Meg went on to the next article, which identified John Gandolini as a low-level hoodlum with an extensive criminal record. He was reputedly a strong arm for several LA bookies and loan sharks, but his numerous arrests were all dismissed when the victims and witnesses refused to testify. There were also several charges of domestic violence against his girlfriend Vicky Rawlings and several other women. All but two of those charges had been subsequently dropped by the alleged victims.
So that’s why the police never ran Tony down, Meg thought. Gandolini had been a thug and a career criminal. For the LA cops, Gandolini’s murder had been a simple case of good riddance to bad trash.
But that did not change what Tony Rolf was. He was a dangerous and unstable person. Ken Oppenheimer had analyzed the problem perfectly and it made her wonder about Regis Walsh and the level of judgment he was exerting. Why had he brought him into the fold at all? Had Tony or some third party convinced him that he had acted in self-defense? She thought back to the words used in the first newspaper story—a prolonged and vicious attack . . . on Christmas Day.
Meg cautioned herself not to dwell on those unpleasant facts. Tony Rolf was a job, that was all, a job for which she was being very well paid. Tomorrow she would begin gathering the experts who would alter his appearance to the point that his own mother would have trouble recognizing him. When the work was done, she would collect her company’s fee and move on. She wondered if she would take a job working for the church again. She supposed only time would tell.
* * *
The following morning Harry was at the Clearwater Police Department waiting to join Max for the final interviews at the Scientology offices. The previous day they had gotten through most of the staff and were left only with Regis Walsh’s secretary, Walsh himself, and Kenneth Oppenheimer. The first round of interviews had been mostly uneventful—much as they had expected them to be. The various members of the staff were totally uninformed, or completely intimidated by Regis Walsh and Kenneth Oppenheimer. Harry had concluded that it was a combination of both. Even the staff member who had slipped Max the note about Rolf being hidden away in Safety Harbor had suddenly gone blank.
Just as Max announced that he was ready to go, Harry’s cell phone rang. It was the clerk for Judge Walter McCoy of the Pinellas County criminal court. The clerk informed Harry that his mother’s attorney had requested an emergency hearing asking that the charges against her be dismissed.
“Her attorney? I didn’t know she had one,” Harry said.
“She’s got a humdinger,” the clerk said. “None other than Jordan Wells, who, as I’m sure you know, is considered one the best criminal defense attorneys in the state. The hearing will be at three o’clock today. Be on time. The judge is very insistent on punctuality.”
“Who’s been assigned to prosecute?” Harry asked.
“No one; there hasn’t been time. But they’ll need to have someone here by three sharp.”
“Who hired Wells? My mother sure as hell doesn’t have that kind of money.”
“I have no idea,” the clerk said. “It’s not pertinent to the proceedings.”
It’s pertinent to me, Harry thought as he ended the call. And I have a pretty good idea who’s behind it.
Harry hung up and filled Max in, reminding him that the criminal court building was a good half an hour away from the Scientology offices.
“We’ll be finished in plenty of time,” Max said. “Now who the hell do you think hired a slick son of a bitch like Wells?”
“Do you have any ideas?”
“Oh . . . yeah,” Max said.
“Me too,” Harry said. “One very sleazy bastard named Regis Walsh.”
“It would fit in with their history,” Max said. “From what I’ve read, whenever someone is designated as an enemy of the church, they’re known to spare no expense at laying a little misery on their doorstep. A few celebrities who fell out of their good graces have written books about it.”
“Well, let’s go take on Mr. Walsh and Mr. Oppenheimer,” Harry said. “If I’m such an enemy of the church, I have a reputation to live up to.”
* * *
Melody Ford was her old cheerful self when they resumed their questioning, this time of Mavis Quincy, Regis Walsh’s personal secretary.
“I’m sure you understand that as Mr. Walsh’s secretary, Ms. Quincy has access to some very sensitive church information,” Melody Ford said. “Consequently, she has already been instructed not to answer any questions that touch on those areas.”
“Can you give me a hint about what areas don’t touch on sensitive church information?” Max asked.
“Very few,” the lawyer replied.
Mavis Quincy looked calm, cool, and collected as she took a chair in front of the desk Max was using. She was in her midforties, with clear blue eyes, short brown hair, and a soft, pleasant smile.
“How long have you worked for Mr. Walsh?” Max asked.
“A little over ten years,” Mavis said.
“Is he a good boss?”
“Is that question really pertinent?” Melody Ford interjected.
“It is to me,” Max said. “If she doesn’t like him, it could color her answers.”
“Okay, go ahead,” the attorney said, her voice heavy with exasperation. “Answer his question.”
“He’s an excellent boss.”
“I’m sincerely glad to hear it,” Max said. “I wish mine was.”
Harry held back a smile. It was the first time he’d seen the charming side of Max Abrams on the job.
“Do you know a man named Tony Rolf?”
“Yes, he works for the church.”
“Is that the only way you know him?”
“Yes, I don’t know him personally at all.”
“Who does he work for?”
“Well, he works in the office of church discipline and everyone who works there works under Mr. Oppenheimer and Mr. Walsh.”
“Which one of them did he work for specifically, if you know: Mr. Oppenheimer or Mr. Walsh?” Max asked.
“I believe he reported day to day to Mr. Oppenheimer, but everyone is ultimately under Mr. Walsh. I believe Mr. Walsh took a special interest in Tony.”
“Why is that?”
“I was told he had a particularly difficult life. Mr. Walsh, I believe, wanted to help him.”
Saint Regis, Harry thought, protector of homeless young killers.
“Do you know where Tony Rolf is now?” Max asked.
“I do not.”
“Do you know if Tony Rolf has been in touch with Mr. Walsh or Mr. Oppenheimer?”
At that point Ms. Ford once again asserted herself: “You are to answer that on advice of counsel, you decline to answer.”
Mavis began to repeat the lawyer’s words but Max cut her off: “It’s okay, I get the drift. Thank you, Ms. Quincy.” He looked up into the attorney’s sneering countenance. “Can we have Mr. Oppenheimer now.”
Ken Oppenheimer was visibly nervous when he took a seat in front of Max Abrams.
“Mr. Oppenheimer, do you know Tony Rolf?” Max began.
Oppenheimer twisted in his chair. “On advice of counsel I decline to answer that question.”
“Wait a minute,” Max said, throwing his hands in the air. “The guy works for you, reports to you regularly, and you can’t tell me if you know him or not?”
“On advice of counsel I decline to answer that question,” Oppenheimer said.
Max pushed his chair back and rotated his shoulders as if trying to work out a cramp.
“I object to your physical machinations,” Melody Ford said. “They are clearly intended to intimidate my client.”
Max stared at her. “I’m stretching. I’ve got a crick in my neck. If I wanted to intimidate him I’d take out my rubber hose.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me at all,” the attorney snapped.
Max shook his head and turned back to Oppenheimer. “Do you work here?” he asked.
Oppen
heimer stared at him as if uncertain what to say.
“Do you work for the Church of Scientology and is your office in this building?”
“Yes,” Oppenheimer said.
“See, now we’re communicating,” Max said. “Isn’t that nice?” He paused. “No answer?”
Oppenheimer looked at Melody Ford for guidance. The lawyer only rolled her eyes.
“I have a daughter who used to roll her eyes just like that when she was a teenager,” Max said. “Then she grew up and stopped doing it.”
Melody Ford glared at him. Max offered up a smile in return.
“Are we finished with Mr. Oppenheimer?” Ms. Ford asked.
“Is he going to answer any more questions?”
“It’s possible,” she said. “But I doubt it.”
Max slapped his hands together. “Then let’s have Mr. Walsh.”
Walsh kept them waiting for fifteen minutes before he entered the room with a broad smile spread across his face. He was dressed in a gray suit that was clearly tailor-made, a pale blue fitted shirt with a striped tie, and black Bally loafers.
“Sorry, gentlemen, I was on a call to our offices on the West Coast.”
“Early for the West Coast, isn’t it?” Max said.
“The longer you’re around us you’ll find we work long hours, usually starting before dawn and going well into the evening,” Walsh replied.
“Well, that’s interesting,” Max said. “But I’d like to get on with this interview. Detective Doyle has to get over to the criminal court building.”
“Whatever you wish,” Walsh said.
“Okay,” Max began, “your name is Regis Walsh and you run the office of church discipline for the Church of Scientology?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have an employee named Tony Rolf?”
“I do.”
“How did Mr. Rolf come to work for you?”
“Mr. Rolf was working for the church in Los Angeles. He had a maintenance job, doing repairs, cleaning, that sort of thing. I met him there and took note of his work ethic and came to believe that he had potential for more demanding work. So I offered him an opportunity to work in our office in Clearwater. He accepted. That was eleven years ago.”
“I take it you have found his work here satisfactory?”
“I have.”
“Sort of a model employee, would you say?”
“I never use terms like that, sergeant. I’ve found they have a way of coming back to haunt you.”
Max jotted something down in his notebook and went on: “Did you ever have to discipline Mr. Rolf for overzealousness?”
“I’ve had to correct him from time to time—suggest that he try a different approach. Not often, but occasionally.”
“Were you surprised when you discovered that he had been named a person of interest in the murder of a young woman who was a member of your church and the attempted murder of a retired Clearwater police officer?”
“I was, indeed. I also firmly believe you will ultimately find him innocent of those crimes.”
“Do you know where Tony Rolf is now?”
“On advice of counsel I decline to answer that question,” he said.
“To the best of your knowledge, did Tony Rolf ever physically harm anyone?”
“Again, on advice of counsel I decline to answer that question.”
Max turned to Harry. “Do you have any questions for Mr. Walsh?”
“Yes, I do,” Harry said. “Mr. Walsh, do you know a Tampa attorney named Jordan Wells?”
“I’m sorry, detective, but on the advice of counsel I decline to answer that question.”
And fuck you too, Harry thought.
* * *
The Pinellas County criminal court, also known as the Justice Center, was located next to the county jail, which was convenient for both the jailers and the jailed since it reduced the need to transport prisoners and the inevitable loss of court time that produced. It was a modern building and lacked the gravitas of dark wood paneling, heavy, oversized furniture, and a high bench that allowed judges to tower over the courtroom. Instead, each courtroom had clean walls painted in pale colors and blond furniture. The overall affect was intense sterility.
Harry arrived fifteen minutes early and went immediately to the prosecution table. He introduced himself to the young assistant state attorney who had been assigned to his mother’s case. The young lawyer identified himself as Jeremy Peters and told Harry he had only gotten the case file that morning and would appreciate any information he could provide. Harry gave him a quick summary of his mother’s crimes, her subsequent release on parole, and the condition imposed on her that she remain at least one hundred yards away from her son at all times. He explained that he had detained her next to the boat he lived on, after relieving her of a large carving knife she had taken out of her purse.
“Wow, that sounds cut-and-dry,” Peters said. “We have only one problem, as far as I can see, and that’s the person who’s representing her.”
“Yeah, Jordan Wells,” Harry said.
“Is she wealthy?” Peters asked.
“Poor as a church mouse.”
“Then how the hell can she afford him? Scuttlebutt is that he gets a grand an hour while he’s in court and five hundred an hour when he’s in his office or anywhere else. He doesn’t work pro bono unless there’s a slam-dunk lawsuit. The guy’s a bleeping shark in a three-piece suit. The people in my office call him the Prince of Darkness—and that has nothing to do with the fact that he’s black.”
“I think my mother has a benefactor.”
“Do you know who it is?” Peters asked.
“The Church of Scientology or one of their executives, I’m not certain which.”
“Is your mother a Scientologist?”
“No. And it has nothing to do with her. I’m involved in an investigation of one of their goons. This is just an attempt to slow me up—put my mother back out on the street so I have to deal with her.”
Peters looked at him skeptically and shook his head. “This case gets crazier by the minute. Do me a favor, will you? Go live in a different county.” A sudden flurry of activity drew Peters’s attention to the rear of courtroom. “Well here he is, the Prince of Darkness.”
Harry turned and watched Jordan Wells make his way down the center aisle. His arrival was filled with dramatic flair, replete with a perfectly tailored blue silk suit and flamboyant yellow silk tie, and two equally well-dressed young women trailing behind, carrying briefcases. The three of them went directly to the defense table and began setting up; then Wells turned and offered a curt nod to Peters, followed by a smile that said, Prepare to be eaten alive, little boy.
There was movement at a side door and Harry turned and saw his mother entering the courtroom between two corrections officers. She was wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and her hands were cuffed. She looked haggard and her eyes darted around the room, settling first on her attorney, then on Harry.
Wells made a fuss about having her handcuffs removed, then guided her to a seat next to him at the defense table. Harry rose to go to the spectator seats, but Peters placed a hand on his arm. “We have a few minutes before court is called to order,” he said. “Give me another rundown of what happened at the marina.”
Judge Walter McCoy entered the courtroom ten minutes later and the proceedings were called to order. McCoy was a short, plump man in his early fifties and his black robes did nothing to mask his girth. Harry knew him from previous criminal cases and had testified before him on numerous occasions. Unlike some judges who were openly arrogant about their power, McCoy had a reputation of living with constant dread that one of his decisions would be overturned or, even worse, criticized by the media. This often led him to decisions that boggled the mind. The judge had the red face of a heavy drinker and as Harry looked up into it now he felt reasonably certain that McCoy would not risk turning a child murderer loose on the streets. Of course, that precluded any tricks J
ordan Wells had up his sleeve. Court cases were always a crapshoot, he reminded himself.
The judge asked the court clerk to read the charges against Lucy Santos. Once that was done, he turned to the attorneys and asked Peters to summarize the state’s position. Peters made it short and sweet: Lucy Santos had trespassed onto the marina property where her son, Detective Harry Santos Doyle, kept the boat on which he lived. All this, Peters said with a bit of dramatic flourish, despite a parole board directive that she remain at least one hundred yards away from him at all times. When Detective Doyle confronted her, he added, she was holding a six-inch carving knife. Peters removed a plastic bag containing the knife from his briefcase and held it up for the judge to see.
Harry watched the young prosecutor and wondered if his dramatic performance was intended as much for Jordan Wells as for the judge. He might well be auditioning for a future job in Wells’s office.
Peters continued by reminding the judge of the charges that had originally brought Lucy Santos before the court—“The murder of her own child,” he said with all the flair he could muster. He concluded that the state attorney’s office intended to prosecute Ms. Santos for the trespassing charge and to present the grand jury with evidence that she possessed a deadly weapon and used it to menace her son, a duly sworn police officer, causing him to disarm and detain her and call in backup officers from the Clearwater Police Department, who placed her under arrest.
Wells rose to his feet like a thundercloud, his voice reverberating with outrage. “Your Honor, the defense is prepared to present witnesses that will prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Ms. Santos was lured to the marina by a call stating that her son wanted to meet with her, and that she was not armed with any weapon, let alone the carving knife in question, when she arrived there. We shall prove that instead she was confronted by her son and illegally handcuffed and detained until two Clearwater police officers arrived to place her under arrest. We will further prove that her son, Detective Harry Santos Doyle, vigorously opposed her release from prison and made repeated complaints about her after state authorities pronounced her no danger to society or herself and released her in her own custody.”
The Scientology Murders Page 14