Page 50 of Witness 8

I had started leaving my car in the garage.

Too easy for somebody to hide a device in or on the car some place where I wouldn’t find it. Car bombs are a lot more sophisticated than they used to be. Getting down on your knees and glancing under the body, or even popping the hood and searching for suspicious bulges, wires or boxes, didn’t work any more. There was an Armenian in Queens who took out a rival boss with six beads of C4 threaded on an insulated wire, hooked up to a waterproof miniature cell-phone receiver and then fed into the gas tank of a Lincoln Navigator. The resulting explosion put a six-foot-deep crater in the blacktop and launched the Lincoln through a semi hauling six hundred live chickens. The city spent two days cleaning burnt metal, blood and feathers off a quarter-mile of the street.

I took the subway and watched my back.

It had been two weeks since the NYPD wiped out two hitmen from one of the more violent motorcycle gangs out of New Jersey. No more tails. No eyes on me from parked cars outside the office, nor outside my apartment. I imagined Sergeant Gray had put the word out to cool things down, at least for a while. He would’ve had heat from the brass for sitting in a patrol car with his partner with their radios turned off, twelve feet from two heavily armed bikers in a pick-up truck.

If he was smart, he would call off the hit. Cancel the paper on me and forget about it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t think he was too clever. Even if he had some brain cells to spare, it was personal now. I’d made him look like a fool in front of his brother officers and his crew. He’d probably convinced his boss, Buchanan, that I was a threat. Now, I was a severe pain in the ass.

It was only a matter of time before somebody else came calling at my door.

I walked the four blocks from the subway to my office. It was coming up on ten in the morning when I climbed the stairs and made for my desk. I stopped. Denise was on the phone, listening. She gestured toward Kate’s office. Harry and Bloch were with Kate, standing around her desk. I pushed open her door and heard a voice coming from her cell phone. It was Al Parish.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

‘Hi, Eddie,’ said Parish. ‘Just to quickly bring you up to speed. John isn’t doing so well. He got a letter this morning, signed by all of his neighbors. They asked him to move out. He’s probably lost his career too. This is all becoming too much for him. We need to do something.’

‘You want a meeting, Al? I could give him the talk again,’ said Kate.

‘I think you got him this far, Kate,’ said Al. ‘But I’m not sure he’s got a lot left in the tank. His kid is getting harassed in school. Alison says the neighbors cross the street instead of passing her on the sidewalk. Is there anything we can do to move this case along? I think things would be better if we could give them a trial date.’

‘We don’t have a trial date,’ said Kate. ‘And we’re not close to being ready yet.’

Al said, ‘I know, I know. I was just wondering if we could somehow get a trial date. Then at least there’s an end point forJohn and his family. That would help. I just . . . I just don’t know how long he can hang in there.’

‘Okay, Al. We hear you. Leave it with us and we’ll see if there’s some way to grease the wheels,’ I said.

Al thanked us, hung up.

‘Even if we could get an early trial date, we’re not ready,’ said Kate.

‘I know, but we can be ready. Bloch, any updates on finding us a ballistics expert?’ I asked.

Bloch said, ‘I got the last refusal this morning. That list of experts you gave me, everyone turned us down.’

‘Why?’ asked Harry.

‘They all said the same thing,’ said Bloch.

‘Conflict of interest?’ I asked.

Bloch slowly nodded.

District Attorney Castro was dirty, narcissistic and power-hungry, but that didn’t make him stupid.

‘Castro carpet-bombed the field,’ I said.

As well as briefing the top ballistic expert in the country and securing him as a prosecution witness, he’d also sent prosecution papers to another five of the most respected ballistics experts. The only people with enough experience and credibility to challenge the prosecution expert were also paid by Castro to read the case materials. That meant they had knowledge of the case, potentially confidential knowledge and therefore couldn’t act for the defense. It would be a conflict of interest.

‘The DA’s case hangs on that ballistics report and the DNA report,’ said Kate. ‘If he proves the gun that fired the rounds which killed Margaret Blakemore was found in our client’s closet with his DNA on it, then that’s it. We need our own heavyweight ballistics expert to challenge that testimony. Without it, we’re done. What are we going to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I haven’t had enough coffee yet.’

They all stood in silence, staring at me.

‘What are you waiting for? Go get coffee,’ said Harry.