New Tricks (29 page)

There’s something wrong with this picture. I’m a lawyer, the person who is supposed to get involved after the violence, not
during. There were no self-defense classes in law school, and we were never taught how to deal with a dangerous criminal while
wearing a wire. The only time the word “wire” came up was when we were told that international corporate clients might pay
our fees by “wire” transfer.

But here I am, in an FBI van at a rest stop off the Palisades Interstate Parkway, having a wire taped to my chest. I’m sweating
so much that I’m afraid it will electrocute me. Laurie is watching all of this with an impassive stare, which I am sure masks
very significant worry, if not outright dread. The only confrontations I can handle are verbal. If you wanted to buy a foxhole,
I could handle the closing for you, but you wouldn’t want me in there with you if things got dangerous.

My plan is not exactly well thought out. I want to get Robinson on record admitting that my theory about the synthetic DNA
is correct. I don’t expect him to admit to any murders; I still don’t know if he committed or planned any. But I, and certainly
Corvallis, would like to get him to implicate others.

Whether I accomplish this by threats or an inference that Robinson and I can turn this into a mutually profitable situation,
I can’t yet say. I’m going to play it by ear and take the conversation in the direction I deem most fertile in the moment.
That is an area in which I feel comfortable.

Corvallis will be in the van with four other agents, two of whom work the technical equipment, and Laurie. Other agents will
be spread out on the grounds near the house, ready to move in if I am in danger. I also will have a small panic button attached
to my belt, a signal for them to storm the house and save the lawyer.

Once we are all set, and the various electronics are attached to me, I exit the van and get into my car. I wait ten minutes
for the FBI people to go ahead and get in position, and then I drive to the house myself.

As I pull up to a house and property just a notch below that of Walter Timmerman’s, I don’t see the van or any agents. I hope
that they are just good at concealment, because if they’re not there I could be in major trouble. I feel like Michael Corleone
before his meeting in the restaurant with Solozzo, depending on the gun to have been planted in the bathroom.

I park, take a deep breath, and go to the front door, which is wide open. This doesn’t feel like a good sign, and it’s not
the only one. Coming through the open door is a stench that is unlike anything I have ever experienced.

In every movie I have ever seen where this situation occurs, there is a dead body waiting to be discovered by the hero. The
only thing missing here is the hero, because if it’s me then I’m miscast.

I turn and look around, hoping to see Corvallis or someone who will provide guidance. Seeing no one, I softly say, “The door
is open and it smells awful.” I’m sure they can hear me in the van, but the communication is only one way, so they can’t answer
me, and it does me no good.

I decide to go in, because not to do so is to leave and therefore make no progress. Besides, while the stench may mean a dead
body, it also would mean the body has been dead for a while. Therefore, if someone murdered that body, he has had plenty of
chance to leave already.

I walk through the foyer and living room, covering my nose with my sleeve and ridiculously calling out “hello!”—as if Robinson
were going to come walking out saying,
Andy, welcome. I was cooking us fried horse manure for dinner. Smells delicious, doesn’t it?

When I get to the kitchen, I come upon what is easily the most disgusting sight I have ever seen… the most disgusting sight
anyone has ever seen. What used to be Charles Robinson sits at the kitchen table, but he is no longer human. It is as if his
enormous body has melted from the inside out, and he is covered with disgusting blotches of ooze and blood. Much of it has
dripped to the floor.

I once saw the decapitated, burned body of a corrupt cop, and I later saw his head wrapped in plastic. Those were disgusting
sights, but compared with this they were like a field of daffodils.

I start to run from the kitchen, simultaneously pressing the panic button and screaming, “Get in here! Get in here!” The words
don’t come out quite as clearly as I would like, because my vomit gets in the way.

When I reach the outside, I literally fall to the ground and gasp for air. Agents rush to me, no doubt thinking that I’m hurt,
but I motion for them to go in. Corvallis then comes running to me with two agents and Laurie, and I gasp what has happened.

Laurie stays with me as everyone else goes inside. I’m still on the ground, gasping, trying to keep the remainder of my last
twelve meals down. It is not my finest moment, but right now I can’t worry about that. I just have to get control and figure
out how not to be haunted the rest of my life by what I’ve just seen.

Within fifteen minutes, there are so many vehicles at the Robinson house you’d think the Yankees were playing the Red Sox
in the backyard. I’m sure every FBI agent in the tristate area has been summoned, and I can see a bunch of people with forensics
equipment.

Corvallis comes out and greets one of the arriving men as “Doctor,” and he brings him into the house. If this guy can do anything
for Robinson, I am going to make him my personal physician for life.

Crime scenes take forever, and as the closest thing to a witness, I know that I am going to have to wait around to be questioned.
Two hours go by, during which Laurie and I stroll around the grounds. I tell her in detail what I saw, and the act of walking
in the fresh air and being with her makes me feel considerably better.

Finally, Corvallis comes over to talk to me. “We need a statement,” he says.

I just nod my understanding.

“You okay?” he asks, showing more concern than I expected. “It is pretty rough in there.”

“What happened to him?” I ask.

“Let’s do the statement first, okay?”

“Okay.” This is the correct procedure; if he were to tell me anything that they learned, it could be viewed as prejudicing
my statement.

I basically have little to say about the actual scene; all I did was walk in and discover the body. Everyone who followed
saw exactly the same thing as I did, and I’m sure by now it has been memorialized by hundreds of pictures. But I do insist
on including in the statement the reason that I was there in the first place; it will serve me well if I can ever get evidence
of all this into the trial.

The statement is verbal and taped, and I promise to sign a transcript of it when they have it ready. I request that I see
it before court tomorrow, and Corvallis says that will not be a problem. Then I renew my question to Corvallis. “What happened
to Robinson?”

“It looks like iridium.”

That’s a little cryptic for me, so I ask him to elaborate.

“It’s a poison, a favorite in international circles. The KGB had a particular preference for it, but others have used it as
well. You don’t want to know the details of what it does; you’ve gotten a firsthand look.”

“How long was he dead?”

“We don’t have a firm time on that yet. He was eating a meal, I assume the poison was in the food. The amount that would fit
on the head of a pin would kill someone in forty-five seconds.”

“Not a pleasant forty-five seconds,” I say.

“Yeah. You guys okay getting home?” he says.

“Yes. You know I’m going to try to use all this at trial.”

He smiles. “And the relevance?” He is pointing out that I’m going to have a tough time connecting Robinson’s death to Steven’s
trial in a way to get Hatchet to admit it.

“I’m working on it, but it’ll come in.”

“We may be on different pages on that,” he says, and then walks off.

He’s probably right, but I’d know better if I knew what the hell page I was on.

O
N THE WAY HOME
I call Kevin and ask him to come over. That way, he, Laurie, and I can discuss at length the impact of tonight’s events on
our case, and the strategy we should employ to make the most of it.

The potential benefits are obvious. Walter Timmerman’s work involved him with very rough people, so rough that the person
he was in a form of partnership with was poisoned to death. This couldn’t help but create the credible thought in a jury’s
mind that the perpetrator might have killed Walter as well.

Diana’s death is more problematic, in that we have no evidence she was involved with Walter’s work. However, the manner in
which she died helps us. It also blew up Walter’s lab, and could easily have killed Waggy, both of which fit into our theory.

Unfortunately, while this all makes sense to us, it is unlikely to impress the jury, because the jury is very unlikely to
ever hear about it. We have no real way to connect Robinson to Walter’s DNA work except our theory. We can’t even factually
prove that Walter was working in the weeks before his death, no less on something momentous.

We are going to have to try to get Corvallis to testify. He’ll refuse; he already as much as said so tonight. But Hatchet
can compel his testimony, albeit with assurances that he does not have to reveal classified, national security information.
It’s by no means definite that we can get Hatchet to go along, since we have little to advance as an offer of proof.

But we’ll certainly try, and Kevin goes off to prepare a legal brief to present. Kevin is far better at this aspect of the
law than I am, which is damning him with faint praise. The truth is, he’s pretty much the best at it of anyone I’ve ever been
around.

Among the things about this that bother me, and one that has bothered me from the beginning, is why such a great effort was
made to frame Steven. These were murders that seem to have been committed from a distance by powerful entities, and it’s hard
to picture them as having been solved. For example, I would strongly doubt that an arrest will be made in the Robinson murder;
nor do I believe that anyone will be framed for it. Why pick on Steven?

I also can’t quite pin down Robinson’s role in all this. It seems logical that he was Timmerman’s way to connect to the type
of people who would pay huge dollars for the right to use the synthetic DNA, probably to make biofuels. But Robinson would
have made a fortune as well, so it seems unlikely he would have killed Walter.

More to the point, why would anybody have murdered Walter? If his work was the golden goose, why kill it? The only thing that
comes to mind is an entity that was threatened by that work, perhaps someone who did not want the energy status quo threatened.
But we are light-years away from making that connection in the real world, and the trial is winding down.

I call Richard and inform him of what happened at Robinson’s house, and of my intention to try to get Corvallis to testify.
The call is a courtesy similar to those he’s extended to me in the past, but it in no way has a negative impact on our position.
If I sprang the issue on him in court, he would just ask for a delay to prepare a response, and Hatchet would undoubtedly
give it to him.

“Have you decided what to do about Waggy?” Kevin asks.

“Nothing for the time being,” I say. “With Robinson gone the pressure is off, but if Waggy ‘shows up’ again, Hatchet could
get on my back.”

Once Kevin leaves I sit down in the den and do what I frequently do during a trial. I take the discovery documents and reread
them. There are often things that I find that I’ve missed in previous readings, but that’s not the main reason I do it. It
keeps my mind alert to the details, so that if something comes up during court, I can remember it instantly and react.

I usually do it in segments; each night I’ll read everything related to one particular area of evidence. Tonight I pore through
everything about the night of Walter Timmerman’s murder, including the forensics on the scene, the phone call Walter made
to Steven, the location of Steven’s car, et cetera.

Almost every time I do this I am bothered by the sensation that I am missing something, but in fact I rarely am. Tonight I
have the same feeling, though the information is fairly dry and straightforward.

The Mets are playing the Dodgers on the West Coast tonight, and I turn on the game while I continue to read. The next thing
I know Laurie is waking me, and a glance at the TV shows it to be the eighth inning. I slept through the first seven, and
since fourteen runs have been scored, those seven innings couldn’t have been very quickly played. Unfortunately, the Dodgers
scored eleven of the runs.

Laurie leads me into the bedroom, and within five minutes we’re both back asleep. She hasn’t even decided what to do, and
already we’re an old married couple.

I get to court early and bring Steven up to date on everything that has transpired. Since he doesn’t have access to the media
in his cell, he has not heard about Robinson’s death, and he is stunned.

When my meeting with Steven is over, an FBI agent, as promised, is waiting for me with a typed copy of my statement from last
night for me to sign. I do so, and then make him wait while I have the court clerk make a Xerox of it for me.