Black River (20 page)

Monday, October 23

11:53 a.m.

“W
ould you tell us your name,
please.” “Victor Lebow.”

Unlike those of the previous witnesses, Victor
Lebow’s physical presence did little to inspire confidence. He
was a thin man in his late fifties, with greasy hair and a twitchy left
eye that flickered like a candle every time Klein asked him a
question. He sat in the witness box, sweating into a gray wool suit
that looked like it belonged to somebody else.

Predictably, Warren Klein wasn’t taking any
chances. He seemed determined to take his witness from childhood up
until the minute he entered into a criminal conspiracy with Nicholas
alagula. Equally predictably, Bruce Elkins objected to every word
Victor Lebow uttered.

Two minutes into Lebow’s testimony, however,
Judge Howell lost patience with Elkins’s repeated objections and
threatened to have him removed from the room if he didn’t sit
down and keep quiet, an attitude Elkins now adopted with an air of
stoic martyrdom.

“Could you please, Mr. Lebow, explain to us in
what capacity you were employed on the Fairmont Hospital construction
project?”

Lebow coughed into his hand. “Inspection liaison
officer.”

“And could you explain to the jury, Mr. Lebow,
precisely what an”—Klein made quotation marks in the air
with his fingers—“inspection liaison officer
does?”

Lebow thought it over. “I worked in between the
testing lab and the state inspectors.”

“What exactly were your responsibilities, Mr.
Lebow?”

“Mostly I took the concrete core samples from the
job site and delivered them to the lab for testing.”

“Testing for what?”

“Strength and rigidity.”

“Could you tell us something about how such tests
are conducted?”

Lebow crossed and uncrossed a leg. “Sure,”
he said. “They put them in a hydraulic press and stress them to
the breaking point.”

“What laboratory conducted the tests?”

“Phillips Engineering Technology of
Oakland.”

“How often were these tests conducted?”

“Once a week.”

“So once a week you took concrete core samples
from the Fairmont Hospital job site to the laboratory for
testing.”

“Objection, Your Honor. Asked and
answered.”

“Sustained.”

Klein walked quickly over to the defense table, where
Ray Butler handed him a piece of paper. “Mr. Lebow, can you tell
us what amount of stress the core samples were expected to endure
before failing?”

“The specifications called for a minimum of fifty
thousand pounds per square inch,” Lebow said. He craned his neck
around the courtroom as if searching for someone who might disagree.
“Theoretically,” he added.

Klein walked to the side of the witness box, handed the
piece of paper to Victor Lebow, and looked up at the judge.
“Your Honor, I have handed Mr. Lebow a copy of People’s
Exhibit Thirty-eight, already offered in evidence.”

“So noted,” the judge said.

Klein now stepped in closer to Lebow. “Can you
tell me, Mr. Lebow, whether or not you recognize the document you are
presently holding?”

Lebow’s eye was flickering like a signal flare.
“Yes, I do.”

“Would you tell us what it is, please?”

Again Victor Lebow nervously checked the room.
“It’s the week-to-week test results of the core
samples.”

“Is that your signature at the bottom of each
week, attesting to the validity of the results?” Lebow nodded
silently. “Please answer out loud for the record, Mr.
Lebow?”

“Yes,” he stammered. “That’s my
signature.”

“Your signature attests to exactly what, Mr.
Lebow?”

He looked confused. “I don’t
understand,” he said.

“Well, Mr. Lebow, as you didn’t conduct the
stress tests yourself ”—Klein reached into the jury box
and turned the page over—“you can see here that the tests
themselves were attested to by several employees of Phillips
Engineering. I’m assuming that those signatures attest to the
testing validity, and I was asking you specifically what
your
signature attested to.”

Lebow thought it over. “I guess it says that the
samples I gave them for testing were the same ones I got from the
inspectors on the job site.”

“Were they?”

“Excuse me?”

“Were the samples you delivered to Phillips
Engineering for testing the same samples you took from the job
site?”

Lebow looked up at the judge, as if asking for relief.
Fulton Howell glowered down at the little man like the Old Testament
Jehovah. “Answer the question.”

“No,” Lebow said in a low voice.

Klein cupped a hand around his ear. “Could you
speak up, please?”

“No,” Lebow said again, angry now.
“They weren’t the same samples I got from the job
site.”

Klein took his time now, milking the moment for all it
was worth, casting his eyes from the judge to the jury and finally to
Bruce Elkins, as if daring him to object.

“Mr. Lebow, if the samples you delivered for
testing, and whose validity you attested to with your signature, did
not come from the job site, where
did
they
come from?”

“They were made up special.”

“So the samples you delivered to Phillips
Engineering—”

Elkins was on his feet. “Your Honor!”

Judge Howell waved him back down. “Move along,
Mr. Klein, once again, the question has already been asked and
answered.”

“Who made up the samples you took to
Phillips?”

“I don’t know.” He threw his hands
up. “I mean, I didn’t see ’em get made or
anything.”

For the first time in days, Warren Klein frowned.
“Who did
you
get them from, Mr.
Lebow?”

“I got them from the on-site
inspectors.”

“You’re referring to Joshua Harmon and
Brian Swanson.”

“Yeah.”

Klein paced in front of the jury box. “If you
don’t mind my asking, Mr. Lebow, what induced you to take part in
a fraud such as this?”

Victor Lebow hesitated and then looked down into his
lap. “I needed the money.”

“Excuse me?” Klein taunted.

“I said I needed the money,” Lebow answered
angrily. “I had a consulting business, went tits
up….” Helooked up at the judge. “Sorry. I went
bankrupt. I was under a lot of pressure.”

“And how much were you paid to perpetrate this
fraud?”

“Two thousand dollars a week.”

“For how long?”

“The whole project.”

“Sixty-some weeks.”

“Yes.”

Lebow was squirming around in the seat like he was on a
griddle.

“Would you tell us please, Mr. Lebow, how it came
to pass that you were drawn into this conspiracy?”

“They knew about my money problems.” He
looked up at the judge again, pulled at his collar, and continued.
“Said I could get myself out of debt if I played
along.”

“Played along how?”

“You know, if I dumped the real samples and
delivered the ones they made up special.”

“Dumped?”

“Yeah,” Lebow said. “In the bay.
I’ve got me a little boat. For striper fishing, you know.”
He looked around for other anglers but found the cupboard bare.

“I’d take ’em out on Saturday
mornings with me and dump ’em while I was fishing.”

“Tell me, Mr. Lebow, was anyone in this courtroom
today present when you were offered the two thousand dollars a week to
switch samples?”

Victor Lebow pulled a pair of black-framed glasses from
the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He put them on and slowly
surveyed the room. Satisfied, he returned the glasses to his
pocket.

“Well?” Warren Klein prodded.

Lebow looked up at the judge.

“Answer the question, Mr. Lebow.”

Lebow looked around the room again. “No,”
he said, in a low voice.

“Excuse me?” Klein managed.

“I said no.”

Nicholas Balagula never blinked. Neither did Ivanov.
They sat there like they were at the movies. Bruce Elkins flicked a
confused glance at his client and then tentatively began to rise.

“Perhaps you didn’t understand my question,
Mr. Lebow,” Klein began.

“Your Honor,” Elkins said.

“Yes, Mr. Elkins,” the judge replied.

Elkins brought a hand to his brow, then shook his head.
“Never mind, Your Honor. Please excuse the interruption,”
he said, as he sat back down.

Warren Klein wore his most conspiratorial smile as he
wandered over to the witness box and leaned on the rail. “I think
you may have misunderstood me, Mr. Lebow, so let’s start from
the beginning, okay?”

“Whatever you say,” Lebow said.

“I asked you whether or not the parties
responsible for drawing you into this conspiracy were present in this
courtroom today.”

“And I said
no
,” Lebow said.

Before Klein could collect his wits, Fulton Howell
leaned out over the bench and shook his gavel at the witness. His voice
shook as he spoke. “Mr. Lebow,” he began. “Unless
I’m mistaken, you have signed a deposition stating that the
defendant Nicholas Balagula and his associate Mr. Ivanov were present
in the room when the falsification scheme was hatched. That’s
true, is it not, Mr. Lebow?”

Victor Lebow sat staring down into his lap.

“Mr. Lebow,” the judge prompted. “I
direct you to answer my question. Did you or did you not sign a
deposition in which you swore that the defendant Nicholas Balagula was
present at the time of the conspiracy?”

“I did, yeah,” Lebow answered, without
looking up.

“Are you now contradicting that sworn
statement?”

“Yeah. I guess I am.”

“There’ll be no guessing here, Mr. Lebow.
Was Mr. Balagula or Mr. Ivanov or both present when the conspiracy was
proposed?”

Lebow pulled the glasses from his pocket, put them on,
and peered over at the defense table. “I never seen either of
those guys before in my life,” he said.

Monday, October 23

2:09 p.m.

T
he
air seemed to have been sucked from the room. In disbelief, Bruce
Elkins looked back over his shoulder at his client, only to find
Nicholas Balagula sitting quietly in his chair, whispering to Mikhail
Ivanov from behind his hand. Elkins felt cold and unable to draw
breath, almost the way he’d always imagined the onset of a heart
attack would feel. Then, without willing it so, he found himself on his
feet.

“Call for an immediate dismissal of
charges,” he said.

Fulton Howell’s face had already moved through
the deep-red stage and was now something more akin to blue.

“Your motion is noted, Mr. Elkins. Now sit back
down.” He squeezed the words out from between his teeth like
putty.

“Your Honor—” Klein began.

The judge waved him off. “Sit,” was all he
said. He leaned out over the bench again. “Would you tell this
court, Mr. Lebow, why it was you saw fit to give false witness in a
matter of such seriousness?”

Victor Lebow had an answer ready. “They
threatened me.”

“Who threatened you, Mr. Lebow?”

He pointed at the prosecution table. “Over
there,” he said. “Them.”

“Are you referring to Mr. Klein, Mr. Butler, and
Ms. Rogers?”

“Not her. The other two.”

“How did they threaten you, Mr. Lebow?”

“With jail. I mean, they kept saying I was going
to prison for a long time.” His face was a knot. “And, you
know, all the bad things that were going to happen to me in jail. How I
was gonna get fucked up the ass and all. They kept telling me I was
gonna be the only one who took the rap. And that the real bad guys
would go free, and it was just gonna be me in the jailhouse.”

“And so you decided to implicate Mr.
Balagula.”

Lebow shook his head. “I never heard of the guy
before”—he pointed at the prosecution
table—“until that Klein guy kept saying his
name.”

“What else did he say?”

“He said Harmon and Swanson were on the pad and
that it was this Balagula guy who was paying the freight.”

“And you merely took their word for the fact that
Mr. Balagula was the guilty party?”

Lebow shrugged. “Tell you the truth, I
didn’t much care,” he said. “By the time they started
talking about how I could maybe not go to jail if this guy Balagula
was convicted, I woulda signed just about anything.”

“Your Honor,” Klein protested, “we
have both transcripts and tape recordings of our conversations with Mr.
Lebow, and I assure you—”

Fulton Howell ignored Klein. “You are aware, Mr.
Lebow, that your testimony here today forfeits any immunity agreement
you may have been granted in return for your testimony against Mr.
Balagula.”

Lebow’s lower lip was beginning to quiver.
“I know.”

“And that you are, in all probability, facing a
sizable term in a federal prison.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“And with that in mind, you still insist that Mr.
Balagula was not present when you entered into this conspiracy and
that your original statements were false?”

“I do.”

The judge sat back for a moment, taking the witness in.
“Could you perhaps tell the court why it is that you have chosen
to change your story at this late stage in the proceedings?”

“I hadda to do the right thing,” Lebow
stuttered. “If I kept on with this Balagula story, they were
gonna send the wrong guy to jail and the real bums responsible for all
those dead babies was going to be walking around the
streets.”

“So you’ve changed your story in the
interest of justice.”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Why did you wait until now?” The
judge’s voice was rising. “For pity sake, why did you allow
the expenditure of so much time and money before you told the truth?
You could have come forward months ago.”

“I was scared,” Lebow said. “People
said they were gonna kill me. I didn’t know what to do.
I…wanted…to…” He hiccuped once and began to
sob. The judge watched for a disbelieving moment, then dropped his
hands to the bench with a slap and shook his head in disgust.

“I want to see Mr. Klein and Mr. Elkins in my
chambers. Mr. Lebow is to be remanded to custody.” He pointed at
the defense table. “I want to see the transcripts of your
conversations with Mr. Lebow and the recordings thereof,
ASAP.”

“I’ll need a little time, Your
Honor,” Warren Klein protested.

Howell ignored him, turning his attention to Elkins
instead. “I want you to consider your position as an officer of
the court, Mr. Elkins, as well as the ramifications of suborning
perjury.”

Elkins puffed his chest. “I take exception to
that remark, Your Honor.”

“Exception noted. Court is adjourned until nine
o’clock Wednesday morning, when I will rule on Mr. Elkins’s
call for a dismissal of charges.”

Fulton Howell jerked a thumb back over his shoulder.
“Chambers,” he growled.

Klein walked over to Ray Butler. They stood together
whispering before Klein disengaged and made his way to the front of the
room.

Bruce Elkins lingered at the defense table. The
jury could be heard rustling out the side door, and the spectators
disappeared through the door at the front of the room. Elkins leaned in
close and swept his eyes from Balagula to Ivanov and back. “You
set this up, didn’t you?”

Neither man answered.

“You arranged the whole thing,” Elkins
persisted.

“I think they’re waiting for you,”
Nicholas Balagula said.

“I won’t be party to it,” Elkins
hissed. “I will not sit idly by and allow you to subvert the
criminal justice system.” He pounded the desk, caught himself,
and looked around. “I’ll resign before I’ll be part
of this”—he searched for a word—“this
abomination.”

Balagula looked at him like he was a schoolchild.
“We have been miraculously spared the wrath of an
unjust
and
spiteful
prosecution,” he said, using Elkins’s own words.
“Just do your job, Mr. Elkins. As I keep telling you, I’m
innocent, so the rest will take care of itself.”

“Mr. Elkins.” It was one of the bailiffs.
“The judge is waiting.”

Elkins reluctantly got to his feet. Balagula smiled up
at him. “Have you no faith that truth and justice will prevail,
Mr. Elkins?”

The lawyer was talking to himself as he made his way
out of the courtroom.

Renee Rogers scratched her chair back along the
floor and stood up. She stretched and then wandered over to
Corso’s side.

“Can you believe this?”

Corso shook his head in disgust. “It was a setup,
all the way. Balagula took one look at Klein and knew all he had to do
was give him a shiny new witness and Warren would be just the asshole
to run with it.”

“But Victor Lebow is going to prison. How in hell
do you induce a guy into going to prison for you?”

“For how long?”

“Eight to fifteen.”

“So he serves what?”

“Fifty months minimum.”

“A million bucks.”

“Huh?”

“You’re broke. You’re facing felony
charges from the hospital disaster. You’re getting death threats
from the victim’s families. You’ve just declared
bankruptcy. Balagula comes to you with an offer you can’t refuse.
Go to the cops. Claim it was Balagula who gave you the phony core
samples. Claim you were there. That you can put the smoking gun in his
hand. After what happened to Harmon and Swanson, they’re gonna
lock you up like Fort Knox. Then, when the time comes to testify, you
change your tune. Take the rap. You let the heat die down, let
everybody forget about you, and walk away four years later with a
million bucks. A quarter million a year. Twenty thousand a month.
Tax-free.”

She thought it over. “Assuming you’re
right, you think Elkins knew?”

“Unless he’s the greatest actor I’ve
ever seen,” Corso said, “he was just as blown away as the
rest of us.” She nodded solemnly. Corso continued.
“There’d be no reason to tell Elkins. He’s too fond
of appearing on talk shows to agree to suborn perjury. All Balagula had
to do was put things in place, let Elkins do his job, and
wait.”

“I don’t believe this,” Rogers said.
“That sonofabitch has screwed us again. He’s gonna
walk.”

“The judge said he wanted to see the
transcripts.”

She laughed. “Which are going to show that Lebow
is telling the truth. That’s exactly how it’s done. You
scare the crap out of them and then offer them a way out. It’s
standard operating procedure.”

“You never know with juries.”

“No way,” she scoffed.
“Howell’s not going to send it to any jury. He’s
going to come down with a directed not-guilty verdict, and
Balagula’s going to waltz out of here a free man.”

A door opened at the top of the aisle. A green-jacketed
U.S. marshal started down the aisle. As the door stood open, the noise
of the media horde outside rushed into the courtroom, more of a snarl
than a roar—and then, as the door snapped shut, silence
again.

“Sounds like the grapevine has delivered the
news,” Corso said.

“Amazing how that works,” she said
disgustedly.

They went silent as the cop walked past them, lifted
the rail, and made his way over to the nearest bailiff. They leaned
together in animated conversation.

“Question,” Corso said.

“What?”

“Last trial. Here in Seattle.”

“Yeah?”

“You had the jury in a hotel for the duration of
the trial.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Which hotel?”

“The Carlisle Tower.”

“And you fed them three meals a day,
right?”

“At least.”

“Who paid the bill?”

“Initially or ultimately?”

“Both.”

“Initially, it was King County, who then bled the
General Accounting Office for reimbursement.”

“How detailed do you figure the bill
was?”

She pursed her lips. “Knowing the GAO, I’d
say they probably wanted it itemized down to the last Q-Tip.
Why?”

“Which department do you figure would handle that
for King County?”

“I’d start with the county
auditor.”

The door to the judge’s chambers burst open and
banged against the wall. Warren Klein came storming out into the
courtroom. He strode quickly across the floor, threw his coat over one
arm, and grabbed his briefcase before turning his attention to Renee
Rogers. Three words into his speech, and you knew two things: one,
he’d rehearsed it; two, it needed more work. “If your busy
social schedule will permit, Ms. Rogers, we’ll be working at the
hotel this afternoon. Two o’clock.” Showed two fingers.
“Despite your unfortunate lame-duck status, we’re hoping
you’ll contribute some final advice about how to avoid this
impending disaster you and the other incompetents have foisted upon
us.”

“I’ll see if I can’t pencil you
in,” she said.

They stood for a moment, their gazes locked, before
Warren Klein barged through the gate and up the aisle.
“Professional to the end,” Corso whispered.

Halfway between the bench and the defense table, Ray
Butler stood with his cell phone pressed to the side of his head.
Occasionally his lips moved, but mostly he listened.

The movement of his hand caught Renee Rogers’s
attention. He was pointing at the phone and rolling his eyes. He began
to move her way, talking now. “Yes…yes, I understand.
I’ll see to it…. Yes.” He rested onecheek on the
table and listened for a full minute before heaving a sigh and
pocketing the phone. His expression made it clear he hadn’t been
chortling with his wife about the new house.

He looked up at Renee Rogers. “You want to
guess?” he asked.

“We’ll be having breakfast with the AG
tomorrow morning.”

“She’s coming here?”

“As we speak.”

Her lips were nearly invisible. “She’s
going to make sure the shit rolls downhill.”

“We’re gonna need wheelbarrows,”
Butler said.

“Dump trucks,” she amended.