Chasing justice, p.16
Chasing Justice, page 16
“Yes, what can I do for you, Agent Smaltz? What’s the emergency? As you must know, I can’t sign warrants for Federal courts.”
He laughed a little, but it came out more like a soft growl. “No, no, not a warrant. Just covering all the bases on your colleague’s untimely death. We’re making sure no stone is left unturned. I won’t take much time but would like to interview you—and as soon as possible. This is time sensitive.”
Is that the line you used on Melvin, on Naomi? Did you bow slightly the same way with them? Or maybe you are chasing the killer, hope so. “Ah sure, the best time and place might be after court in the next few days. Our girls need to be put to bed, and I’ve got lots to get ready for trial in the morning. You’re welcome to my office, ah, my chambers, or wherever works for you.”
“How about if I wait in your courtroom tomorrow, and we chat after you let everyone out at the end of the day?”
“See you then. Hope you can help get to the bottom of what happened to him. But I don’t know much.” Dang, I’m talking too fast, saying too much. That’s a dead giveaway that I’m nervous. Slow down, turn this at him. “Are you from the local Bureau office. You need directions to my courthouse, my courtroom?”
“I’m from back east, the D.C. region actually, but they let me use the San Diego region office whenever I want.” He laughed that soft low laugh again. “Old enough for mandatory R, but they let me hang out, give me odd jobs. I know how to find you tomorrow.”
I fiddled with the door chain, still attached, as if to open the door. Another test question flashed in. “Agent Smaltz, one more thing.”
“Sure, what’s that?”
“Have you interviewed others closer to the scene, closer to him, Judge Brookfeld’s clerk or court reporter?”
“We’re working through everything, I assure you, Judge.”
“Detective Pitts?”
“Judge, for anyone else I’d have no comment,” a tired breath, “but I can tell a sitting judge. I’ve not yet met with the San Diego PD but have the report.”
Damn. Smaltz hadn’t talked to Sandy Shields or Mora or Mora’s friend, Natasha, who had worked for Melvin. Any of them would have come running to me with that news. Hadn’t even talked to Pitts. No, this Smaltz Agent, or phony agent, wanted to talk to me before checking in with anyone closer to the scene. Smaltz didn’t want to know why or how Melvin died. He was interested in other things, and I knew about those other things, was learning more about those other things. “All right then, Agent Smaltz, I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”
Peter hugged me as soon as we heard the visitor’s car leave our block. “Let’s get the girls to sleep.”
Later I continued thinking out loud. “And now he’s after me and what I’ve got way more than he cares about those who saw Melvin’s body. Heck, he might have just been checking if we’re home. Want to take us and the girls to a motel?”
Peter shook his head, but no surprise showed on his face, no expression that said I was crazy. After a long moment, he said, “Let’s make sure all our doors are bolted and windows locked tonight. And let’s make copies of everything Naomi gave you. This guy will want that. Let’s upload those copies and send them to ourselves.”
I mentally flipped through the files in Naomi’s box. “We’ll give him everything. Can’t obstruct a proper investigation, if that’s what this is. Can’t lose my black robe over this. And let’s use our scanner, slow as it is, on the four photos and the DK TF list. Let’s send those into the ether and back to us here and to my court computer.”
I hugged Peter and pulled him close to the kitchen sink, turned on the water and whispered, “Harlan Smaltz doesn’t give a care about an old man’s porn, about an old man’s suicide. He wants whatever Naomi gave me, whatever she told me.”
Peter mouthed, “And we don’t know why . . . why Melvin collected this stuff.”
“We’d better figure it out fast, figure it out and tell others before it’s too late, before there’s nothing and no one left who cares.”
5
Harlan Smaltz had some manners. He entered my courtroom after the witnesses and lawyers, their clients, and the jury had cleared for the day. Different suit, same hat but different tie, all low key, all business. One of those old guys who knows how to read people, how to disarm them with that weary face and the power of age. His kind were the most dangerous, the professional liars, the big-time cops or cons who instinctively found the “yes” buttons on their targets.
Easy to let my guard down, too easy. But here in my own domain, I could handle him, handle myself, better than at home. I got out of my robe, hung it over my chair, took the three steps down off my perch and headed straight at him through the swinging little gate to the courtroom gallery area. “Agent Smaltz, so nice to see you again. Sorry I was crowded for time last night.”
I had not noticed his tan in the light of late evening. This one didn’t spend all his time behind a desk, still a bit of a field man. Damn. Field men kept up on their marksmanship, their surveillance devices, kept in touch with their informants and street thugs.
“It is indeed nice to see you, Your Honor. And thank you for seeing me now.” He reached out a hand and properly shook mine.
I gestured at the empty visitor seats in the gallery half of the courtroom. “Should we talk here?”
He glanced in the direction of Mora folding up the metal legs under her reporter machine, over at Ms. Patterson, head down making notes on some files, and at the bailiff clearing off his own little desk area. He said very softly so only I could hear, “May interview the staff later. Should talk where no one can eavesdrop.”
My chambers didn’t seem right, too private—and Melvin had been slaughtered in his chambers. Besides, I had asked my bailiff, Mora and Ms. Patterson to not leave right away, to wait for my signal or for Agent Smaltz to finish and leave. “I understand. Let’s duck into this room.”
Smaltz and I each took a wooden chair in the small attorney-witness room. My good manners overrode my fear, and I closed the door.
“Well, Agent Smaltz, fire away.” I put on my ready-to-answer face.
Rock-still gray eyes, jaw muscles flexed, his hands flat on the desk slowly clenched into fists, he said. “Judge, I’ll get to the point. We know how your friend died, but need to know why, why now.”
“Yes.”
“Judge, why do you think, why now?”
“You should talk to Detective Pitts, really should. I’ve talked to him. They’ve done a very thorough job. I’m sure the City police collected up everything belonging to Melvin—his computer, his case files, anything, very thorough really. And they’ve closed that file and seem confident they’ve got it. If anyone knows why now, they do. Last evening you said you’re just covering all the bases. Seems to me they’ve already been well-covered.” Damn, I had said too much, said it too fast, let my nerves, my fears show.
The unblinking lion’s stare came back. The jaw muscles flexed again. “Yes, and you cared enough to meet with Naomi, other family, with Mr. Pitts and learn all you’ve summarized so nicely. But . . . you have a good memory, and I must have been a bit too flip last evening. There is more to this one. Please, Judge, trust that I know what I’m doing, that we know what we are doing. Right now, I need to know what you know.” Smaltz reached down into the briefcase I had not noticed until now and pulled out a yellow pad and black pen. He wrote the date and my name at the top. “I may ask for a recorded statement or declaration later, but for now I’ll just take down the high points. All right?”
This guy was all business under the courteous behavior. I looked at my watch.
“If you have a big load this evening, I can come back here later.”
“No, please. Fire away.”
“I’ll get to the main point. We understand Judge Brookfeld had some files in a vault at the family summer home. His sister gathered them up and had copies made.” He waited.
Had Naomi said too much, shown him more than she told me?
Smaltz answered my silent question. “Only one copy service in Naomi’s town. Most folks have copiers at home, but his sister didn’t or had the service make copies. We have reason to believe she gave some of the judge’s important papers to you. Did she give you some of her brother’s files, Judge Cornwell?”
The choices crashed in, all of them, and I had to pick the best one fast. Leave this little room, this meeting right now. Leave and tell him he’d hear from my lawyer. Stay and act ignorant, play the fool. Stay and make up a story—obstruct an investigation. Let him pull it out of me, one timid response and then the next until he had it all. Take control, my insides yelled at me. Oliver came in again, All there is is to bore into it as hard as you can. Time to bore into this slick, dangerous Smaltz chap right now and build my thorn-covered high fence to keep him off me. This might work better than anything else—for now.
“Well, then, that’s easy, Agent Smaltz. Where shall I send what Naomi gave me, to the address on the card?” I smiled my knowing smile. “No need to follow me home.”
“How about if I stop by at . . .” He looked at his watch. “ . . . at six sharp, give you time to get home and round everything up.” He didn’t say that this would not allow time to copy what he came to collect. Another lion stare, and he reached for his hat.
I tried to match him, take back some of the control. “Before you leave, Agent Smaltz, what makes you think I have any of Melvin’s old stuff, any of his papers?”
The face relaxed. “Judge, I’d never tell most folks, but I can trust you. I met with Naomi at some length, and other family members. She brought me every doggone thing she still had of Melvin’s. There was a whole lot. I asked her for any copies too, asked real nicely. You see, I had already stopped by Milton Copies and Graphics and asked them about copy jobs. They had it all on computer, sorted by customer and date and number of pages copied. His sister had them make lots of copies, and she wouldn’t do that for just junk—tax returns, old letters. She had those copies made for another purpose. The arithmetic on the number of pages run by the copy service and what Melvin’s sister gave me didn’t add up. So . . .”
I started nodding.
“ . . . either his sister kept the copies and refused to turn them over to me or . . . she gave them to you. Fifty-fifty shot.”
“And why me to whom—?”
He cut me off. “Seems only you and Naomi want to dig up the judge’s past, really don’t believe he did it to himself. No one else cares, but I do. The people I work with care a whole lot.”
I exhaled loudly in the small room and put on my most professional happy face. “I’m so glad, so relieved. Keep me up to speed. I care about our dear Judge Melvin.”
Smaltz grabbed his briefcase. “Whatever we know, whatever we learn. It’s disclosed only on a NTK basis, all top secret. Sorry. You’ll all be fine, just don’t give it another thought. See you at six.”
And he left.
I dialed Sandy Shield’s courthouse number. “He’s gone. I don’t think he’s bugged this phone, and he didn’t follow me back here. What have you learned?”
“Judge, Agent Harlan H. Smaltz seems to be totally legit. He’s in the D.C. Region. He’s retired, but they keep bringing him back on special assignments—under contract. I did a little check, and mandatory retirement is fifty-seven, and not one day more. For very special cases, an agent can stay up to three years extra. But they gave out no hint about what he was up to. They told me to try him tomorrow, that he’s out in the field today, out in the field a lot, even gave me his number and it matched his card. That was a bit unusual, giving me his number. But when I explained where I worked, they opened up a bit, might even have known he was on his way here.”
“Any luck with the other?”
“Oh, yes, Your Honor. That was a great thought. The Milton copy service does not keep or save its downloads after a copy job is picked up and approved. Would take too much server capacity, and they don’t want the headache of being everyone’s cloud for every document they copy. Someone could dig into its servers and maybe pull old orders out, but that would take a lot of time and, I’m guessing, a subpoena. Once a copy job is delivered and approved by the customer, they delete their back up, and after seven days their system deletes it automatically. But they do log every copy job with a page count and customer name.”
“Thanks, Sandy, thanks. Have a good evening. Good to know the big boys are finally on it.”
“If he comes around here, I’ll come clean and tell him that I checked up on him, I suppose.”
“Only if he asks. I hope he does. Maybe Melvin’s file is not closed, maybe they’re looking for a killer. That would be a relief—at last.”
I had fibbed. No relief at all. Whatever this was, whatever had killed Melvin was so much worse if the FBI knew about it, was in on it, and could not or did not save him from it.
Had to hurry home, get there before he did. Harlan Smaltz had calculated just right. I had enough time to get home, round everything up for him, but no extra time to make copies of more than maybe ten pages on any home copier. Thank God Peter had copied everything in Naomi’s box deep into last night. That’s the only thorn fence protection I had against lions out there for now. Had to find why Smaltz was here, what he was after, and had to find it fast.
5
Smaltz pulled up in what could have been a Bureau-issued Chevy a couple minutes early and waited until six on the dot.
I didn’t want him in my home, didn’t want the twins to see him. I came to the door.
Agent Smaltz got out but left his hat on the car seat.
I didn’t let him leave the area around his car. Peter, carrying the box, and I came out to where Smaltz had parked. “Here you go, everything as I got it from Naomi.” And it was all of that, the whole box of files exactly as I had taken from Naomi, put into and shipped to me in this very FedEx box.
Smaltz opened the trunk. “Thank you. That was easy.”
I said, “Sure, happy to help. I’ve got my copy of the FedEx bill. Mind signing it, so I have a record.”
“Sure. Set it down here, and I’ll write ‘received from’, date it and sign it.” Smaltz got a pen out of his shirt pocket.
Peter set the box on the back fender. I placed the bill on the box, and Smaltz hunkered over it, writing, signing under the streetlamp. Not great light but good enough. Peter pulled his cell phone from his pants pocket, lined it up on Smaltz writing and signing. Two flashes and then one more proved that the camera feature worked.
At the first flash, Smaltz’s head jerked, but he didn’t look up, didn’t comment. Done, he stood up, put the pen away, slid the box into his car trunk. “You didn’t need to do that, did you?”
I was ready. “Agent Smaltz,” and with a false cheer, “you really got to me with how important this is, whatever it is. Someday, someone may come around again and question me again and ask for these files again. Must have a first-rate evidence chain of custody on these docs. If you like, I’ll email you these snapshots—of you picking up these files.”
His long silence, his thinking told me I had gotten to him. “Nah, no need to bother. I know I have them now.”
As Smaltz talked, Peter took one more of the two of us talking, at least that’s what it looked like. I knew Peter forwarded the snapshots to both our home and my chambers computers, building thorn barriers against this lion. I said, “Great. Hope you get whoever did this.”
“What makes you think someone did this to him?” The lion stare again.
“Anyone who knew our wonderful Judge Brookfeld would know he could never have taken his own life and not in his hallowed ground, in the place where he worked.” I touched Smaltz’s forearm. Most men are suckers for a woman’s touch on the elbow. “Whatever happens, get the person or people who did this—and let me know. Will you?”
Uncertainty flitted across the face, no hard jaw, no rock-still eyes for a flicker of time, but then they all came back. “I’ll let you know what I can. And, Ms. Cornwell, Judge, if you think of anything else, find anything else, call me. Don’t try to do this yourself. Stay out of it. It’s much bigger than you imagine, much bigger than you, your Peter, your twins.” He waved his right hand as if throwing a Frisbee out into the night air. “Much bigger than all of this, all of us.”
“I understand—even if I don’t. Maybe someday you can fill me in.”
“We’ll see.”
I couldn’t let that go. “Ah, when you’re done with them, can I have these files back? I’ve got nothing else left from my favorite judge.”
Smaltz looked at me, uncertain again. “Ah, we’ll see. We’ll see.” He slammed the trunk shut, got into his car, and left.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Frank, Winter 1978
I
had written up the 302 Witness Report on our last meeting with Melvin back in October. Rasmussen’s favorite judge had issued the warrants to search Melvin’s office and home for any documents related to the project that got his Madeline murdered. She and Melvin lived in a small apartment not far north from the Watergate apartment complex, but miles from it in luxury and rental fees.
A long day of simultaneously searching both Melvin’s home and office area, with multiple agents in each place, yielded nothing about Melvin’s troubled project, nothing more than copies of tax returns, household papers, checks, check-stub books, magazines, dry cleaner receipts, letters among family members, honors and awards for Melvin and Madeline, and legal research memos on State Department legal questions. The searchers collected up all the legal papers for later study, but their studying yielded nothing on secret, deadly projects.
Sam had given me a little oral report. “Hey, I got a call from one of the guys that searched Melvin’s office. They asked him for notes, asked where he kept them. He told them he hardly made notes of any kind. Told them his research, the case citations and case quotes stayed in his head until he needed to pull them up for a legal brief or argument. Making notes, he told them, was ‘make work’. I hadn’t heard that expression before. Must have pissed our guys off.”
