Harrison unsolicitedly offers me a one-day recess, which I decline. Dylan asks that Harrison poll the jury, to see if they’ve actually been deligently avoiding press coverage. It’s a surprising request and makes me realize just how worried Dylan is about what is taking place outside the courtroom. If the jury admitted to having seen the coverage, the only real remedy would be a mistrial, and I am stunned to realize that apparently Dylan would consider that.
Harrison declines to poll the jury; this is not a judge who is going to give up on this trial. He agrees to admonish the jury in even stronger terms than previously not to expose themselves to any press reports.
Dylan calls Stephen Clement to the stand. Clement is the neighbor of Preston’s whom Laurie discovered and who has information that cuts for both the prosecution and the defense. Dylan is making the smart move of calling him, since his ability to question him first will allow him to frame the testimony, both positive and negative.
Clement, under Dylan’s questioning, tells the situation in simple, direct terms. He was out walking his dog that night when a car pulled up and Preston got out. He never saw the driver, but he describes the car, with the GIANTS25 license plate. He also knows that the driver was a male, because he heard Preston and the driver arguing.
“Could you tell what they were arguing about?” Dylan asks.
Clement shakes his head. “I really couldn’t hear them… I was across the street, and the car was running. It might have been about a woman; the driver might have said, ‘You leave her alone.’ But I could just as easily be wrong.”
“But you were close enough to be sure that they were arguing?” Dylan asks.
“I’m quite certain of that.”
Dylan asks what happened next, and Clement says that the car pulled away, at a higher-than-normal speed.
“Did the car return?” Dylan asks.
“Not while I was there. But I only walked the dog for another three or four minutes.”
“So the car could have returned after that and you wouldn’t know it?”
Clement nods. “That’s correct.”
Informationally, I have no reason to even question Clement, since everything he has to say has been said. I just need to spend a little time putting a more favorable spin on it for our side. Laurie has questioned him extensively, so I have some information at my disposal.
“Mr. Clement, when you were out walking, did you have a cell phone with you?”
“Yes. I always carry one.”
“When you heard these men arguing, did you call the police, fearing violence was about to break out?”
“No.”
“Did you try to intervene yourself? Try to prevent anyone from getting hurt?”
“No.”
“Did you quickly leave the area so that you and your dog wouldn’t be injured?”
“No.”
“So it was not an argument that was unusually loud or volatile? Not one where you were worried that someone could be badly hurt? Because if it were that bad, I assume you would have taken one of the actions I just mentioned. Isn’t that right?”
“I guess… I mean, they were just yelling. It wasn’t that big a deal.”
Having made the point, I ask him how fast the car was driving when it pulled away, since Clement had referred to the speed as being higher than normal.
“I would say about forty miles an hour,” Clement says. “It’s a residential neighborhood, so that’s pretty fast.”
I put up a map of the neighborhood and get Clement to explain that he walked home in the same direction that the car pulled away. That adds a few minutes to the time he would have had to see the car if it returned. It’s a small point, but it works against the image of an outraged Kenny storming back after the argument and killing Preston.
Court ends for the day at noon, giving two jurors time to attend to personal business, probably doctor’s appointments. I can certainly use the time, and I call Pete Stanton and ask for a quick favor. He knows he owes me big-time for the ridiculous birthday party, so he readily agrees.
One of the names on the list of mysterious deaths was a drowning in the ocean in Asbury Park, a Jersey beach resort about an hour south of Paterson. I know that Pete has a number of connections with the police department down there, and on my behalf he calls one of them to arrange for me to be able to talk to the officer most familiar with the young man’s death.
I don’t hit much traffic going down there, since it’s a weekday and not during rush hour. Arriving in Asbury Park provides a bit of a jolt; I spent a good deal of my youthful weekends down here, and the city hasn’t held up very well. The buildings have eroded considerably faster than my memories.
Sergeant Stan Collins is there to meet me when I arrive at the precinct house. He didn’t speak to Pete directly, but he knows what I’m there to learn and suggests that we drive to the scene of the drowning.
Within ten minutes we’re near the edge of Asbury Park, and the ocean seems rougher than it did when I drove in. Collins says that this is common and has something to do with the rock formation.
He points out where Darryl Anderson died on a September day six years ago. “There was a hurricane warning, or a watch,” he says. “I can never remember which is which.”
“I think the warning is worse,” I say.
He nods. “Whatever. A bunch of local teenagers weren’t too worried about it, and they decided it would be really cool to ride the waves in the middle of the storm.”
“Anderson was one of the teenagers?” I ask.
“Nope. I think he was twenty or twenty-one. His brother was one of the kids out in the water. Anderson heard about it from his mother, who was upset and asked him to make sure the kid was okay.”
Collins shakes his head at the memory and continues. “The undertow was unbelievable, and Anderson started yelling at the kids to get out of the water. He was a big, scary guy, a football player, so they did. Except one kid, a fourteen-year-old, couldn’t make it. The current was pulling him out.”
“So Anderson went in after him?”
He nods. “Yeah. Got to him and grabbed him but couldn’t make it back. Their bodies were never found.”
“Is there any way,” I ask, “any way at all, that he could have been murdered?”
His head shake is firm. “No way. There were twenty witnesses to what happened, including me, although I got here for the very end of it. Everybody who saw it said the same thing. It was preventable… those kids should never have been in the water… but there is absolutely no way it was murder.”
It’s a sad story, but one that has the secondary effect of cheering me up. Kenny obviously had nothing to do with this death, and if I can find that to be true of most of the others as well, then coincidence will actually have reared its improbable head.
When I get back home, an obviously distressed Laurie comes out to meet me at the car. I hadn’t told her where I was going, and she was panicked at the possibility that Quintana had gotten to me and dumped my body in the Passaic River.
“I’m sorry I upset you,” I lie, since I’m thrilled that she’s upset. “I had to leave in a hurry.”
“You had a cell phone, Andy. You could have called me.”
She’s right, I could have called her, and I’m not sure why I didn’t. It’s not like me. I didn’t consciously think about it, but was my subconscious trying to worry her? Or am I subtly separating from her, so as to prepare myself and lessen the devastation when and if she leaves?
“I should have.”
She lets it drop, and I update her on what I learned. She is relieved, as I am, but points out that it’s not proof that Kenny wasn’t involved with any of the other deaths. She suggests that it’s time that I speak to Kenny about it, and I make plans to do so before court tomorrow.