Page 37 of The Wrong Side of the Law

Chapter Eleven

Gabriel

One more soul-destroying meeting out of the way, and now I’m three hours closer to the end of another Thursday. I forced myself to make time to grab a sandwich to bring back to my office, and the smell of it tortures me in the elevator and on the long walk down the hallway. Sourdough bread, corned beef, sauerkraut, and Swiss cheese, lightly grilled? My mouth waters with anticipation.

But the two large boxes, stacked up to block the door to my inner office, have a different plan.

“You got a delivery while you were out,” Karin says.

No kidding. Thescritch-scritchof her nail file is the only sound in the room while I count to ten to keep from snapping something back at her. After the ten-count is done, I start over and go to twenty.

“Huh. Is that what these boxes are?” I ask. “A delivery?” Oops. Maybe I should have counted to fifty instead.

“If I had keys I would have let them in, but…”

Karin doesn’t finish her sentence, but the reproach in her voice says everything more eloquently than words would have. She’s pissed off that I changed the locks on my door. It’s all part of the game. She pretends that she’s not Whitehall’s little informant, and I pretend that I’m not making it as difficult as possible for her to find anything out.

Once I can push them far enough to unlock and open the door, I pick up the first box. It’s not a simple banker’s box with handles for easy lifting. No, these arebigshipping boxes. There could easily be four of the standard-size file boxes inside each one. Maybe even six.

“They look real heavy,” she says, glancing over at me, yet not offering to help. “Took two guys and a dolly to get them in here.”

“It’s… not too bad,” I say, willing my voice to remain steady in spite of the strain. Thank God for long hours at the gym, though.

When I come back for the second one, Karin simply can’t keep her curiosity to herself anymore.

“What is it?” she asks.

“A very nice present from a friend of mine in California,” I answer, inspecting the packing tape around both boxes to make sure she hadn’t opened them to peek. Looks like everything is still sealed up nicely, though.

And it’s the truth: David Banks has become my new best friend over the past three days. He was so frustrated and bitter about how his attempt to prosecute Robert Ferry fizzled that he was more than willing to share everything with me. These two boxes are the entire case. Every investigator’s interview report. Every lab result. Every hearing transcript. He said he’d even send me every single coffee receipt and greasy burger wrapper from the whole thing, if I wanted it.

This is well over a hundred pounds of paper right here—there’s probably that much in each box--and David paid for next-day shipping out of his own pocket.

Now I need to find the time to go over it all.

Karin follows me into my office, standing with her arms folded while she watches me drop the second box on top of the first.

Ignoring her, I sit down at my desk, turning my back to her while opening both my email and my sandwich. If she’s expecting me to open the boxes up and show her what’s inside, she’s shit out of luck.

“Did you want something, Karin?” I ask around a mouthful of rapidly-cooling-off sandwich.

“Well, yeah,” she says. “I wanted to tell you I need to leave early today.”

“Sure, no problem. You can get out of here as soon as you bring me those two letters I asked you for earlier.” Hallelujah! This really is a day for fantastic gifts.

Karin scowls, clearly still annoyed by the new locks and the closed boxes, and doesn’t quite slam the door behind her. She thinks that John Whitehall’s special favor makes her untouchable. She’s right, too. For now.

Ten minutes later, I open the door. Sure enough, Karin’s computer is logged out, her phone headset is stashed on its charging cradle, and her jacket and purse are gone. And of course, the two letters I’d asked for are not on my desk. It’s a minor sacrifice: I’d rather have her out of my hair than have yetmorepaperwork to get behind on.

Out of my hair… and also not watching over my shoulder, while I slit open the packing tape on the boxes.

The first thing at the top of the box is a yellow full-sheet inter-office memo envelope with my name on it. A letter and a CD-ROM fall out.

Gabriel-

The paper stuff are copies of everything we generated on that prosecution ourselves, but here’s a special bonus for you. When I started the case, I did the same thing you’re doing. I called around to DA’s across the country who’d come before me. The difference is, it took me almost three months to get everything from them. All of that is scanned and saved to this disk. Hope it saves you some time. Nail this son of a bitch for me!

-DB

---