I get up and close the drapes, cowardly doing it from the side of the window so as not to expose myself should Bruno Tattaglia want to take a shot at me. As I do, I get a look out into the darkness, and I can only hope and assume that Marcus is there.
They never mentioned anything about this crap in law school.
I wake up at six in the morning and call Vince Sanders. I’ve made a deal with him to make him my initial media contact, and I’m honoring that now. I had come to the conclusion that he sent me on what was basically a wild-goose chase to Wisconsin to check out Matt Lane’s hunting accident, but now I’m not so sure.
Vince grunts angrily at my waking him up, so I tell him that he can go back to sleep and I’ll give the story to someone else. That tends to increase his alertness, so I suggest he meet me at a coffee shop on the corner of Broadway and Thirty-second Street in an hour.
I take Tara for a walk that ends up at the coffee shop, and we sit at our regular outdoor table. I get her a bagel and a dish of water, and she’s already polished it off by the time Vince arrives, ten minutes late.
“This better be good,” he says.
“It is,” I say, launching quickly into what I wanted to tell him, since I’m in danger of being late for court. “My house was broken into by two of Quintana’s thugs. They were going to kick the shit out of me.”
“But they didn’t?” he asks.
“Marcus.”
He nods. Enough said.
“Quintana is trying to keep his name out of the trial, but he’s also after four hundred thousand that Preston was supposed to give him the night he was killed. He assumes Kenny has it and somehow further assumes that I can get it.”
“Four hundred thousand?” Vince repeats, obviously impressed. “These guys who tried to break in… why would they tell you this?”
“Marcus.”
He nods. Enough said.
“But they won’t tell it to the police… so I’m telling it to you. You can break the story tomorrow morning, and then I go national with it.”
“I’m happy to do it,” he says, “but won’t that just piss Quintana off even more?”
“Maybe, but he’s coming after me to keep me quiet. Once I go completely public, he’s got nothing to be gained anymore by shutting me up. Besides, if he’s got any smarts at all, once I do this he’d know that he’d be the first one the cops would go after if anything happened to me. I’m going to shine as much light on him as possible.”
“And it helps your client in the process,” he says.
“Yes. It does.”
Vince thinks about this awhile and then seems to smile in satisfaction at what I’ve just told him. “Works for me,” he says. “I’ll even buy the bagels.”
“Good. I was just going to order Tara another one.”
I get to court with only ten minutes to spare, and I’m barely settled in when Dylan calls Teri Pollard, Bobby’s wife, to the stand. It’s a smart move. He wants someone to testify that Kenny left with Preston to take him home, but he doesn’t want to call one of the football players who were there that night. They are celebrities, and Dylan doesn’t want that celebrity factor to play in Kenny’s favor.
Teri is clearly not happy to be doing Dylan’s dirty work, but she’s obligated to tell the truth. That truth includes describing to the jury the details of the night at the Crows Nest and the fact that Kenny and Preston left on the early side.
“Did anyone else go with them?” Dylan asks.
“No,” Teri says, but then throws in, “unless they met someone outside.”
Dylan won’t let her get away with that. “But you did not see them meet anyone? And you’re not aware of any expectation they had of meeting anyone?”
“No” is her grudging response.
I attempt to get Teri to provide support for Kenny’s general character and goodness, but Dylan objects, since I’m only allowed to cross-examine on areas he covered in direct. That’s okay; Dylan’s objecting makes it look like he’s hiding something.
“Was that night the first time you had been with Kenny and Preston at the same time?” I ask.
“No. Bobby… my husband… and I have been out with them together maybe five or six times.” She points toward Bobby, sitting in the gallery aisle in his