The Trials of Max Q, page 30
She looks incensed. “And I was able to pull this off all by myself? I’m good, but not that good, Jack.”
“You didn’t, and you’re not. Your first helper was someone who wanted to rid the world of Laney Bang as much as you did—James Lansdale. And his helicopter served as the proverbial getaway car. It was his way of shaking the hand of the one who killed Laney.”
I hand her the photo that George Herman provided me of the woman getting off Lansdale’s helicopter at 8:30 a.m. “You toss on a wig and attach some artificial curves, and he gives you a lift back to Manhattan. You were sitting at your desk at LB&G when your client calls from jail, charged with murder.”
Kerri looks like she just bit into a lemon. “That’s preposterous!”
I ignore her theatrics and press on, “Who better to play the strings of the trial than the defense lawyer? Your pleas for Drew in court were heart-warming, but I’ve known you since we were kids. You acted too well. I know Kerri Lawson doesn’t have that kind of heart in her.”
“You aren’t going to have a heart either, Jack—because I’m going to rip it out of your chest!”
“Then it was time for Drew to ‘regret it’ and you played us all like a puppeteer. As his lawyer, you had access to his film library, so you could provide us the video when it looked like we might not prosecute. Then when our case was looking bleak, you provided the PE Albertson tip, which you learned from Laney while working on her memoir as her manager. But I’m still confused who your tattooed messenger was, Kerri—another one of your boy toys?”
She glares at me. “Get over yourself, Jack. First of all, that isn’t me in that helicopter photo. I was in the office by five that morning, check the records. And secondly, that is the dumbest story I have ever heard!”
“I’m not sure I trust anyone from LB&G to back up your story, especially with the ethics issues I just learned of. And Ryan Maxon—your co-star in that great off-Broadway play you acted out in court—didn’t think it was the dumbest story he ever heard. His conscience must have gotten the best of him, which is why he gave me the video of you and Drew. But luckily for you, he isn’t around to testify to that.”
Kerri looks dazed. She then does something that I’ve never seen before. She begins to cry.
When she gets herself under control, she says, “Off the record, my client revealed to me who he believes killed Laney, and it certainly wasn’t me.”
“That’s convenient. So who killed her then?”
“I can’t tell you the name. Drew’s life is already in danger, and if the truth ever gets out, he’s as good as dead.”
“Is convenineter a word?”
“I could care less what you think. I love him, and I just want him to be safe.”
There’s that L word again. I look skeptically at her. Her tears do not fool me. Ever since we were kids, she’s been the master of conning her way out of a hole she’d dug for herself. But this takes it to a whole new level.
She looks tired and drained, but doesn’t look like a murderer. I don’t know what to think anymore, so I decide I need to go right to the horse’s mouth.
“Start driving,” I say.
“Where are we going?” she asks, irritated.
“We are going to get your client a new trial.”
Chapter 79
We meet Drew Anderson in a private meeting room at the Otsego County Jail. He wears an orange jumpsuit and is handcuffed. He looks weary, but lingering behind his exhaustion is the self-assured presence that has always comforted people, made them believe his words, and inspired them to strive to be like him.
The guards leave—since Kerri is his lawyer, we are granted privacy—and Drew sits down at a table across from us.
I meticulously outline to him the cold hard facts that his lawyer committed a serious act of unethical behavior, and that I’m confident he can get a new trial. I feel relief that there’s a way to rectify an egregious error that would send an innocent man to prison, perhaps for the rest of his life. A new trial will be the fair and just resolution.
“I had a fair trial and Kerri did an amazing job under the circumstances,” he astounds me with the answer. His voice is unyielding.
“This is your get out of jail free card,” I reply, not sure that he understood what I just told him.
“Please, Drew, throw me under the bus if you have to. You must get out of here—it’s not safe for you,” Kerri pleads.
“I have said what I have to say. I will not put Marissa through another trial. It’s important for her to move on with her life. Another trial will just be more years of limbo where she has false hope. That knife with my fingerprints on it isn’t going anywhere.”
He is in a trance-like state, appearing to be a man who has accepted his destiny, no matter how wretched it is.
“Ryan Maxon is dead,” I blurt out.
I hoped to be more tactful, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I inform him that the death was suicide, and the way he took his life would cast suspicion on his past testimony. It’s a legal miracle, or at the very least, a second chance for a man facing life in prison.
The revelation doesn’t seem to impress him. “I have made my decision. No appeals. No new trial. Now let’s all move on with our lives.”
Kerri begs. She is willing to be disbarred. She is willing to give up her inheritance. To be publicly exposed, ridiculed, and possibly tried for murder herself. I am stumped. Is this is the acting job of the century or the truth?
I consider why he won’t accept a new trial. Is he protecting someone? Has somebody threatened Marissa? What is the motive behind Kerri’s incessant claims that he’s not safe in prison?
“Are you the one who chose not to testify in your defense?” I ask him point blank.
“We’re done here,” he avoids my question and stands.
I look to Kerri, but she looks away, giving me my answer. “Who are you protecting?” I demand.
He looks me square in the eye. “I will not put people through this again. The jury has spoken and they have ruled me to be guilty. I await my sentencing.”
“Are you willing to live your life without Marissa?” I play my last card.
His face crumbles. “I think you would know that feeling more than anyone, Jack. Another trial might kill her and I love her more than I love myself. I have no choice.”
His voice is calm. He must have ice in his veins.
“You aren’t safe!” Kerri cries out, as Drew leaves with guards.
He stops abruptly, turns back, and stares me down. “Jack—why are you so interested in my well-being? You just achieved one of the great legal victories of all-time.”
“It was a great legal victory, but not a victory for justice. You didn’t kill her and you know it.”
The door buzzes open. And by his choice, Drew returns to a prison cell.
Chapter 80
I must convince Drew to accept a new trial and there is only one person I think he’ll listen to. I speed the F-41 south down the New York Thruway.
I station myself on 161st Street. Friday afternoon traffic is heavy and honking. It’s even more congested than usual due to a playoff game at nearby Yankee Stadium, scheduled for later in the evening.
Marissa steps out of the courthouse. She looks physically similar to when I last saw her on these steps back in July. But her movements are foreign. It’s as if each step is thought out, lacking her confident bounce.
It’s only the second day since the verdict. The press swarms her. Marissa looks like she’s using every ounce of her fortitude to fight off tears.
I make my move. I rev the engine and speed toward the pack of media sharks that surrounds her. I fishhook the bike, causing a panic-filled evacuation of the reporters, and leaving only a frightened Marissa.
When I flip up my visor, her face twists with anger. The last person she wants to see is the man who just took her husband away from her. But her choices are limited.
“Get on,” I urge.
She takes another look at the media that is moving back in her direction. All of a sudden I don’t look so bad.
“Hurry!”
This time she gives in and hops on the back, wrapping her arms tightly around my chest. I speed off to the Anderson’s home on 123rd Street in Upper Manhattan.
It is an eight-story building that they converted from apartments into a townhouse. From the outside, it doesn’t live up to the Max Q standard. A typical redbrick apartment building with a rusting fire-escape stairwell that scars the exterior. No awning or doorman. And the neighborhood is more grit than paradise.
Without a word, Marissa gets off the bike and walks toward the building. I park and follow. I need to talk to her, whether she wants to talk to me or not.
The interior looks much more like the place I visualize the power-couple residing. I stand in the living room area between an over-sized couch and a simple glass coffee table. My eyes wander to a large decorative fireplace that anchors the room. Above it hangs an enormous painted mural on the twenty-foot high wall. It’s a collage made up of multiple images of Drew. As a young boy, as football star at FSU, army hero with a buzzed haircut, and the suave businessman of current day. No mug shots are included.
Marissa wanders into a large country-style kitchen—still not uttering a single word in my direction. It features cherry wood cabinets, a huge wine cabinet, and numerous shiny pots and pans hanging above an island stove. She acts as if I’m not there. The quiet is becoming awkward.
She finally breaks the silence, “You stole my life, you son of a bitch—now I’m going to kill you!”
Before her words register, she reaches for a skillet and hurls it in my direction—it cracks off the glass coffee table. Then a saucepan whizzes by me. When she reaches for a large kitchen knife, I look to duck for cover.
But just before she launches it in my direction, her body slumps and I notice her eyes welling with tears.
“You took my husband away from me,” she cries out.
“That’s what I’m here to talk to you about—Drew didn’t kill her.”
She wipes the tears from her face. “You’re too late, Jack. You should have figured it out earlier.”
“He can get a new trial. I discovered things about Kerri that are totally unethical, but I need you to convince him. He won’t listen to me.”
“That they slept together? I hope you can do better than that, Jack,” she says. The response surprises me.
“Not only did he have an affair with Kerri,” I hesitate, uncertain how this next part is going to go over, “but he was intimately intertwined with both Laney and his lawyer. And I have it on video. The same lawyer who refused to put him on the stand in his defense.”
Marissa takes a seat on the couch. “This is not news, Jack. I talked to Drew an hour ago, and he told me that he spoke with you. He said he refuses to put me through another trial, no matter the consequences. I love him, but he is the most stubborn man on the planet.”
I want to comfort her, but it feels wrong.
“It was my fault,” she unexpectedly says, tears dripping from her eyes.
I sit beside her. “What was your fault?”
“I pushed him into the affair with Kerri. Despite popular mythology, Drew isn’t perfect. But he was to me, and I would do anything to please him. Before we were to be married, I discovered his video-making hobby, addiction, whatever you want to call it. I made it clear that if we got married, he would be out of the video business.”
I listen intently. Night has fallen on New York and only lights of neighboring apartment houses shine through the windows.
“The issue never came up again until one day when he came to watch me in court. The guy I was defending was a good-looking nineteen-year-old kid from the Upper East Side who had robbed a couple of homes in the Bronx with his friends. That night, Drew casually brought up that he would love to see me with the man from court, and he wanted to have it filmed.
“At first I thought he was kidding, but when I realized he was serious, I went ballistic—didn’t talk to him for weeks. It didn’t stop him, and he has this convincing way about him. He would chip away at me, saying things like, ‘You said I couldn’t make any more films, but you never said anything about yourself,’ but I refused. I don’t know what eventually made me give in, perhaps because I was always so deathly afraid of losing him, or maybe I was just a sucker for that killer smile, and would do anything to please him, I don’t know.
“But I should have trusted my first instinct—it turned into a disaster. Drew became so cold toward me. He no longer looked at me the same way, but he couldn’t be outwardly angry, since it was his idea. He bottled it all inside and became more and more distant. It hung over us every moment. That’s when the Rivotti investigation began and he started spending most of his time away from home … with Kerri. So basically, I drove him into her arms.”
“What about Laney Bang?” I ask, intrigued, and maybe a little bit titillated.
She straightens her head and displays a sardonic look. A more recognizable Marissa. “That wasn’t an affair, Jack—that was sex. An affair involves feelings and intimacy.”
“But you and Drew seem so in love—you must have worked it out?”
The cold leaves her face and a proud look takes over. “We did—started from square one and built it back up. I can’t tell if we fell in love all over again, or that our love just never left, but we ended up stronger than ever. That’s what makes all this even harder …”
Her voice trails off.
“You didn’t mind Kerri representing your husband in his trial?”
“I didn’t blame Kerri for loving Drew. Actually, I felt for her. I can’t even imagine loving someone you can’t be with.” She swallows hard. “Like I said, it was my fault, and she’s a great lawyer. We both wanted the same thing—Drew to be free.”
She momentarily pauses, before asking, “Can we discuss something else, like who framed my husband?”
“What was the guy’s name again that Drew brought into your marriage?” I try to ask casually.
I catch a small smile escape from the corner of her mouth. “Once a prosecutor always a prosecutor, huh, Jack? Want to check out my story? His name was Jordan, like the basketball player. Now you know name, age, and time frame of the case. Is that enough information for you, counselor?”
I laugh to myself at how un-smooth I am. I file that tidbit of information in my memory hard drive and change the subject back to the case. “Ryan Maxon didn’t kill her.”
I expect her to argue, but she doesn’t. “I know.”
“You know? But you insinuated …”
“I never accused Ryan Maxon of murdering Laney Bang, so please don’t put words in my mouth. I was just trying to get you to open your mind and see the whole field. Maxon was an obvious choice, yet you overlooked him. But maybe in retrospect you were smart to avoid the obvious candidate.”
“Your husband is afraid of somebody. He might even know who the real killer is. Do you think it’s Lansdale?”
A strange look comes over her face, and then a laugh. “Jimmy is a good friend to both Drew and me. He puts on this tough guy front, but he is nothing but a big pussycat. Besides, he only cares about one thing these days and framing my husband would take too much time away from that.”
“The smut fighting business?”
“No—Jimmy is in love. He’s finally discovered that life is more than a quest for the best toys. Better late than never, I guess. He freaked when you brought up the helicopter flight in his interview—it’s all he obsessed over for days. He’s very protective of the relationship—it’s kind of a sticky situation.”
“By sticky situation, you mean that she’s married.”
“It’s more complicated than that. The marriage has either been annulled, or it’s in the process of such, something to that effect. The problem is that the husband is a powerful man who still thinks she is his property.” She pauses. “I really shouldn’t be talking about this—let’s get back to my husband’s stubbornness.”
I file away her words, and move on, “Kerri claims that Drew told her who is setting him up, but won’t tell me because Drew’s life would be in danger if she did. But I think Drew believes that you’re the one in danger, and is protecting you.”
She grabs my hand and tingles shoot through me. “Come with me”
Chapter 81
Marissa leads me down a hallway to a small bedroom with pink and blue painted balloons on the wall. She looks despondent.
“We had planned on having a baby.” Her voice is filled with defeat, which makes me feel even worse.
She moves a crib, then kneels down and pulls away a small cutout of carpet. It exposes a safe that is built into the floor. She puts in a digital combination and the safe opens.
She reaches in and pulls out a manila envelope. “When we started having our problems, Drew was so distant, and sometimes wouldn’t come home for days. My first thought was that he was seeing someone else, so I hired a PI. Not my proudest moment, although that’s how I found out about him and your sister. But there was something else, which had me even more concerned … maybe even scared.”
She offers me a handful of photos from the envelope. “I overheard him on the phone one night in an intense conversation. And being that I was the jealous wife, I thought it might be Kerri or some other woman, so I picked up the other end. But it was a man’s voice—he mentioned Rivotti, and then threatened to kill me. Drew tried to calm the man, suggesting they meet. I jotted down the time and place of the meeting, and passed it along to my PI.”
I look at the first photo and my head almost explodes. It’s Figliomini with Drew, in what looks like an intense conversation. Suddenly I have a good idea why Drew doesn’t want a new trial. The judge is his enemy, which means he has no chance. It also makes sense why Kerri is worried about Drew’s safety, as I’m sure Figliomini has many connections within the prison.
