“Yet you will hear that almost no investigative effort was made to determine whether one of the people they killed was Troy. Kenny was an easy suspect, because he was set up to be one by the real killers. The police accepted everything they saw at face value, and here we are, still wondering why.
“Now, Kenny did a stupid thing, and if he was charged with committing a stupid act, he would have already pleaded guilty. He took out a gun, for which he has a legal permit, and fired a shot in the air. Then he prevented the police from entering his house for almost three hours, before voluntarily giving himself up.
“Yes, it was stupid, but there was a why behind it, a motive for what he did. He had just found his friend’s body, a bullet through his chest, in the back of his house. Suddenly, men were at the door trying to get in, men who within moments had guns drawn. How could he know that these men were really police? He had no idea why his friend was shot, and was afraid that the same thing was about to happen to him. He panicked, of that there is no question, but it’s easy to understand why.
“Kenny Schilling is not a man capable of murder. You will come to know him, and you’ll understand that. You’ll also hear about other people, people very capable of murder, and you’ll understand that as well.
“All I hope, all Kenny Schilling hopes, is that you keep asking why and keep insisting that things make sense. I know that you will.”
I get a slight nod from Kevin, telling me that it went reasonably well. I agree with that, but I also know that “reasonably well” is not going to cut it. Not in this case.
It’s late in the day, so Harrison tells Dylan that he can call his first witness tomorrow. It’ll give me something to look forward to.
* * * * *
A TRIAL IS AN incredibly tense, hectic process, yet for me there’s something calming and comforting about it. It’s the only time in my life when I have a rigid schedule, a self-discipline in my actions, and it’s a refreshing change.
Tonight is a perfect example. We have our team meeting at my house, after which Kevin leaves and Laurie and I settle down to dinner. We have take-out pizza, though hers is of the vegetarian variety and in my humble opinion not worthy of the name “pizza.” Luciano Pizza or Jeremiah Pizza or whoever the hell invented it would cringe at the sight of the healthy mess that comes out of Laurie’s pizza box.
Laurie turns out the overhead lights and instead lights candles she had put on the table. It makes it a little tough to see the pizza, but she seems to like it that way. We talk about the case, about what’s going on in the world, about how great Tara is, or anything else that comes to mind. Everything except the Findlay situation.
After dinner my ritual is to go into the den, turn on CNN or a baseball game as background noise, and read and reread our files on the Schilling case. In order to react in a courtroom the way I want to react, I need to know every detail of our case, every scrap of information we have.
Each night, I go over the next day’s witnesses, as well as an area of our investigation that I select more or less randomly. Tonight I’m going over Kevin’s and Adam’s reports on their work in locating and talking to Kenny’s friends and acquaintances, especially those he shared with Preston.
At ten-thirty Laurie and I go up to bed, where I continue to go through the papers. She makes a phone call, which is disconcerting, since she speaks to Lisa, a high school girlfriend from Findlay. Laurie is making real connections, or reconnections, back there, and the knowledge of it makes it a little hard for me to concentrate.
I’m trying extra hard to focus, since I have the uneasy feeling that there is something in these particular reports that is significant and that I’m missing. I’m about to discuss it with Laurie, now off the phone, when Tara starts to bark. Moments later the doorbell rings.
“Let me get it,” Laurie says, which means she’s at least a little worried that it could relate to Quintana.
I’d love to say, “Go ahead,” but I’m too macho for that, so I throw on a pair of pants and go downstairs. I get to the door just as the bell rings again, and I ask, “Who is it?”
“Marcus” is the answer from the other side of the door.
I turn on the porch light, move aside the curtain, and sure enough, there is Marcus. I open the door. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Rope,” says Marcus.
“Rope?”
“Rope.”
“What about rope?” This conversation is not progressing that well.
“He wants to know if you have any rope,” says Laurie from the top of the steps.
“No, I don’t have rope,” I say to Laurie. “Who am I, Roy Rogers?”
I turn back to Marcus. “I don’t have any rope. Why do you need some?”
Marcus just shakes his head and closes the door. I turn to Laurie once he’s gone.
“What is he doing? Should I get him some rope?”
“From where?” she asks.
“How the hell should I know? Maybe there’s a rope store open late around here.”
Marcus seems to be gone, so I go back upstairs and once again get into bed with Laurie. My sense is, I haven’t heard the last of this rope situation, and this is confirmed about five minutes later when the doorbell rings again.
Once again I trudge down the stairs. “Who is it?”
“Marcus.”
I open the door and immediately see a sight that will forever be etched in my memory. Two men, one of whom I recognize as Ugly, the guy Quintana sent to threaten me, are tied up with my garden hose. They are head-to-toe and back-to-back, but stretched out full length against each other. They look like a two-sided human bowling pin, and Marcus walks into the house carrying them over his shoulder. He comes into the room and drops them on the floor, and the thud could be heard in Hackensack. Tara sniffs around them, having absolutely no idea what is happening. Join the club.
“Laurie!” I call out. “You might want to get down here!”
She comes downstairs, surveys the bizarre scene, and takes over. “Marcus, what’s going on?”
He tells her in a series of barely decipherable grunts that they were outside, trying to break in, and he caught them. His plan now is to question them. Marcus questioning people is not a pretty sight.
“I think we should call the police,” I say.
Marcus looks at me, then calls Laurie off to the side. They whisper out of earshot of me, Ugly, and his friend. The intruders are rolling back and forth in a futile effort to untie themselves and/or get up. It would be funny if it were happening in someone else’s house.
“Come on, Andy. Let’s go upstairs,” says Laurie.
“Why? What’s going on?”
“Marcus is going to question our guests.”
I start to argue, but Laurie silences me with a look, and a head motion directing me upstairs. I have confidence in her in situations like this, and none in myself, so I follow dutifully behind.
As we near the top of the steps, Marcus calls up to her. “Knives?”
“In the kitchen. Second drawer on the right,” she says.
When we get in the bedroom, Laurie closes the door. With Marcus, Ugly, and his buddy now out of range, I become a little more assertive. “What the hell is going on?”
“Marcus said we can call the police in fifteen minutes. He’ll know what he needs to know by then.”
“What is he going to do?”
She shrugs. “Be Marcus. But he said he won’t kill them, and he won’t do anything on the carpet.”
I nod. “Well, that’s comforting.”
“Andy, those guys were trying to break into this house. They might well have killed you, or even us.”