Judge & Jury Page 13

  I was headed back up to the courtroom, passing by the lobby, when I heard my name shouted. “Nick! Nick!”

  It was Andie, restrained by two guards. She was waving. “Nick, they won’t let me in!”

  I walked over to the entrance. “It’s okay,” I said to the guard. I flashed my ID. “I’ll take responsibility. She’s with me.”

  I pulled her through the jostling crowd. “You were right. I had to be here, Nick. I couldn’t stay away. For Jarrod, if not me.”

  “You don’t have to explain, Andie. Just come.”

  I led her into one of the elevators, pushed the button for the eighth floor. There were a few others on board—a couple of attorneys, a court stenographer. The ride seemed interminable. I squeezed her hand. “Hmmm,” she said. Just that.

  When the doors finally opened on eight, I pulled Andie to the side and waited for the other people to clear. Then I gave her the hug I wanted to give her the other night. I almost kissed her, too. It took guts to be here. To show her face. But I could feel her heart beating against me. “It’s okay, Andie. I’m glad you’re here.”

  I showed my ID to a guard stationed outside the courtroom and escorted her inside. The room was still nearly empty. A couple of marshals chatting, a young assistant district attorney laying out jury forms along the lawyers’ row.

  Andie looked anxious suddenly. “Now that I’m here, I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “We’ll stay over here,” I said, placing her in the back row of the gallery. “When he comes in, we’ll be together. Maybe we’ll wave.”

  “Yeah, or give him the finger.”

  I squeezed her hand. “Nothing bad is going to happen. The evidence is even more solid than before. He’s gonna arrive soon, and we’re going to choose twelve people. Then we’re going to put him away until the day he dies.”

  Chapter 62

  MONICA ANN ROMANO SUSPECTED what was in the small bundle she was carrying, and it made her want to throw up.

  She had taken it from the man she once trusted. Now she walked nervously across the square, showing her federal ID and passing by the guarded police barricades to the courthouse. It was the most nerve-racking thing she had ever done in her life. By a lot.

  Finally, she stood in the courthouse employee line. Every bag was being opened. Even the lawyers’ and their staffs’. Monica knew who was in the courthouse that day: Dominic Cavello.

  “Big doings today, hon,” chirped Mike, a lobby guard with a large handlebar mustache, who pulled her through the maze of people and over to the authorized personnel line.

  “Uh-huh.” Monica nodded nervously. She smiled hello to a couple of familiar faces.

  The guy in front of her, a lawyer with a beard and long hair, opened his case. Monica was next. Pablo, who always teased her about the Mets, caught her eye and smiled. Her heart was beating savagely. She felt the weight of the bundle pressing down on her. What if they looked inside?

  The lawyer in front of her closed his case, passing through. Now it was just her and Pablo. Could he hear her heart pounding? Holding her breath, Monica stepped into the gate.

  “How’s the weekend, hon?” The guard took a perfunctory peek inside her handbag. “You catch those Mets?”

  “Sure I did.” Monica nodded, closing her eyes, expecting a loud beep to go off. Her life to be over.

  It didn’t. Nothing happened. She stepped through. Just like every other day. A tremor of relief went through her. Thank God.

  “See you at lunch,” Pablo said. She started to hurry away. Then she heard him call, “Hey, Monica.”

  Monica Ann Romano froze, and she turned around slowly.

  The guard flashed her a wink. “I like your hat.”

  Chapter 63

  THE LAWYERS WERE IN the courtroom. Cavello, too. Judge Barnett gazed out at the nervous group of prospective jurors who had cautiously filed in. “I doubt there’s a person in this room who doesn’t know why we’re here,” he said.

  Each juror had been given a number. They all took a seat. Every eye seemed to be glancing at the gaunt, gray-haired man who sat with his legs crossed in front of them. Then they looked away, as if afraid to let their eyes linger too long. That’s Cavello, their faces said.

  I turned back to Andie, who only moments before had watched as the bastard was led in. Cavello’s handcuffs were removed. He took a look around the courtroom. Cavello seemed to find Andie immediately, as if he knew she would be there. He paused and gave her a slight, respectful nod.

  But her gaze didn’t waver. It seemed to be telling him, You can’t hurt me anymore. She wasn’t going to give him the thrill of seeing her look scared. She clenched her palms against the railing. Finally she looked away. When she lifted her eyes again, they landed on mine. She gave me a thin smile. I’m okay; I’m good. He’s going down.

  “I also doubt there’s a person among you who truly wants to be here,” Judge Barnett went on. “Some of you may feel you don’t belong here. Some might even be afraid. But, be assured, if called, it is your legal and moral duty to serve on the trial. And twelve of you are going to serve—with six more as alternates. What is my duty is to remove whatever fear and discomfort many of you may be feeling, given the defendant’s last trial.

  “Therefore, your names and addresses, anything about your family or what you do, will not be released—not even to the members of this court. Those selected will spend the next six to eight weeks confined to the Fort Dix army base in New Jersey, where this trial will take place.

  “I know no one is eager to give up their lives and remain separated from family and loved ones for that amount of time. But the defendant must be tried—that is all our duties. A jury will be decided upon—and he will be tried. Anyone who refuses to do his or her duty will be held in contempt of court.”

  The judge nodded to the clerk. “Now, is there anyone in this room who, due to some commitment or handicap, feels he or she cannot faithfully execute this duty?”

  Virtually every hand in the room shot into the air at once.

  A ripple of muffled laughter snaked around the courtroom. Even Cavello looked at the show of hands and smiled.

  One by one, jurors were called up to the bench. Single mothers. Small-business owners. People pleading that they had paid for vacations or were holding doctors’ notes. A couple of lawyers argued they should be excused.

  But Judge Barnett didn’t buckle. He excused a handful, and they left the courtroom, discreetly pumping a fist or grinning widely. Others glumly went back to their seats.

  Finally, about a hundred and fifty people remained, most looking not very pleased.

  Cavello never even glanced at them. He kept drumming his fingers against the table, staring straight ahead. I kept thinking of the words he had uttered to me as they pulled me away from his jail cell the day of the juror bus blast.

  Me, I’m gonna sleep like a baby tonight. . . . First day in a month I don’t have to worry about a trial.

  “Mr. Goldenberger, Mr. Kaskel,” the judge addressed the attorneys, “I’m sure you have some questions you’d like to put to these good people.”

  Chapter 64

  RICHARD NORDESHENKO HAD FILED unnoticed into the courthouse. It hadn’t been difficult to obtain a standard juror’s notice from Reichardt, then doctor the date and name to fit his need. He got in line with the other dour-looking jurors. Then, like every job he had ever done, he walked in through the front door.

  For a while, Nordeshenko sat eyeing a magazine in the crowded jury room, listening to people’s numbers being called. Many of them were nervously muttering what-ifs about getting selected for the Cavello trial. Everyone he listened to seemed to feel they had a foolproof excuse.

  Nordeshenko quietly chuckled to himself. None of them would need an excuse.

  At 10:15 a.m. he checked his watch. Nezzi would be driving the stolen catering van into the underground garage. Nezzi was the best in the world at this. Still, you never knew what could happen on a job, especiall
y one as complex as this.

  Last night, Nordeshenko had written a long letter to his wife and son. He had left it in his hotel room, in the event he did not make it back.

  In the letter he admitted he was not exactly the good man they may have always thought he was, and that the things they may be hearing about him were probably true. He wrote that it saddened him that he had had to hide so much from them over the years. But in each life, he added, one is never all bad or all good. What was good about his life was the two of them. He wrote that he loved them both very much, and trying to close with a joke, he told his son that he too had grown to prefer poker over chess.

  He signed the letter, from your loving husband and father, Kolya Remlikov.

  Nordeshenko’s real name.

  A name neither of them knew.

  At precisely 11:40 a.m., Nordeshenko put down his magazine and made his way outside and up to the third floor. It was mostly court and administrative offices. He found the men’s bathroom along the elevator bank and ducked inside. A heavyset black man with a large mole on his cheek was finishing up washing his hands. Nordeshenko ran the water, waiting for him to leave.

  When the black man departed, Nordeshenko removed the top to the trash receptacle, dug his hand through the balled-up paper towels, and removed the carefully wrapped bundle that he knew was there. Just as Reichardt had said it would be.

  Nordeshenko went into a stall and unwrapped the bundle: a Heckler and Koch 9mm pistol, his gun of choice. He checked the magazine and, seeing that it was fully loaded, tightly screwed on the suppressor.

  He knew the judge was a stickler for regimen. He always let out his court a few minutes before 12:30 p.m. for lunch. The story went that no lawyer arguing before Barnett wanted to be in the middle of a key point around that time.

  Only a few minutes more.

  From his pocket, Nordeshenko took out a tiny cell phone. He had checked one at security, just like everyone else, but kept the second hidden away. No messages. That meant Nezzi was gone and everything was set now.

  He checked the code that would get things started. All that was left to do was to hit Send.

  Nordeshenko left the stall and took a last look at himself in the mirror. His heartbeat started to quicken. Remi, be calm. You know how people will react. You know human nature better than anyone. The element of surprise is with you. Just like it has a dozen times before, everything will go your way.

  With his newly dyed hair, the fake beard, and glasses, the thought passed through him that in the next few minutes he might die as he always feared: unrecognized. With someone else’s name. The prints would have to be matched, and even then, the trail was blank. Just a sergeant in the Russian army, a deserter. It might be weeks, months, before anyone even knew he was dead.

  Of course, and Nordeshenko smiled to himself at this, he might live, too. He cocked the Heckler and stuffed it inside his pocket.

  It was like pushing all your money into the center of the table. In this case, a 2.5-million-dollar fee.

  You never knew for sure until you turned over the last card.

  Chapter 65

  DOMINIC CAVELLO WAS eyeing the courtroom clock too, trying to block out the idle chatter, which he knew, in just moments, would have very little to do with the rest of his life. That was when Judge Barnett would lean into the microphone, no matter who was speaking, and ask if this was a good time to take a break.

  And then, as if on cue, at 12:24 p.m. the judge cut in on the prosecutor’s questioning. “Mr. Goldenberger . . .”

  Cavello felt his pulse start to race. Sayonara, he snickered. Playtime’s over. Little Dom here is ready to go home.

  The judge instructed the prospective jurors to reconvene at exactly two o’clock. Slowly, the jury pool began to file out. “Marshals, you may take possession of the defendant now.”

  Cavello stood up. He didn’t give a shit about what was going to happen next. In fact, he’d make their job easy. “Okay, fellas.” The same two who had brought him in this morning were taking him back to jail. The broad-shouldered guy with the thick mustache held out the cuffs. “Sorry, Dom.”

  Cavello put out his wrists. “Not a problem, Eddie-boy. I’m all yours.”

  He knew their names. He knew a half dozen little things about them. The black guy had been a tank commander in Desert Storm. The one with the bushy mustache had a son who was being recruited by Wisconsin to play football. He snapped the shackles tightly over Cavello’s wrists.

  “Jeez, guys, can’t you give an honest citizen a break? Hey, Hy,” he called out to his attorney, “you guys have a nice big steak on me. See you back here at two.”

  The marshals led him out the side entrance to the elevator in the hall, on the way back to his prison cell, a couple of blocks away. He’d made the trip so many times, he could probably do it in his sleep if he had to.

  “You know what the worst thing is about spending the rest of your life in jail?” He winked to the marshal with the mustache as they headed out into the hall. “The food! Especially at that pigsty, Marion. You know the only thing that keeps you going out there?” He nudged him with an elbow. “The death sentence, that’s what. The lethal injection.” Cavello laughed. “That’s the only thing that gives you any hope!”

  A third guard, with a radio in one hand, was holding the doors open when they got to the elevator. He barked into the radio, “They’re on their way.” Eddie and the black guy escorted him inside.

  The black marshal pushed U, for underground. He knew that if the basement was selected, the elevator wouldn’t stop at any other floor, unless it was overridden from inside. The doors closed.

  Cavello turned to the black marshal, who never talked very much. “You like pizza, Bo? Black people eat pizza, don’t they?”

  “Yeah, I like pizza, Dom,” the black guard growled.

  “Sure, all cops like pizza.” Cavello sighed. “Hey, you know what we should do? Screw this jail thing. How ’bout we ditch this baby at the lobby and take a spin out to the old neighborhood in Brooklyn for an hour or two? I’ll show you what a real Italian meal is. C’mon, I’ll have us all back by two. They won’t even know we were gone.”

  He nudged Eddie as the elevator descended, watching the floor lights start to go down.

  “That would be a pisser, wouldn’t it, Eddie-boy? The whole free world is out looking for us—and we’re just sitting at Pritzie’s having a veal and peppers and a beer. So whaddya say?”

  The burly marshal grinned. “Sounds like a plan, Dom.”

  “That’s what it sounds like to me, too,” Cavello said, following the lights of the floor panel as the elevator descended. “A plan.”

  Chapter 66

  ANDIE WAS WAITING for me out in the hallway. She said that she’d seen enough. She didn’t have to be there anymore. I rode down the elevator with her and a couple of prospective jurors to the lobby. There was a little awkwardness between us there. I told her how brave I thought she was to come. She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “Thank you, Nick. It was a good idea.”

  On my way upstairs, I stuck my head inside the security room for a check on Cavello. He was headed down to the basement now. I watched over the shoulder of one of the agents as Cavello moved in front of the elevator, chatting with his guards. Everything was under control. The security captain was in close contact with all points along the exit route. “The subject’s in motion,” he reported in.

  Suddenly, the ground beneath us rocked. It was like an earthquake! Coffee cups, pens, clipboards clattered to the floor.

  “Jesus, something’s happened,” one of the agents monitoring the screens shouted and pointed. “In the garage! There’s been an explosion down there! Holy shit!”

  We crowded close to the monitor and watched what happened next in shock. Billowing gray smoke began to block the screen. Then everything went completely black.

  A radio report crackled in from one of the units stationed underground. “There’s been an expl
osion down here. The garage is on fire. There may be casualties. I can’t make much out. Too much smoke, smoke everywhere.”

  The captain seized a microphone. “This is Meachem. We have a situation in the garage! Some kind of explosive device has been detonated. I want SWAT, backup, and medical units down there pronto. And I want to know what the hell’s going on.”

  I didn’t have to look at the screen. I knew what was going on.

  The screens kept flashing back and forth to different monitors in the garage, trying to locate a clear view of what was taking place. I grabbed Meachem by the shoulder. “Captain, this isn’t about the garage. It’s about Cavello! Get all agents on alert. He’s on his way down there now!”

  I rushed back to the other end of the console and checked the elevator scene.

  Jesus, no!

  My eyes bulged in horror. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing—only I knew it was happening again.

  I ran to the door.

  Chapter 67

  CAVELLO WAS STILL in the elevator, kibitzing with the guards, joking for all he was worth. His eyes angled toward the control panel. The descending lights flashed: 7, 6, 5.

  Now!

  In that instant he lunged toward the panel, pressing his thumb solidly onto the heat-sensitive square for the third floor.

  “What the hell?” The elevator jerked to an unexpected stop. The door started to open. The black marshal reached out to rein in Cavello, powerfully pressing him up against the wall. Then someone stepped inside.

  The marshal’s jaw fell open. “What the—”

  The first shot caught him between the eyes and hurled him against the paneled wall. He sank to the floor, leaving a dark-red smear.