by Ed Gaffney
“Oh, snap,” said my client, sitting to my left.
“I don’t know how or why it happened, but this entire case has been built against my client based, in large part, I believe, on the fact that a man named Esteban Cruz was the Denver Tunnel Bomber. We now know that Mr. Cruz was dead at least forty-eight hours before the bombing occurred.”
Once again, the murmuring in the gallery behind me began to grow. Sarge stood up, and the judge looked out past us. The noise subsided.
Preston cut in before I had finished. “Judge, this is preposterous. He’s as much as moving for a directed verdict before I’ve even had a chance to present our entire case against the defendant. I object.”
Judge Lomax faced me. “Are you now moving for a directed verdict of not guilty, Mr. Carpenter?”
“No, Your Honor, I’m not. I’m moving for a dismissal of the charges against the defendant on grounds that the prosecution brought a case against my client when one of the fundamental facts supporting their theory of the case was false.”
I was tiptoeing around an issue that was one of the dirty little secrets of criminal law: prosecutorial misconduct.
Sometimes, in their zeal to convict defendants, prosecutors went too far. They coached witnesses to lie, they manufactured inculpatory evidence, they withheld exculpatory evidence. They did what they had to, in order to get the verdict they felt their job demanded.
On the rare occasions that such prosecutors were caught, courts had the power to dismiss the charges against the defendant, irrespective of guilt, as a sanction. It was a sort of punishment given to the district attorney’s office.
The problem, of course, was that such sanctions were, in essence, the jurisprudential equivalent of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Most defendants got charged with crimes because they committed crimes. If courts dismissed charges against guilty defendants, it was, in effect, an attempt to address one injustice by creating another.
But as Juan Gomez’s advocate, I had to leave those considerations to the judge. It was my job to make the motion, and let the chips fall wherever. To tell the truth, at the beginning of that day, I fully believed that Juan Gomez was deeply involved in the planning of the Denver Tunnel Bombing. At quarter to four that afternoon, I still thought so, but I was somewhat less certain. If the state could have gotten the Esteban Cruz thing wrong, couldn’t they have gotten the case against my guy wrong, too?
“Are you claiming that the prosecution intentionally presented misleading testimony concerning Mr. Cruz’s involvement in this matter?” Judge Lomax knew his stuff. He didn’t have any authority to dismiss the case unless he found that the prosecution’s misstep was intentional.
“No, Your Honor,” I said.
“You should have said yes,” Beta suggested.
“I don’t have any knowledge of intent,” I continued, drowning out the voice in my ear. “But this case has been developed after months of investigation. If the prosecution is so negligent in preparing its presentation of the facts that it misidentifies one of the key figures in its theory of the defendant’s guilt, then it should be held accountable for such negligence.”
Juan Gomez was getting into it. “Seriously,” he said, under his breath.
The judge turned to Preston. “Mr. Varick?”
The assistant district attorney was barely keeping himself under control. He was palpably enraged. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything so unprofessional in my entire career,” he said, teeth clenched. “This defendant is a mass-murdering monster. And now his attorney has the gall to suggest that because of a so-called mistake—I have no idea whether that photograph is authentic or a fake, Your Honor, so I do not concede any mistake at all—his client should go scot-free. That is the most appalling request I’ve ever heard.”
Judge Lomax made a notation on a piece of paper before him, and then looked back out at us. “I’m going to deny the defendant’s motion to dismiss the charges at this time. There is no claim of intentional prosecutorial misconduct. But, Mr. Varick,” he continued, “I’m quite disturbed at this development. Given the national tragedy underlying this case, it is paramount that we all conduct this trial in the most professional and transparent of manners. As you just mentioned, hundreds and thousands of victims and survivors are looking to this trial as a part of the long process of healing. Absence of truth will only prolong the suffering of the people and the country.
“Court is in recess until nine o’clock, Monday morning.”
We all stood until the judge left the room. When the door closed behind him, the courtroom erupted in conversation. Juan Gomez patted me on the shoulder and said, “Good job, man. You’re some lawyer. I like you. You’re doing a great job.” And then Mike led him away.
A.D.A. Varick packed his briefcase, then lifted it off the table, and looked up at the television camera. The red light was off. For the first time since I’d been assigned to the case, he came over to speak to me. His face was florid. A single droplet of sweat had run from his hairline down his left cheek. He was breathing audibly.
In short, he was furious.
“That was some stunt you just pulled, Counselor,” he hissed, leaning on the last word as if it were an insult. “Remember who you’re representing here, friend. I’d watch myself if I were you.”
And before I could even think of a response, he turned on his heel, and stalked through the gallery, toward the exit.
But Varick’s nasty outburst was just a pebble in the avalanche of thoughts and questions raining down on me. Who was Beta? Was that photo real? If it was, how did he get hold of it? And how did he get access to the courtroom to tape it to the bottom of my table and set me up with the earpiece?
I slowly packed up, and headed out of the courtroom. I was really looking forward to the weekend. I needed to get home and move my father to someplace safe. The veiled threats circling above my head like dark vultures had no place in his life.
Then I needed to find a way to get some distance from this case. I’d contact Cliff, and Amy, and try to spend some time with them.
But just as I reached the door to the hallway, I heard one last thing come through my earpiece. It was a series of loud pops, like gunfire, then there was a crash, and then Beta shouted in my ear, “Shit! They found me. You’re on your own, Carpenter. Watch out for Landry.”
And then there was silence.
TWENTY-ONE
BETA’S FINAL communication added to my bewilderment. Were those pops really gunshots? And if he was being shot at, who was doing the shooting? Where were Kappa and Gamma? And when had I not been on my own in this mess?
I left the courtroom and turned toward the main lobby, intending to take the elevator down to the garage. Even if I happened to run into Landry down there, I didn’t think he was going to do anything here in the courthouse. And I was willing to endure whatever he had to say if it kept me out of the media maelstrom sure to be hovering just outside the courthouse doors.
But the press had caught on to my games, and as soon as I emerged from the courtroom, they came at me from both sides. Landry was nowhere in sight. Before I knew it, I was literally surrounded by reporters shouting questions, sticking microphones in my face, and filming the whole chaotic mess.
For me, there was nothing to do but say, “Excuse me, please,” and move slowly through them all toward the exit. I had no desire to answer any of their questions, despite Cliff’s admonition to use my fifteen minutes of fame to drum up business for myself. I had learned from my first press conference that I wasn’t at my best in front of a bank of microphones, and I was fine with that.
It took me about ten minutes to make my way through to the door, and another five to get down the steps without killing myself or the relentless film crews that swirled around me like large, technologically advanced pests. Finally, I made it to the sidewalk, followed only by one woman who kept shouting questions at me. It was possible that she thought I’d answer her in some kind of acknowledgment of her
persistence.
If so, she learned that she was wrong as I entered my truck. I fired up the engine, and pulled out of the parking garage, leaving her there, writing something on a pad.
When I reached the highway, traffic was a little lighter than I expected, and I got about halfway to Payson’s Ridge in only a half hour. I used the time to decompress—I was going to call Cliff and Amy, but I needed to stop and get out of range of Landry’s bug before I did. Even if Beta hadn’t shouted out that last warning about Landry, I still didn’t trust anyone. I assumed that everything that was said over my phone lines was being listened to.
I pulled off at a truck stop in Black Creek Canyon, but before I had a chance to call, my own cell phone rang. I answered it, and the speaker on the other end didn’t even bother to identify himself before he began speaking.
“I thought we had an understanding.”
It was Landry.
“I’m sorry?”
“We spoke yesterday, and I thought I made it clear to you that if you gave the prosecution a hard time, it was going to be very difficult to protect your family. Especially your father.”
His voice was cold.
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“I told you yesterday that threats were made, and that I feared for your disabled father, didn’t I? And I told you that if you challenged evidence in this case that we all know is true, I didn’t know what was going to happen.”
I knew for a fact that Landry had not said that, but he didn’t sound like he was interested in my memory of our conversation.
“Now you’ve really done it, Counselor. You’ve started something serious. Something I can’t control, and something you sure as hell can’t control. I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. But there’s nothing I can do for you now. You’re the one who decided to defend that scumbag terrorist, Gomez. And you stepped over the line today, and now you’re gonna pay the price. Or I should say, your father is.”
The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. He wasn’t sorry about anything. I started up my pickup and sped onto the entrance ramp to the highway. I had to get home immediately. I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice. “Are you threatening my father?”
The sadistic monster laughed. “I warned you again and again, and now you’re taking a tone with me? Who do you think you’re dealing with, Tom? You’re not just talking to a state cop, stupid. This thing is so much bigger than you can imagine. I was right there for you, ready to help you get through it. But instead, what did you do? You ignored me. And now your father’s gonna get hurt.”
By now, I was going seventy-five. The speed limit was fifty-five, but I was probably fifteen minutes from home. I knew that if I got pulled over I wouldn’t be able to help Henley, but I was afraid that if I didn’t get there soon, it wasn’t going to matter. “What did you do to him, you psychopath?”
Landry laughed again. He was enjoying this. “Let’s just say it’s a damn shame that the entire fire department was called away on a national security emergency about an hour ago. And that all the phone lines around your house are down. And that Henley’s not in his wheelchair.”
By now, so much adrenaline was pumping through my system that my teeth were chattering. I was going eighty-five, and I was still over ten minutes away. “If anything happens to him—”
“Oh, I remember,” Landry interrupted. Then, in a mocking voice, he threw my own words back in my face. “If anything happens to your father, you’re going to come looking for me. Good luck with that plan, tough guy.”
I was going so fast I almost sailed right past my exit. I slammed on the brakes, and hit the ramp at sixty. I barely kept the truck on the road as it curved around to merge onto the state highway that would take me home.
“What have you done with Liana?” I asked, as I straightened out and pushed the speedometer back up over sixty-five. I was now on a two-lane road, speed limit forty.
“Don’t worry about her,” Landry said. “She got called away on an emergency of her own. You’ve got enough on your plate with your father. In fact, I’m gonna let you go now, ’cause you’re going to be busy for a few days, taking care of the, you know, arrangements.”
I didn’t want to keep talking to him, but I didn’t want to give up the contact, either. Somehow, as long as I was on the phone with him, I felt like I had at least some input into the situation. Without that, I had nothing but my fear.
“Wait—” I said, but the connection went dead.
I needed to call Amy, but I was certain that even if I got rid of Landry’s panic button/listening device, there was another bug planted somewhere in the truck. I didn’t have time to stop. I had to get to my father.
When I reached the steepest part of the climb, near where we lived up at the top of Payson’s Ridge, I had to slow down. The roads were so narrow that if I took them at more than forty-five, fifty at the most, I’d have run too great a risk of totaling the truck, and never making it to my father.
My imagination was a blur of horrendous possibilities, all featuring my incapacitated father as the victim of a homicidal maniac.
When my parents had lovingly chosen this remote hilltop, they, of course, had no idea that by isolating themselves so completely, they would be making it that much harder for me to get up there today. They were relying on what we all take for granted—fire and police departments that are not under the control of some crazed psycho who has the power to divert them from the community that really needs them.
Just before I made the last turn I tried to figure out who could possibly have enough power to make our entire emergency service support system disappear. But then I came around a curve in the road, and finally saw how bad it was.
From the bottom of the driveway, the trees were so thick that you couldn’t actually see the house. But rising above the trees, against the beautiful blue sky, I saw something which made all of my catastrophic imaginings laughably benign.
A thick plume of black smoke, like the putrid exhaust from hell’s darkest furnace.
Our house was on fire.
TWENTY-TWO
THE BUILDING was fully ablaze as I skidded to a stop at the end of the driveway and jumped out of my car. As Landry had promised, there was no sign of Liana, and no one else was there to help. No cops, no EMTs, no firefighters, no approaching sirens. I was on my own.
There was no way to know that my father was in there, but I had to assume he was. The van was in the driveway—also on fire. And it would have been difficult to transport him in any other vehicle.
The porch and front door were completely engaged in the fire. I couldn’t possibly get in that way, so I ran around to the back of the house. All I could see through the windows was smoke and the flickering lights of flame. The building was a wood-framed structure. So much of the outside walls was engulfed in the fire that there was no obvious way in. And the metal bulkhead doors to the cellar were locked.
The blaze was throwing off a tremendous amount of heat. It was hard just to stand within twenty-five feet of the place, much less run toward it.
And then I noticed that there was one spot, at the back of the house, near the kitchen, where it wasn’t quite as hot. At first, I couldn’t understand why, and then it came to me. The floor was tiled, the walls were tiled, and the countertops were granite. The fire probably hadn’t spread into that area of our home yet.
With no training and less time, I determined to enter the house through the kitchen.
But the only way in was through the windows above the sink, and they were locked.
I ran to the woodpile, grabbed my ax, and ran back to the house. I heard a crash from inside, and then saw a flare of light through the window, which only served to illuminate just how dark it was in there. Smoke was everywhere. Even in the air outside the house it was tough to get a good breath.
I wondered how my father could possibly be alive if he was in there, but that didn’t stop me from dragging our picnic table over to the house, climbin
g up, and breaking a window. Smoke began to pour out as I used the ax to clear away the shards of glass, and then I reached in to undo the lock. I didn’t think to check if it was too hot to touch. Luckily, it wasn’t.
I slid open the window, and shouted, “Dad! Henley! Are you in there?”
I listened intently through the crackle and the rushing of the air of the inferno for a response. There was nothing. Of course, it was too much to hope for. If by some miracle Henley was even alive, there was no way he could possibly be conscious with all of this smoke. I remember frantically shouting my father’s name and at the same time recalling, with no small amount of self-loathing, that fifty to eighty percent of people who die in fires die from smoke inhalation, not from burns.
And then I heard it. A bell. And then it rang again. And then repeatedly—insistently.
Henley was ringing his bell.
You didn’t need any special training in languages to translate that conversation:
ME: Henley, are you in there?
DAD: Hell, yes. Get me out of here.
Somehow, my father was alive.
In no time I had tossed the ax into the kitchen, climbed through the window, and tumbled into the sink. Later I would learn that I had cut both hands and one knee on the broken glass while scrambling in, but all I was thinking about, as I bent down to pick up my ax, was getting into the living room. That’s where I thought I’d heard the bell.
There were, however, a few problems with that plan.
First, when I jumped down from the sink, the inside of the house was so hot, I was having trouble even orienting myself toward the living room. The skin on my face felt like it was going to burn right off. But more important, the smoke was so thick that even when I managed to force open my eyes, I could see almost nothing.
And then I made my biggest mistake—I inhaled.
Suddenly, the urge to cough overcame me, which led to more coughing, and more inhaling smoke. By now, my eyes were stinging so severely that they were tearing up. I had started partially deaf, but thanks to the fire, I was now mostly blind.