Insider Justice Page 8

  “Zachary Evans,” Newkirk said as they burst into Zach’s office.

  Zach stood up and angrily said, “Get the hell out of here or I’ll have all of your asses hanging on my trophy wall!”

  Newkirk went behind his desk and continued. “You are under arrest for the murder of Lynn McDaniel.”

  Zach tried to pull his arm away as Newkirk was putting on the handcuffs. Zach stuttered, “What the hell, goddamnit, who do you people think you are?”

  “Please don’t resist or I’ll have to use force,” Newkirk quietly said.

  “Who are you, sir?” one of the MPD detectives asked Zach’s client, who by now was standing with an astonished look on his face.

  “I’m, ah, I’m, ah,” he started to say as he looked back and forth at his lawyer and the cops. “I’m, ah, just leaving. I don’t know anything about this.”

  Newkirk had the cuffs on Zach now and said to one of the deputies, “Paul, get his name, address and phone number then kick him loose,” referring to the client.

  By this point, all hell was breaking loose outside Zach’s office. Within seconds, an average looking bald man with a fringe of gray hair, gold-rimmed glasses, and an expensive three-piece suit came in. The crowd at the door had parted like the Red Sea for him which told the cops this guy was a big shot in the firm.

  “I am Brody Knutson, the managing partner of this firm and you men are in a lot of trouble.”

  “Are you Mr. Evans’ lawyer?” Newkirk asked him.

  “For these purposes, yes, I am and just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” a steaming Knutson asked glaring at the calm Newkirk.

  Newkirk pushed Zach back into his chair and told him to shut up. He then walked up to Knutson and handed him a copy of the arrest and search warrant to allow them to search Zach’s office and confiscate his computer.

  Knutson skimmed over the warrants then shook them in Newkirk’s face. “I’ll have your ass for this you…”

  “Sir, if you interfere, I’ll put handcuffs on you and drag you through your firm like a common criminal,” Newkirk whispered in his ear.

  Knutson, having never been spoken to like that in his entire life, straightened up and clamped his lips together.

  Newkirk gave him his best mischievous little boy smile then turned back to Zach. While looking at Knutson, Newkirk pulled a card from his shirt pocket and loudly read Zach his rights.

  “Okay you two,” Newkirk said to the Foster County deputies, “take him down and put him in your squad car. Don’t talk to him, don’t ask him anything and,” he turned to Knutson and continued, “arrest anyone that gets in your way or tries to interfere. I’m going to wait for crime scene to show up. You guys want to stick around?” Newkirk said to the MPD guys.

  “Sure, we got nothing better to do.”

  “Most fun we’ve had on the job for quite a while. Should arrest a lawyer at least once a week. Never realized how good it would feel,” his partner said.

  “You idiots are through,” Knutson said.

  “You have to leave now, sir,” Newkirk told him. “This office is about to be sealed off.”

  With that, Knutson turned and stomped off.

  Newkirk turned around to find the MPD guys barely able to suppress a laugh. That’s when Newkirk saw it. On the credenza behind Zach’s desk was his laptop. A piece of evidence he and Abby had talked about earlier on the ride back to Foster, and he had almost overlooked. Everson, Reed was going to claim privileged information in it and try to keep it out of the authorities’ hands.

  “Watch the door, please,” Newkirk said to the larger of the two detectives. “Give me a hand,” he told the other one.

  The two men moved the credenza away from the wall and unplugged the computers power cord. Newkirk wrapped the cord around the laptop. He took out his phone and called downstairs to the deputies. He told them to wait for him then shoved the laptop under his suit coat to carry it out.

  “Come with me. Run interference for me so I can get this out before anyone tries to stop me,” Newkirk told the detective who helped move the credenza.

  “Is that covered by the warrant?” the man asked.

  “Yeah, but I don’t know for how long. We have to get it out of here. They’ll be heading for a judge to stop us as soon as they think of it.

  “You wait here, please,” Newkirk told the one at the door. “Let’s go.”

  It took over five minutes to get through the crowd, out the exit door, and onto an elevator. During the trip, they were stopped three times by lawyers telling them they could not take the computer. Each time the MPD detective held up his handcuffs and threatened to put them on the lawyer and bring him along to jail. That did the trick.

  With Zach strapped into the backseat, the deputies were waiting at the curb in front of the building. Newkirk placed the laptop in the trunk and told them to leave. At that moment an MPD patrol officer pulled up, put down the car’s passenger window and talked to the MPD detective.

  Newkirk had an idea and joined the conversation. He asked the patrol cop if he could guide the deputies to Zach’s home. They agreed, so Newkirk made a call to Abby.

  He told her to get any and all computers in the house ready for transport. He gave the address to the MPD patrolman and a half-hour later the sheriff’s deputies were being guided back to the freeway with both home and work laptops in the trunk.

  When Brody Knutson steamed away from Zach’s office after the threat from the impertinent, redneck cop from Podunk, Minnesota, he went right back to his office. A couple of deep breaths then he dialed Cal Simpson’s private line.

  Cal answered and Brody gave him a quick rundown of the arrest. Cal quietly listened then told Brody to assign his best criminal defense lawyers.

  “We don’t have any,” Brody confessed. “We don’t sully ourselves with…”

  “Find a couple of lawyers to go up to Foster and make sure my son-in-law knows enough to at least keep his mouth shut.”

  “Sure, will do,” Brody said. “Holy shit! I just realized.”

  “What.”

  “I left Zach’s firm computer in his office. The cops will try to take it,” Brody said as he stood to leave.

  “You better get down there and try to stop them.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  By the time Brody got back to Zach’s office, most of the crowd had dissipated. He saw Newkirk coming back down the hallway followed by two crime scene techs from the State Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. A firm lawyer stopped him and told him about the laptop.

  “Why the hell didn’t you stop him?” a furious Brody Knutson yelled. “What the hell…”

  “Because they threatened to arrest anyone who tried,” the lawyer said.

  Newkirk was there by now and Brody turned his wrath on him.

  “You get that goddamn laptop back here right now. That’s firm property with privileged information on it.”

  Newkirk barely slowed down as he continued toward Zach’s door. “We’ll be sure not to look at that stuff,” he said in reply.

  “I’m going to have your ass. Who do you think you are?” Brody screamed.

  Newkirk turned around to look at him and calmly said, “Any interference of any kind and I’ll show you who I am. I’ll be the guy that puts your ass in jail.”

  “I’ll have your ass,” Brody screamed again.

  “Get in line,” Newkirk said then turned to go back in the office.

  THIRTEEN

  Demarcus Tice was the only African-American county attorney in Minnesota outside the Twin Cities metro area. While in law school at the University of Minnesota, a white friend had invited the then single Demarcus for a week at his home in Foster. Three days into the vacation, Demarcus realized this was where he wanted to be.

  He graduated fifth in his class and was wooed by any number of downtown firms in both Minneapolis and St. Paul. Instead Demarcus, on his way to marriage, convinced his bride-to-be to follow him ‘Up North’ to Foster.

>   A retirement had created an opening in the Foster County Attorney’s office. Shocked, surprised and delighted, the county attorney at the time, one William Anderson, now Judge Anderson, had snapped up the newly minted lawyer. Now twenty-two years, three kids and a peaceful existence later, Demarcus was waiting for an opening on the bench which would be his for the asking.

  “Come on in,” Demarcus loudly said to the knock on his door.

  He was in his spacious, walnut-paneled corner office on the fourth floor of the Foster County Courthouse. Seated in front of him were four lawyers, including Brody Knutson. Despite his position with a large, downtown law firm, Brody was eyeing over Demarcus’ office almost green with envy.

  The office door opened and Sheriff Goode and Chris Newkirk entered.

  “Come in and find a seat,” Demarcus told them. “Mr. Knutson here, and company, are bringing an emergency hearing for a temporary restraining order. They want to stop your use of any Everson, Reed material in your investigation. Especially the computers of Zachary Evans.”

  “There is proprietary, privileged information…”

  “Please, Mr. Knutson,” Demarcus said raising a hand to stop him. “We’re not in court.”

  Demarcus turned to Goode and Newkirk and asked, “What do you think? Do you need these things?”

  “Absolutely,” Newkirk jumped in and answered.

  “Any way we can reach a compromise?” Demarcus asked.

  “No,” Brody said. “We must not allow the police to go on a fishing expedition into firm business.”

  Goode sensed that Newkirk was about to lose it and blast the arrogant lawyer. Instead, Goode gently placed his left hand on Newkirk’s right arm.

  “Mr. Knutson, no one’s going fishing. We are conducting an investigation into what appears to be a lying-in-wait, first-degree murder. There is nothing your firm does that is more important than that.”

  “That’s debatable,” said one of the two lawyers that Brody had sent to Foster the day before to represent Zach Evans.

  “We can be careful and not compromise anything we come across that does not pertain to our investigation,” Newkirk said.

  “No, no,” Brody said shaking his head.

  For the next minute, there was an awkward silence in the room while each side looked over the other. Finally, Brody stood up to leave.

  “I guess we’ll go to court,” Brody said.

  “Okay,” Demarcus said with a big, charming smile. He walked around to the front of his desk and went to the door. He held it open and shook each man’s hand as they filed out.

  “Nice office,” Knutson, the last one to leave, said as they shook hands.

  “The taxpayers of Foster County thank you for the compliment,” Demarcus replied.

  As Demarcus was closing the door, Abby Bliss came through it carrying a small stack of papers.

  “Wait, wait,” she said to stop Demarcus.

  “Hey, Abby,” Demarcus said. “Come in.”

  “What do you have?” Goode asked her.

  “Kelly got through all of the emails on both computers,” Abby said referring to their tech wiz, Kelly Thomas. “I don’t know what we’re gonna do when she goes to college next year,” Abby added.

  The sheriff and his top investigator had been sitting on a leather couch. When the lawyers were leaving, they moved and took the chairs in front of the desk. Abby joined them as Demarcus returned to his chair.

  “Kelly found almost a hundred emails between our two love-birds, Evans and Lynn McDaniel,” Abby said as she handed the papers to Newkirk. “Some of them are pretty sexually explicit.

  “That’s not the best news,” she continued. “I was making more phone calls to people on the party guest list. I talked to two people,” she said opening her notebook. “Margaret Shepherd. She’s one of Cal Simpson’s executive assistants. The night of the party Cal asked her to find his daughter Samantha. This was shortly after 9:30. She remembers it because she looked at her watch thinking of the fireworks that would start soon. Anyway, she found Samantha and her husband, Zach, talking quietly, her words, by a tree. As she came up to them, she says she heard Zach say, quote, ‘I’ll take care of her.’”

  Abby flipped a page in her notebook then continued. “A few minutes later, a lawyer with Everson, Reed, Rudy Caine, saw Zach with a stern look on his face, again his words, walking quickly toward the house.

  “He stopped Zach to chat with him and asked Zach if he was going to watch the fireworks. He then said Zach abruptly, again his words, said he had something to take care of. This was just before ten. Just before the time of death.”

  “I’m surprised they talked to you,” Demarcus said.

  “I got a sense from the way they were acting on the phone that they had something to say. I threatened to subpoena them before the grand jury.”

  “Now we have to hang onto the computers for chain-of-evidence,” Newkirk said.

  “Abby, we have a hearing at 2:00 for a TRO on the computers,” Demarcus said.

  “Yes, sir. I’ve heard,” Abby replied.

  “I’ll need you and Kelly Thomas available to testify to all of this. About the emails, not about the witness statements,” Demarcus said. “You and you,” he said looking at Abby and pointing at Newkirk, “will have to visit these two and get their statements nailed down.”

  “The lawyer won’t cooperate,” Goode said.

  “Then we’ll subpoena him before a grand jury,” Demarcus replied.

  Abby’s phone went off and she looked at the ID. “Kelly,” she said before answering.

  “Hey, Kelly, what’s up?” Abby said.

  “I found something I thought you’d want to know about,” Kelly told her. “I’m going through the perp’s phone and I found a text from the vic to him the night of the crime. She sent him a message to let him know she was coming and would be there about ten.”

  Abby had cringed a bit at Kelly’s use of the TV cop terms, perp and vic. Then said, “That’s great. Good job. Keep digging.”

  Abby told Kelly about the hearing at 2:00, ended the call and told the others what she had found.

  “Another nail,” Newkirk said.

  “Okay,” Demarcus said. “Anything else?”

  When no one responded, he said. “I’ll see everyone at 2:00. Don’t be late. Bill Anderson’s courtroom.”

  “Don’t you need to file a bunch of paperwork?” Goode asked.

  “Yeah, I’ll have some,” he said. “What I ought to do is stand up and ask the judge, ‘So, Bill, we going fishing this weekend?’ That would give these big city guys something to think about.”

  When the laughter died down Demarcus said, “Abby, one more thing. I want you to re-interview the wife face-to-face. If the two of them were discussing killing Lynn McDaniel when the woman overheard them, we might have a conspiracy case. I want your impression of her when you tell her your other witness overheard them.”

  “You got it,” Abby said.

  “Before I hear the petitioner’s motion,” Judge Anderson began looking at Demarcus Tice, “why aren’t we conducting the rule 5 appearance today at this time? Mr. Tice?”

  “We’re not ready, your Honor,” Demarcus stood and replied. “We understand Mr. Evans is considering his options for counsel.”

  “Very well,” the judge replied. “Mr. Knutson, before you proceed, you should know I’ve read your pleadings and supportive affidavits. I would appreciate it if you would restrict yourself to giving me only things not contained in these documents.”

  Brody Knutson stood at his table and said, “Well, your Honor, we don’t really have anything new…”

  “Good,” Anderson said. “Let’s move on then.”

  “Except, your Honor, we would like to strongly stress the significance of maintaining attorney-client privilege by getting back the computers before they have been compromised.”

  “I understand that,” Judge Anderson said with a touch of annoyance as if to remind Brody he was not an id
iot. “Mr. Tice.”

  Demarcus stood and said, “Your Honor, as you know we have had possession of the computers since yesterday afternoon. We obtained them via a legal search warrant and have already found additional evidence of the accused’s guilt.”

  Brody stood up and angrily interrupted Demarcus. “You’ve already been in them?”

  “Be quiet, Mr. Knutson, you’ll get a chance to rebut. Don’t interrupt again,” the judge quietly told him.

  “Of course we’ve been in them,” Demarcus said. “We had no reason to wait. At this time, we would like to call two witnesses, your Honor.”

  “Who you got?” Anderson asked.

  “Officer Abby Bliss and our technical expert, Kelly Thomas.”

  “Any objections?” Anderson asked Knutson.

  “Of course, your Honor,” Brody replied. “We have not had occasion to interview these witnesses. We have no idea what they will say. We have no idea who they are or what their expertise is.”

  Anderson sat silently as if he was thinking over the objection. He had made up his mind right away but wanted to appear as if he was giving Brody’s objection due consideration.

  “Well, I’ll tell you, Mr. Knutson. Abby Bliss is an investigator with the sheriff’s office, and Kelly Thomas is a young woman who is a computer genius. She has testified several times and I have found her to be extremely credible. So, I’ll overrule the objection and we’ll see what they have to say.”

  For the next hour, first Kelly and then Abby testified about what they had done and found in the computers. Except, neither of them discussed the substance of anything they had obtained.

  While Abby was on the stand, a man in a business suit carrying a soft leather briefcase, entered the courtroom and quietly took a seat in the fourth row. Obviously a lawyer, he sat and silently observed the proceedings.

  When they finished, Judge Anderson allowed both sides to make one final argument. Brody Knutson tried to argue since they found what they wanted, the computers should be returned. Demarcus made the argument that the prosecution needed to hold onto them to establish chain-of-evidence.