“Not with enough certainty that I can name anyone here today.”
I nod. “Fair enough. I’ll name some people, and you tell me if they were possible drug suppliers to Mr. Preston. Here goes… Albert Schweitzer? Pope John Paul? The queen of England?”
Dylan objects again, calling my questions “frivolous,” which is not exactly a news event. Again Harrison sustains.
“Captain Dessens,” I ask, “is it your experience that drug suppliers are dangerous people, who often employ other dangerous people?”
He agrees to that but little else. I let him off the stand having basically made my point: Troy Preston associated with people who seem a lot more credible in the role of killer than does Kenny Schilling.
As Dylan rests the prosecution’s case, I believe I have a slight but real chance of convincing the jury that Kenny doesn’t fit the bill as the killer of Troy Preston.
That’s because they don’t know what I know.
* * * * *
SAM LAYS OUT THE information he has learned in a straightforward, serious way. He doesn’t even song-talk, such is his understanding of the implications of this material. Sam is a numbers guy, and he understands the laws of probability. These facts do not obey those laws.
The question is what to do now. I do not see how we can ever bring any of this before Judge Harrison. If we determine the best, that Kenny has no culpability, then that is the end of it. If we determine the worst, that Kenny has committed a series of bizarre murders, we are prohibited from revealing it. Anything in between, if there can be anything in between, would likewise be privileged.
All this work we are doing is essentially to satisfy our own curiosity, and our energies could be better spent in helping defend our client against the charge he faces, not what he might have done besides that. The only legally ethical justification for our actions is to claim that we are preparing for the remote possibility that Dylan will learn what we are learning, and we will have to defend against his use of that knowledge against Kenny. Having said that, I certainly won’t be charging Kenny for any of the hours we spend on this end of the investigation.
I ask Laurie to devote herself full-time to learning about these mysterious deaths. I want her to investigate each one individually, much as I did Darryl Anderson’s drowning in the ocean off Asbury Park. Maybe she can clear each case as definitely not a murder, but I doubt it.
Marcus is going to continue to guard me, since our concerns about Quintana are absolutely real. Quintana may not have killed Preston, but he’s already sent people after me, and Adam’s fate is testimony to his ruthlessness. This is a bad guy, whether our courtroom claims of his involvement in the Preston murder are true or not.
Lying in bed is when I do some of my best thinking. Tonight Laurie lies next to me, awake, so instead of just rattling around in my head, the words I am thinking come out through my mouth. “The thing that gnaws at me, in a good way, if there can be such a thing as good gnawing…”
Laurie gets frustrated with my lengthy preamble. “Spit it out, Andy.”
“Okay. None of these other deaths were ruled murder by the police, not a single one. Assuming the worst, that Kenny killed all of them, why would he have done such a good job covering up his guilt those times, and then with Preston he just about holds up a neon sign saying ‘I’m guilty’? That doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“So maybe someone else did them all, including Preston.”
“That fails the same logic test,” I say. “Whoever it was that did it, why would they make all of the others not look like murder and this one so obvious? To frame Kenny? They could have done that just by killing Preston. Why kill all the others?”
“Somehow the Preston killing is different,” she says. “If it wasn’t Kenny that did it, but instead somebody trying to frame him, the other killings weren’t part of that plan. Don’t forget, if Adam didn’t happen to notice them, we’d think Preston was the only death in the case.”
I’m just about to fall asleep when something makes me think of Bobby Pollard, the wheelchair-bound trainer who has known Kenny since high school. Pollard was in a terrible accident, one that cost him his ability to walk. It clearly could have cost him his life but did not. Should he be on our list as well? Was he supposed to be another victim?
It’s eleven-thirty at night, but the Pollards told me I could call on them at any time, so I take that literally and dial their number. Teri answers, and I explain that I need to talk to her husband. My plan is to meet with them after court tomorrow, but such is their eagerness to help that they give me the option of coming over tonight. They apologetically say that they can’t come to me because their son is asleep and it takes Bobby time to get dressed and become fully mobile.
I’m wound up too tight to sleep, so I figure I might as well go over there. I wake Laurie and tell her where I’m going so that she won’t be worried again. She offers to go with me, but I tell her I’m fine on my own, and she seems quite happy to accept that and go back to sleep.
I leave the house, glancing around for Marcus on the way to my car. I don’t see him, but I know he’s there. I hope he’s there.
Twenty minutes later the Pollards are serving me coffee and cinnamon cake in their dining room. “Bobby, I want to talk to you about your accident” is how I start.
His face reflects an understandable confusion. “My accident? I thought this was about Kenny.”
“There’s a great deal I can’t tell you, including how the various pieces come together. I just ask that you answer my questions as best you can, and reserve any questions of your own until the time I can answer them.”
Bobby looks over at Teri, and she nods her assent, which I think is the only reason he lets this continue. “What about my accident?”
“Tell me how it happened.”
“I already did. I was driving in Spain, and I went off the road. The car rolled over, and I never walked again.” His voice is angry, as if I shouldn’t be making him go through this. He’s right; I shouldn’t.
“What caused you to go off the road?” I ask.
“Another car went out of its lane. I tried to avoid it, give it room, but I ran out of room myself.”
“Who was driving the other car?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. They didn’t stop. I don’t even know if they saw what happened to me.”
“Do you think they did what they did intentionally?”
“I never have, no. Do you know something I don’t?”
I ignore the question, trying to get through this. “Who was with you on the trip to Europe?”
He thinks and names four male friends, unfortunately including Kenny. Then, “Teri and I had just gotten married a few months before; it was sort of a last fling with the guys.” He looks at her. “Not that kind of fling… you know what I mean.”
She smiles her understanding, not particularly jealous of anything that might have happened almost a decade ago, before her husband was paralyzed. Then she turns to me. “I was pregnant, so we got married. We were only eighteen.”
I ask Bobby, “Why weren’t your friends with you when you went for the drive?”
He shrugs. “I don’t remember. They probably went to the beach.”
I’m learning more than I need to know, so I apologize for bothering them and leave without answering their questions. What I did was not fair to them, but it provided me with another piece of information. The list of tragically unlucky friends and acquaintances of Kenny Schilling’s now includes Bobby Pollard.
Heading to court for the first day of the defense’s case, I can’t remember ever being a part of a situation like this. I’m defending my client against a murder charge while at the same time leading an investigation to determine whether or not he is a serial murderer. And whether I win or lose the trial, I can never reveal the results of that investigation.