It is a source of ongoing pain and guilt that Randy is behind bars, and those feelings are exacerbated every few months, when he calls me with ideas he has thought of for appeal. They never have any merit or prospects for success, and it always falls to me to break that news to him. What he can’t accept, what I have trouble accepting myself, is that his legal game was played out and he lost. No do-overs allowed.
I ask Edna to call the prison and arrange for me to visit Randy on Saturday. I don’t want to go, I never want to go, but I can’t stand the idea of him sitting in his cell, feeling that I’ve abandoned him.
Kevin and Laurie come back for a meeting I’ve called to go over what we’ve learned. I don’t really expect anything to come from these initial efforts; I believe that if there is a motive anywhere to be found, it will be in the Padilla killing. But it’s more likely that there was no motive to any of this other than lunacy, despite the curious tactics the perpetrator used.
Kevin says that he visited with Arnold Simonson, husband of Betty, the grandmother who became the second victim.
“They lived off their Social Security and his disability insurance; he hurt his back while working as a foreman in a carton factory,” Kevin reports. “They were high school sweethearts, married forty-two years, hoping to move to Florida next year. Two grown kids, four grandchildren . . .” Kevin is obviously upset as he recounts this.
“So no apparent motive?” I ask.
“Zero. And I showed him the photos of the other women, but he had never seen them before.”
I nod. My guess is that the only thing we’re gonna find these people have in common is that they were killed by the same person.
“He showed me their family album,” Kevin says. “How anybody could have hurt that woman . . .”
I discuss with Kevin and Laurie what I learned at the coroner’s office, and Kevin makes the very logical suggestion that I should talk to someone with professional insight as to the killer’s state of mind. I make arrangements to do that, then I leave for a meeting with my client.
Laurie heads off to talk with the husband of Nancy Dempsey, the first victim. With that out of the way, we’ll be free to turn our collective focus to Linda Padilla. We need to find proof that the killer is logical, that the crimes had a motive, because only then can we make a credible case that he framed Daniel.
• • • • •
THE HORROR OF confinement is starting to take its toll on Daniel. I am told that loss of freedom is a nightmare that cannot be fully understood unless experienced. Daniel is experiencing it right now, and I can see the devastation on his face as he is led into the visitor’s room. What he doesn’t realize is that he hasn’t yet faced the worst part. That will come if we lose the trial and the system puts him away and moves on to other things. Willie Miller once told me that the feeling of hopelessness, of being forgotten, is the toughest part of all.
Daniel sees me as his only link to the outside world, and his only hope to ever get back there. He sees me this way because it is true, and it’s a pressure that makes me uncomfortable. For instance, right now, before I’ve said anything, Daniel is desperately hoping that I’ve brought some news that will end his agony.
I haven’t.
My expressed purpose for being here is to bring him up-to-date on the progress of our investigation, but since there basically is none, I’m able to get that out of the way quickly. What I really want to do is probe his story about the night of the Padilla murder; I don’t believe his version of events, and I’m hoping there’s another explanation for his lie besides him being the killer.
“Did you know Linda Padilla?” I ask.
“Why? You think I killed her?”
I deflect this question by lecturing him on his role as the defendant. He must tell me everything there is to tell; the worst possible thing that can happen is if I am surprised in court by something the prosecution knows that I don’t. Tucker will find out if Daniel had a connection to Linda Padilla, so I must know as well.
“I knew her,” he says, his voice an octave lower. Actually, it could be a bunch of octaves lower, since he’s barely whispering and I have no idea what an octave is.
“How well?” I ask.
“I met her a couple of times, maybe three. The last time I interviewed her.”
“About what?”
“I was working on a story about organized crime in North Jersey, how it had evolved, how strong it is today . . . that was the main thrust. She kept coming up in my research, so I approached her.”
I’m not surprised to hear him say this: Linda Padilla’s name has often been linked to the mob, albeit always through unsubstantiated rumor and innuendo. There are those who believe organized crime supplied her with much of the information she used to rock the establishment. Of course, those believers consist mainly of those she has attacked and/or her future opponents, but the talk has never been completely eliminated.
“In what context did her name come up?” I ask.
“I couldn’t be sure, but my sense was that she was somehow beholden to them. I asked her about it, but she completely froze me out. Denied it, then wouldn’t talk about it.”
If Daniel is telling the truth, and if his information tying Padilla to organized crime is correct, it could be a link to the chalk outline of her body in a pavilion in Eastside Park. Of course, it doesn’t explain the other murders, none of which bear the markings of mob hits, but at least it’s something.
“How are you coming on your whereabouts at the time of the murders?”
He frowns, which is an answer as clear as any words he can say. He says them anyway. “I was home in bed. I’m up every morning at five-thirty, so I go to bed early. All the murders happened after midnight, except Padilla, and . . .”
He doesn’t finish his sentence and he doesn’t have to. He wasn’t home in bed the night Linda Padilla was killed; he was in Eastside Park with her body.
I ask Daniel how his prints could have been on the phone in the park. He doesn’t know, but his theory is that the blow he took to the head knocked him unconscious, and the killer took advantage of that to screw off the phone and place it in his hand. The killer then screwed it back on, with Daniel’s fingerprints on it. It is a theory that would have little if any chance of holding up; there is not even any conclusive evidence that Daniel lost consciousness. Yet it is a measure of our plight that I file the idea away for further consideration and possible use later.
Daniel is sticking to his story about being miles away from the park when receiving the cell phone call from the killer. I’m going to have to get experts to question the technology, if such experts exist.
Daniel’s theory about how the other scarves got into his house is less sophisticated, but he’s very vocal about it. “It’s a setup, Andy, don’t you see? Would I leave things like that around to be found? I’ve covered criminal cases for ten years! I know how these things work.”
While I’m at the prison, I get a message from Edna. We have been informed that the grand jury has returned an indictment, not exactly a major surprise, and that there will be a hearing on Monday in front of the trial judge. That judge has not been appointed yet, but it’s expected to be announced no later than tomorrow. While judges are assigned randomly, I would suspect this will be slightly less random than most, since this trial is a political hot potato.
I leave Daniel after about a half hour, promising to keep him regularly informed of developments. I drive to the Haledon office of Dr. Carlotta Abbruzze, a shrink whom I had about five sessions with three or four years ago. It was at a time when my then wife, Nicole, and I were having some problems, and I was trying to determine if I was the cause.