the overload. A long trip was in the making, some place sunny with favorable extradition laws.

  He had a firearm, which he typically didn’t carry, stuffed into his suit pocket. Just a few hours now and he’d be on his way, hopefully just to be sure everything had settled in a manner favorable to him. Otherwise, perhaps a permanent stay.

  He trusted Carlo as much as anyone that ever lived. He knew Carlo wouldn’t give him up. But that didn’t guarantee Smith wouldn’t be exposed, least of all to Jason Kolarich.

  He took one last look around his office space, wondering if he’d ever see it again. Then he awkwardly navigated the front door of the suite, putting down his suitcase, unlocking the door and pushing it open, then picking up the suitcase again and pushing the heavy door with his shoulder.

  The door pushed back, crashing him against the door frame, once, twice, a third time, taking the wind from him. His suitcase fell, dumping over, papers scattering everywhere. A final time, the door crashing against his forehead and knocking the back of his head into the frame, a one-two combination that left him seeing stars as he shrunk to the ground.

  “Hi, Smith.” Jason Kolarich’s foot connected with Smith’s jaw, knocking Smith sideways to the floor. Smith rolled over and looked up at Kolarich. “I’m not going to kill you,” said Kolarich, “unless you go for that gun.”

  “He was an old friend,” Smith managed, fighting the searing pain in his jaw. “He was just trying to help his daughter.”

  “I’ve heard the story, thanks.” Kolarich dropped a document onto Smith’s chest. “You’ve been served, Smith,” he said. “Or should I say Raymond?”

  Smith tried to sit up, taking the document in both hands. He caught a caption, Peter Kolarich and Samuel Cutler versus Raymond Hertzberg.

  “We’re suing you,” Kolarich said.

  “Suing—?” Smith managed to get into a seated position and looked at the document. In his confusion and pain, he began to feel a stream of relief, as well.

  “My brother is suing you for the tort of unlawful restraint, Smith. Sammy’s suing for intentional infliction of emotional distress. I think that’s an understatement, myself.”

  Smith leafed through the five-page document.

  “It’s quite vague, I admit,” said Kolarich. “Probably wouldn’t survive a motion to dismiss. I could always amend it and put in all sorts of details. But I’m not going to do that.”

  “And—why—why aren’t you going to do that?”

  “Because after I file it tomorrow, I’m going to voluntarily dismiss it.”

  Smith shook his head in confusion, causing further pain to his jaw.

  “You and me, we’re going to settle the lawsuit. Right here, right now. I’m thinking a million dollars for each of them, Smith. Think real hard before you answer.”

  Smith touched his jaw. It was broken, he thought. He understood what Kolarich was doing. He was getting a sorry-for-your-troubles payoff from Smith but giving it cover—the settling of a lawsuit. Smith would officially be paying this money not as extortion but to settle a lawsuit out of court. And both Pete Kolarich and Sammy Cutler would collect a million dollars in tax-free compensatory damages.

  “A million apiece is reasonable,” Smith said.

  “I think so, too. Sign at the dotted line, please.” He threw a second document at Smith, a settlement and release of all claims, in which Smith was agreeing to pay these sums to Peter Kolarich and Samuel Cutler. Smith caught the pen that Kolarich tossed him and signed the document.

  “Terrific.” Kolarich folded the document into his jacket pocket. “Looks like you might be planning a trip? Go ahead. Bon voyage. Personally, I hope you leave and never come back. But understand, Smith, I’ll have a judgment that I can enforce against you. I’ll attach every asset you have in this state, thanks to this settlement, whether you live here or in Barbados. Oh, and one last thing.”

  Kolarich threw a third document at Smith, who gathered it and read it. It was a sworn affidavit from Jason Kolarich, detailing virtually everything that had happened since Smith first visited his office. “That affidavit,” said Kolarich, “is in my safe-deposit box, in my e-mail, in my lawyer’s e-mail, you name it. Anything happens to me or my brother or Sammy, this affidavit goes to the police. But you stay away from us, Smith, and we stay away from you.” He took another step toward Smith, who winced. “I don’t want my brother to have to think about you ever again.”

  “The feeling—the feeling is mutual,” Smith managed.

  Kolarich surveyed the scene. “Well, Raymond, I wish I could say it’s been a pleasure.”

  “It will be a pleasure—for this to be over,” Smith said. He touched his jaw again, feeling light-headed. He felt himself swooning, losing consciousness, but fought it. He gathered himself together and looked back at the door. Jason Kolarich was gone.

  62

  SAMMY WALKED THROUGH the corridor tentatively, a coat thrown over his wrists to hide the handcuffs, people watching him carefully as he passed. He was a celebrity. His story had been splashed everywhere. He was unaccustomed to such notoriety and had responded with silence, refusing requests for interviews and making no comment whatsoever. Still, someone had leaked today’s visit and the media had swarmed outside the hospital today. St. Agnes had made special arrangements for his arrival, escorting him from the Department of Corrections van to a private doctor’s elevator bank to the sixth floor.

  Sammy, the two armed deputies, and I stopped outside the room. The deputies uncuffed him, per an earlier agreement reached between the Department of Corrections and me. Sammy looked back at me, as if seeking advice.

  “She’s your sister, Sammy,” I said.

  He nodded and
looked at the door. “Come with me, Koke?”

  I followed him into the room as he came upon her. He stood, motionless, for what felt like a lifetime. He didn’t speak, either. What he was seeing was a very, very sick woman who didn’t have long to live. Dialysis was keeping her alive but not for long.

  But he was also seeing his sister, for the first time in twenty-eight years.

  He pulled up a chair and sat, his trembling hands in his lap. “Hi,” he said awkwardly, unsure of himself. Then he leaned closer to her ear. “Hi, Patricia.”

  I winced. Sammy was calling his sister by the name she’d known almost her entire life, the one given to her by the Butchers. If she survived the kidney transplant, she’d have plenty of time to learn the story. For now, she was Patricia.

  “I don’t know if you can hear me,” he said. “This probably doesn’t make sense to you, but I’ve missed you. I’ve thought about you—”

  It came at once, the emotion, closing off his throat. His chest spasmed. Tears began to streak down his face. He touched her hand and then took it in his, stroking it. “You’re gonna be—you’re gonna be okay now,” he whispered. “You’re gonna be okay now.”

  “TIME SERVED,” I said. “First of all, he didn’t do it. Second of all, let’s let this poor guy be with his sister.”

  Judge Kathleen Poker, sitting in her high-backed leather chair in chambers, was receptive to my plea, particularly in light of recent media interest in the case. Sammy was being bathed in a sympathetic light, and no one was feeling sorry for a child predator who had killed four children and molested countless others. That had been another benefit of the media intensity over the last week and a half—the state police had expedited the DNA testing and confirmed that Griffin Perlini had raped each of the four girls found buried behind Hardigan Elementary School.

  I had a child killer for a victim and an aggrieved man recently reunited with his abducted sister for a defendant.

  The judge made a steeple with her hands, touching them to her lips. “Yes, I notice there was no diminished-capacity defense. Your client maintains he didn’t do it?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. In fact, we think we know who did. We named him on the witness list. Archie Novotny. His daughter was molested by Griffin Perlini. He has the same jacket, and the same green stocking cap, that witnesses confirmed the killer was wearing. And he has no alibi for that night.”

  The judge’s eyes shifted to Lester Mapp, the prosecutor. “Judge, look. We don’t want to bury this guy. We don’t—we don’t need that. But we can’t give this guy a pass, either.”

  “And what about this Novotny person?” the judge asked.

  Mapp let out a sigh. “We haven’t been able to speak with him yet, Judge. He won’t talk to us.”

  The judge looked at the prosecutor with curiosity. “That’s called obstruction, isn’t it?”

  “Not if you’re taking Five,” I interjected.

  “Ah.” The judge nodded. “He’s invoked his rights.”

  “Yeah, that should play out well at trial,” I noted.

  “We think we’ll be giving him immunity, Judge.” Lester Mapp was generally displeased with the state of affairs and, of late, no doubt, with his assignment to this case in the first place.

  “He thinks,” I said. “He thinks he’ll give Novotny immunity. He says he thinks because he’s not sure that Novotny didn’t commit this crime, and he wants to be careful what he wishes for.”

  “I understand, I understand.” The judge raised a hand. “Mr. Mapp, where is the state on a plea?”

  “We offered ten, Judge.”

  She thought about that. “Mr. Kolarich, can I assume you’ll be asking for an instruction on involuntary?”

  “I certainly will, Judge.” When a defendant is charged with a crime like first-degree murder, a defendant can ask that the jury be instructed on a lesser-included offense, which here would include involuntary manslaughter. It’s up to the judge, but if the court believes that the evidence warrants a finding on a lesser-included offense, she can give that option to the jury.

  The nice thing about involuntary manslaughter is that the judge can impose a sentence down to probation. Everyone in the room knew what she was doing. She was telling Lester Mapp that she could drop the sentence well below the ten years he was seeking.

  “Give us a minute, Counsel,” the judge said to me. It was common for judges to conduct pretrials with each lawyer separately, provided all sides agreed to such ex parte communications.

  I went into the courtroom and sat. In the last couple of weeks, I had slowly recovered sleep. I hadn’t done any legal work except for Sammy. I’d spent a lot of time with my brother, whose newly buffered bank account, courtesy of Raymond “Smith” Hertzberg, had given him the freedom to decide to return to school for a master’s degree.

  Sammy was going under tomorrow for the kidney transplant. He’d left me with the same instructions as he had earlier. He could take a twelve-year sentence, he’d prefer eight. So I was going a little off the reservation here, but I didn’t see what interest of justice was served by putting Sammy Cutler behind bars for several years. The way I saw it, Griffin Perlini probably would have returned to his old ways had Sammy not performed a community service by shooting him.

  About twenty minutes later, Lester Mapp passed the torch to me. He sat in the courtroom as I returned to the judge’s chambers.

  “Involuntary and four years,” said the judge. “Your client already has one in. He’s looking at about another year.”

  Half of which would be spent at a halfway house on his way out of the system. God bless the severely overcrowded state prison system.

  “I have authority for three,” I said, taking my best shot.

  “No, four’s the best you’re going to do.” She threw up her hands. “Four it is, Mr. Kolarich. Take it or leave it.”

  I thought about Sammy’s willingness to take twelve. I thought about our scapegoat, Archie Novotny. I thought about all the ways this could go south. I was relatively sure that I didn’t want the prosecution to take a long, hard look at Novotny.

  “We’ll take four,” I said.

  63

  I THOUGHT WE TALKED about eight,” Sammy said from his hospital bed.

  “We did. But you have remarkably able counsel. I got you four.” I pointed to the door. “I can go back and offer to double it, if you’d like.”

  Sammy smiled and laughed. “No, four sounds pretty good.”

  Sammy was in pre-op, getting ready for tomorrow’s transplant surgery.

  “Hey, just to ask,” he said. “You think we would’ve won the case?”

  I made a face. “I would’ve used Archie Novotny to make sure the jury knew that the dead guy was a child molester. It was possible, right there, that they’d acquit. But other than that, I don’t know, Sammy. They had a strong case.” I paused, then added, “I don’t think Archie Novotny would’ve held up under scrutiny.”

  Sammy didn’t look at me. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, he was pretty clever, but maybe too clever by half. It was nice of him to leave the closet by his front door open when I came to visit, and even nicer of him to have that bomber jacket and green stocking cap prominently displayed for me.”

  Sammy didn’t answer.

  “Nicer still,” I added, “that the murder happened on a Thursday night, when Archie would normally have a guitar lesson which he conspicuously missed. I mean, he even went so far as to write a note on his check to the guitar instructor, in case anyone might forget that he missed his lesson on that fateful night.”

  Sammy shook his head, fighting a smile. A shade of rose colored his cheeks.

  “Let me guess,” I continued. “If we went to trial, Archie would have pleaded the Fifth, leaving me to shit all over him in front of the jury and getting us a long way toward reasonable doubt. And if the prosecutor gave him immunity, Novotny would have grudgingly admitted that he missed his guitar lesson that night but he’d say he did
n’t remember where he was that night. He’d deny murdering Perlini, but it wouldn’t have been a convincing denial. Right so far?”

  Sammy brought a hand to his flushed face.

  “And say the shit really hit the fan. Say the prosecutors decided to charge him with murder. I’d imagine that Archie had an out. One that he could say he ‘forgot,’ given that it was over a year ago—but push comes to shove, Archie had an alibi. Didn’t he?”

  Sammy paused, then spoke through his hand. “He went to the emergency room that night, complaining of chest pains.”

  “Ah, I like that,” I said. “Nothing the prosecutors would ever think to look for. But he could always play that card. The hospital would have documented a check-in time, all sorts of testing, and a check-out time. An iron-clad alibi, in his back pocket, if he needed it.”

  “Archie’s a good guy,” Sammy said. “Perlini really fucked with his family’s life.”

  “So the deal was, you’d kill Perlini, and Novotny would play the alternate suspect.”

  That was the reason, all along, that Sammy hadn’t wanted to plead temporary insanity or a similar defense. He didn’t want to admit to killing Perlini because he knew he could point to Archie. It had been Sammy, after all, who had referred me to other victims of Perlini as possible suspects. Novotny’s daughter was a documented victim, one of the two who had sent Perlini to prison for molestation.

  “Smart,” I said, “but maybe too smart. Conspiracy to commit, Sammy. You guys could’ve both gone down for that. You knew that, right? That’s one of the reasons you wanted to cut a deal. You decided, end of the day, you didn’t want to risk Archie.”

  He nodded. “That was part of it, yeah. But like I told you—when you told me Perlini didn’t kill Audrey, I felt like maybe I should pay a price.”