“I weighed it earlier, and it totaled thirteen and a half pounds. Does that seem about right?”
“I would think so,” he says.
“There was earlier testimony that the amount of flammable liquid used would have required between four and five of those cans. That would mean between fifty-four and sixty-seven pounds, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Would it not be incredibly difficult to carry four or five of these rather unwieldy cans, weighing sixty or so pounds?”
“I really couldn’t say.”
I receive permission from De Luca to ask him to step down from the witness stand. Hike reaches under the table and starts handing me additional cans, one at a time. I pretend that I’m having a little difficulty carrying them, and I make four trips over to Henderson, each time carrying one can.
“Mr. Henderson, each of these cans is identical to the original, wouldn’t you say?”
“They look the same,” is his grudging reply.
“And they all are filled with fluid, and each weighs thirteen and a half pounds. You don’t have a bad back, or anything like that, do you?”
“No,” he says.
“Great. Then would you please carry them to the back of the courtroom? All at once, please.”
Dylan stands. “Your Honor, please…”
De Luca stares him down. “Your Honor, please?” he mimics. “Is that an official objection?”
De Luca instructs Henderson to carry the cans as I asked, providing he is not afraid he will injure himself. It’s a fairly impossible task, because there is no way two hands can grip all the various handles at the same time.
Henderson gives it his best try, and much to my delight drops one of the cans after walking only a few feet.
“Pretty tough, huh?” I ask. “And remember, this fire was set on the third floor, so these cans were carried up the steps.”
“It’s difficult, but not impossible,” Henderson says.
“You want to try it again? We’ve got time.”
He doesn’t want to, so I let him get back onto the stand.
“Mr. Henderson, let’s say for argument’s sake, all evidence to the contrary, that one person could do what you just failed to do. If you saw someone doing it, just walking down the street, do you think you would notice him?”
“I suppose I would, depending on what I was doing at the time.”
“Yet no one reported seeing Mr. Galloway doing that.”
Dylan finally makes the correct objection that these questions have nothing to do with Henderson’s lab work, and De Luca sustains.
“When you were testing this can in your lab, did you ever have trouble finding it?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“Ever misplace it?”
He shakes his head. “Of course not.”
“It stands out, doesn’t it? Be pretty tough to lose.”
“I certainly would not lose it, or misplace it.”
“Yet no other cans were found, not in Mr. Galloway’s apartment or anywhere else. Does it seem strange to you that he would leave the can with his charred skin on it right out on the street, but would hide the other cans so carefully that an entire police department could not find them?”
Before he can answer, Dylan objects, and De Luca tells him not to answer the question.
I try another one. “Did you have occasion to test any items from the actual house itself?”
He nods. “I did.”
“Any significant results?”
“Depends what you mean by significant,” he says. “But basically no. Everything in that house was pretty much incinerated.”
“Do you think that was the plan, and that’s why napalm was used?”
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“Well, would whoever used the napalm have been likely to know that incineration would be the result?”
He nods. “I would certainly think so.”
“Then why not leave the cans behind to be incinerated along with everything else?” I ask. “Why take one can that he burned himself on, and carry it three blocks?”
“I can’t say.”
“That’s too bad.”
“We got something, Andy. Hilda found it.”
It’s the first message on my answering machine when I get home, and as I’m listening to it, Laurie walks into the room.
“Sam found something,” I say.
“I know; I spoke to him. They’re on the way over.”
“They?”
She laughs. “Apparently they travel as a group.” When I grimace, she adds, “They’re nice people, Andy. This is an adventure for them.”
“Do you know what they found?”
“No, Sam wouldn’t say; he wants Hilda to have the honor.”
“The State of New Jersey, the prosecutor’s office, and the FBI versus Hilda Mandlebaum. It’s a steel-cage fight to the finish.”
“My money’s on Hilda.”
Before they arrive, Marcus shows up. Laurie had called him in case whatever it was that Sam’s gang came up with needed following up.
Tara practically lights up when she sees Marcus, who never fails to pet her. She follows him as he heads straight for the kitchen and the refrigerator, giving me time to ask Laurie, “How many of Sam’s five interns are going to have a coronary when they see Marcus? I would make the over-under number three.”
“I think they’re probably tougher than you think,” she says.
Sam and his gang walk in about fifteen minutes later, four hundred and twenty-seven years of hard-nosed investigators, not including Sam. Each of them carries a briefcase; they look like an army of aged accountants.
If they are intimidated by Marcus, they don’t show it, and Morris Fishman mentions that Marcus looks like somebody he knew in Korea.
“You fought in Korea?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I bought fabric there. I was in the dress business… shmatas.”
Marcus nods knowingly, as if he’s spent the weekend shmata-shopping with Hilda. I feel like I’m on the planet Goofball.
“Let’s get started, shall we?” I ask.
Sam nods. “Sure. Hilda?”
Hilda shrugs and says, “You go ahead, Sammy. You can tell it better than I can.”
Sam opens his briefcase and takes out some pieces of paper. He hands a copy of the first one to Laurie, Marcus, and me. Each of the “gang” also takes out their own copy to refer to it. It’s a photograph of a distinguished-looking man, about forty-five years old.
“This is Walter Holland. He’s the presiding judge in the Delaware Chancery Court. Undergraduate at Princeton and then went to Virginia Law, top of his class. Clerked for a justice in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Married to the former Alice Simmons for three years; they have one adopted child, Benji, and they live a mile from the courthouse. Very well respected, and considered to be the leading jurist on business law in the country. We’ve listed the rest of his bio and some of his most important cases at the bottom of the page.”
I don’t have to ask why I should care about Judge Holland or his background, since he was on the cell phone list. Laurie had tried repeatedly to reach him, but was unable to. What I am now waiting for is what Sam has learned about Holland that has caused him to single him out.
Sam takes out more paper from his briefcase, again handing a copy to the three of us. Again, the “gang” does the same. Another man is pictured in this photo, a little younger than Holland, and a little harder. Even in this photo, it’s clear that this man does not suffer fools gladly, and is used to getting his way.
“This is Alex Bauer,” Sam says. “He is the CEO of Entech Industries, a relatively small energy company, with holdings in the South and Midwest. He’s a former marine, former amateur boxing champ, reputation for being tough.”
“I spoke with him,” Laurie says. “He gave me the party line, that he had no idea what I was talking about, and I should call him back when I had more specifics.”
“Well, you’re about to have some. For the last five and a half years, Entech Industries has been trying to acquire Milgram Oil and Gas, a publicly owned company with a market capitalization that makes it maybe thirty percent larger than Entech.”