Let Me Call You Sweetheart

76 Monday, November 6th

The sequestered jury in the Jimmy Weeks trial did not know about the assassination of Barney Haskell and Mark Young, but the media were making sure that everyone else did. Over the weekend many newspaper columns had been dedicated to the investigation, and every television news program featured seemingly endless scene-of-the-crime coverage.

A frightened witness, whose identity was not revealed, had finally phoned the police. He had been on his way to withdraw cash from an ATM and had seen a dark blue Toyota pull into the parking lot of the small building that housed Mark Young’s law office. That was at ten after seven. The front right tire of the witness’s car had felt wobbly, and he had pulled over to the curb to examine it. He was crouched beside it when he saw the door of the office building open again and a man in his thirties run back to the Toyota. His face was obscured, but he was carrying what appeared to be an oversized gun.

The witness got part of the Toyota ’s out-of-state license number. Good police work tracked the car down and identified it as one that had been stolen Thursday night in Philadelphia. Late Friday, its burned-out frame was found in Newark.

Even the slight possibility that Haskell and Young had been the victims of a random mugging disappeared in light of that evidence. It was obviously a mob hit, and there was no doubt it had been ordered by Jimmy Weeks. But the police were unsure as to how to prove it. The witness would not be able to identify the gunman. The car was gone. The bullets that had killed the victims were undoubtedly from an unlicensed gun that was now at the bottom of a river, or would be exchanged for a toy at Christmas with no questions asked.

On Monday, Geoff Dorso once again spent a few hours at the Jimmy Weeks trial. The government was building its case brick by brick, with solid, seemingly irrefutable evidence. Royce, the U.S. attorney who seemed intent on being the candidate for governor opposite Frank Green, was resisting the impulse to grandstand. A scholarly-looking man with thinning hair and steel-framed glasses, his strategy was to be utterly plausible, to close off any alternate explanations for the outrageously complicated business affairs and money transfers of Weeks Enterprises.

He had charts that he referred to with the help of a long pointer, the kind Geoff remembered the nuns using when he was in grammar school. Geoff decided that Royce was a master at making Weeks’ affairs easy for the jurors to grasp. One did not have to be a mathematical whiz or a CPA to follow his explanations.

Royce got the pilot of Jimmy Weeks’ private plane on the stand and hammered at him. “How often did you fill out the appropriate paperwork for the corporate jet?… How often did Mr. Weeks use it solely for his private parties?… How often did he lend it to friends for their private entertainment?… Wasn’t it billed to the company every single time the engines were turned on in that jet?… All those tax deductions he took for so-called business expenses were really for his personal joyrides, weren’t they?”

When it was Bob Kinellen’s turn to cross-examine, Geoff saw that he turned on all his charm, trying to make the pilot trip himself up, trying to confuse him on dates, on the purpose of the trips. Once again, Geoff thought that Kinellen was good, but probably not good enough. He knew that there was no way of being sure what was going on in the jurors’ minds, but Geoff didn’t think they were buying it.

He studied the impassive face of Jimmy Weeks. He always came to the courtroom dressed in a conservative business suit, white shirt and tie. He looked the part he was trying to play-a fifty-year-old businessman-entrepreneur with a variety of enterprises, who was the victim of a tax-collecting witch-hunt.

Today Geoff was observing him from the viewpoint of the connection he had had with Suzanne Reardon. What was it? he wondered. How serious had it been? Was Weeks the one who had given her the jewelry? He had heard about the paper found on Haskell’s lawyer that might have been the wording on the note that accompanied the roses given to Suzanne Reardon the day she died, but with Haskell dead and the actual note still missing, it would be impossible to prove any connection to Weeks.

The jewelry might provide an interesting angle, though, Geoff realized, and one worth investigating. I wonder if he goes to any one place to buy baubles for his girlfriends? he asked himself. Who did I date a couple of years ago who told me she’d been out with Weeks? he wondered. The name wouldn’t come, but he would go through his daily reminders of two and three years ago. He was sure he had marked it down somewhere.

When the judge called a recess, Geoff slipped quickly out of the courtroom. He was halfway down the corridor when from behind him he heard someone call his name. It was Bob Kinellen. He waited for him to catch up. “Aren’t you taking a lot of interest in my client?” Kinellen asked quietly.

“General interest at this point,” Geoff replied.

“Is that why you’re seeing Kerry?”

“Bob, I don’t think you have even the faintest right to ask that question. Nevertheless I’ll answer it. I was glad to be there for her after you dropped the bombshell that your illustrious client is threatening her child. Has anyone nominated you for Father of the Year yet? If not, don’t waste your time waiting for the phone to ring. Somehow I don’t think you’ll make it.”