"I did not want to hurt him!"
"He could've pressed charges against you, but he didn't. He withdrew them. An act of charity that cost him his life."
"He scraped up the entire right side of my face!"
"You probably wanted to kill him right then and there, but others stopped you, so you waited until he was alone and did it then!"
"That isn't true!"
Guillerman leaned in for the kill. "And after you hit him, you threatened him."
"No!"
"Didn't you scream, 'There will be a reckoning!' over and over again?"
"I didn't mean-"
"Don't bother lying about it. I have lots of witnesses."
"I said it, but-"
"And that was a death threat, right? By a 'reckoning,' you meant a murder!"
"That is not true!"
"There will be a reckoning, you said repeatedly. And a few days later, there was! You shot Detective Sentz in cold blood!"
"No!" He looked at Ben, as if pleading for help. "No!"
"One last question, Mr. Thomas. Just one and then we're done. And be honest, because if you are not, this jury will see through you, just as I do. My question is this. You claim you weren't out to get Detective Sentz. You claim you blacked out and you don't know what happened. Very well. When you finally came to, when you awoke and someone told you that Detective Sentz was dead, murdered-what was your reaction?"
Dennis's eyes darted to the defendant's table.
"Don't look to your lawyer for an answer! I think he's done quite enough for you already. I want the truth this time. I want to know-when you found out that Christopher Sentz was dead-how did that make you feel?"
Dennis hesitated. His lips parted, but no words came out.
"We're all waiting for an answer, sir. Tell us the truth! What was your reaction?"
"I–I-"
"Don't pretend you were filled with remorse. Don't give this jury any more trash. Tell us the truth. What was your reaction?"
After all the shouting, Dennis's voice seemed so tiny he was barely audible. "I was glad Sentz was dead."
Ben's eyelids closed.
"What was that, sir? I'm not sure the jury could hear you!"
"I was glad," Dennis said, much louder. "I was glad, okay?"
"You were glad!" Guillerman turned to the jury. "Did you hear that? He was glad!"
"The man killed my wife!" Dennis said, matching his volume. "He deserved to die!"
"Thank you for your honesty." Guillerman threw up his hands. "Nothing more. I've had as much of this calculating killer as I can take."
"Counsel!" the judge said, eyes flared.
"No more questions. I will pass the witness."
"You will pay a five-hundred-dollar fine for contempt of court, that's what you will do. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in my courtroom. You are an experienced…"
The judge's chastisement went on for some while, but Ben knew it wouldn't matter. Guillerman's tirade was well worth the five hundred dollars his office would pay, and then some. The judge would instruct the jury to ignore his remarks, which was rather like asking a mouse to ignore the elephant about to step on its head. Impossible.
Dennis had been seriously damaged during this examination. He wasn't sure Guillerman had actually brought out anything new. What he had attacked was not so much Dennis's veracity as his character. If the jury didn't trust him, they wouldn't cut him a break. They wouldn't believe he was temporarily insane and they wouldn't be motivated toward jury nullification.
If they bought what Guillerman was peddling, the only thing they would be motivated to do would be to find Dennis guilty of murder in the first degree.
33
It was ten past two in the morning when the blip on the transponder screen told Loving that Officer Shaw had finally arrived at the hospital.
He slumped down in the front seat of his van, making sure he wasn't spotted. He had waited too long for this to screw it up now. The floating beam of the headlights told him that Shaw's PT Cruiser had passed him by. Then he slowly inched upward in his seat and waited for something to happen.
As far as he could tell, the operation was going down exactly as Dr. Sentz had planned. Loving had successfully intercepted the text message: LOADING DK THU 2. He had picked up a few other text messages, too, which told him more than he ever wanted to know about Shaw's personal life and those massage parlors on Cherry Street.
They were at the hospital's rear loading dock. A truck had been parked here more than an hour. It was not a large truck, however. More like the size of your average armored car. So what exactly was going to be transported? Money? Gold bullion? And why were they picking it up at the hospital? There had to be a reason. No one would choose this location if they could avoid it. Unlike most buildings, a hospital remained active all through the night. It was a dangerous place to be doing anything you didn't want other people to know about.
Why did the oncologist need to be involved? And why was it happening here? He remembered that Sentz indicated to Shaw that someone else was the primary boss orchestrating the operation. Who was it? Loving had no answers-yet. But he was determined to get them.
Shaw left his car. Loving wanted to be in a position to keep an eye on him. He had intentionally parked his van far enough away to avoid attracting attention. But he was too far removed from the loading dock. He needed to be closer. He could try to follow the truck, but he might lose it, and even then there was no guarantee that following the truck to its destination would give him the information he wanted. He would feel much better if he could see and hear what happened. Better yet if he could get a GPS tracking device on that truck.
He was a little worried about exiting without attracting notice. But he had rigged his van a long time ago so that no noise was made and no lights went on when he opened his door. Carefully he eased the door just enough and slid his wide frame through the opening, then began creeping forward. Didn't appear to have attracted any attention.
There was no moon tonight, and that was cutting two ways. It decreased the chances that anyone would spot him. But it also decreased the chances of him being able to spy on them. He wondered if they hadn't chosen this particular spot because there were no lamps or any other prominent illumination. Fortunately, he had retrieved his night-vision goggles from the kit in the rear of his van. He put them on. He didn't much care for the way they made everything look neon green. But it was better than stumbling around in the dark. Especially when you were stumbling around people who seriously did not want to be detected-and might have resorted to extreme means in the past to avoid it.
There were two men standing close to the hospital, in front of the truck. Shaw joined them. Loving crept a little closer, still not getting anywhere near close enough to be spotted. There was a retaining wall on the edge of the driveway that gave him some cover. He wanted to be close enough to hear what they were saying.
He slid a small plug into his left ear. It was a direction amplifier. Sort of like those eavesdropping dish guns you saw in toy stores, except more powerful and much smaller. He hated the James Bond gimmickry. But they lived in a Google-driven world. The technophobes were not going to rule the earth, much less catch very smart doctors engaged in nefarious activities.
Careful not to make any telltale sound, Loving crept to the rear of the truck and slid a GPS transponder under the bumper. Now he had a backup plan. Time to figure out what was going on.
He hid behind the retaining wall. A few more steps and he was able to pick up some of the conversation, even though they were talking in whispers.
"Everything ready?" Loving did not know who was speaking.
"It will be." That was Sentz. "I didn't want to break in until I knew you were ready to take it away."