Exactly, Guerrero chimed in.
But, Your Honor, Mr. Sparks is not a suspect. If thats his concern, we can work out an immunity agreement to placate Mr. Guerrero.
Immunity? Guerrero asked. Immunity? The last thing Sam Sparks needs is for some newspaper to report that he has received immunity in a murder case. As the police themselves have acknowledged, he had nothing to do with the events at his apartment on May 27. Because hes at no risk of criminal charges for those events, immunity from prosecution is worthless to him. Guerrero pressed his weight into his hands on counsel table and leaned forward for emphasis. The government fails to appreciate the importance of public opinion and the privacy of information to Sam Sparkss significant net worth. His real estate holdings are valuable, yes. But as we all know, the real value to the industry that is Sam Sparks lies in his reputation as a businessman. The fact that someone was shot at one of his properties is not great PR. But if the police are actually investigating Mr. Sparks even as a potential target then, before you know it, people are speculating about improperly financed debt, the Mafiawho knows what? And of course the risks of disclosure of information regarding pending deals cannot be understated in this kind of market.
Ellie found herself tiring of the invest-in-Sam-Sparks-for-your-future sales presentation and began doodling on the notepad she had removed from her purse. She let her gaze move to the left, where the head of what Sparks Industries called its Corporate Security Division, Nick Dillon, sat on a bench behind Sparks and Guerrero.
Before Dillon was associated with either Sparks or Mancini, hed been a member of the NYPD. After a stint working for a private military contractor, hed moved on to Sparks. Now he was one of those lucky former cops who collected both a city pension and a private paycheck. Dillon had been Mancinis immediate supervisor. He had also been his friend.
Ellie and Rogan had spoken to Dillon at least once a week since that initial callout four months earlier. He had done his best to play mediator, but theyd nevertheless wound up here in court. Dillon nodded along with Guerreros argument, but Ellie knew from earlier conversations that Dillon would like nothing more than to elbow his boss in the throat for his refusal to cooperate with the police. She liked the image.
Your Honor, Max protested, counsels argument assumes that any information disclosed as part of this investigation will become public. The suggestion is an insult to the fine detectives who have worked
Which brings us back to Detective Hatcher, Guerrero jumped in. Our background information shows that in the short time shes been in the homicide division, her name has appeared in forty-nine newspaper articles in a LexisNexis search. Prior to that, she granted various interviews to outlets like People magazine and Dateline NBC about her own family background
Ellie looked up abruptly from her notepad. Dillon glanced over with a barely perceptible shrug. The thought of his coaster-sized elbow crushing Sparkss windpipe was growing more appealing by the second.
Counsels comments are wholly inappropriate, Max said.
Complete and utter bullshit. She continued to scribble as she listened to her boyfriends voice rise half an octave. Two of the NYPDs biggest collars in the last year. A Police Combat Cross for rescuing another officer in the line of duty. Personal interviews granted only at her peril and only to help her mother, who was widowed in Kansas when
Judge Bandon cut him off. Ive been known to read the occasional People magazine myself. Im familiar with the circumstances of her fathers death.
My point, Guerrero continued, is that Detective Hatcher is relatively inexperienced, and although she has created quite a record for herself in a short period of time, she also has a knack for finding herself in the public eye. She also made it clear with her outrageous arrest of my client that she has a personal grudge against him.
I would hardly call it an arrest, Max argued. She placed him in loosened handcuffs after he twice disobeyed a request that he leave the crime scene. Once he was out of the apartment and in the hallway, she immediately removed the cuffs and gave Mr. Sparks another opportunity to stay out of the way, which he wisely took advantage of. Any other citizen in the same situation would have spent the night in Central Booking.
Judge Bandon cut him off. Are you seriously suggesting that Mr. Sparks should be treated just like any ordinary citizen?
Max had warned Ellie that Judge Bandon might be starstruck by Sparks, but she had never imagined that she would hear a judge admit on open record the favoritism shown to the rich and powerful. She turned to glance at Genna Walsh, who was shaking her head in disgust.
What I mean to say, the judge said, catching himself, is that Mr. Sparks was at that point known to Detective Hatcher, both as the owner of the property in question and as a respected member of this community. Those considerations would appear to undercut her decision to arrest him, however briefly. I must admit, I am troubled by what I see here.
As well you should be, Guerrero added. That same obsession with Mr. Sparks that caused her to jump the gun on that first night has distorted this investigation from the outset. Your Honor, we are outsiders to this investigation, and even we are aware of at least two far more credible theories as to motive for Robert Mancinis murder.
Guerrero ticked off his theories on two stubby fingers. First, the police still four months after the murder have not identified the woman who by all appearances had sexual relations with the victim prior to the murder. Second, and separately, we have recently learned that the NYPD is conducting a drug investigation of the apartment directly next door to the apartment where this murder occurred.
The movement of Ellies pen against her notebook stopped.
Could this have been a home invasion at the wrong address? Guerrero continued. Have the police looked into that possibility?
Home invasions were often the m.o. of choice in drug-related robberies, so one of the first steps she and Rogan had taken was to look into the possibility of a mistaken entry. Immediately after the murder, she had personally checked the departments database of ongoing drug investigations. They even reached out to Narcotics to be certain. They found no addresses that might have been confused with Sparkss apartment, let alone one on the very same floor.
With these two very important unanswered questions, Your Honor, it strikes us as quite audacious indeed for the police and the district attorneys office to stand here demanding private information from my client as part of a fishing expedition while a killer runs free.
I dont like it either, Judge Bandon said, settling back into his overstuffed leather-backed chair. The court is granting Mr. Sparkss motion to quash the states subpoena
But, Your Honor
Ive heard enough, Mr. Donovan. Interrupt me again, and there will be consequences. Under Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, the prosecution does have a right to obtain evidence from nonsuspect third parties, but only upon a showing of probable cause that the party has actual evidence to be found. There has been no such showing here. A written order will follow.
Max lowered his head momentarily before he began packing his hearing materials into a brown leather briefcase. It was a subtle movement, but Ellie noticed. He was disappointed, and not merely about the courts ruling. Hed warned her that morning that their chances werent good. But that small motion revealed a worry that he had let her down.
He glanced over his shoulder in her direction. His brown curly hair was bushier than usual; for a week hed been trying to find time for a trim. His gray eyes looked tired, but when she lifted her chin toward him and winked, they smiled back at her.
The private exchange did not last long.
Your Honor! Guerreros exclamation was quickly followed by an audible sucking of air from Sam Sparks. They were both staring at her notebook, still open on her lap beneath her pen.
She felt Judge Bandons eyes follow their gaze.
I take it theres more to see than tic-tac-toe boards and vector cubes?
Silence fell across the courtroom.
Your notes, please, Detective Hatcher. It took him only the briefest glance before he called her back up to the witness stand. I have a few questions of my own, Detective.
Chapter Six
2:45 p.m.
Megan Gunther
The twelve letters formed just two words one name on a screen filled with many other words about scores of other people on the NYU campus. But those two words her name, as the header on a subject link of the Campus Juice Web site had made the last three hours the longest one hundred and eighty minutes of her lifetime.
Megan had closed her laptop the second that Professor Ellen Stein busted her. But that hadnt stopped Stein from instructing her to stay late after class an example to all the other seminar students who might have been tempted to ignore the class discussion in favor of more interesting online material.
By the time Stein had finished lecturing her on the importance of group discussion and the empirical research demonstrating the deleterious effects of multitasking on learning, Megan was running late for her biochem lab. She would have blown off a lecture, but the labs counted for 60 percent of her grade and couldnt be made up. And med schools would care about her biochem grade. No, the lab couldnt be skipped. And it was impossible to juggle her computer while titrating liquids and triggering chemical reactions over a Bunsen burner.
Now she had finally made it back to her building on Fourteenth Street, three hours after first seeing her name posted on a Web site that promoted itself as the home of the countrys juiciest campus gossip. She walked quickly through the lobby, pressed the elevator call button, and then pushed it several more times as she watched the digital readout on the elevator tick down to the lobby level. As she rode up to the fourth floor, she pulled her laptop and keys from her bag.
She slipped a key into the doorknob she never bothered with the other locks and turned. Once inside the apartment, she glanced at what had once been the empty bedroom, the one that now belonged to her roommate.
Megans parents had originally justified the purchase of this two-bedroom condo as both an investment while Megan attended college and also a place for them to stay when they visited the city. But with the economy down and Manhattan rents still sky-high, the prospect of additional cash flow outweighed the Gunthers desire for a room of their own in the Big Apple: Megan had to tolerate a roommate after all. Heather called the first day the ad hit Craigs List in May. She was transferring into NYU in the fall and seemed pretty normal, so Megan went with her gut.
The truth was, Heather was easy to tolerate. Today, as on almost every other day, Megan returned home to find Heathers door closed and the apartment quiet and in exactly the same condition shed left it. Whether Heather was out or at home, this was the usual state of their shared home. Sometimes Megan wished Heather would come out of her shell and start treating this as her apartment, too, but today she was grateful that her roommate kept to herself.
Inside her own room, she closed the door, flopped down on top of her pale yellow bedspread, and opened her laptop. The connection to her wireless network seemed to take forever. Once the signal was finally established, she opened Internet Explorer, clicked on her history bar, and scrolled down to www.campusjuice.com.
She navigated her way to the NYU message board. All of the posts on the first page were new, entered within the last three hours. She clicked through the board, searching for her name again. What had once appeared on the fifth page of the forum was now on the seventh. The site was clearly getting some use.
She moved the cursor to her hyperlinked name, took a deep breath, and clicked.
11:10 AM noon? Life and Death Seminar
12:103 PM? Bio Chemistry Lab
37 PM? Break: Home to 14th Street?
78 PM? Spinning at Equinox
The schedule was hers, down to her five-times-weekly cycling classes at the gym. Whoever posted the message obviously knew her comings and goings. They also knew where she lived, or at least which street. The short message was detailed enough to convince her that the final line of the post was no exaggeration:
Megan Gunther, someone is watching