Dog Day Afternoon, page 20
He nods, but it’s not a nod that says, Dammit, Andy, you’re right. I’m going to slam-dunk this thing!
Richard is walking toward me, so I get up to meet him halfway. “You going to put your boy on the stand?”
“Coming right up.”
“Damn, I should have prepared for it.” He smiles.
I don’t get a chance to respond because Judge Ramirez comes in. We take our seats, he calls in the jury, and I call Nick Williams to the stand.
“How long did you work at Moore Law?” is my first question.
“About seven months.”
I get him to list his responsibilities and say that he liked his coworkers a great deal; he considered them friends.
“Did you make as much money as you wanted to?”
He smiles. “No, I wanted to make more. But Mr. Brisker explained to me that company policy was that I had to wait a year. He said he was sorry, but that there was nothing he could do.”
“Please describe what you did on the day that the shootings took place.”
Nick nods. “I got up and prepared to go to work, like I did every day. I went out the back door, because that’s where my garage is. I think I remember being grabbed from behind, but that’s all, and I’m not even positive about that.”
“What is the next thing you remember?”
“Waking up in a room, an empty room with no furniture. There was one window, but it was black; it looked like it was covered up from the outside. It was all the way on the other side of the room.
“There was a large, closed hook embedded into a wall, it was about five feet high. My left leg was shackled … there was a chain … and it connected to that hook. There was also a bathroom about five feet from where the hook was.”
“Did you try and pull the hook out of the wall, or somehow disconnect the chain from either the wall or your leg?”
“Boy, did I ever. But I couldn’t do either; not even close.”
“Did you try to break the window?”
He shakes his head. “The chain wasn’t long enough for me to get over there.”
I once again show the photos of the room to Nick and the jury, and he says that it looks exactly like where he was held.
“What happened next?”
“After I tried everything I could think of, I just sat there. I was really scared; I didn’t know if anyone was going to show up. I was afraid they would and I was probably more afraid they wouldn’t.”
“Did anyone show up?”
He nods. “Yes. Two men, one really big and one about my size. They had ski masks over their faces.”
“What did they do?”
“They brought me food and told me if I behaved myself, I wouldn’t get hurt. The big guy called me ‘friend.’”
“Do you think you knew them?”
Nick shakes his head. “No, but I can’t be sure. I didn’t recognize their voices.”
“How long were you there?”
“Hard to know, but I would guess three or four days. After I woke up, they came twice a day and brought me food. Then, the last day, they put a hood over my head, unchained me, and took me out of there. I was afraid they were going to kill me.”
I’m pleased with Nick’s testimony so far. He comes off as appropriately nervous, but sincere. Of course, the jury might have a completely different opinion.
“What did they do?”
“They put me on the floor of a car in the back and drove me to a rest stop on the Garden State Parkway. They gave me a cell phone and told me to call the police and turn myself in.”
“Did they say why you should turn yourself in?”
“No, I had no idea what they were talking about.”
“So what did you do?”
“I called my friend Marcus Clark. He came and picked me up and brought me to you. He also told me the horrible news about the office. You told me to turn myself in, so I did.”
Nick has done an outstanding job; he’s told the story truthfully with no embellishment, leaving Richard little to attack. The jury will either believe him, or they won’t.
“So you don’t know who took you?” Richard asks.
“No.”
“You don’t know what they did to knock you out?”
“No.”
“You don’t know where they took you, in terms of location?”
“I do now, but I didn’t then.”
“You don’t know how long you were held?”
“Not really.”
“You don’t know why you were held?”
“I can’t be sure. Now it seems like it must have been so that I would be blamed for the deaths.”
“You don’t know how the murder weapon was found near your house with your fingerprints on it?”
“No.”
“Do you know how the killer knew his way around the office and knew Sally Montrose’s nickname?”
“No.”
“So your alibi is that you have no idea about anything?”
“I’ve told the truth.”
“Do you know your way around that office?”
“Yes.”
“Finally an answer other than no.”
I object and Judge Ramirez strikes the comment.
Then, “Let’s try for some more yeses. Do you know Sally Montrose’s nickname to be Monty?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a tattoo of a hook on your arm?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have sneakers with red and yellow stripes on them?”
“Yes.”
“Did you get turned down when you applied for a raise?”
“Yes.”
Richard shakes his head as if disdainful of what he has heard. “No further questions.”
I think Richard did not do much damage, though he covered all the ground available to him. It’s up to the jury to decide whether Nick is telling the truth.
“Your Honor, the defense rests.”
“Sam, Derek Shaffer has disappeared with his computer. Eddie has just arranged for us to get access.”
“Disappeared voluntarily?” Sam asks.
“Not sure, but I don’t think he’ll ever get a taste of Hilda’s babka.”
“So bad guys took his computer?”
“Apparently. Let me ask you a question; you said he had excellent protections on his consultant-company data. You couldn’t break into it.”
“Right.”
“So he must be computer savvy?”
“Either he or someone who works for him. Maybe he has a great IT guy.”
“Either way, he would back everything up, right? Whatever was on his computer would be backed up somewhere?”
“Of course.”
“Where?”
“Are we talking about data that could show criminality?”
“We are.”
“Then I doubt it would be in the cloud. Law enforcement could get the provider to give it to them with a warrant. So I would say a separate hard drive; possibly more than one.”
“Where would he keep them? In his house?”
“I would think at least one would be there. He might keep another one off premises, maybe in a safe-deposit box, in case there was a fire in his house.”
“Eddie has arranged for us to get access. I want you to go there and see if you can find it. You can bring the Brigade with you if you want them to help you look. You have his address?”
“Of course.”
“Will it be password protected?”
“Definitely. Depending on the password, I might be able to break it. I have a program that tests thousands of passwords a minute.”
“So you mean whether you can break it depends on the number of characters, that kind of thing?”
“I’ll give you an example. If it’s seven characters and includes numbers, upper- and lowercase letters and symbols, my program can crack it in six minutes. If it’s fourteen characters of just upper- and lowercase letters, it would take eight hundred and sixty-seven thousand years.”
“Then let’s hope it’s not the latter; the jury won’t be out that long.”
“First we have to find it.”
“Also, call Marcus and ask him to go with you, just in case you’re not the only people interested in searching that house.”
“I can handle myself.”
“I know, but I suspect it’s been a while since Hilda and Eli have been in a gunfight.”
“Okay, I’ll call Marcus.”
“First of all, I want to thank you for what you have already done,” Richard says as he begins his closing argument.
The courtroom has an electric feeling today; this is the culmination. Laurie is here in the front row, as is Nick’s friend Rafe. He’s been here a few times during the trial, whenever work permitted.
Richard continues, “You’ve had to hear disturbing testimony and see very unpleasant images, and you’ve had to listen patiently as we lawyers drone on. I know how dull I can be; my wife frequently reminds me.
“But what you have done so far, and especially what you are about to do, is crucially important. It is the bedrock of our entire justice system: the accused are judged by his or her peers. And that is what you are about to do; you will make a judgment, a decision, about the guilt or innocence of Nicholas Williams.
“So what Mr. Carpenter and I have been doing all these days is preparing you to make that decision. In this case, I would submit that it is all about knowledge, about what we know and can prove, and about what Mr. Williams does not know.
“We know that a man came into the Moore Law office, with a loaded gun, and killed six people. He was disguised, but Sally Montrose knew who he was.
“We know that he knew her nickname, we know that he wore identical sneakers to the ones Mr. Williams always wore, and we know he had an identical tattoo in the same place on his body as Mr. Williams.
“We know that Laura Schauble also saw the tattoo and the sneakers, and that they both believed the voice belonged to Mr. Williams. We know that Ms. Montrose said that the gunman walked upright in a rather unique manner, the same as Mr. Williams.
“We further know that the killer knew his way around the office as he calmly and methodically located each person to gun down.
“We know that none of this could be a coincidence.
“We also know that the murder weapon, with Mr. Williams’s fingerprints on it, was found discarded not far from his house. Not in his own dumpster, or in his house, where someone who was planting it might have left it. No, six houses away, where it might have gone undetected.
“Now, let’s talk about what Mr. Williams does not know. He claims to have been kidnapped, but he doesn’t know who did it. He doesn’t know why they did it. He didn’t know where they took him. He doesn’t know how long they held him. And he doesn’t know how the murder weapon ended up near his house.
“So you are left with the choice of believing what we know, what you know from the evidence, or what Mr. Williams does not know. I would submit that decision is easier than most of the ones I run into in my profession.
“This was a horrible crime, maybe the worst I’ve seen in my career. Nothing you can do can bring back those six souls, but you can give them some semblance of justice. And you can prevent Nick Williams from ever hurting another person again.
“I hope and trust you will do that.”
I think Richard has done a good job, particularly at the end. Jurors do not want to think that they could be letting someone go, only to have them kill again. They do not want that blood on their hands.
“Like Mr. Wallace, I would like to thank you for performing a very difficult service,” I say, matching Richard pander for pander. “You have been attentive and serious and respectful and dedicated, and we could not ask for anything more.
“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the only thing that Mr. Wallace and I agree on.
“There are definitely things that Mr. Williams does not know; he was quite open about that. But when you are knocked out and locked in a room for three days without contact with the outside world, that becomes more understandable.
“Fortunately, we don’t have to rely solely on Mr. Williams’s recollections. We have independent confirmation of so many of them. For instance, we have phone records which show someone present at his house at the time he was leaving for work. And that was not just anyone, and certainly not a benign presence.
“It was a murderer, Russell Wheeler, who was then placed by an eyewitness at the location where Mr. Williams was held. What was he doing there? Was he just hanging out in Newton, New Jersey? Does that make sense?
“And then we have a neighbor of Mr. Williams, who saw a strange car with people he did not recognize, leaving Mr. Williams’s driveway that morning. One of them drove and the other sat in the back. Could the man in the back have been watching their prisoner? Is that a reasonable possibility?
“And how did Mr. Williams get around all this time if his car was in the garage with an odometer that showed it had not been driven? And how did he get to the rest stop? If he drove, where was the car? Did Mr. Wallace present any evidence to show that a cab or Uber dropped him off? No, and you can bet he searched for it.
“And why did the killer deliberately show his tattoo, or wear distinctive sneakers that could be recognized, yet he wore a mask covering his face? And why and how did he go back to his house to leave the murder weapon in an incriminating place?
“And while we’re asking why, why did the killer not shoot Ms. Montrose? Was he really distracted, or did he want a witness that would identify the killer as Mr. Williams, based on the tattoo and sneakers and use of her nickname?
“And did you hear from Mr. Wallace any reason for Mr. Williams to have killed five of his friends and a stranger? Because he was going to have to wait five more months for a raise, as was company policy? Does that seem logical to you?
“I am here to tell you that Nick Williams was set up for this crime, and every single word you heard during this trial is consistent with that. Let me repeat that … Every. Single. Word.
“You may think I am wrong when I say that, but there is no way on earth that you could know that I am wrong. This courtroom is knee-deep in reasonable doubt.
“What happened in that office that day was a nightmare. What Mr. Williams has gone through since that day is another nightmare, a living one. I would not wish it on anyone.
“But you can end it. You can give Nick Williams his life back. I hope and believe that you will.”
I walk back to the defense table with that sick feeling I always get after my closing argument. It’s now out of my control, and we have to depend on twelve strangers to do the right thing. I’m not sure I’ve met twelve strangers in my entire life that I can count on to do the right thing.
But it is what it is.
I shake Nick’s hand and he thanks me. Judge Ramirez gives his instructions to the jury and then adjourns court for the day.
I’m walking to my car when my cell rings. It’s Sam, and his first words are “Hilda found the hard drive. It was in his night-table drawer; it wasn’t even locked.”
“Can you break the password?”
“Haven’t tried yet. Is it okay if we take it back to the office?”
“Not yet. Get a subpoena for it, and then have Eddie contact Tina Winston.” Sam knows her; she’s the state police cop in the cybercrime division who has already testified in the trial.
I continue, “I want her involved; maybe she can make a copy of the hard drive and you can work off of that. I leave that to you computer geeks. But I want to preserve the chain of custody.”
“Geeks?”
“Sorry. Experts. Just let me know when you get the password.”
“If we get the password.”
I’ve been wrong all along in my approach to taking on clients.
Because I’m wealthy and lazy and want to work as little as possible, for years I have taken the position that I would only represent people that I believed to be innocent. For a while I thought I violated that in this case, but because of Marcus I made an exception. Then it turned out that Nick was innocent after all.
But the truth is that I should not be representing innocent clients in the first place.
When you have an innocent client, you dread the possibility that he or she might be convicted. Speaking for myself, I am filled with panic that I could not get a jury to see the truth, and that an innocent person might go to prison because of my failings.
But with a guilty client, if I lose, I lose. The creep got what he deserved; he committed the crime so he’ll do the time.
Bottom line … innocent clients are the worst … guilty clients are the way to go. And the guiltier the better.
It’s been three days since the jury started deliberating and one day since they called us all to the courtroom to say they were deadlocked on all counts. Judge Ramirez did what judges always do in these situations: he told them to go back and keep working toward a verdict.
I have no idea what the vote has been like, but I’m not surprised that they’re having trouble deciding. I think we’ve made a good reasonable-doubt case, but I can see where some of them might take the government’s evidence as gospel.
We are asking them to believe a complicated scenario; the prosecution is asking them to take eyewitness testimony at face value.
I’m in my typical high-anxiety verdict-waiting mode. I don’t hang around with other people during this time, except for Laurie and Ricky. It’s easy for me to stay apart from friends; they know what I’m like at this time and have no interest in being near me.
Adding to my frustration is that Sam has not yet been able to break the password and get into Shaffer’s hard drive. Sam keeps telling me that it could come at any time, or it could be never. We won’t know until we know.
Thanks, Sam.
Of course, for all I know the computer could be filled with photos of Shaffer’s last vacation. All that is certain is that whoever did him in was concerned that the computer contained incriminating evidence, or they wouldn’t have taken it.
Even if Sam gets into it, the timing is not going to work for the trial. The jury is going to come to a decision soon, even if the result is that they can’t come to a decision.
