Story A: A man kills an enemy, puts the body in the trunk, and plans to bury it late at night, when there will be no one around to see.
Story B: A man is set up for the murder of a former client and unwittingly drives around with the body in the trunk until he is pulled over by police.
The physical evidence fits both stories. One might be more believable than the other when writ small. But a skilled storyteller can even the scales of justice or maybe even tip them the other way with a different interpretation of the evidence. This was where we were now and I was starting to get the visions I got before all trials. Visions of witnesses on the stand, visions of me telling my story to a jury.
“We are clearly going for third-party culpability,” I said. “And the guy we point the finger at is going to be Louis Opparizio. I doubt he pulled the trigger but he gave the order. So he is our fall guy and our number one witness. We need to find him. We need to paper him. We need to make sure he shows up for court.”
Jennifer Aronson shook her hands palms out like she was warding off a swarm of bees.
“Can we just back up?” she asked. “Walk me through this like I’m a juror. What are we saying happened? I mean, I get it. Opparizio killed Scales or had Scales killed and then tried to frame you for it. But can we say yet exactly how this went down?”
“Nothing is exact at this point,” I said. “And we have a lot of holes to fill — that’s why we’re meeting right now. But I can tell you what I think went down and what the evidence — once we have it all — is going to prove.”
“Yes, please,” Lorna said. “I’m with Jen. I’m having a hard time seeing this.”
“Not a problem,” I said. “Let’s go through it slowly. A couple things to start with first. Number one is Louis Opparizio’s enmity for me. Nine years ago I sandbagged him in court, revealing his mob connections and shady dealings in the foreclosure world. In that case, he was a straw man. He was the shiny bait I put out in front of the jury and they went for it. Though he was not the killer I portrayed him as in court, he was involved in some shady shit, the government took notice, and he and his mob backers ended up forfeiting major millions when the Federal Trade Commission reversed a hundred-million-dollar merger he had just completed. I think all of that explains why he would hold a grudge against me. Not only did I expose him in public but I cost him and his mob backers a ton of money.”
“No doubt,” Cisco said. “I’m surprised he waited until now to make a move against you. Nine years is a long time.”
“Well, maybe he was waiting until he had the perfect frame,” I said. “Because I’m in a tight box.”
“That’s for sure,” Lorna said.
“Okay, so the second building block of the case is the victim,” I said. “Sam Scales, con man extraordinaire. Our story is that these two — Opparizio and Scales — intersected at BioGreen. They were bleeding the beast, operating the long con, when something went wrong. Opparizio had to take out Scales but also had to make sure the investigation came nowhere near BioGreen. So I became his fall guy. He somehow knew of my history with Scales and that it ended badly. He sticks Sam’s body in my trunk and I go down for it while BioGreen stays clean and supposedly keeps pumping out that recycled fuel the government loves so much.”
I looked at the three faces around the table.
“Questions?” I asked.
“I have a couple,” Lorna said. “First, what was the con they were pulling?”
“It’s called bleeding the beast,” I said. “Scamming the government — the beast, that is — out of federal subsidies for producing green gold: recycled oil.”
“Whoa,” Lorna said. “Sounds like Sam really came up in the world. That’s a long way from the Internet scams he was known for.”
“Good point,” I said. “That is something that doesn’t fit with what I know about him, but I’m just telling you my theory so far. He had green gold under his fingernails. One thing we do need to find out is whether Sam went to Opparizio with the scam idea, or was Sam simply recruited into the ongoing operation?”
“Any idea what the falling-out was?” Jennifer asked. “Why was Sam killed?”
“Another hole we have to fill,” I said. “And my guess is that the FBI is at the bottom of that hole.”
“They flipped him?” Cisco half asked, half suggested.
I nodded.
“I think it’s something along those lines,” I said. “Opparizio found out and Sam had to go.”
“But the smart move would have been to just make him disappear,” Cisco said. “Why put the body anyplace where it could and would be found?”
“Right,” I said. “That goes on the list of unknowns. But I think that simply disappearing Sam might have brought in more scrutiny from the feds. Doing it the way they did would help insulate BioGreen and maybe make it look like it had nothing to do with the scam down there.”
“Not to mention Opparizio knew this was a good way to get back at you, boss,” Cisco added.
“Most of this is just theory,” Jennifer said. “What’s next? How do we turn theory into a solid defense?”
“Opparizio,” I said. “We find him, serve him, and make sure the judge enforces the subpoena.”
“That only gets him to court,” Jennifer said. “Last time you wanted him to take the Fifth, but this time you have to get him to actually testify.”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “If we have the goods on him, it’ll be about the questions we ask, not the answers. He can take the Fifth all he wants. The jury will hear the story in the questions.”
I turned my eyes to Cisco. “So, where is he?” I asked.
“We’ve been on the girlfriend, what, five days now?” Cisco said. “And no sign of him. We may need to shake things up. Throw a scare at her, create a need for her to see him.”
I shook my head.
“I think it’s too early for that,” I said. “We have some time. We don’t want to subpoena him till pretty late in the game. Otherwise, Iceberg will be onto us.”
“She is already,” Jennifer said. “She would have gotten copied on the FBI subpoena.”
“But my guess is she saw that as a shot in the dark,” I said. “A fishing expedition to see if the feds had anything. Even the judge thought that. Anyway, I don’t want to go for a subpoena yet. That will give the prosecution too much time to cover our ground. So we need to find him first and then watch him until it’s time.”
“That can be done,” Cisco said. “But it will cost. I didn’t realize we were talking about running this up to the trial.”
“How much?” I asked.
“We’re running four grand a day with the surveillance package we’ve got out there now,” Cisco said.
I looked at Lorna, the keeper of the practice’s bank accounts. She shook her head.
“We’re four weeks out from trial,” she said. “You’ll need a hundred thousand to keep it going, Mickey. We don’t have that.”
“Unless you go back to Andre La Cosse or Bosch,” Jennifer said. “They got off easy on your bail but had been willing to pony up six figures each.”
“No on Bosch,” I said. “I should be paying him rather than asking him for money. Lorna, see if you can set up a dinner between me and Andre. I’ll see what he’s willing to do.”
“Maybe Cisco can negotiate a discount?” Lorna said, looking across the table at her husband. “Mickey is a repeat client, after all.”
“I can try for it,” Cisco said.
I knew that he probably got a piece of any business he brought to the Indians. So Lorna’s suggestion hit him in his own wallet.
“Good,” I said.
“So, what about the FBI?” Jennifer said, changing the subject. “The FOIA and subpoena went nowhere. We could formally go to the U.S. Attorney with a Touhy letter. But we all know the feds can just sit on it, and it won’t work with our timeframe.”