Corrupt practices, p.34
Corrupt Practices, page 34
“And then in May 2011, you traveled with Lake Knolls to Central and Eastern Europe?” I ask.
“That’s correct. Another mission to serve the interests of the United States of America.”
“Really?” I say. “Let’s explore that.” I mark as an exhibit another LexisNexis printout, this time Knolls’s itinerary for the trip to Europe in 2011. Then Lovely displays McCarthy’s vacation itinerary on the courtroom monitors. When Bennett understands what he’s seeing, the color drains from his face.
“Let’s look at Mr. Knolls’s European itinerary. Start with the entry for May 22, 2011. Were you aware that you and Lake Knolls and Christopher McCarthy were all in the city of Bratislava on the very same day?”
“I . . . I don’t know anything about that. Coincidences happen.”
“You’re aware you’re under oath?”
“Yes.”
“Were you and Mr. Knolls and Mr. McCarthy in Sofia the same day, as a comparison of the LexisNexis printout and the McCarthy itinerary indicates?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you were, was it just a coincidence?”
“I . . .”
“You what, sir?”
“I don’t know,” he says almost in a whisper.
“Could you speak up Mr. Bennett?”
“I said, I don’t know.” This time, his voice is much too loud.
“And if you and Knolls and McCarthy were in the same cities on the same days in the countries of Moldova, Finland, and France, as a comparison of the documents indicates, would those be coincidences, too?”
He stares at me, his eyes rimmed red. I don’t press for an answer. His silence tells the jury all I need it to—McCarthy and Knolls were in on the bribery scheme together, simultaneously traveling to countries where the Assembly sought legal recognition.
“Mr. Bennett, on May 2, 2011, did you receive a half-million dollar payment from a company called The Emery Group?”
“I did not, sir,” he says indignantly.
“You’re quite sure of that?”
“Absolutely.”
I hand the clerk, Frantz, and Bennett a copy of the other document that Harriet gave me, the wire transfer memo showing that the enigmatic Emery Group paid him five hundred thousand dollars a few weeks before the trip to Europe.
“Do you recognize this bank receipt, Mr. Bennett?”
Frantz bolts out of his chair. “I object to use of this document. This has never been produced to us.”
The judge looks at me. “That’s true, Your Honor. I’ll withdraw it. May I have the exhibit back, Mr. Bennett?”
I approach the witness stand. It doesn’t matter that I can’t use the document, because Bennett has already read it, exactly as I hoped. He’s fair skinned to begin with, and now his cheeks are almost translucent, like onionskin. His hand trembles so uncontrollably that he can barely hand the piece of paper back to me. This receipt proves that he personally received the laundered money and that soon after, he and Knolls and McCarthy together visited foreign countries where the Assembly is fighting for recognition. It implicates him and his boss—and McCarthy—in bank fraud, violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and possibly murder. I might not be able to get the document admitted at this trial, but it will be compelling evidence in his criminal trial.
He turns toward Judge Schadlow. “May I confer with my attorney?”
“I think that would be very wise, Mr. Bennett.”
He steps down from the stand and huddles with Burowski. As he whispers in her ear, her eyes narrow and her frown deepens. She speaks to him, and he nods. After several minutes, he returns to the witness stand.
“My question, Mr. Bennett, is did you receive a payment of five hundred thousand dollars from the Emery group in May 2011?”
“I refuse to answer on the grounds that any answer I give may tend to incriminate me.”
He looks not at me, but at the clock on the back wall. He’s clasping his hands tightly together as if to stop them from shaking. His upper lip glistens with sweat.
“Do you know what The Emery Group is?”
“I refuse to answer on the grounds that any answer I give may tend to incriminate me.”
He goes on to plead the Fifth in response to my next ten questions. Although I could keep him twisting on the stand for another fifteen minutes if I wanted, I tell the judge I have no further questions. Bennett’s cheeks have turned a sickly scarlet, and I fear that if I don’t stop, some of the jurors might start feeling sorry for him.
Frantz asks for a recess, which Schadlow gives him. His haphazard style of dress has finally gotten the better of him—somehow during my examination of Bennett, his shirttail escaped from his slacks and is now hanging below the back of his jacket.
As soon as Bennett leaves the stand, the reporters race toward him. Burowski shoos them away and confers with Bennett in the corner. I’ll leave it to the news outlets and the Internet bloggers to decide whether Knolls is an Assembly fellow traveler or a blackmail victim. I’m betting that McCarthy dug up dirt about Knolls’s relationship with Billy Ness, The Tinsel Town Pusher. Knolls was certainly the perfect person to make contact with the foreign officials and dole out the Assembly’s cash—what foreign politician wouldn’t give access to a former movie star turned US Congressman?
Five minutes before the trial is to resume, Frantz and Weir walk into the courtroom. Instead of returning to his table, Frantz comes over and says, “Talk to you in private for a few minutes, Parker? The lounge?”
I nod.
“Nick will tell the judge we’re conferring.”
I look over at Lovely. “Come on. You’re part of this, too.”
“Are you sure, Parker?”
“Lead counsel only,” Frantz says.
“You’ll talk to both of us or neither of us,” I say.
He frowns, but motions for us to follow him. We go to our conference room in the attorneys’ lounge. I expect Grace to be there, but she’s gone. Frantz gestures for us to sit down at the table, but Lovely and I remain standing.
“You know, the jury’s going to get the case in a day or two,” he says in an unctuous tone that he’s never used with me. “We think we’ve met our burden of proof, but anything can happen. So I’ve been talking to my client, and they want me to explore settlement before that possibility is foreclosed.”
“This is a waste of time,” I say. “We’re not paying the Assembly anything.”
“My client was thinking of a nonmonetary settlement. Mutual releases and a walk away.”
Lovely and I glance at each other. Frantz just offered to dismiss the case, and all Raymond Baxter has to do is give up his right to sue the Assembly for malicious prosecution. It’s sounds like total victory.
“No deal,” I say.
“You’ve got to be joking. I just offered—”
“I know what you offered. It’s not enough.”
Lovely grabs my arm. “Don’t you think we should at least—?”
“When this case started, Raymond made it clear that if we won, he wanted to sue for malicious prosecution. Well, we’re going to win. And we have a strong malicious prosecution claim, because McCarthy verified the complaint all the while knowing that he himself manipulated the accounts so he could pay those illegal bribes.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” Frantz says. “It’s almost impossible to prove malice in a mal pro case.”
“Not when your client has killed three people to cover up his crimes. By the time we go to trial in the malicious prosecution case, the cops will have arrested McCarthy for murder. The punitive damages in our case against the Assembly will be astronomical.”
Frantz and I glare at each other.
“What do you propose?” he says.
“I’ll recommend to Raymond that he release the Assembly from the malicious prosecution claim if the Assembly pays his legal fees. He won’t be happy, but I think I can convince him that he shouldn’t tax his health any further by involving himself in more litigation. And one more thing. No confidentiality clause. Our side can tell the press or whoever we want that the Assembly paid Raymond to get rid of the case.”
Frantz thinks it over and says, “Let me go outside and call the client.”
“He’s going to accept it,” Lovely says when we’re alone.
“We’ll see.”
“No. I know him. He’ll get them to agree. You’ve won.”
“We have.”
She smiles. And then we wait in silence.
Frantz comes back five minutes later. “We’re close,” he says. “Very close. The Assembly wants a cap on fees.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred thousand dollars.”
“That won’t be a problem,” I say. And it won’t—I’ve only billed Raymond half that amount.
After that, events move at top speed. I confer with Raymond, who agrees to the deal immediately. The judge announces the settlement in open court and discharges the jury. Frantz and his team pack up as quickly as they can and flee. The losing team never stays in the courtroom very long.
I ask Lovely to go out in the hall and speak with the media, to tell them in no uncertain terms that our side won. When she leaves, I find myself alone in the now deserted courtroom. I look around at the deserted jury box, at the suddenly spotless plaintiff’s table, at the empty gallery. I wander over to the podium. The record of The Emery Group’s wire transfer to Delwyn Bennett is still on the lectern. I stare at it for a long time, puzzled. Why did Harriet hand over evidence that let me destroy not only the Assembly’s court case, but also Christopher McCarthy and his plan to insinuate the Assembly into every country in Europe? Was it really because I threatened to go public about Ascending Sodality? Maybe. But she’s never been one to give into threats.
Who are you, Mother?
Grace Trimble and I sit in the elegant dining room of Manny and Elena Mason’s Moraga Canyon home. The dinner is supposed to celebrate our court victory four days ago, but as far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing to celebrate. I’m mourning the loss of our friends.
As always, the Masons are solicitous hosts. At the start of the meal, Manny lifts his glass of Chateau Montelena chardonnay—he makes sure to tell us the winery won the famous 1976 Paris tasting that put the Napa Valley on the map—and toasts our victory over the Church of the Sanctified Assembly. He’s a bit intoxicated, but I think it’s more from his love of wine than from the alcohol. He grew up in the vineyards, after all. Throughout dinner, he and Elena are constantly serving and clearing, refusing to let me help. Grace doesn’t offer.
I’m poor company tonight, indifferent to my surroundings, capable of speaking but unwilling to—the opposite of stage fright, in other words. But I don’t think the Masons notice, because Grace gets ever more manic as the evening progresses and can’t stop talking. She tells long and exaggerated stories about her days as a music lawyer, recounting events that have no interest to anyone but her. She’s binging on food—now it’s a third slice of Elena’s flourless chocolate cake. A little while ago, she gesticulated so wildly that she spilled a glass of St. Emilion Grand Cru all over her green dress—the same tattered dress that she was wearing when I found her at Harmon’s beach house. I’ll have to get her to leave when I do or the Masons will be stuck with her until tomorrow morning.
It’s hard to believe she’s even here. After she disappeared from the courthouse Monday afternoon, I didn’t think I’d hear from her again. Then, on Wednesday, she called my cell phone from a blocked number saying she wanted to talk about the lawsuit. At the end of the conversation, I told her that Manny had invited us for Friday-night dinner. I was sure she’d say no, but she accepted. When I asked for her phone number, she hung up on me.
Now, she and Manny and Elena are talking about the trial. It’s funny how everyone but the trial lawyers wants to discuss a case that’s ended, as if it was nothing more than an exciting sporting event. While the others talk, I sip my wine, pick at my dessert, and gaze at a Grant Wood print of a farm couple and a collie that hangs on the opposite wall. I catch only a smattering of the conversation, paying the minimum amount of attention necessary to answer coherently if someone speaks directly to me.
In response to a question from Elena, Grace says, “Rich truly did believe that all those companies he set up were being used to fund thrift stores and organic bakeries and whatever. He truly thought they were carrying out the Assembly’s good works. I know he sounds naïve, but he didn’t understand what was going on because he assumed the best in people.”
“I’ve been following the news reports,” Elena says. “They still haven’t traced the money, right? They don’t know if all of it went for bribes or if McCarthy kept some of it for himself.”
“I’d guess it all went for bribes,” Manny says. “When you think about it, seventeen million in eighteen months isn’t really that much money to spend worldwide. There are what, a hundred ninety–plus countries in the world? The Assembly wants to have a presence in all of them. Accomplishing that takes way more than a paltry seventeen million. What do you think, Parker?”
I shrug.
“I disagree, Manny, I disagree.” Grace says. She gulps down what’s left of her wine and sets her glass down so hard it rattles the tableware. “Truthfully, it’s like I said at the trial, I think McCarthy pocketed a lot of it, I think he skimmed money from the Buttonwillow Bank account and used the Geometrics as a conduit to The Emery Group.”
“The Geometrics?” Elena asks.
“That’s what we called the companies that were named after geometric shapes,” Grace says. “Parker’s law student”—and here she gives a Groucho Marx leer—“thought of that.”
“It’s silly, but the names of those companies fascinate me,” Elena says. “Maybe it’s because my father has started so many businesses in his life, and choosing the right name is always very important to him. Even if those companies just existed on paper, how could you keep track of one from the other?”
“That was the whole point,” Grace says, an edge of hostility creeping into her voice.
Elena considers this and nods.
“Hey, Elena, can you name all those Geometrics?” Grace says.
“I’m sure I can’t.”
“Oh, come on, try.” It’s a command, not a request. I’ve seen Grace like this before, demanding that everyone play her irrational games. Now she’s invented a perverse variation of Name the Seven Dwarfs. It’s a sure sign that she’s on the brink of a meltdown.
I say, “Grace, I don’t think Elena wants to—”
“You can’t play, Parker! That would be cheating.”
“It’s OK,” Elena says in a soft voice. “Let me try.” She’s doesn’t realize that humoring Grace will only make things worse.
Elena bites her lip. “There’s Triangle, Pentagon, Hexagon, Octagon. Wasn’t . . . wasn’t one of the companies called Trapezius or something?”
“Close, but no cigar,” Grace says. “I’ll give you a do over.”
Manny puts his hand on Elena’s shoulder. “Trapezoid, honey. Though I think Trapezius would’ve been a much better name. The others were Isosceles, Heptagon, Nonagon, and Rhombus.”
“That’s cheating, too, Manny,” Grace says with real irritation in her voice. “This was between Elena and me.”
“Are you all right, Grace?” Elena says. It’s absolutely the wrong thing to say.
“Oh, I couldn’t be more wonderful. Awesome.” Now her tone is completely hostile. “How about you, Elena? Are you all right?”
I reach over and touch Grace’s elbow. “We’re all fine, Grace. We’re having a quiet dinner.”
She gazes past me for a moment and then looks away.
“But I wanted to ask you something, Grace,” I say in a soft voice. “Was it Harmon who liked to name companies that way? You know, with those generic names?” It’s a blatant attempt to draw her attention away from Elena, but it works. Her body relaxes a bit.
“Not Harmon,” she says. “Andrew Macklin. He once named a trio of his clients’ companies A-One, Acme, and Apex.”
“Why?”
“He had this ridiculous idea that a company was less likely to get sued if it had a nondescript name,” she says, sounding calmer. “You know, like don’t buy a red car because owners of red cars get stopped by the cops more often? I think Rich really bought into the program when Andrew started doing Assembly work.”
Suddenly, something’s puzzling me, something I never considered. I forget about Grace’s behavior for the moment. “Manny, how deeply was Macklin involved with Assembly matters?”
“Full-time at the end. He had nothing else to do, so—”
“If he was willing to do their work, could he have been one of them? It never occurred to me before, but—”
“I don’t think Andrew—”
“You guys!” Grace shrieks. She looks at us with a warped grin. “Remember that time when Deanna was dating that bass player from, what was that band called, Steel Angst? She’d do drugs and fuck until two thirty in the morning and be in court or meeting with a client. I never understood how she could manage that. When I did that, I was on my ass for a week.”
Manny closes his eyes for a moment. Elena grimaces in disgust. She’s religious and socially conservative, a straight-laced wife and mother who has no tolerance for swear words, much less a graphic discussion about Deanna’s sex life and drug use. Worse, her three teenage sons are in the den just down the hall.
“Grace,” I whisper. “There are kids in this house.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry.” Her glazed eyes emit hypomanic sparks.
As if on cue, Manny’s youngest, the thirteen-year-old, walks in. He’s tall for his age, not a surprise because he has tall parents. “Dad, do I really have to miss my game tomorrow? Papi won’t—”
“This isn’t the time, Kevin,” Manny says. “We’ll talk about it later.”
Grace giggles, hiccups, puts her hand to her mouth, and giggles again.
“We’ve already talked about it,” Elena says. “He’s coming with us to the lunch.” She looks at me as if she owes me an explanation. “It’s my dad’s birthday. Kevin can miss one basketball game for an important family event.” She glares at Manny. “Even though I think his father would rather watch him play basketball.”
