These were all points that Wendy Kotowski made on her redirect. I didn’t recross, and the prosecution rested. The jury went home for the weekend with a pretty strong feeling, I thought, that Tom Stoller was guilty of murder.
I spoke briefly with Tom before they carted him back to Boyd. Aunt Deidre thought my cross went well, but she wasn’t exactly unbiased. I gave it a solid B-plus but the score was still Prosecution 4, Defense 0.
I spent Saturday morning with Tom and Deidre, running through a direct examination in theory, but in practice trying to get Tom to open up to me about the events of January 13. To the extent I could get him to focus, he continued with his insistence that he didn’t remember. It was doubly frustrating because my client wasn’t helping me and because I was wasting my time that could have been spent tracking down the Global Harvest angle.
At eleven o’clock that morning, I made a decision.
“I can’t put him on,” I told Deidre outside the Boyd Center. “He’s no use to us. He won’t deny he killed her. And we can’t explain his lack of memory on mental illness. The judge shut us down because Tom wouldn’t cooperate with the prosecution’s shrinks.”
“Because he couldn’t,” she cried. “He can’t. He’s so sick, Jason.”
“I know that, I know that.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “The judge made a bad ruling. He screwed us. But it won’t do us any good crying about it now. So we focus on the deficiencies in the prosecution’s case. They have plenty. And I do whatever I can do between now and Monday morning to tie up everything I’m chasing down with Global Harvest.”
She searched my face for any semblance of hope. “You think the judge will let you use it? You said he’s considering it.”
“I do think he’s considering it. I do. But the stronger the case I give him, the better our chances. So I’m going to run now and see what my lawyers and investigators have come up with.”
She nodded silently. She needed more but the best thing I could do for her and her nephew was to get back to my office.
I called Shauna’s cell phone while driving. She didn’t answer but called me within thirty seconds.
“Sorry, didn’t pick up in time,” she said.
“How’s it going?”
“So far, not well.” Shauna was over at Bruce McCabe’s law firm with Kathy Rubinkowksi’s immediate supervisor, Tom Rangle, the man to whom Kathy had sent that long e-mail that somehow got intercepted and deleted before Tom could ever read it. She and Tom were trying to re-create what happened the day that e-mail was sent-where Bruce McCabe was that day, who opened and read that e-mail and where, in office or remotely.
“Keep at it, Shauna, and get us something good. Somebody kept that e-mail from making it to Tom Rangle. It must have been McCabe.”
When I got back to my law firm at noon on Saturday, we were thirty-six hours from the opening of the defense case. And I was now pinning Tom Stoller’s fate entirely on what we could find between now and then.
80
“Bruce McCabe,” I repeated into the phone. “M-c, capital C, a-b-e. He was one of the name partners.”
On the other end of the phone, Wendy Kotowski let out a sigh. “I’m not saying yes.”
But she wasn’t saying no. Unless she wasn’t the person I once knew, Wendy Kotowski was one of those prosecutors who preferred a just outcome over a victory. She had to have some seeds of doubt in her mind after today. She knew I was prone to stunts in court, which made her initially skeptical, but I’d gone beyond mere theatrics and she knew it. I didn’t know if she believed what I was saying, but I think she believed that I believed it.
“They won’t talk to Joel Lightner,” I told Wendy. “They’re stiff-arming my investigator. So please-just check yourself, even if you don’t tell me. Ten to one says the cops are suspicious of McCabe hanging himself. A dinner at Marley’s, Wendy, if they don’t suspect it was a murder staged to look like a suicide.”
“Kolarich, whatever else, don’t play me for stupid, all right? You and I both know if I ask the question, and I get that answer, I’m duty-bound to tell you.”
She was right, of course. “And you and I both know that what I’m asking you to do is the right thing to do. This is the guy that Kathy Rubinkowski went to see about Summerset Farms. This is the guy who brushed her off. And I’ll probably never be able to prove it, but he’s the guy who erased Kathy’s e-mail from Tom Rangle’s computer before he could read it. And now that I’m sniffing around, the guy suddenly offs himself? I mean, how many coincidences do we need before you stop calling this smoke and mirrors?”
“I don’t need preaching from you, Jason.”
“No, you don’t. You know what the right thing to do is. So do it.”
I punched out the phone.
“That was harsh,” said Tori, sitting next to me in my SUV.
It was. But I had faith in Wendy. And if she didn’t talk to the detectives investigating Bruce McCabe’s suicide, I would subpoena them and ask them myself. She knew that, too, which made our entire conversation somewhat contrived. Contrived, but necessary. It was better if Wendy felt like she was doing this voluntarily. It would invest her in the result.
I made a right turn and headed west. “I don’t know why I let you talk me into bringing you,” I said.
“Because you love spending time with me.” Tori put a hand over mine, resting in my lap. “Because you aren’t as conflicted as I am.”
“This could be dangerous, Tori. This isn’t a joke.”
“I’m not laughing.”
No, she wasn’t, but she was in a good mood. Playing cops and robbers always seemed to elevate her spirits, from the first time we visited a crime scene together to checking out Summerset Farms to now. It took the focus off of our relationship. Maybe that should tell me something.
I watched the street addresses and slowed my vehicle as we got closer. When it appeared we were about a half-block away, I pulled the car over to the side of the road.
My cell phone rang. Caller ID said it was my scrappy associate, Bradley John. Or John Bradley. Sometimes I forget.
“Hey, Pretty Boy,” I said.
“I found it. It’s the state police, believe it or not. The state police tracks sales of a number of chemical explosives. Nitromethane among them. SK Tool and Supplies sold nitromethane to Summerset Farms.”
“Boy, that’s a great system we got. The department of agriculture tracks the sale of fertilizer and the state police track sales of nitromethane?”
“Our government at work,” he agreed. “One hand not talking to the other. And Kathy’s e-mail was right-SK didn’t sell that product to anyone but Summerset Farms.”
If there was any doubt, that confirmed it. Randall Manning bought two companies at the same time, Summerset Farms and SK Tool and Supply. SK would sell the nitromethane, Manning’s company would sell the ammonium nitrate fertilizer, and Summerset would be the recipient of both, the front company.
I was still missing the “why.” Why would a multimillionaire like Randall Manning want to build a bomb?
“It’ll be interesting to hear how Stanley Keane explains this,” said Bradley.
“Yeah. I’ll let you know what he says.”
I hung up the phone and nodded to Tori. We got out of the car and walked toward Stanley Keane’s house.
81
Stanley Keane lived in a small town called Weston, more than a hundred miles southwest of the city. He lived on a corner lot in a two-story Victorian brick house. The houses were well spaced, and Stanley had an impressive backyard filled with trees that were naked this time of year. We walked to the street corner and looked at the front of the house. There was a light on upstairs. The front porch had an awning and a sconce that produced orange light.