Wrongful Convictions, page 17
“That cabinet back there is a cache of files that we have ‘suspicions’ about. I think your case is one of them.” Fran walked to the filing cabinet and unlocked it.
“What do you mean by ‘suspicions’?” Shannon asked the woman who had already started for the door.
“Well, we think there were some cases not handled properly. Most of the cases were clients prosecuted by Carmody.”
“Mind if I go through these?” Shannon pointed at the file cabinet.
“Be my guest. I have a ton of work, but if you need anything don’t hesitate to ask.” With that she was gone from the office, leaving Shannon to the cabinet full of files.
Shannon quickly found the file and began to scan documents for new information. There were several notes, presumably written by Andersen, most of which were his thoughts about holes in the story, questions about witness veracity, and misconduct by the prosecutor, Mr. Carmody. There was one strange note that she saw at the corner of one of the pages. It read “Carmody” with an arrow drawn to another hand scrawled name: “Banks”.
Shannon selected five files to compare. Not one of them was Andersen; they were from all different PD’s. The common thread in each was Walter Carmody. Apart from the notes on Carmody, there was little else of interest in the file, especially for a murder case. There was nothing in the section labeled exculpatory evidence. There were two avenues to obtaining a new trial in this case. The first was a half ass public defender. The other was prosecutorial misconduct. What Shannon was really looking for was more information on Marcel, or at least something she could use to get more information from him,
Shannon attempted to call Marcel, however she was unable to get reception in the crypt like office. The walls were solid granite. The only way to get through to him was to escape the dingy office and get out into the sunshine. It had been a beautiful day in Duluth when she went in. The sun was warm, and the wind had not shifted to the North. When the wind shifted from the North, Duluth became a sitting duck for ferocious weather.
Shannon stepped outside to find the sun had vanished behind a thick covering of grey clouds, and the wind had in fact shifted to the North. It was cold. She was glad she had brought a sweatshirt with her. She took out her phone and punched in Marcel’s number. It went straight to voicemail; he was apparently still about his work.
She figured it would make sense to learn a little bit more about Walter Carmody. The library seemed like the perfect place to do so. It was only two blocks down on Superior Street, so she started to walk to the east in the direction of the library. She nearly jumped out of her skin when a voice cut through the silence directly behind her. She wheeled quickly to ascertain where the voice came from. There was a man directly behind her.
“Who the hell are you!” Shannon said, a little exacerbated.
“Maybe I should be asking you that. After all, you were the one in my father’s office, and I am sure he didn’t give you permission to be there.” The man who spoke was short and stocky. He wore a thick mustache that covered his upper lip, and he was balding a little on the top of his head. His voice was fairly high pitched and he had a thick accent that Shannon couldn't place.
“I had permission from Fran.” Shannon had calmed a little and had gained control of the quiver in her voice.
“For what?” He took a step toward her, and she retreated a little.
“That’s not really any of your business.” Shannon did not trust this man one bit and doubted he was really Anderson’s son. The man looked more like a hired thug, and she had seen him before but couldn’t connect that he was the same man who was eavesdropping into her and Marcel’s conversation over dinner at Bensons.
“Let me give you some advice,” he said coming closer still. “Dead lawyers should stay dead. Keeps everyone healthy.”
“Is that some sort of a threat?” Shannon did her best to feign fear.
“Like I said it is some friendly advice. Pretty girl like you should stay away from a dirty business like this,” he said, though they both knew this wasn’t advice at all.
Shannon backpedaled to get away from him, but he continued to move forward at her. Her training taught her that it was time to get the hell out of the situation. She turned and ran.
“Hey, come back here,” the man said from behind her, but not very loudly. Shannon hoped the man had felt she was truly afraid. His tone was the tone of a man who did not want to be heard by anyone else on the street. She needed to play the part.
Shannon wasn’t the most fleet of foot to begin with, and in the shoes she was wearing, no one would mistake her for a track star. She knew that if he sprinted after her she would be caught in no time. What she needed to do was make a scene. The downtown area was fairly busy with foot traffic and a woman running from a man down here was bound to garner some sort of attention.
She took a peek behind her. Her stalker wasn’t running, but he was still moving in her direction. She took out her phone again to call Marcel, but now she no longer had service. She continued running for another block until she was comfortable with the distance between them then slowed to a hustle. The rain started to fall before she got to the library. She maneuvered to the circulation desk all the while keeping a keen eye on the front door.
“Do you have a phone I can use?” She raised her cell as if to show it was dead.
The woman behind the desk pointed to phone at the end of a row of computers, there was a sign over it that read “local calls only.”
Shannon punched in 4-1-1 and got an operator.
“Fran Hinkmeir in the public defender’s office.” She spoke in a robotic tone.
An equally robotic voice responded “One moment.”
The terse voice that picked up on the other end was instantly recognizable to Shannon.
“Fran, this is Shannon McCarthy. Thanks again for your help. I have a question for you.” Her voice was cold and emotionless.
“Shoot,” the older woman responded.
“You got a guy in your office about 5’5 220 pounds, balding a little, with a thick mustache, looks kind of like a wrestler?” She described her assailant to the best of her ability.
“Nope, doesn’t sound familiar.” The lady didn’t need much time to think about it.
“What about Anderson, does he have a son, dark black hair, mid fourties?” She added a couple more details to assist Fran in identifying the man.
“Anderson? Hell no, Anderson is a bachelor, never married no kids.” Shannon loved the woman’s short and sweet approach; her answer, however, was exactly as she expected, and Shannon wondered who the hell this thug was. She continued to keep her eye on the door, but the man never materialized . She doubted very much that he was standing out in the rain waiting for her. It was a regular down pour out there and she could hear thunder off in the distance.
43
United States vs. Arlen A. Fossum was the case that Shannon was reading when she finally got a call from Marcel at ten minutes after six. Fossum was a case prosecuted by Carmody from the Red Lake Reservation. He had secured a conviction that was later overturned on appeal. It was Carmody’s last case. According to the Duluth News Tribune, Carmody’s car had been discovered in a wooded area outside of Bena near Cass Lake on the Leech Lake Reservation. There were no clues to his disappearance, no suicide note, no body ever turned up, nothing. He had simply walked into the woods one night and slipped into a black hole.
Marcel had a lot to tell Shannon, information she was not privy to because it wasn’t in the file at the public defender’s office. Shannon wanted to tell him about the strange encounter with the heavy set man, but she didn’t want to do it over the phone. She needed to see his reaction.
Marcel instructed her to hang tight; he would come down to the library and meet her. They could walk to the parking lot to get her car together, and then head to the canal for a bite to eat. Shannon hadn’t eaten all day and now realized she was starving. She was glad that he was coming to her. Even with the rain she didn’t really want to walk to her car by herself.
44
Little Angie’s Cantina was a Mexican restaurant in the Canal area of Duluth. Duluth was an area that had been inhabited by Native peoples since the Paleo Indians first came to North America. Various Native Tribes called the area home until the Ojibwe drove the Sioux out in the middle of the 1600’s. The Ojibwe existed there along with French fur traders until 1854, when the Treaty of Washington relocated them north to Fond Du Lac. The relocation was due in large part to the interest in possible copper deposits in Northern Minnesota. As it turned out, copper was scarce. What wasn’t scarce were the iron ore deposits northwest of Duluth.
At the turn of the century, Duluth was home to more millionaires per capita than any other city in the world. The reason: iron ore. Duluth’s port surpassed New York and Chicago in raw tonnage to make it the largest port in the U.S. The economic boom in Duluth lasted until 1960, when the city’s population peaked at 106,000 people. The high grade iron ore mines gave out and along with foreign competition in the steel market, created a domino effect of plant closings that sent unemployment rates soaring to fifteen percent.
Duluth had to adjust to the downturn and did so through promotion of tourism. The hub of Duluth’s tourism was the Canal Park area east of downtown. The Canal Park was home to the Aerial lift Bridge, a rare vertical lift that connected Canal Park with Park Point. The bridge was originally constructed as a transporter bridge, of which there were only two in the world.
Little Angie’s Cantina was a tex-mex restaurant located at the corner of Buchanan and Lake in the heart of the canal. The atmosphere of the restaurant was phenomenal and the food and service were excellent.
Shannon and Marcel were seated at a window booth normally looking out at the bustle of the canal, though seeing outside today was impossible because of the rain. Their waiter had brought them a basket of chips and salsa. Shannon began snacking but Marcel left it alone.
While Shannon ate chips and salsa, Marcel started putting the pieces of the puzzle together. Carmody had prosecuted a case out of Red Lake in which he had won a conviction. It was a manslaughter case. A drunken brawl that had ended with the victim falling after a punch and splitting his head open. Nothing special about it that Marcel could tell.
Not long afterward, the Henry Wright's murder case came across his desk. The police had originally suspected Antonio Eagle until young Marcel had come forward with his eyewitness identification of Ken Northbird. Carmody had buried the information on Eagle. He never turned it over to the defense, then disappeared somewhere in Cass Lake. Marcel wondered if his disappearance was a result of this case. Northbird’s prosecution was then handed over to another attorney. Anderson in the public defender’s office had suspected something stunk but was now out of commission. This was all stuff Marcy had told him at the US Attorney's office. There was more.
“It seems as though Carmody was involved in some extracurriculars in the Fossum case.” Marcel talked low enough so that the other customers seated around him wouldn’t hear. The restaurant was filling up with college kids ready to spend their financial aid checks on happy hour margaritas.
“There was an odd note about Carmody in another file I saw,” Shannon added.
“Yeah what was that?” Marcel had ordered a garden salad which had arrived.
“His name was written on the corner of a note with an arrow drawn to the name Banks,” she said.
“Clifford Banks?” Marcel took a bite of the salad.
“Don’t know, but it seems like anything that happens on Leech Lake Banks has his fingers in it,” she responded, and took a bite of her seafood burrito.
“So Banks lied.” He had figured the snake son of a gun had been lying and now he wondered if Shannon had the same suspicion.
“I guess so.”
“I think we should follow up on this. I am not saying we take the case, but it has my interest. This whole thing stinks. There is more going on that meets the eye and I feel like I was a pawn in everything that happened.” Marcel’s tone was very introspective. Shit I am convincing myself here, he thought.
“What about Vegas?”
Marcel had been considering that same question all morning. Since the fight he had felt invincible. Superman could do both, he assured himself.
“I got this.”
“There is something else.”
Now what? It seemed like the hits just kept playing in this thing.
“What?” He couldn’t mask his trepidation. There was still a lot that had not been resolved between he and Shannon, and he didn’t want to open any emotional doors just yet. It was becoming harder and harder.
“There was a guy who approached me after I left the PD’s office. He claimed to be Anderson’s son, but he was full of shit.” Was that fear he heard in her voice? He had never once witnessed anything close to fear in Shannon.
“What did he want?” The idea that there was something nefarious going on was quickly becoming cemented in his mind.
“Wondered what I was doing in Anderson’s office, warned me to leave the dead lawyer alone.” It was definitely fear.
“Was he a PD?”
“No, I took off for the library and called the PD who helped me out. The public defender had no idea who he was, but I tell you what, he scared the shit out of me.”
“Shannon, I think Banks is all over this thing; we gotta get Joanne up to speed,” Marcel said in between bites. It was the reason he held his cards close when he met with Banks the night before. Banks was a hustler and Marcel knew right off the bat not to trust him. Marcel was also concerned about what type of involvement Tess played in the whole thing. She seemed to be the Chairman’s new main squeeze and he didn’t think he could trust her either. It made him thankful to have a friend like Shannon.
45
Joanne sat back on her sofa, completely exhausted. She hadn’t slept in days, as she had run all over the Twin Cities lining up a major drug deal that she needed to deliver to Florence. Coming up with the cash was the first problem. She kept ten thousand in a safe deposit box in a bank near her home. A hundred thousand dollars, on the other hand, was a horse of a different color. The second problem was weight. One hundred thousand dollars worth of pills was also a lot of weight to physically move around. The final task was closing the deal with Marcel.
Coming up with the cash had been easier than she thought. The running all over town had frayed her nerves a little. Though it wasn’t illegal to drive around with that much cash, any number of things could have happened that would have spelled disaster for her. If she were stopped by cops, they would be suspicious about the money. That could get her on their radar. Worse than being on the cops radar was getting robbed. If that happened, coming up with a second hundred thousand would be impossible. These people she had gotten the cash from were not the types to take their contract disputes to court. No sir, she would be in a shallow grave somewhere in the woods if that happened. Unacceptable.
The deal went down without any SNAFU’s. The cash was delivered quickly, then moved out of the dealership to a location better suited for dealing in cash. Behind the scenes the money was all accounted for of course, though she was sure there was a heavy skim at all stops on the train.
Now all she had to do was wait. Her car would be delivered to her home address, the keys would be left in the ignition, and the drugs would be in the trunk. She was given a picture of the car, so she would be able to identify it if need be. Title itself would never switch hands. In two weeks she was to leave the car in a parking lot at the mall of America where it would be “stolen.”
Joanne gated off her front drive and left her garage open. Her hope was that the driver would park the car in the garage. Her driveway was sheltered as it was. The house sat on three heavily wooded acres of land with two hundred fifty feet of lakeshore. The house was not visible from any of the neighboring houses, but all the same she didn’t want any of her business out in the open.
Joanne had been so caught up in the drug deal that she had almost completely forgotten about the other aspect of what she was supposed to do for Kingbird, which was get him out of prison. She had entirely forgotten about Marcel, Shannon, and Tavian for that matter. When the phone rang she had not been expecting a call from Shannon McCarthy. The call was a pleasant surprise. In fact it was a welcome distraction from the stress of committing the deeds that would either keep her in a position of status or send her away for a long time. She felt that this was what soldiers in their last day of a tour at the front felt like. It was a feeling of intense foreboding.
“Joanne, it’s Shannon McCarthy from wrongful convictions class.”
“Shannon, what can I do for you?”
“I spent the day with Marcel Wright. We took a look at some things relating to his brother’s murder and came up with some information we would like you to take a look at.” Shannon had a confidence about her that Joanne liked.
“So he is willing to work on the case?” Joanne hoped to high hell that she would like Shannon’s answer.
“Yeah, he wants to investigate this further.”
Joanne could hardly contain her jubilation. Everything was coming up aces right now. Maybe she could make it through this thing. Then she paused for a moment. Why wasn’t Marcel the one calling her?
She didn’t dwell too heavily on who actually called her, now was not the time to get bogged down with minutiae. Joanne didn’t really need Shannon for this. It was fine that she was coming along for the ride, but she absolutely needed Marcel.
“Would you mind if I brought some of the stuff by tonight?” Shannon asked.
Shit! Joanne wasn’t exactly sure how to proceed. She considered it for a long second. She was planning on receiving a major shipment of drugs within the next twenty-four hours, but she wasn’t exactly expecting it to be dropped off in her living room. It was also entirely possible that the more normalcy she had in her life, the less nervous and therefore conspicuous she would be.
