The Wrong Man

88

After Joel Lightner’s briefing, he and I spent the next several hours with Lee Tucker of the FBI. This time, Lee Tucker wasn’t wearing a patronizing smirk. I’d made some headway with him, and the information Joel and I gave him now only solidified our position.

Not that Lee gave up a single damn thing in return. He didn’t confirm or deny anything. He gave no indication whether my information was news to him or stuff he already knew. I couldn’t tell if he put the threat risk at low, medium, or high, or the imminence of that threat as near or far.

From his viewpoint, which he revealed drip by drip through various comments, I had a circumstantial case against Global Harvest at best. None of the sales of fertilizer or nitromethane were illegal. In fact, they were openly disclosed to the authorities. I claimed the quantities were underreported, but I had no proof of that. And my theories on how Kathy Rubinkowski and Bruce McCabe died were just that-theories. Yes, it helped my cause that two people from GHI’s law firm had been murdered, and it helped that white Aryan supremacists named Patrick Cahill and Ernie Dwyer, in custody on federal gun charges, worked private security for GHI. But at the end of the day, all of my arguments were colored by the fact that I lacked a smoking gun, and I was a defense lawyer desperate to use these facts to exonerate his client.

“So this map came from Stanley Keane’s house,” said Lee Tucker. “And you take these X marks to be bombing targets.”

“Don’t you?” I replied.

“And Stanley Keane is in the hospital right now with multiple broken bones, recovering from shock.”

I nodded. “In his rush to hand me the map, he fell down the stairs.”

Tucker didn’t even smirk. “He’ll tell that story the same way?”

“Lee, are we here to discuss whether I assaulted this asshole, or are we here to discuss whether he plans to detonate bombs in our city someday soon?”

Tucker thought for a long while, perused his notes, and then gave a presumptive nod. “Okay, Kolarich, I got it,” he said.

Okay, he got it. He wasn’t going to give me anything more. But I’d done my duty. Again.

Joel and I got back to the law firm at four. Shauna was in her office, busily typing. Tomorrow morning, we were going to present Judge Nash with a written motion outlining all of the evidence we had uncovered and why it merited either a mistrial or a delay. If Judge Nash denied it, I was going to file an emergency motion in the state supreme court, which has supervisory powers over every court, every case, and ask them to halt the proceedings based on this emergency development. I would make sure that Judge Nash knew of my plan B. My best chance was that, with the specter of the state’s highest court looming over him and the stakes being so high, the old codger would at least grant me a small delay in the trial. Most judges would. Then again, Judge Nash ain’t most judges.

Regardless, this written submission had to be spot-on. I needed the best written product I could muster, and that meant Shauna. She knew this stuff, but she had been focusing on forensics, so I wanted Joel Lightner around this as well. I called Tori in, too, because she’d seen much of this up close. We would need a sparkling brief and affidavits as well, supporting our factual contentions.

“Okay, do your magic,” I said to Shauna. “And Lightner, behave yourself around these two beautiful women.”

“Yeah?” he said. “And where the hell are you going?”

I stretched my arms. “I’m going to prepare my closing argument,” I said. “In case Judge Nash tells us to go fly a kite.”