Roger Stelljes - First Case

Mac and Lich observed Busch briefly through the mirror into the interrogation room. Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Bobby Young was standing with them. It was easy to see that Busch was angry, upset and also, at least to Mac, nervous. He was conferring with his lawyer, a local legal heavyweight named Saul Tobin. Normally Tobin would be reason to be wary, he was good, very good. However, Mac and Lich had the goods.

“You ready?” Lich asked.

“Let’s go,” Mac answered, picking up a green garbage bag and leaving the viewing room. The two detectives stormed into the interrogation room.

“Arresting me at the courthouse on some bullshit murder charge in front of my legal colleagues? You two have a lot of explaining to do,” Busch started. “Saul and I are going to have your badges.”

“Lighten up, Stan, you’re gonna wanna hear this,” Lich said flatly.

Mac took Dick’s lead in: “Let me tell you a little story, Mr. Busch.”

“About what?” Busch snorted.

“About why and how you killed Gordon Oliver.”

Busch snorted.

“Don’t say a word, Stan,” Tobin ordered.

“Counselor, he won’t have to,” Lich responded casually.

“No, he won’t,” Mac added confidently and then started. “We’ve done some looking into you, Stan, these last eight hours once it became clear you were our guy. For me, I wanted to know why you killed Gordon Oliver. I knew that you did but I needed to know why. And you know what? I think I know.”

“Oh, do you now,” Busch spit.

“Stan,” Tobin warned.

“I do, Mr. Busch, and it’s the oldest reason in the book. Money. We looked over your billings for the last three years. You have been billing Michael Harris at $350, $375 and $400 per hour the last three years. He billed 1,922, 1,988 and 2,189 hours in those years. My Cretin High math tells me that’s $2,293,800 of billings by Michael Harris on your files. I also know that you recovered 96 % on your billings, so there has been very little discounting taking place.”

“We also understand,” Lich added, “that under your firm’s compensation system that you receive significant credit for those billings come bonus time, not to mention your own time that you put on those files. That’s why you’ve made $748,000, $792,000 and $849,000 in the last three years from your firm. Michael Harris has helped make you wealthy.”

“So what?” Busch answered.

“So what? Michael Harris isn’t a lawyer and you know it,” Mac answered, looking at Tobin, who flinched. It was clear that counsel for the defense was unaware of this little tidbit of information. “In fact, you know that Michael Harris’s real name is Jordan Paris.”

Mac looked over to Tobin. “Counselor, to bring you up to speed, Jordan Paris is a graduate of the University of San Diego School of Law but he was never ever admitted to the practice of law in California or any other jurisdiction because of some criminal issues of his own many years ago. The real Michael Harris, who was Paris’s roommate at one time, is dead as the result of a car accident eight years ago. Paris assumed his identity, moved to Florida, then Illinois and finally here, holding himself out as Michael Harris.”

“Of course we don’t need to tell you this, Mr. Busch, do we?” Lich added. “Because you already know.”

“Indeed you do,” Mac continued, flipping through his notes and then turning his attention back to Busch. “We checked your phone records and those of the law schools. You called both the Thomas Jefferson and University of San Diego School of Law in the last week. They remembered you just as they remembered Gordon Oliver calling them about the same thing two weeks ago. Your Michael Harris isn’t a lawyer.”

Mac looked over to Tobin, “Counselor, if a law firm finds out that one of their lawyers wasn’t one, what does the firm have to do with the fees paid for the legal work of the non-lawyer?”

“Disgorge the fees,” Tobin answered.

“I thought so,” Mac said and then to Busch: “Since Harris, or shall I say Jordan Paris, only worked on your files, that’s $2,293,800 in legal fees that would have to be returned. Not to mention all the money you would owe back to your law partners. And the alimony from your marriage, holy cow your financial situation is tanking worse than Enron. And oh-by-the-way, can you imagine the damage such a disclosure would cause to your book of business going forward? There are a lot of lawyers in this town, good lawyers, and that business would be gone in a blink of an eye and you would be gone from KMBP in the next blink.”

“And if that wasn’t motive enough, there was your other little ethical issue two years ago. You remember don’t you Mr. Busch. That case where you failed to disclose a settlement offer to your client, a settlement offer that was significantly more than what the jury awarded your client at trial,” Lich added. “That resulted in complaint to the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility, a malpractice claim and some rather bad press for the firm.”

“Not to mention the loss of a multi-million dollar client,” Mac added. “Given how tenuous that put your position with your firm, you had plenty of reasons for wanting to take care of this problem with Paris before anyone found out.”

“That may all be true,” Busch answered, “but on the night Oliver was killed I was at home with my sixteen-year-old daughter which I know you have verified. I left the office at 6:20 p.m. and went home and never left until I came into the office the next morning.”

“We talked to your daughter yesterday,” Mac answered. “She did say you were home when she went to bed at 10:30 or so. She even recalled setting the alarm for your security system before she went to bed and recalled shutting it off the next morning before she left for school.”

“Like I said,” Busch said confidently.

“So we checked with your security company,” Lich responded. “They confirm your daughter’s story. But then they also have the system being deactivated at 11:20 p.m. and then re-activated at 12:48 a.m. So why would you have done that?”

“Perhaps my daughter did. I was asleep.”

“You’re lying. You turned off your security system. You left your house. You went to The Mahogany and killed Gordon Oliver.”

Busch laughed it off. “That’s a nice story. A nice theory even. But you can’t prove any of it.”

“I can prove it all,” Mac answered as he opened the garbage bag he had brought in and pulled out Busch’s weathered tan executive briefcase and slammed it on the table. Next to the briefcase, Mac placed a series of photographs.

“Do you recognize this briefcase?” Mac inquired.

Busch didn’t respond but Mac detected a slow leak of air from Busch’s posture.

“It’s yours. We got it from your office this morning.” Mac reached for the first picture which was of Busch leaving the Lowry Lewis Building at 6:22 p.m. on the night of the murder. “As you can see you are leaving the office with this briefcase.”

“So what,” Busch answered.

Lich slid another picture in front of Busch and his lawyer. This picture was a close-up of the briefcase.

“As you can see, there are two of these small brass plates along the bottom of the briefcase, framed by the vertical stitching running down from the handle,” Mac noted and then pointed to the briefcase. “Now today there is only one brass plate on the briefcase. What happened to the other one?”

“You tell me,” Busch replied flippantly.

“Fine, I will,” Mac quickly replied as Lich placed another picture in front of Busch and his lawyer. It was the crime scene photo of a matching brass plate with blood smeared on it. “We found this at the crime scene. The blood on the brass plate matches that of Gordon Oliver. It also matches the brass plate for your briefcase. You want to know why I’m sure it is?”