Dead Man's Rule (21 page)

It was nearly six, but Judge Harris had kept them late in order to finish one more witness. That worried Ben. Judges typically did that only when they were convinced the testimony would take just a few minutes. Since the witness in question was Dr. Ivanovsky, and Ben had a lot more than a few minutes’ of questions for his client, he took the judge’s scheduling decision as a bad omen. “Dr. Ivanovsky, when was the first time you met Nikolai Zinoviev?” asked Ben.

“I met him on September fifteen of this year. A man I know from Saint Vladimir’s church said to me that maybe Mr. Zinoviev owned something that I wished to buy, so I called Mr. Zinoviev and he said to meet him. So I met him.”

“And what did you discuss at that meeting?”

“Objection, Dead Man’s Rule,” said Simeon.

“Your Honor, that rule is intended to protect the interests of deceased parties by preventing testimony about oral contracts with them,” said Ben. “It is not intended to bar all testimony in which a witness happens to mention a dead man. I recognize that the Court has barred Dr. Ivanovsky from testifying about his contract with Mr. Zinoviev, and I don’t intend to ask him about that. But the witness is entitled to talk about his other contacts with Mr. Zinoviev.”

“Your Honor—” Simeon began, but Judge Harris held up his hand.

“Regardless of what the Dead Man’s Rule may or may not be intended to do, Mr. Corbin,” the judge said as he opened a well-thumbed copy of Illinois’s civil procedure statutes and rules, “I am bound by what it actually does. Section 8-201 of the Code of Civil Procedure says in relevant part, ‘In the trial of any action in which any party sues or defends as the representative of a deceased person, no adverse party shall be allowed to testify on his own behalf to any conversation with the deceased.’” He closed the book and put it down. “That doesn’t leave me much choice. I’m bound by my oath of office and the laws of Illinois to enforce the Dead Man’s Rule as it’s written, whether I like it or not. And that means I’m going to have to bar this witness from testifying to any conversations he had with Mr. Zinoviev.” He paused and looked at Ben compassionately, knowing full well that he had just torn the heart out of Ben’s case. “I’m sorry.”

After they had been in the apartment for about half an hour, Sergei called Ben to give him an update. “There are lots of documents from the Brothers. Import/export licenses—including some forgeries that Elena is excited about—corporate resolutions, contracts, minutes of meetings, stuff like that. Also, it looks like these guys received five million dollars recently from an offshore bank account, and there’s nothing to explain why.”

“Five million bucks?” Ben whistled through his teeth. “That’s a chunk of change.”

“No smoking guns, though,” Sergei continued. “No letter saying that Dr. Ivanovsky had a contract with Nikolai Zinoviev or anything like that. Is there anything in particular that you’d like us to look for?”

“Yes, but it would take too long to explain it over the phone. I’ve got an after-dinner meeting with another client that I’m already late for. Do you have time to bring the documents over to my office first thing tomorrow morning? I’d like to go through them with you before I head over to court.”

“No problem. How early would you like me there?”

“How about seven?”

“Sure. I’ll see you then.”

Sergei turned to Elena. “I’m going to meet with Ben tomorrow morning to go through this stuff. Want me to just bring it to the Bureau when we’re done?”

“That’d be terrific.”

“I’ll go tell the landlord that we’re leaving—unless you’d like to.”

“That’s okay. I’ll let you do it.”

“Really? I think he’d like to say good-bye to you.”

“But if I see him again, I won’t be able to say good-bye,” she said with mock passion.

Sergei chuckled. “I’ll try to let him down easy.”

“Thanks. I’ll meet you out front.”

Five minutes later, Sergei met Elena on the sidewalk in front of the apartment building. The night had turned cold, and a chill, wet wind was blowing in off the lake. “Hey, they’ve got great peppermint cocoa over at Peet’s,” said Elena. “Could I talk you into some?”

“You just did,” he replied.

Sergei tore himself out of bed at six o’clock the next morning. He was still exhausted from staying up until one thirty to print and read the documents he had photographed. Some of them looked more interesting than he had first thought—including some corporate minutes that discussed a contract between Zinoviev and the Brothers. He had meant to get up at five thirty, but he’d slept through his alarm. Now he would have to rush to be at Ben’s office by seven. He took a quick shower, dressed, and grabbed a banana as he ran out of his apartment.

A high-pitched alarm went off just as he opened the door. He grimaced, then turned on his heel and ran to the control panel for his new burglar alarm. He had already set it off three times since it was installed last week. He keyed in the pass code and the alarm stopped, but it was too late. Now he would have to wait for the security company to call. He looked impatiently at his watch as long seconds passed, each one making it less likely that he would arrive downtown by seven o’clock.

The security company finally called and Sergei ran out the door a second time, now with only fifteen minutes to make the twenty-five-minute trip. He tossed the stack of printouts into the backseat and jumped into the driver’s seat. He stuck his key in the ignition and turned. Nothing happened. Heart sinking, he tried again. Still nothing.

He popped the hood and got out, hoping that it was a loose wire rather than a dead battery. He walked around to the front of the car, opened the hood, and looked down at the engine. He had just enough time to notice that the wires on the battery had been disconnected—but not enough time to wonder why—before something heavy struck him from behind and he passed out.

“Hi, Elena, it’s Ben Corbin. Have you seen Sergei this morning?”

“No. I haven’t seen him since he dropped me off at the FBI parking garage last night. Why?”

“He was supposed to meet me here at seven o’clock this morning with some documents. It’s seven thirty and he hasn’t shown up or called. I tried his office and his cell phone, but he’s not answering. That’s not like him.”

“No, it’s not,” said Elena, concern in her voice. “I’ll look into it and let you know what I find. Call me if you hear from him, okay?”

“I will. Thanks.”

Ben hung up the phone and wondered what to do next. Elena would no doubt do a better job of looking for Sergei than Ben could, but there wasn’t much she could do to help him with his case. Ever since Sergei had called last night, Ben had entertained the hope that even if Josef Fedorov couldn’t testify, his papers could. Those documents were Ben’s last chance of finding some type of admissible evidence of the contract, and it looked like that chance was slipping away.

Ben nervously paced the short hallway of his office. He rarely felt helpless or frustrated in his law practice, but now he felt both. Again. This case held more unpleasant surprises than any other case he had ever worked on. If Sergei had been working for Ben on
Circuit Dynamics
and had not shown up for a meeting, for instance, Ben would have simply assumed that his detective had car trouble and had forgotten to call. But Ben didn’t assume that in this case. His gut told him that Sergei was in serious trouble.
Not that there’s anything I can do about it, of course,
he thought, his jaws clenched in impotent anger.

That wasn’t quite true, he realized a second later—there was one thing he could do: pray. So he prayed silently but fervently for Sergei as he walked back to his office and sat down at his desk.

Noelle came in a few minutes later and found her husband staring out the window. “Still no word from Sergei?” she asked.

“No, and I’ve got a bad feeling about it. I called Elena, and she said she’d try to find him.”

She sat down in one of his guest chairs. “Do you think that assassin might have come back for him?”

“That guy’s probably still in the hospital, but he might have friends. And the Brothers might have done to him whatever they did to Josef.”

“Especially if they can make those documents disappear at the same time.”

“I know.” He put his head in his hands and sighed. “I
need
those documents, and I need them before the trial ends. And I’m worried about Sergei. Every time I start feeling good about this case, someone dies or there’s some disaster in court and we’re in deep trouble again. It seems like each day holds a new crisis where I’m completely out of control and all I can do is pray and hope. This is getting to be a habit.”

Noelle reached over and patted her husband’s arm. “Praying and hoping aren’t bad habits to have.”

Two hours later, Ben stood at the lectern in Judge Harris’s courtroom, bracing himself to try one more desperate gambit. “Your Honor, I move the admission of all of plaintiff’s exhibits into evidence.”

“Any objection?” Judge Harris asked Anthony Simeon.

“We object to Plaintiff’s One. Lack of foundation.”

“Your Honor, I believe we’ve laid a foundation establishing the authenticity of this document. Mr. Kolesnikov conceded that one of the signatures on this document was probably his. Mr. Voronin admitted that the Brothers passed resolutions authorizing all significant transactions and that he couldn’t find another resolution authorizing this one. True, these witnesses also denied that Plaintiff’s Exhibit One is the minutes of their October nine meeting. However, none of their denials were credible. If anything, they underscored the fact that this is a genuine document.”

The judge raised skeptical eyebrows, sending wrinkles up to his gleaming scalp. “But the problem is that you have nothing
but
denials. No one has come in here and said these are in fact the actual minutes of an actual meeting. Without that, I can’t let this into evidence. You have raised serious questions about the character and credibility of various witnesses, but that’s not enough. A series of unbelievable denials does not add up to an admission. Objection sustained. Does the plaintiff rest, Counsel?”

“For the moment, Your Honor. I—”

“There’s no resting your case ‘for the moment,’ Mr. Corbin,” interrupted the judge. “Either you have more evidence to put on or you don’t. Which is it?”