The Ex(63)

Temple opened his mouth, but I jumped in before he could answer. “The prosecution hid concrete evidence linking two of the shooting victims, namely, direct proof that Tracy Frankel phoned Malcolm Neeley’s hedge fund, the Sentry Group, three times in the week before the murder. Just as I said at the bail hearing, there is another side to the prosecution’s story. Their case rests entirely upon my client’s supposed animosity toward a single victim—Malcolm Neeley—with the other two victims caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s why the prosecution tried to bury any connection between Tracy Frankel and Malcolm Neeley.”

“How exactly did they bury it?” the judge asked.

Temple finally found a chance to jump into the conversation. “Your Honor, this is a completely unnecessary conference. If Ms. Randall had simply called me—”

“Given her allegation, perhaps she doesn’t agree, which is why I asked my question.”

“They produced nearly twenty boxes of unsorted documents,” I said. “A few of the pages listed incoming calls to the Sentry Group. We had to read every line of every page of every document multiple times before we finally realized that one of the phone numbers on the list belonged to Tracy Frankel’s cell phone.”

Judge Amador tapped his eyeglasses on the bench while he processed the information. “Mr. Temple, a yes or no question: did you know this?”

“To our knowledge, there are no direct communications between any of the victims—”

“Yes or no: did you know that Tracy Frankel’s phone was used to call the Sentry Group three times in the week before the shooting?”

“Yes, but—”

“Not another word. I’ve seen this from your office before, Mr. Temple. You flood the other side with a bunch of garbage hoping they can’t separate the wheat from the chaff. The defense made it quite clear at the bail hearing that other people may have had a motive to kill either Mr. Neeley or perhaps one of the other victims. A link between two of the victims—two people who, until now, appeared to share no connection whatsoever—could clearly be relevant to the defense. Do I seriously need to spell that out for you?”

“That’s not necessary, Your Honor.”

“So what do you have to say for yourself, Mr. Temple? How is the way you’ve handled the disclosure of this information consistent with a prosecutor’s ethical obligations?”

“If I may, Your Honor—”

“Of course you may. I just asked you to speak. I really want to know how you can justify this.”

“I understand that the defense would like to portray this as some kind of smoking gun—”

“Bad analogy, Mr. Temple.”

Scott took a deep breath and tried again. “I believe Ms. Randall used the words ‘important’ and ‘exculpatory,’ but I would not agree with either description. This was a long list of incoming calls, not to Mr. Neeley’s direct line, but to the general company switchboard. More than thirty employees work in that firm. Tracy Frankel could have been calling any one of them.”

“Does Ms. Frankel have an account with Sentry Group? I did not get the impression that she was a big mover and shaker in the finance world.”

“No, Your Honor. But Ms. Frankel had a prior conviction for drugs, and there are indications that she struggled, let’s say, financially. It is no secret that people who work in finance sometimes have interactions that involve drugs and perhaps other activities, such as prostitution.”

“So you’re saying that your victim was either selling drugs or sex to someone at the Sentry Group?”

“No, I didn’t say that.”

“Right, because you don’t know. Am I correct?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“And that’s exactly why you were hoping Ms. Randall and Mr. Ellison would not put two and two together and force you to deal with this inconvenient piece of evidence. I get it. But I don’t like it, and if I had to guess, Mr. Temple, you wouldn’t have done things this way if it were totally up to you.”

“It’s not how I dealt with it, Judge. I had a private conversation with Ms. Randall just two days ago. I basically told her to look at the phone records.”

“You basically told her? What does that mean? I must have missed that phrase in law school.”

Temple turned to me to save him, but I looked away. Just as I anticipated, he was trapped. To defend himself by saying he gave me a tipsy hint at a bar would be to admit that he’d been intentionally elusive in the first place.

“We could have been better about organizing the discovery,” he finally said. “But I think it should be noted that we produced disclosure far earlier than required. This case was arraigned less than a month ago, and no trial date has been set.”

“Mr. Temple, tell your bosses I’m not impressed. Now, Ms. Randall: what exactly are you asking for?”

I was ready to go. “A subpoena for Tracy Frankel’s cell phone records. Our hope is to turn up witnesses who may know more about a connection between Ms. Frankel and Mr. Neeley, perhaps a common enemy. Or, possibly, a link between Ms. Frankel and someone at the Sentry Group who may have had a motive to harm Mr. Neeley. I don’t want to speak prematurely, but one employee in particular stands to gain a significant financial benefit and apparently even made threats against Mr. Neeley.”